Toying With My Emotions

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN, THE OC WILL BE BACK NEXT WEEK?!?!?!

Bastards.

My Hair

Is now pretty much the shortest it's ever been in my life. For those of you who've put up with me for many years, that's pretty fucking short, right?

Anyway. It was one of those spur-of-the-moment, it'll-grow-back (well, some of it, anyway) kind of things, and I am currently trying to make myself feel better about it by pretending it makes me look like Jason Statham. It's a shame that I don't.

On the bright side, I now have nearly twice as many weight plates, so clearly my Jason-Statham-in-The-Transporter physique is but a few short weeks away. No, really. Stop laughing. Oh, go to hell.

I'd Always Wanted a Hero

And look, here's one now...

To coin a phrase: this is the best thing I've ever seen.

The Thursdays of Our Lives

So, Thursday morning, sans cavalcade of kittens, I still wake up at 7:30, because I am a freak. I will myself back to sleep until 8. It's not taking.

I get up, watch some random channels of unfamiliar cable, play some exceptionally embarassing XBox (this just in; the XBox is cooler than I am), am eventually offended by my own odor, and take a shower.

After taking a shower, I wander down the road to the local Mexican food chain, Moe's (which is apparently also in Cockeysville, who knew?). When I come in the door, the staff issues a no doubt heartfelt and contractually obligated bellow of "WELCOME TO MOE'S". I feel welcome. I actually feel like I've entered a Potbelly Sandwich Works in DC, and have ordered a chocolate shake, but whatever. The food is tasty, but the whole setup reminds me of every restaurant in Columbia. Whee.

Because the weather is absolutely glorious, I briefly contemplate trying to find a bookstore or something, but the sprawliness of the local roads and the fact that I am stuffed with chain Mexican food makes me sad, so I wander home for more lame XBox (again, lameness attributable to me, and not Microshaft) and TV. I read about three pages of my book, play with the dog briefly in her moments of consciousness, and await the arrival of my hosts home from work.

When they get home, we go to that exciting Florida-only restaurant Chick-Fil-A, and I order an embarrassing amount of poultry products, and then we go home, shoot the shit, etc. Life is good.

There is sleep. Friday, rinse, repeat, only moreso, because now I have a vague idea where the "local" Barnes and Noble and Borders are. Yeeha!

More as recreational drinking allows.

Story of My Life

Chartreuse, I love you. You are my only friend.

Man, I have to stop drinking this shit...

Peer Pressure is a Bitch

So, after much heckling from the semi-accurate "you're the laziest blogger ever" Peanut Gallery, here we go. Best Post Ever.

Last Wednesday evening, after a none-too-productive workday, I hopped me on the Light Rail to BWI and prepared to depart this chilly blechhy weather for The Best Weather Ever, as part of my much-awaited visit to her and her husband (who has only slightly less of a blog than she does, ahem) for their preemptive St. Patrick's Day party.

Now, I can admit that I am not the biggest fan of children. Yes, I used to babysit when I was a pre-teen, being as how I needed the money, yo, and yes, I have held all the babies, and yes, the offspring of all of my friends (particularly those reading this) are the finest little smelly yelly blobs of genetic material that I have ever seen, and they have at no time looked like little squidgy monkeys, but really, I have to be in the mood. Wednesday night: not so much. But I can also freely admit, while we're being so forthcoming, that there is one thing that is much much worse than screaming babies on a plane. And that is, a whole crapload of rambunctious 11-year-olds, fresh out of some wack Christian trip, and on their way back to Alabama.

Those who know me are aware of my irrational twitchiness in the presence of a particular brand of Southern accent, and I think I can confidently say, at this time, that that accent is bought and sold chiefly in Alabama. You know what's REALLY GREAT? When a whole bunch of these little fuckers sit around, kicking my seat, and making jokes about the plane crashing.

I am not afraid of air travel. I am well aware that the odds of dying in a plane crash are comfortably low, and am thus INTELLECTUALLY not worried about it. This does not mean I want to hear these wankerites joking about our potential imminent death. No doubt they were taking some comfort in the notion that they would be Raptured off the plane seconds before impact, but it took a lot of effort on my part not to tell them all to just shut the holy fuck up, and stop kicking my seat while you're at it.

Happily, the jwerPod and Sennheiser headphones allowed me some respite, except from the kicking, little bastards, so when we all changed to different planes in Atlanta, I recited a little hosanna in their honor. Although it's possible that it was not delivered in the most pious of spirits, and since I didn't read about a Delta plane full of annoying Christian camp members flaming into the ground in Alabama, apparently god doesn't much care for my wishes. Bastard.

My friends picked me up at the airport, with their entertaining dog Albany* and the licking, oh, the licking. From the dog; settle down, Campbell. They asked me how the flight was, and I, the fool, THE FOOL, told them of my reading material, which is to say, this book. Yay!

Trapped, trapped in the car I was, as these two lawyers (for that is what they are) badgered me about my heathen views. There was a point at which I contemplated pitching myself out the door to roll to a bloody stop in the soft shoulder (about the point at which the idea was floated that ID** is keen; for the record, it is not), but the thought of missing all that booze, oh, and the pleasure of their non-talking-about-evolution company. Right, that. Since I am currently not trapped in a car, nor subject to irksome lawyer-y nitpicking, let me point out to, you know, the universe, that belief in the tenets of science is NOT the same as belief in those of a particular religion; religious belief is intended to be based on faith, ie: belief without proof, whereas scientific belief is belief based SOLELY on proof. Inasmuch as there is any faith involved, it is only to the point that one takes the word of a scientist without requiring every single statement to be examined to the point of personal certainty. I consider this more akin to "trust" than "faith", at any rate.

Yeah, so, despite that paragraph, the car trip was short and mostly pleasant, and then they showed me around their newly enspiffified homestead, what with the paint, and the cleaning, and the copious amounts of ethanol-delivery substances. Truly, a nirvana for those tired of their crappy dirty cold houses in Baltimore (you know, like me; just in case you drifted off).

And that is all I feel like writing about right now, so there.

* She's actually named after a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT State Capitol...
** Intelligent Design; I'd go into it, but it makes me cranky.

Bloggeriffic

I believe I am now officially implicated in the Blog Phenomenon, because last night I attended my second Meetup, ably described here.

I'd love to post my own account of the event, but there are two outstanding obstacles to my doing so (three, if you count the fact that my current task is almost three months late, d'oh!):

1. I am really fucking lazy.
2. My role in the event consisted primarily of hiding antisocially in the corner, talking mostly to people I'd already met, drinking Guinness as efficiently as possible, and whining about the delay in my beer provisions.

So.

Also, I really want to post about my recent jaunt to one of the Orange States, if for no other reason than it will serve to bring attention to the fact that there are those who update even less frequently than I do.

The Evil Practical Mobile? Well, I Was HALF Right...

This morning I drove the E.P.M. up to the nearest Honda dealer and left it for them to diagnose. Under normal operation, its feeble little engine starts up and idles around 1500 rpm, and as it warms up, the idle point gradually drops to around 750 rpm. Recently I noticed that once I got to work and put it in park, the idle rpm would oscillate between 1000 and 1500 until I shut it off. I was annoyed, but it wasn't a big deal, because I was done driving it.

Then it started doing this at stop lights. A LOT. I knew something was wrong with some part of the idle mechanism, but had no clue what it could be. I hopefully unhooked the battery for a few hours, to reset the ignition computer, but to no avail. I looked for loose vacuum connections, nothing. So finally I took the little bastard to the shop.

To paraphrase: I am too lazy to find the ECU and see if it is blinking any warning codes, and would rather just waste $85 for the diagnosis, plus whatever other random charges the dealer feels like tacking on. A few minutes ago, a dude from the shop called and told me that the IAC control valve, which is to say, the "Intake Air Control control valve", is bad, and needs to be replaced to the tune of $400, plus labor. Given that I only spent $3K on the ENTIRE CAR, there is very little chance that I am going to spend $400 on it, much less that plus a couple hours of labor. I told him I'd think about it, and immediately went online.

It transpires that the place I buy all my Mercedes parts (very few of which cost anywhere near $400, by the way) has the part for $150. So when I get home, I'm checking my shop manual to see if the IAC valve is on top of the engine, as it is in the Mercedes. If it is, then there is NO WAY I am paying $400 for it. If it isn't, I'm probably still not going to, because I am too pig-headed to weigh the amount of time I will waste and serious injury I will incur against the extra $250.

So you may all wait, breathless, on the edges, nay, hovering expectantly above your seats for an update around five tonight (you might, ahem, not want to do so for my completion of the State of the Union address, however).

UPDATE: Oh, right, all you people holding your breath... well, I took the wrong damned shuttle from work and had a scenic tour of East Baltimore, so I didn't even get home until almost six... at any rate, the EACV or IACV (the E being Electronic, the I being Intake, the letters being irrelevant) has been ordered from my usual source for $150... at worst, I have to cough up for some o-rings, but I suspect they'll come with. Yay!

UPDATE 2: The part arrived last night (I freakin' love that company), and I plan to install it either this evening or tomorrow morning. Yeeha. The o-rings did, in fact, come with. Meanwhile, the EPM got fully 5 mpg (slightly more if you count the first tank that was all highway, which I am not) less this tank than it did when I first bought it, and since I adopted my father's OCD habit of tracking fuel economy, I can watch the curve gently decline from peak mpg, and then rather abruptly this last tank. I am sooo cool. You all may resume holding your collective breath.

UPDATE 3: Well, replacing the part (which I will duly photograph as soon as I remember to take it with me when I leave the car, never fear) was anticlimactically easy, and yet. And yet. AND YET IT DIDN'T FUCKING FIX THE CAR! It is BETTER now, so that little bastard part was clearly implicated, but... you know, if this turns out to require hundreds and hundreds of dollars that could better've been spent pumping endless gallons of premium into the Mercedes, I am going to be highly annoyed. Thus far, at $2 a gallon, we're talking 3 weeks of commuting. The EPM better watch it. I'm not afraid of driving really fast at an embankment, then pressing the triangle button to open the door and roll to safety unharmed, as it continues on to explode a good distance away. Although perhaps I should stop playing GTA: San Andreas...