Category: general

Check out my new car!

Just kidding.

Come on, you should know that I want the liftback, not the sedan. And in cobalt blue!

I did test-drive the sedan today, though.

It’s a very small car, which I like. The gas mileage is fabulous. The bucket seat is comfortable, though not as big as the seats in Sean’s Corolla (something I noticed when I was driving the Corolla home). One weird thing was how the console was laid out–absolutely nothing in front of the steering wheel.

It took me awhile to get used to looking to my right to see my speed.

The view out the rear window seemed small and limited, but the car is so small itself that it’s not as big an issue as it was, say, in those crazy Tauruses from a few years ago. Plus, the side mirrors help.

The sedan I drove did not have power locks and windows. The door locks were kind of funky, and they do not automatically unlock when you open the door from the inside. Also, the Yaris does not have daytime running lights. (This doesn’t bother me, but Sean loves him some running light goodness.)

There was no cup holder immediately between the two front seats, but there was one dangling off the back of the center cubby. A little inconvenient, but at least it’s there–the Subaru has no cup holders.

Driving the sedan hasn’t given me an idea of what the liftback will be like, because the two were designed by completely different teams. I’m hoping that the brakes will be more responsive in the liftback; the sedan seemed to want to keep moving, despite my efforts to stop it. Maybe I’m spoiled by the very nice brakes in Sean’s Corolla.

I’m also hoping that rear visibility will be improved by having a hatch rather than a trunk, but I honestly don’t know how that will be. Since the car is so small, the headrests of the front seats actually obscure the view! I doubt that will be much different in the liftback.

The center console and controls are all pretty easy to navigate. Turn signals, wipers, and lights are all in the same place as the Corolla. The hazard lights are a button on the top of the console–fortunately, this button is positioned a good distance from other controls. In the Corolla, I’m always hitting the hazard lights every time I go to turn on the air conditioning.

The handling was great. Being a small car, it has a tiny turning radius, which is faboo. The steering was comfortable, too.

I had plenty of room, but I’m short. I don’t know how my taller friends will react. Then again, Brooke can fit in the Subaru (with a little crouching, I think), so it might be okay.

In all, I was more pleased with the sedan than I thought I would be. It is much cuter in person than it is on the website.

However, I am still waiting for the liftback. Toyota of Augusta should be getting one in on April 21. I have my name down for a test drive already :D

Obviously this guy has a very powerful mind.

A chiropractor who claims he can treat anyone by reaching back in time to when an injury occurred has attracted the attention of state regulators.

[…]

Burda denied that he is mentally ill. He said he possesses a skill he discovered by accident while driving six years ago.

[…]

The Web site describes the treatment as “a long-distance healing service (not a product) to help increase the quality of your life that can be performed in the privacy of your home or other personal space. There is no need to come to my office.”

The treatment is not telepathic because the patient does not have to believe in what he’s doing, Burda said.

I’ve noticed that I don’t hold my mouse the way they’re designed to be held. My hand goes over it kind of sideways, so that my pointer finger rests on the scroll wheel. That’s the most comfortable position for me. When I go to click on something, I slide my pointer finger over, which is awkward. I feel the stress running through the rest of my hand when I do it.

They should redesign the mouse to fit the hand’s actual resting shape.

In Fib format.

Who
rings
the bell
at this time
of the damn morning?
Bah, it’s just the maintenance guy.

(Well,
I
guess that
9 a.m.
isn’t that early;
even so, it was surprising.)

[Edited 4/9 because the second one wasn’t correct…I left out the two syllable line originally. Bah!]

As are we all.

But Koizumi made a gaffe:

During the brief, jocular meeting at Koizumi’s office, the 64-year-old prime minister also told Hanks, 49, that he looked much younger in his films.

Hanks grimaced but quickly replied, “My children are constantly reminding me what an old man I am.”

Come on, Jun-Jun; we Americans are blunt and all, but we’re also horribly self-conscious about our ages :>

Yes, I am trying to create horrible load times on my front page.

Here’s today’s lunch.

I went out to the park next to the station and had lunch on the lone picnic table. Then I went back and forth about climbing the tree next to me. I went so far as to take my shoes off and try to get a leg up on the tree. Then I decided I didn’t want to try it in a skirt while there were people around, so I gave up and headed back to the table. It was at that point that I noticed my feet were covered with pine sap.

After that, I stepped back into my sandals (effectively gluing my feet to them) and wandered around for pictures.

Mom had told me she wanted to see a particular tree up close, so I strolled down the street to get a picture of it. The tree is in front of a house two or three doors down from the Always Christmas house.

After that I got my best picture of a dandelion EVAR.

Yes.

This is one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

(Via the fabulous Japundit.)

I keep receiving MySpace messages from people I don’t know who want me to listen to their band’s music. Does this tactic work? I usually just ignore the messages.

Poor kids.

Three Singaporeans were found safe on Thursday after getting lost on what they said was a mission to find a legendary karate expert on a snowy mountainside in Japan.

One of the three men told police in Hirosaki, near the northern tip of Japan’s main island, that they had come to Japan after his dying father, a martial arts expert, had ordered them to seek out the karate teacher, TV Asahi said on its Web site.

“Japan looked so small on the world map that we thought we would be able to find him straight away,” one of the group, aged between 25 and 50, was quoted as saying.

All three were dressed in light clothing and huddling in an abandoned car when they were rescued from the slopes of 1,600-metre (5,249-ft) Mount Iwaki in the early hours of the morning after calling for help on a mobile phone, a police spokesman said. “Neither police nor local people know of anyone running karate classes in this area,” the spokesman added.

Here, in case you’re interested, is a size-comparison picture of Singapore and Japan (thanks be to MultiMap).

Obviously, the child died.

My first reaction upon hearing this story was to growl, “Death penalty!” I think I scared my coworker.

According to the Chronicle, the woman’s coworker said she was having trouble finding a babysitter. There needs to be a solution for this. I’m tired of hearing about children dying due to neglect, and I’m tired of hearing excuses. I can understand feeling trapped, needing to make money to feed the kid and so being afraid to call in to work to stay home with the kid…but honestly, leaving the child in the car all day? The stupidity here is mind-boggling. Parents need to be smarter.

And there needs to be a community solution that helps single parents or parents who both have to work to have decent childcare during the day. Because regardless of how well we try to educate people, there are always going to be morons. We need to have systems in place to protect our children from them.

I posted more pictures last night and forgot to mention it. (Or was too tired to mention it, whatever.)

The first group is a small set from Monday’s lunch, when I had Sean’s car. I went to Wife Saver and got some catfish strips, then went to the North Augusta boat dock (and dropped my tea, spilling it all over the parking lot. Alas).

I also finally got some decent shots of the WBBQ radio towers. They dominate the skyline in certain parts of North Augusta, so I’m always taking pictures of them, but rarely are they ever, you know, not washed out.

Well, I like it, anyway.

The next set is from yesterday, when I walked to Burger King.

People haven’t been commenting on my pictures, and no one (except Mom) ever goes to my actual gallery and posts comments, so I have to come to the conclusion that my pictures are terrible.

I’ll keep posting them anyway. :P

One of the male anchors from work was in my dream last night. He was giving a Bible study class about how forgiveness is a theme in both the New and Old Testaments, and for some reason he was talking about Job…except in the dream version of the story, Job had children who were also put through horrible trials. In retrospect the lecture makes absolutely no sense, but in the dream I found it very moving.

I’m at the station a little early this morning due to not having a car. Same as yesterday. Bleh.

Yesterday I walked to Burger King for lunch. There are plenty of places I can get to in a 20 minute walk. I didn’t bring a lunch today, so obviously I’ll be walking again. The sad thing is that I forgot to eat breakfast. I thought about walking somewhere for that, but I really didn’t feel like it. Maybe I have enough change to get a honey bun or something out of the snack machine.

This week has already run me ragged, and it’s only Wednesday morning!

Freaky, huh?!?!?

Newsweek: Vanishing Acts

This article discusses the wonders of the world, and how, due to various factors, we are losing them. It concludes that one of the major forces of destruction might be molded into a savior.

A world awash in tourists can be a curse for its endangered treasures, or a source of funds to save them. Getting the balance right could be the difference between future generations beholding the living wonders of the world, and merely reading about them in a story book.

It seems to me that the world has always been changing, and things we would call landmarks today disappear regularly throughout history. But I suppose there is more of a global awareness now that might make it seem as though everything is vanishing all of a sudden.

As the world changes, new things replace old things. Even if we go back and try to preserve something, we ultimately have to sacrifice something else. Is the 1970s concrete block of a building worth less than the 1950s house it replaced? Aren’t both icons of their time period? How do you choose which to restore?

This is not to say I don’t think we should try and save the wonders of the world–it’s just that I find the perspective of this article to be a little naive.

I am personally a big fan of tourism done right. I would like to see more tourism here in Augusta, for the history and beauty rather than for the Masters. The idea that tourism could be used to “save the world” is attractive to me.

I got an automated call just now from the telephone number 888-249-9735. The recording said it was from Sprint. The message stated that our wireless service was reading its “spending limit”, and that to avoid “service interruption”, which would occur within 48 hours, we needed to make a payment. It asked me to put in my billing zip code, and then to make an automated payment, at which point I hung up.

If this is a scam, it’s a pretty clever one. I almost believed it for a second, because Sean does make a lot of long-distance calls. But there are several fishy things about the situation.

The phone number is unlisted on whitepages.com, and I don’t see it on Sprint’s website. Sean just paid our Sprint bill. Also, my number is not the primary line on our account; you’d think Sprint would deliver such a message to Sean’s phone. And how could we reach a “spending limit” when we have unlimited night and weekend minutes and no long distance or roaming charges? :>

The most telling thing is this: there was no way for me to confirm that the caller was actually with Sprint. I had two options when they asked me to make the payment: either make one immediately, or put the line on hold to gather my account information and then make the payment immediately. There were no “We’ll call you back later” or “Call us back later” or “Make your payment online” options.

I told Sean about it so he could check our account just in case, but I’m pretty sure this is a scam. I hope people are smart enough not to make payments to people who call them randomly on the phone.