Thursday Glenn finally took the car in to be worked on. He naively set aside a paultry $300 for the repairs, thinking it wouldn’t all be used. I laughed. Considering Herb (our mechanic) had already done a once over and couldn’t find the leak the last time he had the car, I knew we were going to get hit with some hefty labor costs. After having the car for a day and a half Herb called us to give us the news.

The leak in the fuel system was found in the PCV valve. It was replaced and now our knocking is past tense. But that’s not all of it. It seems the car shaking like a mofo was completely unrelated. See, back when we bought the car we had some problems with it misfiring. As it was still under warranty the dealer replaced the spark plugs… or so we thought. Of the six plugs, one was an original part. The other five? Yes, they had been replaced, but with plugs for regular Tauruses. Ours is a Flexi-Fuel, which requires special plugs. To add insult to injury, they were crap plugs. So they started acting up far sooner than they should’ve.

After replacing the plugs Herb changed the oil. Given the facts that the engine had been running hotter that normal and that Glenn has this annoying knack to put off routine maintainence (such as oil changes) as much as possible, I didn’t think it was a bad idea. Anyway he took the car for a test drive. A couple blocks away from the garage steam starts shooting up from the passenger’s side. The “hose” from the overflow tank to the radiator had burst. So that also had to be replaced.

The total? $491. Considering the fuel pump that got replaced of the summer cost us $500 that’s a bargain. I have to dig out the owner’s manual to verify this, but I figure that once we get the struts replaced next month all the major repairs should be done. Man, when Fords hit the 100,000 mile mark they fall apart, don’t they?

On a positive note: I got a call from my uncle last night. We are now the proud owners of his old 40″ LCD screen TV. It just barely fit into our cabinet! I know LCD monitors use less electricity than CRTs, but I wonder if LCD TVs work the same. I guess we’ll find out. It even has inputs on the front that I can hook up my computer to. Now if only I can convert the livingroom into the computer room…

Oh! And I lost another pound! Whoo hoo!

Sort of.

Quatre is still in the shop (Yes, I named my computer Quatre. His predecessor was called Shinigami. *grin*). After ripping the repair shop a new one for still not having my computer fixed they gave me a laptop loaner. Allow me to share my anoyance for its even smaler than the library’s computer’s keyboard: jugfuipovhZVknADFK!!!!!! They have promised me they will have it fixed by next Thursday. Yeah, sure.

In the meantime I’ve ben slowly going through stuf I haven’t beenable to acess for awhile. I downloaded a copy of Rhapsody so that Benand I can finally update our Sansas. I have listened to the 310 songs on mine so many times I’m nauseatedby them now. I also installed Firefox. Apparently these geeks aren’t aware of the security issues with IE, but then they also chose to ignore the semi shegeek when she pointed out that it was the power supply that need to be replaced to begin with. I’m not going to attempt to install Thunderbird. Instead I will try and access my accounts RCN’s webmail (the site, along with Yahoogroups, kept timing out with the library’s computers). That I will try in the morning… well later in the morning. Then I’ll attempt Google Calendar and Remember the Milk.

So. What has everyone been up to since I’ve been MIA?

Next Friday I will be on my way to Plymouth for their annual Hometown Thanksgiving celebration. Friday night will be spent at Sam Diego’s, getting piss drunk in honor of my 43rd birthday. The following morning will be spent staggering about with a flag and a well deserved hangover in what will most likely be rainy and freezing conditions, before performing one final runthrough for the concert that night.

Today, after marching for two miles in Malden’s Veteren’s Day parade (which I can’t for the life of me figure out why they still put on since NO ONE comes out to see it), I spent three hours going over the Plymouth show with the rest of the guard. In a hot gym. On only three hours of sleep. With Nancy constantly bitching at me because I’m too close to her when in reality she’s five feet to the left of where she should be. By the time we did the final run through for the day I was barely able to remember the carriage or control my flags. Thankfully the few times they went flying, they didn’t hit Nancy. 😛

So, starting tomorrrow, I have to practice every day until I can literally do the show with my eyes closed. Hoepfully I will accomplish this by Friday. This is the only way I’m going to be able to get through the concert. If I have to rely on watching others, even for cues, not only will I be a nervous wreck, but I will undoubtedly watch THE WRONG PERSON and make every mistake they make.

I also need to consider adding weights to my Danny Boy flag. Compared to the lame’ monstrocity I use just before it, it’s as light as a feather. Since it’s kind of hard to switch gears that quickly I predict that if I don’t weigh it down that puppy’s gonna end up in the audience by the end of “Matilda” (which wouldn’t be a problem ‘cept I still need it for “Danny Boy”). *laughs*

Last week I learned that Rhapsody and Urge (the two music download thingies I use) decided to merge. It was made official last Friday. Yesterday, after discovering I could download tunes onto my computer, have WMP recognize and play them, and use WMP to put them on my Sansa (thus meaning I no longer have to switch between programs, which has been the bane of some of my player problems) I decided to go “shopping”. Within the last week Rhapsody has addded Eric Stuart (which neither Rhapsody nor Urge carried up until now) and they now have almost the entire J. Geils Band catalog. To the best of my knowledge they are only missing their second “Best of” album, Sanctuary (which I already have on CD) and “Showtime”, which I would’ve owned a long time ago had they not made it unavailable on CD until recently. It was the last new album the band put out with Peter Wolf, and it was also released on my 18th birthday, so you know it has some special meaning to me. 🙂 Anyway, thanks to the merge, I can now listen to my favorite songs that I previously ceased to have access to since I no longer have record player, and can’t afford to replace the other half of my collection.

Now if they can only get some Rex Smith.

In other news, even though I was only able to write for two hours (thus far) over the last three days, I have managed to get 1479 words written. That’s much better than my start of “BabsNoWriMo” (BTW I started over for NaNo). I’m going to see if I can sneak in an hour this afternoon and another tonight, and see if I can begin to get caught up. At least I got the two main characters introduced.

Halloween has come and gone without anyone killing someone else. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Jarret had an evil ceremonial magician type costume. It seems the Gods sided with me as the huge honking pentacle that, for some reason, accompanied the costume went AWOL. And no, I didn’t have anything to do with it. Ben took the first shift as Glenn drove me to practice. I could’ve taken the train in, but no, Glenn insisted I be an inconvenience. 😛 Got through practice without a meltdown, which means I am actually starting to remember the shit. Yay! After dropping Jarret off, Glenn then came and picked me up. I will admit it! I gorged on candy last night. But I’ve been working my ass off so it shouldn’t have too much of an impact in the grand scheme of things.

In other, totally unrealated news, I’ve gone on a Chris Young kick. *licks icon* I’m thinking if I can generate enough energy he can enjoy the same prosperity some of his fellow 80’s cuties are currently savoring. 🙂 Here’s to wishful thinking. *licks icon again for good luck*