Gyah...

Okay... Monday morning's not what I expected... but more on that later.
Brief weekend update...

Saturday: BIt of Christmas shopping for relatives and any cats that they may have. Came home, copied some CDs onto the hard drive in Sony's AtracPlus format for later transfer onto CD. Bummed around for a bit, then went to a wonderful gathering/party thrown by volare and her husband tearforger. While there, we had some great conversation and hanging out time with aelana, hbabeu, ibabeu and his SO Amanda, and paladyn (Welcome home, bro), and we met a few other folks as well. It was like being back at UMass, having one of our bull sessions.

Sunday: After sleeping off the previous evening in rather short order (as we got home at 1230am), silvara77 went to the early mass since she was doing a reading. Afterwards, we hung out while she did Christmas cards and I did more CDs on the computer before I left for the Sunday D&D game. She had a party to go to in the afternoon.
When I got home, she continued on with the cards and I did some cleaning up while part of dinner was cooking. After that, it was just a relaxing evening, though I did take a dose of Nyquil since I feel like I have a cold and I did have a 99.3 temp.

So now we come to Monday, snowy Monday.
Since school was closed, silvara77 said I could use her car. Well, I was on 290, just past the Main Street - Shrewsbury onramp when the car started to buck a little and lose power. I limped to the side of the road, and after calling both silvara77 and Dad, we decided to have the car looked at. silvara77 called Bancroft Motors to tell them that I was coming in. During the phone convos, I decided to see if the car would move again. It died when I put it into drive. But after I was done on the phone, I started it up again, and it worked fine through the whole drive to Bancroft. Did I mention that since it started bucking that the Check Engine light came on? No? Well it did, so... better that it happened now than at 2am in New Jersey later this week. I was told that it shouldn't be a problem to have it back by Thursday. I caught the shuttle back to my place, snagged my car, and drove to work. So all in all, I was over an hour late. But, these things happen.

As I said earlier: Gyah...

2004 Meme

2004 has been a memorable year for each and every one of us, I'm sure. So let's see how it affected all of us...

( Meme here )

A joke

This one was overheard at a recent Xmas/Yule Gathering... not exactly verbatim, except for the punch line...
(Note: This is not meant to cause unrest or show disrespect to those of a certain ethnic background. I just think it's a funny as hell groaner.)


There were three pigs.
One built his house out of straw, another out of sticks, and the third out of brick.
One day, the Big Bad Wolf (BBW) came to the first pig, whose house was made out of straw. "Little Pig, Little Pig, let me in." "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin." So the wolf huffed and puffed and blew his house in.
So Straw Pig goes to Stick Pig's house and warns him about the BBW. Sure enough, BBW comes around, and says the same thing, with the same response from the pigs. So he huffs and puffs and blows the Stick House in.
And so Straw Pig and Stick Pig go running to Brick Pig, and warn him about the BBW.
"Hang on," he says, "lemme make a phone call."
Brick Pig picks up the phone, dials a number, and speaks in hushed tones.
Not too long after he hangs up, BBW starts up his walk.
But before BBW can get very far, this big black car pulls up, and two huge pigs dressed in sunglasses and black suits come out. They grab the BBW, toss him to the ground, and start beating on him severely. They let up when they figure that BBW has had enough, and they each draw a pistol from under their jackets, and plug the BBW in the back of the head. One of them goes to the car and opens the trunk, while the other scoops up BBW's body and dumps it in. The trunk closes with a deep thunk.
They toss a quick nod to Brick Pig, get back in the car, and speed away.
The other two pigs, stunned, can barely ask who those two were.
Brick Pig says, "Those were by two cousins... the Guinea Pigs."

Car update

Master air flow sensor. Basically a vital part for engine performance.
All said and done, $650 for parts and labor. And this can only be done at the dealer.
*expletives deleted for content and brevity*
Good thing I got paid today so we can pick it up tomorrow evening... and ask Dad for a loan for part of it.