Never, ever purchase a car from volkswagon. Ever. Contrary to what consumer reports says, VW is a piece of garbage; their cars are made by illiterate mexicans south of the border.

The other day, my car's window "fell in" - it made a horrible crashing sound, and was stuck in the down position. Of course, this occurred on a Saturday - the VW dealer is not open till monday. A plastic bag it is.

Off to the dealership yesterday; a $40 rental car and 6 hours later, I am informed that they "fixed the problem". How great! How did they fix it? By jamming the window in the up position. Why didn't they fix it completely, you may ask? Because they don't have the part, and they won't have the part for at least two weeks, and no, they won't pay for the rental car because it took less than 24 hours to fix.

"But you didn't fucking fix it!", one might respond.

"I just work here", the authorized VW service station would then retort, "take it up with volkswagon".

He was also kind enough to inform me that there are close to fifty people driving around Austin, TX in Jettas with a window jammed in the "up" position because of this rare part.

For those of you playing the home version:

• I bought the car in January, 2001, brand new.


• At about 1500 miles, the car completely died; I needed a new computer because the "computer melted".


• At 2500 miles, the windshield wiper fell off.


• At about 6000 miles, the trunk broke and wouldn't open.


• And now, with 9000 miles on it, the window "fell in".

Fear volkswagon. Their cars are not what people remember them being - a rabbit that runs forever, a minivan that outlasts the owner .. I'm selling this thing the minute I get to Savannah.

A fantastic film; Russell Crowe puts across one of the best performances I've seen, from any actor, in years. To ultimately find out that the film is true, based entirely on real events, only enhances the emotional quality .. truly fantastic.

I love emotionally uplifting events; j and i felt fantastic as we read about the minors getting saved this morning. Both of us are fully fed up with reading about planes crashing, terrorism, and the ludicrous actions of our government; the very scarce occurrence of something positive in the world really makes us smile.

Group hug. Yay team.

Off to lay in the sunshine and do nothing productive today.

*sigh* .. drive into the blockbuster parking lot, hit the button to put the windows up, and .. SMASH, the window falls off its tracks. now it's stuck in the down position, piece of shit car dealer charles maund volkswagon is obviously closed on the weekends, and ferrets are going to start building nests in my car.

Starting to think about my courses (that feels quite strange to say - my courses, my students, eek) .. I figured I was a year or so out of date on current authors and methods, but in reality, nothing's changed .. the same authors are still grinding out the same books, and the same good books are still damn expensive.

I almost went crazy at amazon, but ended up limiting myself to these two books .. I already own a majority of the legit texts, but would love to look at the pretty pictures ..

Heh, fun day of chasing blue around the house and trying to get my mind around jsp struts .. there's an interesting point where dev work (at least the little amount that I do) turns into a design problem in itself; even the silly code starts to have a visual flow to it, and when it works, it's as gratifying as "solving" a design challenge. The site is starting to look like .. something .. and even though I'm not proud of it, it isn't horrible - especially based on some of the constraints put on it (hi, lack of money, resources and time? thanks for playing).

Listening to the not-so-new Bombshell Rocks album - sounds like a dirtier rancid - and reading some James Joyce .. a fairly nice day :)

Silly .. And there's always the "at least this isn't my life" reading material, too. Reminds me of my brief stint at the Clay Pit, but with perverts instead of crazy Tandoori cooks.

fear this .. canada looks oh so nice, especially at these prices. Which is great, I'll be able to retire there on my 401k & IRAs, which have lost 25% of their value.

Yay America .

So it's official :) I received my contract to become a professor of Interaction Design at SCAD; I will be starting in January, 2003 .. I can't wait. I'm nervous, but excited - and I haven't been nervous in a good way in a very long time.

Out to 6th street to celebrate tonight; first some irish debauchery at fado and then .. who knows.

For those of you playing along at home, Blue is fine and has recovered from his traumatizing vet experience. Thanks for caring.

blue went to the vet today.
he got two shots.
they never got him out of the carrier.
and he screamed the entire time.

i need a xanax.

Ught. I'm beginning to wonder if there is a legitimate alternative to living in the United States. Remember the absurd fiction we all read when we were in high school - things like 1984, Brave New World? It's all coming true. Perhaps paying the absurd taxes of sweden or the netherlands is worth the financial burden.

When we look back on this administration in ten, twenty years, it's going to be astonishing that people were so willing - begging, almost - to give up their natural freedoms. And for what? to support a political system that's starting to bear more and more resemblance to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged every day:

• The financial markets are crashing
• Big Business is corrupt
• Our freedoms are getting molested and urinated upon
• The government is trying as hard as they can to push new regulations to 'fix' Big Business (ha! can't even run a government? let's try a giant telecom company)
• The American Public is ready to believe anything and everything, as long as it's presented in snippets of 12 words or more (ooh, a picture? even better)

And where, oh where is John Galt?

Probably hiding in Afghanistan, trying not to get accidentally bombed.

Phear.

its hard work farming enough stuff to actually live off it, but we have enough for salad :)

At one time, I liked baseball; I used to collect the cards, go to games with my dad, and, with stars in my eyes, consider some of the players "heroes" to look up to. Pete Rose was one of those for me, when I was six; it never occurred to me, until a few years ago, that Pete and the rest of the players really are white trash, illiterate yinzers, just like the majority of major league athletes these days. I have a photo of myself shaking Pete's hand at an autograph signing; Pete's wearing what looks like pajamas and sporting a bowl-mullet haircut, and I think we paid upwards of $60 for that autograph.

Stopping the all-star game because its a cash-cow road show is amusing; encouraging the players to strike because two million dollars isn't enough money is just ridiculous.

America really has no one to blame but themselves for this, though; if you treat people like stars because they can hit a ball with a bat, what right do you have to yell and scream when they demand a salary that could feed an entire third world nation? It's too bad this comes at the brink of big business collapsing, because I think that would be a legitimate alternative, for a little while: Corporate Cards, with the CEOs and CFOs photographs on them; you could even have their stats on the back, such as how much money they cheated the public out of ..

A silent anniversary yesterday - I actually saved this. It's posted in the cabinet in my bathroom, and I get smacked in the face with it every time I open the cabinet door. A year ago, I went off paxil after 4 years of it. Yay me.

(that picture up there is the 'taper-off' calendar I used. stopping gradually is supposed to make the physical & mental side effects .. less obnoxious. it doesn't work.)

j's quilt is almost done :) it looks great. the cat likes it a lot.

today is for recovering .. why did we think it would be a good idea to drink Red Dog again? This swill was what kept us alive in high school, but I'm just too old for it now .. ught.

Random news bits: the black cat lounge is gone .. it's apparently a crime to read Islamic news in our country .. people seem to have much too much free time on their hands.

Ught. back to bed.

Another day of waking up to our white trash neighbor yelling at her dogs; she really is a clueless waste of air. She comes waddling out of her house looking like she just got done throwing heroin into her body, with her scraggly nasty face pretending to be 15 years younger than her skank body gives away, and she yells and yells in her piercy, whiny, i'm white-trash-from-virginia-but-i-happen-to-live-in-austin accent.

So i shot her.

in the leg.

jess is working on the quilt; the cat is working on his tan; i'm working on finding the edge of the internet. woops, I found it.

*falls off*

Yeah. I'm losing it. truly.

America Rules! and other such nonsense.

we had a good party :)

eek, i'm drowning. it hasn't stopped raining in a week and a half!

I'm starting to look at houses in Savannah, and I think I found the perfect one .. The architecture there is fantastic. J & I are going to shoot for living in The Historic District; it's a combination of downtown pubs and nightlife mixed with beautiful old homes, fully restored.

Can you tell I'm excited about something new? It feels good to be excited about something, anything, again .. I just wish they would get their act together with the contract already . . . meh.

How scatterbrained I am today. Enough of this; back to building my ark ..

[15:09] TheSoftMeow: MEOOOWWW!!! MREEOOOWWW!!

[15:09] txSmallbear: hey is my cat AIMing people again
[15:09] txSmallbear: fucking cat
[15:10] texass punkyboy: i'm going to pee on it next time i see it
[15:10] txSmallbear: haha
[15:14] txSmallbear: he types pretty good, considering he has no thumbs
[15:15] texass punkyboy: yeah, but he has four hands
[15:15] txSmallbear: thats true.
[15:15] txSmallbear: and no balls.
[15:16] texass punkyboy: no wonder he's so bitter

Whew, it's July already .. I'm not sure how this year is moving so fast, but it's kind of absurd. J & I spent the weekend generally relaxing; went to an "engagement party", which was fun and "grown up".

It's been raining for the past week, which is perfect for me; it has brought the temperature down to a legitimate range, and it's really helping my mood stay in check. I'm pretty happy, recently - it's nice to *almost* have a decision made.

Reading this .. I sort of remember enjoying the movie, but his writing style is so .. fluid ..

Anyway, a short work-week this week, which is good, considering I have little to do .. always waiting on developers. Meh. I seem to have come full circle to where I was last year at roughly this same time ..