Random Bits and Ends

My daughter is trying to make our old cat learn tricks. You see once upon a time, an 11-year-old girl by the name of Jean decided that she would teach her cat, Andy, how to do tricks. He was quite the performer and began a legacy of cats that do tricks in her childhood home. Alas, our cats are not so interested. Much to the disappointment of my four-year-old.

We pick up the new car tomorrow! Yipeee! And with the Golf, we’ve had more calls and another no show. Tonight we have someone who is considering buying it coming over to take a look–a friend. Cross your fingers for us.

What is it about today’s society that we don’t care much about others and are hesitant to extend common courtesies? Is it the commonness of six foot fences? We don’t need our neighbours and they don’t need us? I mean, not ten years ago if I had a breakdown on the road, cars would stop to make sure you were okay–heck, even if you weren’t broken down they would check. Now you can hang out at the side of the road with the hood up and nobody will stop. They assume you have a cell phone and will call and pay a stranger (tow truck) to help you and that you don’t need them. Maybe we are too rich. Maybe we are removed from others and their realities. We have big fences, distant emails where we feel we can say anything (we didn’t say it to their face, so the meanness doesn’t count), cell phones, fancy everything. Why borrow the neighbour’s drill when we can go buy our own? Why call on the neighbour to feed your cat when you leave when you can pay someone? You wouldn’t want to be indebted to someone. God forbid. Maybe I’m just being cynical, but I see change coming…and this time, I’m not sure if I like it. (Or maybe I’m just getting old.)

Found another friend on Facebook. Or rather, she found me.

Still researching agents. Considering joining Backspace. Looking for contests. Seems like winter is the season, not spring-summer for entering.

I was listening to Coffeehouse on Sirius radio and there was good ol’ John Lennon and that got me thinking. It must be hard for Yoko Ono and pretty much anyone with a famous significant other who lives in the spotlight and then suddenly dies. Like John Ritter’s wife–so much hubbub around his death. And I was thinking, it must be hard for Yoko to get over John. (Lennon, not Ritter.) I mean, he was suddenly taken from her, just right there on the street. All is good and then literally, BANG, he’s gone. And here, years later there are reminders of him popping up where ever she goes. She must never know when to expect his voice or face to pop up. It’s gotta be hard.

What is it about Kraft Dinner that is so appealing to little kids?

Car Chronicles: Part Four: Selling the Beloved Golf

Alas, the time has come. The Golf is back and all clean and happy with its little for sale sign. What to ask for it? Playing the selling game. Don’t like this part so much.

So far, three queries and one broken viewing appointment. A no show. So nice of him to call and cancel. Not like I had anything better to do with my time.

But what do you do with a great little, economical car that is ready to go thousands of kms more if you fix the head gasket? Problem is, that costs about a grand to fix. (I found a great shop who will do that plus some more work for that price.) Who wants to buy a car that needs to go in the shop for a bit, even if it means you will have a great car in the end? Do we fix it ourselves? Then what do we charge?

So, we’ll see what the next week or so brings. I’m just feeling impatient. I know what I want and I want to get to it. Same with my career.

More on Facebook

So, pretty much everyone is on Facebook. Apparently even Jack Layton is on Facebook. (NDP leader up here in Canada.)

Interesting tidbit though. I was listening to DNTO (Definitely Not the Opera) on CBC this morning and they were yakking about Facebook. Interesting thing is that Facebook (aka Crackbook and Fbook) holds the status of being the worst for its privacy policy on the worldwide web. Not exactly something that you strive to achieve. How exactly they came up with that ‘fact’ I am unsure.

If you do a search on the Internet, you find lots of rants and accusations against Facebook. And that makes me wonder, is it simply because Facebook has gotten incredibly popular and is growing exponentially every day? Or is it for real? When I signed up, I was very hesitant. There are very few ads on the site and there are lots of places to put in piles of personal information. Some of it is theoretically only accessible to your ‘friends’, but still. People can print your photos that you put up there (again only your ‘friends’). But, still. There is a part of me that doesn’t trust the whole thing. How are they making their money? Everything is for sale on the Internet these days and nothing is truly for free.

And Facebook prompts you all the time to scan through your email for friends. Basically, you let Facebook into your email account–you give them the password (for a one-time shot)–and they index your address book and pester all your contacts to join Facebook.

So what is the truth about Facebook? Maybe I’ll go see if Jack will be my friend. Maybe he has some answers.
Facebook Update:

This is weird. I went looking for Jack Layton on Facebook and who the heck knows? There are a bunch of global groups that you can pop into that are about Jack Layton, but I don’t know if any of them are really Jack’s. Do you know what I mean? Like is he on there himself? Or is he just pretending to be hip and cool? I looked on his website and the youth area doesn’t scream out, ‘hey I’m on Facebook, look me up’. So what is the deal? I don’t know. I thought it would be cool to be ‘friends’ with Jack Layton. I thought maybe he’d do a little blog thing on his wall and so I could get to know a bit more about him and his political platform. So, I guess I am a little disappointed. Maybe I missed something. I’m still new to this Facebook thing and all its little nuances.

Car Chronicles: Part Three: Never Say Never

Well, we have done something we have said that we would never do. What is that saying again? Never say never? (Along those lines, I would NEVER go hang out in Europe all summer or win the lottery. Does it work that way if you say it, but really, actually want it?)

Anyway, curious what the ‘never’ is? Well <gulp> it is actually two things. We said we would NEVER buy a NEW car and we would NEVER finance a car.

At least the whole never buy a mini-van thing hasn’t happened. Whew! That could have been a close one.

So, yes. I turned my back on my husband in the Toyota dealership for five minutes. Apparently, that is long enough for him to stumble across a new car (discounted because of tiny hail damage dings) and fall in love with it. Enough to not only buy it, but to finance it.

We were looking at used cars, but out here used cars are crazy prices! So, as we discovered, we could put another five grand into a car, give ourselves a bit of financial breathing room (by using the dealerships financing which is better than our line of credit, which we would have had to use for a used car) and have a car that should be problem free for years. Craziness.

So are you curious what we bought? Are you? Are you?

I am so pumped!

We bought a tiny little sedan called the Toyota Yaris.

Essentially it is the Echo with a new name and a new body and a trunk. And a carseat fits in the back quite nicely, which is a nice change for us. And it is cheap and gets 41-51 mpg (Canadian). Sweet! The only problem with any car is that my hubby is going to have it used up in no time flat. (He will be commuting 100km per day next year to get to and fro his new job. But at least he won’t be nearly as worried about getting there. He has always been really paranoid about that–to the point where I used to have to drive the 18-year-old gas car the 120km for my daily commute (and have the nonplug in parking spot) whereas he took the diesel car (with I might add–not only had working doors but also had more than AM radio (it had a CD player)) for his 60km commute. No, I’m not bitter. Not at all…. I mean, it doesn’t matter that my cars mostly got me to work and if his car didn’t start at minus thirty, he’d take mine and I’d have to call AMA and be late for work.

Anyway, this car is so cute and so sweet and so amazingly nondescript (it is silver) that I will NEVER be able to find it in a parking lot. (There is that ‘never’ word again.) It’s a good thing it is already dinged, otherwise my hubby would moan over every new scratch and ding…oh yeah, he’ll do that anyway.

I can hardly wait to drive it everywhere! Except for the miniscule clutch that is so springy and well, new, that I stall it all over the place. On the test drive, whenever I started out anywhere, all my hubby heard was, “Did I stall it? Is it still running? I can’t hear anything.” So, finally, tired of stalling it with its tiny little clutch and tiny little sweet spot, I floored it and released the clutch. Wow!

Hello? Dealership? Yes, could we get a new car? This one doesn’t seem to have any rubber left on the tires. Yes, well, there are some nice little strips on the pavement over in Springbank. Um, yeah, I don’t know how that happened. Really? Well, I don’t think I want to buy a car that has been treated that way. I mean, afterall, I am a lady driver.

I think I heard something from the salesman that sounded an awful lot like, “Drive it like you own it, not like you stole it.” But that was when he was telling us how we should break it in, not um, how to test drive it.

So, in a few days we should get our Golf back from the shop, all fixed up and happyish. (It needs a head gasket, I think.) So, if you know of anyone who wants a good little, economical car and doesn’t mind putting a head gasket in, we’ve got their car!

And then we’ll get the Yaris. Such a cool name. Now we have to think of a name for the little guy. Maybe we should call it ‘Doug’.

The Car Chronicles: Part Two: Done Digging

Well, the verdict is in. Our beloved Golf is toast. Well, essentially. $550 to fix the power steering. Another hundred for the speedometer. Good news: the exhaust appears fine. Bad news: no real evidence of where all the coolant is going. You know what that means? The engine is burning it. And faster as of late. That means…toast. The engine is about done. That or the head gasket. Probably the head gasket. I suppose what do you expect after over 320,000km? Poor baby. My hubby is real sad.

So basically, it will be like living with a terminal patient when we get our car back. We will tearfully be remembering all the good times and feeling guilty (almost) for refusing to give it an engine transplant. There are just too many things falling off of it to make it a good candidate. It’s a good thing I never got around to putting those new bumper stickers on it.

Hopefully we’ll get the car back next week. I left my coat and hat in it. We’ve been borrowing my father’s Grand Marquis which we have been babysitting. And that thing is Grand alright. You could put another person between me and the driver’s side door–while I’m driving. Unfortunately, when you are used to a diesel that goes 800km on about forty bucks, the Grand Marquis is not so grand at the gas station, or at least it is grand, but your feelings of financial generosity are not.

I suppose we have gotten the $6000 or so we paid for it eight years ago. Let’s see, we bought it in November of 1999. It is June of 2007…so we’ve owned it for 91 months. That’s only $65.94 per month! Yes, we got our money’s worth. Especially if someone still wants it for $1500 or $2000 or something. Then it would only be about $43.96 a month. Dang! That is pretty good!

In a way, I am a bit relieved to be done with that car. It doesn’t like me. It leaves me places. And it wants repairs, like, every year! (If you are reading this oh wonderful hubby dear, yes I love the car. It is nice. It’s just time for it to go. I’m sorry, but really, deep down inside, that is how I truly feel.) And besides, our Shadow starts with immense amounts of neglect.

So now begins the car buying game. Put on your tough buyer face and jump in. Actually, when it comes down to it, I really like buying used cars. Waaaaay more than buying a new pair of jeans–that is torture. Only problem is that any decent car seems to cost over $10,000. I think we have raised our expectations a bit. The $1500 cars just don’t have the same appeal after you discover that tow trucks can NOT haul the whole family (including carseated little ones) from wherever you have broken down to the shop. So, the whole financial part of the equation sort of blows. If I had say, $15,000 to blow on a car, oh my god! I would have SO much fun!!!!

Hey, anyone want to buy a book? Or three?