Archive for dollars
My poor smooshed car
So my car is ‘fixed’. Or about as fixed as I’m capable of making it.
I ordered the rear brake light, and that came in the other day. I was worried that I might have difficulty trying to attach it, but it attached with a single plug, no wiring involved or anything. We popped out the backseat and I crawled into the trunk that way, after emptying of all the junk, including the ramps I’d just bought before the accident. Everything that needed to remove came off easily with your standard range of tools plus a bit of oil. It was kind of awkward maneuvering in the trunk, but the plug for the rear light was obvious, so that got hooked up pretty easily. Tested the light, works perfectly, yay!
I secured the light as best I could with duct take (gorilla tape!), and also taped up a bit of plastic in the areas where I was concerned about potential leaking. From there, I slathered duct tape all over the areas where possible leak areas, along with parts where the paint was completely flaked off. I still need to get a hold of some paint at some point, as the paint is peeling off of other parts of the car. Suppose it’s less of a rush now, since the car is technically worth negative dollars and all, but I’d still like to see it run as long as possible (where “as long as possible” means “when I have a steadier income and can actually afford to get a new car”). I had been thinking about getting some black car paint to touch up places, and then I could do…something(?)…to make the ghetto-fabulous back not look so awful. Not sure what that is, though. I don’t care too much though, I suppose. Car still runs fine, and that’s all that really matters. I’ll miss the use of my trunk, though.
Though, there is one good thing about all of this. The cost of getting the brake light plus shipping, plus the cost of the tape I bought? About $150. The amount of the check the insurance company mailed to me for the car? About $3000. I heart dollars.
Magical Deoderant Plus Bonus Car Question!
First off, I would like to announce that my underarms smell like pina colada. I got a “tropical island” scented deodorant, and it makes me want to drink whenever I smell it.
So I drive a Kia Rio, and it has a 96 hp and a 28.1 LB / HP ratio. While I am not fully sure what these figures mean, I know for a fact that my car was much happier driving around Richmond then it is driving around in the foothills of the Rockies It struggles up hills and it’s often really hard to make it to the speed limit (albeit, the speed limit out here is often 75, but still). I’m thinking that for my next car, I’ll probably want to get something with a better engine. And then Drew and I were trying to figure out fuel efficiency for such things, and Google proved no help. So here’s a question for anyone that knows about cars: would having a car with a higher horsepower give me better fuel efficiency for driving on hills? I’m sure that, if nothing else, it would make going up the hills more pleasant. However, I’m not really sure of the connection between higher horsepower (or a higher ratio, for that matter) and if you use less gas because of that (or more gas, for that matter). Or if the change in gas usage would be negligible. Any advice is appreciated!
Firefox, keyboards, diving for goodies, and my beloved Steelcase chair.
So is it just me, or has Firefox been really slow since the last update? It takes for-freaking-ever to load pages. I’m paranoid I’ve gotten some sort of weird virus on it. I’m hoping that maybe it’s some sort of issue with the latest version instead, though, mostly because viruses are a huge pain. Chrome works fine though, and for all I know IE might work fine too (though whether I’ll actually check is debatable). In the process of being frustrated, I defragged, so my C drive is feeling much better. Also found out that Steam, which I used for Portal-related purposes and have barely touched since then, was taking up multiple gigs of space. Not completely sure why, as, though I had several random trial downloads, none of them were in any way fancy. Nonetheless, it got uninstalled.
My computer area is now oolong-flavored. Yesterday I had the fabulous fortune to whack my still-too-hot-to-drink cup of tea with my elbow, thus giving some things a bath. Nothing too important though, lucky for me there is apparently some serious indentation going on in the middle of my computer desk. Though, the left arrow on my keyboard is sticking in a rather unfortunate way. I feel lucky that the keyboard works at all, though, given my luck with spilling things on keyboards. Which I suppose is the price one inevitably pays for keeping beverages at one’s desk.
So this past Saturday! Diving madness! As Christine is unemployed and I am a lover of Free, we both went up to the U of R for their moving out day to check out all the detritus the students were leaving behind. At first I was disappointed due to the lack of VA-friendly items, but in the end all was well. Drew and I now have about 25+ packets of microwaveable popcorn (butter lover’s, to be precise). Someone had a great big box of the stuff and had chucked it, with barely any used at all. I also have a hula hoop! The best find though was a super sweet jacket. It’s made by Diesel, and is cut and designed in a really interesting manner, with joyous zippers. Once I’ve washed it I’ll post a picture of the awesomeness.
On a final note, I essentially have had a free drafting chair for the past several years. Back when I started doing contract work for OWP, I bought a really nice used Steelcase drafting chair from Hull St Outlet for $100. It was a really high-quality chair and was amazing for my posture. I used it constantly for two good years, and then when I went to work in-house, it just kinda sat around. I finally decided to suck it up and sell it. As much as I liked the chair, I liked the money more, and I feel bad if I own something and never use it, I feel like that item would be happier if it were owned by a person who appreciated it more then me. So I sold the chair on Craigslist – for $100. Yay!
