What do you think?

You are The Wheel of Fortune

Good fortune and happiness but sometimes a species of
intoxication with success

The Wheel of Fortune is all about big things, luck, change, fortune. Almost always good fortune. You are lucky in all things that you do and happy with the things that come to you. Be careful that success does not go to your head however. Sometimes luck can change.

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Oh, New Car, Where Art Thou?

It's time for a new car. It's not that Ed hasn't served me well, or that she's a bad ride. It's more that I settled for Ed. I needed a ride, she was there, and most importantly, she was the right price. So now it's time to move on, and I'm shopping.

What am I looking at? Well, it was a field of four, quickly whittled down to two with maybe a Dark Horse thrown in for good measure. But the Dark Horse is expensive (and also not available in an automatic, so that could have been an issue), so it's down to two.

Choice #1
VW Rabbit
There are two problems here.
1) If I'm getting the VW, I want it a bit swanky and that means a automatic with the sunroof, which are only available with the 4-door. The problem is that the 4-door starting price is at the high end of my budget, and once I've added what I want, I'm over. (For comparison, I can almost get a PT Cruiser Convertible for the same price).
2) Performance/guzzling. She drives nice. I can hardly feel the road under the wheels, and that's not necessarily a bonus in my book. The options are sweet and are enjoyable and I know I'd be comfortable on along trip- except for my wallet. See the reason I started looking again was because Ed's just not getting the mpg she used to, and the VW (per online reviews) gets about what Ed gets, or even a little less!

Is the pretty worth it?

Choice #2
Scion xA

1) I love the customizability of this car, but I'm not sure what my base quality will be. I've heard that there are some frame/body issues with the entire Scion line. Admittedly these would all be covered under warranty, but is the possibility worth the hassle?

2) Well this isn't a problem, but more of a worry. You get what you pay for. The price can't be beat, even gussied up to my specifications, I'm still within my budget and even if she gets 5-7 mpg less than advertised, she's still under Ed's current average. Is too good to be true really too good to be true?

Also- I have yet to drive the Scion, if the ride is terrible, I won't even bother and we'll go back to square one. (Although what that is, I'm not sure....)

Willful Ignorance...

...or maybe its just a highly editorialized view of reality, but either way it's dangerous and seems to be growing greater with each generation. Or maybe I've just become hyper-aware of my own personal editorialized view of reality in the last few years and this is my reaction to it.

Either way it's pissing me off.

Take Nymwae's story about the Fiestaware and her co-worker's reaction to it. Granted, the woman is not the brightest Crayola in the box, and I think she's contradictory just for the sake of it (or at least to be snide to Nymwae), but it's the online stuff she was referring to that triggered this particular rant.

You have been warned.

Is it so hard to at least consider the possibility that you might, just might, be wrong about something. Anything? Even just on a small scale, like being willing to admit that the pretty platter in your cabinet could possibly be a hazard to your health in the long run? Is it a driving need to be right all the time? Or is a need to prove other people wrong? (And, yes there is a big difference.) Is it learned or inherited, and if it's either, can it be undone?

And the "glowing" pretty in the cabinet is the tip of the iceberg. Take today's politics. When did the Holy Inquisition start again? Because I could swear that differing opinions were what made this country great, not what what made it weak. When did expressing an opinion that isn't in the party line become heresy? If we worried more about what was best for the country and less about making sure our party was "right," would we still be scraping the bottom of the barrel for school funds? Does expressing my concern or outright doubt about the direction of out country make me any less American, and does your devotion to the President make you the true patriot? The last time I checked, we were all living in the same country and we should be able to respect each other. Right?

No! God, no! It's the Cold War, only now the enemy is the Republican across the street, not the commie down the hall. Now, I'm all for a nice dose of schadenfreude, but what's happening today is more akin to character lynchings. (Not that they're all entirely undeserved, but still.) You can't fight back, you can't win, so what do you do? Blame the other guy! Makes for a nice news cycle, but does it get us anywhere?

When did we all put on blinders? When did we decide that it wasn't OK to admit the other guy has a good point? When did "my way or the highway" become de rigueur for everyday life? Didn't anyone teach us to share? Teach us to respect each other? Teach us to listen and learn and look at everything and everyone around us as a whole, not through whatever-colored glasses we're wearing this week?

Can't we all just get along?

A Rememberance

I light a candle.I wish I could say I watched some of the coverage, or went to a memorial, but I couldn't. I remember it well enough on my own. I watched all day five years ago, and I went to my memorials over the next few days. And I waited, and waited, for my roommate to call and let me know she was OK. She worked next to the towers, she had just moved to NYC that year. It took three days for her to call everyone she knew, she had me let everyone in the dept. know she was fine.

I light a candle.
She was fine, but I remember the waiting and I can only imagine what it was like for the people who had family there, who lost family there. And it hurts. It hurts for those who have lost, for those who were found while others were not. It hurts for the children without parents, husbands without wives, lovers without their loves.

I light a candle.
I remember what happened after, I remember the flags and the songs. I can hear the crowds murmuring softly in front of storefronts, watching the news through the windows. I can see politicians standing together, and then fracturing again as, sadly, they often do. I see suspicion, and I see trust. I read of failure and I read of success. I feel pain and hope, wonder and bewilderment.

I light a candle.
And I remember that we are not the only ones who have lost. Madrid, London, Mumbai, Istanbul, Nairobi, Jerusalem, Oklahoma City, Lebanon, Columbine, Laramie, Darfur, China, Sarajevo, Belsan... Five years ago, five years from now, twenty in the past, twenty in the future. Hate knows no religion, no border, no nationality, no home.

Neither does Love.

So I light a candle and I can see, and I can remember.As do we all.

Drive-by updating

Goodies that cost me money I don't really have:
I have a new couch! It even has arms and can seat more than two people and is made of a material that... Well, it resembles corduroy, which if you knew me ten years ago would amuse you to no end as I used to villify the stuff as a concoction of Satan. I HATED the stuff. The texture, the sound it made when you walked in it, it even came in crappy colors.

Now I have a couch made of it. Consistency is the defense of small minds. Like many things, I'm learning to let it go.

Work:
The Mid-Boss has arrived and, well, not much else so far as I can see. I met him when the Overboss brought him along on a checking-up trip. Since then, I haven't really seen, heard or sopke to him since. Hopefully he's busy elsewhere and will leave us alone.
Also, I lost my Minion. I really liked having a Minion, I was able to focus on helping the Bosses get stuff out the door, now I'm back to focusing on keeping enough space on my desk clear for my coffee mug.

Play:
The show's going, um, well I suppose. Dress rehearsals are going to be REALLY rough. And somewhere along the way I made the mistake of volunteering to make stuffed mushrooms for our little buffet...
The real hell of this is that it's been basically three (occasionally four) of us putting this together. The rest of the production team's been in/out of town and hasn't really been there, and most won't be there for the performances.
Next show I think we're setting some ground rules.

Ramdomness:
Outside of the office building there is a cricket (not this one) that keeps jumping into the glass and bouncing off.
Jump. Bounce. Jump. Bounce.
I don't know if it's the heat on the sidewalk (as I imagine the hedge it was living in was much cooler), the reflection in the glass, or just a short circuit in the lil' guy's insectile excuse for a brain, but it was really pathetic to watch.
Jump. Bounce. Jump. Bounce.
Really pathetic to watch, actually.
Jump. Bounce. Jump. Bounce.
And kinda boring, too, come to think of it.
Jump. Bounce. Jump. Bounce.
And because I'm just hypnotized enough by the incessant hopping to form paltry excuses for philosophical metaphors, I thought, "Sometimes you're the cricket, sometimes you're the glass."
Photo from Hampshire Hippy via flickr