this weekend, mr. y was overhauled with a new distributor cap and rotor, new spark plug wires (thanks to unnecessary roughness), new pcv valve, fresh oil and filter, new air filter, and two new front struts. it’s great to breathe some new life into an eleven year-old car.

although, it can be a bit frightening using a spring compressor system that looks like it could pop off at any given moment and send a giant spring through your face. with ugly kid’s help, we were able to ever so delicately compress the spring and take off the old strut without too much problem. in fact, the majority of our problems came from not trusting the compression system at first.

the best part about doing all this stuff myself with a little help from friends is that i ended up saving roughly $500 in labor costs. those car repair places really like to butt rape people on the labor. just because they have all this fancy gear that makes the job go quicker, they think they can charge ridiculous prices. more people should educate themselves in car maintenance/repair. i think that oil changes and spare tire installation should be required in driver’s training.

i like the idea of ebay, i just don’t like dealing with it. i sell a lot of dvds and cds on half.com because it removes the stupidity from the ebay model. you list an item for your price, someone buys, and you ship. easy. trouble sometimes comes when someone tries to scam you, but it’s fairly rare, especially if you use delivery confirmation.

well, ebay is a beast of another sort. my first ebay selling experience was with my friend “la goat.” we had the idea that we’d buy a playstation 2 and sell it on ebay. this was when the ps2 just came out and was very popular. we got one through our special contact and listed it online. before we knew it, we were seeing green because the thing was up to $1200 when it closed. when we sent a message to the buyer to pay, he said that his wife wouldn’t allow him to spend that much on a video game system and that he wasn’t going to pay. since we knew nothing, we were just like, “ok.” i know better now. when you win an ebay auction, you are contractually obligated to purchase that item. the worst part was that i paid the ebay listing and closing fees out of my own pocket and ended up paying for the playstation 2 as well. whatever.

but that experience left me pretty jaded. it kept me in the mindset that ebay was a crappy commerce site. well, last week, i decided to try it again. this time, i had a playstation 2 network adapter to sell. it is a good item, because apparently they are in somewhat high demand. so i listed and waited. the item sold for the amount i wanted. then we go into the payment process, which shouldn’t be such a pain in the ass, but i guess it is. in the auction i said that the item needed to be paid for within 5 days. now, i’m not a smart man, but does that mean “please pay on the fifth day?” someone explain this to me. and to make matters even better, the buyer was very non-communicative. as in, “i’ll respond only when it’s convenient for me and i will then give excuses for my lack of communication.”

the whole thing is over and done with and i really want to leave the buyer some nasty feedback, but i feel like it just isn’t worth it. and now i don’t want to deal with ebay anymore, even though i have more stuff to sell.

we purchased the frozen turkey for thursday. it’s 12.98 lbs. of honeysuckle turkey meat. we also got a roasting pan and an artificial inseminator. even though most days i feel old and withered, the reality of growing up comes when you are mostly in charge of preparing a thanksgiving day feast for 8 people.

earlier today, when we weren’t watching large chunks of buffy, we drove miss daisy to the dog park. it was no easy task, since today just happened to be the day that several hundred people were touring the city on their bicycles and the main route passed right by where we live.

the dog park was nice, but empty. only three dogs when we got there and two left as soon as daisy made her presence known. probably for the best, since she freaks out when she doesn’t know what’s going on. i think she had some difficulties in her earlier years. i wish i could rent a dvd that documented her first 9 months of life. i want to know how she got to be the way she is.

it’s a bit ominous when you go to class and the teacher tells everyone he has cancer and won’t be teaching the class for the rest of the semester. you kind of sit there and just stare at him. then he says he might be ok if it doesn’t spread after the kidney removal surgery. like any good mathematician, everything boils down to strict logic. but how else do you cope with the stress of terminal circumstances?

i also learned today that i would rather spend a fortune on home repairs than have to deal with some jackass property management company that never gets anything done. oh, stuff does get done, but it’s always on their timetable. this includes waiting months and then getting a phone call from one of the repair people wanting to do the work that same day, having given no notice. would it kill you to call 2-3 days in advance to find out when someone might be home? i could just kill something right now!

but i won’t kill daisy, because even though she shredded that diet dr pepper can better than any paper shredder or lawn mower could, it was our fault for not taking her for more walks and getting her the exercise she needs. at least, that’s what the dog whisperer told me in my dreams.

my biggest beef with people who believe that global warming is a scam is that they seem to selectively ignore the large scale of exhaust fumes coming out of vehicles. the amount of cars being purchased and owned is not going down, it’s going up.

now, maybe you’re one of those people who believes that carbon monoxide isn’t so bad, but let me ask you when was the last time you spent a few hours in your garage with the car running and the garage door down? that would be suicide, right?

what if the globe is our garage? and we keep all of our cars running in it constantly, day after day. aren’t we committing global suicide?

at the very least, common sense should tell you that nothing good can come from the sheer amount of toxic fumes our cars produce. but when was the last time anyone used common sense? if a communist tells you that global warming is true, you must ignore him based on the fact that he lies.