Friday, March 16, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Lazy Sunday Afernoon
I have to admit, I don't have any topic to blog about today. No rant about incompetent officials, no spiritual discussions about karma..
(hmm, this is really weird.. I have a new version of firefox, which comes with an inline spell checker. The spell checker doesn't recognize "blog" but it's ok with "karma". Maybe a spell checker for a web browser should be more internet aware?)
Anyway, so like I was saying - I have nothing to say. I'm here to celebrate a weekend spent away from work. It's a lovely spring day outside, warm and sunny (sorry to the folks who're still shoveling snow!) And I have no deadlines to worry about, nowhere to go, no work to complete. I have cleaned the kitchen, watered the plants, done my laundry, paid my bills and thus am feeling greatly virtuous. Only one regret - I have been robbed of a full hour of my life, thanks to daylight savings..
Oh, and I'm a prisoner in my home - this one is a funny story, just don't tell it to my parents!
So Thursday evening I was pulling out of our office garage when another driver started gesticulating wildly at me. I had no idea what he was complaining about - I wasn't blocking his way, he was blocking mine. But it turns out, he was telling me that my headlights were off. So I pulled into the next parking lot and took a look. Sure thing, they wouldn't turn on. It is strange that both headlamps would blow off at the same time, so there's probably something wrong in the controls. Fortunately, the high beam came on and I was able to drive home. Of course, Friday I forgot all about this and had to drive home on high beam again. And it turns out that the VW service centers are closed over the weekend. Great, this means I can't drive after dark at all this weekend! Anyway, yesterday morning a friend came over to look at the headlights - I wanted a second opinion in case it was something trivial. He was examining the headlights and asked me for the drivers manual. I pulled it out of the glove compartment and caught sight of my insurance card - my insurance payment was due March 5th... I had been driving around without insurance for the last week (they can probably jail you for this!) So I went back into my apartment and frantically called Farmer's. They gladly took my payment over the phone, so hopefully that's taken care of. But when I was putting the insurance card back, I found - you guessed it - my registration card. Now that one had expired a month ago!
So for those of you keeping score, if a cop had stopped me Friday night - I would have been driving (a) without headlights, (b) with high beam on the freeway, (c) in an unregistered car and (d) without insurance. I guess it's a good thing nobody stopped me on Friday. Turns out my lights blowing out was probably for the best. You know, like in that story where the king cut his finger and got angry with his minister.
Hence my self imposed house arrest today. And first thing tomorrow I get to go to the DMV. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of visiting a DMV in the bay area, its about as much fun as a trip to the Pune RTO.
So this weekend has been a bit of a bummer, but not a total loss. I did go out yesterday (I didn't drive) - and checked out a Toyota Prius. I am itching to buy a new car, and living in tree hugging Northern California means that I feel obliged to buy a hybrid. It's not a bad car; it has all kinds of cool gizmos like a navigation system, rear view camera and cool graphics for energy generation, consumption, battery charge etc. And bluetooth, and a smart key system, which means the key communicates with the car by wireless and doesn't actually have to be inserted anywhere. (It has been six years since I last went car shopping, and it feels like there's a whole new generation of technology! And when I first came here, I was impressed by remote keys and garage door openers) And all this at about three times the fuel efficiency of my current car! Ok looking, the shape feels a little weird at first but grows on you.
And so there is my weekend in a nutshell - oh and I had "desi" pizza which was alright, and watched Man of the Year which was just too random for my taste.
No pithy comment to end the blog.. Oh yeah, Firefox spell check is bad. It also doesn't like bluetooth, inline, hmm and ok. It doesn't approve of firefox or internet with lower case first letters. And it insists on spell checking 3 letter acronyms, so it also flags DMV and RTO. tsk tsk.
(hmm, this is really weird.. I have a new version of firefox, which comes with an inline spell checker. The spell checker doesn't recognize "blog" but it's ok with "karma". Maybe a spell checker for a web browser should be more internet aware?)
Anyway, so like I was saying - I have nothing to say. I'm here to celebrate a weekend spent away from work. It's a lovely spring day outside, warm and sunny (sorry to the folks who're still shoveling snow!) And I have no deadlines to worry about, nowhere to go, no work to complete. I have cleaned the kitchen, watered the plants, done my laundry, paid my bills and thus am feeling greatly virtuous. Only one regret - I have been robbed of a full hour of my life, thanks to daylight savings..
Oh, and I'm a prisoner in my home - this one is a funny story, just don't tell it to my parents!
So Thursday evening I was pulling out of our office garage when another driver started gesticulating wildly at me. I had no idea what he was complaining about - I wasn't blocking his way, he was blocking mine. But it turns out, he was telling me that my headlights were off. So I pulled into the next parking lot and took a look. Sure thing, they wouldn't turn on. It is strange that both headlamps would blow off at the same time, so there's probably something wrong in the controls. Fortunately, the high beam came on and I was able to drive home. Of course, Friday I forgot all about this and had to drive home on high beam again. And it turns out that the VW service centers are closed over the weekend. Great, this means I can't drive after dark at all this weekend! Anyway, yesterday morning a friend came over to look at the headlights - I wanted a second opinion in case it was something trivial. He was examining the headlights and asked me for the drivers manual. I pulled it out of the glove compartment and caught sight of my insurance card - my insurance payment was due March 5th... I had been driving around without insurance for the last week (they can probably jail you for this!) So I went back into my apartment and frantically called Farmer's. They gladly took my payment over the phone, so hopefully that's taken care of. But when I was putting the insurance card back, I found - you guessed it - my registration card. Now that one had expired a month ago!
So for those of you keeping score, if a cop had stopped me Friday night - I would have been driving (a) without headlights, (b) with high beam on the freeway, (c) in an unregistered car and (d) without insurance. I guess it's a good thing nobody stopped me on Friday. Turns out my lights blowing out was probably for the best. You know, like in that story where the king cut his finger and got angry with his minister.
Hence my self imposed house arrest today. And first thing tomorrow I get to go to the DMV. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of visiting a DMV in the bay area, its about as much fun as a trip to the Pune RTO.
So this weekend has been a bit of a bummer, but not a total loss. I did go out yesterday (I didn't drive) - and checked out a Toyota Prius. I am itching to buy a new car, and living in tree hugging Northern California means that I feel obliged to buy a hybrid. It's not a bad car; it has all kinds of cool gizmos like a navigation system, rear view camera and cool graphics for energy generation, consumption, battery charge etc. And bluetooth, and a smart key system, which means the key communicates with the car by wireless and doesn't actually have to be inserted anywhere. (It has been six years since I last went car shopping, and it feels like there's a whole new generation of technology! And when I first came here, I was impressed by remote keys and garage door openers) And all this at about three times the fuel efficiency of my current car! Ok looking, the shape feels a little weird at first but grows on you.
And so there is my weekend in a nutshell - oh and I had "desi" pizza which was alright, and watched Man of the Year which was just too random for my taste.
No pithy comment to end the blog.. Oh yeah, Firefox spell check is bad. It also doesn't like bluetooth, inline, hmm and ok. It doesn't approve of firefox or internet with lower case first letters. And it insists on spell checking 3 letter acronyms, so it also flags DMV and RTO. tsk tsk.
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