Sketchy bought a Wrangler. 2002, navy blue, 5spd, 4cyl.

Gary and I both tried to talk him out of it, but I think he got the bug when I took Neckbone’s Rubby over to his place. True, he never actually rode in it, but he had mentioned a desire to ride around without the doors on a vehicle.

Sketchy and I are in the same line of work, and I don’t think it’ll take too much of these inflated gas prices to regret his purchase, which is sad – yeah, only $12k, but I don’t think he’ll be in a position to buy another car for awhile.

I’m strangely not jealous. Yeah, I need to borrow Neckbone’s wrench so we can get Sketchy’s doors off this weekend, but driving around a Wrangler for two weeks was more than enough to quell my desire for one of those awesome machines — well, that and the ridiculously high gas prices. ($2.33 for the low-end shit is the best I can find. Ouch.) I might, someday, buy a Wrangler again — but if I do, it’ll only be a second car.

Sketchy’s got the same mind-set: the Wrangler is a second car, he didn’t sell his MR2.

On the other hand, how much of a first-car can his MR2 be without a clutch?

(Note to Common Wombat: That’s “palms” not “penis“)

Two and a half hours later and tremendous progress has been made on the Secret Project. You’ve probably already guessed its being built out of Lego, and the size and weight of the finished project require a firm connection, which means I’ve been pressing down so much forcing these bricks to snap together as firmly as possible that I have little round welts up and down my palms.

Ow.

This thing is really incredible though, I mean that, I’m barely at the halfway mark, and so far its been easy — just the foundations and all that, the detail work hasn’t even really started, but it’ll come soon enough. I got the rough-in of the Grotto finished, tomorrow, maybe, I’ll finish the detail — it’s mostly got to do with its location, but going back to detail it won’t be possible soon, particularly at the rate I’m going. The coolest thing about the Grotto is that its coming along almost exactly as I pictured it, a little bit forgotten, a little bit beautiful, a lot plastic …

I need to be 20 bricks high before I begin the second half of the project and I’m just about there … (and I’ve used about every single dark gray brick I can get my grubby hands on). Possibly by tomorrow night I’m going to put down the “main floor” — a series of large bricks (8×8 pegs, 8×16 pegs and 12×24 pegs) that will support the second-half of the project, this is really the hardest part of construction as it has to be solid enough to support probably 2/3rd the weight of the total construction, which means the underlying supports have to be, well, very steady. Argh.

(I can just picture this entire thing collapsing when I add the very last brick. That’d just be effin’ perfect. Not.)

Ooooh! Just pictured where to put the greenhouse …

…In any case, I’m tired. I should’ve packed this up an hour ago. Alas, might as well enjoy staying up late while I can — respectable employment around the corner, not far away, good to look forward, y’know?