Thinking of going to see The Brothers Grimm. Anybody interested?

WBAL just announced that long-time Baltimore money-guru Julius Westheimer passed away earlier this evening. RIP, Julius.

Without the quote to use for the thread title, I’d otherwise never bother to mention the death of Michael Sheard.

Vader always gets his man.

I am being way too consumed by this damn emissions test. My plan to unplug the battery, reset the check engine light, and sneak through that way? Yeah, the light stayed off for about thirty seconds.

I feel frustrated because I am frustrated — this should have been simple: plug in a new sensor, everything’s good as gold. But that hasn’t been the case, and several mechanics have gone through every trick in their bag to figure out the problem. I suppose its possible that maybe the sensors themselves (or one of them) is defective — perhaps I’ll float that past Ken tomorrow.

If that doesn’t work, the MVA does have a waiver for forgoing the emissions test. I read up on it briefly, and I don’t have many details, but in short — if the car won’t pass the emissions test because of needed repairs, and the owner can show that a certain monetary amount was spent attempting to make those repairs (but failed), the MVA will waive the emissions test. I don’t know how much the waiver specifies, so, we shall see …

In my funk, I spent an hour in Best Buy today, just wandering through the aisles. That’s dangerous, for me — to easy to spend money, dig myself right back into the debt I got out of. I’ve been in a funk all day, primarily because of the failure of my battery idea. I did get a considerable amount of reorganization done on my den — it’s really coming together nicely, and I’ll see about posting photos of it later tonight after I’ve finished. The cats have found a nice patch of carpet to curl up on and they’re enjoying it.

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I was supposed to drop off a fan today to Jason Thomas, but my complete and total funk is all consuming. Tomorrow afternoon, JJT.

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Thanks to the funk I skipped grocery shopping, which is bad because I’ve got no food in the apartment and will have to go later.

Also: my den window looks into the parking lot and an angle at the dumpster. I’m sick and fucking tired of the residents of the townhomes across Padonia Road from loading their pickup trucks with trash and driving it over here to dispose of it. Lazy fuckers.

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Tomorrow, I will have had this blog for one year.

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Speaking of funk …

Alex owed me a favor for working his Saturday shift. So I asked him to cover for me tonight. Jesus Fucking Christ. Five to ten is all I wanted. “Oh, I’m going to miss martial arts” and “Oh, I’m going to be tired for my eight am class.” He bitched and moaned all Monday night to the point I took the time to get Ross to work close, so Alex can work late and be out by nine. Alex just called me — “Oh, do you still need me to work?” I swear to fucking god, I’ve gotten so much grief from this ungrateful motherfucker that I will never ever ever do him a favor again.

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I’m watching IKE: Countdown to D-Day as I finish the den. Decently writing, maybe a bit overly dreamy … Tom Selleck’s dialogue is a bit preachy, but he makes for a good Ike. Anyway.