Zebulon’s ticked because we’re about to leave our period of slow business. It’ll start picking up again in March, get busier through the summer, drop off a bit, but remain constant through the fall and early winter.

“I’m going to get paid the same to do three times the work,” he complained to me last night.

Wrong way to look at it - a better way is: over the last two months, you have been getting paid the same to do 1/3rd the work.

So shouldn’t it be called “Cat Flu“, now?

The Tard Neighbor’s buddy showed up in an identically stupid yellow Neon (Tard Neighbor’s is blue). I like how they’ve got like five tailpipes and make a lot of noise, yet my dirty, uncleaned, unshiny, quiet Celica could outrun ‘em without breaking a sweat. Heck, just parked the Celica looks like its going fifty miles an hour (remember that ad campaign?).

God I’d love to meet those Neons on some country backroad — otherwise, how could I literally have dust for them to consume?

I will never go driving with Ted Kennedy.

I will never go hunting with Dick Cheney.

I will never go anywhere near a bicycle in the company of George W. Bush.

So I only spent about an hour and a half at the service department. They diagnosed the problem as - ready for it? - two sensors. So I’m taking the car back in next Tuesday to get them installed.

That’ll be five-hundred bucks. And if that doesn’t work, it might mean my catalytic converter needs fixin’ — that’ll be thirteen hundred bucks. Oh, and did you know you needed new tires? Four Michelin for eight hundred. How much of a rube do I look like?*

I had those sensors replaced over the summer, unfortunatly, what I didn’t know was that if I had them replaced more than thirty days before I got my emissions test, I wouldn’t qualify for the waiver. So, while I’m kicking myself for being stupid last summer, I also know that if I replace these sensors (again) and get the car tested, I’ve probably got a pretty good chance at getting an MVA emissions repair waiver. I hope so, anyway.

As for the catalytic converter — fuck it. If I can get my car through emissions without fixing it, that’s what I’ll do. As best as I can tell, the only thing fixing the converter is going to do will be to turn off the stupid ‘check engine light.’ I’ve been driving with that light on for most of the time I’ve had the car - I think I’ll live, particularly if it’s going to cost thirteen hundred bucks to turn off.

(More and more, I kind of wish my insurance company had totalled my car last October. Then I wouldn’t be worrying about this right now, y’know?)

And as for the tires? One thing I expect about doing what I do is that I go through stuff rather quick — I’ll run through a set of tires in about a year, and I think it’s been a little over that (maybe by as much as three or four months) since I last outfitted my car with new “shoes”, so it isn’t an expense I wasn’t expecting. But I spent $600 on tires in my Jeep. For 30″ off-road tires. I’m not spending $800 for 14″. I already stopped by the Padonia Road Goodyear and they’re going to call me when the non-name-brand stuff gets in.

*Rhetorical question, I’m a huge rube, but I’m still not spending eight-hundred bucks on tiny ass tires.

Two hundred and twenty-six and a half pounds, a total loss of three and a half pounds over the last two weeks and a total loss of twenty-one and a half pounds since beginning the diet.

It blows my mind how much weight I’ve lost or how easy its been. I’ve totally neglected most of my excercise goals — remember when I was talking about doing fifty jumping jacks a day? I’m lucky to do fifty a week. I’m not even all that good about sticking to my point-per-day-goals.

I’m going to make a real effort this next week — not to exceed my point rations, and to do fifty jumping jacks a day. I’d really like to be down to two-twenty by March 7th. I think it might even be doable, if I make a serious, concerted effort like I did the first week I dieted.

By the time you read this, one of two things has happened.

1. I have just arrived at the service department of the local Toyota dealership, hoping they can correctly diagnose and fix my emission-related errors which, if not corrected in the next three weeks, will result in my car’s registration being suspended.

2. I am peacefully asleep, having failed to either heed my alarm, and possibly having failed to set it.

I hope the dealership has a courtesy shuttle. Maybe I can be back in bed by eight.

Assuming I wake up on time.