CafeChatNoir

Cause I’m not feeling it just yet. Could just be the sucky weather reports for the next couple days, but it’s just not been a whole lot better than 2009.

The back window in my car has decided that it doesn’t want to work anymore, which would normally be something that I’d simply leave alone for another time, but unfortunately, the window is open about an inch and a half, and as such, actually needs to be tended to. So, I’m looking at being carless for a couple days and that annoys me, too.

There was a 6.1 magnitude aftershock in Haiti today. WTF, Mother Nature, didn’t have enough fun with the first one?

It’s sounding more and more like the health care legislation may be dead, so yay, I can look forward to my premiums continuing to rise unabated, despite my decent health and fabulous looks, and then being cancelled if I ever have to actually use it.

I have taken to turning off the ringer on the phone in my bedroom and leaving my cell phone downstairs at night because I’m done with answering tax question calls from my grandmother at 3AM. (She has a little problem with boundaries and bothering to look at clocks.) I’m pretty sure this makes me a bad person, but I need sleep to effectively be the CEO of “Keep Grandma out of a Nursing Home, Inc.” and she certainly has no problems picking up the phone during the day.

On the upside, the animals are all quite well. Carmen decided to have herself a good old fashioned feline crazy this morning and was chasing me, the dog, invisible bugs, and anything else that caught her eye. However, the Christmas tree is a little worse for the wear for her fun this morning. She is happily sleeping on my lap as I type this, which thrills Moxley to no end, because it means she is not in his crate. He was not having a super awesome time this afternoon as he couldn’t sleep in his crate because Carmen was in it (why he won’t just walk in and sit on her is beyond me) and Lily kept trying to sleep on his tail and feet. (She LOVES him and is also just a little obsessed with his feet.)

So yeah 2010 – I’m just not impressed so far. We’re stuck with each other for 11+ more months, so let’s get it together, shall we?

And it’s about damn time…  The awesome folks at Burke Automotive were able to take care of things right away and in the time it took me to walk over to the shopping center, grab some lunch and walk back, I had a repaired tire.  $35.  Nice.

Had to pop over to the vet and pick up flea & tick stuff, and met the newest member of Dr. Alt’s family – an adorable beagle/basset/cocker mix puppy named “Jill”- she had been hit by a car and her leg was broken, someone brought her in and no owners could be located.  (How you could not miss this darling pup is beyond me.)  So, she now belongs to him.  Well, the little one couldn’t have landed in better hands for a forever home.  Her leg seems to have healed up quite well and she LOVES to make new friends.  (Much to Moxley’s dismay when I returned home and smelled like another dog.)

But I swear the tires are magnets for sharp objects. Little bro pointed out yesterday that my back right tire was low – took a look this morning, and I managed to pick up a screw in it. Last time it was a huge BOLT I managed to get in the tire. This seems to happen about every 6 months, I swear.

So, time to get enough air in the tire to get over to the mechanic and get it swapped out with the spare* and find out if the tire can be plugged or if I’ll need to order a new one.

*Yeah, I can do that myself, but it’s a PITA and I’ve no problems with letting someone else handle it.

The CD burner finally decided to work and the cable came back on.  Then I got a call from the shop that my car failed it’s inspection.  Something about brakes… Yeah, I guess that is kind of important.

They *might* be able to get it done by COB tonight, but if nothing else, it will be good to go tomorrow.

I absolutely loathe not having a car available.  I can always borrow my brother’s car, but it’s still incredibly annoying.

Still very annoyed about the car, to the point where I’ve been on USAA.com this morning playing with the ‘build your car’ feature, and thinking at some point I need to go really look closely at the GC Laredos & Limiteds to get a better idea of how they’re “different” other than the V6 vs V8 engines. As much as I’d love one, it’s very unlikely that I’ll have a new car by the end of the week, but I just have so little tolerance for broken cars, and at least pricing out new ones makes me feel a little better for whatever strange reason.

What I do like about USAA is that they’ll save the buildup for 90 days and then if you decide you want what you’ve built, just click a button and they’ll go find it and do all the negotiations for you. That is the part of buying a car I totally despise – just tell me when I can pickup the car and I’ll bring you a check. But for the moment, that button remains unclicked.

Apparently the Verizon Center is falling apart, as they’ve gone through 4 glass repairs in todays Caps game. It’s 1-1 at the beginning of the 3rd period, and I’m really hoping they can pull out a win today – they’ve just come off a horrid road trip and could really use a good day.

ETA: And they win it in the shootout!!!!

Apparently I have the death touch for all things mechanical lately.

Tonight I discovered that the window would no longer function on the drivers side of my vehicle. This after dealing with the ignition cylinder falling apart, and then it deciding not to stay running while in idle.

And people wonder why I am suddenly considering trading my current vehicle in for either of the vehicles pictured below.

The thing is, I have a few OCD tendencies, but I can also deal with a lot of less-than-perfect things in my life, especially when it comes to less than perfect automobiles. One of those things has been the craptastic interface between my car stereo and my iPod. I have a “generic” iTrip, and frankly, it’s sub-standard in my eyes. I was actually ready to go out this weekend and replace the stock radio with something that either had a) a cassette on it that I could easily plug a converter into with no worries of radio frequency, or better yet, b) something I could just plug the iPod right into… This may not be an issue anymore, as to the best of my knowledge, both of these vehicles are iPod ready or can be with a few swap-outs of equipment at the point of purchase.

or

So, the REAL question remains…which would I look hotter with, driving down Beach Road with a kayak strapped on top of the vehicle and me driving with with a bikini top…

Regardless, there is a good chance I’ll be at the dealership in the next 7 days discussing my options with them.

Not so thrilled that I get to use it.

Went out, ran some errands, and as I am pulling into the driveway at home, the car stalls. That isn’t really a big deal, cars stall sometimes. Restart, put it in gear, get about a foot, it stalls again. Put it back in park, restart and it turns over and then stalls out again almost immediately. Repeat a couple more times for good measure, same results.

I’d say something is definitely broken. But at least it’s broken in my driveway and not on the side of the road somewhere. But damn, this is annoying.

Really, I’m quite ready for the rollercoaster to stop now, thanks.

Several hours and a couple hundred bucks later, I have a new ignition cylinder. Not surprised given that the cylinder wasn’t even engaging at the lock point. I was in such a daze when I left the house this morning that I didn’t even remember to bring a book with me. I do not do well when bored, and frankly, there aren’t a lot of places that are as boring as a car dealership.

I know it’s quite calculated on their part to make you wait while bored to tears. You’ll start thinking things like, “Maybe it would be faster if I just bought a new car at this point…” Which I did think, but only after things like, “What can I set on fire for entertainment purposes?”

I’ve been mad at Jeep ever since they discontinued the Cherokee, but this new trim line for the Commander did redeem them a tiny bit in my eyes: ( is cringing at this, but I loved the old Wagoneers.)

Unfortunately, that particular model was listed for 42K, which is a touch out of my price range.

No matter, I’m still in love with the new Wranglers. Dirty sex on wheels.

I can’t remove the key from the ignition of my car… It will go into the various modes of off, start, accessory only, but the ‘lock’ position where you can actually remove the key, seems to be gone…

I’m thinking this is something best left to the dealership rather than calling a locksmith. Of course, service at the dealer is closed until Monday.

I love my Jeep. The tires however, are an excellent example of a bad decision in the design process. They take a P215 75/16 size tire. This tire is only made by Goodyear and apparently also isn’t terribly popular.

A little over 2 months ago I took the spare to Merchant’s tire to be replaced. It took two months to get it. (No charge in the end for the stupid nightmare trying to get it. Yes, I could have gone elsewhere but I basically wanted to torture them and MAKE them get it for me since they said they would.) Part of the problem was that this is not a terribly common tire size so they didn’t have it in stock. The second problem was that their inventory system has gotten so completely and utterly screwed up since they merged with NTB & King Tire that it’s totally unreliable – at one point the inventory system said they had 3 in stock in the shop when they had none. They would try to get it from another shop, and it would get sold out from under them.

So, I finally got the spare. Then went to get my car inspected. Guess what it failed on? Tires, cause the alignment got out of whack and caused some very funky wear on one side… Of course. Tires. This would be the same day I’d finally gotten the spare. I talked w/Merchant’s on the snowball’s chance in hell that they might have a couple more of these in stock when they got mine, and no surprise, they didn’t. However, they referred me to the Goodyear retailer over in Burke, so I headed over there. They don’t have them in stock either and apparently have never had them in stock in that particular shop for any reason. They had to order them as well, but their inventory and transfer system actually WORKS and I had them today after ordering on Friday.

The gal at the desk asked if I needed them w/black or white lettering… At this point, the lettering on the tires could be neon green and in Japanese and I wouldn’t have cared.

But, I have a car with a valid inspection sticker, two new tires and nicely aligned.