miscellany

[kate_nepveu]

• I have a Starveling Cat in Echo Bazaar now! Thank you again, yhlee. I can't express how much this amuses me. Anyone who's playing that I don't already know, leave your username in comments and I'll follow you under my game account.
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (recorded off cable, half-watched while stitching) is not a very good movie. Granted, it wasn't a very good book. But I wouldn't have thought it possible to make the action sequences of the ending so boring on-screen.
• Reinventing the stitching wheel, part 25 in a series: linen turns out to not be a good fabric for blackwork.
• My car needs major repairs for the second time this year. I will not have put enough money into it to equal the payments I would have made on a new car this year, but I'm worried that I'm on the downward slide (it's a 2003 Prius with almost 94K miles). And I'm sad that I no longer love it. Any suggestions for feeling happy with one's older car again?
• The problem with Horton Hatches the Egg is that Horton is a Mary Sue, specifically the kind where the virtue of the protagonist is demonstrated by piling absurd pain and indignity on top of absurd pain and indignity. (Like an early Mercedes Lackey novel, or an SGA post-"Trinity" fic, except that Horton hasn't blown up a solar system.)
• I haven't done a SteelyKid post in ages, so those of you who don't follow Chad's blog won't have seen this recent picture. I have to point it out because it is so characteristic: open book, bare feet (she will not wear socks if she has a choice about it), random item of clothing she saw and insisted on wearing, stuffed animals, and big grin. That's our toddler.

Comments

[scifantasy]

Horton Makes a Boom?

[kate_nepveu]

Horton is too _nice_.

[mkozlows]

I only know of one way to feel good about an older car, and that is to no longer own it, so I think my advice is not helpful. (I also am PATHOLOGICALLY TERRIFIED of out-of-warranty maintenance to a point that is mathematically provably irrational, but hey.)

[kate_nepveu]

Yeah, not so much. But thanks.

[kiya]

My Echo Bazaar twitter account is mahoganynickel. :)

[kate_nepveu]

Followed!

[malkingrey]

I'm malkingrey on Echo Bazaar, as I am most places.

[kate_nepveu]

Followed!

[veejane]

I am happy that my 17 y.o. car started this evening in the 18 F weather! Because being stranded, even just long enough for AAA, would have sucked a lot.

[kate_nepveu]

That is happy-making!

This morning I was happy that my car is so well-suited to my size, because I also found myself scraping the frost off Chad's, which is a lot wider and so more difficult for me to get at the middle of the front windshield. (Longer-handled ice scrapers just don't work as well for me; not enough leverage.)

[yhlee]

I've never done blackwork, so I wouldn't know what fabrics to pick; what's a good one to start with?

[kate_nepveu]

I'd been using this cotton evenweave that I bought at Michael's, but then they stopped carrying it in a useful color, so I grabbed some linen. At least the kind I got is very much not _even_weave; there are some randomly much-thicker threads in it, and so what's supposed to be a square is instead all squashed, etc. I'll finish the bookmark because this is a really fast pattern and maybe it won't look as bad all of a piece, but it may be ungiftable. Grump.

(Hmm. The Internet tells me it was traditionally done on linen, actually, but I suspect that was of finer/higher quality than what I found. Regardless, I've just ordered some of that cotton cheaper off Amazon, so I'm all set for a while.)

[yhlee]

Thanks! Sorry to hear about the unevenweave experience.

(I need to concoct a cross stitch icon at some point!)

[kate_nepveu]

I put together the pieces between that & FB. =>

[thistleingrey]

Excellent. And now I am removing the hint-comment. :)

[sraun]

See if you can find a copy of the first Car Talk, by Click & Clack, the Tappett Brothers (actually Tom & Ray Magliozzi). It should have been first published in the late 80's or early 90's. I owned a copy before I bought my house - I may still, but haven't the faintest idea where it is.

High points I remember:

First - average annual maintenance levels out. Sounds like you're at about the point where they'd expect that. At the time, original warranties were two years / 20,000 miles, and they said any modern car from a first-world country was good for 100,000 miles easy, usually 150,000 and frequently 200,000. I'd assume those numbers have only gone up in the past 20 years, since you can now commonly get 5 year / 50,000 mile original warranties.

Second - whenever anything breaks, fix it right away, no matter how trivial. It's the trivial broken things that don't get fixed that drive us to buy new cars.

Third - fool yourself. When you're going "I really want a new car" - take it to your mechanic and have him fix everything. Then take it to a paint shop, and have them give it a full paint job in a different color, and clean the insides, refurbish everything. They may even have something that will give it the new car smell for a while.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm, that's interesting. With my last couple of cars, it seemed as if the maintenance costs were starting to spike somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 miles. But maybe that was a cognitive illusion.

Part of it was probably that (a) I hadn't taken care of them as well as I might have (which is the second point, I guess), and (b) Boston-area weather really pounds the hell out of cars--but, then, the Magliozzis have to deal with that too!

Matt McIrvin

[(Anonymous)]

Also, OMG there are old beater Priuses now. Time flies, doesn't it?

[kate_nepveu]

It is not a beater! Nothing with less than 100K miles and no parts hanging off is a beater, darn it.

[sraun]

I'll agree cognitive illusion - there was a bit of legerdemain in the claim, but I think they admitted it up front. It's averaged - you'll have years where you shell out $8000, and years where you shell out $500. What happens for most people is that they see the peak you mentioned, and assume it's going to keep going at the level or higher, and it doesn't.

Oh, yeah - another one of their points was 'always do the scheduled maintenance on time!'

[veejane]

Yeah, the trouble with my car isn't the miles, it's the rust. The undercarriage is rusting right out, because you just can't drive around on that much salt without taking some damage. Even though the engine is still in pretty good shape (just hitting 100K miles), the coolant lines are on their last legs.

[(Anonymous)]

You could stave it off for a while by washing your car religiously. That was where I generally fell down.

[kate_nepveu]

I've got to start doing that--it always seems back-of-my-mind silly to wash the thing in winter, but I know I really should. I should start trying to make a habit of it, every other Friday morning or something.

[veejane]

(I never wash my car. It rains! Why would one need anything else!)

Well, I mean, it's also 17 years old. In general, I feel that such a timespan involves some inevitable wear. The body above the wheels is in pretty good shape; it's really the undercarriage and wheel wells that are orange. And I'm pretty sure I'd need daily carwashes to take care of that.

[kate_nepveu]

I love Car Talk and listen to it regularly. Indeed, I was muttering to myself their mantra about how it's always cheaper to fix an old car all day yesterday.

I always fix everything, and while a paint job is out--I'm dropping two grand next week on the catalytic converter and front brakes!--detailing might be good. Also I had an idea for an accessory that would make me happy for a bit, though I'm going to wait and see if it turns up as a Christmas gift first.

(It sounds so shallow, but the thing that would make me happiest is completely impossible. There is literally no good way to get sound from my iPod into the car--yes, really--and every weekday I spent at least an hour listening to distortions and hisses and cracks, and it is surprisingly unhappy-making.)

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Probably a stupid question, but something like this (http://www.coastaletech.com/radio.htm) wouldn't work for the iPod? Or is that what you're already using?

I don't know what the Prius' maintenance record is like, but in general Toyotas will last a good long time if you keep up with repairs. My parents have owned several Camrys which they have driven into the ground.

[kate_nepveu]

. . . huh.

I have an installed FM modulator, which is even worse sound quality than I'd feared. It doesn't seem to be any improvement over an FM transmitter plugged into the 12-volt outlet, I mean.

I'm going to have to send them e-mail; it is completely not clear to me whether this is meant for the 2003 Prius or if it's still available. it doesn't show up on their page for the 2000-2003 Prius, which also says they aren't making products for those years any more (and though it has an add-to-cart button, so do the things listed on the 2000-2003 page).

Update: out of stock with no stocking date.

Thanks, regardless.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Oh, well. Sorry for giving you false hope.

[kate_nepveu]

But at least now I'm super-extra-certain, so it was useful.

[benbenberi]

You should be able to go to someplace like Best Buy and get a decent after-market radio/audio module for under $100 that can replace the original one and play the iPod through its dashboard controls. I got one, a Sony, for my 2002 Mazda a few years ago, and it took them about 20 min. to install it. (They snake an iPod cable from the module into the glove box, so it's easy to connect/disconnect, and doesn't sit out in plain view if you leave it in when you park.)

[kate_nepveu]

Allow me to quote myself:

yes, really

(With the potential caveat of tool-of-satan's find.)

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I've heard that about Priuses, that you really, really cannot put in an aftermarket stereo without asking for trouble. With certain cars it's a big problem.

My new Honda has both an aux input on the front panel, and a USB iPod connector in the glove compartment. My iPod is actually too old to use the latter, but Sam's is fine with it, and she borrows the car all the time for that reason.

Matt McIrvin

[kate_nepveu]

The 2003 has a very peculiar console/dashboard layout, and so a few years ago there was only one aftermarket stereo that purported to fit, and it was an absurd amount of money (I want to say $600). I checked major online car audio retailers just recently and there wasn't any.

The new ones apparently come with, at least, an aux input, which would probably be not only sufficient but preferable for my use. But not for a few years, barring disaster.

[kass]

SteelyKid is so cute, omg! I flail.

[kate_nepveu]

I know, I do too!

[annew]

I second the 'get the inside detailed' suggestion. I always felt better about my old car whenever I cleaned the inside of it myself, and a professional cleaning probably would have been even better.

[kate_nepveu]

Yeah, I do like this idea. Though now that I think about it, if it ends up with stinking cleaning products--well, I suppose I could just ask them to vacuum it. Anyway. Thanks.

LBMango

[(Anonymous)]

I actually have two, it started out accidentally, and I just kept using them both... the more active one is lbmangolondon my lbmango twitter account also has one...

Re: LBMango

[kate_nepveu]

lbmangolondon doesn't exist, try again?

[cofax7]

Steelykid is adorable!

(Although I admit I'm distracted by the Stuffed Appa! Where did you find it?)

[kate_nepveu]

We bought it direct from Nickelodeon just before she was born; they stopped selling it for a while but it's back now, which is great because it had been very expensive: http://www.shopnicku.com/product_p/7342761.htm

(This doesn't look exactly the same as ours, but I think it's close.)

[genarti]

That picture is adorable! I love it.

But I must say that on the first read, I misread "big grin" as "big gun," which created a slightly different mental image...

[kate_nepveu]

I thought I had a picture of her with a Nerf air gun (broken), but apparently not!

[genarti]

Alas! But I have great faith that she wielded it fiercely.

By "fiercely," of course, I mean "adorably."

[tessercat]

My EchoBazaar twitter is also, shockingly, tessercat. :)

I am intrigued by the knowledge that there are starveling cats to be had! I did not know!

Your child is ridiculously adorable.

[kate_nepveu]

I know! They are a rare success from opening a Boxed Cat, and once you have one you can send it along.

Followed!