January 28, 2000

This morning was shaping up to be a pretty good one. Keith knew that he had to put in a long day today at work, so he figured it was better to put in the extra time at the end of the day, and get a little extra sleep. So, he slept in, meaning I slept in also (I tend to get up when he does, either to drive him to the bus stop, or to get a ride to work), and we both woke up feeling great.

I was in a good mood, he was in a good mood, the lunches were made, the showers were taken, and we were on our way to my work. It was a beautiful day in Seattle. The sun was shining and I could see the Cascades off in the distance.

Then the battery light came on in the car.

We just had the alternator belt fixed about two weeks ago. If the alternator belt was broken again, we were not going to be happy. So, Keith pulled in to the parking lot here, we shut the car off, and he checked under the hood. The alternator belt did not appear to be broken.

He turned the car back on, and the battery light was still on. Great. Fantastic.

See, I was already at work so it didn't really affect my day any. My time with the car for the day was over. I was already planning to take the bus home. But Keith was going to drive to work because he wanted to get there fairly early so that he could work on this one project that they're really behind on. And, he knew he was going to be staying really late, so it would be convenient to be able to drive home and not take the bus clear through downtown.

Did I mention that God laughs at the hubristic among us?

Now, instead of driving the car to work, he has to drive the car to Steve's Toyota Repair and ask them what the hell is wrong with the battery, and then he has to take the bus to work, which will make him really late, which will mean he has to stay even later, which means God only knows when he'll be home tonight.

Keith is not having a good day.

My day is going OK so far, although I feel vaguely guilty at having a good day when my sweetie is having a horrible day involving the bus and Steve's Toyota. I can't help but be in a good mood when the weather is like this, though. For the last two weeks or so we've had a run of really beautiful sunny days, which is a really welcome change from the nasty gray crap we'd had for the previous two months. Whenever I can see the Cascades from the city, it means it's a beautiful day. And I am not letting this beautiful day be ruined by a stupid car problem. Of course, if I were the one who had to take the bus to work because of the car problem, I might feel differently.

State of the... snooze. Did anyone watch all of the State of the Union address last night? I watched about twenty minutes of it while I was on the exercise bike at the gym. I have a hard time getting motivated to watch speeches like that. You know it's just going to be full of rhetoric and grand platitudes that mean nothing, and lots of applause for everything. So, I might as well just wait until the next day and read the transcript. It will take me about twenty minutes to read the transcript, whereas it would have taken me three hours or so to watch the actual speech. The cost/benefit ratio of my time here is obvious.

Anyway, during the part I watched, Clinton was talking about education, mostly. How we need to make sure that teachers are qualified to teach their subjects, and how we have to make sure that students are learning the material they need to learn, and how we need to make sure schools have the equipment necessary for kids to learn. And that's all cool to hear, but see, that's what pisses me off about these speeches. How the hell does he expect to accomplish this? I want details, please. Are we going to have a national teaching certification exam? Are we going to allocate a certain amount of money to schools for equipment? If so, where will that money come from?

The things he said all sounded nice (while I was watching, anyway), but I have no idea how he plans to accomplish any of it, and really, isn't that the important part?

I'll read the transcript later today. Maybe he mentioned all that stuff later on. I'm not optimistic, though.

In age-related news. I've been thinking that it would be really cool if I could manage to live until the year 2100. This is improbable, since I was born in 1977, but still, wouldn't it be awesome to have lived in three centuries? Besides, with the way medical science is advancing, maybe by the year 2100 they'll be able to replace my body, or at least the parts of it that are failing. I think that would be great. And anyway, it's not impossible for someone to live to be 123, it's just improbable. I feel strongly that I will be able to beat the odds on this one.

I'm so popular. I am so popular that many major search engines have started to include my page in their searches. This is nice, but also leads to some really bizarre-ass page hits. For example, I'm pretty sure that the guy who came to my page looking for "rubber pants" didn't find what he came for. So to speak. Ditto for the guy who searched for "adults wearing rubber pants", although I do have to give him credit for being specific.

I'm also fairly certain that whoever came to my page looking for "Jan Vermeer's most popular work of art" left unsatisfied. I feel really bad for the dozens of people who visited me searching for "wild people," because frankly my social life just hasn't been that interesting lately.

Somebody found me by searching for "Roger Ebert cried". I have no idea what they were looking for, but I hope they didn't find it. I've had a few hits lately searching for "Priceline sucks." I agree with them! But that's not what my page is about. It's not about "Magic the Gathering" either, although somebody hit my page searching for THAT, too.

I guess it's better than "rubber pants." I should count my blessings.

THE FORUM: So, how's the weather?

MORE FORUM: So far everybody agrees with me about that Cuban kid.

EVEN MORE FORUM: People are still talking about what pisses them off.

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