2004.07.01
Something is happening. It's funny. It's a little strange. Personally, I don't think it's disturbingly prurient so much as endearingly pathetic, an absurd side effect of these superfast times where everyone over 20 feels over the hill. Our collective nostalgia has run amok. We're all a bit hung up on high school, pining for our own rosy recollections of our own youth, and, in doing so, we've inadvertently become soft-core fetishists.He's talking about our nation's obsession with the Olsen Twins and other underage pretty people. Come to think of it, it's kind of similar to Humbert Humberts' (the narrator of "Lolita") explanation of his obsession. And it's similar to the reason why I'm into cars that look like minivans, which is what I borrowed to drive back in the day...
Purge of the Moment
I am thinking about launching a significant decluttering program. I'm even considering yet another book purge...I keep thinking about what the standard for what stays and what goes should be. My latest thought is to move away from the "enjoyed it in the past or have reasonable expectations of enjoying it in the future" standard to a harsher "would expect to say 'hey, this is cool, look at this!'" to someone else or even my future self.
Eh, maybe this book move is misguided, just an easy target relative to the more heterogenous junk that's really bugging me. I don't know if I have an "impressive" amount of books or not, but they sure are heavy...
Event of the Moment
I got a new car! That Scion xA, called "Dogma" or sometimes "the Dogmatic". (See, it's a Scion, and the only time I remember that phrase (meaning like "descendent") being used is the Kevin Smith movie Dogma.) If I didn't think of my self as a sort-of photobloggy person (I do have a camera at all times, for the most part) I'd think it was even geekier than it I do now to post "hey, it's pix of me and my new car!" but hey.
It's actually a lot more spacious feeling that this picture would imply. Also, it rides a bit higher than a typical low-slung car. So far, my only beef with it is that with the back headrests up, backwards visibility is kinda poor. Oh, and I am getting hubcaps, they were out of the type I wanted.
This is my usual driving technique, taught to me by my dad.
At 2:13 today, my car had 8 miles on it. Weird!
Right now these cars are pretty amazing bargains, all the Toyota goodness, a fair chunk of extras (A/C, power-everything standard, good CD/MP3 system) for $15K or so including taxes and fees and what not. Many thanks to Sawers and Cordelia who got me there and hung around a bit...