Current mood:	calm
Current music:	'denial twist' -- the white stripes

cars & games
+I'm experiencing a love/hate relationship with my car. I do love it; it gets great mileage, steers wonderfully, is loaded with a sport package, and is pretty comfy for a small sedan. And yet if my car were human, I'd be tempted to choke the last living breath out of it right now. After paying to get it fixed from the wayward deer incident (which was luckily just the $250 deductible), I realized that it needed to be taken in for its 55,000 mile inspection at the dealership -- which, according to the lady I spoke to on the phone, costs $366 straight off the bat (without taking into account anything they find that would have to be physically replaced). And, of course, I also discovered today that I've been cruising on four worn, shitty tires, two of them completely bald. So I'll have to get a full set to replace those, too, which is estimated to be about $500. JESUS CHRIST. I know it's typical maintenance, but it sucks that everything is landing all at once. I'll have dropped more than a grand on my Mazda3 this month alone by the time it's over.



+I pulled my dusty old Nintendo out of storage last month when I was home. The NES looks like such a dinosaur compared to newer gaming consoles. And, of course, getting the games to play is as difficult as ever. You know how the red light blinks when it's not reading the games, so you do the whole 'blowing into the cartridge' or tapping on the console to get it to work? I don't know what any of that actually does, but it still seems to work as it always did. In a burst of annoyance the other night, I actually grabbed my console and shook it violently, banging it against my TV stand... then the red light immediately went solid and the game came on. Wow. These machines are tough as hell. Try doing that to a Playstation.

Anyway, since getting back to Lexington and hooking it up, I've cultivated a renewed passion for Super Mario Bros. 3. How old is this game? Twenty years, give or take? And it's still the shit. Playing it now is a little easier than when I was ten (thank you, improved motor skills), but it's still difficult enough to be fun. I'm one of those old-fashioned people who like to methodically beat every aspect of the game before moving forward (I have all the whistles but haven't used them -- I don't like to), so it takes awhile to get through the levels. Luckily, the rotten wasteland of summer television is upon us, so I've taken some of what was previously my TV time and dedicated it to kicking turtles, stomping on lizards, throwing spitballs, and flying through the air with raccoon tails. I'm currently at the end of level 7, and I hope the console doesn't overheat again (because you can't save anything, I just leave it on all the time and come back to it when I can), because I might just have a conniption fit. I didn't collect 50 extra lives and four dozen mushroom, fireplant, and leaf upgrades for nothing.


+LOST two-hour season finale tomorrow! This show is slowly but surely killing me.