Don't try this at home
Dec. 28th, 2009 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephbgSpent much of today unconscious so didn't achieve a great deal, but this evening I managed to do not one but two really stupid things.
Stupid Thing #1
Watched my old standup video, which is lurking on our DVD hard disk ready to dub. AFAIK it's the only video evidence of my standup career, taken in 1991 at The Blue Room, on a night I wasn't even scheduled to be on. David Lennie (The Red Dot Guy) was MC. We've been watching old Saturday Night Live shows, and a lot of them are pretty bad, so that always encourages me to look at the old stuff. Selectively. In rose-coloured glasses. With lawyers at 50 paces.
Wow, 10 minutes is a looooooong time. I talked so fast it's a wonder anyone ever understood a word, so thank god for nervous laughter. There are a few more audio recordings of gigs I at least knew I was going to do, but they're still on audio tape.
I think I'll stick to blogging and the odd computer science forum. Just because I'm turning 40 next year doesn't mean I have to do something Truly Awesomely Stupid like performance art.
Stupid Thing #2
Looked up the alleged market value of my car. The actual market value of my car is what someone will pay for it. There are a few on the dealers market with a lot more kms going for $8000. However, the red book value for the Catmobile as a dealer trade-in goes as low as $1000. Well, she is 14, but ouch. I'd probably get a bit more because she has done less than the low end of the average scale, but ouch.
Ouch.
On the bright side, I don't have to think of her as a cash asset any more, so as long as nothing catmobilistrophic happens in the foreseeable future I can take my time window shopping and not depend on any particular trade-in value. As long as there are students in the world I'll be able to sell her.
On the dark side, I have to think very seriously about what's sensible to repair. A respray to just make her look pretty is probably not a sensible thing to spend money on. I've gone almost a year since replacement shocks were suggested, at $1200 plus inflation. That was based on the kms rather than their performance, but still. The gear box might only need a tweak, or it might want more out of the relationship. The clutch can't last forever, and it's original. The plastic interior is literally falling to sun-baked pieces, and if enough of the wrong bits crack and fall out--and gaffer isn't up to the job of repair--then there's not much you can do.
That was how it went with my first car, the 1980 Datsun Sunny called Damien. At the ripe old age of 18 (him, not me) and after I'd had him for 10 loyal years of service, I had to make the call that in the foreseeable future he was going to cost more to repair than he was worth. He had the added bonus of rust, some of which I'd patched with bog, fibreglass, cardboard, gaffer, and probably blutac.
I wonder if there's some subliminal pressure at work here. Is 10 years of ownership an intuitive point at which to say goodbye? Or maybe I'm responding to the fact that driving frequently causes me pain and Things Could Be Better.
BTW I have to blame BIL(M) for these disloyal thoughts. In conversation I said that I'd been looking at the newer model, but it was a six cylinder and that would be generally ecologically unsound so I'd never consider it seriously. And then he says that its new fuel management systems probably make it more efficient than my 14-year-old 4 cylinder. I was kind of counting on the insurmountability of that barrier to keep me from considering the idea, but now it's got that whiff of possibility about it.
And the money? Straight out of house equity; I could probably write a cheque tomorrow. Whether I should is another matter altogether. I don't think I should, but I'd love to go for a test drive... If I giggle it's all over, and I bet the dealers know that. I must study the specs and lingo before I go shopping, then channel Jeremy Clarkson during negotiations. Teehee. When the time comes I want to have fun. And airbags.
Stupid Thing #1
Watched my old standup video, which is lurking on our DVD hard disk ready to dub. AFAIK it's the only video evidence of my standup career, taken in 1991 at The Blue Room, on a night I wasn't even scheduled to be on. David Lennie (The Red Dot Guy) was MC. We've been watching old Saturday Night Live shows, and a lot of them are pretty bad, so that always encourages me to look at the old stuff. Selectively. In rose-coloured glasses. With lawyers at 50 paces.
Wow, 10 minutes is a looooooong time. I talked so fast it's a wonder anyone ever understood a word, so thank god for nervous laughter. There are a few more audio recordings of gigs I at least knew I was going to do, but they're still on audio tape.
I think I'll stick to blogging and the odd computer science forum. Just because I'm turning 40 next year doesn't mean I have to do something Truly Awesomely Stupid like performance art.
Stupid Thing #2
Looked up the alleged market value of my car. The actual market value of my car is what someone will pay for it. There are a few on the dealers market with a lot more kms going for $8000. However, the red book value for the Catmobile as a dealer trade-in goes as low as $1000. Well, she is 14, but ouch. I'd probably get a bit more because she has done less than the low end of the average scale, but ouch.
Ouch.
On the bright side, I don't have to think of her as a cash asset any more, so as long as nothing catmobilistrophic happens in the foreseeable future I can take my time window shopping and not depend on any particular trade-in value. As long as there are students in the world I'll be able to sell her.
On the dark side, I have to think very seriously about what's sensible to repair. A respray to just make her look pretty is probably not a sensible thing to spend money on. I've gone almost a year since replacement shocks were suggested, at $1200 plus inflation. That was based on the kms rather than their performance, but still. The gear box might only need a tweak, or it might want more out of the relationship. The clutch can't last forever, and it's original. The plastic interior is literally falling to sun-baked pieces, and if enough of the wrong bits crack and fall out--and gaffer isn't up to the job of repair--then there's not much you can do.
That was how it went with my first car, the 1980 Datsun Sunny called Damien. At the ripe old age of 18 (him, not me) and after I'd had him for 10 loyal years of service, I had to make the call that in the foreseeable future he was going to cost more to repair than he was worth. He had the added bonus of rust, some of which I'd patched with bog, fibreglass, cardboard, gaffer, and probably blutac.
I wonder if there's some subliminal pressure at work here. Is 10 years of ownership an intuitive point at which to say goodbye? Or maybe I'm responding to the fact that driving frequently causes me pain and Things Could Be Better.
BTW I have to blame BIL(M) for these disloyal thoughts. In conversation I said that I'd been looking at the newer model, but it was a six cylinder and that would be generally ecologically unsound so I'd never consider it seriously. And then he says that its new fuel management systems probably make it more efficient than my 14-year-old 4 cylinder. I was kind of counting on the insurmountability of that barrier to keep me from considering the idea, but now it's got that whiff of possibility about it.
And the money? Straight out of house equity; I could probably write a cheque tomorrow. Whether I should is another matter altogether. I don't think I should, but I'd love to go for a test drive... If I giggle it's all over, and I bet the dealers know that. I must study the specs and lingo before I go shopping, then channel Jeremy Clarkson during negotiations. Teehee. When the time comes I want to have fun. And airbags.
