Jawa on the Move January 26, 2006
Posted by Aaron in : News , 3comments
Jawa’s Last Ride in the Fish Tank
Jawa’s First Ride in the new car
Replacing the Fish tank January 19, 2006
Posted by Aaron in : Life , 1 comment so farSo as a few of you know, I’ve been giving some thought to replacing my car since before Christmas. Saturday I really started doing some work and tonight I think I know who will win the bidding war I hope to spark tomorrow. I’ve been looking for a Honda Certified Civic LX or EX that is no more than 3 or 4 years old with reasonable mileage given its age. Right now I’ve got two dealers with nearly identical cars mileage and age wise, but are $1k apart in price. Unfortunatly right now the salesman I’d really like to buy from is not on the winning side, but as I said, I am hoping for a bidding war.
Incidentally, let me relay a cautionary tail about one of the honda dealers in the st louis area. Saturday I hit two dealerships, Hueys Honda then Dave Mungenast Honda. In general I didn’t particularly have a great experience with the salesman at Hueys but it wasn’t until the end that I really became skeptical. After I’d gone on a test drive and said I was interested but not at the listed price he told me that it was Honda policy to not allow negotiating price on a Certified used car for the first two months it was on the lot. Now I have to admit even that statement by itself caused my BS meter to twitch, but I didn’t say anything. Rather I expressed some vague, “well thats too bad” and started making my way to the door. He stopped me and asked if I’d consider it if he could knock $700 off. I blinked and thought “but you can’t negotiate” but only nodded yes. He continued his sentance, asking if that knocking that much off would convince me to sign right then and there. I blinked again and said “ah no, I’ve got several other dealerships to hit today, I’m only exploring options” and didn’t say “and you don’t even have the respect to even try to come up with a convincing lie anyway”. So I went to the next dealership and talked to Rick, the salesman I’d talked to on the phone (great guy by the way, I’m rather hoping he can come close enough to the other dealerships offer that I can justify taking it). Nearly the first question out of my mouth was “So I hear with certified cars, honda won’t let you negotiate a price for the first two months on the lot.” He confirmed my suspicions that it was totally not true, then much to my amazement, guessed which dealership I’d just come from. Thats right, there are 7 or 8 honda dealerships in the St Louis area, but he had run into enough misinformed or burned people that he’d apparently noticed a trend. So my cautionary tail is this, if you are looking for a Honda dealership in St Louis, avoid Hueys Honda.
Update
Well it looks like we’ve got a winner, but unfortunatly I will need a cosigner on the loan as student loan debt is considered “low end” credit and is basicly ignored. I really don’t want to ask anyone outside my immediate family to cosign, but unless they have a fax form my parents can fill out it may come down to that as I can’t very well ask them to drive the 7 hours to do it. The depressing thing is that unless my job situation drasticly changes, I’ve figured in a pretty safe margin for making these loan payments.
Sam I Am January 18, 2006
Posted by Aaron in : Life , add a commentAmusing cartoon in reaction to the fluorescent pigs in Taiwan
Don’t listen to Pat Robertson January 13, 2006
Posted by Aaron in : This should not be happening, World News , add a commentUnlike what most of the world may think from watching Pat Robertson “represent” Christianity, Christians are for the most part not crazy. Not that some are not (Pat being a excellent example of the crazy demographic), but really its not fair to assume that all are.
So for those who haven’t really been paying attention to the news (I know you haven’t been, I certainly don’t and I’ve still heard about it), Pat Robertson is making another apology to a world leader for suggesting a Really Horrible thing. This makes his 2nd such apology since August, or if you’d prefer, his first one of the new year. Lets recap shall we.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused the US of trying to kill him apparently several times. Back in August Pat told the US government that we really ought to go ahead and do it (on the grounds that he isn’t a Nice Man and he helps Terrorists). Now I’m not defending Chavez’s actions, but even the current administration was intelligent enough to not touch that. Several days later he found himself apologising for suggesting a Really Horrible thing.
This time, Pat has suggested (and is now now apologising for) saying Israeli leader Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine retribution for leaving the Gaza Strip. Israeli officials have stated that despite the apology, Israel is still pretty ticked off about the whole thing (can’t say as I blame them). So much so that the $50m contract for building a biblical theme park that was going to go to Pat Robertson’s organization has been put on hold until they find an organization not associated with Pat Robertson to build it. Incidentally, even the current US administration is criticising him for this one.
Perhaps Pat should never be interviewed live anymore so that he can begin preparing his apologies before the original comments air. Or better yet, perhaps if no one interviewed him or gave him a tv show… Nah, that’d never work it makes too much sense.
Woman demands “her” winter be returned January 13, 2006
Posted by Aaron in : This should not be happening , add a commentHere is your moment of zen for Friday the 13th.
I slept through my alarm this morning, but when I did wake up it was to an absoludicrous (vocab term provided by Mr T, and yes it will be on the final test) comment by someone far crazier than I could ever hope to be. That doesn’t say much, I would never hope to be this crazy. She wanted to know where “her” winter had gone (its been unusually warm lately, though wacky, I woke up to rain and after about an hour of sprinkling after a real rain, its been lightly snowing). She declared that the warm weather must be because of all the bombs and various firearms being used in/on Iraq. I don’t think the hosts knew exactly how to respond without flat out calling her stupid, so they just asked her what kind of bird she had making noises in the background. Sadly she didn’t say “a crazy bird”, because that’d be a perfect setup for “no thats what is in the foreground, what about the bird in the background?”
100 things we did not know this time last year January 10, 2006
Posted by Aaron in : Links , 3commentsBBC lists 100 things we’ve learned since this time last year
Quite long, but also facinating (at least to me).
Such as:
35. The name Lego came from two Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well”. It also means “I put together” in Latin.
52. You’re 10 times more likely to be bitten by a human than a rat.
95. The first traffic cones were used in building Preston bypass in the late 1950s, replacing red lantern paraffin burners.
Good question January 6, 2006
Posted by Aaron in : Play, Quotes , 1 comment so farRecent chat conversation between myself and Dan:
Dan: you’ve seen The World Is Not Enough, right?
Dan: the Bond movie
AC: yeah
Dan: you know the scene where Bond and Bond Chick are going down the inside of the oil pipe line?
Dan: while Denise Richards is trying to disarm the nuclear bomb, there’s a fancy schmancy display on it with a count down
Dan: in the lower corner, it says “Windows CE”
Dan: which is strange, because the bomb is left over from a Cold War Soviet silo
AC: well they did steal stuff from us
AC: maybe they trapsed into the future for WinCE
Dan: lol
AC: which would have to be the worst use of time travel of all time
Dan: but who would use Windows CE to build a nuclear bomb anyway?
AC: perhaps their only other choice was Windows ME
Dan: they are obviously smart enough to build a time machine
Dan: couldn’t they have devised their own USSROS?
AC: idiot savants? time travel smart, bomb OS stupid
Of course being nerds, Jessamy and I started discussing what OS you would use in a nuke. I know you wouldn’t actually use any commercially available OS for such a task, but for you nerds, if you did, what would you choose and why? (limit yourself to personal computer, mainframe and handheld operating systems unless you can find another OS that you can justify including/using)
Funny Call January 3, 2006
Posted by BatWeasel in : General, Work , add a commentUser: “We installed an update and it set all our customers sales taxable. This is unacceptable and I want it fixed NOW!”
Jessamy: “Could you tell me which update you installed? We haven’t had anyone else report this problem.”
User: “Well, it would have been before version 4.0, probably version 3.2, and I just don’t see why you’d ever have an update do something like that… blah blah”
Version 4.0 was released 3 years ago and 3.2 was released nearly 6 years ago!! And now this problem (which was probably completely unrelated to any updates) is suddenly unacceptable and urgent. Argh.
Announcement January 1, 2006
Posted by BatWeasel in : General , 2commentsSorry AC, guess I am a little tardy with this 
The news is that Jerod and I are expecting a baby this summer, August 9th to be specific! I got to see the baby on an ultrasound last Tuesday and everything is looking good. Of course we’re thrilled, and can’t wait to meet the little bean this summer!
An amusing side-note on this: my sisters have already called dibs on various articles of my clothing on the chance that I don’t fit back into them after the little farkle arrives. Didn’t take long did it?