Magical Holiday

Well... maybe not really.

After doing laundry and ripping 9 hours of Marillion, I wandered around the house doing god knows what (I hope, I certainly don't remember) until it was time to drive down to Lazar's for... well, we weren't going to have a game this week because Snowy was busy. So instead we ended up eating Pizza Hut ($16 deal + 2 extra toppings == $22. Ouch.) and watching .Hack//Sign and Animatrix, and then...

Well, then we bickered over whether or where to go see fireworks, until it was dark and we could hear fireworks going off all around, at which point we gave up and decided to just play Magic the Gathering instead.

Lazar's Sliver Deck of Doom (which I helped him trim down to 60 cards a looong time ago -- I think it was originally at 120 or something) won the first game with a wave of 8 13/13 Sand Warriors, and Murdock's green/blue squirrels and counterspells won the second. I *think* I could have pulled out a win with 1 life in the second (playing a trimmed version of Murdock's land destruction deck), but it was almost midnight and I just didn't care.

Doom Stalks the Brake Pads

The short version is, I'm going to die.

The longer version is that while on the way to see Terminator 3, just as I pulled into the parking lot, the right front brake started making really loud grinding noises whenever I hit the brakes. It seemed to still be working fine... if anything, a little smoother than normal. The brakes on my Neon have always been really jerky and uneven, to the point where I have nightmares about them cutting out when I need them most because, well, they *do* that.

So, anyway, now I've got one of my brakes making loud ugly noises. I need to take care of this as soon as possible, obviously, but 'as soon as possible' is Monday for sure, and I don't know whether to try to get this fixed, or just get a new car since the Neon's obviously on its last legs. The main worries are what to do with the Neon... I can't imagine anyone would pay for a car that can't pass emissions, shudders when it goes past 65, has fraying wiring, a bad fuel filter, a cracked windshield, body damage on both doors and the around the gas cap, and now has loudly grinding brakes.

On the other hand, 'continuing to drive it around' doesn't seem like the best (or safest) disposal plan.

But tomorrow I have to drive across town to Tom's house for a D+D game. I'm hoping that even if the brake explodes, well, I've got 3 more brakes, right? And can downshift and use the emergency brake, so if they fail completely and I hit anything it'll be at like 3 mph. Much less scary than losing steering, like last time.

Oh, and Terminator 3 was as good as any Terminator movie. [shrug]

Divination

For Lazar's game, I've been working on 'The Tahkivadhi Tarot', basically a Tarot deck with 5 suits based around one of the religions in the game world. So to test it, I asked it several questions about my life, concentrating hard on Excel's RNG in lieu of shuffling.

"Should I get my car fixed, or buy a new one?"
Answer: I should learn automobile repair and fix it myself.

"What the hell is up with work?"
Answer: Someone is going to sue us, and we'll try a risky strategy to survive by dredging up lost secrets of the past.

So it seems to work. }:P