life, the universe, and donna

…and I’d like to review it.

So far? I love Steve. Steve is the best phone I’ve ever owned. Admittedly, this is also my first smart phone, so most of you are probably all “whatevs, that’s old hat.” Not to me, it isn’t!

I’m trying to go easy on apps. I don’t want to hunt around for things, and I’m not really much for just installing things for the sake of installing them — I hate clutter — so I’ve only installed things I actually want and will use regularly, preferably to be useful. Sorry, no boob jiggling apps here. Admittedly, that is a useful thing, but … yeah, no. If I want to see boobs jiggle, I’ll jump up and down and pretend I’m endowed enough for that to work.

Thus far, I have a few reviews:

Plants vs. Zombies: This was the first paid app I bought, and I love it. I’ve had it on my desktop since it first came out, and it’s a stellar game. I don’t play it often anymore, because I’ve beaten everything there is to beat, but it’s still fun every now and then I get a hankering to kill some zombies. The iPhone version isn’t quite as good as the desktop version. I love the achievements, but I really miss all the different minigames. Still, well worth the couple of bucks it cost me, and fun to play on the bus. Note: Make sure your headphones are plugged all the way in, or be prepared to wonder why people are looking at you funny for your zombie-killing noises. Sorry, other people on the 7.

Translink: I’m a heavy transit user, so this is basically a must-have, and one of the reasons I was really looking forward to getting an iPhone. Previously, I could spend 15 cents to text message their system, or (more likely) I could call and go through their automated system to find out when the next bus was coming… this is better. It uses GPS to figure out what stops are near you and lets you pick which one you want. It also saves your common bus stops/routes (I’ve saved the two stops/four routes next to my home) as favorites so I can check when the bus is coming on my way to the stop without having to know the number, or fight their system. Downside: It’s ridiculously slow. Still faster than calling in, but seriously Translink… if you could improve your servers JUST A BIT, we’d all appreciate it.

Hipstamatic: I’ve been wanting this one pretty much since Kimli started posting all of her on-the-go pictures with it. It’s basically just a camera filter, but it’s an awesome camera filter. It’s also dog-slow, to the point of being a little ridiculous, but I’m not actually super impressed with the default camera even on the iPhone4, so this helps make it better.

Civilization Revolution: I admit to not being a HUGE fan of the Civ games, although I will give them props for their full on Holy Shit This Is Addicting mojo. Case In Point: I spent 3 hours playing it last night. In my defense, I felt really sick and couldn’t do much else other than Lie On The Floor Taking Over The World, but still. I could easily have done this sitting in a chair, too. But I’d feel worse about wasting so much time playing a stupid game. Also, it’s free right now, so go grab it while you can. (I’m also no longer irritated with Nick for playing it during the ENTIRE drive to & from Sooke for an SCA event last year, because seriously, it’s really, really addicting.)

FourSquare: I just installed this one yesterday. I admit, I don’t really get the whole 4sq thing. But, I didn’t get the whole Twitter thing before I tried it out, and now I can’t live without it. So I’ll give it a try. Some real estate agent is the mayor of my condo, so at the very least I need to bump him out.

Tribute: Movie listings from Tribute. Nick & I tend to see a lot of movies, and … well, it’s nice to know what’s playing. On Sunday, he needed movie times, and rather than let him look it up himself online, I had to pull out the iPhone, install the app, and look it up for him. Oh sure, he could have been done getting the times and ON HIS WAY to the theatre by the time I found it and got it installed, but that’s not the point. Of course, I’m not sure what the point is, but I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that I’m awesome.

Anyway. That’s all for now. I have a few other apps (Echofon for Twitter, Facebook, a couple of other games, a Google Reader app, Flickr, etc) but I’m bored of writing about them and I should get back to work. But what’s really important is that the iPhone is awesome, and I’m so sad that I didn’t have a Smartphone until now. I really, really hate talking on the phone if I can avoid it… and now I CAN!

…and most importantly, iPhone users get more sex. So really, that’s a good reason right there to have an iPhone.

At the end of another long weekend, I can only look back at it and say…

That was FUCKING EPIC.

So this weekend was the Tournament of Armies, a new event run locally (in Chilliwack) that ended up taking the place of our usual trip to Clinton this year. And holy crap, don’t get me wrong, I like Clinton and all… but that was the best SCA event I’ve ever been to.

There are basically two “types” of fighting events — wars and tournaments. So, things like Coronet and Crown are tournaments (that choose the next Prince & Princess/King & Queen.) where it’s 1 on 1 fighting. And then there are wars… Sealion War, Clinton War, and so on, where you have two opposing forces meeting on the warfield to hack and slash at each other.

This was sort of a combination of both. It really was a tournament war, and was both fantastic from a spectators point of view, and (from most accounts) to fight in as well. The premise was that warlords could build armies (with a set number of “points”, most fighters costing 1 point, but knights costing 3 points, and champions/defenders costing 2) and they would meet in a variety of scenarios devised by the ever devious Warwick Drakkar.

Admittedly, I may have enjoyed it more than most: Nick was one of the 7 warlords.

Our army was … well, let’s put it this way, we were the underdogs. Nick’s initial plan was to put together an elite fighting force, with a few good friends that he fights with on a regular basis. On Friday night, we filled in a few more spots with some newer guys, and our army was ready to go. Come Saturday morning, one of our members (a 3-pointer knight!) hadn’t yet arrived, so we were … well, 6 fighters. Only Arminius was worth more than 1 point (he’s the current Lions Gate Defender, at 2 points.) So, 7 points. Out of 12 allowed total.

Yeah, “underdog” definitely sums it up.

We were also lacking in the Arts & Sciences department. They had us do a processional through to introduce ourselves to the pointy hats (although 3 of the 4 pointy hats were fighting…) and then a second to present our A&S display.

We, uh, had no A&S display. We tried to hide rather than show up and say “Yeah… we don’t need no steenking display to win!” but they convinced us to at least go through, so in the lineup waiting for our turn, we came up with a pretty good one. The theme was “Terror”, the idea being to strike fear into the hearts of the other 6 armies. Well, one of our fighters (Jan [pronounced "Yahn"]) is a rather large gentleman with a booming voice hailing from South Africa. If you’re not familiar with Afrikaans, it’s a rather germanic language. You know, the kind of language where you can say “Kittens lick my face and I like it!” and sound like you’re threatning to eviscerate their mothers. (It’s true, we got him to say it, and it was gutteral and disturbing.) We got him to yell at the other armies and tell them how we were going to rip up their entrails (or attack them with the fluffy pillows, I can’t be sure), while Arminius walked up and down the lines in his custom made extremely creepy Roman helm with the extremely creepy face (you might have to scroll down a bit, look for the posts by Ugo, the armorsmith who crafted it) wigging them out. Hell, that helm wigs ME out, and he’s on our side…

For something that we came up with in the lineup waiting for our turn? We did pretty well, and were awarded quite a few points for it. Hooray for foreign scary languages!

And then… TO WAR!

I grabbed the van and moved everything I needed to the warfield. Hey, I’ve got an army to take care of: It’s going to take a vanload of stuff. We had our 2nd sun shade, a table, a bunch of chairs, and a dazzling array of meats, cheeses, pickles, crackers, fruit and of course the all worshipful water. There’s an official waterbearing station that take care of everybody, but I like to go above and beyond. My boys & girls may be few in numbers, but they are well fed. Steinarr is their Warlord, but damnit, this is my army too. I take care of them.

The first two battles were slightly boring for spectators, but great fun for the fighters. The event took place at Island 22, an equestrian park in Chilliwack, complete with a forest with wide horse trails (and horse jumps) cut all the way through. The idea was to kill people, take their flags, and get them back to the lists. So most of the fighting was in the bushes, away from where we could watch (but that worked out, it takes time to lay out the food for when they returned). But they had a great time, and much fighting was done, and in the second one, Nick’s army did quite well — one of their fighters is a rather young man who’d only been in armor once or twice before, the son of some friends of ours. They made him a scout, and he managed to turn in quite a few flags by running hell bent for leather to the lists with a few people on his tail trying to take him out. If they’d caught him, they almost certainly would have killed him and taken our points away, but he made it out clean. Good job!

From the fighters perspective, Magnus says:

“There’s something about being on back trails through the forest knowing there’s 8 other armies marching around and you could suddenly be ambushed from behind. Those were the opening scenerios and probably my favorite ones.”

Anyway, a few more battles designed to generate points (including one battle that Nick & his army won full out — good job, boys!) and it came down to the “army merging” battles. Because of course, there can only be one…

So, the army with the least amount of points was, er, auctioned off, and then there were 6 warlords left. Nick picked up a new pikeman at that point, and hooray of hoorays! Viscount Ulfgar, our missing Knight finally arrived (he’d been stuck working a 12 hour shift, hence the late arrival.) Just in time, as he’s an excellent pikeman and the first battle they fought was a bridge battle. Basically, you have logs marking off the “bridge”, and if you step off the sides… well, you’ve just fallen in a canyon, and you’re dead. If you can force the opposing side off the end, well, you’ve got a nice big field to fight on. But, mostly you stay on the bridge.

Having pikemen here is fairly necessary, as you might guess. Especially if your opponent has some. Getting two just in time for the fight was excellent.

But… we were still outnumbered. A lot. One of the things you could do with points was purchase resurrections — 1 per fighter, 5 for a warlord. Which meant that the other army’s four-person advantage… ended up becoming a ten-person advantage (their warlord had picked up a few more resurrections than Nick had.)

It was a hell of a tough fight, and eventually came down to … Arminius, he of the creepy helm, and …4 of their guys. When he had them down to three vs. Arminius, they stood across from each other, and Arminius yelled out, “Do you yield?”

They kind of chuckled (along with most of the spectators, at least the ones who weren’t on our side — we were all hooting and hollering like idiots), and went at him. He killed one of them, and the fight reset a bit. He yelled again, “DO YOU YIELD?” The fight was joined again, and the fallen fighter ran to resurrect. At this point, Arminius was on the bridge, with the two fighters left on our side of the bridge, and the guy resurrecting was coming at his back. We all waved and yelled and generally freaked out that he was going to get sandwiched in the middle of the bridge, but he’s a crafty guy and picked off the other two guys before the resurrected fighter had gotten back. And once more…

“DO. YOU. YIELD!”

Well, the odds were a bit better now, being one on one, and of course Arminius took him out with ease… and we had won the battle!

(effing. epic. Man, this is the stuff of a good fantasy novel.)

Edit: Here’s a link to a video taken of that fight.

But, there was still one more fight to win. And, to our delight, they challenged us to single combat. (An act worth 100 points. We could decline for another 100 points, but are you kidding me? We had Ulfgar, not just an excellent pikeman, but a damn good fighter under any circumstances.) The opposing army fielded Olin, a worthy fighter in his own respect, but he was no match for our knight.

And that was it for the day. On our side of the field, Nick (or as we’ll call him, Steinarr) was the new Warlord of 3 (and a half) armies. The other three armies had amalgamated (via combat, like ours) into one army headed by a squire of the Wolfpack, Argyle. (He had taken over a second Wolfpack army, and the Baroness Caitrin’s army as well.)

I just have to point out: So. Freaking. Proud. Here’s Nick, unbelted, untitled, doesn’t even have a damn Award of Arms yet, and he’s a renowned Warlord with a conquered army at his back. I’m honored to be his lady.

Ok, sometimes this chivalry stuff creeps in a bit. Shaddup.

Saturday night, we threw a rockin’ party. We had three encampments arranged to face each other with a large common area. The Drakkar host the Dew Drop Inn (if you’re ever at an SCA event, go to their camp at night and yell “DEW DROP!”), Aprodite’s Curse have the most welcoming common area you’ve ever seen, and our camp, the Dark Wyvern, hosted an excellent tavern, complete with a couple of kegs from Storm Brewing. Between the three of us, we had beer, drumming, fires, bellydancers, tablero, snacks, and of course, great people. We were very popular.

Come Sunday morning… well, the entire site was a little slow to get moving. Nick approached Argyle, the other warlord and offered him terms… “No moving faster than a slow walk… no yelling… and no head shots… if these terms are acceptable to you…” We ended up pushing back the start time a couple of hours. War at 10am? How uncivilized.

Sadly, there was a LOT of attrition — many Americans had to leave early, as the Monday isn’t a holiday for them. Injuries, hangovers, and some fighters not quite being up to two days in a row in heavy armor didn’t help either. The other army had some attrition as well, but the majority of their forces were from the Wolfpack, an SCA group that trains specifically for war. We had … well, our little ragtag band, and a LOT of newbie fighters. All valiant and noble lords, of course, but new fighters nonetheless. We were… outmatched. To win the war, you had to win three scenarios in a row, as a “push” battle, pushing back to the next scenario each time. The first two battles were utter routs, with our forces being decimated with little fanfare. Valiant efforts, and some heroic attempts, but … yeah, they crushed us like bugs.

Nick challenged them to single combat. They declined, and there would be more war.

On the third battle, Nick led his army in an all out charge, throwing off the other army! Success? Could it be? Er… no. While they did a damn good job of temporarily destroying the Wolfpack (and friends), once they took their ressurections… well, dang.

It was down to Nick, vs… about 20 people on their side. Hmm. These odds aren’t looking good. Nick still had 3 resurrections left, too. So… he’d run down the hill, they’d send one guy out, Nick would take him out, and then 3 guys would come and kill him together. And he’d run back up the hill, resurrect, run back… they’d send one guy out, Nick would take him out, and then 3 guys would come and kill him together… and again… and finally, he was out of resurrections, and poor Nick could finally die in peace. It was awesome. We definitely had the mob on our side. All the spectators (and Nick’s fallen army) were chanting, “Steinarr! Steinarr! Steinnar!” Those with shields were banging their swords against them. The Wolfpack may have been the winners of the war, but I think we had the popular vote. (Everybody loves an underdog. We were less of an underdog and more of a beaten cur…)

So, while we were ultimately defeated… man, you cannot imagine how proud of Nick I am. He took our little merry band of savages and built an army that managed great feats. He’s certainly making a name for himself!

I had to go home Sunday evening to grab Justice, but before I left I was able to sit in at my very first court. Not being one for pomp & circumstance, I try to make myself scarce for such things, but as one of the two remaining warlords, it was recommended that Nick be there, and if Nick’s going to be there, I may as well…

So, we went to court, and I’m so pleased we did. Not only was Nick honored with a coin of the realm for his honor & valor as second place Warlord, but he finally received his Award of Arms.

The SCA is built around awards in many cases. For example, for tournaments like Crown & Coronet, you line up in order of precedence — highest ranked fighters first, trailing off to the last few shlubs… like us. Nick would joke that we were so far down in the order of precedence that we may as well be in the parking lot. Well baby, we’re out of the parking lot! When Prince Ieuan was giving him the award, he commented how there are some people who, when you hear they don’t have their AoA yet, you say… “Really? Are you sure?” Nick was one of those. Quite a few people were surprised to hear him called up for that, because … what? Really? So now Nick is not just Steinarr, but Lord Steinarr.

Magnus was also honored with his AoA, or at least the paperwork. Along with the award, you get a beautifully hand lettered scroll announcing your merit. He had been awarded the AoA in … November. It was actually awarded to him by the PREVIOUS Prince & Princess (the aforementioned Viscount Ulfgar.) Yeah, ok, so we don’t go to court often.

So… congratulations to Lords Steinarr & Magnus. Proud of you both!

Anyway. It was a fabulous weekend. Great times, great people, great everything quite frankly. Like I said, I’ve been to a lot of events, and this one blew all the others out of the water.

Until next year… THERE WILL BE WAR!

Home from Whistler, it was absolutely fantastic, and I strongly recommend spending as much time there as possible. In fact, go rent this fabulous condo when you do.

Today was another day packed full of adventure, albeit with less unexpected dunkings (but quite a few expected ones.)

We got up bright & early (you know, like 11am), got some breakfast in the village, then headed up (sans dog — she slept all day in her crate, zonked from yesterdays adventures) to Pemberton to go horseback riding with Adventure Ranch. Absolutely gorgeous with the mountain vistas, narrow tree-lined trails, open meadows, gorgeous rivers, and a lovely break at a stunning beach (where several of the horses had fun splashing most splashily.) We even saw a bear swimming along the fast moving river — he looked like an oddly shaped log until he climbed out not that far from us. Luckily, he kept his distance. I’ve heard horses and bears aren’t the greatest combo.

We got back to the ranch, sore, dusty, reeking of horse, pleased as punch and ready for the next stop in our fun: Scandinave Spa.

It was amazing. They’ve got a really neat setup, it’s a series of hot tubs, cold pools, saunas, steam rooms & relaxation areas with hammocks, chairs, benches, etc. Their recommendation is that you spend 10-15 minutes in a hot tub, then as long as you can handle the cold pools, and then 10-15 minutes relaxing, repeat x3. It’s a “silent” spa, so they strongly dissuade any talking, and at first I was a little put off by that… but after 10 minutes in the eucalyptus sauna (they had eucalyptus scented water that you could pour over the rocks), I was totally relaxed, “in the zone”, and had no interest in talking… or listening. It was just awesome, if you’re ever looking for a “total relaxation” type afternoon, this is the place to get it. They do massages and other such spa-type activities as well, but the baths is really all we needed (although it was rather disconcerting to get back into our horsey-smelling clothes at the end of it.)

All in all? A stunningly fantastic weekend. Many thanks to my wonderful, wonderful Nick, and to the fabulous kdot who is the worst third wheel ever. As previously mentioned, her husband cas was supposed to come with us, but a bike injury left him home while we went out and had fun without him (awww… next time, cas!) So you know, you’d expect that having a random third person along would be terrible, and she wasn’t. Nick & I had plenty of cutesy sickening romantic moments without being disrupted, kdot was charming and fun and a fantastic travelling partner, she even cleaned up MY shit while I was getting food for the trip home so I wouldn’t die… really, how am I supposed to get good blog fodder out of that? Where are the tales of “And then she…”? How am I supposed to bitch and complain when she was such an excellent guest? Thanks a lot, kdot. I mean really.

Also, she is now the 4square mayor of my dads condo, which amuses me greatly.

A few weeks ago, Nick & I were chatting with our friends, kdot & cas, and thought… hey, we should all go to Whistler together.

So, I managed to score my Dad’s condo for the weekend, and a weekend was planned! Sadly, the day before we were supposed to leave… cas had a pretty nasty wipeout on his bike, and his doctor recommended staying home with his leg elevated. Crap. Rather than come with us, and be super depressed and bored every time we left to go do something Awesome, he decided to stay home and play video games. So… here we are!

Today, we went on a pretty awesome canoe trip. They shuttled us from Green Lake to Alta Lake, and we paddled back to Green Lake. You may recall our last canoe trip last year was just a few hours tooling around Green Lake. So, we thought we could upgrade things a little…

and holy crap! NARROW FREAKING RIVER! Canoes, especially the 3 person canoe we had, corner like particularly wallowing bathtubs. We hit a fast moving section, got a little turned around, and a kayaker came up. She had dumped herself, and for some IDIOTIC reason … decided it was a good idea to GRAB THE SIDE OF OUR CANOE to right herself.

Unsurprisingly, this poured us directly into the river. There was a moment of panic when the dog would NOT get out of the canoe, and tried to crawl under the seat — note the canoe was upside down or on its side at this point, and she still wanted to be in it. But we got her untangled pretty quickly, and all was fine — then it was just a matter of getting all of our gear, paddles, the canoe, and the dog to the shore. Luckily, it was just over waist deep at that point.

So, we had a nice little break. Good news: The things that could be water damaged were in a waterproof bag they’d given us — like Nick’s 12 hour old $2k camera. Phew. Sadly, our lunch, in a soft sided cooler, was not so lucky. Well, my bananas survived at least. And the diet coke. Can’t live without the diet coke.

Anyway, we got righted soon enough and after a break to dry off/wring out our shoes, we were off and running. Glad I wore my bathing suit underneath, I ended up shucking the shirt (and loading up on sunscreen) and dried quite quickly.

It was totally awesome. Dumbass kayaker, but whatever. Now we can say that we’ve had a good dump in the river, and it wasn’t our fault!

She really was particularly dumb, too. As we were trying to gather everything up, she kept trying to help. By getting her kayak in such a place that we couldn’t secure the canoe at all. No, please. Really. You’ve done enough. Also, your presence is making the scared dog even more scared. Justice had her lifejacket on too, but even so she was shivering like crazy as I carried her from the middle of the river to the edge. but that might be cuz it was cold, too. Once we got out, she went directly to one of her “I need to handle this!” coping mechanisms, and starting gnawing on a stick. Good dog.

We have a few battle wounds from our adventure. Kathryn has a set of scrapes on her shoulder from where Justice tried to go THROUGH her when the canoe went over, Nick has a nice branch scrape on the back of
his neck, and I’ve got a very pretty knot on my foot… but we couldn’t stop laughing about the absurdity of the situation, so all is good.

Pictures forthcoming — thankfully, the camera was kept bone dry. But I’ll upload those later when I’m not on a netbook with stolen wifi. (Stolen wifi tastes like candy!) Stolen wifi still tastes like candy, but now there are pictures!

Parents of children in show biz, I have to ask: Why? How can you look at people like Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, the Olsen Twins and so on… and think it’s a good idea?

A few weeks ago, Nick & I were trying to think of any current adult actor/actress who has successfully transitioned from child star to well adjusted adult star. Admittedly, you could argue that there are a lot of adult stars who aren’t well adjusted even if they weren’t child stars, but whatever.

The initial trigger was Christina Ricci. Sleepy Hollow was on, and I was wondering whatever happened to her, as she seems to have vanished off the face of the planet. (A quick look at Wikipedia shows that she has in fact been working… just not in anything I’ve heard of.) So I was trying to think of stars who are currently active and mainstream, who never went through a fucked up drug phase.

I came up with Wil Wheaton & Neil Patrick Harris. (And admittedly, Wil Wheaton is only “mainstream” right now if you’re an internet geek. Luckily, I am, so I’m counting it.) Drew Barrymore seems to have also managed to successfully transition, but only after spending her tweens coked out and hitting rehab at 13, so she’s off the list. (But hey, good for her — it’s hard to go from rehab at 13 to reasonably normal, well adjusted adult.)

I also thought of what Wil Wheaton & NPH have in common: Both of them vanished out of the public eye for most of their late 20s/early 30s. (Wil Wheaton was doing mostly voice work, and NPH was doing mostly musicals.) Either way, neither of them had nearly the fame & recognition they had in their teens and now.

So maybe that’s the key to avoiding train wrecks like Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. I honestly feel bad for them — seriously, how can you possibly stay normal when there are people whos JOBS it is to follow you around for every stupid mundane thing you do? Seriously — this is a video of Lindsay Lohan buying pizza. SHOCKING NEWS: PIZZA IS TASTY.

And all I can say is: Jesus christ, that poor girl. Yeah, she’s totally fucked up. But cut her some slack — she’s been starring in feature films since she was 11, and was already a show biz veteran at that point. I don’t know how you do that and stay normal.

I suppose one thing they have going for them is that none of ‘em are half as fucked up as Mel Gibson. Score one for the ladies!

Yeah, I’m that kind of cool.

So last night, I brought home our new minivan, a 2001 Ford Windstar, in bright-effing-red of course. Aww yeah. Her name is Rebecca (but only if I never use the name around Nick).

She doesn’t look like this. Much.

Anyway, so we do this SCA thing, and in the summer we’re out to events almost every weekend with my poor little car is loaded to the rafters. And while she’s got a fair amount of storage space, considering the itsy-bitsyness of her… it’s just not enough. Especially for our form of “camping” which includes sleeping in something like this.

What it came down to … was more space.

So originally, we were looking to join the ranks of the station wagoneers. (Can I call them that? I’m going to call them that.) But when I mentioned this to my parents, they reminded me that they had a couple of extra vehicles lying around. My step-father, the worlds most fantastic mechanic (he fixes my vehicles, which makes him infinitely better than ANY OTHER MECHANIC EVER) likes to buy broken cars on Craigslist, fix them, and resell them at a profit. Or at least, that’s the idea. Thus far, it’s been more like “buy broken cars on Craigslist and alienate the neighbours by having no fewer than 4 cars, a camper trailer, and a bus in the driveway at any given time.” (You think I’m kidding — they actually have two buses, but the second one is stored offsite.)

So one of the vehicles Ken picked up was the aforementioned Rebecca the Red Van. She wasn’t running at the time, and I’m told that the problem was a rubber band. Well, a very specific, expensive rubber band, but a rubber band nevertheless. Which has, of course, been replaced, along with some other general “make her more awesome” type things (new tires!) and now Rebecca is stylin’.

Brought her home last night, and HOLY CRAP I’M SO TALL WOOO I COULD CRUSH YOU LIKE A BUG! A BUG!!! She also rides super smooth, and since my last … 4 vehicles, if you include the bikes, had a manual transmission, I tried very hard to stomp on the clutch and grasp uselessly for the stick shift. Right, minivan. Automatic. Ok.

So, got her home, and we decided to take the back row of seats out, and store it under our stairs. Holy CRAP there is a lot of space in there. Seriously, I could LIVE in this thing. And there’s definitely room for some good old fashioned minivan sex. The back windows are tinted VERY dark, so … aww yeah.

Other things that are awesome:
- SO MUCH SPACE. Seriously, I don’t know what I’m going to do with it all. Oh, fill it full of crap. Of course. (Kidding, honey!)

- Storage spots! Wow, I’ve got places to hide things that I didn’t know I needed. We hit up Safeway last night for our little “Stuff that lives in the van” kit, like sunscreen, bug spray, antihistamines, etc. This kit lives in the center console in the back seat (what would be the center row, if we hadn’t removed the back row.)

- Captains seats in the center row! Hence the center console there. Velly fancy. The dog will ride in style.

- Air conditioning! I haven’t had air conditioning in a vehicle I’ve owned since 2000, unless you count motorcycles. What? The air is perfectly well conditioned… and full of bugs.

- STEREO! My poor little car has no stereo. I’ve made do with shitty speakers plugged into my ipod, but now… now! Nick’s buying an ipod/car stereo hookup thingie today.

- Cigarette lighter plugs EVERYWHERE. We use these things a lot. We have a lot of devices that use them anyway, and an adapter to allow us to plug regular plugs into it. We can recharge our air pump with it, not to mention phones, ipods, etc. When the cigarette lighter in the car temporarily broke as we were driving out of town, we stopped in at my parents place to fix it rather than travel without it. I can think of 4 different plugs, and I haven’t even spent THAT much time crawling around it.

- Adjustable pedals. Hooray, I don’t have to sit so close to the steering wheel that the airbag will deploy directly into my nose!

- Did I mention how much space is in this thing? If it weren’t so nicely carpeted, I’d be expecting it to echo… echo… echo…

Things that need to be fixed:
- The hose for the windshield wiper fluid resevoir isn’t quite long enough, and doesn’t work. Oops. So if we get a bad bug splatter… well, get out and wash it off yourself. (Part of the car kit also includes: rags.)

- The gas indicator is inaccurate. To get it through aircare after replacing the battery, the van had to be … randomly driven around to get more data. So, Ken put $50 of gas in and drove around for a bit. That wasn’t enough. Mom then put $60 of gas in and drove more. (Finally went through and passed fine.) Except the gas indicator didn’t change throughout any of said gassing up. Hmm. Well, conveniently, I live next door to a gas station, so methinks we’ll just fill it up Every Time We Go Anywhere.

- I think the rear passenger door is wonky. I can’t open it from the inside, and the child locks aren’t on. Hmm. What is it with me and rear passenger doors?

- Generaly munge. Well, it is a 9 year old van, even if the last two years have been spent hanging out in my parents driveway. It’s got some … grime, to say the least. Must ungrime. Rebecca does not like grime.

Incidentally, this also means that within a few days, my little car will be for sale. I can’t afford to insure both of them for long, so the sooner I can get her out the door the better. I need to do a couple of little maintenance things (fix the spare tire, and maybe clean the two years worth of dust off the dash) but then she’s ready. Details for those interested (craigslist ad coming soon, once I wash her and get a picture):

’97 Chevrolet Cavalier, black, four door, manual transmission. No stereo or ABS. Engine runs great, no trouble whatsoever. Minor issue with the rear passenger door handle. E-brake doesn’t work (just park it in gear and no problem.) Second owner (first owner was a family member.) No accidents. Air Cared in March. 210,000km. Tires are a year old. Body is solid and in good shape, but rather unattractive (scratches, dings, etc) — she is 13 yrs old, after all. When I was 13, my body started going through some weird changes too. $500 firm. For the car, not my 13 yr old self. Note that similar cars go for $1000-2600 on Craigslist, but I got a good deal on it when I bought it and I’m passing that along. (Making a profit would seem weird.)

I should probably edit that before I put it on Craigslist. But honestly, that car has been SO little trouble it’s unreal. The only problems I’ve ever had with it (in the two years I’ve owned it) is that I’m apparently a nail magnet, which is why the tires are all new. Theoretically my curse with flat tires would not be transferred to the new owner, but just in case it is, it has a full size spare.

Wanna buy my car? You know you do!