new car!

I actually planned on updating while I was still test driving the cars, except I never got around to it. Bought this car over the Mitsubishi lancer because it has a quieter engine, its a lot lighter, and drives better overall.

Now there's all the small things I don't like too much. For starters, when we test drove cars, we tested the '09 model. When we hunted around for a better deal, dad bought the '08 model. It's a $5000 difference, go figure. I loved everything about the '09 model, and I think my dad expected the '08 model to not be so different. Well, unlike the '09 base model, the '08 base model doesn't have..

Power mirrors. Whatever, it's a pain in the ass to adjust the first time, but since I'm the only one driving, I don't think I need to readjust them anytime soon.

Power windows. Theres a plus and minus side to this. Plus side is I can open and close my windows without the engine on. So my mom thought I was weird when I had my windows open in the garage. Downside is when I'm driving, I can only open and close my own windows, since I probably shouldn't be trying to open my other 3 windows while driving. Funny comment from mom was, look, now when you drive your car into a large body of water, you can open your windows and everyone else in the same situation as you're in with power windows will die, see? useful! But until I drive the car into a lake or something, power windows > no power windows.

Power locks. Now this is my biggest cause of irritation. Even the old Mercedes had power locks. It gets very very annoying because I like to throw stuff into the back seats, and when I take those stuff out, I have to manually unlock the door, then relock it, or unlock it, throw stuff back there, relock it, then unlock it again when I want to take it out. So, no keyless lock/unlock. No alarm. No long distance trunk opener. Maybe one of these days, we might ask them to install it.

Ironic part is, when we started shopping for cars last year, dad said he wanted me to have a car with power windows, power locks, radio, and air conditioning. (Well, obviously, he wanted the standard safety options too, air bags, anti-lock brakes, seat belts, w/e. Most cars have all that these days).

Now what I like about the car.. (with mom's comparison to her Pilot)

It's light. Like, very very light. It accelerates fast, and stops fast, and is super easy to control. Mom complains how the car is too light. Well, it's less than half the weight of the pilot. Makes sense. She also complains how since my car is so light, it has a higher chance of spinning out than her pilot. Counter-argument, Pilot has a higher chance of tilting over.

Since I got home first, I snagged the Pilot's parking spot in the garage, next to the Mercedes that we probably will never sell now. The car is so much small than the Pilot, so I can actually fully open all the car doors, the car hood, and the trunk, and Spike can still run around quite freely in the garage. With the Pilot, we couldn't even open two doors on the opposite sides far enough to let a not skinny human out without it hitting either the kitchen door, or the Mercedes. Now the landlord's description of the garage being "very big" when we toured the house for the first time seems likely.

I have a AUX jack! I can plug in my iPod (or any other similar device) to my car. :D Except I normally keep my max volume limit on my iPod around 20% of the absolute maximum (hey calculus!) cause of super loud earphone. So I need to adjust that too. But it's nice, I have music on long drives.

Now the sad part is that my mom won't let me drive it, cause she wants to drive it. Which isn't half bad, cause she's helping me break in the car anyways. So if she wants to spend the next 1000 miles driving local or in traffic, without sudden acceleration or braking, or abrupt sudden maneuvers, she can be my guest. :P New car smell makes my head hurt too, dunno why.

random post about roof racks

Well, I always tell my mom she should have put a roof rack on her Pilot. She thinks the roof rack is the most useless and ugly accessory a car can have. I think it makes the car look tough, after all, it is an SUV. She thinks it looks better without it, and make the car easier to identify in the parking lot. What SUV doesn't have a roof rack? Even mini-vans have roof racks.

Mom wants to buy herself a Nissan 350z convertible. I told her I would drive it away and keep it for myself. She told me I could have the Pilot to drive when she gets a new car.

I told her to add a roof rack to her 350z. She told me two things.

It's a convertible, it doesn't have a roof for you to put a rack on. and. It's ugly and useless, the hells wrong with you.

I guess I'll try to convince my dad to stick a roof rack on his Mercedes next.

oh, and this came up because we saw an Audi commercial.

hot

It's hot. I hate it. It makes me lazy.

Plus I got a nosebleed.

Sure, I have no problem exercising in warm weather, and actually prefer it to cold weather, but, it's really really hard to start, once I start it's easy...

I need a pool.

product of too much free time

Since I'm home all day, and my moms home all day too, now we actually see each other. It was bad enough back when both of us worked and we only saw each other for 2 hours tops per day, but now its closer to about 12 hours a day that I have to spend around my mom.

Most of us all know how stereotypical Asian moms are. "Why you have A-? You should have A+++. I disown you now failure son" etc. etc.

Spending so much time around my mom made me realize what other... lets call them "talents" she posses.

What stood out the most would be the wonderful illogical connections. Pretty sure all Asian parents have said something about how many grains of rice left in your dinner bowl is how many pimples your future spouse has. It has no scientific basis and is just said so little kids don't waste food. Apparently my mom thinks it works with everything. So we hear her say stuff like "you have allergies because you don't wash dishes enough" or "stop slouching, that's why you have white hair" or mix and match "you have allergies because you slouch". Then there's college related stuff like "you got rejected form UCLA because you listen to your ipod" or "M.I.T. will reject you because you're not listening to me in the car". And the all time classic, "You're not tall enough because you..
-Sleep too much
-Sleep too little
-Run track
-Swim too little
-Don't jump enough
-Don't weight train enough
-Don't play with Spike enough
-Didn't buy me water"
The reason changes depending on what's convenient.

Honestly, WTF. Normally we would just ignore her and let her ramble on, except now we have to ignore her for longer amounts of time because shes around us more often. Plus she's getting really really clingy.

She also has a very creative imagination, usually mentioned when I drive. "You're going to drive to Vons, then on the way the way there, you're going to get mugged, then get into a car accident, then get lost, then your car will run out of gas and a electric pole will crash down on you, then when you're on the freeway there will be a 15.9 earthquake where the freeway bridge will collapse and your insurance rates will go up and your car will have scratches in it. Oh, then the police will pull you over for drunk driving. That's why you don't need to drive" How is it even possible for all that to happen on a 3 minute drive to Vons, with no freeway use? I don't know either. She also seems to think our vacuum cleaner will explode after 5 minutes of continuous use and my computer is the cause of global warming.

too much free time

I no longer work. Track is over. I don't (and didn't) need to study for my APs.

I'm finding myself spending a lot of time doing a lot of nothing. Other than going to school, just to sleep in class, I don't do much these days.

I realized I spent a lot of that time eating, and sleeping. Well, I'm starting to play games again, not something I wanted to super into again, because it is a waste of time.

I need a cheap meaningful hobby, or just something to do, hopefully before I get fat and die of diabetes or something.

vacuum cleaner!

So our old vacuum cleaner broke down. It went, hot hot hot, black smoke, black smoke, R.I.P. Everyone loves vacuum cleaners, you can suck up mosquitoes and spiders with them. So we got a new one.

When we used it, Spike went berserk, and started growling at it. He's fine now. That dog learns too fast.

So we try it out and see how much dirt we can pick up, since it's one of those clear-tank-empty kind. We suck up like 10 feet and our tank is already pretty full with dog hair and lots of dust/lint/dirt. Well the whole house is pretty much like that.

So everyone in the house pretty much jokes about the vacuum cleaner now. Conversations while using it pretty much sound like..

"Don't go farther than 10 feet"
"Why?"
"You'll overfill the tank"
"No I won't"
"If you do it might break and we're screwed"
"We could just return it and get another one, we do have 1 year warrenty"
"Yeah, and they will be like, Ma'am, this vacuum cleaner is for indoor use only"
"Yes I know, we did use it indoors"
"I find that hard to believe ma'am, it looks like you decided to stand on a pile of dirt and vacuum until it broke"
"Just replace it, we're under warranty"
"And by then the customer service rep will probably be horrified at how 'clean' our house is and how its able to break vacuum machines"
"Is that why you're vacuuming now?"
"House should be clean"
"Tanks full"
"No it's not"
"See this line, it says full. You're two inches above the line"
*sigh*

or..

"You know who would really like this vacuum machine?"
"Who?"
"Dad."
"OMG. It can be like, his new best friend ever."
"I KNOW"
"Then the whole day the only thing we'll hear is WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Boom."

or..

"Do you know what you're doing?"
"Yes mom, I know how to use a vacuum machine"
"Don't break it"
"You're the one in the family that breaks things"
"Still, be careful"
"WHAT?"
"I SAID BE CAREFUL"
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU VACUUM IS ON"
"TURN IT OFF"
clack clack clack
"What happens when I suck in a paper clip?"
"WHAT?"
"Nothing."


At least the house is cleaner now. Spike's dog hair still manages to tangle inside the machine though, at least it's off the carpet, well, most of it is.

no calcy

Well, another random update, since I really don't feel like doing a calc packet of torture.

My phone's phone chain hook is annoying. There are two type of phone hooks, the actual hook, and the bridge type. Bridge type you spend an hour trying to thread the string through and then you loop through itself and it stays. Hook type you just hook the string on, and it stays, or it's supposed to.

Clarice bought me a flying pig. Connie got me a Totoro bunny thing with a leaf umbrella, and a mushroom that Eric thinks looks like... things, lets leave it at that.

Well my S500i happens to be a hook type. Plus side is I don't need a sharp object or infinite patience to attach the phone chain. Downside? It falls off, easily. Just tug on the chain a few times and it detaches. Go figure, it's a hook, one side is open. Well, normally, when I just attached one chain, it wasn't too much of a problem, since it stayed on fairly well, because it actually fit on the hook. It would only fall off when it got caught onto something.

Well recently, I thought that, well, since I have two chains, lets put both on there.For the bridge type hooks, you would just string one chain through, then attach the 2nd chain to the 1st chain's knot. Well, for the hook types, you would think, oh. just put them both on the hook. I thought that too.

No. Doesn't work that way. Hook designed for one chain. Attach one only. No more. Realistically designed for less.

The hook just isn't long enough to fit both chains. Chains falling off was annoying enough as it is when there was only one chain that fell off occasionally. Having both on the same hook just meant that they would both fall off, often.

Since I wanted both chains on there. It was time to use my wonderful engineering mind to use.

I threw out super glue, since I actually wanted to be able to detach it.

So I tried a variety of things. Some worked, until I couldn't put the cover back on, or fell when I moved my phone, or fell when I tugged on one or both of the chains, or made one chain fall, or seemed good in theory but didn't fit because the hook was too small, etc.

Well the one solution that worked for a bit was that I used a 3rd piece of string to hold the two chains together then tie the string to the hook, and since the string is tied on, it wouldn't fall off as easily, and tugging on the string didn't cause it to fall off the hook because it was tied tightly enough to not move off the hook. If I wanted to remove the chains, I would just break the 3rd piece of string. Well thats exactly what happened, the string broke.

So then I went back to the drawing board. Which gave me the great idea that branched off the old idea. Knots. So I went through various knots attempts to make both chains stay on. Most of the knots were too big, and wouldn't fit into the little gap.

Except the reef knot. It's wonderful. Now both chains won't separate from each other, and it's thin enough for me to stab into the gap with a paper clip, yet too fat to remove by tugging at the normal angel, as tugging only pulls on the other chain, and causes the knot to get fatter and less likely to pop out.

That probably was too in depth and made little sense without picture illustrations and diagrams. Many many diagrams, that I'm way too lazy to draw.

Hope my phone chains stay attached.

Plus, this wasted a good 10 minutes that I otherwise spent on calculus, which I think now I just won't do because it's late.