Mr Tire, the next day

Yesterday I ranted a bit about Mr. Tire.

Today, I'm a little less ticked. I think they've fixed the grinding problem with the front wheels, and they tightened my parking brake (it needed it, but I didn't ask for it, they just did it, didn't charge for it). They couldn't reproduce the "coughing" problem, and it only happened once to me between Annapolis and work, so maybe something got dust in it and it's finally being filtered out? They noted that the struts are shot (I knew that, but I'm not going to pay $1000 for them), and that I should replace the spark plug wires (I can do that myself). So in the end it all worked out, for the price I expected. I'm mostly just miffed that they did work before it was authorized, and that they didn't seem to listen to what the problems were. I think they're a bit like the dog in the famous Far Side cartoon showing what we say and what dogs hear.

What we say: please check the engine, let me know if it's OK. If it's OK, I'll get new tires of type TIRETYPE.
What they hear: please blah blah blah, OK, blah blah, new tires, blah blah blah.

Sigh.

Would I go back there? Yeah, probably, especially for oil changes, tire rotations (especially with lifetime free rotation with purchase of tires). But I'll make requests piece-meal. Ask for engine. After they get back to me, ask for tires. No mention of tires until they report.

UPDATE: I went to Starbucks to drink my lunch, and found that there is still some scraping sound when turning sharp left. It's not as bad as it was, but it's still there. Idiots.

Foamy!

I probably missed more than half of the Buffy episodes when they were originally broadcast, but I'm catching up now on DVD.

I think "Beer Bad" may be my favorite episode of Buffy.

Xander: And was there a lesson in all this? What have we learned about beer?
Buffy: Foamy.

Hmmm...need to make a foamy icon...

Trouble with MSN today?

I can't log in to my MSN account today. I don't know if the work firewall is blocking it, or if MSN is just taking a nap today. Any news?

(no subject)

Until recently, I worked at a small tea room downtown. It was a bit of a dive, and the tea was some generic brand that was not clearly marked. The boxes for the green tea, white tea, mint tea, orange pekoe, etc., looked nearly identical, and I had to squint to read the tiny labels. So I came up with a system. Each morning, I'd take any new tea boxes, squint at the tiny labels, and put a big green dot for the green tea, two green dots for the mint tea, etc. I thought it was a pretty good system. When I found better employment, I agreed to train my replacement. I told him, "don't forget to cross your eyes and dot your teas!"