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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
DonAithnen's LiveJournal:
| Friday, June 13th, 2014 | |
| 2:21 am | This is my journal. Some posts are public, some are friends only. I'm usually quite happy to add new friends, as long as you're not one of those random people with a week old journal who's trying to accumulate a couple hundred friends for no good reason. I do have a couple levels of filters to deal with a few topics, mainly to block out stuff that i think might be exceptionally boring or possible offensive to some people. If you're curious just ask and i'll tell you about them. |
| Monday, November 30th, 2009 | |
| 1:18 pm | Damn you Moore! They keep coming out with new TV features, and every time they do i say to myself "once that gets down to a reasonable price, i ought to pick one up." The problem is by the time feature X is down to a reasonable price, they've not got feature X+1. First it was getting rid of the CRTs and making them thin, but the LCDs still weren't quite up to the same quality. Once the regular LCDs were up to the same quality and down to a reasonable price, they had HDTVs coming out. LCD HDTVs are finally starting to get down to the price where i'm very tempted, but now they've got LED backlit LCD TVs. Amazon has this one for about $720, or almost double what i'd consider to be the "reasonable" range for a medium-large TV. So perhaps by the time i'm done moving, have paid off my credit cards in full and made a dent in the car loan the prices will be down to something i consider reasonable. I wonder what new thing they'll be coming out with at that point to tempt me with instead =P |
| Sunday, November 29th, 2009 | |
| 10:20 pm | Another bit of car stuff When i was driving the car home thursday night i was kind of surprised that the fuel indicator actually went down by a notch or two (out of eight i believe.) When we got back from LosCon last night it was down to the halfway mark. That definitely seemed kind of weird since i'd driven a total of about 80-90 miles so far, but i was guessing that it might be like my Rav4, where it went from full to half a lot faster than it went from half to empty. Then tonight when we left for ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} shelleycat's place it was suddenly back at full again. By the time we'd gotten here it was down a single notch again (after about 110 or 120 miles or so.)shelleycat says her car will sometimes show a much emptier tank than it actually has, but it's never told her it had more gas than she actually did. Hopefully this is something similar. Having to fill up more often than strictly necessary just to be sure isn't a big deal, actually running out of gas would be :) |
| 3:13 pm | Audio update shelleycat and i went to Outback for lunch, then tried to go to the Radio Shack on Hawthorne. "Tried" because despite what Moogle claims we didn't see it anywhere along Hawthorne, so we just ended up going to Best Buy instead. I picked up a $25 tape adapter as a stopgap, and while i was there i found a cute Best Buy person who'd just finished helping someone and asked her if she knew much about iPods. She said yes, so i described the situation, making the assumption that it worked with older iPods but not with shelleycat's iPod Touch 2G. She nodded as i was saying this and said i needed to get either a 30 or 40 GB iPod Classic or one of the old square iPod Nanos (which she thought was 3G but wasn't sure) or the iPod Nano 4G. She said everything after that used the new dock connector format. Unfortunately all of those are models that are no longer available at Best Buy of course =PWe tried out the tape adapter on the way home and i can't tell how the audio quality compared to my old car, but it was definitely usable, so i've got a workaround until i either figure out how to replace the dock connector with an aux in, or find an old iPod on ebay or something. Current Mood:  happy |
| 12:30 pm | Fuck you Apple! It seems pretty clear that Apple changed something about the dock connector sometime during the lifetime of the iPod. There's a fair number of webpages about it, and there's even a fair number of posts on the Apple.com support site talking about compatibility. What i can not find, either directly from Apple or from anyone else, is exactly which versions of the various iPods use which versions of the dock connector. So after failing to find anything on their support page i tried going to the "contact us" page. It turns out that Apple does not do support over email! If you want to talk to someone you have to call them on the phone! They're a frickin computer company! How can they not do email support??!? I don't like the phone! I don't want to talk to someone on the phone! For the first time ever i'm actually considering getting an iPod, but Apple is not doing a lot to induce me. Quite the opposite in fact! Current Mood:  frustrated |
| 2:03 am | More car stuff Some more thoughts now that i've had the car for about a day and a half. ( Stuff ) Edit: I've found a couple posts like this one claiming that certain older dock connectors don't work with newer ipods. Newer iPods such as the iPod Touch 2g that shelleycat has. So perhaps i can buy an old used iPod and get it to work with it. Or even better, perhaps i can find something that converts the old dock connectors to an 1/8" plug. |
| 1:30 am | LosCon Obviously yesterday i was busy with car stuff, but today shelleycat and i went to LosCon. I did my Airship pirate costume since the day's theme was kinda sorta pirate. (I'm not entirely sure how that worked exactly since the year's theme was "but wait, there's more," but there seemed to be lots of agreement about it based on the costumes and events of the day.)( Day at LosCon ) |
| Friday, November 27th, 2009 | |
| 10:35 pm | Non-car stuff So for thanksgiving, after getting back from the car shopping, shelleycat and i watched a little of the Mythbusters marathon on Discovery, then went to see "9" at the local second-run theatre, stopped by Del Taco to get dinner, then went back to her place and watched a lot more of the Mythbusters marathon while eating dinner. (Followed by the hour or so of looking up car stuff and printing it out before bed.)We both thought "9" was pretty good, though i thought it was rather depressing, and we were both confused by one thing... ( Spoilers for '9' ) |
| Thursday, November 26th, 2009 | |
| 1:17 pm | Blah So we drove out to Ontario to look at the blue 2005 Prius with 65k miles on it. I finally figured out how to get the Edmunds pricing to account for mileage and options and such. I put in all the options they listed in their add, and then "optimistically" picked "average" instead of "clean" for the status of the car. That came out to an estimated retail value of $13.2k, vs the $14.4k they were asking for. We got out there and found that "average" was a quite reasonable evaluation of the car. It was dinged up in lot of spots, there were a couple very minor dents, and a lot of smudges and scratches on the upholstery inside. Then, as soon as we turned the car on the "maintenance required" light came on, although the car seemed to drive fine. (Edit: Oh yeah, and when we checked a little later the rear tires were worn down to the "replace" level =P) After the test drive they promised they could get the maintenance thing taken care of by the end of the day, and then we started haggling. They rounded down from the internet price and started at $14.3k, and i started out at $12k, though i didn't stay there for very long. shelleycat says i did a pretty good job of negotiating, but eventually we ended up at an impasse with me at $13.3k ($100 above the Edmunds estimate) and them at $13.7k ($600 below their starting price.) I'd gone from $13.2 to $13.3 in the last round, but he'd just repeated the $13.7, so we walked out.So tomorrow i guess i get to rent a car and look at some other prospects. What fun =P Current Mood: frustrated |
| Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 | |
| 4:48 pm | Edit: (but not quite =) You know, i wonder what would happen if i made a list of all their otherwise attractive cars in the $16k-$17k range and started calling them up one at a time and saying "i've got $15.5k in cash, that means i can afford a $14k car before tax and registration. If i were happy with your car after a test drive i'd be willing to put that money down with no further negotiation," what would happen? Most of them would presumably laugh at me. Some might say yes, but then try to renege once i got there, and either insist that i could really afford a little more, or just offer financing. I wonder if any of them would take me up on it and actually follow through? Probably pretty low odds, but i wonder if they're so low that it's not worth trying. |
| 4:33 pm | The best laid plans of mice and meeple... shelleycat picked me up at work around 11 to go car shopping today.Unfortunately one of the three local possibilities, Dark Grey 2007 Prius with 66k miles, initial asking price of $15k, had been sold a day or two ago. ( Further failure to buy a car ) So in any case, since we weren't doing any more car shopping we decided to swing by the new apartment and sign the lease, so at least we got something productive accomplished today =P Current Mood: frustrated |
| Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 | |
| 6:28 pm | Heh shelleycat's feeling better, but didn't feel up to lots of driving, so i think we're going to do car shopping on tuesday. I'll have to get in early so i get off around 11 or noon so we'll have time to go by several places, possibly including the one in Ontario.In the meantime we're watching "The Next Iron Chef" reruns while waiting for the finale later tonight. At the end of each episode they always start out naming the winner and then the runner-ups, until they get down to the two or three worst people, at which point they decided which one of them is going home (with much unneeded drama of course =) We were amused that for the episode where they had to make a dish with a "Mexican flair" using tamarind, when it got down to the last two chefs, the German chef defeated the French chef, because the German chef made a "mexican themed" tamarind eclair that the judges thought was one of the best eclairs they'd ever had. The French chef did not seem to appreciate the irony :) |
| 12:53 pm | Books Well one benefit of all the bus riding is that i'm getting books read a lot faster. Finished up a couple in the past month Seanan McGuire - Rosemary and Rue: Yes, this is the same Seanan McGuire that does the awesome music (including the best Firefly filk ever =) It's a faerie book, but with more detective stuff and more focus on faerie mythology than a lot of the Laurell K Hamilton type stuff. (Also less focus on sex, but one can't have everything ;) coraa and anyone else interested in faerie stuff might be interested in it. It seems kinda unfair though that one person can be both a great musician and a great writer though =PSherwood Smith - The Fox: This is the sequel to Inda, which i enjoyed but had a hard time getting through (took a couple weeks, possibly even over a month.) I'm not sure if i sped through this one so quickly because i was expecting the breakneck pace, because i had a better idea of which way the story was heading, or because i had so much time to spend reading i never had time to get thrown off pace in my reading. In any case it was good, and now i have to get the third book. Kristen Britain - The High King's Tomb. I was wondering if this series was going to be wrapped up in three volumes or not, and the short answer is "not even close." shelleycat said she tried reading the first book in the series and gave up because it just seemed such a generic fantasy story. Maybe it is, but if so it's the kind of generic fantasy story i enjoy, rather than the kind of generic fantasy story i have to struggle through (like the Tad Williams stuff.)I'm pretty sure there's more i've read than that in the past couple weeks, but i can't think of what the other books might have been right at the moment. |
| Saturday, November 21st, 2009 | |
| 9:50 pm | Wow I'm watching Pirates of the Caribbean: World's End in the background while doing other stuff. Perhaps that wasn't such a good idea given that i've never seen it before. Some stuff makes sense given who ended up with the heart at the end of the second movie, but some stuff it seems like they just made up at the top of their head. (Were the pirate lords and the pieces of eight _ever_ mentioned in any of the other movies? And what's up with the song thing?) It definitely doesn't help that every time i look up it seems like someone has changed sides or something :) Current Mood:  amused |
| 7:43 pm | |
| 12:26 pm | *grrr* stupid car rental places! shelleycat's feeling sick, so she's not able to give me a ride to car places today. Poor shelleycat :(But i can still get a rental car and go check places out myself, right? It'll probably cost $100 or $200 for the two or three days i'll need it, but it'll be worth it. *checks prices* Okay, $200-$300 maybe. ...and half the rental places around here close at noon on saturday?? WTH? Isn't half the reason for the existence of rental places people going on trips, trips which frequently happen over the weekend? ... and perhaps that explains why the other half that are still open already seem to have rented all their cars =P Okay, new plan for today is to do more research and perhaps catch the bus down the dealers along PCH. Last i checked none of them had either used Priuss or used Matrixs at reasonable prices, but maybe that's changed. And maybe even if they don't have anything i'd want to buy maybe they'll have something i can test drive. If nothing else i'll at least feel like i've done _something_ useful today, and perhaps it will get me in the right mindset. Hopefully tomorrow shelleycat will feel better, and if not then i can take tuesday off or something and go car shopping then. Current Mood: frustrated |
| 9:23 am | More car buying stuff I'm reading up on some of the tactics car salesmen try to use before i start calling dealerships. I'm really tempted to start playing mind games with them, but it's probably not a good idea. At least i don't think so? Presumably it's better to let them think they're getting their way early on rather that having them get their guard up right away? Edit: Actually, the first car i'm thinking of going to see is the one that's been in an accident. I'm kind of leary of it, but theoretically i might get a good deal, and it's on the way to the other dealerships so i'm kind of looking at it as a practice run. Perhaps i ought to take that one a little less seriously and not worry about the consequences of trying to throw them off their game, then i can start behaving at the other dealerships :) Current Mood: amused |
| Friday, November 20th, 2009 | |
| 12:35 pm | Well that's strange... An addendum to the last post. I got the thought of checking the estimated prices on Consumer Reports. I hadn't been paying much attention to them because they're not as precise (they lump all the cars of the same model and year together) and because they're not as clear about what exactly the price represents. However their results for the Matrix are: '05: $9k - $10.2k '06: $10.6k - $11.9k '07: $12.3k - $13k If i average those prices out, they fit right in the range between the Edmunds and Kelley Blue Book values. For the Prius however: '05: $12k '06: $13.9k '07: $15.8k That's $1300 below the Edmunds value for '07, $1896 for '06, and $2527 for '05!!! So there's definitely something weird going on with the price of Priuss, and it's not just the dealers. Current Mood:  confused |
| 12:00 pm | Car buying strategies I'm trying to figure out what the best negotiation strategy is. The general plan is 1: Go to dealership and look at car 2: Test drive car 3: Negotiate 4: Make deal 5: Take car to mechanic to get it checked out 6: Buy car The tricky part is, where do i put the break in to go look at the other dealerships? (I'm figuring on going through them all once on Saturday, then going back to the top one or two on Sunday.) Do i try to do all my negotiating up front before going on to the next place so when i get done i have the best idea of who to go back to for the final deal? Do i do a little bit of negotiation before moving on so i have some idea of how flexible they'll be? Or do i wait on all negotiation until after i've seen every car on the list? The other difficulty is the mechanic part. How many mechanics are open on saturdays or sundays? If i really want to do that (and i have no idea how necessary it is when buying from a non-name brand dealer) does that mean i'll need to take some time off monday to take care of it and finish up the deal then? Currently i've got four or give Priuss and two Matrixs to look at. (Priuses? Matrixes? Car names do not seem to be designed much with a mind toward pluralization.) However the prices listed are a bit confusing. ( The list ) So the odd thing, and part of the reason there are so many more Priuss than Matrixs in the list, is that most of the Priuss are _already_ listed under the Edmunds average price, and a _lot_ under the Kelley Blue Book price, while the Matrixs are almost all above the Edmunds price, and a fair number of them are above the KBB price. So is there something wrong with the set of Priuss i've found that CarFax isn't aware of? Why are the '07s listed at the same price as the '05 that's been in an accident? Have the sales of more expensive cars been hit disproportionately by the recession and the Edmunds and Blue Book values haven't caught up yet? Have the sales of hybrid cards been hit disproportionately because fuel prices have gone back down to "only kinda high" levels rather than "insanely high levels"? Of course that will make negotiations a little more complicated. If they don't budge much on the price i can no longer pull out an Edmunds price estimate and try to use that as a bargaining point. |
| Thursday, November 19th, 2009 | |
| 5:59 am | Blech This is the sixth day in the past three weeks where i have set my alarm for 4 am, and on each of those days i have managed to catch the 4:54 bus. Although today was rather closer than usual. I may have been about 30 seconds later than usual, and the bus was definitely about a minute early. Hopefully this situation will be remedied by the end of the weekend (knock on wood) but searching through the used cars on Autotrader.com is a somewhat confusing and frustrating process, even with the help of CarFax to weed out the obviously bad deals. |