Dark Zingers

So occasionally I like to toss around a bit of dark and/or cynical humour. It usually disappears from my head before I ever get a chance to write it down, especially since I try to keep my cynicism to a minimum while at work, so I wanted to share these small gems before I forget them completely.

From a Hangouts conversation yesterday (about paint colours):

Meanwhile, yesterday I also helped a co-worker move some furniture around the building. While moving backwards down the hallway with a bed we had the following conversation:

Coworker: Is there anything behind me?
Me: (Craning neck) Just a past full of choices you didn't make and regrets.
Coworker: Wait, what?
Me: No, all clear. No one's behind you.
Coworker: Oh, I thought I heard you say something else.
Me: Nope, just that.
Coworker: Huh.

I had another decent one but it pertains specifically to Final Fantasy XIV so I'll refrain for now. It's a very niche joke. Most of my actual jokes are lame. Or puns. Or lame puns. And some are just too subtle for people to pick up on right away, what can I say I have a dry sense of humour. Well, okay, if you insist, I'll tell one of my dryer FFXIV jokes (let me pretend damn you).

A member of my wife's Free Company was talking about how they were leveling a new character. The conversation went a something like this:

FC Mate: Yeah I've been leveling a ninja lately for fun
Me: Oh yeah?
Me: I don't believe you
FC Mate: Why?
Me: Because I never see any ninja's leveling
FC Mate: Well I don't get on my ninja very often but...

Obviously the joke went way over that person's head and I don't blame them, but I found it amusing. If you're having a hard time spotting the joke it's probably because you are thinking on it too hard. Also it's not laugh out loud funny, I just find it amusing. As I said, dry and subtle. Now go on, shoo. You probably have something better to be doing.

The Depth of my Shallows

I’ve always fancied myself a deep thinker and in some respects maybe I am, but it doesn’t really show in my writing. I like to imagine that I could draw from a concept, or a book, video game, movie, etc. and distill deep and nuanced themes from them; I wanted to wring out profound ideas from the symbols and characters. There are people who are very good at this, people who make a living at it, critics of all backgrounds, and bloggers such as Bobduh and froggykun. They seem to be able to find something hidden and beautiful lurking beneath the surface of just about any story and reveal something heretofore unknown or enlightening. Fascinated, I have tried the same and mostly just failed at it. I'm much better at writing in circles chasing my own thoughts than actually examining anything. My critical reviews are frustratingly shallow, even if I concede that I'm not well-practiced at reviewing.

There is something immensely alluring about having a literary mind, about being able to zero in on the nuances of a story and emphatically proclaim that you have pierced through obfuscation to reveal a hidden truth. I have not cultivated a literary mind, however, as much as I might like to pretend. And I do pretend; that’s pretty much what every post on No Book Unread is. Pretending is okay though. You have to start somewhere. Despite all the ideas I have though, I am significantly less eloquent when I commit those ideas to writing. If I’m being honest with myself being profound in that 'everything has a deeper meaning' way isn't really me. Hell, maybe it could be someday but right now it’s just something that I like, and like reading from others. When it comes to writing I’m not deep, no matter what type of media I’m analyzing. Observant maybe, but not deep. There is only rarely a deeper meaning behind my words and ideas. My strengths rely on drawing connections, often to things that usually have no business being mentioned in the same sentence.

I’m not sure what I was thinking when I first decided I wanted to try my hand at critical or profound pieces. I’ve always hated analyzing literature and, albeit to a lesser extent, other media such as movies, animation, and video games. English 102 taught me that analyzing meant tearing a story into its individual component parts, dividing a story into pieces of symbolism, ‘significant actions’, and isolated lines of ‘meaningful’ dialogue. The thought always infuriated me. That’s how my English teachers always seemed to teach literary analysis, but in the recesses of my mind I’d be screaming, “The whole is more than the sum of its parts!” The hatred has faded over the years since I realized that analyzing doesn’t necessarily mean completely dissecting a story, but some residual hatred still lingers. Perhaps that is what prompted me to try my hand at being analytical and to attempt to read between the lines? I wanted to prove that you did not have to lay out the exhumed remains of a story in order to claim that you had divined its secrets. So much for that though, I haven’t proven anything in that respect. Maybe my teachers were right. Maybe you do have to know all the inner workings to truly understand something, or to analyze as it were. But I still think it's all too easy to lose sight of the whole when you are fixated on the components.  

I think part of the problem is that, for a while now, I’ve been trying to write in a way that seems to conflict with me on some level. Maybe I've lost my identity as a writer; my perception of myself as a writer has always been tenuous. I frequently feel that my words are not my own, that there is some disparity between what I want to say and what actually ends up on the page. It's as if the thoughts are my own but then written by a different person. What irks me the most is that I'm unsure if the problem stems from trying to emulate someone else's writing or from my (nearing a) decade-old expectations of style not matching with my current style, or something altogether different. This whole idea must seem kind of strange, but imagine that you wake up one day and your speech patterns have all changed. You say things you never used to, you speak with a different tone, and, why not, you have an accent. You'd feel out-of-sorts right?  Your idea of yourself would conflict with how your speech manifests. Language is one of our primary ways of interacting with the world, and one of the most prevalent. Your particular style of communication is part of who you are, and that includes written language. Now, it might not seem it but this is quite detrimental to depth of writing, and just insight in general. We all take for granted that much of communication is unconscious. We choose our words, our actions, and our expressions, but we don't have to think about the actual process of speaking or writing once we are fluent. We don't worry about how to form a sentence, we worry about how we present or arrange a sentence. Our speech patterns are a natural manifestation of our experiences and quirks and are unconscious. If you suddenly woke up speaking British English though it would be extremely distracting. (Assuming you are an American English speaker of course, if not just flip it.) Very likely you would fixate on what you're saying and find it hard to actually focus on your conversation topic. In the same vein I find my own writing very distracting at times. The goal for me then is to achieve some level of comfort, hopefully meeting halfway and partially adapting my writing to be a little more "me" while also becoming more accustomed to the things I can't easily change.
 
While I like writing as a whole it's been a while since I've really had fun with it. I know that writing doesn't always have to be fun, practice is rarely fun in the traditional sense, but even my recreational writing has been listless for a while now. It's hard to really invest yourself in chasing phantom themes and elusive symbolism when you aren't having fun doing it. Over the past several months I've been spending my time trying to be critical and analytical, searching for depths that may not even exist in many works. When I take in a story I don’t have a cloud of vague profound ideas swirling about my head just demanding to be crystallized into something more coherent. I lack the driving force of a good idea that needs to be expressed. None of my ideas demand to be written in the same un-ignorable nature that used to overtake me, I have to wrack my brains for a few good ideas and stitch together them together on paper. I don’t read a book or watch an anime (unless it’s Evangelion or FLCL) and wonder to myself, “What am I not getting here?” If a work has depth it needs to put effort into making me wonder what those depths are (Shutter Island for instance), otherwise chances are I won’t care. It's not in me to go looking for depth in every mundane aspect of a story, so I guess Hills Like White Elephants can just kiss my ass.

I am shallow, or at least I can be. I am often melancholy and jaded, and sometimes bitter, and frequently meandering because that’s how my thoughts are. Yet I have a tendency to overlook those traits, or at least downplay them. I still fall into the bad habit of assuming that my dominant traits are the same as they were a half-dozen years ago. My writing has changed though, and so have I. By nature I'm want to take the wide-view these days rather than fixate on the details. I am a little saddened by some of the changes. I'm more tired now and, as I said before, more jaded. In a nutshell I'm afflicted by a sense of cynicism and disillusionment in contrast to my younger idealist, passion-driven self. My shallowness is largely related to that contrast, for in the real world I have found no deeper meanings. There are hidden ideas, profound ideas, but they are drawn out through careful observation or deep empathy, and are hidden by ignorance more than anything else. My shallowness is a reflection of that. I do not go looking for deeper meanings, because the meanings are either there or they are not, whether personal or universal. Profundity or depth of story is needlessly associated with obfuscation and complexity, and I don't believe that solely true. Sometimes the most profound things are some of the most simple, but it's very easy to overlook the simple things. Maybe that's why I don't consider myself deep though. Whenever I look closer for something deep or complex all I find is something simple.

Artists, Authors, and an Arguably Ardent Article

I was thinking (never a good sign) and realized that I have strange preferences when it comes to writing mentors. It would be natural, for instance, to follow the masters of your craft, yes? As such you'd think that maybe I've brushed up on Shakespeare or skipped a few hundred years and pored over Mark Twain or Jack London. Barring that you'd assume that I have a more intimate knowledge of some more contemporary authors and writers. Yet for all the authors to choose from I know only a handful. Instead I find that I've learned the most from artists. 

Modern artists are increasingly public, especially about their creation process. It's very easy to trace an interesting picture back to the creator and, in the the process, discover a blog or website that details their process. Which is precisely what I've done time and again. The creative process for visual arts is surprisingly applicable to writing. Many artists detail the step-by-step production of their art and discuss the various styles and preferences that they have developed over time. You can follow their process and see, in each of their works, how that process affects their art. Just as important, perhaps more important, you can also look back at their earliest works and see an immediate difference. For me at least this is proof, easily identifiable proof, that practice and method results in improvements. Although I know that writing can grow and progress in the same manner it is reassuring to see such distinct results. As such I steal from from artists all the time. I steal the way they plan and filch their rules for creating artwork. I nick their ideas and inspirations and translate them into words. Purely out of respect I assure you, and envy.

Why envy? Reading is overwhelmingly a solitary pursuit and, moreover, one that takes much more time to process. Drawings, on the other hand, can be taken in at a glance; they are incredibly easy to engage with. Though more time might be required to plumb the depths of a particular work there is an immediate resonance and, frequently, an almost-as-immediate mental impact. Drawings and photos are also much easier to share for the same reasons, it's why pictures dominate so much of the internet now. Happening upon a block of text, however, does not illicit the same sort of engagement. In fact a long post or article can often have the opposite effect because your first thought is, "that's a lot of text", which might as well translate to "that's a lot of time". You have to make a snap decision on whether or not you want to invest that time. That's why so much effort is put into crafting ludicrous article titles and opening lines with hooks so large you could land an eldritch horror. That's often the only thing standing between someone at least reading a paragraph and an immediate snub. Admittedly even I've been guilty of it.

Between my natural love of graphic art and the engagement issues I mentioned I've had a disproportionate amount of exposure to modern and up-and-coming artists as opposed to authors. I can name a dozen modern practicing artists off the top of my head (or at least their user-names) and while I'm not overly familiar with classic artists themselves I've viewed more of their works. Once again visual mediums have an advantage when it comes to engagement, they age much better. Aside from easy engagement visual mediums are fairly timeless. While styles may come and go their subject matter is largely immune to irrelevance unlike the constantly shifting landscape of language. No one looks at one of Georgia O'Keefe's flowers and says "What is it? Oh well it must be something archaic that isn't around anymore." Unless it's an abstract painting you can find an abundance of recognizable elements. Not so for older texts which often remain obscured behind aged etymology and abandoned lexicon. Timelessness is pretty much guaranteed for artists unless you're a political cartoonist, in which case you were quickly becoming irrelevant the moment your pen touched paper (but you should have known that going in).  Arguably newer art based around popular media will become irrelevant at an accelerated rate too, but even their subjects; people, places, things will still remain recognizable long after their significance has faded, but I digress.

The number one reason why I consider so many artists as mentors is because I live vicariously through their sense of progress. I thrive on it. It’s so easy to track progress with visual arts, especially for an outside observer. Identifying areas that need improvement is pretty straightforward, with the exception of some potential snags in the no man’s land between amateur and professional. Even a lay-person can point out that a picture looks plain, or the colors are odd, or that the legs look too big, the hands too small, the perspective off, or that the shadows are on the wrong side. Much like drawing it CAN be very easy to identify when writing is good or bad, but the improvements required to make writing better aren't usually as immediately apparent. When writing is just plain bad it’s easy to make suggestions. Writing has a huge middle-ground though where it’s hard to place just what needs to be improved. Unless the person reading is a fellow writer then making suggestions can be difficult at best. The easiest improvements to identify are usually content issues such as character actions or pacing. As you’ve maybe surmised I find the process of improving my writing ambiguous even in the best of times. That’s why I find it so vital to have some sort of physical corollary in which to project my word-smithing frustrations. Looking back on my writing from the past year I can scarcely tell if I’ve improved at all. Comparing some of my earliest writings there is a noticeable difference but I was also incredibly rusty at that point too. Beyond the span of my first two months it’s hard for me to say if my writing has really matured at all in the past year. I am admittedly my harshest critic but even my best attempts at objectivity leave me staring forlornly past my words, unsure of how to judge any potential progress. Unfortunately writing is stubbornly resistant to the elegant simplicity of side-by-side comparisons that visual art lends itself so well to.

Despite my fascination with graphic artists (obsession?) there are still some writers that I look up to. There are certain things that artists can’t teach, or at least can’t teach as efficiently. Chief among those things being how to take the long view and construct a world and a character one piece at a time. Artists get to put 1,000 unspoken words into every picture. Writers shrug and with each 1000 words paint one tantalizing piece at a time of an ever larger mural. As such certain authors in particular have taught me how to take the long view in a story. Their stories weave complex moving webs of plot and they develop characters like ripening fruit on a branch. Whilst others have taught me a lot about tone, how to give your writing some edge, and how effective or even comedic a good observation can be. Due to the time involved in reading I’m not nearly as well read as I wish I was. Eventually, though, maybe I’ll be able to list authors off the top of my head like I do artists. And maybe eventually I can say that my writing has grown and is, unarguably better. Until then I will continue to feed off the underbelly of the arts community; the remora of the literary world, feeding upon the scraps of artists, reviewers, bloggers, and assorted authors. 

Ruin Your Interests

I don't always have writer's block. Sometimes I experience writer's reluctance. It's not that I can't think of anything to write, or even that I'm reluctant to write, rather, it's that I don't want to ruin the ideas I do have. I have to imagine that, for those who don't write regularly, this may be a strange concept. 

Considering I sometimes struggle just to commit words to a page you'd think that I'd take the first idea that came to mind, so long as I could grab hold and run with it. Fresh ideas are also the most fulfilling to write, and that is where their magic lies. An unused idea can sometimes feel as though it has an almost indefinite shelf life so long as you keep it in your head. Of course, why would you keep a great idea in your head when you could splay it on a page? Well, for me at least, it's because I want to do the idea justice. 

If you've ever seen an excellent idea ruined by poor execution then you can probably relate. When writing about my interests, about the things I really care about, I naturally want to make them the best that I can. In writing about something for the first time there is a lot of zeal that sometimes doesn't return in the same way when revisiting a subject. And especially in the case of writing for an audience, such as with a blog where your first draft is frequently also your final draft, there aren't a lot of people who want to read six different reworks while you iron out the kinks. Of course I could also go ahead and do just that, since my primary focus is on practice and not audience. However, I like to consider this blog and No Book Unread to be simultaneous studies on both writing and marketing. (Although to be honest I really hate the term marketing and many of the words related to it for reasons I can explain succinctly.)

There are other issues with using an idea for the first time as well. The first time you write about a particular idea is when you'll be the most passionate, and often the most creative, at least for many revisions. So it can be tempting to frequently re-shelf an idea until you feel you are more proficient. Thinking on that now, that probably deprives me of a lot of ideal practice material. On the other hand, it also brings me to my next point. Writing about your favorite subjects can be very draining, especially because you want to properly convey your love of the subject. This typically results in two things; one, that you rarely feel satisfied with what you've written, and two, that you get bored with the subject and don't touch it for a while. That is, you run the risk of ruining your interests, even if only temporarily.

I should make some more attempts at working with my favorite subjects regardless, as the old adage 'How you practice is how you perform.' has proven true more than once. Writing isn't the only case in which I've kept my favorites 'in reserve', and in previous cases the things I didn't care for as much ended up being becoming what I was better with in the long run. Which just goes to show that if I really want to do my favorite subjects justice I need to practice them, which may mean botching them terribly. So, I guess that will be my first new bit of advice to myself, as well as the first new entry on my writing guidelines list. 

Note to self: Ruin your interests.

From Writing Block to a Block of Writing

Supposedly, the best remedy for writer's block is to just write anyways. According to the advice it doesn't matter what you write, or even that it is any good, the act of writing will clear away the block. The advice is sound, but it seems to me that it is more of a workaround than an actual remedy. Generally speaking, if you have writer's block you have one of two problems: a) You are bereft of ideas, or b) You have an overabundance of ideas. The idea behind writing anyways is that either you'll figure out what to write about or that you'll get some writing done regardless. So, even if you don't know what to write you might still end up with a nice block of text. The problem is that I feel the advice doesn't actual help with the actual issue.

Writing even though you are experiencing writer's block will still give you the benefit of having written something. The question is, does that writing benefit you? If all you're going for is practice, then sure, you gain a little benefit. If you were hoping for some quality content, however, I'd argue that you are pretty much out of luck. The best you might hope for are some good ideas or a few particularly good lines that you can transplant into something worthwhile. 

The thing about writing through a writer's block is that the problem isn't actually solved right away. You're essentially just breaking the damn so that you aren't still stuck the next time you sit down. If you'll excuse some bathroom imagery, it's like a stuck toilet. You can grab your plunger and jam it down in there. That will clear the block but you haven't actually achieved what you set out to do until you flush it all down. It's the same for writer's block. And on that subject, writing through writer's block is about as enjoyable as plunging a clogged toilet too. 

At its best working through a block can help you figure out what you actually want to write, in much the same way that doing anything when you're bored can help you realize what you actually wanted to do. At its worst though working through it can feel as though you've wasted an afternoon. Essentially, writer's block sucks. A writer writes though, and the advice to write something, anything, is still the most effective solution I've come across yet. If nothing else you are doing what a writer is supposed to be doing, even if the result looks like you murdered a dictionary. 

Raise Your Hand for For Robot Arms

Have you ever wanted to trade your organs in for 'upgrades'? Hey, don't give me that look, it's a valid question. Especially since the general consensus is that we are living in the future now it's something you might want to start considering. To clarify though, just so no one thinks I have some good offers on black-market kidneys, what if you could upgrade parts of yourself?

Perhaps it's because I've been playing Xenosaga lately, but the question has been on my mind. If you have even a passing interest in science fiction perhaps the question of body modification has crossed your mind as well. Supposedly, when the future arrives, we are likely to be split down the middle with indecision and heated debate over which is better: biological engineering or bio-mechanization. In other words, raise your hand if you want to be genetically enhanced super-human. Good, now for those of you who didn't raise your hands you'll be getting robot arms and possibly part of a super computer in your brain to help you dwell about your life as you lie awake at night. Last, those of you who opted for neither are part of the 'purist' group, you'll get to enjoy being overshadowed by all your peers who opted for either genetic engineer or robot parts. 

I kid. Sort of. There are some really smart people though who honestly believe that this is going to happen at some point in the future. I even watched a documentary called The Singularity which interviewed a scientist who believed man and machine would eventually merge. Perhaps he's not too far off the mark though, even if he was a bit over-optimistic on the timeline. Even now we are already using technology to prolong our lives, pump our blood, filter our blood, even to help us reproduce. Who's to argue that we won't eventually become the equivalent of elves, and beyond that, reach a point where it's only natural to seek body upgrades for quality-of-life.

To be honest I don't feel that I can really argue the point about whether or not the whole body upgrade phase will ever happen. I don't think it's a matter of if but when. Of course, I also believe that it's not going to be a matter of which but rather which first. Seriously, why choose sides in these things? I never understood the concept that machine integration and biological engineering were mutually exclusive in the long run. If you look at history, even relatively abrupt changes have a natural progression to them and this supposed Singularity, the merging of man and machine, doesn't have to mean that humanity abandons being human for functionality of being a machine. 

Ignoring the whole concept of Artificial Intelligence, for the time being, why can't you have some sweet robot arms but a bio-engineered power supply for said robot arms? Why can't you have computer aided logic as part of your brain and biologically enhanced reflexes? The future, to me, doesn't so much seem to be choosing a side but instead determining where you would fall on a scale. Certainly I think some people would be much happier just outright replacing some of their more finicky organs with some form of machinery  if they felt it would help them live more comfortably day to day, while others would prefer to 'keep their parts' as it were and just attempt to improve or remedy existing functions. Somewhere in-between there is also the whole nano-machines argument. While, strictly speaking, nano-machines are technically a unification of man and machine it seems to fall somewhere more in the middle, as the general concept behind nano-machines is that they are supposed to enhance instead of replace. 

When it comes down to it I'm pretty comfortable with either option these days. Robotic eyes? Sure, as long as I don't have to pop them out and clean them every other day. I'm lazy, and this is supposed to be the future damnit. When it comes down to it I feel like it's hard to lose your humanity just by swapping out a few parts. We humans are remarkably adaptable and pretty much anything we change will naturally become a part of us because that's just how our brain works. Now, when the day comes when we can trade our brains for digital ones, maybe then I'd think twice. Our brains are a massive part of what makes us who we are, so I'd have a hard time accepting the argument that transferring a copy of your brain to a computerized version is 'the same as you were'. Then again, I'd be surprised if we are able to create a computerized replica of the human brain in the next four-hundred years. 

Of course, there is one part that I especially dread with the coming age of human enhancement more than anything else. The emails. 'DON'T JUST ENLARGE YOUR TROUSER SNAKE, MAKE IT PREHENSILE!!!' 
You know it will happen, and it kinda scares me.

Don't Shoot the Mechanic

I was sitting and enjoying the weather, a perfect 76 degrees with a light breeze. I was lost in the middle area of another book, Dragonwing this time, almost oblivious to the world around me. 
"Your car is ready." 

I looked up from my book. I was in the waiting area at my local mechanic; the windows and door were open to take advantage of the nice weather. A warm breeze wafted through, I suddenly wished that I was still lost in my book. I walked up to the window 

"That will be $246.52."

I must have made a face because the lady behind the counter looked apologetic and said something to the effect of "Yeah, I know it adds up quick."

I experienced a mild sense of deja vu. Or maybe I was just overwhelmed by a sudden resurgence of memories. In either case this scene seemed to have reoccurred quite frequently over the last few months. This time it was tires and an oil change. Last time it was a new manifold for the exhaust system. The time before that one of the rear calipers decided it had had enough of my shit and ate through the break pads before moving on to the rotor, which made a lovely grinding noise, like a slab of granite was stuck in the wheel-well, for about a week before I could afford to get it fixed. I blamed the other rear caliper for being a bad influence, as it had screwed up only a few months previous.

To be fair our car, a Nissan Altima, serves us (my wife and I) well but it does seem to be about time for a few parts to be wearing out. The car is approaching 200,000 miles and runs like the day we bought it, but some of the other work-horse parts are starting to be phased out at this point.  This year it just so happens that there is a bit of a queue forming. If the trend continues we should have 1/3 of a new car by 2016. 

Back in the office of my mechanic I stared at the red number at the bottom of the invoice and punched in my debit pin a moment later, my lips a grim line. I still need the bearings in one of the wheels looked at, though whoever did the paperwork last time forgot to write down which one. I've also got a half dozen other big expenses due before the snow hits the ground a few months from now. I try not to think to hard about it, because somehow we always find a way to make things work and I haven't had to sell any organs yet, mine or otherwise. So there's that. 

The bill was stamped paid and I folded it neatly in three parts. I'll be tossing it in the glove box in a moment, as part of a service record history in case we ever sell the car (even though we probably never will). Meanwhile I fantasized about being able to work on the Altima myself, and occasionally taking a break by laying on the pile of money I was saving by doing my own work. 

I certainly feel I have the aptitude to do my own work. I have the trouble-shooting skills from working on computers for years, and I'm apparently competent enough that I managed to get a certification in computer repair, not that I've put it to use yet. So given enough time I'm sure I could learn my way around an engine. I can see myself leaning over an engine, covered in grease and dripping sweat into the organized jumble of parts beneath the hood. I've got my hand snaked down into the engine as I try and prize loose a corroded bolt, my muscles straining. Essentially, the complete opposite of computer repair; since your goal is to vehemently avoid dripping sweat on anything, any sign of grease is a cause for concern if not outright panic, and using much more than a golf putt's worth of pressure is a sign that you're about break something (unless you're installing a heatsink in which case the corroded bolt scenario still applies). 

However, I digress. That won't be happening any time soon, and I highly doubt at all. Learning to work on cars now would mean acquiring tools, dozens of hours of learning (in my experience about half that time is spent staring at something half taken apart with a mixture of despair and grim determination), and I'd still end up paying a good chunk of change for the actual parts. Better that I just stick to what I know, computers, and let the mechanics do their thing. Maybe someday I'll pick up enough mechanic's skills and tools to keep the basics of my car in order. For now though I'll have the satisfaction of keeping my computer running and the minor admiration that comes from the non-tech-savvy, who seem to regard anything relating to computers in the same way most people regard calculus problems, or snakes, or a calculus assignment tied to a snake. 

I latched the glovebox shut and started up the car. It was still 76 degrees out, a perfect day by most people's standards. I cranked my music and rolled down the windows as I pulled out of the lot. The car felt good. It's probably just in my head but the car always feels a little better when I leave. The new tires I had just bought felt like they stuck to the road better. The difference is usually subtle and I sometimes wonder if it's worth shelling out hundreds of dollars for. I need this thing to keep running though, the Altima isn't even paid off yet, though it's nearing that point. Still, the drive home is nice. I guess it's worth it.

At least that's what I'd like to say. There's got to be some point of equilibrium in which the concern over the money spent is canceled out by the peace of mind brought about by vehicle reliability. Right now the expense versus reliability scale is still skewed enough that it caused me to forget what page I was on. Clearly an unacceptable level.