Let’s take a look back at my 2010 Checklist and highlight a few of my desired accomplishments:

1. Blog or write something everyday. FAIL!

And by everyday, I meant every couple of months. So, this resolution is already a failure; I think it was doomed from the start. I could say I’ve been too busy to keep up with this but there’s no way of twisting that into truth. I could say I’ve had nothing to say but that’s a lie also. I could also say I’ve been spending a lot of my time watching Lie To Me and now that….that’s the truth. (Tim Roth is amazing and you know why? According to imdb, he and Gary Oldman are pretty good friends. yess Gary Olddmannn!!)

19. Care for my car EPIC FAIL!

Not only did I just not keep up with when to change the oil or rotate the tires, I’ve decided my car has some sort of leprosy/osteoporosis/combination every deteriorating disease known to man. He’s completely falling apart in the most random of ways. Sure, Vladimir is almost 20 years old but he’s a Toyota so that’s takes off a couple years.

First of all, Vlad is having attachment issues. The automatic over the shoulder seat belt stopped functioning which wasn’t too surprising; I always suspected it would happen one day. But if it just decided to all together not work, that would be okay. Instead, without rhyme or reason, it occasionally decides my protection is worth it again and closes in on me midway through the drive. And once it starts hugging me, it doesn’t want to let go. The normal procedure is one opens the door, the seatbelt follows on its track to open up the set, then when one is seated and has closed the door, the seatbelt then comes back in place, securing the driver in the seat. Vladimir however, does not release when I open the door so I have to awkwardly try to limbo under the seatbelt. Midway through the limbo though, what does he do? Releases the seatbelt, carrying my along all awkwardly tangled amidst it. I used to think Herbie was a little far-fetched, but now I’m a believer. Cars definitely have minds of their own.

Along with the seat belt issues, one of the back windows stopped working as well. It went down, but refused to go back up. We could have just done the quick fix trash bag or taken it to a professional but no. We had to make matters worse. My brother and I took off the faceplate of the car door, convinced it was a quick fix once we took a look inside. It was a dead motor so we unattached the glass from the kajigger thingy and jimmied the window back up into a closed position… but nothing would hold it there. So we managed to wedge some scrap pieces of wood inside the door to hold the window up. It was pretty flimsy though – basically, if my car went over a the tiniest bump, the glass would fall. Ta-da, your own homemade guillotine! We eventually worked out a better, just as McGyvor-ish solution involving a coat hanger and some crumpled newspaper.

Vladimir is also one-eyed and not an ambi-turner. Meaning – he only has one headlight and one working turn signal. Classy.

My personal favorite defect has to do with the core connection between the automobile and the human – the bond, the Tsaheylu. That is to saying the keys in the ignition – or rather, the lack of keys in the ignition. Lets say I take a turn to sharply or my leg bumps the dangling keys. They will just fall out of the ignition. It’s not that they are heavy; I have three keys and a keychain. They just fall. My car doesn’t turn off or seem at all affected by that fact that the keys are not in anymore. It simply trudges on.

I guess all this, as well as the bad paint job and upside down mismatched tail lights is enough for Vladimir to just loose any  interest and dignity. Through it all though, I gotta say he’s a pretty dependable(ish) car.

24. Go on a road trip Success!

Well, hello Beach, my old friend. I’ll be there soon (today). Yes, Summer Reading is coming as well. Oh, the old gang, back together again!

Note: We will not be taking my car.

Keeping with the cars theme, please enjoy this footage of the creepiest looking guy ever, no offense.

I had a weekend filled with puns and grammar fun, which inspired me to finally make this little cartoon, though I’m sure this joke has been made before. I helped with my town’s Founders’ Day festival, which had a baseball theme this year. On the particular float with which I helped, we had a banner across the back that read “Go Home Team!”, to show our support for our home town and our togetherness as a community. After the frustration of preparing for the festival had accumulated, though, we were very much tempted to add in a little comma after Home; to reflect our dislike of the whole thing at that moment and our desire for the chaos to just be over with, the sign would have then said “Go Home, Team!”

At any rate, we overcame our moment of mischief, rethought the punctuation change and got 2nd in show. I am convinced that comma would have sold it and bumped us into 2st place.

As another one of my various volunteer duties, I was also the official ticket taker for a kiddie train ride. One of the kids who was waiting in line, had apparently just consumed twice his size in sugar and was amidst a sugar rush. He had a hilarious joke to share with me, which, due to its absolute awesomeness, I must now share with you.

The jittery shaking boy riddled me this: “You are riding your lawn mower, mowing the grass, and your cat gets stuck underneath. You run over your cat and chop off its tail. Where do you take it to fix it?”

I was prompted to ask where.

“Wal- Mart,” he bursts,” because they are the biggest… RE-TAILER!!”

The boy commences a laughing fit that has him rolling in the grass. I don’t know which was funnier – the way he told the joke, or his reaction to it. Either way, I found his joke hilarious and he was pleased. The train arrived and as he boarded, I heard him asking the kid beside him if he would like to hear a joke. The train took off at a whopping 2 mph and a couple minutes later, I heard the little boy shout the punchline and again, succumb to his cackling. It was great.

I remember in the dawn of this blog, I refused to make this a chronicling my life online diary type deal – but a day as rewarding as this one deserves a note. It began with breakfast, accompanied by a light fresh morning movie – Iron Man. Let me just say there is no better way to start the day than by enlightening a friend by exposing her to the awe that is Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man. I’m considering making it part of the daily morning routine. Breakfast, brush teeth, get dressed, watch Iron Man with an unfortunate newbie and make his/her life better.

We planned to bring bags-o-books to sell to the local used bookstore but first went to Java K’s Coffeehouse, for a smoothie and a cherry white chocolate frozen mocha something that was really good. At Java K’s, and most coffeehouses, they have the open bookshelf system set up, where you can take a book if you leave a book. Amidst the Dean Koontz and romance “novels”, I found a completely random book titled “I Before E (except after C).” It was a guide of helpful mnemonics and techniques for remembering such things as the order of the planets (though irrelevant after the whole Pluto debacle) , when to use lay/lie, order of the presidents… etc. It was an unexpected find that was both useful and intriguing. I traded it out. First sign that today was a good day.

Onward to the main event: Ed McKay’s. I am not sure if I could ever accurately express my love for Edward McKay’s. It is a used bookstore where you can buy/sell used books, cds, movies, iPods, video games, audiobooks, game systems, board games… everything (pretty much). It has an environment.. that simply cannot be fabricated. It has genuine uniqueness and starving artist vibe that should come off as sketchy but surprisingly doesn’t. I love the place for the thrill of the hunt – going in never knowing exactly what you will find but 99% of the time coming out completely satisfied. The trick is to go in without expectations. If you are looking for something particular, you will not find it. Such is the nature of Ed McKay’s. You have to go in open minded, and let it led you.

I visited the grand ole Edward McKay’s today with a friend and the thought of buying anything was not in my mind. I had come bearing books and games to sell. I was not going to be a customer today. I brought my items to the corner and while they were sorting my junkpile into stuff they wanted and didn’t want, we perused the store.

Being the cheap-os we are, we hit up the Free Section. My friend found the oldest copy of Hamlet ever; I believe it was copyright 400 B.C. if I remember correctly. She also spotted a book for me; it was an old literature textbook, I guess, just filled with Poes,Emersons, Wordsworths, Shakespeares, Emily Dickinson, Faulkners…918 page collection of shorts stories and poems placed into chapters, each with a focus on a certain literary element. For free. Thank you, Ed McKay’s. Thank you. I also found a free copy of All Quiet on the Western Front. I had attempted to read it once years ago and it just didn’t appeal to me. Suddenly, I was intrigued to try it again (no one can resist the allure of something free). This was satisfactory enough to be classified as a good run in my opinion, but the doubleplusgoodness continues.

We moved on to the dvd section. My friend has a dangerously tiny movie collection, and we found that unacceptable for a rising college student. So the trip was meant for her, to help expand her movie collection into something admirable. And that’s when I saw it.
There, leaning on Bargain Movie Bin…was Chocolat with Johnny Depp. For $3. By coming in here with the selfless intentions that I had, the store had rewarded me. Take note, that I have never seen Chocolat, and I only first heard of it referenced in I Love You, Man – but that was all I needed to know this movie is a classic… and would not at all feel out of place sitting next to Donnie Darko and Army of Darkness on my movie shelf. It was the sort of perfect joke and at the perfect price. It was quite serendipitous. It was quite serendipitous.

We searched the rest of the store and I grabbed $5 Fight Club, $4 Alien Ant Farm, $1 Poe and headed to the counter to collect a total of $102 for the books and games (half of which is my brothers’). Not a bad haul. Not a bad haul at all.

The cashier reviewed my selections and brought to my attention that Chocolat was in Thai and subtitled. Even better, I thought. We paid, left, and when I got home, I noticed a couple tiny marks on the spine of All Quiet on the Western Front, no doubt doodled there by the previous owner. I looked closer and gasped at what I saw. Swastikas. Awkward.

So, here I am now, hours upon hours later, reviewing my collection. It is beautiful, in a random, broken way – like starring onto the Island of Misfit Toys. They all had different backgrounds, had taken different paths but they had all found a home here. I unexpectedly acquired these things and it’s interesting how they all came about. I didn’t ask for this things (okay, I have ANThology on a list of about 1000 cds I want so I asked for that) but they came to me. To have a day as filled with this many goodies I have to wonder where I went right. This is karma at work here; Thai dubbed Chocolat is a sign of good things to come.

Also, let me just say, there is no better way to end the day than by exposing a friend to the antics and wild-ings of White House Correspondents’ Dinner (even if Jay Leno is the speaker). Brush Teeth, wash face, get in pajamas, show one more soul the sunny side of politics in the roast-like insults-hidden-in-punchlines humor that powers the WHCD. Go to bed, then do it all again.

This one’s for you, Chocolat. Aw shuck, it’s for the whole gang! Just one look at you guys and I know it’s gonna be…a Lovely Day