TGIF

TGIF indeed. Furnace is fixed, bill not an issue for 10 days, so Christmas shopping may commence tomorrow. Yay for blatant commercialism in the guise of religious celebration.

Tomorrow I am also going to attempt to buy a new car. I've owned my car for three and a half years, and have put over three and a half grand into it for maintenance and repairs. And the damn thing is broken again. It's the head gasket again, and the mileage is well beyond the 12,000 miles the repair was warranted for. So time to cut my loses and get new wheels.

If I can.

I'm going back to the Kia dealership where I bought this, and this time going to attempt to get a new Sedona. Kia is doing $3,000 cash back, and has a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty. So how bad can it be?

Tonight I saw MiniJacket perform. Click the link and checkout their music, you'll be glad you did.

what more proof is required

I suck at cars. No doubt about it.

I found my registration--stuck the to top of the glove box, thank you mr. static electricity--and went to the Kia dealership.

I got there, and the sales guy actually recognized me from two and a half years ago when I bought the Impala there. My license plate was probably something of a reminder, he asked if I was "in computers" and what I needed. I told him I was here to buy a Sedona. He smiled. I asked if they were still doing the $3,000 cash back, and he smiled even more.

He first showed me something in beige. No thank you. The red one was an '07. The silver one, however, that was a winner. An '06 with LX trim, meaning nice bells and whistles but not the high-end stuff and not all the really nice toys. But more than comfortable.

So we go inside, do the paperwork, run the credit report, check with the bank, negociate what they are going to give me for my car (they short-changed me, but I still got them to go up a grand) and we arrive at a monthly payment figure that's about $50 higher than I was comfortable with and about $80 more than I wanted. But, what the hell, it's only money.

So we do the deal. On Tuesday I'm to call my insurance company, make an appointment with the service guy at the dealership to get my state inspection sticker, and the sales guy will double check the payoff balance with my bank. And just like that, it's done and I drive off in a new car.

So I do a little shopping, have a nice, leisurely dinner, hit Toy-R-Us to find something cute for Elyssia, and then go home. And on the way home the suckage starts anew.

I have a new, Übersafe vehicle into which I can comfortably put my kids.

It has 56.7 miles on it.

And the Check Engine light is on.