Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Oh Hell. Perrine just discovered that my keys make jingly noises when she plays with them. I hope I can find them in the morning when I need them.

(Chanting, "Do not assume intent where shiny and jingly are sufficient explanation ... Do not assume intent where shiny and jingly are sufficient explanation ... Do not assume intent where shiny and jingly are sufficient explanation ... Do not assume intent where shiny and jingly are sufficient explanation ... Do not assume intent where shiny and jingly are sufficient explanation ... Do not assume intent where shiny and jingly are sufficient explanation ..." Even if she did try to tell me to go to bed just beforehand. And even if she is smart enough to know that I need the keys when I go away and leave her alone. Nah; shiny and jingly is sufficient explanation...)

"Apparently, every computer on the planet has been compromised, and they all want the Republican party to have a bigger, firmer penis." -- Todd Finney (sysadmin for a state Republican party website)

I think my UPS just turned into an "Oops". :-( This morning I was woken by the blaring of the clock-radio in my bedroom that resets itself to "the alarm is going off NOW" when the power comes on. The glitch was short enough for the VCRs to ride through with their programming intact, so it could not have been more than a few seconds, but it was more than enough to take down every computer in the house. Since my arm hurt too much to let me get back to sleep, I figured I might as well head downstairs to make sure the servers came back up correctly. (The big fsck just finished during this paragraph.) But one machine won't come up at all: the only machine in the house on an UPS.

There are no lights on the UPS. "Surge on", "power on", "on battery", and "check battery" (the only four lights it has) are all dark. The machine plugged into the outlets that get surge-suppression only had completly rebooted by the time I got downstairs, and just needed the date tweaked. The one plugged into the battery-protected side of the UPS is still dark. If I move the plug for the monitor over to the surge-only side, it gets juice. So clearly the UPS itself is hosed.

There's a little black button next to the power cord that I figure is a circuit breaker. Poking at it has no effect. And I know the UPS wasn't overloaded, 'cause I've been using it on this machine for a few years, and it normally gives me about ten minutes of power, not ten seconds.

Obviously, the irony of the one machine properly protected being the only one that didn't come up is annoying me. Now to find other outlets to plug it into and try to get file service re-started so I can tend to the Windows machines and the Mac. Feh.

My uncle's estate included a Honda. Whoever had first-refusal rights on it refused, and my mother bought it from the estate for me, since I really need a properly working car. My to-do list this week mostly involves dealing with getting the Honda through Maryland inspection, registration, etc., and part of that is to finally get rid of the Toyota I've been using for within-Baltimore-only errands because it's no longer highway-worthy. (I'll need to transfer tags and insurance 'cause I can't afford to have both cars at once and won't need the Camry anyhow once the Honda is legal.)

So my options are to find someone who wants a pile of 1988 Toyota Camry parts, find someone to whom a rolling DIY project is worth more than $35, or find someone who can lend me the tools to remove the gas tank and spend a bunch of time scrapping it (and hoping I don't hurt myself in the process). Or find a way to take it off the road and make it legally-not-a-car in the eyes of the Motor Vehicle Administration so I can de-register and de-insure it, borrow my brother's welding rig, teach myself to weld, and turn it into raw materials for sculpture, but that would also require finding a legal place to store it in the meantime.

I'm going to give the first two options one last try. Does anyone want a 1988 Camry sedan with a decent motor and transmission, cruise control, and three working power windows, that needs a lot of body work, brakes, a radiator, and some front-end suspension work? ( (suspension symptoms) )

[EDIT 13:20 -- I also posted this message to a mailing list, and got back the following suggestion (from someone apparently already aware that I don't earn enough for the tax deduction to do me any good directly): "It probably has value as a tax deductible donation for someone else. Do you have a friend who will give you $100 for it in order to donate it to a charity for a tax deduction? The charity may give them more of a deduction than the cash value." Anyone here need the charitable deduction?]

Not that I expect any, but hey, any takers among my readers in or near Baltimore, MD? Anybody want a major DIY auto-restoration project? Is it worth even trying to list this car on eBay?

*grumble* Somebody refresh my memory -- does Section 508 of the ADA apply to state governments as well as the feds? 'Cause the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration web site just gave me a screen saying, "Unsupported Browser -- Sorry, this website was developed to work primarily with Netscape 6 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or higher. Use of any other browser may not give full features." (I'm using Opera 6) And that was after trying to cope with a bunch of links that don't take me anywhere because the HTML just links to "#" and they rely on Javascript (which I keep turned off) to set the actual destination.

I'm wondering whether, when I complain, I have a legal threat to wave at them, or just the wrath of an educated techie.

Anyhow, I've got an offer on the car from somebody who plans to take it apart and just use the motor ... I've been crawling through the MVA web site to find out whether this requires anything unusual in terms of paperwork, or whether I can just assign the title in the normal fashion.