Look, I've Been Busy, Aight?

The Weekend (a retropsective)

Busy weekend. On Friday was the beer buy for my promotion (went very well, good attendance but the final price tag was completely reasonable).

Last night was the Dougly/CBC/Wizzy/My Un-Evil Twin holiday gathering, featuring Chinese hot pot. In an effort to educate me on Chinese culture, The CBC purchased for me a board game which mostly seems to be about nepotistically peopling the civil service with your family members FTW. Possibly not the lesson I was meant to take away from that. Also, the CBC is resisting most of the obvious and salutory suggestions for possible names for her offspring, but I'm confident she'll come around eventually.

(My new favourite phrase in her company: "Let me tell you a story about your mom ...")

Today was TeamHooking's surprise baby shower. She was told it was a brunch, but instead there were scads of people, a completely ridiculous quantity of food, fun games, and good times. A fair whack of prep work required though, and big shout-outs to Wizzy, the Greek and Ladybug for helping out. My lovely wife doesn't believe in under-the-top.

All of which to say that I am a nappy chappy, but this here fine Canadian beer is helping. It's a True North strong ale, a brewer that I saw at Le Beer Store and thought I'd try. A bold and full flavour with hints of maple and caramel, not so bitter as to be unpleasant. I approve. They have a few other varieties that I shall be trying out in future. Full reports as events allow.

Automotive Issues

My lovely wife's old 2000 Sunfire was my vehicle of choice, reliably getting me to and from work and various other points of interest while accruing a fairly reasonable tally of repair costs. Recently I took it in for routine inspection and an oil change and found out that four figures worth of parts needed fixing, and soon. This pushed the vehicle well into "just buy a new car already" territory, so, that's what I did.

In Seattle I'd been given a Corolla as a rental and it was nice. The Matrix was also on my list, and the Ford Fusion.

I drove the Matrix and liked it. Not head over heels, bouncing up and down, I must own this car love, but I could see myself owning one, and the price was right. Sadly you can't get them in the lovely shade of Barcelona Red that Corollas come in.

I went to the Ford dealership, then, and drove the Fusion. I was really quite impressed. It's a more expensive car but it's also bigger, heavier, roomier and more comfortable to drive, and packs a lot more horses forward of the firewall. They also had the Fusion Hybrid, which I really like but figured I couldn't afford.

However, the dealership had a small number of demo vehicle hybrids that were on the block, strongly discounted. For basically the price of a regular Fusion, once you add in the discount and the provincial EHV rebate, I could get a fully loaded hybrid. I don't know how to say no to that offer.

As a demo model it's fully loaded - bluetooth sync, 12-speaker stereo, sunroof, the works. They had silver, gray, black and white, and although I would have predicted that I'd like the black best, the looks of this particular vehicle overcame my traditional reticence regarding white vehicles. It looks classy and elegant in white. Sexxay, even.

So. This Wednesday I took delivery of my first new car. And I head over heels, bouncing up and down, I must own this car love it.

In Other News

I saw this a while ago but didn't get around to blogging it.

Also, funny.

One week from right now I'll be sitting on a sailboat in the Caribbean drinking rum. That, ladies and gentlemen, is just how we roll.

G'night all. It'll be an early night for me.