Are We There Yet?

So I've decided I need...

nobody@vox.com(Wende) — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 00:47:07 -0700

So I've decided I need a bike.

Not just the normal ten speed kind that you see all over the place, but the most useless, girly bike you can imagine. Preferably purple. Or sky-blue. With no handbrake. I'm still deliberating on the wicker basket with a flower on it as opposed to the slightly more constructive saddle-bags. But no gears. I will not ride anything where it is possible to change into a different gear. For one thing, Phoenix and its environs are almost perfectly flat, so there is no huge, pressing need for them. For another, I cannot ride a bike with gears. Every single blasted time I try, I do something to make the chain fall off. Then I try to put the chain back on by myself, and end up just making a mess with the grease and cutting myself, with the chain still stubbornly Not On. This has happened more than a dozen times.

I understand the purpose and the physics and the theory behind switching gears. I just can't DO it. (Ironically, I drive a standard.)

But with the number of repairs my car* needs, the lack of expendable cash I have, and the fact that I am simply MILES away from the nearest coffee shop** or bookstore, having a bike would enable me to, you know, leave my house.

Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer in public transportation and walking. So much so that "reasonable public transport" is on my list of top five criteria I look for in a city, and one of the reasons I adore Rome. But after several weeks of trying to get to work occasionally on a weird combination of city buses (the bike won't actually help that) and out to buy dogfood and toilet paper when necessary on foot in unrelentingly triple-degree weather, I need a third option. I need a bike. The idea of taking a two mile bike ride up the road to the bookstore or to Target has attained the realm of "luxury."

But I have a dilemma. Not only do I STILL have no expendable cash, I have pinned "Desk Chair" to my board for the next mildly expensive nonessential item I buy. So if I happen to come into a couple of hundred bucks, what do I do? Do I override myself? Do I dare? Would this set my world askew?

Here is a picture of the type of bike I want (minus the handbrake):

Pretty Blue Girly Bike

If it's not abundantly clear, today was one of those walk and walk and walk in the heat days, so I am probably completely dehydrated and insane and rambling.

*_{Getting a new car is not an option. It's a thing. I will keep my car forever. My dad still has his '67 Ford Fairlane. My folks still have the '76 truck they spent several years living out of as they traveled the country. I have no intention of doing any less with mine, and it makes me unreasonably piqued when people assume I am unaware of this phenomenon called "new cars."}
**_{This is not completely true. I found a Middle Eastern cafe by my house completely by accident this week that serves Turkish coffee and iced lattes when the other coffee shop by my house was unexpectedly closed. So, if you count both as coffee shops, that was a blatant lie.}

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Newbie at Vox

nobody@vox.com(Wende) — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 15:51:46 -0700

Knowing how hesitant I am about keeping this going (in addition to the travel blogs and my apocalypse journal* and my paper journals and whatever else I've set up over the years), my friend Lindsey said, "You should! You don't talk about killing yourself, and the fish are cute!" (My theme is all beachy right now.) How can I turn down encouragement like that?

But I have a a few complaints about Vox that maybe someone can help me out with.

No threaded comments. Is there a way to turn that on, so it's graphically easier to see who's replying to what and what you need to reply to?
No way to change your "real name." This isn't a big deal. I had to disable it showing, though, because of that. (Not, ironically, because it was my real name and I was concerned about privacy issues, but because I entered my usual email alias when I registered and no one I know will know who that is.)
No way to search by region that I've found yet. Seeing as how searching through my top interests found a whopping three people and my searching by name found absolutely no one I know, I thought it might be neat to find other people in my area. That...didn't really work out, except for AmyH. Am I missing something?
A huge number of people just seem to be name-holding, with nothing in their blog. I keep getting all excited about finding cool sounding people, then finding out they don't actually write anything. Maybe it's too hard to keep up the cool facade that far?
No anonymous comments. I don't want to actually force everyone to get a Vox just to reply to me.

Stuff I do like:

All of the media features. Now I need some, um, media so they're not wasted.
Very few people seem to be talking about pills, suicide, makeup, Harry Potter, or eating disorders.
All of the fancy format buttons actually work properly.
The QoTD and assorted whosits are kind of neat, and seem like a good way of encouraging people who don't know what to write.

Now I've got to go pick up some boxes for moving at an unspecified time to an unspecified location. Ahh. Apartment living at its finest.

*For reals. It has nothing about freeze-dried food or stocking up on ammo, though.

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El Primero

nobody@vox.com(Wende) — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:20:17 -0700

Things That Are Awesome*

The fake coyote the golf course has gotten to keep the geese off. It even has glowing eyes.
Watching the bus pull away, three minutes early, when it is almost 10pm and you are still standing across the street. Uncomfortably close to the ghetto.
Deciding to hop the fence to cut across the golf course, thereby minimizing the time spent walking the streets of Mesa, and realizing that thanks to a month and a half of rock climbing every week, it's doable.**
Promptly getting drenched by a sprinkler on aforementioned golf course.
Getting home to the incompetent trojan that has infected my already-dying computer, throwing Norton into a tizzy and not really accomplishing much else.
One of the themes for Branding on Vox is "Bank of America." Now, I could see perhaps advertising for something you really, really like, such as Pepsi or iPods or something, but the Bank of America? Seriously?
Working for so long on making The New Blog Endeavour pretty that you no longer have a thing to say.
Giving up to watch Scrubs**.

*_{If by "awesome," one means "annoying, mundane. or barely worthy of note}."
**_{Except for these. These are actually awesome***.
***In the colloquial meaning, of course.}

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