right on bro!

Picked up the Prius today. It’s cool. After I left the dealership (after sending it back to get washed again because the inside was dusty), I drove around for about an hour, just testing shit out. It’s got a bit of a bumpier ride than I’m used to, but I read on the Internet that you can adjust the tires for a smoother ride, so I think I’m going to do that.

Here’s something for the people I used to work with at my last job: With the navigation system, you can press a button and then shout “Italian restaurants!” and it’ll plot all Italian restaurants around you. How fucking cool is that? I would have loved to develop stuff like that, but we couldn’t get past redesigning the Website every six months. C’est la vie.

So now that I have my new ride, I’d like to take a moment and say goodbye to my old ‘ 98 Corolla. Thanks for being pretty much reliable for seven years. I hope you enjoyed the cross-country trip as much as I did, and good luck with your new owner.

I missed tonight’s episode of 24, so please don’t say anything about it. I’m gonna go to bed now.

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I bought a Toyota Prius today. Well, technically, I get to pick it up tomorrow - they’re getting it from another dealership and have to send somebody out to get it. But, I bought one.

My new Prius is black with a gray interior. I said “what the hell” and bought Package #6 - GPS/DVD navigation system, high-intensity headlights, voice-activated commands, 6-CD changer, Bluetooth interface, and some more stuff I’m probably not going to use. It’s pretty pimp for a tree-hugger-mobile, although I do have visions of the Japanese team’s car and that cheesy futuristic sound effect from Cannonball Run when I sit inside.

The car negotiating process was kind of fun. I do not negotiate deals on a regular basis, so I took this opportunity to really try to analyze the process and tactics as they occured. It took two and a half hours, and I almost walked out after they pitched me the deal that I eventually accepted. In the end, though I think I got a pretty fair deal - probably not the absolute rock-bottom deal, but I didn’t get screwed. Plus, the dealer was located right down the street, they’re gonna get me the car tomorrow, and I didn’t really want to wait to get the car.

Cars that didn’t make the cut: I did check out a few other cars as I said I would. I test drove the Audi A4 (very nice, but I’m not down with the new front grille), the Volkswagen Passat (nice, but two people told me about Volkswagen having quality problems), and the BMW 325i (sweet, but everyone and their mom has one). In the end it, the decision turned out to be whether I wanted to roll “cleaner environment, reduce dependence on oil, holier than thou asshole” steez, or “materialistic, gas-guzzling, near-luxury-car asshole” steez. I’m probably closer to the latter in spirit than the former, but if it turns out that I don’t like the Prius, I can probably sell it for only a relatively minor hit to get something else.

So that’s that. In the spirit of Page’s Pages, I am now accepting suggestions for a name for the car. I never named my car before, but I’m curious to see what y’all might come up with. So fire away.

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Today was a much better day. Made some good progress on a project I’m working on at the office, and had a good lunch (the buffet at Nizam, not quite as good as Star of India on Melrose, but possibly rotation-worthy) with some old co-workers. Also another former co-worker dropped by the office and it was good to hang with him for a quick minute too. The people I cared about at my last job have all seemed to be moving on fairly successfully, so that makes me happy.

My mindset is like 180 degrees from yesterday. I mean, pretty much things are cyclical - you have good days and have bad days. The key for me is knowing on the bad days that good days are coming back, which I’m getting better at. Also, I did some laundry last night, so maybe that has something to do with it.

Caroline made some brownies and I got some last night. They are the most kickass brownies I’ve ever had. I would like to swim in a sea of these things, they’re so good. So, thank you Caroline, and if you have more to give, I would gladly take them off your hands.

Toby’s coming by for dinner and we’re going to Hacienda del Rey in Westchester. It is, after all, Cinco de Mayo, a.k.a. “Mexican People, It’s Your Day.” Word.

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These past couple of weeks have been annoyingly hectic. I think I have pretty good time management skills, but it’s still not enough. I have spent a lot of the last two weeks coming home from work feeling overly stressed, and it’s not even like I’m putting in a lot of extra hours. This was exactly what I wanted to avoid when I ended up taking a new job.

Oh well. I’m sure I just need to vent, and get some sleep or something. Bitch bitch bitch, whine whine whine.

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Tonight I went to go visit my friend who’s shooting his movie. I’ve never been on a movie set before, other than a short appearance I made in a student film a few years ago. It was pretty rad. My friend basically just sat on a couch looking at a TV screen, and then he’d say “Hey….cut”‘ every once in awhile, go into the set to talk to some people, come back out, and then go back to the couch and look at the TV screen again. That sounds like a pretty fun way to spend the day. Otherwise, I got bored with it after about 15 minutes, and I found out they weren’t planning to blow anyone up or kill anyone, so I left.

Cross “visiting a movie set” off my list of things I wanted to do in my lifetime.

While I’m here, I would like to point out that yesterday’s episode of 24 was absolutely awesome. That episode was definitely the highlight of this year’s TV season, out of all of the shows that I watch.

Regul is home early and he’s playing Halo so I think I might join in a few minutes.

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I went to check out the Toyota Prius today, but nobody has them in stock. The first dealership I went to (near my house) had a salesguy who took down my name and number and said he’d call me when they got some. The second dealership (also near my house) had a salesguy named Homy who let me sit in the one that they had that was already sold, but wouldn’t let me test drive it. He also didn’t say when they’d get new ones in. So I said, “See ya, homey!” and left.

Like any good Los Angeles resident, I am a materialistic asshole who needs status symbols to boost my low self-image, so I’m also researching the Audi A4, the Volkswagen Passat, and the BMW 3-series. But I have read lots of good things on the Internet about the Prius, and, of course, whatever you read on the Internet is true. From what I’ve read, the mileage isn’t what it’s cracked up to be (average around 45 instead of the EPA-rated 60), but that’s not really the point - the goal of the Prius is to not pollute up the air as much. And, it’s supposed to be a pretty nice car in general. And, my papparazzi friend showed me a pic he took of Dustin Hoffman getting out of one, so if Dustin can roll hybrid steez, then I guess that I can, too.

First, though, I gotta find one and test drive it. It sounds like this is going to take awhile, though.

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