wshaffer

It was extremely clever of me to arrange to drop my car off at the body shop and pick up a rental car during one of the biggest rainstorms we've had in months. It was even more clever of me to choose* a Volkswagen Jetta, knowing from experience that Volkswagen designs elegant yet unintuitive controls for their vehicles. This was confirmed when I tried to defog my front windscreen, and ended up activating the seat warmer. It was deeply comforting to know that if I ran off the freeway and ended up in a ditch because I couldn't see out my front window, at least my ass would be warm. (I did eventually unfog the window, but not before I'd gotten on 280 going the wrong way.)

If it weren't for twitter, I'd have completely missed the fact that the Women's World Cup Soccer tournament is currently underway. When the Men's World Cup is on, they get big screen TVs in all the buildings here at work so that people can watch the games live. Women's World Cup? Nothin'. This makes me sad. However, you can see the game highlights on FIFA.com. I'm totally rooting for Equatorial Guinea. Although, they've already lost to Norway, and they play Brazil next, so they're probably doomed.

* I say "choose", but it was more of a case of my showing up at the rental office and being told, "Your insurance company will reimburse for $30/day, and the only car we have that costs less than $30/day is the Jetta." Why is it so hard to rent a small car? Even the Jetta feels like a boat compared to my Integra.

Though it's not as widely documented a technique as jump starting or push starting a car with a dead battery, repeatedly cranking the starter and muttering, "Please please please just start!" actually worked for me twice this morning. Call it plead starting.

I now have a shiny new battery, and with any luck will not need to employ this technique again.