On October 3rd our 2001 Subaru Forester was totaled.

While driving north on Park Avenue in Minneapolis, on my way home, I passed 27th Street as I have done countless times before. I was driving in the right-hand-most lane since I'd be turning right on 24th Street in a couple of blocks.

 

"Why is there an air-bag in front of me and why am I going so slow? This can't be good." Was the next thing to go through my mind. Apparently, a minivan had pulled out of a parking lot to my right and was making a right turn into my lane. It would have been too much work, I guess to have looked and seen if anyone was coming and if maybe that might cause a problem.

Anyway, I'm OK, but the car is totaled and towed. Here are some pictures.

	This is an overview shot of the damage. The yellow cable you see under the fender is connected to the air-bag sensor. That was part of the answer to that initial question.
	Here's a closer view of the damage. It doesn't look like much so it wasn't obviously totaled. The insurance guy took 24 hours to make a decision and he had to talk to his boss about it first.
	This is the spot where I hit a pillar at the mall of america the second year we had the car. The accident creamed all the evidence of that event and I finally got my wish to get rid of that ugly purple paint.
	I took these pictures the day after the accident and had intended to get this post up last week. Of course, most of my spare time was spent looking for another car. We wanted something like our Forester, and I wanted something that didn't feel like a step down. I also refuse to own an automatic transmission car so that really limited our options. Anyway, after just one day, you can really see the rust attacking that unprotected metal.
	In order to get the car home, I had to wad up the air-bags so that I could see out the windshield and use the steering wheel. You can kind-of see where my nearly-empty mug of cocoa flew out of the cup holder and dumped the thick, rich dregs of cocoa on the dash and driver's seat.

 

So now we own a 2002 Subaru Outback Limited and are making car payments again.

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The only thing you are doing when you put a flier on someone's car is littering by proxy. How many returns out of 1000 fliers do you expect to get? Maybe 100? That means that 900 of those fliers are going straight to the roadside, or if we're lucky, the trash or maybe recycling bin. Any time I get a flier on my car, I call the number on it and complain that I now have to dispose of their trash. I don't think it's going to work though and I'll probably give up in frustration long before people stop doing it.

I wonder if there are any movements to make fliering illegal.

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"Yes, you can have rolex 20 times chipper!"

From the "What Were They Thinking" files we have this subject line. I have to think that the rolex should be quite a bit less expensive after 20 times through a chipper. Or maybe there are 20 pieces of the timepiece from the chipper

I just don't know...

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Here are a couple of random links I found interesting. The Mac Mini Millennium Falcon mod and the iPhone iSpoof Art Show.

Both are from Gizmodo.

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"I just checked out your blog by the way. I'm impressed...You've put together a nice collection of interesting tidbits that reflect your own personality, and you've made it look effortless. As a writer, I'm a bit envious.
---The Author's Wife

"Your Travel log, etc., is very interesting, Ben. Deep Thoughts on so many subjects. I'm not surprised at all. I'm pleased."
---The Author's Mother

"Just buzzed by your traveling page. I enjoyed it."
---The Author's Buddy

"I like reading the travel journals, man."
---The Author's other Buddy

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There is no news to post today so I'll just put in this plug. Don't forget to take a look at Ill Will Press. Foamy may be hard to understand, but he's worth it. And, if you have a lot of extra bandwidth, please help them out by volunteering to host one of their comics.

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