Blogs: Pandammonia 
The world that revolves around Caity Ross.
Photographs
I have added some photo streams to my photography page for your delight and perusal.
Update (28th October 2009): the XHTML produced by Picasa fails W3C validation because of the use of the non-existant font property and because it fails to put a space before the forward slash at the end of the
“Jesus is my Airbag”
I see that the Hyundai Matrix has "[d]river, front passenger and side airbags".
I mention this because I saw one yesterday with "Jesus is my Airbag" on a sticker in the back window.
Perhaps if there were no airbags in the Matrix, it’d be a more convincing declaration of faith.
A journey in arachnophobia
If you know me well, you will know I have arachnophobia.
At the weekend, I drove to Leeds. Before setting off, I removed the wing-mirror cobwebs with a handy stick. On the way, I stopped off at Tesco in Bar Hill for petrol, and on the slip road back onto the A14, a spider appeared! A reasonably large one, at that. I shrieked, and panicked and paid no real attention to where I was steering the car. Luckily, the slip road is fairly wide; unluckily, it goes round and round and there was also a car behind us. I don’t know what they thought was happening. The spider was on the door where the window meets the frame, if you can call it that. I opened the window slightly, with a view to the spider going outside and me shutting the window and everyone would be happy. This plan didn’t quite work. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but the result was the spider was trapped by its legs in the window. This was horrible, but at least it wasn’t wandering around inside the car. I didn’t dare open the window again in case it fell inside the car. When we arrived in Leeds, Colin opened the door and the window, and it fell to the ground. Relief!
The next day, Saturday, I drove to my mam’s. After parking outside, I opened the door and a spider – very similar to the previous day’s – dropped from its web. I screeched and panicked and shut the door again. It went back up the web. I moved as far away as possible from it without actually sitting on the handbrake. Colin, meanwhile, was faffing about and not moving and not being helpful in general. I opened the door again; it ran down again. I closed the door again. The spider went back up again. I tried to push Colin out the car. He wouldn’t budge. Finally, he got the message, and moved. He didn’t do anything about it though, and started rummagiing about under the seat while I urged him to do something about the arachnid. Putting the map away under the seat was apparently more importent. Anyway, he went round the other side of the car, and opened the door and removed the spider. Relief!
On Sunday, I was stroking one of the cats, who was on Mam’s bed. I noticed a little spider a few inches above her and to the side. I shuddered, and rubbed the cat under her head so she’d see the spider and do something about it. She did: she caught it and killed it. Relief!
I went downstairs, and sat on the sofa and started telling my Mam and sister all about it and how brave I’d been. When I got to the bit about the cat looking up to see it, I saw a big spider – bigger than the car ones – on the ceiling above me! I panicked a bit and sat in Mam’s seat and mam sat on the other chair. Later, Colin came downstairs and sat where I’d been sitting under the spider. My sister and I weren’t happy about the non-removal of the spider, but as long as we could see it, it wasn’t so bad. While we were all chatting, my sister and I saw the spider drop very rapidly to the floor. We looked at each to confirm this had happened. My mam got a glass and a newspaper and manoevred the spider into the glass to take outside. Relief!
The relief was shortlived. And turned into blind panic and terror. I didn’t realise how cruel my mother could be! She came towards me with the uncovered glass of spider and waved it at me, putting it right up close, with the spider moving its legs. Ugh. I escaped and ran away to the other room. From this safe vantage point, I saw her do the same to my sister. She was terrified as well, but didn’t run away. Mam finally stopped terrorising her daughters and put the spider out the back, over the wall. Finally, relief!
No other arachnidian events occured. Relief!
Henry is fixed
At long last, Henry is fixed. He feels nice to drive again, without all the clunking and knocking and sloshing that was going on before.
It’s also a beautiful day outside. It’s autumnal, there’s leaves on the ground, the trees are starting to turn colourful, there’s conkers everywhere, it’s crisp, it’s sunny. It’s glorious.
I want to go for a drive! But I have to stay in and write about Spanish verbs. It’s hardly the same thing at all.
Garages
Before we moved to where we live now in Cambridge, we lived just outside Cambridge proper. I went to a local garage there because I didn’t want to go to the Peugeot one because they were expensive and not the best. When we moved, I continued to go to that garage, even though it’s a hassle to get there without a car from here.
I have become increasingly dissatisfied with the service of late, with many things having to go back at least twice before they’re fixed. The people are really nice, though, so I haven’t said anything, and I’m also a wuss.
I took Henry to them recently to fix a clunky knocking noise from somewhere down by my feet, and they said it was some wires in the steering column, which they fixed, but they said that there was a deposit around the ignition that shouldn’t be there; I’d need a new ignition switch. Baulking at the cost of that (I didn’t inquire, thinking it would be tonnes of pennies) and the delay in getting one that would work with the immobiliser, I decided not to get one, although it’s been preying on my mind. When I drove away with Henry, I heard the knocking noise again as I pulled away from the roundabout. I was not happy – what had I actually paid them all that money for, exactly?!
That was the last straw. When said garage sent me a reminder about Henry needing a service recently, I decided that was it and I was going to find a new one to go to. I put that off somewhat, until there came a sloshing noise from somewhere down by my feet. That sounded really quite dodgy indeed, even worse than the knocking noise. I still put it off, though. I just didn’t drive anywhere. But this weekend, I’m driving northwards and need Henry to not be at risk of conking out on the A1 because that’s not fun. Time to stop procrastinating.
I got the Yellow Pages out on Monday and found a garage nearby, and booked Henry in for a full service and a repair job. He’s getting a full service because I have lost so much faith in the original garage that I need someone else to see what travesties have been performed under his bonnet.
The man seemed to know what he was talking about, and seemed familiar with Henry-type cars. He explained what was probably causing the knocking noise and the sloshing noise. The latter is the flutes in the inside radiator and not a serious problem; the former is the drive shaft and will not be cheap to fix. Still, it’s gotta be done. Hopefully by Friday; if not, I’ll get a courtesy car.
Courtesy cars are fun. Last time, I got a Korean one with the indicator and windscreen wiper stalks swapped. By the time I’d driven up to the north east and back, I’d almost stopped wiping my windows at roundabouts and indicating when it was raining. When I got Henry back, I went through it all again, with several moments of doubt as to which one was which.
Bar codes
Google’s home page today shows a bar code to mark the invention of the bar code, so says the explanatory title on mouseover.
Google's bar code marking the invention of the bar code
I had just got back from the shops, actually, where I had been scanning my shopping myself. I got some pick and mix tomatoes, but couldn’t find them on the screen. I scanned them in as cherry tomatoes because that’s what kind I got. I hope I didn’t diddle myself! Anyway, I had a message from Colin with the link to the Google home page, and saying to scan it. I didn’t know what he was on about at first, because I hadn’t seen the Google home page, but then I did and had and other past tense auxiliaries, so I got the scanner from the cat’s bedroom, where I’d been scanning all the ISBN codes for my Library Thing, and plugged it in and waited for it to install, like USB things do by magic, then I scanned the bar code, wondering whether it would work on the computer moniter, and it did!
It says “Google”, which wasn’t really a surprise. The cursor was in the Google search box, so it went off and searched for Google on Google, because it effectively presses the enter key after scanning.
I bet you were all dying for confirmation of what it said.