if i owned a business, i'd try to drive away customers too

Today I'm looking for new car insurance for D. His current insurance expires approximately today, and it sucks, so something has to be done about it. When he lived in NC he paid something like $400 A YEAR for car insurance, so when we moved here he stayed with the same company after making the reasonable assumption that if they were that cheap there, they had to be pretty cheap here. Sadly, that wasn't the case - his insurance was something like $700 for SIX MONTHS. It doesn't sound all that bad until you consider that's for the minimum coverage on a 1993 honda civic that's about 500 miles from death. We just assumed that was the price to pay for city living, until I transferred my insurance and paid $550 for excellent coverage on a newer civic in considerably better shape. Then we had one of those 'crap, guess we got shafted' moments. Thus, I've been gathering online quotes and I did the quote for progressive - the company whose big gimmick is that they'll provide you with quotes from their competitors too! For free! I got the quote and looked at the competing rates - and I was thoroughly surprised. It seems like it would only be a good idea to offer other people's rates if, you know, yours were going to be lower. However, when compared to 5 other companies, progressive costs at least $130 more and up to $509 more - and that's if you only have average credit. So what could be the rationale behind this apparently self-defeating business decision? Is it possibly that somehow, for someone, they could be more affordable? Perhaps the problem is the near-death civic; if they only insure brand new BMWs I could conceivably see how their rates would be higher. Even so, would they be cheaper for said BMWs? I was an economics major in college, which makes me a big dorky mcdork dork who finds stuff like this really interesting. I'm tempted to run through the quote-bot with different kinds of cars, but I've got better things to do. Still - FIVE HUNDRED AND NINE dollars. That's INSANE.

friday cat blogging

This is my cat. One of her favorite activities is sharpening her claws on the rug under the dining room table.

can you spell anonymous?

Writing here, I'm having a hard time deciding how much and what type of information to make publicly available. Some people (for example, dooce) have their name, where they live, how many times a day they poop, etc. available for anyone who wants to know. On the plus side, that amount of openness makes it easy to put up photos and write about people and events without having to disguise them in some manner. It also makes for interesting content when you are willing to discuss almost anything about yourself. On the down side, it can lead to problems with family and friends who don't like what you write, internet stalkers, and there's always that fun possibility of getting fired (again, I reference dooce). Currently I'm anonymous, complete with pseudonym, no real identifying information, no photos of me, etc. This is the easy way out. If I'm anonymous, I can write whatever I like without the possibility of friends or family who don't share my views reading it and being pissed off/insulted. The only reason I don't want to do this is so those people I'm not in touch with very frequently have a way to see what I've been up to, but I don't think I'm ready to go for it yet. Even beyond how I write it, what stuff is okay to write about? Pooping? Sex? School? Family? Friends? Work is a definite no. Politics? Where does one draw the line? I guess it just comes down to what one is individually comfortable with, and right now I'm not sure what that is.

my valentine's day roses

walk in closet

We're not entirely sure when our apartment building was constructed - my best guess would be the 1st or 2nd decade of the 20th century. As such, we have a problem many inhabitants of older buildings are familiar with - a general lack of closet space. It's not completely abysmal, there's a fairly decent sized closet under the stairs, but it's a funny shape and largely taken up by coats, golf clubs, and camping equipment. The closet in our bedroom is big enough for all of D.'s clothes, but the shelves in the closet in the 2nd bedroom are stuffed full of towels, sheets, and other crap. I have a dresser in that bedroom, but I have to rotate summer and winter wardrobes, which is pretty funny, since by no means do I have a lot of clothes. One of D.'s friends has a girlfriend who apparently just filled up her third closet of clothes (leaving no available closets in their apartment) - but her dad is buying them a house so she should be all set pretty soon. Anyway, about the closets. We have two bedrooms, the original intention being that the 2nd bedroom would be the office. That didn't work out when we discovered that bedroom had the worst heat flow in the apartment, and neither of us wanted to huddle in there to use the computer. So, the office is now along one wall of the dining room, and the 2nd bedroom, well, it's been filled up with all the junk that would normally be in a closet but isn't because we don't have that closet. We've dubbed it the walk in closet and quite honestly, I've never encountered a more spacious walk in closet. The only thing that would improve it at this point would be one of those custom shelving/organizational setups. Getting all the junk out of the way is definitely worth the tradeoff for the small amount of shame encountered when we have guests and we tell them they'll be staying in the walk in closet. I have a friend who was a philosophy major in college, and was afraid that she would never find a real job where she could afford an apartment. I told her that I would get an apartment with a spacious walk in closet, and she could live in it. It became a running joke that anyone who thought they would end up destitute after college would plan to move into my walk in closet. It turns out that they wouldn't have gotten such a bad deal after all.

valentine's shmalentine's

For years I've written off Valentine's day as a lame holiday invented by greeting card companies in an attempt to get people to buy stuff (read: expensive jewelry) in February, a time of year generally not associated with high spending. In addition, I believe that if you love someone, you should do your best to show them that every day, not just on one special holiday. D. and I have been dating for the past 3 Valentine's days, but were never together for the day and never did more than at most send a card. This year we talked about going out for dinner, but we kind of thought it would be a hassle on a day where EVERYONE goes out to eat, and then D. forgot to make a reservation anyway. Instead, he came home early from work so we could go for a walk before it got dark and we ordered pizza and were lazy all evening. He also brought me roses and a bag of York peppermint patties, which I appreciated because D. is so thoughtful about it. He didn't get the standard red roses, he got ones that are a beautiful yellow edged in reddish-orange (and told me later that he tried to pick the prettiest). He didn't get the standard heart shaped box of chocolates, he got my favorite kind. In return I am cooking his favorite dinner tonight - ham and cheese stuffed chicken breasts. Happy Valentine's day to my darling D.

it might still technically be winter...

Right now it's 72 degrees and rising, and beautifully sunny. I've never lived anywhere before where it reached 70-something in the middle of February. I don't like hot or cold weather, my ideal climate is somewhere between 65-72 degrees and partly sunny, so I probably won't like being here as much come July, especially since neither my car nor D.'s have air conditioning. Summer in the south always feels like the only things people should have to do are lying in the shade in front of a fan drinking iced tea and floating down a river in an inner tube. How did anyone got anything done before the advent of air conditioning? (On the other hand, I just looked at weather.com again, and it's supposed to get down to 31 degrees tonight. So much for that.)

i can't figure out where that damn dictionary went

When I need to look up the definition of a word, I usually go to dictionary.com - it's what i've always used, but their format irritates me. A while ago I stumbled across a different online dictionary, one with a much cleaner interface that was pleasing to the eye. Stupidly, I didn't bookmark the site, figuring that I would remember the name (it was apparently something I found distinct at the time). Well, now I don't remember the name, and can't find a trace of it by googling 'online dictionary' or various forms thereof. So, if anyone uses an online dictionary they think is awesome, let me know.