Latest update

[giza]

My mental state have improved a bit since last weekend's "Diet Emo Post". One thing that still bothers me are the dreams I am having that involve a specific individual. I didn't ask for these dreams, and I don't want them. I'd really like to stop having them. Anyway...

Onto some other issues I talked about, one was my concern that part of me feels like an asshole. It was pointed out to me that what it really comes down to is impulse control. And if I had a real impulse control problem in my life, I'd have become intimately familiar with the legal system by now. Obviously that has not happened.

Social contact is something else I need to work on. I guess I need to get out more and interact with other people, be they furry or non-furry. That's easier said than done, though, because of transportation to the suburbs, and some interpersonal issues (see the part about me being a bit of an asshole). Not having a car also makes seeing people difficult, which leads me to...

Should I buy a car? Part of the reason why I sold my car is that it's just not practical to own one since I work in the city and take the train to get to work. The rest of my town is fairly walkable, and I have AVIS and ZipCar in case I need wheels for awhile. But being carless makes it difficult to just get up leave on any given weekend. That said, I'm having difficulty convincing myself to buy a car that I'm not going to use 90% of the time. While it'd cost less to operate the car (gas, maintenance), insurance costs would still be the same.

Earlier in the week, I did a health assessment at work. Here are my stats:

Blood pressure: 114/74
Resting heart rate: 69 BPM
Weight: 174 pounds

That's not too bad, considering my injuries have kept me out of the gym for 4 months and I started the year weighing 197. Right now, I wear XL t-shirts, and they're feeling a bit baggy on me. I'm debating going down a size to buying t-shirts that are size Large, but it would mean replacing quite a bit of my wardrobe. If only I knew some gay men who had fashion sense...

On the technical side of things, I played around with a Drupal module called RPX, which allows you to integrate Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, and just about any other OpenID-based login with a Drupal site. I went ahead and deployed the module on the Save Ardmore Coalition site, as well as the Pennsylvania Furries site.

I also went and set up OpenID delegation using my own website: http://www.dmuth.org/openid. But then I found http://drupal.org/node/214788, so I think I'm going to look into implementing that at some point.

And now, Sarah Palin and The Rape Kits (no, it's not a band):

Comments

[natashasoftpaw.livejournal.com]

Actually, insurance rates are slightly cheaper if you mark your car as being for "pleasure" use, rather than for daily commuting, and lower the number of miles you drive it every year. Since I technically work from home, I did that on my new insurance policy, and it cut almost $5/month off of a $40/month insurance plan; not the biggest drop, but compared to the overall policy price, worthwhile. Might be worth looking into, just to get an idea of what to expect.

And, since you're not looking at something for heavy use, it would of course be a lot cheaper to a couple-year-old low-mileage used car than something brand new, without really sacrificing anything you'd get from a brand-new one. For example, there are plenty of '08 and newer VW Jettas (great reliable compact sedan, comfy and cheap on fuel) on Ebay right now for $10-15k, in mint condition with less than 10k miles (most of them are less than 5k miles). Thus, they're pretty much still "new" by any definition, but less than half the price of buying brand-new.

Just some thoughts to ponder; I definitely understand why you don't have a car in your area, and despite my love of vehicles, I think it's pretty cool that you don't need one. But if you do decide to get one to use occasionally, it's quite possible to do so cheaply without really compromising on age, mileage, "niceness", or reliability. And while I'm not usually one to value price over other market factors when making a purchase, I'm a big fan of letting someone else take the initial massive depreciation hit on the purchase of a new car :-)

[giza.livejournal.com]

I can't believe people sell cars on eBay. I have to check this out. :-)

And how did you manage a $40/mo insurance plan? As I mentioned on another comment here, I have two strikes against me, namely the lack of an insurance history (from not owning a car), and PA being a limited tort state. (and I would buy full tort insurance)

[natashasoftpaw.livejournal.com]

Well, a big part of it is that my current car is practically worthless, and I own it (no outstanding loans/liens on it), so even with two recent tickets on my record (one of them pretty big), insurance isn't too bad for my car. It helps that I only got the absolute bare-minimum liability-only coverage, mostly because if I have an at-fault accident and need more than that, I have much bigger problems to worry about than a busted car that had no value to begin with.

For what it's worth, I went to Geico; after the two tickets I got last summer, my previous company (I think it was Encompass, my mom found them) dropped me, and they were charging fairly ridiculous rates anyway. So I went to Geico, and the policy was so cheap that I went ahead and pre-paid the whole six months (self-employed = unpredictable income, so $200 now is less of a financial impact than $37/month).

[particle-mann.livejournal.com]

I'll second the used car suggestion, and go one step further-if you really only need basic transport for the occasional weekend jaunt, get a 10 or 11 year old (or slightly older) Honda, preferably in manual transmission. You won't spend more than a grand or two, it'll probably still have at least 50-100K miles left on it, and the repairs are both cheap and fairly easy to do yourself. Plus insurance gets VERY cheap on older used cars, and even if the whole thing blows up, you're not out a huge amount of money. Obviously if you needed something to drive every day, or drive regularly in bad weather, or something like that I'd say get something closer to new, but for what you need? You need a netbook, not a gaming rig, and the price is about the same :)

[giza.livejournal.com]

Good suggestions, but I'm unfortunately not much of a car guy (so my doing repairs is out), and as much as I love to drive manual transmission cars, with my knees/feet it would not be a good idea.

I played around on Progressive's site, and I'd still be paying about $100/mo on insurance for an old car. But that's because I haven't had coverage (or owned a car) in 3 years, so that effectively pushes the reset button on my insurance history, and PA is a limited tort state. (I got the quote for full tort, because limited tort is madness)

Oh well, at least I'm not any worse off than I was before. :-P

[zeeth_kyrah]

I guess your favorite co-workers don't have much fashion sense.

[music4fun.livejournal.com]

With your knees you should probably stick to an automatic transmission. And the idea of a good used car as opposed to new is a good idea, already had that discussion here about your car choice. You can always rent a newer car for long trips.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I understand about the freedom points. It's nice to be able to simply decide that "hey, I'm going to NYC after I shower and get a coffee" and go. It's a luxury, but you're allowed an occasional luxury, if you're up on your bills, headed financially where you want to be now, etc.

I'd offer to sell you Meefer for $1500, but it's a manual, and you probably need an Automatic given your knee issues, yeh. I echo the notion of a used car being what you need.

Just slowly start to get your new shirts in Large. A litle bagginess in T-shirts is no big deal. I've got so much XXL in my closet that I'm just not going to replace, and will deal with looseness. But I can finally look decent in the ten or so XL T-shirts lingering.


--Chi

[film2edit.livejournal.com]

Pop into any clothing store and try on a few shirts. If you are going down to a Large, it's a good way to find out.

You can still have folks visit / bum around with them. Given your current routine, being careless might be carefree. Everything in your area is close by, and you can pretty much take the train to work, Sam's, and a few other spots.

[bradsmokess.livejournal.com]

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