Sometimes I think of getting a car. I don't really need one as such at this point, but it would make my life more convenient in a number of ways now and certainly in the near future.

Then I invariably end up reading something like this and feel glad that I'm not burdened by such a thing.

Yet. Oh, here I go again.

EDIT: By the by, I sort of study automotive engineering. I'm afraid that I'm not proficient enough to make any sort of educated guess at this stage, but I would be interested to hear what the cause turns out to be.

First world gaming problems, I've certainly complained about this before:
:
I'm kinda annoyed a bit that I feel I'm supposed to play old(er) games, rather than jumping to new games, especially if we are talking about series. Take for example the X series that I bought, everyone says one should play the third installment and mod it to hell and back, yet I felt I rather first install the very first X game and start from there. Luckily though, the first game feels and looks quite nice too, at least judging by the tutorial I played.

Or The Elder Scrolls, I've been complaining about Arena (the first game in the series), yet I feel I want to finish it before venturing forth. I just try to run through the main story as fast as I can. Then again I am also thinking dropping it now, I don't think the game really has more to offer to me anymore, I've seen everything it has to offer.

At the same time, sometimes I'm glad I've played the earlier games in the series. Take for example the Wing Commander series. I'm currently playing WC5 aka Prophecy, and it does feel the best Wing Commander game to me, gameplay-wise. So in that sense, for someone new to the series, it might make sense to start with WCP right away, and skip the earlier games.

Yet, the story has so many references to the stories and characters in the earlier WC games that I am glad I am fully familiar with them already. I felt similarly playing Baldur's Gate 2; even though I found the first game boring, I was glad I had played and finished it before going to BG2, partly for knowing the characters beforehand, and also being able to continue with the same character from BG to BG2.

Sometimes I do play quite new games too (I've finished e.g. Spec Ops: The Line, Mirror's Edge and COD: Black Ops 2, to name some semi-new games). So it doesn't matter much if the game is the first in the series (not even a "sprititual successor" to some game), or if I know I will most probably not play the earlier games in the series anyway.

But I guess I kinda want to avoid playing game series in the wrong order, ie. playing some late installment in some series, getting hooked to it and then wanting to play the earlier games in the series. And then feeling bad about them as they don't feel as advanced as their sequels.

Yeah I am overthinking it... oh well, back to TES: Arena...

It really depends on your driving needs and habits. A tale of two cars:

Mine, bought my 2009 used in 2011(?) with 50,000 miles on it. It's my work vehicle so it hauls 300 pounds of parts, tools, and luggage, plus me. Nearly all highway miles and I go pretty relaxed so I'm beating the mileage rating by 10-15%. Solid car, and this is the first real problem I've had with it. And it's still a car I can drive (and have been periodically since I got it back last week). So while the problem is frustrating for now, it has to be fixable. Got an 'appointment' ("drop it off in a couple weeks") from a local guy who was referred to me from the last shop. Took him on a test drive last night and we'll see how it goes. Oh, and I should be getting the remote 'ears' between now and then, so maybe we can narrow it down a bit before I drop it off. He said he thought he heard something from the rear end... I'd like to keep it but did find a nice "certified" replacement nearby, basically a newer version of the vehicle I've been borrowing from my wife. Might go look at it today before the weather turns nasty later on. My long-term concerns revolve around it being the work vehicle - it needs to be reliable so I get to the customers when scheduled, and it can't leave me stranded hundreds of miles from home.

The wife's main car, bought new in 2007 as a 2008 model, is pretty much just a commuter. About 20 miles each day, and it's sitting at around 65,000 miles some eight years later - that's low-mileage here in the US. Also problem-free for the most part but it's starting to make suspension noises - also solvable. For now, we plan to keep it for a long time.

Not sure about the operating costs over in your area, but insurance and basic maintenance in my area are pretty cheap so that isn't really a factor in my decision for one vehicle over another, at least when looking at 'normal' family cars.

The big decision is often: new, not-so-old (2-4 years) used, or older (5+ years) used. In your case, I might consider an older used car in good shape. If I remember right you use your bike a lot, in all seasons, so the loss of a car for a while wouldn't be the end of the world. And car payments are no fun; neither are repair costs, but rarely do they cost more per year than loan payments. Do you have a good used car market over there? Ours is generally good here, though rust can be an issue. An older used car should be easy to sell if you decide you don't really need one for now.

Let me cut you a deal!

Only 3000 miles; almost never driven!

You give me a good offer, the pink slip is yours!

Went to look at the certified car. It was so-so. Cosmetically meh. Check Engine light was on but that could be something really minor like a loose gas cap. Didn't drive it - will wait until the weekend after they've had a chance to look at the light and clean up the vehicle. Disappointed on my initial look.

The salesguy pointed out that they just received in trade a 2014 Focus ST with about 9,000 miles, at a good price. Not really what I'm looking for but he'll let me test anything that comes on the lot. What the hell, took it out for a spin. Pretty quick though not as fast as an older car I used to own - the benchmark upon which all comers are compared. Corners flat. Ride is tight, which makes it rough on a lot of the roads around here. For the size of it I thought it would have a bit more room inside. Nice car for the me of maybe 10-15 years ago.

Came home from the dealer and found that the heavy wind knocked down a tree onto the front porch. Fortunately the tree isn't a huge oak or anything like that, so damage should be limited. Not thrilled with losing the tree, though - it was a good provider of shade for the porch.

Yeah, the examples that I've been looking at have all gone into the "older" category: more than five but no more than ten. I reckon that would give the best balance of reasonable running costs, reliability and safety. That's the age when the depreciation curve starts levelling out, too, so I could get something for a moderate price and still be pretty sure that I would get most of the money back when the time comes to pass it on. Another good thing is that there will be plenty of data for the background research that I like to do, so I could probably haggle the inital price down somewhat if I spot that a component prone to wear or failure hasn't been serviced in a while.

Anyway, I would probably end up a low-mileage driver (I'm moving close to the centre of one of the biggest cities in Finland, and I don't mind riding the bike year round), so it wouldn't make much sense to buy something expensive. The used cars market is generally pretty good (some more exotic marques aside), although cars and motoring are generally quite expensive around here mostly because of taxes: for example, the prices for a Focus start at $21,400, and 95 RON petrol/gasoline is $5.72 a gallon.

Need to get this off my chest

I have a crazy aunt who refuse to sell my grandmother house and continues to torment her by calling her and yelling at her. She had destroyed all relationship with her family and is making my mother life hard.

I have to work this thanksgiving and thus will have to miss it because I will be too tired after work to drive to my brother's place and he refuse to change his mind to have it at our parents house.

I can't sleep well, I drink too much pop, and I'm falling behind on school work because I lack the motivation or will power to keep up.

I recently email a small company about my order That I have been waiting to ship for a month only to learn that he had been in car accident and had hard time keeping up with the orders ever since. I feel bad now that I wrote the email.
Snow is coming in hard and fast.

Great.

Hard drive crashes. They suck. On a backup 160 GB HD now... lost about half a TB of data on the old Hitachi that gave up the ghost.

I'm seriously thinking about finally tossing down some bones for a new SSD. Tired of the spinner HDs crapping the bed on me.

tomorrow morning will be six days that my cat has not come home. Last time she left for three days, I posted here and she was back a few hours after that. hoping the same good juju happens again and she comes mewing at the back door.

Worst case scenario, she loses one of her 9 lives. As they say, cats always land on their feet.

In my neighborhood, there is on average at least one cat missing at any given time and I always examine those missing cat posters that are ominously hanging from street lighting posts, desperately flapping about at the loose edges. When it rains, the ink dissolves and the letters start running down as if they had been pelted by heavy tears, it's a sorry sight. I envision how cool it would be if I would find the cat and bring it back to their owners like Ace Ventura and they would have such happiness on their faces, thanking me profusely. Then I'd give a casual wave and say "no problem, that's just how I roll mohoho" and walk away like a boss , not even thinking about expecting any reward other than the joy and relief on the owner's face.
But so far, I've never been able to turn this heroic fantasy into reality. The cats are ever elusive and get lost every now and again. Or maybe people get new cats and then those get lost, I can't tell. I'm friends with 2 cats in the neighborhood, other cats don't seem to care about being friendly and yet other cats are paranoid. The problem is not me (I'm nice to the furry animals), it's them. Paranoid cats are almost comical, their eyes wide with terror if they see you and they run off into the street and almost get run over just because they're so paranoid. And this after years and years, they should know me by now. I hope they're like that to everybody and not just me, that way I wouldn't have to take it personal!

haha, my cat is one of those paranoid cats. She is very high-strung.

Do you live next door to a Chinese restaurant?

Ah, I haven't consider that yet - there is one Chinese restaurant (that I so far haven't visited because it's too expensive) about 10 minutes from my house but it's not on my way home where I see all the cats. Anyway, this reminds me of one particularly notorious hillbilly back in my village, he lived on the outskirts and it was rumored that he ate cats. That's what everyone said, at least.

"I want room service!" -Johnny Mnemonic

I want my shirts laundered, like they do at the grand hotel in hong kong, god f**king damn it.