Goodbye old friend and Boston is number 1 again!

This was my old car. I will miss it. Sniff sniff.

I can only hope my new, well newer car, is as reliable as my old Taurus. The picture on the left was taken about an hour before I drove it for the last time to the dealership. The only other time I got a bit emotional about a car was when I got rid of my 1984 Ford Thunderbird. I loved that car as well. It was much better looking than the Taurus and was quite reliable as well. I've had a few turkeys though. The worst? A little 1978 Fiat 128 back in the early '80s. When it worked it was a fun little car to drive. It ended up costing me more in repairs than I paid for it. That was one year of pure automotive hell. The running joke was That Fiat (An Italian car company who now owns the controlling interest in Chrysler. There's a match made in heaven.) stands for  "Fix it again Tony". The "new" car and is packed with more options than I know what to do with. I don't like the one touch  electric window. Touch the button once and the window goes down all the way. To get it to stop halfway or so you have to touch the button twice. Whats the point? Is it that much of a burden to hold the button down until you reach the desired opening or roll it all the way down? Very gimmicky. There is also a feature on the audio system which fortunately I have disabled. The volume of the radio or CD increases the faster you go. The car is very quiet and this is not a problem. Apart from that it is a fabulous audio system. It even has air condition or heated seats. Nice touch. It will take me a bit to learn how to operate everything Here are the first official photos of the car in my driveway when I took ownership. About an hour and a half after the photo above.

There's my upstairs neighbor inspecting the car. When I asked her what she thought she said and I quote, "Meow!"

 I do admit to feeling a bit self conscious driving a car like this. OK enough. It's still just a car.

I had this question asked to me once before at work. If I'm out on the sales floor at work, sometimes someone will come to me and ask, where's the milk, eggs, pasta etc. So I'm pricing and stocking packaged hot dogs and a lady approaches me and asks, "Excuse me. Where are your nuts?"
My initial answer, if I wanted to get suspended or fired was, "Lady at your age you should know."

Yippee! Boston is number one again! No it wasn't another sports team championship. Boston was named the worst dressed city in the United States by GQ Magazine. Way to go! They blamed most of it on the student population which is quite large, about 250,000, "with their hoodies and boot cut jeans". Here's a quote from the magazine.
"Boston is like America's bad taste storm sewer. All the worst fashion ideas from across the country flow there, stagnate and putrefy."
We're in good company though. Here are the top five.

1. Boston
2. Los Angeles
3. Pittsburgh
4. Chicago
5. Manhattan

Well what are you going to do? We don't measure up to GQ Magazines high standards. It doesn't bother me. I'm no fashion plate either. Boot cut jeans and hoodies are part of my repertoire as well. As far as GQ is concerned. Their noses are so far in the air I'm surprised they can see anything at all.

It's 10:15 Monday evening as I write this. I've been home from work a little more than an hour. I go back at 7 a.m. tomorrow. I've got to clean out my drawers, as in bedroom drawers tomorrow after work because they, the junk people, are coming on Wednesday to take my old bedroom set away. The new one arrives on Thursday. I am also in the middle of painting my kitchen. Oh for one day when I don't have to do anything. Maybe next week sometime.

Time to get ready for bed. I'm tired and...

I'm outta here.