Today I had
big plans. I have this 20% coupon from Borders for purchases of $100 or
more. It's a chance to catch up on a lot of Star Trek books that I
still don't have. First thing I did was go to the local Borders to see
what Star Trek books they had. I wanted to go to some used book stores
in Berkeley and just wanted to make sure what books I could fall back
and get at Borders.
But first I went to the post office to mail Girl Genius Book Two to
Studio Foglio. Book Two has a misprint and eight are repeated. I have
to send it to them at my expense so I can get a good copy from them.
Reasonable but not spectacular customer experience. But the post office
was full of people mailing Christmas packages so I skipped that.
After Borders I drove to Berkeley and parked near Shannon's old place
on Hillegass. Damn it, Half Price Books moved! You know, I knew this
but had forgotten. Since I didn't remember where they moved to (Solano
Avenue) I skipped that one. I went to Shakespeare and Company which is
more literary used books and I didn't find anything there. I went to
Moe's which is four floors but not that much in Science Fiction books.
There were only a few Star Trek books and nothing I didn't already have.
Dejected I went back to my car and it wouldn't start. It wouldn't even
turn over. Hmm, long drive plus a half hour cool down. Sometimes this
happens and it'll start up again if I give it more time. So I walked to
the Bank of America to get some cash, then bought a bucket of fries at
IB Hoagies. The bucket of fries is now just a medium size drink's cup
of fries. Hot and salty and quite good. I remember when it was a Big
Gulp's size of fries and the fries had the skin on them. Better but
those are by-gone days.
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I decided to
walk to Comic Relief and check out some comics since I was going to buy
comics in Concord anyway. Twenty-five leisurely minutes later I was at
Comic Relief. It's much the same as I remember. Crowded, a bit dark,
lots of college kids poring over the comics. Kind of disorganized. I
couldn't find any Conan, Hellboy, or Girl Genius comics. I'm sure they
were there somewhere, just couldn't find the section.
I walk back through campus and back to my car. That killed a bit more
than an hour. Car still won't start. Now I'm depressed -- the day is
just not turning out right. Normally when I'm depressed like this,
don't know what to do, I turn to Sweet for help. But he's probably just
got home from work and is asleep so I sucked it up and handled it on my
own. I called AAA.
An hour later, right at the end of the "he'll be there in at most an
hour" time frame, the tow truck arrived and jumped my car. Half an hour
before I had tried to start my car and the engine had turned over
slightly. Since the subsequent jump worked it must be the battery,
which is strange since I bought it like a month ago.
The plan tomorrow is to drive to Borders in the morning. Buy books. Buy
groceries. See if the car starts. If not I can get a jump from Sweet on
his way home. Then I can go to the Sears Auto Center (assuming they're
open) and have them take a look. If it starts up ok then maybe it was a
one-time thing. I doubt it though. I'm starting to think it's a bad
battery, which happens sometimes.
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