Coolant leak, Alchemy, cicadas; Kaufman, Bible, American Gas

Seeing as my truck decided today would be a good day to start leaking more coolant, necessitating the upcoming replacement of the water pump (which I recall passing over a couple years ago in favor of some easier parts replacement), I rode my bike up to cheshirrrecat's. We hung out for a bit, walked across the street to Ruby Tuesday's for dinner, then drove out to meet her friend Keith and thence to Nation for Alchemy. While there, we ran into pictsy, Bagel, teky4lf, and djkangal (guest DJ in one of the rooms.) Didn't run into lanikei, though. Nice place--good size, nice layout, a variety of rooms and terraces, and three different kinds of music playing.

Bailed around 2, and now it's 3, and lo, too little sleep will be had. Oh well. :)

(I also saw my first cicadas in her apartment complex! While I still haven't seen a single one in Lorton, there were quite a few in Fairfax, including one who hitched a ride on my finger until I could convince him to relocate to a bush--he wouldn't leave for the tree!)

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Snopes thinks Andy Kaufman's "return from the dead" is a hoax.

From michaelduff: Betty Bowers' Handy Biblical Interpretation Guide

From jadine: Americans entitled to cheap gas -- right? We are often portrayed as a nation that wants to have its cake and eat it too, which, as any American knows, is patently untrue. We also want our ice cream and maybe some Cool Whip.

Reading, game, Berg, JR

Read about 70 pages of Wizard and Glass (book 4 of King's Dark Tower series) before realizing that I might just want to go back and read books 1-3 again first, since I read those over 13 years ago, I only remember the scantiest details, and the prologue's recap only helped a little.. I just feel like I'm missing out on too much of the story.

Innnteresting little game from sylvie, Tontie--it's like Whack-a-Mole, only with a lot more variation and it gets a lot more difficult. Don't even try it if you don't have a numeric keypad. :)

From K5 via gingerdc9: Nick Berg's Killing: 50 Fishy Circumstances, Contradictory Claims, and Videotape Anomalies. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I'm definitely cynical when it comes to politics and the media, and this is definitely food for thought..

Joe Rocket's customer service was very fast and very helpful today. Rather than return my new jacket to the store for warranty service to replace one of the snaps, I emailed them asking if I could just get replacement snaps instead--and not only did they reply within an hour and agree to it, they offered to reimburse tailor fees with a submitted receipt if I had to have a tailor attach it!

Tontie & Phaeton

Seriously, this game is addictive. Like Whack-a-Mole, only with an assortment of aliens (each with different characteristics) that resemble Teletubbies, bombs, maces, and other such jollity. I've made it to Level 8 so far.

Also, the VW Phaeton, though not doing so well on the market, is a really nice $100K luxury car.