well my afternoon was going rather well, considering that the difference in temperature between inside my covers and outside my covers was about 20 degrees, and i even learned that my cell-mate at work shares my consternation and confusion over our boss's obsession with the post office, except that after work, i stepped outside, got into my car, and began to drive away. now, i park on a super busy main street, and so when i'm not feeling adventurous, i get in the passenger side and crawl over. this afternoon, i did just that. when i got out onto the road, i noticed a wierd plastic-y flapping noise from my front end. given the length of time since my last oil change (almost a year) and the amount of miles on my nearly ten-year-old car (97k plus), i was of course concerned. then i heard a SHUNK and i ran over something, and i was Concerned. in my rearview mirror, i could see something long and black in the middle of the road where i had just been. i hurridly pulled over, got out the driver's side (OMGdeath) and stalked back the block or so to see what it was. the following is what was left of what i saw:


in case you're wondering, that used to be part of my front bumper. ... yeah. turns out some jerk, who shall remain nameless only because i don't know his name, backed up into my parked vehicle, breaking the bumper AND the left turn signal and knocking off my driver's side hubcap. s/he/it then took the time to re-attach my hubcap and bumper before driving away. not like my car was in particularly pristine condition beforehand, but a note or something would have been nice. at least it would have prevented my wishing doom and destruction upon his head. in the meanwhile, my front left turn signal does not work, a fact which i'm pretty sure makes it illeagal, and my car looks deformed.


when i got home, my sister said of it, "your car's got battle scars." i said, "what it needs is battle spikes."

all this calamity did not, however, prevent me from attending the NaNoWriMo Columbus Chapter kick-off meeting this evening. it was held at Kafe Kerouac, a delightful place, by the way, despite it's parking woes, and we basically doubled the Geek Quotient of the place for a couple of hours. in the next room was a chess club meeting.


the first one is, of course, us, in all our geeky glory, and the second one is the vintage typewriter that was in back of the room. there has been some discussion of vintage typewriters in our little Columbus lounge on the NaNo boards, although duffymoon, the chief proprietor of vintage typewriting goodness, was unable to attend this evening, and so it was rather ironic to see it there. perhaps they wouldn't mind if i took it home with me? i'd promise to love it... ¬.¬