As any vehicle owner knows, an integral part of owning a vehicle is getting hit with a steady stream of fees and taxes just for the privilege of having personal transportation. And, fortunately, most of these expenses make at least some sense. But, here in Harrisonburg, VA, there’s one mandatory fee that really bothers me: city tax stickers.

First, a bit of introduction to Virginia taxes, for those who don’t live here. In Virginia, the tax code allows cities, counties, and some towns to collect a personal property tax on motor vehicles, trailers, boats, and other assorted vehicles. And, since it’s an easy revenue stream, the vast majority of counties and independant cities in the state collect this tax (whether or not it’s fair is debatable, but Virginia is one of the cheapest states to own a vehicle in without figuring this tax into the equation). So, since this is handled separately from any other vehicle-related fees, localities need an easy way to see which vehicles have been paid for. The traditional method of doing this is with city stickers.

Now, logically, one would assume that when the tax is paid, the taxpayer receives a sticker to replace their old one. And, indeed, this is how most localities that use city stickers implement them. However, Harrisonburg does things differently, running the city stickers almost like their own vehicle registration system. Paying the personal property tax is typically done in November or December, but the city stickers aren’t replaced until March. And, the part that really irritates me is that in addition to the personal property tax, the city charges almost thirty dollars just for the sticker! That’s almost as much as license plates/registration in this state. The only reason for the sticker is to avoid getting pulled over/ticketted for not having one within the city. That’s it! It’s completely arbitrary, and the fee keeps going up (used to be $15, and it may have even been less before that). Considering how many people live in this city, I find it impossible to believe that the stickers themselves and the administration overhead to sell them costs anywhere close to that.

Unfortunately, without state-level legislation to ban this ridiculous practice, it’s unlikely to change. It’s a per-vehicle fee that’s completely arbitrary, and nearly impossible to avoid if you have a vehicle registered in this city, so they have no real incentive to stop doing it. Virginia’s DMV already has provisions in place to link local personal property tax databases to the state registration system, so a person can’t renew their license plates without paying personal property tax, and they no longer have to sell/distribute and enforce the stickers. Many areas have taken advantage of this, but unless Virginia makes this the standard practice state-wide (which I would readily support), I guarantee that Harrisonburg will one of the last cities to switch to it, if they ever do.

Work Stuff
I really need to stop taking naps in the afternoon. It feels good, but I end up having to work ’til midnight to get my hours in. Lame.

On the plus side, I’m only a couple hours short of my goal of averaging 8 hours a day for this pay period, so I’m doing much better than last week (did I mention that I fail at time management?). Darn election (which I feel no need to post about here, since the entire world knows what the results were) distracted me too much

My first project was completed ahead of schedule, and my boss was very impressed, so that’s a good sign. Working on the next one now, which is less complex, I’m hoping to have it done by early next week.

Laptop
My new laptop (Dell Precision m6300) is in production, and is scheduled to arrive Nov. 11, if not earlier. Not in time for this weekend, like I hoped, but it will be here in time for MFF.

Travels, and Furry Events
I’ll be in Pittsburgh this weekend (leaving tomorrow, actually), and two weeks after is MFF, where I’ll be in Pittsburgh for a few days before and after (and attending the after-con festivities hosted by firefoxbc and lildobe.

I will not be attending FC this year. I wanted to, and could find the money to do it, but considering that I only know of one person who actually got a room (not counting the SL pricks who got rooms from the huge block Raven Welesa reserved), my chances of finding a place to stay with someone I trust are pretty slim. Plus, the money for that trip would be better spent to help build/rebuild my finances, since I’m still hoping to relocate within the next year or so.

Who all is going to the New Year’s Furry Ball in Philly? I hadn’t really thought of going, but I’m considering it now.

Is there anything going on in December? Furmeets, parties, etc? I know there are no cons (at least, not in this country, I ain’t flying to Australia for a furry con).

Also, who’s going to Megaplex? It’s in July this year, which blows, but it looks like it’ll be one of the better cons they’ve held, and worth standing the Orlando summer heat for. I’m planning to go, and I’ll be driving down, and a 14+ hour drive alone sucks, so if anyone wants to carpool, that’d be awesome (I know it’s early, but I loathe last-minute planning). Convoying would be fun too, I’ll bring radios

Car Stuff
I’m currently trying to get my Rover to run, I think I might know what’s wrong with it. I still plan to sell it, probably after the winter, and I’m thinking about replacing it with a Ford Bronco. Taking my mom’s Blazer out off-roading reminded me of just how much I missed it, and it also reminded me that not just any 4WD will get me where I like to go, despite my occasional thoughts to the contrary.

On the other hand, if I can find a really good deal on rust repair (it’s only worth a grand or two at the absolute most, I don’t want to spend that kind of money to patch holes), the thought of keeping it has crossed my mind. It really means a lot to me, and I love LRs anyway. Plus, I already know exactly how it performs in extreme situations,

I’ll be selling my Crown Vic sometime after January, most likely. It’s starting to show its age, and I’d really like to get something smaller and sportier. So, if anyone reading this might be interested at that time (I’ll need to replace it first, since it’s my only vehicle that runs and is legal to drive at the moment), let me know, and I’ll give you a good deal. I’d really like for it to go to a good home, someone who’ll enjoy it as much as I have, so I don’t plan to use it as a trade-in on my next car.

============================

I think that’s about it for today. I haven’t made a real post in awhile, and most of these bits weren’t quite full entries on their own, so you get a mega-post

I keep seeing this commercial, and it really bugs me. Scion’s main selling point seems to be “if you get a Scion, you can put blingy shit on it!”.

How lame does a car have to be for aftermarket customization to be its biggest marketable selling point?

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve received two bits of very disappointing news from two different European car brands, and I haven’t posted in awhile, so I figured I’d share.

First off, Volkswagen, the hallmark of affordable, yet brilliant, German engineering, doesn’t seem follow the “make a car better every year” philosophy that every other brand does.

Given the recent engine/transmission problems of my Crown Vic, the fact that it’s still not back to 100%, and its utterly abysmal fuel economy (normally not a factor in vehicle purchases, nor do I plan for it to be, but damn, < 12mpg hurts), I’ve started idly thinking about replacing it. And, since I’m still working on/hoping for a real-paying job, I’ve been toying with the idea of making my next vehicle the first brand-new car anyone in my family has had in almost 20 years. Problem is, I’m probably the pickiest person ever when it comes to cars, and my biggest factor when buying a car is uniqueness; whether that comes from distinctive features, interesting history, or just general rarity. Basically, if I see a car more than once every couple of days, I don’t want it, because a car is a LOT more than just a transportation tool for me, and I want something I’m going to take pride in driving. Other factors include comfort, appearance/design (another area where I have peculiar tastes), performance (the definition of this depends on what the vehicle is built to do), and reliability, in that order.

So, I’ve been looking at the Volkswagen Eos. It’s a cute little two-door convertible, with a hard-top, and a huge sunroof. It’s very distinctive, I’ve never seen one in person, it looks very beautiful both inside and out (in my opinion), and it looks like it’d be lots of fun to drive, without being uncomfortably tiny like a Miata or Z3. Now, the Eos currently comes with two different engines. The base engine is a 2.0L turbo that has oil burning problems after 5,000-15,000 miles, and has very notable turbo lag, causing it to feel very underpowered at low RPM. Oh, and it requires 93 octane gas at an absolute minimum, which is very hard to find around here. Then, there’s the 3.2L V6 that’s naturally aspirated, used on several Audi models, less picky about fuel, more powerful, and nearly identical in fuel economy (19/30 for the 2.0, 19/26 for the 3.2, both a significant improvement over what I have now). It doesn’t burn oil, it doesn’t have the complexity of factory turbos, and it’s an overall superior engine that’s better suited to the car.

Now, for the disappointing part. For the 2009 model year, VW is making some significant changes to the Eos. They’re phasing out the 3.2L engine entirely, replacing the 2.0 with a different 2.0 turbo that’s only marginally improved (if at all), removing fog lights (WTF?), and removing some wheel options. The only positive improvements they’re making are to make the fancy-schmancy adaptive HID headlights available as an option on all packages, and upgrading the navigation system. I can understand changing the options around, because the V6 model had a ton of exclusive options that weren’t available on the others, but phasing out the engine entirely is just unacceptable to me, and the alleged reason they did it (improve average fuel mileage numbers across all models) seems rather ridiculous, considering the miniscule difference between the two.

==========================================

Disappointment #2 comes from Ford, or more specifically, their recent plans to sell Jaguar and Land Rover. This doesn’t affect me directly, since any Rover I get would be too old to matter, but I’ve always really liked both brands, and the rich history/prestige associated with them. Unfortunately, neither company has been particularly profitable, so they tend to get bought and sold a lot.

When Ford acquired Jaguar, and then Land Rover, I wasn’t overly thrilled, since Ford isn’t exactly the pinnacle of luxury (I couldn’t think of a non-offensive analogy to illustrate this, so use your imagination). But, they’ve been around for over a century, and they at least have half a clue about how to build a nice car (see: Lincoln Towncar), so I figured they’d be able to do some good things with both nameplates.

Well, just a couple years after buying Land Rover, Ford is now selling both it and Jaguar. Unfortunately, neither company has shown significant improvement since the Ford acquisition, so all of the corporations higher on the “ladder” than Ford aren’t interested. Who does that leave? The trashiest car company big enough to afford it: Tata Motors.

This company is based in India, and their primary markets cover the middle east, southeast asia, and parts of africa. They sell a large volume of heavy-hauler trucks, and apparently those don’t suck nearly as bad as their passenger models, which list “low fuel indicator” as a feature, and airbags are a luxury option. Now, I admit, there’s nothing inherently wrong with selling dirt-cheap cars that rival the Yugo in “features”, developing countries need that niche to be filled, and a lot of people in the US and Europe would buy a car that falls apart after 100,000 miles if it was $6,000 new. But, this is not the kind of company that should be making $80,000 luxury cars and SUVs, even if it’s indirect. I shudder to think what will happen to engineering masterpieces like the Jaguar XK-R with the brand under the control of a company that can’t even keep up with other current-year econoboxes. Tata’s current-year 4-door sedan (the nicest of their passenger cars) isn’t even equipped comparably to a late-90s Honda Civic, let alone something currently on the market.

Sad.

Yesterday, I finally had a chance to talk to my mechanic directly about my car. And, he listed everything he had checked/tested/replaced in the month he’s had it. Needless to say, it was a very long list that I have no hope of remembering. He said that the only theory he hadn’t yet checked, due to the complexity involved, was an overly-worn camshaft.

He knows a guy at one of the Ford dealerships around here who will give him a good deal on a diagnostic, if not free, so he’s going to take it there for us and let them figure out what’s wrong.

I want my car back

===========================

Also, road trip this weekend, I’m going to Four Quarters for Beltane. I’m heading out on Thursday, staying a night at efwolfcub’s house, then camping for the weekend. So, I pretty much won’t be online while I’m gone.

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

Yay, I actually made it out of the house today! A friend from high school and I have been partially in touch for awhile via LJ, and we recently got in touch again via AIM. Driving out of town for socialization all the time blows, especially when I don’t have a car readily available, and she and I had stuff to talk about, so I molested the Rover into working and met her for a walk in the park. I forgot how much fun she was to hang out with, I wish we would’ve done this before now

We walked the entire circuit of the park, talking about all sorts of stuff and catching up on the past few years of our lives; typical girl-talk stuff. Afterwards, she suggested we visit the Earth & Tea Cafe, a hippie-looking place I’ve never actually been in. They’re pretty pricy, and their food is a little strange (like, weirder than Panera), but their tea freaking rocks! Huge selection, too; well worth it overall

Back to work in my office after that, but hopefully we can meet up again sometime.

==================================

I finally heard from the mechanic today about my car, but the news wasn’t promising. In short, he’s completely stumped, so he has a Ford expert he knows taking a look at it tomorrow. I’m hoping for a miracle, but if they don’t get it before they close tomorrow, I won’t be attending lilpup / spikeblackfang’s birthday party this weekend. So, if you’re attending, you may or may not see me, I don’t know yet :-\

EDIT: This webcomic by gen is absolutely awesome, if you haven’t seen it, and today’s strip made me crack up laughing for some reason. Pure awesome

For those who I haven’t told, my car has had some pretty major issues for the past few weeks. But, I have it back finally, and it’s running well. It’ll be very nice not to be cooped up without transportation all day

RECAP:
Since my last post about the car, a lot has happened. We took the car back to the transmission shop while I was in Pittsburgh, and the transmission guy looked over it for a day, and said that while the fluid level was quite high, it shouldn’t be affecting it like that. He swore up and down that it was an engine problem, so we took it to our usual mechanic, who was quite skeptical. He said he’d look over it with a fine-tooth comb and take detailed records of his findings, for free!

Well, his diagnostic was interrupted by OBD II problems. Apparently, the ECU on my car didn’t have the VIN number encoded, and this was somehow interrupting their ability to scan it. So, they took it to the Ford dealer to get this corrected, and were thoroughly pwned. The ECU was fine, they just had a broken scanner.

On Friday, the mechanic called my mom (she and my grandma are generously paying for all this) and said that the car was in their lot with the keys locked inside, and he wanted us to take it for the weekend. If it was fixed, he’d draw up the paperwork on Monday. If it wasn’t, he’d start working on it again on Monday.

Well, I took it for a very lengthy drive through town, in as many different driving conditions as I could find, and everything appears to be running perfectly. I’m not 100% sure what he fixed, since I didn’t talk to him directly, but it was something about the ignition.

As of writing this, I realized I didn’t try it on interstate driving yet, so I’m going to go do that just to be certain.

EDIT: Apparently it’s not fixed, I just didn’t drive it enough. It’s down at the shop already so they can work on it today, but I was really looking forward to being able to get out of the house during the day this week :-\

=============================

In other news, tonight I decided to bite the bullet and get something I’ve wanted for years, a good electric shaver. Ever since the first time I shaved, I’ve hated the process of shaving with a blade, which has outweighed my disdain for facial hair for a long time. Hence, I’ve always had a beard of some sort, maintained with a beard trimmer. But, now that I have a quick, clean, and easy way to shave, I’m going to try staying beardless to see how I like it. Ever since I could grow facial hair, I’ve had it in some way, except for very rare single-day occasions when I went clean-shaven for something. So, I may look different next time you see me (if you see me IRL)

Today, I say goodbye to asshole customers.
Today, I say goodbye to driving 100 miles a day.
Today, I say goodbye to 9 hours a day of city traffic.
Today, I say goodbye to constant near-wrecks.
Today, I say goodbye to mysterious Asian food spilling in my car.

Because today, the delivery company I worked for closed permanently.
And tomorrow, I start my life anew.
(more…)

Transmission fluid has relatively little taste, but its texture is absolutely revolting when it gets in your mouth.

I’ve been trying to get out on the trails as much as possible, it always makes me feel so awesome, but life doesn’t want to cooperate sometimes. The combination of reduced sunlight and my weird sleep schedule makes it nearly impossible to just hop in the truck on a whim, since it’d be dark by the time I reached the base of the mountain.

Additionally, my truck’s perpetual engine problems have gotten worse, I had to drive it for work a few days ago because of snow, and it was making some disturbing engine sounds after awhile, I don’t even know how to describe them. My attempts to find a Land Rover specialist that isn’t the dealer have been unsuccessful so far, and if I manage to get a decent job in the near future, I might just pick up another one and start from scratch, now that I know what to look for and what to do to it. At this point, I just hope it will get me where I need to go the next time it snows, because my car’s snow-performance is downright abysmal, even with nice new super-grippy tires all around (it’s much better in rain, though!).