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Katzen Symphonie
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Images
- Hits: 249
Via the Public Domain Review, an 1868 drawing by Austrian painter Moritz von Schwind:
Shopping for used cars...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 396
This, on behalf of my daughter, she's found a used Toyota rav4, roughly around the year 2000. Conveniently located in Nelson, a "mere" 230+thousand K and "bargain" priced at $6200.
This is absurd.
I check the Edmund's price, it's worth roughly $1000. No shit. But - look around, shopping on Facebook and other sites, that's what they cost up here. More even.
Bullshit.
Nonetheless the daughter needs a new vehicle and so I, the dutiful dad, go to check it out.
4:00, down by the Orange Bridge, a 3 KM walk through the pissing rain, the owner, she shows up on time. I explain I'm shopping for my daughter and she wouldn't be able to make it out until the weekend but...she'll secure it with a deposit...."there's been a lot of interest" she tells me, ominously. She wants to sell it ASAP, I understand, but the ad went up on Monday and it hasn't yet sold. The vehicle, looks good, minimal damage, dings in the doors is all, great shape considering the year, it's getting dark already, there'll be no looking under the hood in this light, no crawling around underneath it given the rain, but lets go for a drive...
Note that while she has winter tires, it's equipped with summer tires, these will have to be switched out for the daughter to drive back...
Only it won't start. The battery's dead.
And so that's that.
Walk home in the pissing rain.
I take it in stride, she can let me know if she gets it running, 4:00 was not a good time to look at it anyways.
***
Bloody hell, every used piece of shit by I've ever owned by today's pricing has appreciated 10 Fold. My Old Jeep Laredo, the one taken out by a logging truck, cost $2000, could have sold today for $5000, and that with the added mileage. The same for practically every other vehicle, and you have to wonder, when did vehicles become a "good investment"????
Annoyed.
The owner's messaged me, she's sourced the problem, will look at it again tomorrow. But...damn, this isn't ideal...
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 314
To summarize, a young man first loses his cat, then his wife, and things take a few turns from there...
This was a thick read at some 600 pages, interesting, and I was right, I had read it before, the scenes in the well were all I recalled, and those poorly, so it was if I were reading it fresh again. An interesting pool of characters, the twining of plots, surreal, Murakami is a masterful writer.
Qin Shi Huang
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 190
A short read on Qin Shi Huang - site of the burial of China's First Emperor, and home of the Terracotta warriors. Of interest, they've only excavated .1% of the grounds, and there is fabled to be a river of mercury surrounding his tomb. The scale of this rivals or even exceeds that of the Pyramids...
Link: https://greekreporter.com/2025/10/27/china-first-emperor-tomb-sealed-terracotta-army/
and the Wikipedia for more depth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Shi_Huang
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