Terrible, terrible night last (for reasons I won't share - so there). I got up at 4 am to get the tapes and DVDs ready for the Science Project for today (the tapes I theoretically could have gotten ready before this week, but I can't make a DVD of the day's shows until the day is over).

And now I'm sitting in a parking lot of a nursing home in Northlake, just off 290. I was on my ways to another west suburb for day-job-work and my car blew up. The operating assumption is that I've blown a rod (I found a cool chunk of metal inside the engine that I can't even figure out where it came from).

AAA just called me back to follow up on the tow truck that's an hour late. Boo.

My car certainly has its quirks -- it doesn't like to start in cold weather, no power steering, failed the Illinois emissions test rather spectactularly. But it's almost as old as I am (1974 Datsun 260Z just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it) and I'm not feeling so hot all the time myself, so I can sympathize. I hope it can be saved (OK, almost any car can be saved. I hope it can be saved for less than the cost of the car itself).

In happier news, Nick Green of the Chicago Reader reviewed Fratricide and said nice things. He said I gave the show a "crisp precision throughout". Cool. Glad to know it.

OK, they've promised me the tow truck will be here in 20 minutes. I didn't eat any breakfast this morning (and now the K key is popping off this keyboard. Great.). OK, I'll stop complaining. Hey Man, life's a bitch, lemme buy you a beer (ha! Fratricide call-back! But you didn't know that because you haven't seen the show yet!)

Ah, I see the tiny broken piece of plastic on the k key. I'll leave it off and try to super glue it, I guess. I wonder if you can buy just one replacement key for an Apple iBook? Or if you happen to have a spare k key lying around, send it my way, would you?) (How do you keep typing k if the key is broken, Fuzzy? I'm typing right on the little rubber button that sits under platic key top. I imagine if you were a better typist than I, you could take all the keys off and let the keys massage your fingers, like those sandals with the knobby plastic bottoms.)k

UPDATE: It's a hole in the engine. It'll be a couple grand to get a newish engine. Poop.