I, Ching

While driving one day I suddenly thought to wonder how I would write a novel entitled, I, Ching. What would it be about? 'Tis obvious: The autobiography of the second son in a wealthy Chinese family who rises to CEO and patriarch despite being underestimated by everyone for his habit of letting an ancient divination scheme guide his business decisions. It would have to be a funny story.

And now, having written that, I have ensured it will never be written and taken all the humor out besides.

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I Netflixed Centurion the other day, in continuation of my sudden practice of watching modern swordplay movies. I think they tint the blood extra red. I was entertained: The story was simple and believable, they didn't reach for unnecessary humor, and the main "bad guy" was a beautiful British warrior woman who had every reason to thirst for Roman blood. My only beef really was that the plot was too simple. She was hired initially by the Roman governor to guide a legion against the Picts, and then she betrayed them and they were for the most part slaughtered. Well, I predicted the betrayal, and figured that was what the governor wanted for hinted-at political reasons; but that latter level of perfidy was never made clear. Maybe the ending dialog that covered all that was edited out in favor of more action scenes, figuring most watchers wouldn't notice or think of it. It ended satisfactorily enough. It was a British movie and thus not overly sympathetic to the Romans. Had some lovely cinematography of wild country in what they now call Scotland.

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My old Jeep's saga continues. The reason why I sprung a radiator leak after replacing the overflow bottle is obvious, now. I had busted a head gasket sometime in the past and was venting high-pressure gases into the cooling system. A weak point had to fail. Luckily for me it was the easily-accessed and inexpensive overflow bottle. Unluckily I did not understand this and so, after the bottle was replaced, a new fail point had to be found. The next fail point turned out to be not one but two seams in my radiator. Furthermore, the shop couldn't really pressure test the gasket until the radiator was replaced. So that repair is either done now or under way, and meanwhile they've verified the gasket is indeed blown.

This old truck is very important to me and I really don't care how much money I sink into it so long as it stays alive. My long term plan with it is to keep it and drive it and repair / restore it as need dictates and opportunity allows. But what next? They say the clutch is out. I hesitate to agree as it worked fine for me. But I can do the clutch myself. Done it before. Do it again. Don't want to. Too bad.

Also don't want to bother shopping for a car but it's high time I quite commuting in this poor old thing. I have no idea what to look for. Something not too old that costs not too many thousands of dollars and can be relied on for awhile. Something I'm not embarrassed to take people places in. Something I can haul down to the City and back without worrying about. H'rrumph.

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I have a meeting on the speakerphone that I'm not paying a lot of attention to. It's late at night because the principal participants are in East Asia and Eastern Europe. I'm not paying attention because a) it's about devices being refined at a level of detail that's not relevant to my part of the project and b) I can barely understand their accents. But I'm online in case someone suddenly wants to ask me something.

Showing up is 80 percent of life -- Woody Allen