Alright, so it ought to be quarter centennial, but centurion is cooler. 25 years of life! Viva la resistance de la morte! Yes, that may be utter bastardization of french but it gets the point across…

I met up with my mom and one of my brothers this morning at the Egg and I, for a steak eggs biscuit gravy and potatoes breakfast - not a bad way to start the day. They got me these incredibly effective Bose noise-cancelling earbuds, and also brought some homemade wacky cake which is a lot more delicious than it sounds. Of course, this meant that I got to explain to several people at work what wacky cake is, and then ate a bunch of it. Work was generally lazy today which was an excellent start after two months of crunch time on a terrible project - in other words, not necessarily the most eventful of birthdays, but for some strange reason it was quite fulfilling.

To test the noise-cancelling on those earbuds (I used 'em at work today, but wanted to test them in a noisier environment), I had the interesting experience of wandering through Walmart with them on after work because I needed to buy stuff. Man, can I ever say they are effective. I keep turning them off and back on because the difference they make is so stark. It is ridiculous - you can hear close, sharp noises, but even they are greatly reduced and it is as if the rest of the world doesn't exist.

Also, I have seriously watched 100 episodes of One Piece in the last two weeks - it is oh so nice to go on an anime binge once in a while, especially something as amusing as One Piece. Luffy reminds me of Ben more than a bit - the sort of indomitable gleefulness and the >:D heeeee~ sort of laugh smile.

So life has been sweet. Things have been a bit mixxy-uppy lately, but not in a bad way.

One thing that was a bit womp-womp-sad-trombone was that I did not get a certain job with a certain company in California. However, it isn't as bad as it sounds, because 1) I knew from the get-go that it would be a difficult sell, seeing as I actually only graduated a year ago, and 2) I never applied - they contacted me first, and I hadn't planned on applying for at least another year. Anyhow, the end result is that my plans remain relatively unchanged, because I did play my cards right and covered my bases, meaning I've still got my awesome raise that I talked about last blog.

The other interesting thing is that I got a new car. When I say 'new', I mean 'gently used', as in my car was previously a loaner for the dealership and is in very, very good condition, with low mileage, and since I'm the first title holder I get all the goodies normally reserved for a new car. It is a 2013 Volvo C30 T5, with the T5 meaning it's one of the 250 limited-edition last-run turbo versions that they made. The car itself is very smooth, and accelerates like crazy so I'm having to be careful with the gas pedal. I will say one thing - keyless entry is AMAZING.

So why the car? My last car simply crossed a line upon which there wasn't financial reason to repair it - the parts needed cost more than the worth of the car. I refuse to fall into sunk-cost fallacy, and sooooo…. statistically speaking, in the long run a new car is usually a better buy than a used car because of warrantees, less and cheaper mechanical issues, and higher resale value. Also, lifetime powertrain and engine warrantee hurrah! I don't tend to drive that much, either, so unless an idiot plows into me, this car ought to last for quite a long time and stay in good condition too. I can definitely afford it, I got an awesome rate on the financing, and as a prior Volvo owner, I got an extra 1000$ off /after/ the haggling.

Life is good.