Month: April 2004

Some of you may be wondering — okay, none of you are probably wondering, but this is my blog, dagnabbit! — what finally happened with my car. You may remember — or you may not; this isn’t your blog after all — that I was in a car accident about a month ago. Well, the other insurance company accepted liability for the accident, sent first a damage apparaiser and then a check, and I’ve now brought the car in for repairs. There will probably be a supplement added to the bill, since there’s body damage in the trunk that the appraiser didn’t see, but it’s at the shop, god’s in his or her heaven, and all is right with the world.

Except, of course, that I accidentally left my parking permit in the car. So I’m going to have to drive out there this afternoon and pick it up so that my rental doesn’t get ticketed while I’m at work. The shop is about half an hour away in Spring Mills, so there goes my lunch hour. The alternative, though, is parking illegally for a week while the Honda gets repaired, but that’s not such a good option — not at the rate they hand parking tickets out on this campus.

Incidentally, this is the second rental I’ve had in as many days. I went home to New York for the Easter weekend, and I didn’t think that many miles was the sort of thing my Honda needed in its current state. So I rented a car last Friday and returned it on Monday, only to pick up another car (for which the insurance company will pay) on Tuesday. I’ll be very happy when I have my Civic back.

From an interview with David Larible, “the first clown to headline the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus” from this week’s New York Times Magazine:

Fictional character he most identifies with: Wile E. Coyote. His is the only cartoon that makes me laugh out loud. It is genius for people who do what I do, because it is funny without any element of surprise. It is a reversal of all logic, because he is the coyote who is going to eat the roadrunner, but in the end you love the coyote and hate the little bird.

I just thought that was interesting. Comedy usually doesn’t work — maybe shouldn’t work — without some element of surprise.