Well, I guess it was that time of year. Now with bonus political rant!

[lassarina]

Just before Halloween, I came to the determination that I required a new car. I got myself a pretty little Corolla with 82,000 miles (his name is Boco.) Yesterday, I sold Perdhro. Today, I overnighted the tags, registration, bank draft, and bill of sale to my mother. I feel oddly regretful. Perdhro was behaving very nicely yesterday when I

Comments

[shanaqui]

...As usually happens, I got distracted halfway through my rant, lost steam, and am now slightly boggled. Where I was going was basically this. I think that far too many of our rights have been slowly fenced in, in a gradually tightening structure that is nothing big or major at a time - but it does add up, doesn't it?

I know this feeling. I was aghast to learn that every time I visit Lisa or she visits me, come 2009, we may (read: the government's intention is that we) have to answer thirty-eight questions about who bought our tickets, when, how long we're staying for, who we're staying with, how to contact us... I'm almost resolved to, despite the language barrier, move to Belgium instead of her moving here. :|

[lassarina]

How foolish and ridiculous.

[shanaqui]

It's not even thirty-eight questions that you can reasonably be expected to know the answers to off by heart. I'm not sure it'll count when they ask what number is on your ticket and you say "hang on, let me look".

Mind you, my Grampy did that when a policeman asked what registration plate the bike he was riding had (because they suspected he'd stolen it). He got off, walked around to look, read it out, and said, "I thought bobbies were supposed to be able to see past the ends of their own noses?". He could've proved it was his own bike in a million ways, but he never saw any sense in memorising their registration plates. xD

[lassarina]

Yeah, a lot of those are things I'd definitely have to look up.

Your gramps is brilliant. XD

[shanaqui]

It's pretty ridiculous. I'm wondering if "my girlfriend's mum" is going to be an acceptable answer. Except maybe then if the person has religious objections to homosexuality, he won't be obligated to let me through! :D

I wish I'd known him longer. I called him Grumpy with good reason when I was little, but my dad has so many funny stories about him. Like, both of them were (are, in my dad's case) deaf -- to some extent, so am I: damn you, genetics! -- but Grampy would only use his hearing aid to... eavesdrop on his wife complaining about him to the next door neighbour. The rest of the time, he'd have it turned off.

(I suspect he's also the originator of one of my dad's pet things: you say "you're deaf!" to him when he's not getting something you're saying, and he'll say "twenty to two [or whatever], why?".)