A few weeks ago I took my car in for its annual safety inspection. It failed. Apparently my front brake pads were a bit too thin (They were).

• Inspection cost: $16.00 (State Mandated Fee)
• Repair Cost: $340.00 (Replace pads, smooth & turn rotors)
• Repair Time: Next Day
• Cost to re-inspect vehicle: $1.00

Umm. No. $340.00 to replace brake pads? Are they kidding? I 've been fortunate enough to have my [step] dad Joe show me a lot of mechanical stuff back in the day. So I choose to replace them myself. I've done it a few times before and it doesn't cost $340.00 and it doesn't take over a day.

• High Quality Brake Pads from AutoZone: $45.14
• C-Clamp from Sears which was needed to more easily recede the brake cylinder: $4.00
• Time spent to replace front brake pads (and going to Sears and back): 2-3 hours.

It's an easy job, really.. less work than than replacing a flat tire actually. I didn't rotate the rotors or whatever but they didn't really seem to need it anyway. Car's been working fine for days. I took the car back to get re-inspected and it passed. Hurray! BTW, The repair shop has free WiFi. Weird.

Today, Warhammer Online: Age of Recloning launched. This is my 3rd launch title. People have been asking me how I feel. I dunno. I don't really feel any different. I'm not especially happy, or sad, or anything. I guess I'm curious as to the impact of the game to the market and its hopeful success. I guess if I am anything I am reserved. I'm not holding my breath or anything, but I am still waiting for a month to see if the game is a true success or not. I hope it will be, and some part of me believes it will be, but I'm still a little wary of the whole ordeal. At some point I thought I might be a little anxious, but I'm really not. I don't mean to downplay the significant achievements we've all accomplished. I think we've done a great job. Maybe I'm just too tired to be overjoyed at the moment.

With the game about to launch, and all the features finally in, I get a little bit of a break. From work, that is. :)

This weekend was Violet's Birthday Extravaganza. We went shopping, ate too much food, and went to a Pagan Pride Day event. A hurricane/Tropical Storm warning kept us inside most of Saturday (Preventing us from driving 90 mins to eat at the closest Sonic). Sunday was good though.

Pagan Pride Day was fairly small. A tiny park in the middle of a small city a bit South of DC, the event featured a few live bands (Cassandra Rising was really good, Plastic Sky wants to be good one day) and only a handful of local Pagan groups, some of whom were selling stuff. There weren't really any vendors. There were some famous Pagan authors there too. I didn't know who they were, of course, but Violet seemed excited about their presence.

I must say, P.F.Chang's really goes out of their way to make a customer happy. We sat at the table and waited 8 mins for service. The waitress admitted that our particular table tended to confuse the servers as to which one of them was responsible for it. People.. if it's a reoccuring problem, then fix it. Ack. To make up for it, we got a free appetizer. Also, since it was Violet's BDay, we got a free mini-dessert. I didn't care for mine, but I'm a selective eater. Violet loved her dinner.

Most importantly, I didn't go into work this past weekend. Oh sure, I logged in remotely to check email and ensure all my stuff passed QA (it did), but by and large I spent most of my time with Violet and Drake. It's about time too.