Oof!

Friday night I'm out doing some errands and suddenly, out of nowhere, I hear my brakes making a sound that can only be described as bad. You know the sound of a snowplow scraping asphalt? That's what they sounded like. It's the type of sound that doesn't inspire confidence in your car's health.

So, the next day I immediately take it in to the shop. Discover that the front brake pads are totally gone and that sound was the sound of metal on metal. It was also the sound of what turned out to be $788 in car repairs.

Oof!

$545 for the brakes, but while they were in there they discovered a cracked fan belt and an air filter that looked like a smoker's lung. And while you're at it, since I'm long overdue, might as well change the oil.

You know, looking back over my vast history of car problems, I think there's only been one instance where the cost of fixing that problem wasn't a total gut punch shock. Only once did I ever say, "Wow, that wasn't that bad." And every time recently this has happened I find myself thinking that I should really learn more about cars, so I can fix this stuff mhyself and save myself the money.

That was the low point of the weekend.
...
There were some better moments though.

Friday night was the Little Hearts Pub Crawl afterparty at the Irish Pub. That was a good time. Spent the evening chatting away with some of the lovely ladies from the crawl. Hooray for lovely ladies.

After being bent over and invaded by the auto repair industry on Saturday, I had a much more important decision to make. Should I go to Matt's cover band show at the Bus Stop or to a different rock and roll show at the Linwood. This matter was still undecided even as I left the house that evening to make my way to the as yet unknown destination. I ended up deciding going with the Linwood show. I didn't know of anyone else I knew going to the Bus Stop, so I opted with the option of the show where I knew I would have friends not in the band hanging out. And I gotta say I think I made the right choice. It was a night of spectaularly awesome big, dumb rock. Two of the bands, RPG and The Brought Low I had never seen before, but now would definitely see them again. The third band, Pete (from Lamont and Motherboar) I didn't even catch their name, but much like Lamont I didn't much care for, based almost entirely on the fact that I don't like Pete's guitar sound. And then Cocked and Loaded closed out the night with more excellent rock, accompanied by beer spitting. 3 out of 4 makes for a good night in my book.

Sunday was a day for quiet contemplation. Well,it was a day for sitting on the couch and watching football, playing video games, playing guitar, and finishing a book. But, you know, mostly quietly.