April 28, 2007
Where ya been, Mr. Hippy? (517)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I’ve been lax, I’ve been lazy, at least as far as this blog is concerned.
Is it still a blog?
I don’t think it is anymore. I don’t post 5 or 10 times a day, with a list of what I had for lunch and what I’m having for dinner or what I think about EVERYTHING!
My scope has narrowed significantly. I write when I feel like it, I write when I have the time. I try to write when I have something unique to say.
Today, I don’t have anything unique to say, so perhaps I should just tell you what I had for lunch. Chicken Caesar salad with goat’s cheese and aubergine bread, with chillies. Yummmm.
It was from Firezza pizza. Google it, maybe you live near a branch and can have exactly the same thing in 30 minutes or less delivered to your door. Yummm for you too.
For the last month or so I’ve had a lot of work on, which has been cutting into my hippy time quite a bit. I’ve actually been working really hard, like a dog.
No, I mean it, I’ve actually been working like a dog; herding sheep during the day and chasing an electric rabbit around a track at night. Oh and on the weekend, I’ve been taking blind people out for long walks and trips to the shop.
Ok, enough of the fucking dog jokes, we get it!
That’s the thing with my life, when I’m busy working, I don’t have time for anything else; not even you my beloved and sorely neglected hippyfans.
The other thing that has been distracting me away from all things hippy has been my myopic quest for a new(ish) car. I always having trouble spending money and it seems that the size of my problems is directly in proportion to the amount of money I’m trying to spend.
A car is the most expensive thing you own, after your house and if you rent, it’s the most expensive! The forces of the universe were indeed aligned to fuck this hippy but good!
For starters, all car dealers lie as easily as I draw breath and my lungs are good and clear, which is surprising considering the amount of smoke they process.
My needs were very specific; this time I knew the exact make and model of my intended wheels.
And then there were my own problems, with my budget, which increased a fair bit after doing some research, It was justified as the real value for money bargains were just outside my original price range.
The best deals I found were “slightly used” new cars, directly from the dealer. I saved around 4 grand off the cost of a brand new one, by going for a model that had 1,600 miles on it, all put there by the manufacturer. In other words, an employee drove it for a while, or it was a demo model.
It came with the remainder of the warranty as well; a respectable 28 months from the original 3 years. It will hold it’s value longer as too.
It’s in perfect shape and if I told you it was brand new, you wouldn’t argue with me. I think I got a great deal!
The car I went for is another Toyota Yaris. I loved my first one, so why mess around with a good thing? It’s a 2006 model, a 3-door, T3, 1.3 if that means anything to you. Oh and it’s blue. I adore it already!
Besides being really shiny, it is incredibly well designed, slightly bigger and more ergonomic than my previous one and the larger engine makes a big difference. It’s in the same insurance and road tax band, the emissions are low and the petrol mileage is high. What’s not to love?
It took me over 4 weeks to locate, negotiate and buy this car. I looked at over a dozen and nearly bought at least 3 of them, before the salesman said something to put me off, or I discovered some concealed problem.
Life has a way of working everything out for the best, even if you can’t see it at the time. The long, arduous route I followed to get this particular car is just what it took, because in the end, I got the right car.
Now that I’ve sorted the car, I can move down to the next big thing on my list of big things to do. Lucky me.
I’ll try to come back more often, but I always say that; empty words and meaningless promises. And they’re worth exactly the price of the paper this page is printed on.
Filed under consumerism, the hippy by thehippy




