Does she have a point?

I could either scrape together just enough money for a down payment for my absolute dream car:



Or look for a used car and get some kinda loan to pay for it (not sure how that works - does anyone have tips?).

Or buy a clunker and then have to potentially replace it soon. I hate the thought of this option, especially as a single person w/out a boyfriend to cry to for roadside assistance.

Since I need a car like, yesterday, I'm leaning towards buying the Mini later this month. But not sure if most of the reasoning isn't just that it will make me feel deliriously happy. On the other hand, I can afford the monthly payment just fine so I don't want to be too stingy, and buying a new car will Fix The Economy -- um, right?

It's weird but all the options have the same upfront cost of $2000 dollars or so (either for down payment or full payment for the clunker) -- long term costs are a different story. So I have just enough options to confuse myself.

-- UPDATE

Tinypliny asked why I need a car, unfortunately I work by UB North Campus, so it's not a walkable sort of situation.

Love is many-splendored, but loss is singular and bleak.

Thus shall you think of this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.
-- excerpt from the Diamond Sutra

This fleeting world is mine, or feels close enough most days. A sudden absence, death, denial, changes that world and then I stumble. There's that bloody gap again amongst white teeth that tongue can't help but probe. It's too hard to hold on to, and to painful to let go. I find myself living a life that's suddenly unfamiliar, dangerous, alien.

The Buddhist retort to pain and loss is, "what now is lacking?", meant to drive your awareness to the present, to the moment, to your being here and now.

Loss is singular because it comes to all, eventually. It's the invariant mate of existence in this universe. So, I am not gone or destroyed by loss -- not yet. Loss is the relief that shows where presence still is. I live, though feel a stranger to my life today. I can keep moving until the moment that even breath is lacking. Things will be all right, even then; my flickering lamp continues, until then.

A series of mistakes led me to accidentally destroy the partitioning
of my hard drive.

*_*

So I've spent the day reinstalling apps and restoring data from backups.

Thankful for having backups. Aggravated I'm not going to accomplish
anything today.



I also managed to kill half the plants at my cubicle by forgetting to water them Friday.

OK, end of sad story.

^_^

Bring your ark.

These are for bash shells, and may be Mac-specific also, and would go in .bash_profile or .bash_login or as marked specifically below:

1. Always open new terminal windows in the location of the last directory that you cd'd to (source: ):

pathed_cd () {
if [ "$1" == "" ]; then
cd
else
cd "$1"
fi
pwd > ~/.cdpath
}
alias cd="pathed_cd"

if [ -f ~/.cdpath ]; then
cd $(cat ~/.cdpath)
fi

2. Erase duplicate entries from command history (source: ):

export HISTCONTROL=erasedups
shopt -s histappend

3. Allow partial matching of previous history instead of scrolling back through full history (note this one goes in .inputrc, source: ):

1. do not make noise

set bell-style none

1. By default up/down are bound to previous-history
   
2. and next-history respectively. The following does the
   
3. same but gives the extra functionality where if you
   
4. type any text (or more accurately, if there is any text
   
5. between the start of the line and the cursor),
   
6. the subset of the history starting with that text
   
7. is searched (like 4dos for e.g.).
   
8. Note to get rid of a line just Ctrl-C

"e[B": history-search-forward
"e[A": history-search-backward

$if Bash
# F10 toggles mc on and off
# Note Ctrl-o toggles panes on and off in mc
"e[21~": "mcC-M"

#do history expansion when space entered
Space: magic-space
$endif

1. Include system wide settings which are ignored
   
2. by default if one has their own .inputrc

$include /etc/inputrc

4. Add status indicator for local changes to git or svn versioned directories (source: ):

1. Prompt setup, with SCM status

parse_git_branch() {
    local DIRTY STATUS
    STATUS=$(git status 2>/dev/null)
    [ $? -eq 1 ] || return
    [[ "$STATUS" == *'working directory clean'* ]] || DIRTY=' *'
    echo "($(git branch 2>/dev/null | sed -e '/^[^*]/d' -e 's/* //')$DIRTY)"
}

parse_svn_revision() {
    local DIRTY REV=$(svn info 2>/dev/null | grep Revision | sed -e 's/Revision: //')
    [ "$REV" ] || return
    [ "$(svn st)" ] && DIRTY=' *'
    echo "(r$REV$DIRTY)"
}

PS1='u@h:W$(parse_git_branch)$(parse_svn_revision) $ '

5. Misc aliases.

1. various ls aliases

alias ll="ls -lp"
alias la="ls -ap"
alias lla="ls -lap"

1. shorthand to search history, "h blah"

alias h="history | grep "

1. open current directory in finder

alias o='open .'

1. add all new files, which aren't ignored, to svn repo

alias san='svn status | grep "^?" | awk "{print $2}" | xargs svn add'