Crappy Birthday to me..

It's my birthday. And it hasn't been a great day.

Last night, I was coming back from the gym, and while I was pulling out noticed my gas gauge was way below empty. That seemed odd, since I had just gotten gas two days ago. (I had decided to buy gas when I noticed the Crown station across the street from the Mobil station I've been going to had a price that was significantly higher than the Mobil station. I figured that meant the Mobil station would soon be raising their rates, since they are usually within 2 cents of the crown station. I've been going to Mobil to take advantage of their 5¢ per gallon Speedpass discount).
So my first instinct was that gas tank was leaking. Then I realized that my speedometer said I was stopped, despite the fact that the car was in motion. That's when I realized my entire dashboard was dead.

This sucks, because I'm driving to NJ to visit family. I had taken today, Friday, and Monday off. My Saturday job was cancelled, so I had a rare Saturday off, and I needed to use some vaction time and a floating holiday. We are strongly discouraged from taking time off past August 15th at work, because that's start of school and an insanely busy time of year. I figured it would be a good time to see my family, who I probably won't see again until Thanksgiving. I couldn't go home today (Thursday) because I had class tonight, so I would go home Friday and come back Monday.

So this means I get to drive to NJ with no gas guage and no speedometer. I figured I could get it fixed up there - where I bought the car in the first place. Called my parents, and asked them to call the dealership. No luck making an appointment. Had them call another dealership in NJ. They had openings, but wanted me to call for more info. I called. Guy basically told me he didn't want to do it because it's an electrical problem and electrical problems can take days to solve and sometimes mean "tearing apart the entire inside of the car". Since there is no time in the next few months where I can be without a car for days on end, I'm going to be driving around with no gas gauge for a while, unless I get annoyed enough to spring for a rental.

The funny thing is that this car was recalled a couple months after I bought it for the exact same problem. I brought it in, and it was supposedly fixed. The one service guy I talked to looked up my VIN, and insists it's not one of the recalled ones. But I know I took it in for this recall, because it was like 3 months after I bought the car.

So I was talking to my Mom about this whole thing, and my freaking cell phone died. This isn't the first time it's happened, either. Now it's out of warrenty, and I was planning on switching carriers in November when my current contract runs out anyway. So now I have to buy a new cell phone for the next three months. Shit. I've got a bid on one on eBay right now, so it might not cost me too much, but still. Luckily, I got a BlackBerry from work, so I can use that in the mean time as an emergency backup.

Plus, the back tire on my car is starting to look like it's going flat, so I eventually have to get that looked at

I also found out that the test I have in my MBA class next week that I thought would be totally open-book will have a closed book portion, which means I need to do a bunch of studying. We are allowed a note card, which means I have to spend a bunch of time condensing hundreds of poorly-written pages into an index card with my serial-killer wrtiting.

With the car and phone, it's like every electronic device I touch turns to shit. It's the reverse midas touch, and it sucks that this happened on my bithday.

Not that I really take much stock in birthdays. I find them kind of depressing, because being a year older means you are a year closer to death. It tends to make me reflect on all the things I've wanted to accomplish but haven't, all the things I'm not happy with in my life. Plus, I'm 25 now, which makes me a quarter-century old, and that sounds really old, even though it isn't.

Still, I thought today would be a nice relaxing day, that I would get a bunch of stuff done. Instead, I spent most of the day pissed off that stuff was broken. And I didn't get much done.