Video games, books, and cars

Ah, it’s a nice, rainy day in England. I’m still wondering when a full attack of Spring will be upon us. I’ve been turning on the oscillating fan in the living room on at night, so I guess it’s getting a bit less like winter. Still chilly and windy so I need some sort of coat when I leave the house. After living in Florida for all those years, even if I wasn’t an outdoorsy beach person, it’s hard to live in a place that doesn’t have an inviting kind of day that makes you want to go outside.

Anyway, I’ve been playing The Sims 3 a lot lately. This has been my go-to obsessive game for years. When The Sims first came out, my poor PC couldn’t even handle it and I had to reboot it over and over. But the game was amazing fun, so it was worth it. There’s no skill involved in playing The Sims either; you just mess around in a little pretend world and screw up characters’ lives. Fun. Plus there are so many expansion packs, I’d work a couple of days just to buy them all. (No, I’m not kidding.)

Actually, I screwed up my back initially when I started playing The Sims again in March. I sat here at the computer desk for hours, leaning forward, then when I was on the coach watching The Hunger Games, I realized it was a bit sore. By the next week I was out for the count. Sims are fun, but not worth all that.

Also, I moved my book reviews and weekly reading memes to a new site: bookblogarama. I needed a fresh start because I see so many really well done book sites and I wanted one too. So I’ve started adding things to the Tumblr site too. Projects are nice to have, especially when they give you something to look forward to every day, and reasons to investigate things.

I went to City Library on Tuesday to investigate World Book Night. I wrote on my netbook in the cafe over my £2 Americano while I listened to the music in the atrium. I found no free book giving though (unless you could the books that you can borrow for free anyway.) I did check out Me Before You from the World Book Night display by the cafe so my mission was complete. I had to meet up with Steve so I didn’t stay for the Murder Mystery event they were having afterwards – that seemed fun.

And I’m still not test-ready because stopping on hills in a manual-shift car is just not an easy thing to do. So I keep practicing until I have this down pat, or I throw in the towel and opt for an automatic (which, in most cases, is considered a mobility vehicle in the UK.) But in order to keep my options open, I’m sticking to the stick shift and the steep banks. Incidentally, I found an article on USA Today called 10 cheapest cars: Why (almost) nobody buys them. that are supposedly they cheapest. They claim that, “the bottom-price model has a manual transmission. Few can or will drive a stick-shift nowadays.” Just the opposite goes for us in England. Also, USA Today sites issues with insurance that is different here too. Insurance is based on size of the car and its engine, so like a Fiat 500 is in the lowest price bracket.

But when I get my license, I’ll try plenty of them out. Now that both Steve and I have hurt our backs, I’m thinking a little car that sits low to the ground may not be the best choice. Sorry, Mini. Cute, fun, little Mini.

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