A few weeks ago I found a kitten that had been separated from its mum. Earlier this week she became eligible for adoption, and I took her home. She's much the same affectionate and needy cat as she was on that magical day, but she also doesn't seem phased at all when I go out for the day, which is great.
That's all 
On Friday I went to the pub to meet some friends and get some fancy "Good Beer Week" beers, and on the way I heard an incessant mewing from the garden of a dilapidated house on Barkers Rd. There was a tiny kitten in there calling for mama. I tried to say hello and got hissed at for my troubles, so I let her be.
But she was still there when I walked home, and when I checked the next morning too. And still crying out for help. Something had to be done.
I don't have a pet, so I contacted a mate who's got a cat carrier and we plucked little Hami from the garden and took her home. Gradually over the morning while I was meant to be working from home, she went from fearful and hissy, to purring and affectionate, to meowing whenever I wasn't in the room to comfort her. She also became very playful and exploratory for a cat who was anchored to that spot in the garden! She ate a little chicken and some kitten food, though we estimated she was too young for it at 4 weeks based on weight.
It was a very rewarding day, but young kittens need specialist care, so I took her to a local vet. They said she had fleas, and had maybe missed a growth phase from living on the streets. I reckon she'd have been in trouble without human intervention - she spent 14 hours straight in the exact same spot and didn't seem fit to finding her own food.
Maybe in a few weeks I'll be taking her home again. Who knows
The Elise is, or was, a car built the old way, but in the current day. To the end it was a well thought out package, good engine, light chassis, convenient features, and not much more.
In the 90s, this was the stuff you wanted. There was some whizz-bang stuff around for sure, the occasional party-piece digital dash or automatic climate control, but the "infotainment" system wasn't the point and the car wasn't an extension of your phone which is an extension of your computer. The best cars were the ones that combined the right engine with the right body, to produce the right package. The Viper and the McLaren F1 and the NSX, the 3 and 5 series of the time, the Lancer Evo, the Ferrari 550 and so many others.
This all changed maybe a decade ago as cars moved more and more into their role as tools. Hybrid, EV and CVT came along, dulling the experience to hit different goals, and more than ever cars were prized on the size and resolution of the screens within them, and the ability of the software that ran on them.
But the Elise didn't change, it kept to the old way. Some would call it outdated, but some would say it stuck to a working formula, eschewing the needless pivot that modern cars took. It's not part-EV or full of screens or tech, but that's intentional - because leaving those things out is still a good idea, and putting them in would compromise the formula.
More than just being an example of a bygone approach to car design, the Elise was true to itself. It didn't become an SUV with the name of a sports car (hi, Eclipse, Mustang), it didn't adopt the name of an old unrelated race car to extract profit (looking at you, 718 Cayman/Boxster, McLaren LT), nor did it bloat in size (3-series) or call itself a coupe while actually being a 4-door SUV (dammit, Mercedes). 'Til the end, the Elise was the Elise - sub-1000kg, bonded aluminium chassis, fibreglass body, high sills. Difficult to get in and out of, a bit cramped and noisy, but fantastic - and a hole in the car world that will never be filled.
I move the guitarsso she'll stop fucking with it and she decides to sit on it
Spotted near work. Didn't say TURBO on the steering wheel.
Concave window though hnng
that is the worst thing i've ever seen. the owner actually needs a good beating
Getting that pesky cone off today!
She loves the box. Seriously
Spot the kitty
Hami's gotten pretty brazen, and has started napping in this basket. I had no idea how she was getting up there, but theorised she was somehow clawing her way up the front, based on some claw marks on the basket itself. So I set up a Zoom call with myself on an older phone to find out (couldn't use a laptop as she'd likely sleep on the warm keyboard). Started filming, plucked her out of the basket, and within 6 minutes of filming she'd gone back to it.
Turns out I was wrong! She goes up the back way. Crafty bugger!
Here's the trimmed vid:
@silentbutnotreallydeadly is manual. i checked. then i told my girlfriend about brown/diesel/wagons. she was..thrilled.
at least it's the amg.
people do this a lot, usually with slightly fancier cars. ultimately they paid out the nose for a new luxury car they didn't use, and now they're selling at the bottom of its depreciation.
It's like the opposite of an investment: buy at peak value, spend even more on keeping it pristine, sell it when it's worthless having derived no value or usefulness at all from it.
in other words, stupidity. maximum spend, maximum effort, maximum losses.
it's the same with a pristine supra or rx7. you spent a huge amount to buy it, didn't get to enjoy it, and even if it sells high for a supra it's less than you paid to buy and store it.
@ranwhenparked I agree. I suspect many of those things are American things. I find the roof racks curious though - obviously they'd never be used for luggage and are just there to make it look fancy. As if roof racks are fancy?
@whoistheleader yeah? Wikipedia reckons they've sold 50,000 globally. And then there's the Mitsubshi i, the garden variety ICE kei it's based on.
Sort of interesting, since it's a custom converted Commodore, a rare build of a discontinued lineage.
But also, every hearse is a custom build. And every remaining Commodore is an orphan of a bygone manufacturer. So maybe it's not that special.
Australia too has few of these. And I've seen a handful, though not in a while.
trading cars is expensive, and finding good old japanese cars is hard. also i don't have room to keep 2 cars, which makes it hard to swap.
also my mr2 is so good at everything and yet so hard to learn. it doesn't just understeer and oversteer like an FR car, everything it does is a grey area in between. sometimes you're doing both at the same time
@gettingoldercarguy haha, a dangerous car for someone young and dumb! i should know 
