frickin car

so - something like 8-9 months ago, the night i arrived in toronto, the lights on my car wouldn't come on. this was at a gas station - when i pulled in to fill up, they were fine, and when i left, they were dark. both of them. just the low beams - the high beams worked fine. weird, eh?

so i thought - can't be the bulbs. at least, it would be extraordinarily unlikely that both bulbs would blow at the same time. i left it like this for a long time, just not driving much at night (and using my brights, which are apparently not so bright, when i did). this weekend i went to fix it - looking for a bad fuse or relay or something. i spent the whole day today digging around in my car, testing various relays and so on. nothing found.

finally i stop trying to potshot it, and find the wiring diagram online. i stare at it for a while, and realize it can't be anything else, except the bulbs. so i finally pull the buls, and lo and behold, they're both burned out. frickin car! what are the odds of that? so now i get to spend some money.

i read a cool thing today. henrietta lacks was a cancer patient who died in 1951. a sample of her cervical cancer cells taken shortly before her death are immortal. they keep replicating themselves, as many times as need be, without dying off like normal cells do. as such strains of her cells, called HeLa cells are still alive, still out there, and are notoriously difficult to contain.

and with that sobering thought - time to eat some cottage cheese!