we decided to go for alternative number three, when it comes to the saab and the not very working hand brake. i.e. we found someone else to do it. and it's probably going to cost us more than it's worth... we left it to the shaggy neighbour on the other side of the lake this morning, and were supposed to get it after work today. when we got there the shaggy neighbour was either very drunk or hign/low on something. and the saab wasn't fixed. and the shaggy neighbour told us he'd had to order a new wire, and almost had to replace something big and expensive. fortunately he had been able to fix it (when he told us this he grimased so much he almost fell over, to really show us how difficult it was to fix). i don't really know if i trust the shaggy neighbour, though... as my brother said we only needed to replace the little hard things that are attached to the things that move... and this should only take about an hour, and absolute not more than an hour and a half. when we tried to ask how much it would cost he just grinned and said "x* is never expensive" (* he actually said his name, but as he's a well known figure around here i think some self-censorship can be good). as we didn't seem to be able to get much out of him we left him. and the saab. i wonder if it's going to be able to sleep well tonight :( but it's a brave saab.

i borrowed a saab-fixing-book from a colleague/friend a couple of days ago (almost a week, to be more exact), but i haven't really looked at it until today. the lights on the dashboard don't work, which means in darkness it's impossible to tell how fast we're driving, whether there's any gas left, if the engine is too hot and what time it is. and as it's almost always dark this time of the year we figured this is not very good. it turned out that in order to just change a few small bulbs you need to: * remove the middle thing surrounding the gear lever, *remove the carpets (!) on both the driver and the passenger side, * bend the plastic things around the "carpets" on the doors, * remove the loudspeakers, * remove the things that the air blows through, *remove lots of cables and things to the air conditioning system and other things, * probably remove lots of other stuff i don't remember, * carefully unscrew the bulbs and replace them, * do everything all over agian but backwards. why do they do it like that? why not just use two screws to keep the plastic window in place over the instruments? i don't understand what they might have thought when they constructed this car! i'm just going to buy a little torch to keep on the dashboard.

the ice is growing on our lake, and has now reached our santa-clause-looking neighbour's house.

still no hot water.
i took a shower at work today, to save me from the trouble of carrying boiled water in pots and pans back and forth to the bathroom. but just before i had the shower my favourite colleague/friend told me i was looking good today. that doesn't happen a lot :) so i was thinking that maybe not having a proper shower for almost a week is good for my looks? as i was quite cold i had a shower anyway. i don't really care if i'm good looking or not, as long as i'm not too cold :) i found out my new shampoo is pink. i bought it because of the cute pink bottle, but it turned out the shampoo itself is pink too. love it!  ¶ 7:37 PM