well i checked all the connections and all seems solid and well, belt is still on and tensioned properly. but regardless, while picking my sister up this evening, my power inverter started beeping at me, and from there it was all down hill.... Tach/Speedo dropped to 0, interior lights faded to nothing, windshield wipers were stalling, started losing engine power. I must say its quite remarkable watching your car die from lack of electricity. So thats it, obviously the alternator is dead, but I was still curious as to find the reasoning behind the brake light AND battery light, so I browsed through my wiring diagrams to find this:
interesting design i must say...