eh_notsomuch

• I am at work.


• And hardly working.


• The odds of us getting out early aren't great.


• I finally bought a cool new camera bag the other day, and naturally I found it online this morning for cheaper. Arrrrgh! Oh well, way to support a local merchant? Sheesh, between this and the engine flush crap, I spent way too much money that we don't really have. Must do more research in future.


• Speaking of the camera, I am trying to buy a replacement lens cap for my telephoto lens. It is 62mm wide, not 67 like my other lens cap. Or 52 like the 50mm prime lens. ARGH. If I buy it online, even via Amazon, I will pay a redonkulous amount of money for shipping. I tried calling the local camera store, but no one was picking up. I just want to know if they will be open today, so I can swing by and grab the right size lens cap.


• Just reinstalled Greasemonkey on my PC, and added a ton of Flickr and LJ scripts. Shiny!


• So I really did go to the gym this morning around 5:50 a.m. to do a Turbulence Training strength workout... aaaaand the gym was closed. They must be opening later due to the NYE holiday. So of course I turned around, went home, read LJ, and didn't work out at all. My plan now is to get on the treadmill this evening, before the NYE party. Not only will I get a workout in, I will earn useful activity points for party noshing. Plus working out after dinner seems to keep me up late, so I should make it to midnight!


• I need to make backup plans for when I can't work out. I still tend to be a little all-or-nothing when it comes to exercise.


• redstapler's gym is not only offering a free weight loss plan to its members, but you can win valuable prizes! Weight loss + prizes = \o/


• Hubby thinks we can move the fridge downstairs to the rec room, if we get rid of the sofa down there, and then I can still park my car in the garage while the remodeling is going on! Hmmmmm. I don't know if that will work. But I appreciate him trying to devise a way for me to not have to park in the driveway this winter.


• PS, we will have a lot of furniture to donate: two sofas, a dining room set, coffee & end tables. Everything is in pretty good shape, except the small two-seater sofa which has been used as a kitty scratch pad. But if you're handy, you can re-cover it and it will be fine. If you are interested in any of this stuff, please let me know. Otherwise it's all going to Homefront.


• I have a funny concept for today's and tomorrow's Photo of the Day. I hope I can make it work.

• Posting from Firefox, not Safari, because for some reason Safari doesn't show the Rich Text option when posting via LJ. And I feel too lazy to write my own HTML.
• Busy busy day yesterday: We drove back to Niece Lumber to borrow our cabinet sample again, so we could go floor shopping at Lumber Liquidators. Paint Barn so totally fubar'ed our quote, that we are concerned about working with them. (They had forgotten to include the living room in the quote. So their revised quote is $3500 more than the original.) Lumber Liquidators is basically a warehouse with floor samples set up, and you either haul it away and install yourself, or your contractor organizes the installation. (Yes, we would opt for the second.) We found three samples we liked, and we wrote to Kathy to ask her opinion. Of course our favorite sample was also the most expensive. But it's Brazilian ebony, and the grain is very soft and smooth and consistent. It's supposed to be very hard, and the color is more consistent.)
• We took a gadget back to Best Buy, and were impressed by the streamlining of their return process. In and out of the store in five minutes. Nice!
• We did a little shopping at Target.
• I found a cool camera shop, where I spent some of my birthday/Christmas/camera sale money on a big new camera bag that should hold alll my stuff, a new cushion-y camera strap, and a backup lens cap. Unfortunately it wasn't the right size for my 70-300mm lens, but it works on my 18-70mm. It's a neat place, with tons of old-school metal camera bodies around! Nice to know there's a good place around if I need it.
• Hit the wine store on the way home, and bought a case of mixed bottles. Between sales and some 10% discount they applied, it worked out to about $10 a bottle! I just feel happier with a full wine fridge. Also read that the wine store is creating some kind of membership program with special sales and coupons. We will be signing up for that!
• Came home, chilled out, ate some leftover lasagna, drank a little wine (yum!), and I watched the Patriots-Giants game. What a game! Congrats to the Patriots, Tom Brady & Randy Moss for setting all those records last night. And thank you for beating the Giants. Ha HA.
• OK, to be fair, the Giants played great. Good try, guys. You had 'em scared for most of the game.
• Today, got up, did food shopping, and I took the car to Jiffy Lube. It needed an engine flush, and they recommended the fuel injectors be cleaned. I had thought we hadn't been getting as good gas mileage as we should. I may try taking it to the dealership for its 20,000 mile service (only 3,785 miles overdue!), and maybe they can do that.
• Well, poop, just read a blog post that said engine flushes are not necessary. Grrrr.
• Local dealership lets you e-mail a request for maintenance. Nice.
• Hubby smoked a turkey breast! We will have that later with sweet potatoes. Nummy!
• Watching the Eagles game, although I might decided to switch it off and save my focus for the Colts-Titans game tonight. I've found I can only concentrate on about one game a day for the entire game.
  
• My copy of Keith's book arrived the other day! I couldn't read the texts of the Special Comments yet -- too painful -- but his introductions to each are really fun and interesting. If you are so inclined, post an honest review over on Amazon. The haters are copying down talking points from Billo and putting them in 1-star reviews. Probably wouldn't even dare to actually read it, in case a contrary viewpoint made its way accidentally into their shrunken frontal lobes.
• OK, back to the L&O: SVU marathon on USA. Heh.

chicklet73

The seasons long for each other, like men and women, in order that they may be cured of their excesses.

Spring, if it lingers more than a week beyond its span, starts to hunger for summer to end the days of perpetual promise. Summer in its turn soon begins to sweat for something to quench its heat, and the mellowest of autumns will tire of gentility at last, and ache for a quick sharp frost to kill its fruitfulness.

Even winter -- the hardest season, the most implacable -- dreams, as February creeps on, of the flame that will presently melt it away. Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself.

So August gave way to September, and there were few complaints.

They aren’t really the worst persons in the world, of course.

Somewhere somebody’s ending freedom, or sticking a shiv into a witness, or defrauding an orphan, or bombing a home. And there’s almost nobody in this book who—in any kind of empirical analysis of the worst person in the world at a given moment—could truly hold a candle to any of them.

But my guys and gals have all, in their own ways, tried.

Orphans may have nothing to fear, and freedom is more likely to hurt itself laughing at them than to be hurt by their Rube Goldbergian machinations. But these Worsts (if you’ll permit the term) are the mortal enemies of honesty and dignity, of selflessness and class.

• Best mashup in the world: Pussycat Dolls "Doncha" + Prince "When the Doves Cry." Amazing!


• I set up X-Files to DVR this afternoon. It's the "Orison" episode -- yes, with my TV boyfriend Nick. His second appearance on the show playing the same character, Donnie Pfaster. I've seen it before, but there's a shot of him in tighty whities, and it's breathtaking! I'm sure he's very intelligent and a good person, but damn. BEEFCAKE! (It's on at 5 p.m. ET on Sci Fi!)


• I totally failed at self-control at this weekend's food events. I scarfed food at the party on Friday night. Then I ate bingey food before our guests came over for dinner, plus I had two helpings of ribs. Ugh, I felt so gross even this morning. I didn't think calling out for fatness would be acceptable, so I had some Pepto and came to work. Yay me.


• I did make my own barbecue sauce from scratch yesterday, thank you very much! Hubby said it was not bad, but I guess to him it's not as good as Gates barbecue sauce from Kansas City. But I liked it. So there.


• Plus this Thursday is the day I'm taking off to hang out with Dr. H. Still don't know what we're doing, but hey! We won't be at work, and that's the point!


• Another thing to discuss with the designer lady about our living room: we desperately need more comfy chairs so when we have guests over, we can sit with our coffee and chat. Everyone stayed at the dining room table after dinner last night, and the chairs get kind of hard after a while.


• Our one friend brought her boyfriend to dinner last night, but gave Hubby the heads-up that she might be breaking up with him. I'm not 100% sure why. He seems nice and fun. He has kids, but if that doesn't put her off, then I'm not sure what the problem is. So that may have been the last time we see him. Odd!


• Hubby's pal and best man from our wedding is still single, and I don't understand that either. You've never met a guy more eager to settle down, get married, kids, dog, et cetera. He's cute, he loves kids, he's funny and smart. Yet every single female we know makes this face when we suggest him as a potential date, like, "Ohhhhhh, I don't think so..." I doangeddit.


• We stopped in at the Princeton Fete on Saturday. The big draw seems to be the flea market and rides for the kids. We don't care for flea markets all that much, and we have no kids, so we didn't stick around for a long time. We did try to meet up with our friend who was on the organizing committee, and we called her from the stage where the music was playing, so she knows we were there. We also said hi to another friend who can verify our attendance.


• OK, got work to do. See ya later.

jaig

Should I buy a new Nikon D80 now, or hang on to my D70?