… WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT TONIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY NIGHT…
FREEZING RAIN AND SLEET WILL OVERSPREAD THE AREA THIS AFTERNOON… AND CONTINUE THROUGH WEDNESDAY BEFORE CHANGING TO SNOW WEDNESDAY NIGHT. SIGNIFICANT ICE ACCUMULATIONS OF ONE QUARTER TO ONE HALF INCH ARE EXPECTED… ALONG WITH SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 1 TO 4 INCHES. IN ADDITION… NORTHEAST WINDS OF 15 TO 25 MPH… COMBINED WITH THE SIGNIFICANT ICE ACCUMULATION ON TREES AND POWER LINES… COULD RESULT IN CONSIDERABLE TREE DAMAGE AND POWER OUTAGES.
Friday, the biggest party night of the year, we did nothing.
Brett fell asleep on the couch ’round eight; I read and listened to my iPod and wandered around the house amusing myself and probably fell asleep sometime after midnight. I really don’t recall.
Saturday, with the PlayStation on the fritz and his paycheck burning a hole in his pocket, Brett talked me into going to Walmart to pick up a replacement PS2. There wasn’t one, of course – the entire nation is out of PS2s this soon after Christmas. But somehow we decided to go to Iowa City, to Best Buy, where Brett became the proud daddy of a Delphi XM SKYFi2, a stereo connetion kit for the Hillbilly Boom Box, and a lovely quarterly subscription to satellite radio. He installed it in the parking lot outside Best Buy, where it was getting dark and raining heavily.
He loves it. HE LOVES IT. The man spent two hours Sunday morning sitting in his truck playing with his SKYFi.
I got a cigarette lighter power cord for the iPod, and a CD – Todd Rundgren’s Liars, his first all-new album in over ten years. (I went home and immediately fed it to the iPod.) I love Todd. Todd is Godd. The track “Soul Brother” is fucking PRICELESS.
On the drive to Iowa City, I knitted my iPod a cozy. Yes, I know this is totally gay but I don’t care. (And neither do these people.)
All in all, a furiously fun day, and a good augury for the year to come.
Sunday we went and bought groceries at (ahem) the Super Walmart in ScrOttumwa. Now, I realize Walmart’s disgusting and that I shouldn’t give them my money. But. I got a cart so full of groceries it was difficult to steer around corners and it only cost me $125.00. There’s no way in HELL all that stuff could have been produced for $125.00… the cardboard, plastic, shrink wrap, ink, printing, die cutting, transportation… not even counting the actual FOOD ITSELF. How the hell will the economy survive if goods sell for less than it costs to produce them?
Or does this price trough exist only to kill the competition? Will prices go back up as soon as there’s nowhere else to shop?
Either way, the old kitchen is stocked with yummy foodies. I don’t know if I should feel elated or shitty. *shrug*
Monday I cleaned, listed a tool to sell (on eBay) for Brett, chatted heavily with Keef over IM, got wood (and kept the stove nearly closed down to conserve it since we’ve only a few days left) [CALL ME IF YOU KNOW WHERE TO GET A LOAD OF SPLIT WOOD, WE’RE SO ALMOST OUT IT’S NOT FUNNY.], made tea in my new Nissan thermos and drank it, and made a killer meal for my beloved: Italian sausage, pesto, and a killer baby spinach-onion-carrot salad with lemon vinagrette and bleu cheese.
Ah shit, I need to fix a customer’s web site. (Yeah, I’m at work.) Ciao!
. . . . .
Song: Soul Brother
Album: Liars
Artist: Todd Rundgren
…DES MOINES IA-HENDERSON IL-HENRY IA-JEFFERSON IA-VAN BUREN IA- WARREN IL- INCLUDING THE CITIES OF… BURLINGTON… FAIRFIELD… KEOSAUQUA… MONMOUTH… MOUNT PLEASANT… OQUAWKA
… WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT TONIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY NIGHT…
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN DAVENPORT HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WARNING.
FREEZING RAIN AND SLEET WILL OVERSPREAD THE AREA THIS AFTERNOON… AND CONTINUE THROUGH WEDNESDAY BEFORE CHANGING TO SNOW WEDNESDAY NIGHT. SIGNIFICANT ICE ACCUMULATIONS OF ONE QUARTER TO ONE HALF INCH WILL BE POSSIBLE… ALONG WITH SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 1 TO 4 INCHES.
IN ADDITION… NORTHEAST WINDS OF 10 TO 20 MPH… COMBINED WITH THE SIGNIFICANT ICE ACCUMULATION ON TREES AND POWER LINES… COULD RESULT IN CONSIDERABLE TREE DAMAGE AND POWER OUTAGES.
…
Woke up this mornin’ and the world was covered in ice. It’s slippery and nasty out there. I’m inside with a fire roaring, listing crap on eBay for Brett. I am not looking forward to driving to town tomorrow morning!
Woke up this mornin’ and the world was covered in ice. It’s slippery and nasty out there. I’m inside with a fire roaring, listing crap on eBay for Brett. I am not looking forward to driving to town tomorrow morning!
mmm@home says:
I just dorked out on the iPod form factor – so fucking cute
J.P. says:
the only place i could realy listen to one is in my truck… cuz i don’t walk around much
mmm@home says:
I walk around listening to the thing all the time
mmm@home says:
doing dishes
mmm@home says:
buying groceries
mmm@home says:
when assholes at Best Buy come up to you, you can just tap your iPod and smile vacuously and wander off without having to say, “No, just looking” fifty fucking times
mmm@home says:
I hate annoying salespeople
mmm@home says:
đŸ™‚
J.P. says:
haha!!
Continue reading »
Today, Tahmi came over to visit me. She brought me a book from her man, a pizza from Pizza Slut (we both secretly eat there when our menfolk aren’t looking – shhh), a Frappucino (I only drank half of one), and a pack of smokes since Brett hadn’t left me ANY.
I gave her a knitting book I’d borrowed (like a year ago), her Amma doll (which she’d left here last week by accident), and a DVD.
We ate lunch, toured the remodel, and she helped me figure out how to feed a certain audiobook to my iPod. We watched Poirot. And she – I am not kidding! – spent three hours combing the snarls out of my hair!
How fucking superior is that?! (Answer: very.) (I am ABJECTLY so NOT worthy!)
Remember LAST WEEK when I said my hair looked like Don King-meets-Deadhead, from all that hormone-driven rocking? Well, I haven’t brushed it since then. I’ve WASHED it four times and kept it back in a scrunchie, but neither comb nor brush has touched it. Yes, I went to work like that. (Those guys can’t figure me out anyway, dreads didn’t phase ’em.)
I had planned to spend this afternoon working it out myself so I wouldn’t have to cut it all off, but Tahmi – bless her in all ways – DID IT FOR ME. And she was such a pro about it I actually forgot she was doing it a few times! (Poirot was on. He’s SO fastidious!)
Then night fell {thunk}, I gave her money for pizza and smokes, and she left in her fast black car.
And ten minutes later I noticed her purse was on the round table.
So I called her house to tell her machine that her purse (and GameBoy, and iPAQ, and cell phone, and wallet, and iPod) were all HERE. Far away from HER.
She called me when she got home to say, “Without the cash you gave me, I wouldn’t have been able to buy my groceries!”
Yay! Happy ending! đŸ˜‰
I may be slow, but I just noticed that my iTunes software knows what color my iPod mini is!
This is, like, the fucking CUTEST little programming detail ever.
I bet it would know if I plugged in a pink iPod mini. (Just thinking about it makes me all geeked out!) It knows what color my iPod is! GOD I MISS MY NEWTON. (No offence, dear little Toshiba e400. I love you.)
…When I got home from work tonight and was taking crap out of my bag, I noticed that I now carry more computing power on a daily basis (cell phone, PPC, iPod, thumb drive) than MULTIVAC possessed. And it only weighs a few ounces.
If you haven’t eaten peanuts in a very long time, you might have forgotten how weird they are. Some peanuts are perfect examples of peanuthood, and they look just like an infinity sign and they have two perfect nuts inside.
Other peanuts make you wonder if you shouldn’t stop eating all this obviously genetically-damaged material: the seeds are stunted and tiny, one end is bigger than the other, there are three seeds. So much can go wrong in peanuthood!
And that’s why they SOAK THEM IN SALT! Because as soon as that salty wonder gets anywhere near your mouth, you stop wondering about how hard it apparently is to grow up to be a beautiful example of peanuthood, and instead find yourself at work sucking nosily on salty peanut shells at your desk.
You may be aware that my favorite recipe of all time is the one for Black Turkey, because it’s just plain fun reading.
Well, I may have found a runner up!
Best Fruit Cake Ever
4 large eggs
1 cup dried fruit
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
lemon juice
2 sticks butter
1 cup brown sugar
Nuts
1 or 2 quarts whiskey
Before you start, sample the whiskey to check for quality. Good, isn’t it? Now go ahead. select a large mixing bowl, measuring bowl, measuring cup, etc. Check the whiskey again, as it must be just right. To be sure the whiskey is of the highest quality, pour one level cup into a glass and drink it as fast as you can. Repeat.
Continue reading »
