Today I did nothing.

And yet in the spirit of making sure I update you on the minutiae of my life every day, I am going to post.

Today I spent a goodly amount of time in front of the TV or the computer. Actually both. I was going to do stuff but then I realized I didn't have to, which made me happy. I didn't have to call the landlady -- she cashed my check the 11th but it didn't show up in my online banking til the 17th, wtf. I love my bank but it is SLOOOOOOOOOOOWER than molasses* when updating online banking. But it instantly knows when someone tries to log onto my account from another country. Whatever, HSBC ;)

Anyway, what did I do today? I bet you are all just DYING to know. I'm not. But I put up the rest of my Christmas lights. This was accompanied by a lot of cursing. See, I went outside, but like a smart person I did not put on a coat. I wore a hoodie and jeans outside and kept yelling "FUCK IT'S COLD OUT HERE" approximately every thirty seconds. But I accomplished my task! I nearly put my foot through a folding chair though. That was fun. Except the exact opposite. This was also accompanied by a chorus of obscenities. "Fuck, fucking chair fuck you, fuck." And the dude walking by chatting on his phone didn't notice, so I declared victory.

So after that I went inside and watched TV til it got dark and then I decided I really wanted to go to the store to get something for dinner -- nothing I had was really floating my boat. I got to the end of the block before I decided it wasn't worth it. It was booger-freezing weather, something I hadn't encountered since I was taking finals at SLU. Goddamn no I wasn't going to walk the half mile to the grocery store and back in that shit. Go ahead, take away my cold sensitivity card, but I went inside and made hot chocolate and that was more awesome than yelling at the wind to stop blowing.

So then I made dinner and I watched more TV. This cold case detective solved the Jack the Ripper killings, or so he believes. I thought it was kind of neat -- he started out trying to solve these hundred year old cases in NYC and linked them to the Ripper murders. Then it turns out that nobody had apparently bothered to read one of the main suspect's confessions for over eighty years. Not sure if it's legit or not, but it sure seems pretty convincing. Here, you can read up on Norris's suspect.

So then I came in here and surfed the internet some more and now I'm going to work on editing my book a bit so I can print it off and begin editing it by hand. Tomorrow is work and gift shopping day. Shooooot me.

*This is the only time molasses moved quickly.

grab bag of notes

Today I accomplished a lot. I went to the bank with Kayla's kind assistance. I stopped over at Laura's house for my books, since I had them shipped there instead of my sketch neighbourhood. I did two loads of laundry. I even returned my cans and bottles and went grocery shopping.

Only failure in that is that I forgot to turn in my bottle redemtpion slips at checkout. Well to be fair, I was having to keep an eye on the cashier and the bagger. I handed them my recycleable bags (shut up, they're easier to carry than those plastic bags they give you), and told the guy one of them was the cold bag. So he proceds to put the milk, bread, and cereal in the cold bag, and the frozen pizzas and pot pies in the regular bag. How...does that even compute? Ahh well.

I watched the Thanksgiving episode of NCIS and let me tell you, I'm kind of disappointed with that episode. It just seemed a rehash of all the previous episodes involving children. For once I'd like a normal kid in an episode. We had Abigail Breslin as a blind hearing prodigy, we had the kid whose dad was a super genius, ad nauseum. I hope the Christmas episode wasn't as disappointing as that one. The Halloween episode and the power outage episodes were superb.

I haven't done a whit of Christmas shopping. I'm a failure in that department. It would help if I knew what to get people. I know what I want which I kind of failed to communicate (hint to siblings reading this to pass along to parentals): pajamas, a new sheet set, bookshelves, and possibly a new crockpot, cause the lid to mine got smashed this summer and I still don't know how.

So that's a random mix of update for you. Now I gotta put away my laundry so I can do more tomorrow. That and put up the rest of the Christmas décor. And clean the kitchen again. And I know I'm forgetting something. That is all.

My room is too small. My spoon on the other hand? Too big.

Tonight I got tired of squishing through my doorway because there is so much stuff behind the door. So I set out to clean up my room. Mission accomplished, but cleaning behind the door turned out to be the last thing I did.

Instead I finally put books on the bookshelf out in the living room. The entertainment center the boys left us has a side that is a bookshelf, and I kept saying, "Self, let's put thoe books there." Tonight I did.

As I went through my books it turns out that I have a handful of books I haven't read yet! This plus the six I ordered from Amazon will keep me in business for a while, and I'm stoked. I forgot that when I was packing to move to this place, I hit a $1 Bargain book sale at Borders, and I put those books right into the box when I got home. Forgot plum about them til I opened the box tonight to put them on the shelf. We'll see what quality they are and if there are any hidden gems (like Persepolis from an earlier batch).

I finished Shadow of the Wind and Meagan lent me Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick. As I startd to read this one I had to flip to the first page for the publishing info because goddamn did it ever remind me of Twilight (which I haven't read yet). Slightly awkward girl finds herself the object of affection of a tall dark handsome new student. But there are people who don't want them to be together. Also, Nora, the heroine of the novel is raised by a single parent. And she lives in a tiny town in Maine, in a backwater town that is too small for its own good.

This isn't to say that the book was all bad, I enjoyed it! Nora does a lot of things on her own, and she actively takes part in trying to protect herself from the supernatural baddies that are around her. And her life doesn't revolve around the fallen vampireangel. It's a cute YA book -- if you're a fan of Twilight, or if you like fantasy you might find this a fun read.

Also going through my books I keep forgetting to review one of my other bargain books: The Wayward Muse by Elizabeth Hickey.
To be fair I only picked this one up because it name-dropped Dante Gabriel Rosetti, a name I vaguely remembered from a literature class I took at SLU. He was a painter and a poet. Hickey writes the story of his love affair with the wife of one of his friends, a model from a poor family. I liked this book enough, but I think if you pay for it you're wasting your money. It's a good story, and Jane is a relatable heroine, and the story is a remarkable one, but the characters never jump off the pages, and it just seems like you're reading an article on these two people.

I HATE WIRELESS NETWORKING

I can't get it to work, so I've given up for now. I'm on a five foot tether to the modem with this bitch and it's incredibly frustrating. Ahh well, maybe now I will be able to watch some TV shows while I internet?

in other news, I lost my debit card yesterday. So I spent THIRTY FIVE MINUTES, most of that on hold, to get myself a new debit card. Thank goodness that I actually LIKE my bank, or else their phone services would convince me to switch to another bank asap. "Do you want to continue holding, or can you just call back in an hour or so?" OH FUCK NO NOT HOLDING.

I also have to dispute my phone with AT&T. See, I have a prepaid phone, and every $100 you put on it they give you free $$ for it. I got a text msg on the 5th of Jan saying that if I put just $25 more on my phone I'd get $20 for free. So Friday, I put $25 on the phone.

Guess what? They gave me $10. And I got a text msg today stating, "hey congrats, we gave you $10." NOT. ON. You fuckers owe me that other $10, or else I WILL be switching to a new prepaid service. And since Verizon's out (fuckers don't like to listen when you change your plan), I am down to TMobile, Tracphone, or something else, I'm sure.

GRRRRRRRRRRR.

On fire alarms and the setting of them off...

A few days ago, my friends Nicole and Tim gave me a ride home from work, but they needed to stop at the store for some ingredients in the icebox cookies she was going to make. Since they wandered down the frozen foods aisle, I picked up a pizza thing for dinner. Then we spotted the Disney pizzas. One was shaped like Mickey Mouse. Tim convinced me to get it.

Until today I had never tried using our gas oven, afraid of pulling a Sylvia Plath. I put the pizza in it and was rewarded by seeing the blue flames at the bottom of the thing. (Google assured me this was normal, as I cannot describe it accurately). So I let the pizza cook for abut eight of the fifteen minutes as recommended by the box. At the eight minute mark, the smoke alarm goes off.

First instinct was to check the oven. Pizza was cooking along normally, nothing wrong. So I did my Standard Operating Procedure in these situations: Open up the kitchen door to the outside, and yell at the Alarm.

This time the technique failed, and it continued to go off. Still frightened by the powers of the gas oven, I turned it off. It did not help. So I turned off the kitchen light and tried to find the smoke alarm. Side note: I did not know where the alarm was, let alone that we had one til I set it off one night. I did not find the source of the noise until today. I stood up on a chair and surveyed the kitchen and finally found the goddamned thing on top of a shelf. I wrenched the battery out of it and it shut the fuck up.

I then ate my delicious delicious pizza and declared victory over the smoke detector. After I finished making dinner tonight I put the battery back in the smoke detector, but now I know thine enemy.

(I know Candice and Ash will appreciate this: when I was yelling at the smoke alarm, I thought of the infamous "SHUT UP, STOVE, THE OVEN'S ON FIRE!")

Current music: Dropkick Murphys - Boys on the Docks