the world is your acorn

Gizmodo points us to the Xbox 360 locator, so those desperate to find one for the holidays can check to see if any Best Buy stores in the area have any in stock. Looks like the next shipment is coming on December 18th. Time to get in line!

So, I just finished my stats take-home exam and handed it in. Why am I still at school, you might ask? No, I don’t have anymore work for my classes. I have some stuff for my research assistantship, and I may even get to it today. I’m actually still here because I’m hiding from the carpenters. They came yesterday to replace the damaged portion of wall in our bedroom closet and put the shelving back in. Of course they didn’t show up until late in the day (I don’t know when because The Little Red-Haired Girl and I left to donate blood and run errands around 10), and so they didn’t finish yesterday. When we got home around 2 in the afternoon the heat was cranked up to 80, the front door was wide open, and there was no one in our house. For some reason one of the guys had gone somewhere and the other was sitting in his van drumming his fingers. wtf. Anyway, they did a pretty good job of covering up our stuff with plastic, but there is still a fine layer of dry wall dust all over the house. They are supposed to be there again today to actually finish the closet, which will be nice, but I don’t want to be in the house while there is construction going on. I’ll just be pissed if I see them leaving the door open and stuff like that.

I guess I can’t hide out here forever, but at least I will eat lunch before I go home. Who knows what I’ll do when I get home. My office and the bedroom will be off limits, since they are doing work in both rooms. So I guess that just leaves sitting on the couch or cleaning up the kitchen.

Apparently I packed a fork for my yogurt. Oops. It’s slow going, but still effective.

Oh, I should mention that The Little Red-Haired Girl and I had an amazing weekend of hiking, shopping, pictionary, hanging out with friends, and just general quality time. Well-deserved, I think.

Also, the kitchen cricket showed it’s ugly face again this morning. It was just hanging out on the floor in a corner. The Little Red-Haired Girl tried to chase it out with a broom, but it hopped into a crack between the counter and the wall. Yes, there is a crack between the counter and the wall. Have I mentioned how much I hate our apartment?

That’s all for now.

Yeah, I’m at home waiting for the freakin carpenters. The plumbing shenanigans are over, but we still have no closet. In fact, they had to take two of our three closets apart, so there’s just junk piled all over the house, and all our clothes are either hanging off doorknobs or heaped in piles on various chairs. The guys were supposed to come repair the wall today between noon and 1, and of course they’re not here yet. It’s ok, it’s not like I have anything better to do with my time than sit around and wait for them. Motherfuckers.

We also got last month’s electric bill. It’s twice what we’ve paid in the past, and we were away for one of those weeks. I’d venture to guess that it has something to do with the fact that we are heating the backyard through the various drafty areas in the bedroom. I wish there were some sort of epinions site for landlords, because I’d definitely share my thoughts about our experience here.

Over at The Education Wonks there is a discussion on this question:

If you could give an “F-” to the person of your choice, who would you give that “F-” to and why?

I’m thinking about it, an resisting the urge to make it about politics.
Anyone else?

Cool Hunting has a post about Ruth Marshall, who exhibited some knitted pelts at Scope Art Fair in Miami. I’m fascinated.

I think I have mentioned Gmaps Pedometer before, where you can use the google maps interface to map a route and calculate its distance. Lifehacker pointed me toward a similar application, called Wayfaring, which not only allows you to map routes, but allows you to create and save many maps with many routes on them. It also has a social feature where maps can be public or private, and “waypoints” can be saved and tagged. It’s kinda cool; I think I’ll be playing with it more over the next few weeks.

ok, via Boing Boing, it’s a website of pictures that look like they’re porn, but they’re really not.

Galumpia Adult

I take back what I said about my horoscope provider the other day. Today they were right on target. Maybe I should have slapped on some makeup the other day…

It is hard to imagine a world without computers. For you, FRIEDAPPLEPIE, technology has been key to your professional life and it is likely to become even more important to you in the future. You can expect your income to increase dramatically as a result of some new technological innovation. You may play a part in developing that innovation or, more likely, you will find a creative use for it that sets the world on its ear. Begin to eat well and get plenty of rest, because you’re going to need a lot of energy these next few months.

The rod and shelf in the closet in our bedroom collapsed last week. Apparently there is a leak coming from upstairs that has ruined the wall. We’ve been closet-less for over a week now, with our clothes piled and hung in arbitrary nooks, crannies, and doorknobs around the house. They’re supposed to do some major work on Wednesday, which is perfectly timed with when I need to do some major work for school. Awesome.

Our bedroom is also the coldest room in the house. The windows are drafty enough that we feel a breeze on our faces when in bed, and the floors are like ice. Our landlord sent over a guy to seal up the windows a little yesterday, but it’s still pretty cold in there. I think the walls are drafty too or something. And the vent in there does not seem to blow as warm as any other room.

Yesterday, when getting a pot out of the cabinet, I looked over and saw the world’s largest bug sitting on the inside of the cabinet door. No joke, it, was an inch long, half and inch fat, and had long long legs. I thought it might be a gigantic cricket, but wasn’t sure. I was home alone, and didn’t know what to do, so I just slowly closed the door back up and hoped I would never need another pot or pan again. I told The Little Red-Haired Girl about it, and she laughed at me and said that crickets don’t freak her out. Until she saw this one. She was washing up after dinner, opened up the cabinet, was confronted with jiminy in the cabinet, screamed, and slammed the door shut. Poor little guy. Maybe Everything Guy or Mischief Man or someone will come remove him for us someday.

Speaking of dinner, I made a rack of lamb last night. We decided to splurge a little at the supermarket, and it was totally worth it. We haven’t had lamb since moving down here, and we sure have missed it. I cooked it to a nice medium rare, and poured a Cabernet sauce over it. Yummy and tender and delicious!

Anyway, that’s it for now. Lots of schoolwork lately, as the semester is about to end. On this day next week, I’ll be on vacation!

Due to popular demand (ok, it was just fanclub girl, but still), I’ve brought back Name That Theme!
For past episodes:
May 2, 2005
May 3, 2005
May 5, 2005
May 9, 2005
May 10, 2005
May 15, 2005

Now that we’ve refreshed our memories on what’s been covered, here is today’s:
Name That Theme!