I suppose you're reading this because you're hanging out on vacation and wondering if I got those fancy pants I was talking about. I did not, in fact get any pants for Christmas. I may have mislead you with my title, and for that, I am truly sorry. On Christmas morning, I opened up some good time stuff. I tried today to put my new gift cards towards a table saw, but alas, Rona was recently renovated and they seem to have sent out much of their stuff and junk to other places.

 

In other news, we did round 2 of the Jones Soda because we had an extra box of the stuff, and OJ had a hankering for it. John, Morgan and Alan were in attendance. Unfortunately, both John and Morgan seem to have suffered some kind of brain trauma that rendered the sodas palatable to them. Remind me never to let them cook for me.

 

What else, what else... hmm. Got lured in by some boxing day action. That TV problem I had? Solved it at The Brick. Also, my DVD player has taken to playing movies in black and white, so of course, I had to fix that one too. I will be going off-line and fleeing the country sometime in the next couple of weeks, before the creditors come.

I promised a Jones Soda entry, and, even though everybody is off for the holidays doing family things, and really should have better things to do than read my blog, dammit, when I promise something, I deliver!

 

Again, to recap, the flavours this year were the perennial Turkey with Gravy, Dinner Roll, Peas, Sweet Potato and Antacid. I had pegged Dinner Roll as the worst one because I anticipated the buttery aftertaste that made mashed potato so damn awful. It turns out I was wrong. It tasted like some kind of ginger ale gone wrong. Not especially tasty, but not gut wrenching either. If someone served you something that tasted like that by mistake, it would be something you would take a sip of, and politely 'forget it' on the table and walk away. Contrast that with the Turkey and Gravy or Peas flavoured sodas, which might prompt you to attack your host if they served you something that awful, perhaps suspecting that you had just been poisoned.

 

Memorable quotes:

Dinner Roll: "It kind of tastes like stuff I take before an enema." (Anonymous to protect the innocent)

Peas: "It's not good, man. Those peas are buttered." (Andrew)
Turkey: "I can't drink that. I just know I'll puke" (Andrew tapped out on that one, having forgotten to leave his purse at the door)

Sweet Potato: "It's not orange [flavoured]! Nastier than turkey for me." (Tanya)

Antacid: "Like minty bubblegum...like pepto" (various)

 

There you have it. We have a potluck to go to tomorrow. Perhaps we'll bring a holiday dinner.

Here's a few photos of the event.

I am writing this blog entry on my new toy: an IBM Thinkpad X60. I love it. It's much smaller than my previous notebook computer (a 4 year old Compaq Presario model 2110), but my guess is that it's at least as powerful, and probably less than half the weight. This bad boy weighs less than 4 lbs, though it has no built-in drives. This keyboard is going to take a little bit of getting used to, because it's a bit smaller than most. This think kind of reminds me of an old HP Jornada I used to own. I loved that thing, though it spontaneously stopped working. Nonetheless, when it did work, it was brilliant. If they ever make something comparable, I'd be all over it. I'm the kind of person who would try to figure out how to automate my house - you know, so you could use your PDA while sitting in the living room to turn up the thermostat. Note I didn't say I would actually pull it off. Typicall with this sort of thing, I get all into it, find that the general process is underspecified, and then come to grips with the reality that all this time I'm spending would be better spent picking my damn clothes from off the floor. Plus, usually John figures this sort of crap out first. Is it because he's smarter, or is it because he's better at justifying working on these problems?

 

Man, is this thing brilliant. I'm going to take it into school, and spend all day just setting it up. I'll get nothing real accomplished, but it'll be awesome.

I can file this under entertainment because now I have time to be entertained. Thank goodness my paper for that class is done with. And to boot, I'm hopefully going to be able to use some of that work in my dissertation proposal. Double-dipping is the key to success in grad school. Working on projects that do not ultimately help you get the hell out are not recommended.

 

The title of this entry refers not only to Snoopy's cliche'd stories but also to the circumstances surrounding the breakdown of our poor TV, which incidentally, is only about 5 years old. There was one night back in July when it was ridiculously stormy. I could probably go back and figure out what night it was because Alan was down for a visit, and Rebecca had to work that night. It was raining sideways, that's how crazy it was. Anyways, the tv first went on the fritz that evening. Al and I had rented a movie and were in the middle of watching it when the volume inexplicably went up. And then it started flicking through the TV channels. After some fiddling around with the remote (including removing the batteries to make sure the remote wasn't responsible) it eventually settled down. This has happened a few other times since then, most recently being the other day, when Rebecca went downstairs to watch her newly arrived Frosty the Snowman DVD -- this computer has a video card with a TV tuner on it. Because the cable comes in the room (for the modem) and the computers are all in this room, this computer has become our primary television. Thus, despite the fact that there's a dedicated machine in the rec room (which I finished specifically with the intent of making that the entertainment room), all the TV viewing is done in here. As a result, the malfunctioning of the TV (in the basement) hasn't been much of a problem until this week, when I was working on my essay. Fortunately, all the shows are on hiatus for the holiday break.

 

It looks like it might be time for a widescreen LCD. O cruel fortune.

In the last few days, I have managed to get my page count up to 5 (including references, I think) on that bloody essay. That's something. I didn't want to go too long between posts, so I decided to remark on my progress. Come to think of it, that's an inane topic.

 

Today is baking day in the house. Rebecca had a bunch of her friends over and they have had the oven set to 350 degrees pretty much constantly since 2. There were also a bunch of little tykes here. Hey that reminds me of something funny: Pokey is vain. One trick I've found works when he starts getting all fussy-pants is to bring him into the bathroom and stand him in front of the mirror. He really likes looking at himself. Or maybe he just wants to meet more people from his peer group. Yeah, let's go with that.

 

In a few hours, we'll be sampling the Jones Soda holiday pack. Hilarity is sure to ensue.

What category is this entry? Hard to say. Could have been filed under observations. Or perhaps I need a new category.

 

Anyways, Rona has/had (depending on when you read this) a sale this weekend. It'll be over when the store closes tonight, which I think is at 5:00. It's a little after 4:00 right now. They sent out flyers with a scratch-card area which dictated the amount of discount you'd be getting on any of their power tools. As you may know, I, for no really good reason, want a table saw. The particular one I want is carried at Rona only, so I'm waiting for a Rona sale before I buy it because I want to maximize the value of my accumulated gift cards. The scratch-card promo they had offered discounts from between 5% and 100% off your purchase, with the catch being that the card had to be scratched at/by the cashier to be valid.

 

The back of the card had the prize distribution per 1000 cards, so I calculated the expected value of the sale to be 6.55% off your purchase. I'm a rational thinker, so I figured that any boxing day/week sale would probably give something in the ballpark of 10% off, so I wasn't terribly sad to not get myself to Rona today before the sale ended. When I noticed the time, and figured that I wasn't getting the saw today, I decided to scratch the card. How awful would I have felt if I revealed the %100 (.001 chance) or even the 50% or 25% off (.009 and .01 chance, respectively) discounts? So I was quite relieved to find I was one of the 88% of Londoners who received a 5% discount card. Garbage. So I guess Rona gift certificates for Christmas are still on the table!