Tuesday, January 23, 2007

No Coat. Can you Believe it?
 Click here for larger, prettier photo.

A Tuesday List:

1 – I might have already written about this. Bob and I used to subscribe to zillions of magazines. It was totally out of control. I think at one point we had three weeklies in addition to 8 or 9 monthlies and probably a few that only came 4 or 6 times a year. We cut way back and let things run out. We've had MacAddict for years but we actually had a conversation discussing it and agreed that we barely look at it and this was a good one to let go. So you can imagine my surprise when I came home from work one night and my beloved spouse told me that a nice phone solicitor had called and he'd re-upped us for MacAddict for three more years. No, I'm not making this up. Phone solicitor. THREE more years.

Does anyone else remember when Apple was in dire straits and they did this EvangeList stuff for Mac diehards and then iMac happened and then iPod and now it's a whole new world and apparently the time of the loose and casual MacAddict is over.

A couple weeks ago we got a magazine called MacLife and to be honest, I've only started to look at it but already I'm feeling confident that I hate it. This is exactly what happened when Yoga Journal was sold from its association of yoga teachers roots to a professional magazine corporation. The magazine becomes stupider. How much you want to bet there's an article in MacLife about a celebrity that uses Macs?

MacAddict included a CD filled with applications which MacLife is too cool for so they added even more time to our subscription. We're subscribed until NOVEMBER 2009 people. I'm going to try harder to like it.

2 – I brought my lunch today and I sat in the lunch room eating my little thermos bowl of soup and my carrots and apple and thought to myself: what was I thinking? This isn't enough to eat. So I had to go to See's candy and restock my supplies for snack food. I keep a box in my desk and I'm very disciplined, the box can last me 6 months. I don't need it every day, but when I need it, I need it.

In the store they had the heart shape Valentine's boxes. When I was a kid my Dad gave me, my sister and my Mom heart-shaped boxes of See's candy thus sealing my love of expensive chocolates at a very young age.

Later I was still hungry so I went to the office fridge to finish my breakfast since I didn't eat all of that and then, hey, there's the leftover pizza and other vegetables (should I be embarrassed to say that I brought steamed chard to work?) that I brought and totally forgot about. I can't even remember what I brought for my own lunch.

3 – I polished off my Kitchen Kaboodle gift card today and they wanted my name and phone number. Why?

I asked him, "why?" "Just in case something is wrong with the card." Really, that's what they're calling it? I hate this. Isn't enough that I'm patronizing your store? Why do you insist on mining my data? I gave away a perfectly good giftcard (for a different store) because the physical store is not convenient and there are websites devoted to how hard it is to get off their catalog list.

I know, I hate shopping. What's wrong with me?


4 – We're the only house on our street with snow left. (L) is the "big" patch from where I shoveled the driveway. Just enough for a pitcher of margaritas. Yum. (Just kidding). (R) is the little patch. I should have put a quarter down for reference but it was dark and damp and I didn't want to get too carried away with documenting the minutiae of my existence.