Digging through my favorite thrift store and my own closet, this is also one of the most economical costumes I’ve put together. I thought it would be easier to match her outfit more because it was actually pretty simple (red dress, white apron, tights) but with limited time and budget I had to get creative and incorporate a couple of elements from her with my own interpretation.

As a super novice with the sewing machine, I am particularly proud of the green diamond and strawberry on the skirt, an homage to her apron (which was the most difficult part of her outfit to try to replicate. Where do people buy ruffly aprons?). The skirt is actually two skirts; one had the sheer lining with the perfect polka-dot hem but was too big, and the white skirt had the right flounce so I could live without a crinoline. I cut out the lining and pinned it to the white skirt.

The hat is the one thing I wish I had been able to find in a costume shop without having to purchase an entire packaged costume for $80. Right up until the moment I spotted the colonial night-cap type thing I went with, I had no idea what I was going to do.  Sewed a couple of strawberries I cut out of felt to the back and top and added a bow from ribbon that perfectly matched the pink polka-dot hem to the front.  I definitely like it but how cute would the “real thing” be?

Next year I’m going for either Jem or Rainbow Brite.

The precise goal of the challenge may be unattainable, but I don’t care; it’s a set routine and something to aim for and that’s all I really wanted.

Twenty days of regular exercise, better food and no alcohol have sent at least one pair of pants on its way to Goodwill.

Those two bottles of Chardonnay in my fridge are taunting me.

First, wow. I have been allowing myself to indulge a little due to the holidays, but to see Wednesday’s, yesterday’s and this morning’s choices all lined up was enlightening. Ridiculous.

So. The catalog of foods is insane. However, when they don’t have something listed and you need to manually enter it, it’s not nearly as quick and simple as Lose It!. And every time you go to your “My FatSecret” the top of the page is taken up by a box allowing you to import your email contacts to find friends who are also signed up, except it failed every time I tried. I would like to just make it go away.

Digging around I discovered their Challenges, which I have a feeling I’ll become temporarily addicted to before losing interest. Until then I’m going to dig through these and make some commitments.  The first is the 100 Push Ups Challenge. It starts in 3 days. This one promises your ability to do 100 consecutive push ups following 6 weeks of training. The two (three, really) birds one stone part about this challenge is that it requires you to work out 3 days a week, so that lines up with my exercise goals for a little while, and toning my arms is the first thing I wanted to tackle.

Alright, time to start training!

The month of January means:

• no liquor
• no clothing, shoe or accessory purchases
• a three-times-weekly exercise plan
• daily water consumption
• nightly face washing
• no fast food
• daily tracking of what I eat

There are other things I’m in the middle of but those are the ones with definite timelines. I’ll post updates on my will power at the first of February.

I’m also going to try to watch at least 10 of the AFI top 100 movies. I procrastinated for weeks with Nashville, dreading it, and lost some time to have other discs delivered. (Also, I get distracted easily by romantic comedies and Showtime) Turns out my fears were justified; Nashville lost me 15 minutes in and didn’t get me back until someone was shot, which is essentially the very end of the movie. What have I learned so far, 29 films in? If a movie is 3 hours long and has a meandering, often nonsensical plot, it will get two thumbs down.

So, there you have it.

The End.

Also, I throw away $13 a month on the stupid hosting and it seems rather pointless. So, I’ve decided to put things on pause here while I figure out whether I want to move to a free hosting site for the sake of archiving, or just nuke the whole damn thing into next week (aka Google cache). We wouldn’t be losing anything we couldn’t live without.

Feedburner:

FB displays over 3100 subscribers, with the clear majority using Google Reader or iGoogle. More specifically, 2517 readers are using a Google product to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/overheardinminneapolis.

Google Reader:

The “show details” info in Reader displays only 368 subscribers of that feed. Now, I switched to Feedburner in March of 2008, almost two years after the launch, and I set up a forward for the old atom feed, so maybe Feedburner is collecting the data from that feed as well, which is very cool, but it still doesn’t totally add up.

Google Reader (atom feed):

The two feeds together only total a little over 2100 subscribers, but FB tells me 2500+ are using Google. I may be wrong about this, but I don’t think iGoogle has a separate feed count. If you view the feed in iGoogle, it should be reflected in the Reader “show details” count. So, 400+ subscribers aren’t showing up in any stats. Or have I thought too much about this and I’m missing something really obvious?

The other confusing thing is that, according to Google Reader, since March of 2008 only 368 people have subscribed to the new FB feed using Reader, but I have gained 2200+ total subscribers between then and now, and we know that most of them are using Google. Did several hundred people manually type in http://www.overheardinminneapolis.com/atom to subscribe, instead of using the link posted, or the browser default? (and yes, the default subscribe link in your browser points to FB, not the atom feed) I find that difficult to believe.

The only reason I started thinking about this is OIM’s appearance in Newsbobber’s Top 100 Minnesota Blogs (61st.) The ranking is figured based on number of subscribers, Google PageRank, and number of inbound links.

This is the ranking information pulled for MNSpeak, which is currently at #6.

Google PageRank: 3
Google Reader Subscribers: 1143 (August 2009)
Inbound Links: 26399

This is OIM’s:

Google PageRank: 5
Google Reader Subscribers: 304 (August 2009)
Inbound Links: 40853

As of the last import, they display 304 subscribers, so they’re using the FB feed for that number. Obviously that’s not accurate, and I just don’t know how to go about fixing it. If it were corrected, OIM would jump up a few ranks.

Any ideas?

Judas Priest

Taste of Minnesota, July 3rd.

Let’s go again!

#16 Lose 30 pounds (22/30) – Though I tend to fluctuate up 2 pounds, down 4 pounds, up 3, etc. Especially after our recent vacation. Time to get serious about it again. Once I’ve lost 30 I may re-evaluate the goal and add another 10 to that.

#19 Finally get a bike – Done ($10)

#39 Print, frame and hang 10 photos of family and friends (5/10)

#68 Backup my harddrive and reinstall Windows – Done considering I bought a MacBook and don’t need to worry about it anymore.

#71 Send a postcard to someone I love every month (0/33) – I have completely spaced this one and will need to play catchup.

#80 Take 1 out of state vacation each year (1/3) – Philadelphia 09

Total money saved: 134 days of the project + 6 items completed + $65 saved from consolidating 1 domain =  $259

Jump! for Giant People, originally uploaded by ang.d.

At the end of South Street, Philadelphia.

This is where I’d like to go for coffee.

I wasn’t able to locate any information about this photo, other than a vague reference to the fact that it may have been taken in the 70s, but I want everything she’s wearing and both of those chairs.

How did you know ’cause I never told
You found out, Ive got a crush on you
No more charades, my heart’s been displayed,
You found out, I’ve got a crush on you

Okay, we know where this is going. She has a crush on a guy and SOMEHOW he found out. How could that have happened? She didn’t tell anyone!

You must have heard it from my best friend
She’s always talkin’ when she should be listenin’
Can’t keep a secret to save her life
But still I trusted her with all I felt inside

Oh, wait, she totally told someone! Who? Her super chatty “best” friend who is surely going to repeat it to everyone she knows. Well, that was an easy mystery to solve.

I never knew a rumor could spread so fast
‘Cause now the word is out all over town
That I’m longing for you

Oh, we’re not done playing dumb yet.

I suspect she knew exactly how fast a rumor could spread. Otherwise, how do you explain the total lack in judgment earlier?

How did you know if I never told
You found out, I’ve got a crush on you
No more charades, my heart’s been displayed
You found out, I’ve got a crush on you

“If I never told” must be a hypothetical, because we’re already clear on the fact that she DID tell. Why would she continue to lie to us?

Maybe I was the one who left the trace
Was there a message written on my face
One little emotion so easily read
That you would know my love before a word was said

She’s either so good at playing dumb that she forgot when to stop or has total short term memory loss. The message written on her face was in the form of words tumbling out of her mouth.

Was it my eyes that let you know you had control
Because the way you move it was so self-assured
You knew I would surrender!

Of course he was self-assured. He has been informed by someone with inside knowledge that you have a crush on him specifically. It’s not like a guy is going to pass up that opportunity.

I am now fitting into the clothes I set aside when they became too snug more than a year ago. Some are even a little baggy. I have had to break #8 once for a pair of jeans during the interim weight where my slimmer pants weren’t yet comfortable and the pants I bought for the weight gain looked ridiculous, and I may have to again if I drop another 10 pounds by July. But I consider those a necessity rather than an impulse or a simple desire for more clothes.

Things have been hectic and complicated lately so I’ve put the list to the side for a while, but now with the weather warming up and my cabin fever kicking it, you and I are going to get out there and have some fun!

Not only do the tissues keep my nose from getting all chapped and looking like I drank a bottle of whiskey, but they keep  my hands soft, too.

Isn’t that special?

This is KREATOR. They played The Rock in Maplewood last Saturday with Exodus, Warbringer and a few other bands, and Taylor and I were there to see them.

Apart from the punk kid trying to push me out of the way to get closer to the stage, the show was amazing. We did learn one thing: you can be too old for 90 minutes of headbanging.

Magic Carpet Motel, Anaheim, CA - found on Space Age City

…the Magic Carpet also lost its sign in late 1999 as part of the “revitalization” of the Anaheim Resort area.

Which totally sucks. This sign is gorgeous.

$40 for completed items
$69 for total days
$26 saved from domain costs
$135 saved

On the 11th or 12th business day they called us and said it could not be repaired, come get it, box it up and a truck will come by in a day or two to ship it back to Funai where they will attempt to repair it, or replace it. It arrived at Funai on January 22nd.

We waited without a clue until February 5th when Funai called us and said they couldn’t repair it and would be shipping a new TV to us in 15 to 20 business days.  A month later we were still waiting and extremely displeased. Not so much as an email explanation and/or apology for the wait came our way. We heard nothing.  On March 7th, Jeremy wrote them the following message through their Customer Service online form:

On December 24th, 2008, I received a shipment from Buy.com of a LC320EM9 LCD television. The unit was defective. I called your support number and was directed to drop the unit off at an authorized repair center in Eagan, Minnesota. I did so. A couple of weeks later, the repair center informed me they could not fix it, and that I would need to contact Funai and arrange to have it picked up. The tv was picked up January 21st, 2009. On February 5th, 2009, a Funai representative left a voicemail for me and said the tv was deemed unrepairable and that a replacement would be sent in “15 to 20 working days.” I called for a status check and spent 35 minutes on hold waiting to speak with a representative on February 27th, and was told your system was down.  I called again on March 3rd and was told the representative would have to contact the repair department and that I would be called back with a tracking number. No one has called, and by my estimation, it has now been more than 20 working days, and I still do not have my television.

Let me preface what I am about to say with this — anytime I have called Funai to discuss this matter, ignoring the fact that I am always on hold for at least 25 to 40 minutes before I can speak with anyone, the Funai reps I have spoken to have been extremely sympathetic, extremely friendly, and have been completely professional and patient. However, they clearly have been given an inferior support system and structure to work within because never have I consistently spent so much time on hold to get so little information. I call, your reporting system is down. I call, and the rep will have to check with another department because they are on a “different system.”

So please — I just want to know when I am going to receive my television. The television that I opened on Christmas Eve nearly 2 1/2 months ago and have not been able to use at all.

I’m at a complete loss as to why it takes this long to put a television in a box (or grab a pre-boxed unit in stock), put a shipping label on it, and send it to me, so if I do not receive an actual tracking number for my television by the end of business on March 11th, I will have no alternative but to file complaints with the Better Business Bureau and the Minnesota State Attorney General’s office.

This is the response he received:

From: customerservice@funai-corp.com
To: Jeremy
Thank you for your inquiry,

The unit has been credited. Now it’s just a matter of ordering your replacement and shipping it to you.

Jim 1599
Customer Support

Naturally, this was an amazingly unsatisfactory response. I can’t even believe someone typed this out and thought it would be sufficient. Jeremy fired back:

This response absolutely does not address the concern I went at great length to detail in my original message. There is no doubt that it is “a matter of ordering my replacement and shipping it to me.” The question is WHEN WILL THAT HAPPEN? I was told a month ago that I should have expected my television last week. Not only has that not happened, you apparently do not even know when that will happen and have demonstrated that you do not even have a way of finding out when that will happen. That is not acceptable. At this point, I would far prefer to get my money back and forget about the whole thing. Please just send me a check for $300, the amount I paid to Buy.com when I ordered it from them on December 3rd, 2008, more than three very long months ago. I expect to either have a television or check delivered to my by the end of this week and an answer as to which of those two scenarios will happen by Wednesday.

He called them later that afternoon and while on the phone with a nice, but under-equipped customer service rep, Awesome Jim emailed him back and stated that when the TV shipped he would personally notify him and provide him with the tracking number. This is a predictable story. You know that neither of those things happened.

We only realized that Jim failed us once again when FedEx started leaving notes on Jeremy’s door about a package that required a signature. Not knowing wtf, he assumed it was a tee-shirt he ordered a few days earlier, and was completely confused as to why it would require a signature when the thing could be shoved into the mailbox? It wasn’t until after a few delivery attempts before it became clear what they were trying to give us.

Okay, so at this point we’re a little excited. FINALLY! After 3 long months we’re going to have this TV back. A couple hurdles with the delivery remained, but they were a small blip on the radar of our disappointment, and once they were cleared we were ready for this damn TV. JUST GIVE IT TO ME ALREADY.

It arrived yesterday, March 26th, 34 business days later, which is a lot more than the 15 to 20 they promised us on February 5th. We hauled it upstairs, plugged it in and turned it on. It was probably about 10 seconds of total silence before it registered with us that this TV was also broken. THIS TV WAS ALSO BROKEN.  The entire left side of the screen was a black block that ocassionally flashed some thin vertical lines in the colors of what was happening on the right side. Are you freaking kidding me, people? There are not enough caps locks in the world for me to express how utterly pissed off I am right now.  We are talking about a $300 TV here, NOT A FUCKING SPACESHIP.

So once again, Jeremy’s on the phone with Funai and they tell him they will send out a new TV. We can expect that in 6 to 8 weeks. Yeah, 6 to 8 weeks. I just keep hearing that in my head like a bad dream. Unbelievable. Funai is completely unwilling to expedite a TV to us regardless of the fact that they’re totally screwing us. This is where I wanted our adventure to end. I want my money back. I do not want another defective, shitty TV from this failure of a company. I don’t want a piece of shit Emerson or Sylvania in my house. I don’t EVER want to deal with Funai Corp again. 

Funai Corp upper management obviously doesn’t give a crap about their consumers or they would provide their customer service reps with the ability to provide much better service.

I am not the offical customer here so I will not get very far by calling them myself, but I would be on the phone with them all day if I could.  I want my money back. I would rather buy a TV from Best Buy than deal with Funai ever again. If they send me a 3rd piece of shit TV, it’s on. I will get their asses in front of Judge Judy if I have to.

#25. After losing 30 pounds, purchase one totally sexy dress that I normally would be too nervous to wear, and wear it to a party

#31. Finally read the abnormal psychology text book I picked up a few years ago

#34. Learn how to drive manual transmission

#57. Create a fun video for MN Stories

#69. Host one sleepover for everyone

#70. Go to Mexico

#74. Host Movie Night 10 times (0/10)

I also decided to add end dates to the otherwise unending items, because Jen does it and it makes a lot of sense.

That is all.

Go to bed by 10pm on weekdays at least 3 nights a week – I had to abandon this one to make time for some of the others.  Which means it’s not working.

Read at least one nonfiction book a month (1/33) – I’ve combined this one, for now, with the unfinished books item, because there’s so much going on right now, that it’s not realistic. Which is sad.

Play Trivial Pursuit once a month (1/33) – I am going to combine this one into the movie nights, which I will be able to start hosting once again because YOU GUYS I GET MY TV BACK ON WEDNESDAY HOLY CRAP CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? Anyway, as I was saying, this could go nicely with the movie nights. I honestly didn’t realize how difficult it would be to fit something one time into 30 days, but yeah, shit’s crazy, yo.

Seek out and listen to 1 new band a week (4/132) – This one I’ve just plain forgot about trying to remember to do everything else. And that’s another indication of how this is failing. It shouldn’t make me so busy that I can’t remember half of it.

Host a movie night 2 times a month (0/64)  & Set aside 1 night a week for Date Night (2/132) – Once I have my TV back we’ll go back to regular movie nights. My original plan with this item was to have the movie night, no matter who showed up. If nobody shows up, then I guess it’s a date night, which we’ve been doing on a regular basis anyway, so I think the spot on the list could be better utilized.

Spend 1 night a week not on the internet (6/132) - Because of #15, this has been nearly impossible. And #15 is more important.

Spend one day and/or night a month alone for Me Time – This happens at least once per week just because of the schedule Jeremy has set for working on his house, so again, the spot on the list should be better utilized.

Learn and make at least one new recipe a month (0/33) - I am going to change this to a limited number, rather than schedule myself into once a month. 

This is as far as I’ve thought out. I will worry about what to replace these with tomorrow.

Destruction

This is Destruction, a German thrash metal band that thrashes with all its might.

Taylor and I went to their show last night at Station 4, which makes for a crazy music venue. There are large structure beams running down the middle of the main floor, one right in front of the stage and one right in front of the drum kit step. When the mosh pit opened up and started stirring I thought, oh crap, I’m going to witness a 17 year old kid brain himself on one of those tonight, and it’s going to be awesome.  Well, there wasn’t much drinking going on, so the injuries were at a minium.

The metal, however, was at the total maximum. Destruction knows what they’re doing, and they do it quite well. Is that rumbling through the cement floor a train going by? Yes, a train called DESTRUCTION. Look at these dudes. Normal girls are drooling over Timberlake, but I’m plastering posters of their frontman all over my bedroom.

I just have one tip for you mosh pitters: keep your shirts on. No, really. Nobody wants to mosh with you if they have to touch your sweaty bare skin, especially if your pants are falling down and we can see your nasty tighty whities. That’s not metal.

uPrint 3D Printers, starting at $14,900

This is the uPrint 3D printer that was on display at the Make Day exhibit at the Science Museum. It starts with a monofilament line that looks like something you load into your weed wacker, melts it down and turns it into the 3D object you loaded, such as a money clip, door stopper, or product models.

If you visited Make Day, like Bunny, Jeremy and I did, you got to see musical instruments made from PVC pipes, a giant paint pendulum, and the Erberts & Gerberts dudes blowing people away with two giant “Candle Cannons” that sent fairly powerful smoke rings clear across the museum, finally landing on someone 30 feet away and ruffling their hair.

We also made a stop into the Science of Fear exhibit which was interesting and fun. There were videos and short tutorials on how your brain processes and copes with fear, and a few interactive areas to test your level of fear with certain things.  You can sit in a both and stare into a camera that films your reaction to a loud noise following several moments of “spooky” music. It then plays your reaction back in slow motion, and I have to admit that I look kind of cute in slow-mo.  I did not partake in the fear of falling booth, electrical shock booth, or the booth where you stick your hand into a box to see if there’s an animal in there.  We watched a short graphic video type thing of a man going from Ok to So Scared He Peed Himself, and then moved back out into the Make Day exhibit, where we promptly lost Jeremy. It was cutesy and there were some toys to play with, but I had expected more from that exhibit. Not sure what, though, just more.

I loved the Science Museum, but wished we had researched and planned ahead for the costs. While we did get a $5 rebate on parking, we paid $12 to park in their garage thanks to the game going on at the Xcel, and $11 per person for the exhibits. Next time we’ll be parking in downtown and walking over.

For now, though, I give you OIM on Twitter. I hesitated jumping on the Twitter bandwagon for OIM because I wasn’t sure how to utilize it in a way that wasn’t simply a reguritation of my RSS feed, but Jeremy suggested that I tweet the things I overhear and/or funny stuff that could be an overheard, but wasn’t because I was part of the conversation.  I also decided to tweet the submissions that should go up but won’t because the submitter left out key details such as who said it, where it was overheard, or because they were part of the convo.

I’m open to other suggestions for Twitter, too. Also let me know if it’s just totally failing.

Sound of the Beast

Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal

Author: Ian Christe
Published in 2004.

I started reading this book back in 2005 and I can’t really say why I didn’t finish it. Life, work or whatever the case, it was set aside and I’ve been meaning to finish it since.  None of that reflects on the book; it’s a very in-depth, intelligent look into the history of my favorite musical genre.  While there were passages that seemed to skip quickly between subjects with sometimes very subtle connections that you had to read more than once to follow, this pretty much tells you everything you need to know about classic heavy metal, thrash metal, black metal, doom metal, glam metal, Scandanavian black metal, death metal and all the metals and cores in between. Well, up to 2004, of course.

Here are a few random bits of trivia that I’ve learned:

King Diamond was once a laboratory research chemist in Denmark.

Rob Zombie was a production assistant on the first season of Peewee’s Playhouse.

There were 29 official members of Black Sabbath between 1970 and 2002.

These guys were real:

Nitro

A band named Therion did a tribute to Abba in 2000 that I will probably never listen to.

A Hebrew version of the European metal magazine Metal Massacre launched in Israel in 1999. I would like to track down a copy of one issue.

The next unfinished book on my list is Alcatraz Justice.

Coded Arms: Assault debut album - Your kind of trouble

The latest Facebook Meme.

1 – BAND NAME Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random article”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 – ALBUM TITLE Go to “Random quotations”
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3

The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 – COVER ART Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days

Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 – Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

5 – Post it to FB with this text in the “caption” and TAG the friends you want to join in. (be sure to tag me, so I can see your creation) I decided not to tag anyone.

Dale Chihuly's "Sunburst". Found on kewing's photostream. (click pic)

Last weekend Bunny and I visited the Minneapolis Institute of Art to kill some time before going to a play at the Children’s Theater. Well, we missed the play due to miscommunication, but got spend some quality time with very lovely pieces of art. I didn’t plan ahead well and forgot my camera so there are no accompanying pictures, but Jeremy and I plan to go back next weekend for a full tour.

Dale Chihuly’s “Sunburst” glass sculpture was quite beautiful and interesting. One of my favorite sculptures.

#30 – Finish books I’ve started to read (0/4)
I’ve started the first one – Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanger’s Guide to Heavy Metal. I started this book several years ago, got 3/4 of the way through it, put it down one day and then spaced it out. I have no idea why because heavy metal is one of my favorite topics. I’m almost through the book and will enlighten you with some interesting trivia when it’s complete.

#55 – Play Wii at least once a week
This one requires some adjustment simply because I have not had my TV this month. I’ve shaved 4 weeks off the goal.

#68 – Host movie night twice a month
This one also requires adjustment because I do not know if I’ll get the TV back by March. (I know that technically I could strap up that honkin’ RCA that’s sitting in my dining room but waaaah it’s so heavy and it’s kind of too big for the new TV stand, blah blah.)

#58 – See one totally crazy movie at IMAX
It will be WATCHMEN in March.

#73 – Spend 1 night a week not on the internet
This one has been difficult because I’ve built up so much of just daily STUFF online; bills, obviously OIM, communication, etc. I’ve been able to pull this off, but not without a lot of deliberate effort and reminders not to pick up the laptop when I come across an interesting fact in my book that I want to learn more about by Googling it. I aim for 4pm during these nights, but sometimes it’s pushed back more just because I have OIM stuff to do. Hey, that makes me some money so I can’t ignore it.

#83 – Take 100 new pictures of me and Jeremy (1/100)
We took one.

#86 – Clean the inside and outside of my car once a month (1/33)
I took it to The Downtowner last week. It was right before it rained, but that’s fine; they did a great job shining her up and they even clean the interior.

#94 – Apply for a passport
I filled out the application but haven’t submitted it yet. It’s going to chew up most of my non-necessicities budget for the month so I’m waiting to see if I get a cut from the blog network to put towards it. Speaking of… I haven’t seen a check from them in a while. Hmm, better look into that.

#99 – Identify my signature drink
I’ve started this process but I plan to write more about it length because it’s been a lot of fun, and makes for some pretty pictures. I’ve decided to limit this quest to The Strip Club only.

I really wanted to use mint.com, but they don’t yet support my credit union so I’m left with an incomplete picture of my expenses. When the time comes that site will be very valuable to me, but for now I can only see my savings account and credit card.  So, I did it the “old fashioned” way; with a spreadsheet.

It’s always a little shocking when these things are laid out in front of you. The “static” expenses are the most troublesome, not because I feel I’m overpaying for anything (except for Comcast those JERKS), but because I have A LOT of them.  Now, other parts of the 101/1001 project will eliminate a few of these, but until that happens, or until I find a better, higher paying job the budget is what it is.

I’ve allocated quite a bit of savings on a monthly basis so the entertainment/dining/shopping portion is pretty tight, but this will force me to be extremely creative in finding low-cost or free things to do. Since there are entire sites and blogs dedicated to this kind of thing, I don’t suspect this will be too big of a challenge. Plus, there’s always Movie Night at Casa de Boom, which is always free. I just want my new TV back. ITS BEEN FOREVER.

Speaking of money and TVs, I have a 27″ RCA flat screen (not flat panel) to sell for $25. Need it? Know someone who does? Send them my info.

Total money saved for this project so far: $20 for 2 completed items, $18 for the month, $13 from transfering to free hosting for one site. ($51)

Valentine's flowers

These were delivered Saturday morning. It was 9:00am, I was sprawled out in circle bed with Spaz and I wasn’t expecting anyone so I ignored the buzzing for the first few moments. Realizing this person was determined to get an answer, I trudged to the phone half asleep to find out who was bothering me on such a day. Of course, my mood turned around when I heard the words, “Flower delivery.” Aw, isn’t that sweet? I’d text him to say so, but he’s probably still sleeping, so I’ll tweet it instead.

The card contained an inside joke about Gerber Babies that made me chuckle. Ah, memories. 

Then later that night? Crab legs, shrimp, asparagus, wine and baklava.  Excellent.

Even later that night we went downstairs to the The Strip Club for drinks. It really was a very lovely day.

Ignore the lady, look at the table! And then buy me one.

If you ignore the glassy-eyed spectre of the half-faded-out lady at the end of the table, this is an awesomeriffic table. Of course, if you do ignore the lady, she’ll haunt your dreams until she takes your soul, so you’d better do a cost-benefit analysis before you make your choice.

From Do What Now?

You seem to have a personal vendetta against City Pages and Village Voice Media- this is the only media I have seen your investigative “talents” used to “expose” in the past several weeks. I think you’re a prime example of what is wrong with the blogging world, you are just serving your ego. Different “strokes”… I guess 

Heather from CityPages doesn’t like it when I pick on her employer (while not refuting any of the content of my stories). I wonder if she’ll take it personally when she gets a plug in this Thursday’s piece?

Seriously.

It’s purely coincidental that she commented today. I wrote this Thursday’s piece early last week.

Plus, if Heather read more of my stuff, she’d realize that CityPages isn’t that special.

(via edkohler)

My favorite are the quotes surrounding talents and expose, meant to belittle or dismiss the content of Ed’s posts. Also, she admits she’s only been paying attention “in the past several weeks“, but feels qualified to label him the posterchild of “what is wrong with the blogging world.” Way to represent your employer in a mature and professional way.

Time for an intervention

It is clear that Bear loves the sauce too much.

new glasses

I have started shopping for a new pair of glasses. The pair I have is relatively new, but the lenses are accumulating this weird gunk near the nose area, and it’s a lot like moisture between two panes of glass. It appears to be between layers and won’t come off. 

Vintage Coco

Coco showed me this excellent site where she found her new glasses. The average price for frames is around $12.99. In total she paid about $24. In light of that I’m a little embarrassed to admit how much I spent on my fancy transition lenses considering they’re not standing the test of time. The frames are holding out very well and I can just have the lenses replaced, but for $24 a pair I could have at least one additional backup.

One of the benefits of this site is the virtual dressing room, if you will, where you can upload a photo and try out the frames. So, I totally did that. Then Coco suggested that I see how the frames would look in their mostly natural environment. Meaning, following 4 cocktails, a bad movie and a fit of laughter. As you can see, that’s what we did.

Looks pretty sharp.

crossword puzzle complete

Hey. Here’s a crossword I completed while getting my oil changed the other night. It was classified as Medium level difficulty so I’m feeling pretty good about myself right now.

Click pic for details

Supercollider (formerly ZibraZibra), Zoo Animal, Guante and Bill Mike
(solo).

Friday, February 20, 2009 at 9:00pm
Stasius Place – 2500 University Ave NE – Minneapolis, MN

Granite Furniture - Salt Lake City, UT. Found on Adam's Picasa (click pic)

More stunning Roto-Spheres. I wish I had seen this sign while I lived there.

Action Pawn in Killeen, TX. Found on agility nut. (click pic)

Roto-Spheres

Also knows as Sputniks. There’s only about 17 of the original 234 neon, roating beauties left, according to Agility Nut.

They rotate three different ways; the pole rotates, and each hemisphere rotates separate directions. This one appears to neither spin nor light up. Perhaps a consequence of neglect due to the very costly upkeep.

Mankato claims a pretty awesome Roto-Sphere on the sign for Jerry Dutler’s Bowl, which Max and Coco will be visiting on Monday. I look forward to their photos and story!

My favorite might be the Roto-Sphere on the El Comedor de Anayas Restaurant in Moriarty, NM, because it’s so bright, colorful and fun unexpectedly poking out of a sort of deary, monotone structure that barely appears to be in operation.  It had some help; it was rescued in 2002 with some fresh paint thanks to grant money meant to restore nine Route 66 vintage signs.  It’s nice to know efforts (and money) exist to keep these works of art in our lives.

The challenge was going through my Drivers, Downloads and Programs folders.

Not one of the more exciting items on the list, but it does pave the way towards #67 – backing up the harddrive and wiping XP. Windows has been behaving badly. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make my next computer a Mac. 

$14 saved for 4 days + 1 completed project.

Pink Motel - Cherokee, NC. Found on Motel Americana - (click pic)

Gold Medal Flour sign from the 9th floor of the Mill City Museum

It’s February 1st so that means it’s officially the first of 1001 days that I’ll be tying together some of the loose ends of my life and accomplishing a few personal goals.

Some of the items on the list do not end until the final day, so they’ll be always “in progress” and probably won’t get discussed much here other than the occasional update.   I will also not spend a lot of time blogging about the 40 oz of water, or what my outfit is today, or remind you that I went without fast food for  another day. These things may be recapped once in a while, but unless I really fall off the wagon and post about it, you’ll just have to trust that I’m on top of it.

But what’s happening Day 1? Have I accomplished anything yet? Sort of.

#37. Visit 10 museums in St Paul and Minneapolis (1/10) – Even though it occurred yesterday, I’m counting it; Max, Jeremy and I went to the Mill City Museum and took the elevator Flour Tour. It was the 2nd visit for both of them, but it was my first. It was quite fascinating, and I really enjoyed it. I’d like to spend more time in their gift shop looking at the books, but we only had a few minutes before it closed. We’ll be back.

Tonight will encompass #73 – Spend one night a week not on the internet, #30 – Finish books I’ve started to read,  #25 - Go to bed by 10pm at least 3 nights a week and #36 – Complete one word puzzle a week.

At 4:00pm it’s going to get SUPER CRAZY UP IN HERE.

Joined at the skull

This is a totally crazy keychain that Danielle (Jeremy’s sister in law) got for me during a recent visit to the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia.

I would make the trip out to PA just to visit this museum.

When the average debt in an American household is 6 digits spread across multiple credit cards, it hardly seems worth talking about a fraction of that, but I’ve been debt free before and I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t maintain better control. 

About 11 years ago I made some pretty dumb choices with credit cards, and like a lot of kids, wound up about $6000 in debt.  With a $350 monthly car payment, paying off 2 store credit lines, 1 credit card and a computer became overwhelming. So, I decided to try a debt consolidation program. I had no idea if it was going to work but making minimum payments (when I could) wasn’t working either, and it was destroying my credit rating. 

It’s pretty simple. You pay them, they pay your creditors, but not until they’ve negotiated a lower interest rate, or eliminated it completely. Within five months there was clear progress being made. My balances were dropping and all my payments were being made on time.  I did the math; what would have taken me 40 years to pay off doing minimum payments and never catching up with the interest rate was going to take about 5 years.

If I had to pick a negative in this process it would be that those accounts, which would typically be revolving, get closed and the spotty months of late payments freeze and sit on your credit rating for awhile, instead of falling off after 12-24 months.  However, once they’re about 2 years old, creditors tend to place less importance on them.

Right around the time I made my last payment to TCN (early 2004), I made the last payment on my car. Suddenly I was debt free for pretty much the first time since I ever gained employment. This was an enormous help to me when I purchased my condo, and I’ve been pretty good since.

In the last year or so I let things get away from me a little bit and the credit card balance crept up above $2,000. That alone isn’t a big deal, but now that I have a car payment again, and slightly higher car insurance (those two facts are related), it’s time to just deal with it.  

Once again it feels so good to see that balance drop. Like it’s hot.