Monday, July 28, 2008

Well, There Goes A Hundred Bucks...

It's been a busy day for me, although you wouldn't know it by looking at all of the trash strewn about my room. Instead, it looks like I've just been holed up writing a manifesto and preparing for The Final Countdown or some other such weirdness. But no, I've actually been out stimulating the economy, the mess is just the aftermath.

First of all, I was up early again this morning, having spent most of yesterday in a half-glazed funk, too tired to do much of anything. Since I was up so early today, I just hung out at the keyboard doing the daily internet rotation and working my way through a pot of coffee. Once the sun came up, I took a shower, found some clean clothes, and shuffled down to the kitchen. I made another yogurt/fruit/granola parfait for breakfast (gotta eat all them damn strawberries before they go bad), and lingered over the latest issue of Card Player magazine.

At the time, I was undecided on where to go this morning. I really wanted to get out of the house, and was considering heading down to Fry's Electronics to do a bit of shopping and browsing, but I figured I'd probably spend too much money if I went there (it's kinda like Costco--you can't walk outta there without spending a couple of C-notes). I also thought about going down to Green Valley Ranch and playing in their 10 am tournament, but again, I had to remind myself that I'm taking a sabbatical from the poker tournaments until after next weekend. So that was out.

I needed to at least go to Walgreens and get a bunch of photos printed (I want to get one of those multiple-picture frames because I have hundreds of snapshots on my hard drive that aren't really being enjoyed or shared), so that was my first errand for the day. After that, it was all up in the air. I've been putting off a trip to WalMart, only because, well, it's WalMart. Given my druthers, I'd rather do just about anything else.

But since I needed to hit Wallyworld, that's where I ended up spending my morning. I needed another book case and another one of those plastic pseudo-dressers (I finally did all of my laundry and had no place to put it. Who knew I owned so much underwear?), so that was a priority. But I found myself wandering around a bit and exploring that gigantic monstrosity of a shopping center over on Sunset and 95, and of course I spent a few more bucks on other 'necessities'.

Well, I definitely needed a black ink cartridge, otherwise my new printer/scanner was just a big ol' coaster, and WalMart, believe it or not, actually sells single-use re-manufactured cartridges for like $17. Not a bad deal. I also got a 2 MB SanDisk micro memory card for my cell phone. I got this wondrous new KRZR phone a month ago, but I haven't been able to program it to do anything yet, and I wanted to be one of the cool kids with customized ring tones and pictures. But I needed a memory card (not a SIM card) to do it. Just plugging the thing in to my computer with a USB cable didn't work, and I don't trust the third-party drivers that were available for download.

Anyhow, once the electronics and housewares were bought, I headed over to the newest Place I'd Never Been, the grocery side of the SuperCenter, just to have a look around. Wouldn't you know it, they actually had fresh chives and some Mexican 'crema fresca', which I understand to be a suitable substitute for the creme fraiche that I was looking for a few days ago. Unfortunately, the only crab they had either came in a can or frozen, still in the shell at the seafood counter. No fresh lump meat was to be found. So my latest chance at culinary greatness was shot down once again.

I'm thinking that by now the hype on this eggs-and-crab dish has grown out of proportion, and I'm in for a huge disappointment when I finally get around to making it... So the chives and the Mexican cream didn't make it home with me today--I just bought a bag of trail mix and some coconut flavored coffee creamer, then called it a day.

Since I got home, I've been shuttling all of my new junk upstairs and unwrapping it all, creating a trash pile that the folks in Detroit would be proud of. Once I got the memory card loaded up with songs and pictures, I spent some time trying to figure out how to customize my phone. So far, so good. The only thing I need to do is go back and re-size a bunch of my pictures so that they actually fit--a lot of them are still too big to display on my phone screen.

But I'm having great fun doing custom ringtones. So far, this is what I've got going on:

Reverend Dave: Sweet Home Alabama

Angy: Mrs. Robinson

Andrea: Redneck Woman (although, I think I'm gonna change that one to my sister Sherry's ringtone, and give Andrea Push It by Salt-n-Peppa)

Mamasan: Crazy Train

Amy: Hippie Chick

Kimmy: Hopelessy In Love (Yeah, I know)

Lars: Police On My Back

Big Stogie: Smoke On The Water

Jennifer: Crazy Bitch

Dougie: Tequila!

Hoya: Soviet National Anthem

Eddie B: Panama

Ed W: Hell's Bells

Doc Al: Copa Cabana

Cyndi: Shake Shake Shake Senora


That's all I've done so far, but I'm having great fun setting it up. Now I'm just waiting for people to call.

Mikey

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