Last Call in 2006

I guess this is the final post for me for 2006. There's 90 minutes left (for me) until 2007 begins and I can only hope it's a damn lot better than this year's turned out.

It's kind of sad, in a way, because at the moment, there's about 10+ things I could be writing aboutin regard to the end of this year and the events of the past week, but I'm overwhelmed and out of time it seems --and that's almost fitting as a theme for the end of 2006.

Overwhelmed and out of time.

To sum up a few things:

• Finally got to go shopping for all the gifts I didn't get for Christmas and got most of them at really good deals. The DVD I asked for was less than $10.
• I ran into a friend I haven't seen since early Summer. She's the wife of my "close" friend, a police officer up North. Well, I'd heard a few months ago that he'd quit the force, which was a little surprising (but not completely). He's never called and told us himself and when I saw her, I waved --and she turned and walked the other way. Right now, it looks like I've alienated another group of friends in some new and mysterious way, which is getting really annoying. And depressing.
• Speaking of depressing: We received 12 Christmas cards this year where we normally get 40+. My wife's favorite (paternal?) aunt didn't send anything this year. 4 families we usually get letters from inside the card didn't send a letter, which is also depressing because I finally convinced everyone that we needed to start sending out letters this year. Another sign of alienating people? I'm not sure, although even our church didn't give us a crad this year and I've gotten one from them every year since the mid-1990s.
  
• I'm hoping my wife is PMSing right now because if her mood today is going to be a reflection of 2007, I'll be single before March rolls around. We've been fighting since 10 this morning... I'm the bad one, of course, because I'm not helping out enough even though everytime I ask if she needs help, the answer's 'No.' I'll have to resolve to work on my telepathy more in '07.
• I've been meaning to go back to a theme with the post titles for 2007. I've narrowed it down to a few, but haven't figured out which one works best yet. I'll get there as I won't post anything after this until tomorrow sometime.
  Maybe.
• I must still be recovering from my mystery illness on the 26th. I'm not particularly hungry these days and it's pissing off my wife (see above) because there's nothing I'm really interested in eating. Just not up to eating much... I'm sure it has nothing to do with having a multi-vomit session after 2 major turkey dinners in one day.
• Not that I was expecting to hear much over the holidays, but the job-front is still too quiet. I had a bit of an argument with the job placement guy at my school because he said I need to follow-up on some of the leads they've sent me. See, the thing is: I send my stuff to the guy at the school and he sends it to his contact, so my only response to that guy was: "You want me to cold call and ask to speak to someone who received my demo reel from some other guy?" I never did wear the rose-colored glasses they gave me...
• On another alienation bent, my wife has taken part in a 'Secret Sister' program at the church over the past few years. She got her 'nemesis' as her secret sister this year and she begrudgingly has sent anniversary and birthday cards as well as little holiday gifts/tokens since February. Whomever received my wife's name, though, has done "sweet F all" about it. I'll only excuse 2 people from this, though: the lady who passed away in early spring (although the coordinator should've let my wife know if it was her) ~or~ the lady whose husband died over the summer (but again with the coordinator....). At least those women have been duly distracted for the year. But again: it just feels like more alienation from within our own church, which is just as depressing as not hearing from friends.

Ah well, the year comes to a close and the horoscopes I'm not supposed to believe say it's one of the best things for me to leave 2006 behind and take 2007 and triumph.

Good advice.

And happy New Year,

Vomitization!

It's been a bad week around the house.

After numerous.... 'bad spells' on my part on the 26th, I ended up sleeping for 20 hours' straight before staying conscious for 2 hours and then sleeping another 11 hours. I stayed up for a while after that only to discover my daughter had picked up my bad habit and was now head first into the toilet showing off the apple she'd eaten at Grandma's after dinner. My daughter made a regular (every 30 minutes) trip to the bathroom this morning from 1am until 4am. I was very, very tired by the she finished her wretched retching.

Thank goodness that was the end of the puking in the bathroom.... until my wife started at 8am.

From 8 'til Noon, she followed in my daughter's footsteps into the bathroom, onto the floor, and head in the toilet.

Actually, I tell a lie.

Actually, I'll get back to that.... As I was typing this, my son finally entered the competition. Talk about saving the best for last, my son's all about showmanship. Yep, it's been 8 hours since anyone else heaved whatever filled their stomachs, but my son does it with flair. He's too young to know any better, to be honest, but he also adds a level of spectacular to his throw-ups:
*At least one piece of furniture
*At least one electrical appliance
*Carpeted floor (we have 90% hardwood floors, yet somehow....)
*One deflection (usually off a wall onto another surface, like tiled floor that becomes dangerously slippery).
*At least one innocent bystander (usually me, tonight it was my wife).

OK, back to the lie.... no more throw-ups from my son in about 40 minutes.... *cringes*

Really, am I the only one who *knows* when I'm about to throw up? My stomach hurts, my body temperature begins to rise, I can taste salty bile in my mouth and I know it's time to head for the bathroom. And once I'm in the bathroom, I'm on my knees with my head in the toilet and whatever comes up.... goes down: in the toilet!!!

My daughter, she's 6, and although somewhat sadly experienced in vomiting has started to get the hang of it. Granted, one of the 5 times she threw up last night she hit the top of the toilet, her arm, and the floor, but she's gotten better! My wife, almost 40, still has difficulty, though. I mean, c'mon! Any adult should be able to hit the toilet and leave their lunch properly disposed of... but not my wife. Nope! She gets some on the seat, a little on the floor in front of the toilet and somehow leaves a few chunks on the bath rugs we have on the tiles. You know the ones: the ones every wife gets mad at her husband if he steps onto them with his wet feet? Yeah, those ones. Little chunks of her last meal, perfectly placed for me to step on.

Icky!

I can't wait 'til quarantine is done :(

The Gifts...

Here is the list of gift wishes I'd handed out to people since I'm "so hard to buy for.":

1. Superman II DVD - The Richard Donner Edition (which is much different than the theatrical release... Marlon Brando was actually in Superman II!!)
2. XD Memory Card (1 gigabyte).... XD is like an SD memory card, which most digital cameras and MP3 players take, but my camera takes the XD card, which are harder to find :(
3. Daredevil DVD Director's Cut.... it's got Jennifer Garner in it... that's all that matters.
4. Zoo Tycoon II Collection for the PC... it's a fun game and educational, which means I can play it with the kids when we're stuck at home with nothing to do.
5. Any season of Scrubs on DVD (I like the show).

#1? No.
#2? No.
#3? No.
#4? No.
#5? No.

So, yeah, as usual no one could figure out what to buy for me. I did get some hockey books, which I think it's safe to say I have the largest collection of books on the subject in North America. I got a couple hardcover books by authors I'd mentioned in a conversation once (one is the 3rd book in a series and the other is by the author I mentioned as "not really into his stuff"). I got a hockey sweater from my sister. She used to get me gift cards for music shops all the time, but decided to get me more hockey stuff instead. My parents gave me a book on Canadian comic artists. My in-laws gave me $70 to buy "whatever it was" I wanted. Sheesh.

The best of all, though, came from my daughter. Her school does a little "Christmas store" thing one day a year so that kids can come with $1 and buy gifts for their Moms and Dads. My wife got a dish towel which was nothing compared to my coffee mug:

Riviera Casino presents: "La Cage" with an all-star cast of female impersonators. Including Frank Marino as Joan Rivers.

Awesome. I cried, I really did. It was difficult holding in the laughter.

So, the plan was to take my $70 and go spend it on Boxing Day and pick up everything I'd asked for (or at least some/most of it). Except at 3:30 Boxing Day morning, I was in the bathroom with my head in the toilet reliving every morsel of 2 Christmas dinners....

More on that another time.

Oh, Me of Little Faith....

So, because I'm so problematic to buy gifts for... anyone reading my blog for any length of time knows what I'm talking about, but for a refresher, I'll explain.

Basically, since the day I met my wife, I've suddenly become "difficult" to buy presents for. Did that make sense? Everyone says "I don't know what to get you" despite the fact when they ask, I'll always tell them what I have my eye on. Anyone remember when the Beatles Anthology CDs came out? I really wanted them for Christmas that year and when I went to buy them, I was scolded by my wife because "You asked for it for Christmas!"

I think that CD set came out in 1995.... I'm still waiting for it for Christmas.

And, seriously, for each Christmas and birthday ever since, I've gotten really lame presents that might be close to what I asked for, but not quite. Anyone remember when I asked for the Simpson's DVD set only to get the biography of the voice of Bart Simpson? Yeah, that "close."

This year (don't ask me why), I gave written lists to everyone with specific items for Christmas, including:

1. Superman II DVD - The Richard Donner Edition (which is much different than the theatrical release... Marlon Brando was actually in Superman II!!)
2. XD Memory Card (1 gigabyte).... XD is like an SD memory card, which most digital cameras and MP3 players take, but my camera takes the XD card, which are harder to find :(
3. Daredevil DVD Director's Cut.... it's got Jennifer Garner in it... that's all that matters.
4. Zoo Tycoon II Collection for the PC... it's a fun game and educational, which means I can play it with the kids when we're stuck at home with nothing to do.
5. Any season of Scrubs on DVD (I like the show).

But I figure, as with past years, I'll be picking these things up for myself on December 26th. I have such little faith in my family.

Christmas Movies

'Tis the season for ranting, apparently...

I love Christmas movies! Always have, I think. Every Christmas, I can be found curled up under a blanket, sipping hot chocolate and watching A Christmas Carol (the REAL one, with Alastair Sim), Muppets' Christmas Carol (don't ask, but I've loved this since it first came out), Scrooged, It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, Elf, The Grinch (either version) and Miracle on 34th Street (again, the original). I'm sure Polar Express will be added to the list now too.

If I'm really bored, I'm might put up with Christmas Vacation and/or Jingle All the Way. But I have to be really bored.

So, looking forward to watching these movies either on video (own most of them) or when they're televised... except I noticed a trend on the stations we get (about 14 are showing various Christmas movies/specials).

1. A Christmas Carol.... on once, late at night (like a Midnight showing) and in color (ew!!).
2. Muppets Christmas... on one Saturday afternoon about 2 weeks ago.
3. Scrooged... haven't seen it on any of the 14 channels that regularly show Christmas movies/specials.
4. It's a Wonderful Life... on twice and scheduled again on Christmas Eve.
5. A Christmas Story... on once, another Midnight showing.
6. Elf... on once.
7. The Grinch... twice for the animated and once for the Jim Carrey version.
8. Miracle on 34th Street... haven't seen it yet, but I saw it's on Christmas Eve.
9. Polar Express... on twice.

9/10 movies and barely on... so what are the stations showing instead?
1. Jingle All the Way... on every channel at least once. One channel showed it 3 times last week.
2. Christmas Vacation... once on every channel and scheduled again Christmas night.
3. Santa Clause & Santa Clause 2... 2 channels have shown both... twice.
4. A Christmas Carol (with Jack Palance!?!?!)... on 3 channels, one of which has shown it 5 times!!
5. Family Man... (that Nicholas Cage one)... on once the first week of December.
6. Die Hard... (takes place at Christmas!) on 3 times on 2 channels.
7. Die Hard 2... (Christmas again!) on 3 times on 2 channels.
8. Chasing Christmas... one at least 4 times on 3 channels.
9. I'll Be Home for Christmas... 3 times on 2 channels.
10. I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus... 2 different channels.
11. Santa Baby... (who let Jenny McCarthy 'star' in a Christmas movie?!?!?) get this: shown 5 times this week on 3 different channels. was on 3 other channels 4 times over the past 2 weeks, and is scheduled again... twice... on Christmas Eve on 2 different channels!!

No wonder I started buying the videos to my favorites... it's the only guarantee they'll be on!

Santa Baby... seriously?

Speaking of being mocked....

I'm leaning more and more to doing something creative for Christmas each year and just giving away drawings/paintings and making my own cards. Anything to keep me away from the effing stores in December.

On Wednesday morning, after dropping my daughter off at school, my son & I headed downtown to one store to pick up a few "last minute" stocking stuffers (a magazine and some Lindt chocolate for my wife). It was early, about 15 minutes before the store actually opened. So, I parked in a virtually empty parking lot. I parked down the far end, away from the obvious row of employee vehicles, and away from the lazy people who parked as close as legally possible to the doors.

At 8:45am, there are close to 200 empty parking spots around me. So where does the next car park?

Right beside me.

And, no, I don't mean they pulled into the spot right next to me... no, no!! I mean, they pulled in so close beside me I couldn't get out of the car. I had to drive to another spot just get my son & I out of the car.

It wasn't the only time it happened that day either. Going to the mall later, I came out and some putz in a Cadillac had parked at such an angle, I couldn't get out of my spot. I had a couple choices....
1) Wait til the putz came back and blast away to get him to move his car.
2) Wait until the driver of the car on the other side of the parking row moved so I could pull forward and out.
3) Do this instead:

Talk to mall security and have them call a tow truck. Merry frickin' Christmas, ya putz!!

Keep Calling

OK, seriously.... where's the hidden cameras?

I'm waiting (in vain, no doubt) for some phone calls about work after all those jobs I applied for. It's been a little... quiet.

But somehow, when I have the phone beside me for 5 hours, the moment I leave for a bathroom break, someone calls. In the past 2 weeks, I've missed 8 calls this way and yesterday's was the most annoying of all!

I'm a little tired/pooped while recovering from the latest headcold (my 357th cold of the year, btw). Not realizing I'd brought the phone with me to the computer, I sat next to it for 5 hours while I did some web design work. I suddenly thought to myself "shoot! I don't have the phone here! Someone's probably called!" So, I head upstairs to grab the phone can't find it. I look around for maybe 5 minutes and head back downstairs to discover the phone sitting on top of the scanner....

with the message display blinking!!

Yep, went upstairs for 5 minutes and someone called. So where are those cameras? I know I'm being watched... and mocked.

Thursday Gripes

Today's definitely a B&M day.... bitch & moan. Lots of little things happening, so in my vain attempt to not sweat the small stuff... here we go:

1. We've had newspaper problems for months. We get 3 local papers (all different) one or two days per week. Let me see if I got this... the Times on Tuesdays and Fridays, the Record on Thursdays and the News on Saturdays. We also get a morning paper, The Province, on Sunday through Friday. Since springtime, we usually get the Times once a week, sometimes not at all. The Record's been fairly good. The News, with its "Good morning!" banner on the front page, usually makes it in time for dinner. We were missing one or two copies of the Province each month. Now, I know the people at the Times on a first name basis these days because I've called so often. I honestly asked if someone had reported us for being bad people because I couldn't understand how we could be missed on a Friday after getting the paper on the Tuesday.... annoying.
   Well, now the Province is "supposed to" arrive by 6am in order for working people to read it over their breakfast. During our nasty winter storm (did I write about that???), we missed an entire week's worth of papers. My in-laws, living 3 blocks away, got 3 of their papers one day and another on its regularly scheduled day. This week, I noticed (see #2 below) we have a new delivery person for the Province in our neighbourhood. On Tuesday(see #2!), we got our paper at 11:30, on Wednesday we got it at 9 (and the paper lady complained and said it was in our mailbox, although we never saw it there before 8:30 when the kids went to school. Today, it's 9:35 and there's still no paper. How many days in a row can we complain??
2. OK, so the paper lady... *shakes head* I noticed when I was having breakfast that there was no paper. I thought it a little odd, but assumed my wife had taken it with her to work earlier that morning. When I went to leave to pick up my son from preschool at 11:30, I couldn't get out of our driveway because someone had parked across my driveway. I walked out to the street and looked up and down to see if there was anyone around and didn't see anyone. A little worried about being late picking up the boy, I went back inside to call my in-laws to see if they could get him. They weren't home. My next call was going to be to the school saying i'd be there ASAP but couldn't get out of my driveway. So, I'm on my cellphone and dialling when this woman walks up to the car. I'm about to go nuts on her (hello? There's 40 feet of clear shoulder on either side of the driveway, lady!!), when she hands me the Province. At 11:30!! So, she gets an earful, which she returns the next day when she says she had the paper in our mailbox by 9am. Yeah, whatever. What's your excuse today? Just more incentive to cancel our subscription and walk down to the store and pick it up every day. Good exercise!
3. I looked into some legal advice for the car accident, since I haven't heard anything in a while. The process, as I understand it, is that since I protested their conclusion, the dispute goes to an internal review committee before anything else is done. If they still find in her favour, then my final remaining option is to sue. But I can't sue the insurance company, I have to sue the other driver. AND, the insurance company will pay for the lawyer --for her. There's supposed to be an insurance adjustor working on my behalf and one working for the other driver. I've never heard of that before. I wonder if it'll ever end...
4. I was total butt-kicker supreme in my hockey pool last week. I went from 13,584th place to 4th. Nice jump! This week, however, I'm back to my traditional role and saw from one game last night that a guy I traded away at the last minute had a 6-point game. The guy I took instead (his teammate) didn't register a point. Doh.
5. The web design stuff is nearly at an end. I agreed to one final major edit. This final edit adds in content for their press/media section and they sent me a ton of scans to add to the site. Most scans are on angle, meaning I have to straighten each one out before I put it on the site. Some are on an angle and upside down. I'm pretty sure they keep a draft email to me running all dya and whenever they think of something they add to it. They send me all the written content for a page in several font styles, sizes... some in bold, some italicized, and some barely discernable as properly-written sentences. Lots of work and apparently, my "check is in the mail." We'll see about that too :(
6. My son's preschool Christmas show was last night. I recall writing about my daughter's preschool show... let me find it... and how I referred to it as "short attention-span theatre." Well, it took a few years but the trait's been passed on from the parents to their children. Holy crap! I sat near the back of the church with video camera in-hand and my daughter standing beside me because everytime I hit the 'record' button, the lady in front of me stood up to take a picture of her grandson. Everyone knew exactly who he was too --the boy continually jumping off the stage for the entire production. I also pointed out, to my parents, the girl who screams loudly whenever I go to the preschool to pick up my son. She's a screamer and is always into something that ends in screams and tears. As I said it, she fell off the stage. She also fell down hard... twice... during the reception later that night. Anyway, back to... the back... of the church where I politely filmed my son's "performance" and quietly cursed the people standing up to take pictures. I noticed (yes, get ready for it) my father sitting down, cursing the people in front of him as they stood up to take a picture everytime he did. He started muttering (loudly) and the lady turned around and asked if it was okay to stand up to take a picture (something she should do before standing in front of someone anyway), my father said yes and then he convinced everyone to move down the row about 2 feet so he could see again. She was standing for a baout 5 minutes at this point. My father finally had the opportunity to get a picture without her with her video camers in front of him. As he snapped the picture, she leaned over right in front of him.
   In a way only my father can do it, he offered to give the film to the lady since he "only got pictures of [her] ass and back." Yes, more confirmation I'm turning into my father....
7. I was doing some gaming research (read: playing video games) and I unintentionally finished a game. I can't remember the actual number, but there's a statistic that says most game players (60%) never finish a game after they've started. So, imagine finishing one without evern trying. It was a good game too, for the most part. One of the things I like about a game with so much in it, after you've finished all the major points of the story, you can continue to play and explore and find new things. And I'm doing one of those right now :)
   

The Sound of Reading....

Here I'd just posted that I'd been waiting an extremely long, long, LONG time for a book to come in at the library and guess what?

They called to let me know my book was in.

So, you know I raced down to get it. I got there, handed my card over and watched the librarian scan it. She went to the backroom and came out with my book.

All 5 CDs.

They requested the frickin' audio book for me!!! ARGH!

I was mad, but I couldn't stop laughing. I waited all that time just to get the audio book, not an actual book to read. I asked the librarian if I could get the book instead and she scanned my card again, typed in the title of the book, and I saw her shoulders shrink.

I'm now 15th on the waiting list for the book.

I may never get to read it.

Before you ask, I tried listening to the CD today while working on the computer... I'm 20 minutes in and I can't tell you what's happening. :(

Getting More out of the Game

Uh Oh! Hockey rant! My female readers just went glassy-eyed and moved onto the next blog!

The NHL Board of Governors (another group that proudly carried the initials BOG) decide this week not to change next season's schedule to allow more inter-conference games. They'll look at it again at their next meetings in early 2007, but the Eastern Conference doesn't want to change the schedule. Why would they? Almost every away game is still in the same time zone for them.

The problem is that the new era of the NHL also has the new generation of superstars: Sidney Crosby, Eric and Jordan Staal, Evgeni Malkin, and Alexander Ovechkin. Fine, if you want to add a few more, there's also Dany Heatley, Jason Spezza, Rick Nash, and Gilbert Brule (I'm stretching with Brule, I know). Crosby, Malkin & Ovechkin are definitely the ones to watch right now, though, no one can argue that. They're also all on Eastern Conference teams, which means they have a single road trip meeting with the Western Conference teams once every 3 years. So, if we in vancouver see (we did see him too) Alexander Ovechkin in 2006, we won't see him (as long as he still plays with Washington --a gimmie, really) again until 2010. And what happens if he's injured? 2014?

Long way off to see the new up-and-coming superstars. Pittsburgh rolls into town next season. I can't remember the last time Mario Lemieux played in Vancouver, but I'm sure it was closer to the mid-1990s and he's now retired.

Needless to say, the Western Conference really misses out on a lot of things. Superstar players in the East, traditional favorite teams (Toronto and Montreal are huge sellouts in Vancouver), and we end up seeing the same teams over and over again. Great if there's a good rivalry, but when our team gets constantly whupped by them, it becomes a drag after a while. Especially with the anemic offense the Canucks are "producing" this season.

As much as the fans are missing out on these games, so too are some of the players. Right now, I'm thinking of the college basketball games I was at when some of the NCAA teams came to Canada to play some exhibition games. The NCAA teams were permitted extra practice time by playing these exhibition games, so the little defense they went up against with the CIS (Canadian Inter-University Sport) and CCAA (Canadian Colleges Athletic Association) teams, meant they also had numerous practices before their seasons started in the U.S. We had people from all over the U.S. fly into Vancouver to attend these games. It was once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for some fans to see these players, but it was also an opportunity for some college players to play against upcoming NBA players.

I took a lot of pictures (part of my job at the games) and gave one of the guys a picture where's he's defending against Wayne Simien (now of the Miami Heat). It was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime event for him!! (he (not Wayne Simien) still emails because he really appreciates me giving him that picture).

So, for the Eastern Conference teams to rarely play against the Western team means that there are rookies and younger players who may never be able to tell their friends and family about the time they played against a hall of fame player. They're missing out too.

Imagine if no one in New York got to see Michael Jordan play? It's time to change the schedule.

One More Thing

3 years.

I've been writing this blog for 3 years now. I started it (thanks Dreama/Sky/whatever) on December 5, 2003 and I'm still here. Still a little depressed too, but that's for another post.

Sorry.

621st post, by the way.

Missing Days

Seriously, I have no excuse for not posting anything wince November 25th. No excuse.

We had a major snowfall hit us at the end of November and it effectively shut down the region for an entire week. My daughter ended up with an 10-day "weekend" because she had a Friday off, then didn't venture back to school (closures everywhere!) until a week the following Monday... December 4th. My wife had 5 of her 6 shifts cancelled as well, but because it's a union job, she still gets paid despite missing the shifts. Phew!

And I was home the entire time. I shoveled the driveway 5 times, which really put a 'damper' on my back. I went into Washington state on the Friday because the weather had cleared up by then.

But that's it. And I still didn't post.

I finished the web design project for the one company. I did do that. It turned out to be tougher than I thought as some of the coding for the menu system wasn't cooperating. I spent a couple days researching how to fix it and in the end, it turned out to be 3 words on 3 different lines. That's it. Very annoying.

I wrote a Christmas letter to go out to friends and family whom we've barely kept in touch with over the past year. My school stuff got in the way of that pretty badly. Some people aren't aware I've even graduated yet. Unfortunately, most of my humorous comments were edited out by my wife before she photocopied the letter at work. Meanie.

I put in a request for 2 books at the library back in October. Our library is part of a regional system, so I can request books from about 16 different cities in the area (about 24 libraries in total). I was #6 on the waitlist for one and #10 on the waitlist for the other. There are over a dozen copies of each book, so I figured it would be a few weeks before I heard anything. I finally got a call late Saturday saying that a book was in. I raced down to get it as I'm desperately waiting to read what I thought was the final book in this one series. The other book is, like, the 25th book in a series, so I don't think that one's ever ending. The third book in the one series isn't the final one either. I'm not disappointed, because the main character is quite likable. I finished the book on Monday, though. I was crazy into it and now it'll most likely be 2 years before the next book's published.

As for the other book, I asked where I was on the waitlist. I'm still #6, which means every copy of the book is over a month overdue. I know I'm not getting it for Christmas. It's a new hardcover just released in September.

I also read the entire Harry Potter series, save the Half-Blood Prince. I'm incredibly impressed with the 'maturing' of the characters and reading level throughout the series so far. It was kind of nice being able to finish one book, place it on the shelf, and pick up the next in the series. Even waiting to read the next book next week isn't too harsh!

There's still no word on the outcome of my appeal with the insurance company. I'm still pretty annoyed by the whole thing. If it was, as they claim, an intersection and I should have yielded for her, what makes them think she was there ahead of me? Did she stop? And if she stopped? Why? Was it because I was coming (and if she had the right of way, why didn't she just go and I would've rear-ended her --which wouldn't've happened as I would've stopped in time)? Or did she think she needed to stop instead of yielding? If she didn't stop and was just driving through, then she hit me in the passenger-side door of my car, meanig that I was already into the "intersection" when she hit me. I had the right-of-way simply because she hadn't arrived that the "intersection" yet. Told you I'm annoyed.

I've been catching up on TV shows over the past 10 or so days too. I'm still about 2-4 weeks behind, depending on the series. Studio 60 is deifnitely my favorite of the new season, with 'Jericho,' 'Heroes,' & 'The Class' immediately behind. I only ever watched one episode of 'West Wing,' so I can't say I'm a fan of Aaron Sorkin (yet). This series is well done, though. When it's out on DVD, I'm going to make sure my wife watches it. She can't stay awake past 10 most nights, so she'd never survive it's regular time slot.

I have one final eBay sacrifice going right now. It's a super-rare Beatles comic and the only known copies are in French and Dutch. There are also only 4 known copies in existence. 2 of the paperback edition and 2 of the hardcover edition. I own one of each. I figured putting a $100 reserve on the book was reasonable, as the artist who worked on it is super popular and his other "rare" book had a print-run of 500 and, coincidentally, sells for $500. I had another one with his art that had a print-run of 2,500 copies for the paperback and 15 for the hardcover. I sold that paperback for $100. I'm keeping the hardcover because my name's in it. So far, the bidding is under $20. I'm sad.

OK, I've really prattled on here and there are a few other things still to say. But they'll await another post.