All right, I meant to post earlier today to be extra-sure I got this project started in time, but right now will do just as well. Also I do want to note that I'm running on PDT (soon to be PST), so if you're out there in New Jersey or Virginia or Florida and you notice that it's 12:01am and I haven't posted yet (because, obviously, you will be refreshing your friends page and glancing alternately at your watch continuously all day, every day until you see my daily), don't you give up on me. I'll still have plenty of time.

Anyway, I didn't have time to post earlier because I slept in and then had to go to work to do my usual selling of iPods and talking up the new MacBook trackpads (which, seriously, are so, so awesome).

But what I really want to get to tonight is ( pictures of Wallace in Halloween costumes. )

Yeah, cat pictures. Classic. More tomorrow! (More content, I mean, not more cat pictures. Not yet, anyway.)

And speaking of tomorrow: good luck in the marathon, k1cup!

Man, I have been experiencing the worst customer service trying to buy an e-gift certificate from sephora.com. Support my indignation and don't ever buy anything from them; I certainly won't ever try again.

In much more cheerful happenings, wallacecat suddenly got a hankering to play some old-skool NBA Jam, so he bought a Sega Genesis off eBay and it's been good times ever since. The graphics are so delightfully retro. But trying to beat Quackshot: Starring Donald Duck is seriously giving me quack attacks.

Also as part of our return to life in the early '90s, since Beverly Hills, 90210 has finally started coming out on DVD, we got the first disc from Netflix. And, wow, it is fantastic. By which I mean fantastically bad, but oh so amusing, and not just for the hair and clothes (although that's a substantial part of it). So, like 60 or 70 more discs of this? We're gonna be pretty busy for the next few months years.

Now, back in the 21st century, ( here's an update on life with my new MacBook. Cat pictures within! )

And finally, let us congratulate wallacecat, who tonight received his acceptance to Berkeley law school! California, here we come...?

Oh, hey, if any nerds body reading this is interested in doing that MacHeist thing and hasn't gotten an invite, I have 3 to give out. The premise is exceedingly dorky, but I got a couple neat freebies in the first heist, and, y'know, the stuff's free. Comment with your email address if you want in.

Ha! all those Apple devotees (myself included) who never thought Apple would announce an updated product on a day other than Tuesday were proven quite wrong today, but I'm very happy to be wrong on this point: new MacBooks released this morning! I guess those people who surmised Apple didn't want to announce on Election Day were right, bizarre as that reasoning seems to me.

So, new computer this week for me! Too exciting. For now, back to work to earn the money to buy the MacBook...

EDIT: I just called and put one on hold for me in Oak Brook to pick up by the end of the day—I'm not waiting until Friday!

Okay, so I had quite decided that November 10th would be the much-anticipated MacBook buying day, and then yesterday Apple goes and updates the MacBook Pros to the long-awaited Core 2 Duo chips (instead of just plain Core Duos which they had before and which they still have in the MacBooks). They would never update the MacBooks and the Pros on the same day, so now everyone's expecting the MacBook improvements to follow pretty soon. And I know I don't really need (well, don't at all need) maximum power, and the simple Core Duo should be more than sufficient for me, but nonetheless it would still annoy me if I bought the MacBook and then the next week it got updated (sure, 14-day return policy, but 10% restocking fee, so not that attractive a prospect). It's quite a pickle, isn't it?

That means it's time for a poll:

Poll #853155 waiting for the Core 2 Duo MacBook...
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 13

what would you do?

Ergh. I've got a cold and I feel kinda crappy today. But I felt absolutely horrible yesterday, so I'm hoping that by tomorrow I'll have progressed to just mildly yucky.

Now, your opinion is requested on something I was told this weekend:

Poll #846343 common knowledge?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 11

"all Asian girls love Jews!"

It'll be a few weeks before I get my new laptop, but I like to be prepared so I've been carefully considering all my buying options. I think I've finally decided that when the time comes I'll go to an Apple Store in the suburbs rather than buying online or at the campus computer store, because then I can still get the educational discount, I don't have to pay for shipping, and I'll save on sales tax (7% in Oak Brook as opposed to 9% in the city of Chicago—that's like twenty bucks less!). Instant gratification is a plus as well.

And a report on last Thursday's Doughty show will be coming up shortly. For real this time, I swear, unlike with the Sufjan and Bookeaters shows.

So! exciting news—I agreed to take on a few extra hours of teaching this quarter. I know, it's weird to be excited about having more work, but I'll be earning a bonus $1500 for this two months' work, it's only a few hours per week, and it doesn't require any grading or other additional labor outside the actual contact hours with the students. And, wallacecat says I can use most of the money to buy myself a new laptop. I knew I'd need to be getting a new one at some point pretty soon (my faithful, well-beloved but somewhat obsolete iBook will soon be celebrating its 4th birthday and is about due for another logic board failure), but I figured I'd have to wait either until the iBook actually died or I got a "real" job. The former of course could potentially happen at any moment, the latter, with luck, not until next summer; but now I don't have to wait. Well, I've agreed to wait until at least some of the money is in our bank account, but I'd say by next month this old iBook will have been put into well-earned retirement.

And I'll need to knit a new laptop cozy to fit my new, bigger screen.

Car fixed—yay!

iMac fixed—also yay! It was something with the power supply, as suspected. I've already forgotten exactly what they said—a "bulging capacitor" maybe? Hm, "bulging"—that doesn't sound very technical. Anyway, note to other G5 iMac owners, this is a known problem, so if your iMac suddenly goes dead (won't turn on or the like), don't let them make you pay for the repair if you're out of warranty!

Okay, my website is back up. (cue sighs of relief everywhere) I think the stuff had all been there for a while, but the server got moved to a Mac so I had to rename the folder to make it all visible again. And now there it is. Yeah.

Gee, it's been more than two weeks since my last post. Did you miss me? Anyway, I guess there's been some stuff happening. Most of it not very interesting, but here are the main points, in capsule form with details in the cuts:

( We went to the Jeff Tweedy show. It was awesome. )

( And went to see This Is Me Smiling. Also awesome. )

( My iPod broke. Then I fixed it. )

Then wallacecat's iBook needed replacing, ( so we got him a new one, with a graphics tablet for me, which tablet is the coolest thing ever. )

( I was so excited about the new laptop that I forgot to watch the Beauty and the Geek finale. )

( I hurt my foot and now I can't leave the house. )

That about sums it up. Now I'm looking forward to the Doughty concert next Saturday. Speaking of which, izzat, RSVP on that?

Oh, and I knitted a laptop cozy but this post is way long enough already so I'll save those pictures for a knitting-only entry.