Jen and I virtually celebrated New Years with Ty over IM. That was pretty fun. Defineitly a highlight of the evening.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL IN THE EST!!!

HAPPY 2006

Happy birthday to lifeonwry. Hope you have a good and relaxing day.

Well, the car will not be fixed until after new years. I called the place we left it at last night and their service department is closed until Monday. I called other mechanics and they told me it would be best to leave it there. The belt doesn’t break for no reason, and there is probably somethign else wrong on the accessories. Perhaps the alternator, the A/C compressor, or anythign else attach to that belt. Yippie…

While I was sick I was of course watching / listening to a lot of TV. I must have seen the swiffer commercial where the guy cleans up the crime scene about a million times. At the tail end of the commercial there is a burst of “police” radio. I was able to make out that the radio actually says “This is Toronto International Airport”. I just thought it was funny.

A gigantic thank you needs to go to Karl. After tow truck driver Troy dropped me and the car off at the ford dealer in Aurora Karl drove me home. I can’t possibly thank him enough. When I dropped the keys in the drop box I noticed a sign taped to the door. The sign says “Service and parts department closed from December 30th to January 2nd in observance of the New Year.

Great… In the morning I plan to call them and see if theres any possibility of replacing the belt tomorrow. If they say no, I will contact the other service centers in the auto mall. Perhaps I’ll get lucky.

I also got a side job from the Tow Truck driver. He asked me to help his mother get her email setup. I told him I would for $50. So perhaps I will at least get a little out of it. This of course depends upon weither or not my car can get fixed. I it doesn’t I’ll have to call and postpone it. I jsut hope he doesn’t get to upset with me.

Damn cars. Im sitting on 88 waiting for a tow truck. I seem to have broke a belt. I heard a pop then the alternator light came on.

I jsut saw on CBS 2 Chicago that the Berghoff resturaunt in chicago is closing its doors. February 28th is the last day they will be open. This is a terrible shame, they have bene open for over one hundred years. I have eaten there a number of times and will be very sad to see it gone. Anyone want to get together for a group outing to Chicago for one last dinner at Berghoff?

The pneumonia is gone. I still get 5 more days of antibiodics for my sinuses though. Oh and my BP is back to normal too.

Ok, I think I may have to cancel my Capital One card on a matter of principal. I was watching TV last night and thier commercial came on. At the end of this commercial they ran a card that said, “There are only 364 shopping days left until Christmas.” It was irritating enough that the past few weeks has had them warning of the impending calamity lest someoen forget to show thier love via debt. Now, post Christmas they are still at it, and still using Christmas as an excuse. When did love become synonymous with paralyizing debt? When did showing you care about someone require you to use a credit card? This society is so hung up on materialism that it’s hard to imagine much of a future. I’m jsut as guilty, I over spend for the holidays all the time. Although I am proud to say I didn’t put any gifts on my credit card at all.

Before you ask… Yes I am insane… No I don’t need professional help, that’s what the Ren Faire is for…

Today the bookstore gave out bags of chips, with chip clips attached. I ate the chips and didn’t know what to do with the chip clip to keep me from forgetting to take it home. I decided that I should just clip it to myself, as that seemed a safe bet for getting it home. I walked out into the circdesk area, home of ‘the ladies’. I got a chuckle out of each one as they noticed what I had done. Suprisingly I didn’t have to explain the joke, they got it!!!

Yes…

Thats right…

I had a “chipclip on my shoulder”.

Hey… I have been sick for weeks, give me a break… It’s also the last day of work until Jan 2nd.

Woohoo, last night I found my camera. It was where I remembered placing it. The funny thing is, where I was looking wasn’t the right “where”. You see, I last had my camera at work the day I brought the Qube home to return it to Jon. Well rather than try to carry multiple things in my arms I put everything in an old laptop carry bag. I gave Jon the Qube, and had left the camera in the bag. This much I remembered. What I didn’t remember was that at some point I had already brought something else home in one of those bags, thus putting two of the bags in my house. I have been scouring the previous bag looking for the camera when it was actually in the other bag that had gotten buried in the holiday hubbub. Boy do I feel silly. Here how it happened. Last night I was nearing complete panic and started tearing the house apart looking for the camera when I came across the correct bag. As I pulled it out I thought to myself “Hmm I thought I put this by the door so I could return it to work… Odd I don’t remember it being here.” It was then I realized it was another bag entirely and when I opened it, sitting at the bottom all nice and snug and secure, was my camera. I immediately pulled it out, and went and took pictures of the Christmas tree.

The rest, that didn’t turn out as nice, are in my Christmas Gallery for 2005.

I had enough of staying home ‘recooperating’. I decided to come in to work today. It’s probably not the best idea, but at least theres no screaming kids, errands to run, or other irritating aspects of home life. Of course all of my co-workers are all telling me I should be home in bed. Believe me, if I thoguht I could rest, I would be. Atl least there are no students here today, so things are relatively quiet. I already printed the weekly overdue notices.

I added a new category, “Fun & Games”. The main reason for this is so that people can avoid my Nintendo DS ramblings. To that end… Here I go again…

I picked up Bomberman DS and have been playing it the past few days. It’s fun. I am dissapointed that they did not include Wi-Fi support. I have heard rumors that the next one will. I’ll believe it when I see it. I suspect that the company doesn’t want to include Wi-Fi becasue they would have to maintain servers etc. Of course I could be mistaken, and the Wi-Fi could be something that Nintendo themselves maintain. Bomberman does at least include the single cartridge multiplayer capabilities.

My recovery continues. Thats a good thing because I can’t stand to be home for much longer. The hellspawn have returned with a vengance and will most likely be here until Christmas Eve. They have been here since about four p.m. and have been at each others throats ever since. So much for any more quite recovery time.

Had a surprise IM waiting for me earlier today after my nap. Out of the blue Jerry B. sent me a “Happy Holiday” message. That was quite the surprise. I just wish I had actually been online at the time. It has been an extreemly long time since he and I have chatted. I still need to write up a review of his C.D. too.

Well I think I’m finished decorating the tree. I didn’t put all the star trek / star wars animated light and motion ornaments on the tree this year. One reason is that I bought L.E.D. based light strings for the tree and in order to run the other decorations I had to put a string of normal white lights on the tree. It’s an interesting effect in combination with the blueish-white snowflake lights, and the yellow of the flickering candle lights theres a soft white glow in areas of the tree now. If I am ever able to find my camera again I will take pictures of it.