I was growing dissatisfied with the battery and processing speed of my five-year-old laptop, so when T said he could make space in the budget for a new one, I took advantage of the opportunity. I looked at my options and decided that what I really wanted was the same thing, just newer. So that's what I got (with twice as much RAM and a faster ( Read more... )

(Don't know what Moose Day is? See here.) Today has been fairly lazy -- breakfast at the cafe across the street, then spent some time upgrading the software on all my devices before we went for lunch (Thai) and a walk (before the rains come tonight). This evening I expect will be mostly leftovers and Dragon Age. So, not really a traditional holiday ( Read more... )

Now that I'm earning a little bit of money again, T decided he could stop stalling and buy a PS4. We'd been holding off partly for budgetary reasons, partly because there isn't a showstopper game out yet, and I'd resigned myself to playing DA:I on the PS3, but now I can have the shiny new graphics, yay ( Read more... )

In contract to last years multi-week extravaganza, I had a nice low-key birthday today: vet appointment in the morning, quiet afternoon at home, dinner out with a few friends. The vet trip was Tori's regular check-up, which now happens every couple of months or so. The news was extremely good -- all of her blood tests came back in the normal range ( Read more... )

This post coming to you from the train we are taking up to Sestri Levante, where we plan to spend much of the weekend lying on a beach. (The train doesn't have wifi, but one of my friends has a mobile hot spot. Pretty sweet.) Still sitting in the train station for the moment, but we should be underway soon ( Read more... )

Oh, like I could resist that subject line when we just had two noticeable earthquakes less than six hours apart. Supposedly they were about the same magnitude, 4.0 and 3.8 respectively, but the second was much scarier to me, probably because it lasted a lot longer, maybe a whole 10-15 seconds. (That may not sound long, but in earthquake terms, that ( Read more... )

Visiting T's mom in San Diego. Earlier today, T installed a wireless router, so I am Internet-enabled on my own computer, which is pretty awesome. Makes a nice change from past visits, where I was stuck on either my phone or her Windows box. Also, can I just wax poetic for a minute about how much easier it is to travel with my new Air than when I ( Read more... )

So a few weeks ago, you may recall that the universe granted me an iPad. At the time, I had every intention of making it my secondary "on the go" computing tool, for those times I didn't want to lug around my ancient and heavy MacBook. Really, I did ( Read more... )

So today, T received a gift of an iPad ( Read more... )

After probably a good year of debating the issue, T and I finally took the plunge and signed up for Netflix Instant. (Yes, I know how late I am to this party.) Now I am staring at the television section, open-mouthed, feeling like a kid in a candy shop and yet paralyzed with indecision. Do I pick up my rewatch of Babylon 5? (Sadly stalled because ( Read more... )