The joke is that the New Year is the time to make resolutions to break soon thereafter. I’m not usually much of a resolution maker, but this year I’m jumping on the bandwagon: I’m gonna un-abandon this blog and post more often! Wohahaha, let’s see if I can keep it up. :)

Wasn’t that lovely? I mean, they read! And they know stuff about their books! And they helped me find a used copy! Oh and you know what, on the way out the door, they had a small stack of Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) for free! I picked up one.

To be completely fair, even used, the book was more expensive to buy at the local place than it would’ve been to buy new at Amazon. And I had to walk out of my way to get it. But … it was a nice experience, don’t you think? More lovely than Amazon can deliver, I think. Although Amazon is very pain-free, of course.

I know it’s a losing battle; there are fewer and fewer book shops within walking distance anymore. Most of them have closed or moved locations these last few years. But still, I personally still believe that they have something to offer that Amazon can’t. You can even order from them online at indiebound.org, but well, I really doubt that they can compete with the Amazon (and even Barnes and Noble) website.

Having said all that… I’m pretty excited about this Valentine’s because Watson is playing Ken and Brad on Jeopardy, starting tonight! I’ve been waiting for this since June! :D

But lest you think I’m a total grinch, I thought this article in today’s Washington Post about a couple celebrating their 80th Valentine’s was sweet.

But also, as y’all know, we moved this year, right around the time of the tournament (I know, what were we thinking?!) and it was so busy. I am sure there are people out there who are organized and label their boxes and then unpack them and clean and blah blah, and even they don’t like moving. Well… I am NOT organized and there was no labeling, and at the end, we were throwing stuff in paper bags and moving those over and then the cleaning! There are floors that need mopping, and trees dropping branches and leaves, and laundry, and etcetc. It’s calmed down a lot since the beginning, but still. (Hrmmm, actually quite a number of you have had to deal with my litany of complaints every time you say “hey” so let this be a preview and warning to you. Although CT gets it the worst, I have been sending her whining unsolicited emails inviting her to visit me so I can show her the new place but we both know I just want someone to unpack stuff and put it away and organize and clean and get me a drink!)

But ANYWAY, enough of that, FOR NOW (more coming, that’s a threat, not a promise)! For doing so well (note how I am being gracious, although less so now that I am pointing out my graciousness), I thought K deserved an acknowledgment, late or not.

This year’s Know-Nothing Official Final Standings although we all knew how it was going to pan out a long time ago:
Special K (nice job, only one to break 60 points): 63
mim, Pol (beginner’s luck!): 59
Yut: 56
President of the US: 55
Lew, Chalk: 54
CT, misa, Seth (way outta the cellar): 48
shio: 46
YuHK (alone at the bottom!): 45

I have put CT in charge of your prize! Collect it when you see her. Congrats, aren’t you glad Air Force wasn’t in it this year:)

But he insisted that I was, anyone would agree! And I said, I don’t know dude, I mean, consider everyone we know! Lots of nerdy types, variously! I think I might be a v. minor nerd if that!

So I polled you guys. It’s a small sample size but , I think I was right! Leaf was the only vote for yes, everyone else basically said, ok, nerdy, but not a big nerd! So I win. And that’s what’s important.

Art museum director Super Bowl trash talk: It’s on.

The art directors of the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art have a little bet about the winner of the Super Bowl. The loser loans the winner “an art work that they would really miss for three months.” So if New Orleans wins, Indianapolis will loan The Fifth Plague of Egypt by Turner to New Orleans, and if Indianapolis wins, New Orleans will send Ideal View of Tivoli by Lorrain to Indianapolis for three months. Not that I know much about art, but the trash talk is good stuff, reminds me of my family. HAHAHA.

[via kottke]

I threw my covers over my ears, trying to ignore them, and then I swear I heard, “…we’re just gonna have to do this the white man way … take this stuff back to Home Depot…” Uh… what?! Did I just hear that right?

Well… I should keep my nose out of this, right? But maybe it’s just a misunderstanding and I ought to help. So I comb my hair as best as I can and brush my teeth and step out, still wearing my indoor clothes (pink stretchy pants… v. lovely), eyes somewhat puffy feeling. So it turns out that the downstairs windows are leaking.

There were people there to install new windows, but the neighbors had only moved their furniture out of one bedroom (into the living room), so they wanted them to install new windows and carpet and etc only in that room, come back another day so they could move the other bedroom’s worth of stuff into the living room before the work got done in the second bedroom — sort of like one of those puzzles where you have to move one piece out, but there’s lots of pieces and you have to shuffle them around, is there a name for those puzzles?

The contractors had thought that they were going to be installing all of the windows in one trip for a certain price. They were mad at our landlord for not making everything clear, either to them, or the tenants. They’d been having “a frustrating morning” which was as close as we got to talking about the yelling because I certainly wasn’t going to ask them if they’d said what I thought I’d heard. They said they were just going to do the one bedroom, which I relayed since the neighbors had been madly trying to cover all the furniture in the second bedroom because they thought the windows were being done regardless. Poor neighbors, I think they were relieved that their things weren’t going to be dust covered, knock-overed messes.

Now I’m going back to bed… no, wait, I have to go blog about this, it’s too crazy.