Haven't bought any Christmas presents yet, but I got this cool laptop bag for my sister-in-law's birthday tomorrow. It's gold brocade and comes with a matching pouch for your cell phone/iPod. Only $29.97 at the Sony Style store! Don't worry -- rug sold separately, haha.



Some other interesting things here. I especially like these items:

Missing Image ;(

Laptop for Frustrated DJs -- the lid contains a touch-sensitive LCD panel which allows you to control your MP3s, either from the laptop itself or from a connected player. (Still just a concept piece.)

Missing Image ;(

Handbag with solar panel to charge your cell phone.

Missing Image ;(

Thwart would-be laptop thieves with the pizza box laptop bag!

(e:Kara,110) a photo-a-month calendar is a great grandparent gift. You just need 12 family photos (or more if you want to get creative with collages) + one for the cover. $19.99 minus 20% off with coupon code XPP112 at Kinkos if you order by December 15. Or do it the easy way with iPhoto.

... is definitely my favorite. Today at least, haha.

What a week. Good thing Thanksgiving wasn't at my house, since as of yesterday my kitchen looks like this:


Demolition day


The sink (cue foreboding music)


Debris piled up in what will some day be my bedroom. cozy, eh?

Arguably, it's already an [inlink]twisted,424[/inlink]improvement. Still, this alleged kitchen remodel is so daunting, and no one else seems to be stepping up to the plate to make decisions about it (I guess that's the problem with not having anybody else), that I honestly started to think maybe it would never happen. So I did what I always do in that situation and tricked myself into dealing with it by signing a contract with a general contractor to do the work. He decided to start yesterday.

Which is great, except now he's going to start asking me questions about appliances, lighting, cabinets, countertops, backsplashes, flooring, faucets, etc., that I really don't know the answers to. Oh yeah, and the part where water started pouring out of my downstairs ceiling light in the middle of the night because the partially demolished kitchen sink upstairs started leaking wasn't so great either. But he fixed that this morning, and I only had to empty my 13 gallon trash can filled with water three times last night.

Anyway, maybe it's the tryptophan, but I don't feel like going into all that. So you get off easy this time.

p.s. - Have I mentioned lately? You guys rock! Thanks (e:peeps)! Happy Thanksgiving!

One more media clip from the half-day whirlwind tourist trap tour. This was on Saturday, so there were a lot of tourists around, but unfortunately I still didn't hit any, haha.

::Download Flash Video::

Driving in SF is fun. Thanks to (e:Iriesara) for the video.

p.s. - (e:enknot) I keep expecting to see my Dad & Jean show up in the background of one of your videos. They've been in Chicago since last Thursday visiting my brother & sister-in-law. I'll tell them to keep an eye out for you.

(New usersound in honor of the English Beat show last night.)

I saw this on laughing squid and had to check it out: One-Day Interactive Installations of Grass Couches Across San Francisco



I walked up to the one in Alamo Square park and even let them take my picture. I should have brought Pookie along. He's so photogenic!

In case you're wondering, they used Ikea couches for the base and covered them in sod. Although they include instructions for sprouting your own from scratch on the photo frame. I remember that article from readymade magazine. Although I think I'd wait until the installation is over to see if I could get a display model cheap, haha.

p.s. -- English Beat were great last night! I can't believe I couldn't get anyone to come with me. Ok, maybe I should have asked more than one person, but still. Oh well, it's fun to go stag every once in a while.

p.p.s. -- speaking of grass, (omg, I can't believe I just said that), the opening band (local reggae favorite Native Elements) had the crowd singing along with their tribute to proposition 215. How can you not love this town? Come to think of it, maybe the letsgreenthiscity.com folks should consider some cross-pollination for their couches, haha.

UPDATE:

Ha! Josiah (Mr. Coffee) just sent me this pic of him on the grass couch at Civic Center. Small world!



Does anybody in SF actually have a day job?

It's funny how one Apple Care Case can ruin your whole day. Ok, just my afternoon. But now I feel like I'm a whole day behind on things I didn't even know about until an hour ago. All because my freakin' MAIL client stopped retrieving mail for my main account starting around 9:44 pm PST Sunday November 12. And here I just thought nobody loved me any more!

The funny thing is, it kept retrieving mail for my lwist account on the same server, so I didn't realize anything was wrong at first. If my junk mail had come to a grinding halt, I would have known something was wrong, haha.

Maybe I'm masochistic, but I like to ask why, Why, WHY did this happen, and why now? This was a particularly bad time for a setback because I have to get my kitchen and bathroom plans finalized to submit to the city tomorrow. I felt kind of on top of things this morning, but I really wanted to run all the options I've been thinking about by Mark. Yeah, it's great not to have to answer to anybody else about your decisions, but it's also scary as hell not to have a second opinion you trust and some sense of consensus on that final plan.

Anyway, after talking to Mark, and realizing the links he was sending were not coming through, and discovering I had a day and half worth of email on my server I didn't even know about, I got off the phone with him post haste, did some debugging, and decided to put my Apple Care service to use.

I guess all's well that ends well, but I so do not have time for this now. I'm going to see the Damned tonight, and little did I know all kinds of dinner plans have been made beforehand, so now I really have to get going. Plus, the Adored are opening, so I have to catch that! Thanks for the tip, (e:Leetee,201) .

p.s. -- I wish I could go see NY Dolls [inlink]mrmike,199[/inlink] with y'all! I was supposed to see them last Thursday at the Independent, but they sold out before Larry could get tickets.