The HUGE MASSIVE PROBLEM!!11 from work last night got ironed out without too much blood loss. And I designed a beautiful holiday card. And I'm having a good hair day. And a party that I thought was tomorrow night, when I could not go, is tonight, and I can go. And we're going out for steak in 30 minutes.

Yes!

1) After two months of waiting for all my immigration stuff to come through, I received my Latvian ATM card and booked a weekend trip to Berlin to see Interpol! And the card is lime green! And it has a chip thingy which my card from America doesn't have!

2) After fawning over the card and literally running around the room with my e-ticket receipt (yay, cheap tickets on EasyJet!), I logged into my bank's website and paid all my bills for the month in about two minutes! It's all centralized right there on the bank's website, in English, and shows up instantly! This saves me hours, literally, of waiting to pay all my bills at the post office, where they would have to be paid otherwise!

3) I got all of this week's work for the "language awareness course" I'm doing done today, and while it could have been drudgery, was actually really fun because it's some of the most academic work I've done since college, which I really miss for its vigor. Lexical priming, anyone? Hmmm? (Bueller?)

4) Sushi!

5) Herbal tea and listening online to the BBC News Quiz!

We had a Halloween party for the kids tonight (my kids and my two nieces), which was good fun.

No steak, though.

And it has a chip thingy which my card from America doesn't have!

Oddly, America (the place where most identity theft happens) is behind Europe on CC security. You have to enter a PIN everywhere here. I almost NEVER sign for a purchase... and when I do, I get the arse about it. "When are you people going the proper system in place?"

But of course! I got my mitts on some new muzeek today. Mainly, a Merle Haggard Best of collection, A 3-CD set of Jamaican Ska from Trojan records, and a 2-CD set of Bill Monroe's music.

So now I gets to marinate in a nice Ska-bluegrass sandwich for the remainder of the evening.

I unload used books from boxes and cars for a living. Occasionaly people throw me a buck or two for my trouble. Today I got FORTY-FIVE BUCKS!

Also, two of my cousins from the Old Country (Italy, my mom's side of the family) were in town and visited me at the store. It was cool to see them, even with the language difficulties).

LT! Have you ever thought about how similar ska and bluegrass are?

Ska: usually fast with the guitar/organ on 2 and 4 [uhn-cha uhn-cha, etc]

Bluegrass: usually fast with the mandolin on 2 and 4

Today I got FORTY-FIVE BUCKS!

What, from one person?

$20 from one lady for unloading her SUV full of books. $10 from a regular who did better with his sale than usual, and 3 five-dollar tips for unloading and whatnot. Still not a bad day. I bought some crabcakes that pips is frying up for me (I love crabcakes) and a big ol' bottle of Lenny Bruce beer

Crabcakes are my favourite. Cool beer... never had it.

I miss Sam Adams.

I got all three of the Joy Division re-issues today, and have been happily listening to the most depressing band ever for about five hours now. Also, I finally beat that fucking Allman Brothers song on Guitar Hero II's "medium" level, after I-won't-tell-you-how-many tries. Now we're going to have dinner on buffalo wings and tortilla chips 'n' dip, while watching "Bewitched" (an episode from season three) on DVD. Life is so good.

I had bunny tracks ice cream. And skipped the gym.

while watching "Bewitched"

'First there was Dick York, then there was Dick Sargent. You don't switch Dicks midstream!' - Taylor Negron.

Nice tip, jonmc!

I was supposed to go out for steak too, but the wait was too long to make our movie time.

The only place around without a 40 minute wait was Dustin's BBQ. I had the fried shrimp dinner with coleslaw, a baked potato, greasy garlic bread, and a massive iced tea.

Husband and I saw Michael Clayton this evening. It was good. Last night I saw Dan in Real Life with a friend. It was pretty good. I want to see Juno next (YouTube link).

i just saw the mountain goats!