Through LifeHacker.com I just learned about a NetFlix for books called BookSwim. I can immediately tell you that we’ll probably be signing up, and probably for the $36/month 11 books out at a time plan, since we seem to inhale them. This ought to keep our bookcases a little thinner though, so I won’t complain to much!

It’s been almost a month now, and I have to admit - I love living in the city again. There’s something about being lulled to sleep by the sounds of civilization that can’t be beat. The low grumbling of a bus passing by, the light sound of laughter from the patrons outside the bar 5 floors down, the occasional rattle of a police or fire truck en route to save the day - it’s all very therapeutic. - especially the soft glow of the city lights coming in through the windows. And with the way these windows are constructed, if I don’t want any of that I simply need to close them - they’re built to completely isolate noise.

It’s also cool that we’re becoming regulars at the farmer’s market - this week we got a free melon from the melon people, since every week we’ve been buying a couple. I’ve always had this secret desire to be part of a family, that’s why I loved truck driving so much. Speaking of which, next February I think I might see if I can’t become an ice road trucker. I’ve been watching the series and researching it and all they really seem to care about is you’re a tad bit nuts, you have a CDL, and a little bit of experience. It’d be a 2 month stint up in Canada’s Northwest territories, and at the end of it all I’d come out with $30,000 or so plus being able to see I was one of the elite. We’ll see though.

Picked up my new desk last week as well - it was from the build-it-yourself desk section at Ikea and is a sexy beast awash in polished stainless steel - it fits the room perfectly! But now I’m trying to get rid of some older computers I don’t use anymore - no one seems to want them at work, so I’ll probably head off to eBay and sell them - I have some high-end parts that would do quite well.

By the way, where in the hell can I buy a Klein bottle - I’m obsessed with them now. Them, and retro/mod clocks. I need to put my small collection up. The

The Art Crawl is coming up soon, I’m working on something to rasterbate and throw up on the door to say ‘Hi’ to people, hopefully it turns out like I have planned

Last night it stormed like crazy in the Twin Cities. Around 11pm it finally hit were we live. I was laying in our large comfy bed, watching the lightning outside, listening to the rain hitting the windows and came to the realization - maybe something bad happening doesn’t always have to follow good things happening. It felt good. Looking out and watching the blurred loglo of America in front of me - the crimson red sign of UBS, the stoic yellow of Wells Fargo, the patriotic Red white and blue of Bremer bank - it all seemed to calming.

Anyway, I’m leaving work early today because I have to get a new desk. I have a desk, it was given to me, but it’s not ‘my‘ desk. It doesn’t feel like me. A desk is almost a religious thing to a geek - we spend a lot of time there, it’s the focal point of our career and our hobbies - it’s our personality. The desk I was given is of steel and glass - quite beautiful to look at, that’s for sure - but it’s not me. It’s all show, no go. I’m going to Ikea, and I bet I can find something there for me.

Then, we have to go to Swank to pick up this mod 70s dresser we bought the other day - they sold to new owners so a lot of the stock is liquidated - all the accessories were 50% off. The dresser, which we sorely need, wasn’t included in the discount - but we bought a few other things there and talked him into letting us have it for $55 less then it had on the ticket - so all in all that was a cool deal.

So after a new dresser, then a new desk, we can finish unpacking and get rid of the boxes.

And be truly, home.

Sorry I haven’t written much - the Fringe Fest started on the 3rd and I had to errrr  a friend had to work on directing his play. It was fun. A helluva lot of fun. Next year will be even better!

 So it’s now official, we’ve moved! We now live in the Rossmor, and even with a few boxes full of (my) stuff lying around, the place looks fabulous - I will upload pictures eventually when I get my office together.
That same night Mishka’s friend Dubya came to visit for the next several days. Well, Saturday she wanted to sing karaoke, so I find a place close by. We get there, it’s fairly dead, and I’m expected to sing as well - so I have some liquid courage in the form of a double gin & tonic. Then I have another, and another, and … well, lets just say I have a date with 2 guys at the Town House tonight, apparently. Yeah, I over did it. Big time. So much so, that only now at 3:30 in the afternoon is my hangover starting to abate. I was essentially carried the 5 blocks home by 2 very hot women, and ended up passing out on the floor.

Don’t worry, I apologized to Dubya, and I apologize once more - I’m terribly sorry! And I really am, I hate losing control. I was drinking to fast, and I hadn’t had anything to eat and they all sort of stacked up on top of each other all at once. Oh well, lesson learned - I will never drink again until the next time!

I’ll write up a more humorous story regarding this event later when my mind has fully healed!

Well, I had my first true night* on the new Sleep Number bed and wow, it was awesome. I was up the second the alarm went off, shower, then Mishka and I went downstairs to Key’s Cafe and had some omelets and then I got to work 45 minutes earlier then normal. I like living in the city
Pickup the U-Haul at 3pm or so, start loading, hopefully get it all loaded since there’s a 70% chance of rain tomorrow - pay the other places rent, get back to St. Paul, unload, unpack, live happily ever after.
Currently, I’m listening to Kimya Dawson and The Moldy Peaches, check em out - Anti-Folk and all. (Also listening to an older Eels and the newest Gogol Bordello)

*Note: This is actually the second night of the new bed, but the first night I didn’t sleep well at all due to the fact that the controller was under my head and during the course of my slumber I managed to hit it enough that my number went from 40 to 85 - so the bed was sorta rock hard by the time I got up heh.

Here are some pictures of the new loft, it’s in the Rossmor, 500 North Robert Street. In the heart of downtown St. Paul! We’ve painted a lot of it, added some hardware to the walls to make organization better, but otherwise this is how it looks. After we’ve moved in, I’ll take some more pictures.

Click below to read on, or see the pictures over at Flickr

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So, sorry but there are no loft pictures today. I left my backpack with my camera at the new place last night, I’ll try to remember to grab it when I leave there tonight.
I’m so utterly sore it’s not even funny. I was looking forward to coming to work, nothing better then a nice relaxing 8 hour stint sitting down. Ah to do nothing! Well, no physical labor at least.

From Saturday at 10am until 9pm yesterday, if I wasn’t sleeping I was on my feet. Mishka painted the kitchen this delicious shade of orange - but I did the primer work, so I did help a tad bit. I attempted to install on vanity light in the bathroom, then returned it and picked up a better one that actually fit. I tried to hang a coat rack next to the door, where I learned a valuable lesson about modern construction techniques. Apparently the new place was built by using metal 2×4’s, then sheet metal, then drywall. Thusly, the holly wall anchors I tried to use, and promptly snapped in half when they hit the metal, don’t work. We need some special self-tapping sheetmetal screws, which we should have tonight. Using those screws, things went in great - without them, well, there’s a lot of spackle now being used. It’s all good, lesson learned, and all those things will be properly hung tonight.

I came home last night to an email telling me I was outbid on my playfield. Yes, the one I wanted really badly to create into a coffee table. No, I wasn’t around to counter-bid on it, as I was laboriously working on my dream. I emailed him, he had a bunch of playfields he placed on auction all at the same time, and I doubt all of them sold, so perhaps I can still get lucky.

Oh, and on Friday, the same day I said I was going to stop gaming and actually work on some projects, karma came up and bitch slapped me in the form of an email letting me know that I won a spot in the beta for Warhammer Online. I was pretty pleased at that, being it’s probably one of the most sought-after MMORPGs coming out soon, and everyone wants  to get a slot in the beta. But who did? Me, that’s who!

Till next time, which is later this hour, or later this week.

Just got a call a little bit ago, and it seems that the person living in what will be the new apartment has already moved out, since he’ll be out of the country for the next 3 weeks. They wanted to know if I wanted to pickup the keys and such this weekend, and it wouldn’t cost anything extra. Well hell yeah! This Saturday we’ll officially be moved in! I plan on bringing the camera, and I’ll take plenty of pictures of the lovely new place! Rawr!

 Indeed, I went to Mishka’s family reunion and made it alive! Not only that, I had a lot of fun as well - they are truly a great group of people, and I’d be happy to call them my family if I had the choice!

I’ll put up a few pictures later, maybe try to tell a story. But right now I’m sore from bowling (I think I came in second, overall) and I still, 2 days later, have a bit of a hangover. I’ll tell the story of the Best Buy purchased karaoke machine and the hotel bar later.

Needless to say, there were…. well, a ton of weddings going on that weekend - we were probably the least fruity dressed people in the hotel - except for our reunion T-Shirts in festive primary colors!

Also, I’ve made a real main page here, especially now that I’m passing out business cards with the address on it. It’s more of less a PhotoBlog now, though I’ll be a lot more choosy with what pics I upload.

Today my newsreader is filled with little more then iPhone fud. From people who love it, to people who despise it, to people who have been waiting in line since the beginning of the week. All said and done, either way, it’s one of the in phones to have this year. The other? Why it’s the Motorola RAZR 2, coming out soon - that’s the phone I’ll be getting when it comes out. My current phone is just too…. big. It’s a smartphone, and I purchased it with big plans to do something with it - and I just never managed to figure out what that something is. I really bought it because I stopped using my Blackberry, switched to a Razr, then realized just how much I miss said blackberry. But I want to try something that had games, tons of apps, fun, excitement, adventure - and ended up short. So I’ll wait patiently. Or maybe I won’t. (BTW: It took friggin forever to figure out a proper link to the phones, appreciate it!) I can’t change phones without paying full price until 08/2008.
Anyway - Mishka needs a new phone. Hers was pulled off the assembly line at around the time Reagan made his famous statement of “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”.
She can’t receive anything other then regular text messages - no pics or sounds. And if you place an at sign (@) in your text, she won’t receive anything after it. It has no camera, no internet access, nothing. So, I’m considering getting her an iPhone. Which is the whole point of this diatribe.

So, this weekend I suspect will be fairly bland. Yes, I have some volunteering to do, but it’s only an hour or so and then I’m done. I think we’ll probably be doing some packing, but who knows what’ll happen.

July 4th we’ll probably go down to the Riverfront and watch the fireworks - then she be heading to her parents the next for a reunion, then I’ll follow on Saturday (I’m on call all that week). Then… who the hell knows.

Waiting until August is killing me. I want out of were we are now! NOW! Argh! I have a ton of projects lined up to do this fall too. Not to mention Project SNAP! Gotta get started.

Meh, that’s enough for me. Time to get back to work. Write a little code, then work on some of these editorials I’ve been doing.

Oh, and Hi Wendy!