My New Toy (my mortgage-signing present to myself)

So I was thinking of treating myself to a spa day and massage at Osento, but that requries forethough and planning, and besides which, I"m not all tense and knotted up anymore anyway. Then I was thinking of commemorating it with a nice big serving piece in my china pattern, but Macy's didn't have anything I liked in stock and I ended up just getting another dinner plate. This left me susceptible to indulging in an item I've been drooling over for some time.

Back when I was first contemplating the usefulness of a cell phone, I kept protesting that I wouldn't get one until I could get a device that combined a phone with a pda, since both were the sort of object you should carry on your person all the time and I couldn't see carrying two devices. Well, back then there weren't a lot of options for that sort of combination, and I succumbed to the desire for a cell without holding out for the pda function. And then I saw the Treo 650. And it was lust at first sight.

So in my last days before I really crunch down on the budget (see next post), I am celebrating the new stage of my life with an expensive little piece of electronics. The whole e-mail/web-browsing functionality is irrelevant to me since I have no interest in trying to do either thing on that tiny a screen. But the built-in camera is nice -- and probably means I'll be able to put off getting a digital camera for quite a while, since about the only thing I'd be using it for these days is images for the web site, and they don't need high pixel counts.

Running the Numbers

I love spreadsheets and playing with numbers. (My co-workers have decided this is an Amusing Quirk and tease me about how many graphs and tables I include in each investigation report.) A number of years ago, I decided it was time to unleash this tendency on my own finances. ( Read more... )

Next step ... Taxes!

Yay for superbowl commercials!

Yes, I really do watch it just for the commercials. Bayer had its first superbowl commercial this year -- the one for Aleve with Leonard Nimoy. (I successfully guessed what the gimmick was going to be based on a very slight hint on the in-house newsletter description.) But what just made my day was hearing Welsh spoken during a superbowl commercial. (Beer commercial: people from lots of different countries saying the equivalent of "cheers" while raising a glass. I didn't notice what brand it was for -- it gave the impression of being a a promotion of beer in general as a concept.)