Sorry for the sparseness

Unfortunately I haven't been keeping up with this thing very well as of late. I would like to blame it on being too busy with all the stuff related to the new apartment or work or something like that, but it really comes down to the fact that we don't have internet at the apartment yet. This makes it so that my only reliable source of internet is work and I'm not really comfortable blogging at work, especially when I've only been working a week. That said, I'm doing exactly that right now because today was FttP's (holy crap I didn't even realize that one of his nicknames could be acronymed into an internet protocol) first day at IBM and he carpools with me so I also got to start work at 7:30 today and the average start time for my team is about 9:45. Combine that with the fact that I know I won't be out of here until probably 5:30-6:00 anyway, and I can spare a few minutes for this.

So, beyond all that, what else is new? Well, we've gotten past all the big spending for the apartment with the addition of a 6,500 BTU/hr air conditioner ($130) and a new vacuum ($100). We decided to get the airco so we could survive the summer and the vacuum because Sears had a decent sale and we looked at our spending thus far (weighed against how many things we got for free) and decided we could afford a vacuum instead of getting a 3rd-generation handmedown from Josh and Moriah. If we didn't have all the carpet I would have been fine with an old vacuum but about 85% of our floor is carpet and with my allergies $100 bugs for a 12-amp upright with brand new HEPA filter technology seemed like a wise investment.

The two best things about the vacuum (other than that it does in fact do a very good job on carpet) are its color and the fact that it uses one of those clear tornado canisters instead of a bag. The color is basically iPod white; when I pointed this out and called it an iVacuum, Mike immediately corrected me and called it an iSuck. The canister is cool because you can see your progress (at which point the "hi-score" concept) vastly improves cleaning proficiency and because the tornado action acts like a centrifuge and you get this basically sand at the bottom with a layer of fluffy whipped dust on top. Okay so it's actually kind of gross but I find it fascinating.

Boy that's a lot of text about a vacuum. Okay last thing and then it's work time (I have a mere hours until everyone else shows up). Nina and I don't own any game systems other than my Gameboy SP, but yesterday went a long way towards fixing that. First, we pre-ordered DS Lites yesterday. When I asked if I could reserve a specific color, the guy said, "Sure. Do you want white or white?" Apparently Sony took a cue from Henry Ford; the US only has one color option at launch and for a while afterwards. Next, FttP suggested that we get a Playstation and beat Final Fantasy VII this summer. He's trying to get his parents to find his PS2 and ship it up, but for the time being we borrowed a cable-less one from Porkchop and got Kershaw's PS1 cables that he's not using and utilized the only known instance of Sony maintaining backwards compatibility with connectors to create a working PS2. Add Kershaw's PS1 memory card and we're in business. Only one more problem; we couldn't find his FFVII. We did find his FFIX though, which is probably the second-best in the franchise (definitely if you only count the ones we can play on a PS2). Good stuff.