Namaste, Bitches

The in-laws are getting us a big-screen t.v. for our 10th wedding anniversary (which really isn't til next January, but oh well).

I don't really know how to respond to this considering how much my mother-in-law bitches & moans about money & the lack thereof. When I bitch & moan about money, it's because we're broke. Honestly broke.

Why buy us a television when the actual cash would be more useful? Why buy us anything when they need the money? What the fuck? We have a t.v. Actually, counting Rob's tv/vcr combo & his 6-month old portable DVD player, and some little mini tv, we've got 4 t.v.'s.

So instead of giving us useful $$$ or nothing at all & saving useful $$$, we're getting a big-ass t.v. which we won't be allowed to sell.

Granted, I am a techno-whore and the thought of a bigger t.v. is marginally appealing, not that I ever really get to watch t.v. that I want to watch, so the gift is really more for Rob, the couch potate & remote control control-freak. But oh well, we're not going anywhere for a couple of years. We can sell our current television & make some space. Where to put the snakes? Hmmmm... Playing 'Worms' might be interesting.

We rented The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy last night. We should have waited, but I've been wanting to see it for awhile now & never got around to seeing it in the theater. It was sort of a mish-mash of all 5 books of the trilogy (if you haven't read them, you won't understand why there are 5 books in the trilogy & don't bug me if you don't get it) plus some extra plot thrown in for less abstract-minded viewers. It was overall a pretty cool movie & they kept a lot of the dialogue intact.

So it's going to be delivered sometime Saturday. I got to clean this place up a little & make room, all while doing homework & studying & reading... Ye Gods!

I've had a tape for almost 20 years that the Hula Rat put together for me, back when she was oh-so-keen on Wall of Voodoo & Stan Ridgway. It's called 'The Dashboard Mary Collection' from an independent literary magazine she tried to run for awhile. Ah, the days of our youth - Dashboard Mary, freeway shootings, TCBY's frozen yogurt, the Glendora Library. Yup, we were living dangerously, I tell ya. So anyway, since I bought this computer I've been trying to figure out how to tape music from my stereo onto my computer so I could burn a CD from it, specifically for that tape. I nagged & nagged Ann soooo bad for a copy after listening to hers every time we went out together. I think it was 'Leroy' by the Fibonaccis that did it for me. I know eventually it's going to break or something, and I will be devastated, especially since I can't seem to rip like, 5 or 6 songs online from any source, and getting the actual CD's are nigh impossible anymore. Especially trying to find 'Paintwork' by The Fall. I had to leave it off for now because it's pretty much non-existant & I taped over that part of the tape because 20 years ago, the song really annoyed me. Anyway, now I can play the CD's over & over again & not worry about a frail piece of plastic that will get eaten by a ravenous tape deck somewhere along the line.

After arguing w/Rob for a good 2 hrs. I finally obtained the correct splitter to hook the stereo to the 'Line-In' hole in the computer, downloaded a program called Music Match, and voila - a whole new world of possibilities. I can finally get rid of all these recorded-from-radio tapes I've been hauling around for years & years. Supposedly, MusicMatch will recognize the track-breaks on a commercial music tape & will split the tracks on the computer, but I had to manually sit there w/Dashboard Mary, just like trying to record tape-to-tape w/out including all the pauses. The music is relatively clear for a 20-year old tape.

And now that I've figured out how to hook a stereo to my computer & actually get it to play music through my computer, a VCR shouldn't be so scary. As long as Rob unhooks the VCR for me, because we've got this house wired up like NASA w/the TV, VCR, DVD player, my computer, all the surround-sound speakers, etc. It's kind of intimidating.

In other news, Miranda popped a boy out tonight. She sounded pretty lively when I talked to her on the phone - I don't think the drugs have worn off yet.