kapgar

Whoo, black diamond...

Okay, several of you asked, either in comments or e-mails, what it was that I got for Katie for Christmas, so I figured I'd do a bit of a gift round-up.

For her from me:

• A collector's copy of Marley & Me by John Grogan
• A ladybug necklace from Red Envelope
• A floppy-eared dog stuffed animal
• And the piece-de-resistance, a diamond loop necklace

I would've taken a picture of the actual necklace itself either on Katie or off, but she's asleep and I don't want to wake her up right now. So you'll have to settle with a representative image of it from Jared.com.

For me from her:

• A Chicago Bears Tradition "B" hat
• A Chicago Bears NFC North champion long-sleeve T-shirt
• A Chicago Bears Devin "Windy City Flyer" Hester jersey
• A copy of the Chicago Bears edition of Monopoly (don't see a theme yet, do you?)
• A Hallmark chihuahua Christmas tree ornament (not that I'm a big fan of chi-hoo-a-hoo-a's, but it's part of the series of Puppy Love ornaments that I had been buying for her over the years; she just beat me to the punch on this one; so it has sentimental value to us as a couple)
• And, of course, the Palm TX that I detailed a bit yesterday

I love everything she gave me and, thankfully, she liked all that I gave her, which made for a great season of gift giving.

Phew!

So how the hell do I top it next year?

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Latest Fun With Dead Trees reviews - It's been a while, but we're back with a few new reviews. I stop by with a review of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys while Claire chimes in with both Richard Avedon's Evidence 1944-1994 and Augusten Burroughs' Running With Scissors. I will, hopefully, return soon with a review of Daniel Clowes' Ghost World, which I read yesterday.

We wish you a Merry Christmas...

I am absolutely dying to give Katie her Christmas gift. I mean it. I’m dying. I’ve had the thing in my grubby mitts for a couple weeks now and it’s killing me.

However, the fear of her not liking it is balancing out the equation a bit.

Do I want to give it to her, or do I not want to take the risk?

Do I?

Don’t I?

Dammitalltohell!

The thing I’ve got going for me is that everyone I’ve either shown or described the gift to has absolutely loved it. That’s a plus. But Katie is certainly not “everyone” and that’s why I’m still worried.

Can I just give her the damn thing (well, “things” would be a bit more accurate although it’s only one of the gifts that I’m truly worried about) already?

Grrr…

Well, anyway, just in case I don’t get a chance to post again (we’re going to be traveling all over the place and I can only hope I will find a chance to sneak on the Web a bit, but I make no guarantees), I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, and whatever other holidays are happening around this time that I may be overlooking right now.

Tune in soon for my end-of-year wrapup.

Pieces, pieces, pieces of me...

Not quite my traditional mystery photo ID game, but still something interesting all the same.

The following photo shows (pick one)…

A. A visual representation of James Frey’s profits and future earnings potential after Oprah had her way with him and his book A Million Little Pieces.

B. A new strain of melanoma contracted by metallic surfaces.

C. The drain in our kitchen sink after two nights of making Christmas cookies.

If you answered “A,” you would be correct.

Nah, it’s actually “C.” Yeah, we’ve spent the last two nights rolling out and baking four different types of Christmas cookies. Of course, Katie did a vast majority of the work. But I tried to help. Dunno how much help I really was, but I tried. And that’s all that truly matters, right?

Right?

Thy leaves are so unchanging...

Well, let's just say if these "leaves" do change, there's something very wrong happening in my townhouse because this is a fake tree.

As stated over on Flickr, it's taken us two weeks, but the damn thing is finally done! YAY!!!! Now we can stuff all the storage containers back in the attic... only to have to take them back down in a couple more weeks.

*uncontrollable sobbing ensues*

Well, enjoy it anyway...

In case you're interested, about halfway up the picture, to the left of the white bear in the red vest and just above the small green knitted wreath is our Bananas For You ornament. Right smack dab in the center of the tree where it belongs!

Oh, and a big ol' "thank you" to Dustin who bought me Firefly: The Complete Series on DVD for my birthday. I am sooooo looking forward to watching the rest of this series. And, yes, I do know and love the theme song very much. Damn fine one. Been a part-time earworm for some months now.

I'm just a sentimental fool...

Clearly, SJ thinks I hold some mystical control over the heavens. Not only did my birthday fall on the same day as the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, but it also "just happens" to be the annual Day of the Ninja... and we all know my long-held belief that ninja kick pirate booty.

Do I have some secret ability to make the stars align in my favor? Do I control destiny to make everything work out my way?

I'll let you in on a little secret... yup.

Okay, enough self-aggrandizing.

My haul this year included money and gift cards, with which you can never go wrong. Good stuff. However, I also received copies of Fables, vol. 1: Legends in Exile, and Ghost World from Karl (you rock, Karl), which were very cool surprises. And Katie picked me up Scrubs, season 3, and season 4, as well as 24, season 5, on DVD and an iTunes giftcard.

But despite all this complete and utter coolness, you wanna know what was my favorite gift? It was the Hallmark "Bananas for You" Keepsake ornament that Katie got me. I absolutely love it.

Admittedly, I have a thing for cool Christmas tree ornaments. Especially when Katie buys them for me because I always know she's going to have put some personal thought into it and it will have some special meaning to the both of us.

Plus it hearkens back to when we first started dating. We started seeing each other one week to the day before Christmas in 1998. Being such a new relationship, I wanted to get her something as a gift, but without it being too over the top. I didn't want to scare her too much early on by giving her some huge gift. Could've been bad, right? So I got her a Keepsake ornament of a black lab puppy that was wrapped in Christmas lights. I think it's still one of her favorite ornaments.

And this one is just as special to me. In fact, as soon as I got home, I grabbed a hook and put it on the tree.

Of course, it remains the only ornament on our tree so far.

Yeah, we really need to get around to finishing that.

Whoops.

There's a camera rolling on her back...

Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me!

Here's an e-mail I got from SJ recently regarding my birthday...

Well, SOMEBODY has been a VERY GOOD BOY this year! Look what's showing on your birthday:

(click on the image for more details)

A "VERY GOOD BOY," my ass. ;-)

"Evil, wicked, naughty Zoot!"

Been around the world...

I have no single good thing to talk about today, so I figured I'd shoot for some snippets. Been a while anyway.

Holiday decorating
While we did get some more holiday decorating done last night as we watched TV, you could tell there was little to no joy in its execution. I fear we may have overdone it with holiday spirit last year and now we're completely drained. For the most part, we just set up stuff around the house like Katie's beloved Willow Tree nativity scene the pieces of which she's been collecting for a few years now. I started to separate some tree ornaments and break apart the cluster of hooks, but we never hung any of them. We still plan to, we just don't know when.

Wii hunt
Apparently, both Katie and my parents were trying to find me a Nintendo Wii for my birthday. And, as would be expected, neither party had much luck. However, yesterday, I was given Katie's blessing to run out to one of the early sales, this one at Toys 'r' Us, to see if I could score a system.

Yeah... no. I got there about 8 a.m. because the TrU salesperson told her on Friday that they would have them on Sunday and I need only show up an hour before opening. However, people were lining up as early as 6 a.m. and a sympathetic salesperson handed out claim slips to the systems they had in stock at about 7:15 a.m. so they could avoid the cold and wait in their cars. So I missed out.

But I will try again. I may start pulling some of my strings to see what I can do so I don't have to wait in a line again.

Shredded
There are household items that people "kill" on a regular basis. And most people seem to be cursed by consistently killing several of the same thing. For some, it's a cellphone (my FSiL). For others, it could be anything from blenders to power tools to lawnmowers (my dad) to snowblowers (again, my dad) to God only knows what else.

For Katie and me, it seems to be shredders... yeah, the big ol' thing that you use to obliterate important documents. We use it to kill not only old billing statements, but all those damned annoying "you've been approved" credit card applications. And the sheer volume of what we've given our shredders has burned out two of them. The motor burned out on the first, which is wholly understandable. The weird thing is the second one, on which we seemed to have practically liquefied the teeth. Yeah, you read that right, half the metal teeth on this thing are worn down to nubs. But the other half are completely fine. So now, until we get a new one, we have to make sure the sensitive information on the sheet goes down the shredding side of the shredder so it gets chewed up. Annoying.

What do you seem to have bad luck with?

The Amazing Race
They're gone! They're gone! If you watch the Race, you know who I'm referring to. If you don't watch it, no need to worry. And, if you haven't had the opportunity to watch it yet, I haven't ruined anything. But... they're gone! They're gone!

That's what I want...

The Christmas gift shopping season has now begun in earnest for us. Actually, for me, Katie has to buy both a birthday and a Christmas gift. She's got ideas but is having trouble finding them. Or so she says.

I got notification that one of my gifts for her came in yesterday. I looked on the doorstep this morning, which neither of us really go by all that often, and, sure enough, it was there.

I was so happy that I got to it first. Now it's hidden somewhere in our house and, as soon as she reads this post, I'm certain she'll start combing the place looking for it.

Heh. Sorry, writing that last sentence made me think of Spaceballs. The scene where they're, literally, combing the desert looking for Lone Starr, et al, and they use giant combs...

Spaceball Officer: You find anything?

Trooper #1: Nothing, sir.

Spaceball Officer: You find anything?

Trooper #2: Nothing, sir.

Spaceball Officer: Did you find anything?

Smart-ass Trooper: We ain't found shit, sir!

Okay, enough Mel Brooks for today.

But, if I know Katie, she really will start scouring the place. Will she find it? Only time will tell. But I'll know if it was found. Mark my words, I'll know.

I'm evil.

We make plans for big times...

"The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry."

Derived from Robert Burns' poem "To a Mouse"... “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.”

Such an eloquent statement. And one that applies to our weekend quite well.

Katie and I had such grand plans for this extended holiday weekend and yet it seems as though we completed only a fraction of them.

1. Clean up our house entirely.
Done for Thanksgiving, but it went all to hell yesterday.

2. Clear both our TiVos' "Now Playing" list of the two weeks' worth of shows that had built up on it.
Almost. We have one show left from those two weeks (last week's Studio 60) and whatever was added to it last night. However, I, personally, have about eight hours of Veronica Mars, Heroes, and Day Break backed up. Sometime on Saturday, I kinda decided there was no way I was ever going to get to all of it and simply deleted the first two episodes of Day Break and killed the Season Pass. As much as I like Taye Diggs, it was too much to catch up on and, since I never saw a single episode, I wasn't going to be missing much. I'm already pretty well invested in the other two and would like to finish them up.

3. Decorate for Christmas.
We certainly pulled out all the containers of decorations. Hence why #1 somewhat undid itself... the containers and decorations are now strewn about our home cluttering up what was once a beautifully clean homestead. We did get the tree assembled and got it all plugged in, as well. However, none of our ornaments are up at all. That will likely kick in tonight when we get done working out at the gym. Wish us luck.

4. Shop for Christmas presents.
We actually did a big chunk of this. Okay, maybe not that much. But at least we have about a quarter of it actually purchased and a list of what we will be buying for the other three quarters nearly complete. Just figuring out what to buy is a majority of the battle each year. Some of our relatives are not easy to buy for, let me tell you.

5. Do something with the leftover Thanksgiving food.
Katie made cream of turkey wild rice soup, a la Panera's cream of chicken wild rice, and it's damn good. She also made a turkey boullion base (sp?) that can be used for any number of other things. So, at least the turkey carcass is now gone from our fridge and we have room to put stuff in there.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Make such big plans only to watch them die upon attempted execution? You would think we'd learn. But we don't.

Don't fence me in...

It's been somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-15 since that fateful night. The night my brother and I attempted to, and failed miserably at, construct a gingerbread house.

It was an horrific experience. One that, to this day, makes FHA assessors cringe. The walls never stood upright, the roof cracked and collapsed, the candies ran amok.

Simply put, it was not pretty.

So imagine my horror when my mother and father gave Katie and I a Gingerbread House Kit when they came over for Thanksgiving. The memories came flooding back. I tried to make them return it, but they refused. And, despite my better judgment, Katie and I decided to break it open earlier today while decorating for Christmas.

And now, our photographic retrospective...

Do note the sledgehammer at the ready

Everything is opened and ready to go.

All the love gone bad turned my world to black...

Here are a few practical life lessons learned today...

1. Hosting a Thanksgiving get together with family results in garbage and recyclables the likes of which are not seen at any other time in a calendar year. Jeez!

2. There are no Black Friday sales that can quite compare to sleeping in next to the person you love. And then laughing at all the suckers who are complaining about having been awake since 4:00 a.m. Heh.

3. Before hanging up your outdoor Christmas lights, plug them in to make sure they still work.

4. Even if you're a militant looking woman dressed in camouflage pants shopping with a friend dressed similarly, the "she-mullet" is dead. Give up the ghost. Cut it off. Please.

'nuff said.

There's nothing meaner than a turkey with a scatter gun...

I would just like to say that preparing a Thanksgiving dinner is that much better when you have Lou Malnati's pizza and three bottles of wine coursing through your system.

A tip either for next year or this year if you haven't started your cooking yet.

Take note.

Of course, you should also take note that the three bottles were divided amongst four people.

[Title lyric from Peter Greenstone's "Jive Turkey"]

Give it away, give it away, give it away now...

At the gym last night, Katie and I started assembling our to-do list for Thanksgiving. As always, we are hosting the feast for my family and it, of course, requires meticulous planning. A quick peek at our lists reveals...

Around the house...

• Clean spare bedroom/office (my brother and his fiancee are spending the night before TG with us to help with cooking)
• Clean all bathrooms
• Finish trim around front door (we replaced a piece of our door frame a few weeks ago and still haven't fixed the trim; but the door is secure)
• Clean kitchen
• Set up big table for the meal
• Hide lots of crap

Things to buy...

• Turkey
• Stuffing
• Green beans
• Pie crust
• Pumpkin pie ingredients (whatever they may be)
• Flavored water
• Soda
• Seagram's 7 (my dad loves his 7&7's)

Mind you, these are but a taste of each list. God only knows how much else is on there and how much more work will be needed over the next couple weeks in preparation for this event. Will the carpet we ordered be delivered and installed in time? That would require some additional prep work as well.

My God, I don't think this much planning goes on in the Pentagon War Room (I still imagine it being quite akin to Dr. Strangelove... don't ask me why, but it just doesn't seem that far off the mark).

But, despite all the work, one of the good things that comes out of this is that I get me some K.A.K.C. (Kick-Ass Katie Cooking). Katie is a fantastic cook and Thanksgiving is her time to shine for all to see. I will have to take pictures of the finished product and share with you all.

What do all you, my fair readers, have planned for the holiday?

Living dead girl...

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Kevin and Katie Apgar, 31 and 29 years old, respectively, were killed in a freak accident at Universal Studios, California, on October 30, 2006, the day before Halloween, also known in popular lore as Devil’s Night.

The couple, pictured here in one of their last known photos, was posing in front of the Universal Studios globe when the sculpture came free of its moorings due to excessive winds. The globe rolled toward the unsuspecting couple as they, according to shocked onlookers, were preparing to take another photograph. As they hammed it up for the camera, the globe rolled over them and continued on a brief path of destruction through the amusement park.

The two former residents of Geneva, Illinois, were badly injured but not dead yet. Not until a group of good Samaritans, in an attempt to stop the globe’s destructive tendencies, set up a barricade of ropes. The sculpture, a trademarked icon of Universal Studios, was inadvertently slung backwards instead of coming to a halt. It finally came to rest atop the bodies of Kevin and Katie, crushing the life out of them forever.

Visitors were horrified by the morbid assemblage of flattened flesh and bloodied souvenirs. Theme park officials made quick work of cleaning up the mess and restoring the globe to its display. Their haste ruined any chance for crime scene investigators to examine the accident site.

Subsequent visitors to the park have noted that the temperature seems to drop upwards of 20 degrees when they stand where the couple was killed. Others have heard ghostly wails around the globe and have watched as mooring anchors for the globe mysteriously loosen themselves. One visitor shared a photograph he took of his wife near the sculpture featuring two ectoplasmic human forms standing to either side of her.

An official investigation is underway and lawsuits by surviving family members are expected. Park officials are also consulting with mediums to figure out how best to appease the unsettled spirits.

[Okay, maybe not the best, but Happy Halloween all the same!]

To terrorize y'all's neighborhood...

Halloween 13
I nabbed this from SJ a bit ago but I only now got around to completing it. I was waiting until closer to the actual holiday. Seems close enough now, don't you think?

1. What’s the scariest movie you’ve ever seen?
   The "Version You've Never Seen" of The Exorcist. That damned spider walk scene gives me the willies.
2. What was your favorite Halloween costume as a child?
   It's a tie between Perseus from Clash of the Titans and Emperor Palpatine from The Return of the Jedi. Both homemade by my mom.
3. Given enough money what would be your fantasy Halloween costume?
   I would be one of the Colonial Marines from Aliens. Specifically Drake (Mark Rolston) because he had that mutha of a gun.
4. When was the last time you went trick-or-treating?
   I think it was back in 1997 while in grad school. I could be wrong. Maybe it was the year before that during my senior year of college.
5. What is your favorite Halloween candy?
   I love Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Although, I would love to get my hands on some of SJ's Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkins. Never heard of them before.
6. Tell us about a scary nightmare you once had.
   I'd really rather not talk about it again, so I'll link it.
7. What is your supernatural fear?
   Ouija boards. I tried one once and it worked. Never touched it again.
8. What is your ‘creepy-crawly’ fear?
   Spiders and cockroaches. Not much of a fan of either. Although taking pictures of spiderwebs has made me a bit more tolerant of the former.
9. Tell us about a time when you saw a ghost, or heard something go bump in the night.
   Never saw one, per se. But was visited by the spirit of my friend Mike who died back in 1993. He visited me via my radio cutting songs in and out and playing songs he liked that the station I was listening to at the time never has played before.
10. Would you stay overnight in a real haunted house?
    Absolutely. Might take me a while to actually enter, but I'd do it eventually.
11. Are you a traditionalist or a creative carver of your Jack-O’Lantern?
    More traditional. Actually, I don't even really carve that much. I like whole pumpkins for decoration along with gourds and indian corn. That and you don't wind up with rotten, smelly pumpkins by the time the actual holiday rolls around.
12. How much do you decorate your house at Halloween?
    We decorate the inside moreso than the outside. Pumpkins, lights, gourds, the works.
13. What do you want on your tombstone?
    I'm not even entirely sure I want a tombstone to be honest. I'd rather have my ashes spread in a few different places as a tribute. A little bit spread on Hawk Hill near Sausalito, CA. Some along the lakefront or at Soldier Field in Chicago. Maybe a little urn along the bar at my fave pub, Old Towne, in Geneva, IL (just don't put me in a mixed drink, please).

Steal at will, as per usual.

Memories... like the corners of my mind...

Well, depending on how long you've been reading kapgar, you may or may not know that I like to do a sort of highlights reel of trips we go on. This usually involves creating a list of "positives" and "negatives" and letting you all read through. The last time I did this was back in September for my Florida trip. So here goes with a good v. bad of San Francisco 2006...

The Positives:

• Katie was with me
• Going with my brother, Brian, and his fiancee, Jen
• It was San Francisco, baby!
• Katie was with me
• Absolutely unbelievably stunningly gorgeous weather especially when compared to the rest of the country (sorry about the triple adverbs there; I felt it needed the extra emphasis)
• Katie getting her very first digital camera and loving it
• Katie was with me
• Mondavi freebies - the tour and all the tastings, plus a discount on merchandise
• Poppy Hills Golf Course freebies - yeah, I may not have detailed those for legality's sake
• Katie was... well, you get it
• Yet another cool car rental in California - the first time out there in L.A. two years ago was a Ford Escape, which was awesome
• Seeing Paul's The Lost Blogs on the bestseller rack at Cody's Books
• Having my Nintendo DS (rockin' Mario Kart!) for the trip home while Katie and Jen watched Friends on the DVD player
• Great food
• Fantastic scenery
• Beautiful hotel
• It was, simply put, great

The Negatives:

• Small planes - it was an American Airlines S80, which I had never heard of and could find very little information about online when I looked. Now I know why, AA doesn't want you to know how small they are
• Being delayed on return in Dallas/Fort Worth - why couldn't the mechanical problems have happened in San Francisco instead?!?!?!
• Cost of the trip - not cheap, but worth every penny
• Didn't get to meet Sandra, Jacynth, Mikey, Chase, or Karl - that bummed me out more than you know
• No Web connectivity at either the Dell kiosk or Apple Store - WTF
• Margaritaville in Sausalito closed down
• Gas prices - but, some stations were still actually cheaper than here in Illinois
• Dead DVD player - resulting in yet another California vacation trip to a Best Buy
• Running out of space on my memory sticks - we had to purchase a 1 GB stick while out there; I've never taken that many photos before
• Having to leave San Francisco behind

I find this to always be such a good way to wrap up a trip. Hope you enjoyed it.

Oh yeah, I've got four days worth of photos up on Flickr now. Stay tuned as I hope to have the final day's worth posted sometime later today. Thank God for lunch breaks.

Tomorrow: it's back to reality.

Days and days...

So would you all like to read the day-by-day of our activities out in S.F.? It's a pretty sordid laundry list of activities. You've been warned. Oh heck, I'll spice it up with a few photos since I've got the first couple days of shots loaded to Flickr (four more days of photos still need to be uploaded).

Here goes...

Sunday, July 30:
We stayed up all night from Friday because it just wasn't worth trying to fall asleep for two hours only to wake up, shower, and pretend to be awake for the limo ride. Some of us survived it, some did not. We took a stretch limo to the airport and caught our 6:55 a.m. flight to Dallas/Fort Worth. My brother's flight, through his company was a bit different as it was scheduled by them, so he flew to Denver instead. The three of us then caught a 10:25 flight to Oakland. We got our rental car and drove across the Bay Bridge to the Marriott Courtyard in Oyster Point, just south of San Francisco on the 101.

That afternoon, we drove to Sausalito and had dinner at a Chinese restaurant called Nian Jing or some ridiculously difficult name to remember that is somewhat similar. Hell if I know.

We then headed up into the Marin Headlands and did our thing on Hawk Hill. That "thing" involved extensive photography, nothing else. Well, maybe some exploring of the abandoned gunnery outposts. Then we checked out some other batteries tucked further back in the headlands as well as some observation posts. There was a ton of hiking involved, but the photo ops made it all worthwhile.

We ended the evening with a joyride through the Presidio during which time we met the biggest imbecile of a security guard any of us had ever experienced. Moron.

Finally, back to the hotel.

I'm still alive...

First off, I want to reassure you all that I will get through all the comments on my site sometime very soon. You know me, if you've commented (and assuming Typepad's notification e-mails work properly), I will reply personally. I also plan to get through the 1,780,345 posts, give or take, that have accumulated in Bloglines. I may not comment on every single one of them, but I will read them. So long as I don't go batty in the process, that is.

I think today's post is going to be spent sharing with you some of the notes I wrote out in my Moleskine while in S.F.

---

This conversation happened while cruising through the Presidio grounds on Sunday, July 30...

Me: "So what is this building?"

Security Guard: "I really can't say."

Me: "Is this Lucas' film department?"

S.G.: "I'm really not at liberty to say. But you can get more information at w-w-w-dot-lucas..."

Me: "lucasfilm-dot-com?"

S.G.: "Yeah, that's it."

Me: "So you cannot confirm that this is George Lucas' new film department that has been publicly reported to be on Presidio grounds, yet we can get more information about it from LUCAS' own Web site?"

S.G.: "I really can't say."

Me: "Yeah, okay."

I shit you not.

---

Return to me...

Hey all. Just wanted to drop you a note that we are back and we are alive.

Actually, we got back really early yesterday, but I was too tired to post any sort of message to beat out the prepost I already had set up.

As for details regarding the trip, I still have a boatload of photos to upload to Flickr and quite a few thoughts to gather and handwritten notes (how archaic!) to develop into real posts first. So, be on the lookout for those over the course of the next couple days.

Stay tuned! I promise it will be fun.

Well, I can't really say that, can I? We're all our own people with our own idea of what constitutes "fun." Suffice it to say that it was fun for us and we hope it will be fun for you. Sound good anyway?

I don't wanna, baby, I don't wanna...

Nooooo....

You can't make it end! You can't take this away from me!

I. Won't. Let. It.

In case you were wondering, this is the last day of our vacation in San Francisco and I don't want it to be so. I figure if I bitch and whine enough, maybe the powers that be will allow it to continue in perpetuity.

Please, if you have the ability to allow us to stay here in San Francisco, I would greatly appreciate the effort. I would feel forever indebted to you. You would be my hero.

Make the week continue a couple more days. Delay the plane. Cancel it. Create some sort of inexplicable yet highly dangerous weather pattern over Chicago that shows no signs of letting up until, oh, say, next month?

Whatever it takes... I truly don't care.

I love this city. We both do. We would live here if there was ever hope of being able to afford a mortgage. Or a rent. Or a cardboard box, for that matter. This city ain't cheap.

Just let me stay.

Please.

See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet...

... in all honesty, I prefer Ford, though.

I've seen this site on a bunch of people's blogs in the past, but never did anything with it. Until, that is, I saw it again on lynnes' site a week or so ago. This time, I decided to give it a try.

Basically, you just input the states that you've visited and they create a map of those states that you can post on your site.

create your own visited states map

A couple of these are really only brief visits. For example, my family and I drove about a half hour into Utah as part of a trip to the "Four Corners" states. And, Texas, well I've only really seen the airport in Dallas and that was during our flight out here to California. Pretty sad, but they count, don't they?

I know I'll finally see Nevada next year for my brother's wedding and I hope to see both Washington and more of Texas pretty soon. That would be fun.

The site also has a visited countries map, but mine would be so pathetic, I don't even want to bother.

Shadows run in full flight...

I know I said I wasn't going to post from San Francisco, but I wanted to throw this little bit out there.

Today, we're going to try to go to the San Francisco Giants v. Washington Nationals game. This will be my first game in SBC Park (or whatever the hell it's officially called these days) and only the second time I've seen the Giants play. I haven't been to a Giants game since they played the Cubs back in 1992 in Wrigley Field and I got Will Clark to sign my glove; I still use that glove. And this is my first game this season.

These days, I'm not much of a Giants fan. No Clark, no Matt Williams, and they have Barry Bonds. That last one is more than enough reason to hate them. Sorry, I'm not a Bonds fan.

But I was thinking of taking my copy of Game of Shadows by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams to see if I could convince Bonds to sign it.

I know the likelihood of having him sign it is pretty slim considering it's a book all about his abuse of steroids and his lies to Congressional investigation committees. But if I cushion the request by saying "can you sign it, 'this book is full of shit'?", do you think he'd do it?

Hmm... might be worth trying. Even if he takes the book from me, throws it on the ground, pisses on it, and sets it alight, at least I'd have some good photos for my Flickr account. Supposing I live long enough to post them.

Just keep on using me until you use me up...

It's kinda funny how well things work out sometimes.

Today is my dad's birthday and Katie and I are heading in to celebrate it with him and the rest of our family.

Tomorrow, of course, is the day we leave for San Francisco. Very early in the morning. And we would like to avoid paying the exorbitant parking fees charged in the long-term parking lots at O'Hare International Airport.

So what do creative planners such as Katie and I do? We go in and celebrate my dad's 61st birthday, spend the night at their house, and then use my parents for a free ride to the airport.

What loving kids are we? I know, I know. It's more than many of you can bear. There is just such a freeflow of love happening here on kapgar at this moment.

Heh.

Well, that was going to be the plan, anyway, until my brother offered us seats in his company-expensed stretch limo to the airport. Hmmm... parents in the early morning on the way to the airport or a STRETCH LIMO? You tell me which we're choosing.

Seriously, though, happy birthday, Dad! We love you ("we" being Katie and me, not me and my split personality).

Where have all the cowboys gone...

Let me tell you, there's nothing like going on a vacation to make you feel better about yourself at work.

An odd thought, I know. But allow me to explain as my theory has twofold support.

1. The lead-up to the start of your actual vacation is a test of your ability to perform your job both effectively and efficiently
Nobody wants to leave work for a vacation with a ton of projects stacked up on their desk. The reason behind this is because you know they are there and will be waiting for your eventual return from whatever pseudo paradise you are visiting. And it will bug you the entire time you are supposed to be "relaxing."

Admittedly, the projects are probably going to pile up in your absence anyway. But what you don't know can't hurt you. You don't know what projects or how many or how in depth they will be. So you may as well not even worry about them. They are non-entities, simply put.

But the projects you already know about and should be working on are the ones that'll bug you. You know what needs to be done and how long it should take you to do them. You also know that you probably should have gotten them done before you left.

However, if you are able to leave work the day before your vacation with a relatively clean desk, this is a good thing. It's a very good thing.

If you can achieve this standard, give yourself a pat on the back and have an extra few drinks at the hotel bar. You deserve it!

2. When people in other departments find out you are going to be gone, they freak out.
I'm not kidding about this. I've told several people I am going to be out of the office next week. Quite a few of them are reacting with "oh! I... I... really need your help on this. Guess I'd better get you the data sooner."

Granted this can backfire in terms of last-second projects that need to be completed before going, it does feel good to realize just how much you are needed and will be missed. It can also bite you in the rear when it comes time to request vacation days, but you deal with those problems as they rear their ugly heads.

But when that coworker infers to you how much you'll be missed, it's the ultimate pat on the back, let me tell you.

Just pray they haven't replaced you with "Bob" from the temp agency when you get back.

Turn it off...

Wanna hear about my challenge for the week that we are in San Francisco? I'm not going to blog during that week. Well, at least I won't be blogging live.

In an attempt to spend as much time away from my computer and spend as much time with Katie (and Brian and Jen) as possible, I'm leaving the laptop at home and not giving you guys posts as I spend time out in the Bay Area. This effort is being made in conjunction with our desire to travel as lightly as possible. And, in all honesty, my G3 PowerBook is a bit of a space hog.

How batty will this drive me? Probably more than even I can imagine. But I'm going to try.

I do apologize in advance for this, but do you really want to read a day-by-day recap of what we were doing? I fear that might get a bit tedious. I will tell you all the good stuff when I get back, though, I promise.

Fear not, though. This does not mean that you won't have stuff to read here at kapgar. I will still hook you all up with your daily fix of all things entirely nonsensical. To this end, I've been trolling the post idea list in my Moleskine and writing several ahead of time. I'm also looking through some of my old draft posts to see if there are any cool or interesting ones. These are my ramblings that, for some reason or another, never actually wound up being posted. I've even thought about asking a couple people if they'd be willing to guest post here for me just to keep things interesting.

All information about what happens on our vacation will go up the week after we get back, complete with photos. And I'm sure I'll be taking a boatload of them. We didn't own a digital camera the last two times we were out there, so I'm probably going to take a ton this go round. And I don't have to worry about scanning.

God I hope I have enough memory cards. Yikes. Time to clear them out.

It don't discourage me from trying...

If there's any one thing that I dread about our trip to San Francisco at the end of the month, it's all the walking that we are planning to do. No, I don't personally have a problem with walking. I do it every day. The problem I have is with the fact that I am sorely out of shape.

Okay, admittedly, Katie and I have been back on the Weight Watchers bandwagon for just about a month now. And we've been doing fairly well. I have no idea what number of pounds we've lost and I don't care. Our goal is to make our current clothes fit better and our smaller clothes fit again.

Well, one half of that is coming true. We both are fitting in our current clothes much better. I'm wearing a pair of shorts that I wore last summer that used to be a bit snug and now are quite baggy. That's a good thing. Same goes with Katie. Her clothes look much better on her.

We haven't really tried any of our old clothes on just yet. Baby steps, people!

To further our drive to get back in shape, we also started working out again at the gym. Since the hill climbing is what will kick our ass more than anything else out in SF, we've been doing a lot of cardio. Heck, for the first time in more than a year, I was actually jogging on Monday and Tuesday. Katie jogged on Monday and used an elliptical machine on Tuesday. While she went for a walk with a friend yesterday morning, I went for a bike ride later that night while she was at work. Last night, we went for one of our long neighborhood walks.

As much as I hate exercise, it really has felt good to be back in the swing of it all again. It's only been a week and I am feeling better. I'm breathing easier. I have more energy. I'm sleeping more soundly and apparently my occasional bout of snoring has waned.

Okay, okay, enough of this Public Service Announcement.

Suffice it to say that I'm stoked about our trip. We now have a hotel booked. Our airfare is done and paid for. We only need a car now. And a plan.

Oh screw the plan.

Vacations are much more fun when you're a bit more spontaneous. I want to live a little out there.

If I can help it, the only planned event (other than the flight) will be a Giants game against the Nationals either on Monday or Tuesday. The only reason that will be planned is because the MLB refuses to schedule their games around ME! Selfish bastards.

I need to calm down. Where are my running shoes?

---

Latest Fun With Dead Trees review   - Stick Out Your Tongue by Ma Jian

It's Independence Day this time...

It was definitely a good Independence Day. Well, for the most part, anyway.

Katie had to work from 9-5 at her job, which sucked. However, being a holiday, she gets time and a half, which doesn't suck.

Instead of sitting at home on my duff, my dad came over and we went to a relatively new disc golf course in St. Charles that I've been wanting to try for some time. However, I really had no idea where it was and the online map provided by the St. Charles Park District really blew chunks in terms of accuracy. A half hour after starting our search, we found it.

All I can say about this course is WOW. It's nine holes of pure hell. Instead of just being a straightforward disc golf course, this one involved a real physical workout. You were hiking up and down hills and driving both up and down ravines. In many cases, your disc might get stuck halfway up a ravine and you have to climb to get it. And these are not graceful slopes, either. One of them was a fairly severe 55-60 degree slope and it had rained the day before making it quite slippery. None of the holes exceeded a par 3 and all were really short distance, but the difficulty was second to none.

We loved it! It was a really nice, new take on disc golfing. I'm not expecting my brother to actually read this post so, hopefully, the next time we all go out to play, the difficulty of the course will horrify my brother. And I'll be there with my camera waiting to snap shots of his expressions. May have to do some audio as well.

We left the course drenched in sweat and covered in dirt. Instead of going out for lunch, we just went back to my place. I jumped in the shower while dad grabbed some food and drink. Then we settled down in the living room to watch Kelly's Heroes. Nothing like father and son enjoying some quality time with Clint Eastwood.

He left shortly after that and then Katie came home. She changed and we jumped in the truck to head over to Fox Valley Mall in Aurora for the city's fireworks display. Actually, we first visited Hooters for dinner. Katie is not one to quibble over scantily-clad waitresses when the wings are as good as they are at the Hoot. Me? I'm just not gonna quibble, period.

I pointed out to Katie the irony that I was wearing a Bad Monkey shirt (what do you do when your monkey's been bad?) and a Horny Toad hat in a Hooters restaurant. I swear the overt sexual connotation was completely unintentional.

After our wings and the pitcher of Blue Moon, we decided to check out what few stores were open as we waited for dusk to arrive. Then we set up shop in the bed of the truck. Back in the day, Katie and I used to have picnics in the bed. However, once I got the hardtop tanneau cover on it, those picnics ended. It's a bit awkward trying to sit up in the bed when there's a hardshell lid hanging right over you.

But for fireworks, it was ideal. We spread out some blankets and laid back in the bed with the lid up as far as it would raise.

And what did we do? We slept. Intermittently. The beer was hitting us as was the long day we'd had so far. If someone were to walk past us, they'd have found at least one of us sleeping at any given time. Here's the photographic evidence...

Should I worry that Katie's hand is covering the monkey on my shirt? Would that constitute "touching my monkey" as Dieter repeatedly attempted to con people into doing? Hmm... And, hey, that's twice recently that I've been photographed shilling Dave's shirts. What the hell?!?!

We did wake up in time for the fireworks, though. And I'm glad we did. It was an awe-inspiring half hour of skybound explosive glory. Our parking spot had a nice view, but wasn't quite close enough to allow for great photos. But I took some anyway. This is probably the best of the bunch...

How'd you all spend your holiday? Clearly more a question for my U.S. readers, but anyone is free to chime in.

---

Latest Fun With Dead Trees review - Dangerous Affairs by Kelle Z. Riley

Leavin' on a jet plane...

I'm pretty sure I did use that title previously for my Florida trip last September, but, c'est la vie. Deal with it. I'm not feeling particularly original right now.

Some good news and some bad news.

First, the good news...

Katie and I booked our tickets to San Francisco for the end of this month. We will be out there for just about a week and staying with my brother and his fiancee in a suite at a hotel near the airport. Not as close to the city as we were hoping, but considering the lack of availability for hotels where we wanted to stay and the prices for the few rooms that were available, we took the cheap option... FREE, actually.

We will also have the opportunity to hang with Sandra, Mikey, and Jacynth while we're out there. That's going to be cool. Not sure when just yet. But we'll make the time. I hope the reality of me doesn't let them down.

Now, the bad news...

We aren't leaving for SF until the 30th. So we're probably not going to be able to meet up with Karl who leaves that day from BlogHer. I thought we might run into each other at the airport, but we're flying into Oakland instead of San Francisco. I'm bummed about this.

Finally, the unsure news...

I don't know when Chase is departing from BlogHer, so there is still a chance that I can meet up with her. Let me know, Chase.

Oh, and happy Independence Day to all my fellow U.S.ians!

I fell in a burnin' ring of fire...

Aren't vacations supposed to be relaxing?

If the trade-off is that the relaxing aspect of the vacation is earned by jumping through flaming ring after flaming ring just trying to book the damn thing, then this had better be the most relaxing friggin' vacation Katie and I have ever gone on because I'm going through absolute hell to get it arranged.

In an attempt to save money and because we've earned it, we're using the American Airlines Advantage miles we have amassed over the last six years to get free airfare. We each had our own account through AAdvantage so we could gain these miles. Last year, we both finally crossed the threshold necessary to be able to get tickets anywhere in the contiguous 48 states and, as I only learned today, without any blackout periods whatsoever.

The catch is that, since we each have our own account, we will each have to book separately through the AA Web site. If we book on the phone, we will be assessed service charges out the heinie (yes, I said "heinie," although I'm not sure if I spelled it correctly). The danger of this is that we may not be able to get tickets where we can sit together nor necessarily even on the same flight. It's a matter of checking availiability (only a limited number of seats per flight are set aside for AA members) and praying.

Great.

And then there's the hotel. We could stay at the hotel at which Brian and Jen will be staying at nearly $150 a night, which really isn't a bad price. Or we could try to use some of our contacts and stay at a hotel quite a ways closer in town -- I believe a majority of these hotels are in the KnNob Hill area (see photo, courtesy of localpics.com); while another one is relatively close to the Embarcadero.

The price for these hotels is much better as we could potentially get a deal that would allow us to stay for half the total cost of where my brother is staying. And, being so close to where we plan on hanging out anyway, a cab or cablecar ride back after a night of drunken debauchery is much more reasonable. Heck, we may even be able to stumble home with relatively few injuries.

No, none of these are "cheap" hotels; all of them seem to be rated 3.5 stars or above. It's just a matter of me pulling strings and getting deals. But we have to find some membership code number and coupons for a Web site I signed up with years ago so I can use it as an identifier when calling to get the deals. Considering I signed up with the site so long ago and have not used them once, I can only hope that I can still find the coupons and codes.

Again... great.

Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. I need help!

---

This is kinda eerie... it was brought to my attention by Chase that the time that Katie and I will be out in San Francisco is right about the time of BlogHer. What's eerie about it is that I was thinking "I wonder if our trip now coincides with BlogHer?" Alas, it just might.

No, this was not intentional and I don't think I'm going to be attending or anything (I'm not sure how to entertain Katie if I were to go), but it does mean that I can meet more of you. I was already planning on meeting Sandra while I was out there, as well as, hopefully, Jacynth and Mikey. But I may be able to meet Chase, Karl, and Belinda now as well. Anybody else going to be in the area around that time?

Oh yeah, we are, for sure, going to be in the Bay Area from July 31-August 4 (those are the days my brother and his fiancee are going to be there). But Katie and I were going to try to get out there on the 29th and stick around until the 5th. These dates are very loose and dependent on the airfare we can book, of course. But, if it does work out, I'll let you know.

Maybe all this scheduling headache does have an additional silver lining.

---

Quick Update: I want to wish my uncle a happy birthday. So... happy birthday, UB!

Throw in the towel...

I'm still trying to fully grasp why it's tomorrow of all days since the man died on May 11, 2001... alas, tomorrow (Thursday, May 25) is Towel Day!

If you are a fan of Douglas Adams and his infamous Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series of novels, then you should spend tomorrow showing your appreciation of the man and his work by toting a towel with you everywhere.

For those who have not read the books and may be asking "why a towel?" I defer to the book itself...

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

If you are so inclined, show your respect and carry your towel. And post a photo. Could be fun.

Thanks to Bec for the heads up.

Mama said...

First, I'd like to wish my mom a happy 60th birthday. As you might recall, we had the party for her back in April, so you can visit that post for some photos.

Happy birthday Mom. We love you.

On the topic of moms, Katie and I are going to take part in a charity 5K walk a couple hours from now to benefit Huntington's Disease, I think. I'm assuming it's Huntington's because we were asked if we wanted to do this walk in honor of our friend's mom who died of the disease about two years ago.

Katie and I have never done a charity walk before. We have no idea what to expect and we had very little notice (we just found out this past Wednesday) so we're definitely not getting any sponsors, I'm sure. But, if it all works out well, maybe we'll do these more often. It would be pretty cool.

So wish us luck.

And many mo-o-o-o-o-re...

Now that it's all over and I've got the photos uploaded and caption at Flickr, I can finally talk about what happened this past weekend.

Although the actual event does not occur for another month and a half, we held a surprise 60th birthday party for my Mom on Saturday night at Traverso's, an Italian restaurant in Naperville. It was a lot of fun and we got a lot of pictures to show for it all.

The scene of the crime... Traverso's Italian restaurant in Naperville. Both my brother and I worked there one summer.

My dad saved all these things from his 60th birthday party last year for my mom to wear this year.

The trap is sprung. My Mom's on the left and that's her friend, Lynda, on the right.

And wear all that stuff she did. All night long.

Three of the co-conspirators. I was manning the camera and my Dad was working the crowd.

My Mom and Dad.

Lynda delivering the first toast while my Mom hides her face. Brian, Jen, Katie, and I delivered a toast/roast as well, but I don't have those photos. I hope someone does.

Thankfully for her, we didn't make her blow out 60 candles.

It was quite a good cake. No leftovers. My Dad was a bit upset.

And who to blame?

Mom opening the gift from Katie, Brian, Jen, and I.

It was a charm bracelet that Katie had custom made with the birthstones of all four of us (and, as she likes to point out, room for charms of the grandkids, when they happen).

My Mom's reaction. Yes, she did cry.

One final photo of how the four of us spent our evening while setting up. God bless lemon drops.

It was a fun night. Nearly 35 people showed up and we took up nearly the entire event room at Traverso's. The bill? Yeah, I think my Dad would prefer I not talk about it. Quite a few more photos are available for your perusal on Flickr.

The thoughts of a fool’s kind of careless...

Julianne Potter: "I'm pond scum. Well, lower actually. I'm like the fungus that feeds on pond scum."

Michael O'Neill: "Lower. The pus that infects the mucus that cruds up the fungus that feeds on the pond scum."

--My Best Friend's Wedding, 1997

That is about how I feel right now.

I've been keeping an online journal/blog for a little over eight years now. And, never once in those eight years have I done this. I always wanted to, but could never think of anything quite so good to do. I've read stories upon stories of other bloggers' exploits in this regard. I just never quite had the opportunity to do something similar myself.

Well, this year, that moment presented itself... and I jumped on it. And now I feel like complete crap as a result. I feel like I betrayed you, my readers, and that does not make me feel good at all.

So, for that, I apologize wholeheartedly, and I give you my word that I will not do it again.

My heart has been breaking wondering exactly how you will all respond when you read this.

Whether you realized it or not, yesterday was April Fool's Day. And I took advantage of it. And I wish I didn't.

After reading that first comment from Kilax who has been such a good friend and then the one from Tracy Lynn who is a brand-new reader to my site, it got to be too much. I wouldn't blame you for wanting to scratch my eyeballs out.

But I am not above begging for forgiveness... PLEASE DON'T HATE ME! Forgive me for this moment of weakness! I feel terrible! I really do!

---

If you're still here and have continued reading on, then how about some lighter April Fool's fare? Our friends at NBC's The Office graced us with a series of gag public service announcements that actually aired on the network using their well-known "The More You Know" format.

I first discovered these while working at the gym on Friday night. I saw Jenna Fischer on screen with the little shooting star that has come to symbolize this series of PSAs. However, the volume was on mute, as we tend to do at the gym, so I had no idea what she was saying. No biggie. Just another PSA to me.

However, I was reading an article yesterday about how George Clooney plans to stalk Gawker.com by flooding them with false celebrity sightings. I had never been to Gawker and decided to check it out. Nothing much, in all honesty, save for a link to the whole series of these PSAs on NBC's site. Thank you, Gawker, for that little tidbit. It's very much appreciated.

There are 16 of them in all and feature, clockwise from top left, Jim (John Krasinski), Kelly (Mindy Kaling), Dwight (Rainn Wilson), Ryan (B.J. Novak), and Pam (Jenna Fischer).

Sadly, the Pam ones weren't that great and the Dwight ones were a bit "off" (but what would you expect from him?). However, Ryan's PSAs more than made up for it.

Here are some of the highlights...

• Taping Sex (Ryan)
• Foul (Jim)
• Beer (Ryan)
• The Fugitive (Jim)
• Relationship (Ryan and Kelly)
• Arctic Wolf (Dwight)
• Cake (Pam)

And, here we go again... more hatin' on the black jelly beans. Is there no love?

It's not easy being green...

Yes it is. Or, at least, this past Friday, it was pretty damn easy.

Katie and I met up with my brother, Brian, his fiancee, Jen, and their neighbor, Josh, at a bar called Venice Tavern in Batavia, IL, for a night of festivities. Considering it was the first time Katie and I have ever been able to celebrate St. Patrick's Day together, we were taking full advantage of it.

We ordered up a couple pizzas in the dining room and downed them. Then we made our way to the bar and drank for several hours. It was crowded, smoky, restricting, loud... everything you would expect from a bar on St. Patty's Day.

Here's a photographic retrospective of the night...

A little blurry, but I like the photo too much to not use it

Josh, Jen, and Katie... I wonder if Josh can get any redder?

Yes, yes he can.

Brian and me toasting in the evening. I know, I know... Bud Light... he was paying, not me. Can't argue when it's free.

Katie and I spent the night decorating Jen's faux Prada purse with Bud Light stickers... both sides.

Awwww... aren't they cute?

We're cuter.

Told ya so.

These are just a few of the photos. More are available in our Flickr photo set.

You're my funny valentine; sweet comic valentine...

Here's your number one sign that the Apocalypse is upon us... ThinkGeek.com is selling Valentine's Day themed swag.

I was caught a bit offguard when I saw an e-mail come in to my account with the subject line "Roses are #FF0000 at ThinkGeek."  For those who don't know, "#FF0000" is the hexadecimal code for pure red that web developers use (most graphic designers use Pantone, not hex codes).  I was not sure what to make of it.  Had the haven for geek toys on the web really sold out by shilling V-Day stuff to the relationship-challenged?

Thankfully, the e-mail seemed to maintain a geek-like perspective.  Here was the message in the e-mail...

Apparently there is this concept called a relationship where two entities interact with each other in ways that at least one of those entities considers meaningful.  Kind of like Hal9000 and Dave. Or R2 and C3P0. Supposedly somebody then decided there should be an entire day devoted to nothing but the observation of such relationships. Why? We haven't figured it out yet completely. We just know it means you want to get appropriately unique gifts for whomever your special entity is. Our special entity is still in Beta, otherwise we would share more details.

I had to click on the link.  It struck me as imperative.

It was then that I discovered, much to my joy, that these gifts do indeed have a geek lean to them.

They had a flashing LED heart (how sweet), HTTPanties (the 403 error is hilarious), a CAT-5 cable bracelet (I want one of these - XL if anyone wants to send me one), and a Swarovski crystal fuze necklace (very cool, I might add), among others.

But my creme de la creme gift, and one I want to get for Katie (not necessarily as a V-Day gift, but just to get it) just because it's cute and it's appropriate considering she just recently finished two years of chemistry classes and is currently enrolled in an anatomy course, is their Sweetheart Babydoll T-shirt.  Here's what the logo on the front shows...

This shirt is hilarious and I know, if she wore it to class, she would be the center of attention for at least a few minutes and her profs would love it.  The top part is the molecular structure for sucrose (sucrose = sugar = sweet) and then a cross section of a heart below it. 

Sweet + heart = sweetheart.  Cute, eh?

I'm just going to have to be careful as babydoll T-shirts are a dangerous thing to buy.  Katie doesn't really own any, she's more of a normal T-shirt kind of girl.  Do babydoll T-shirt sizes equate to normal T-shirts?  I'm thinking I would need to buy something a size larger, but I'm not sure.

No, this gift is obviously not going to be a surprise for her as she will probably read this post.  And I'm sure that even though she's smacking her forehead in geek-intolerant disbelief as she reads this, she still thinks it's cute.