Weekend Shenanigans
Jun. 7th, 2009 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aseOut with roommate M. and her friend N. Friday night; we were supposed to do Artomatic until the fire marshal called shenanigans ("shenanigans": 1.) questions about the emergency lighting; 2.) that word N. thinks is just not quite right), so instead we wound up at the H Street Country Club playing nine-hole mini-golf, and then got drinks at the H Street Martini Lounge, where I managed to get a very earnestly drunk man talking about Sotomayor. H Street, says N, is trying to be the new Adams Morgan. It might be undergoing a demographic shift, at least: the crowd at mini-golf was overwhelmingly white, and M. and I were the only people who weren't black at the Lounge. Since my current bus reading is The Autobiography of Malcolm X, these things are on my mind.
My birthday is in less than a week. Tolkien was on to something when he decided Hobbits would have a "give presents on your birthday" social more; it's much easier to track that special-to-you one day a year instead of many special-to-one days. I was paid Friday, paid the bills, put some money aside, and lived a little rich with the rest: there's a couple of DVDs (and a knife sharpener) in the mail, and I picked a 19" widescreeen LCD off craigslist. And that's where the fun starts!
I reserved a car for an hour and a half, and when I went to pick it up, the car was not there! So Zipcar was forced to offer me a gratis upgrade to what was available: the sporty little Volvo S40 with leather seats. This was really useful later, when I got to do some on-the-fly navigating that culminated with the River Rd entrance to to the 495/270 spur. (Translation: merge into the right line, cuss at the helpful green sign, merge across three lanes in about a mile. Eeep.) I only got honked at by one Lexus SUV who didn't believe in letting people in, so I give myself a B- on today's intermediate highway driving. The Volvo, incidentally, was fun to drive, but the leather seats are weirdly upper-class for me: I was worrying about scratches as I maneuvered the monitor in the backseat.
The new LCD was pretty easy to set up, even in Ubuntu. There may be before/after pictures at some point. I am thrilled to have a flatscreen: I have desk space for the first time in a year! It's an at-home work space other than the kitchen table! (I could use it, but I'd also have to put up a sign that says, "GRE studying, please do not talk to me." I would not be comfortable.) The new screen unfortunately also highlights the desk ergo issues: the fixed-height desk is about two inches too low with the current chair. The LCD is at something like the right height because it's sitting on a telephone book. It may need a second booster for long use. Or I need to get a new desk. Or a new chair; the subwoofer shouldn't be the perfect footrest. Nothing like spending money to make you want to spend more money.
My birthday is in less than a week. Tolkien was on to something when he decided Hobbits would have a "give presents on your birthday" social more; it's much easier to track that special-to-you one day a year instead of many special-to-one days. I was paid Friday, paid the bills, put some money aside, and lived a little rich with the rest: there's a couple of DVDs (and a knife sharpener) in the mail, and I picked a 19" widescreeen LCD off craigslist. And that's where the fun starts!
I reserved a car for an hour and a half, and when I went to pick it up, the car was not there! So Zipcar was forced to offer me a gratis upgrade to what was available: the sporty little Volvo S40 with leather seats. This was really useful later, when I got to do some on-the-fly navigating that culminated with the River Rd entrance to to the 495/270 spur. (Translation: merge into the right line, cuss at the helpful green sign, merge across three lanes in about a mile. Eeep.) I only got honked at by one Lexus SUV who didn't believe in letting people in, so I give myself a B- on today's intermediate highway driving. The Volvo, incidentally, was fun to drive, but the leather seats are weirdly upper-class for me: I was worrying about scratches as I maneuvered the monitor in the backseat.
The new LCD was pretty easy to set up, even in Ubuntu. There may be before/after pictures at some point. I am thrilled to have a flatscreen: I have desk space for the first time in a year! It's an at-home work space other than the kitchen table! (I could use it, but I'd also have to put up a sign that says, "GRE studying, please do not talk to me." I would not be comfortable.) The new screen unfortunately also highlights the desk ergo issues: the fixed-height desk is about two inches too low with the current chair. The LCD is at something like the right height because it's sitting on a telephone book. It may need a second booster for long use. Or I need to get a new desk. Or a new chair; the subwoofer shouldn't be the perfect footrest. Nothing like spending money to make you want to spend more money.
