Last night I learned that when a price tag at Circuit City says "out of box" it means two things. 1) You can get whatever it is REALLY cheaply, and 2) you get the display model, without a box. Or software. Or cables. Or anything. Who the hell wants something like that? Do they make money on selling stuff "out of box"? I don't get it.
September 24, 1999
Two great things happened yesterday. I will cover them in order of their importance to my life (it was a tough call).
First, I got a raise. My boss told me that since I was working out OK and since I'd saved them so much time and money during this update cycle (it's pdf-related and boring, trust me, you don't want to know) he was going to go ahead and raise my salary by $1.00/hr on October 1. Woo-hoo! Yay me!
Just a few weeks ago I told Keith that when I got a raise we should celebrate by having dinner at the Space Needle, so hopefully next month we'll make good on that promise. I had lunch at the Space Needle once, when I was visiting here in December. It was not as trippy and nauseating as I thought it would be, since it rotates sloooooooooowly. The panoramic view of the city was definitely worth it. Seattle is a pretty town. Way prettier than Chicago. But fewer tattoo parlors.
Anyway, I digress. The second great thing that happened yesterday was that we finally got a scanner! I was surfing around the net at work, pricing out scanners, and I found one at Circuit City for like fifty bucks. So we headed out to the nearest Circuit City last night and picked up our $50 scanner. I'd have some pictures scanned in this morning, but we got back too late and I was sleepy, and incredibly cold.
When I get the slightest bit chilly, I think my heart stops pumping blood to my extremities. We were in the car on the way home last night, and I was shivering and turning the heat up. "God, I'm cold!", I said. A few minutes later we were at a traffic stop and I was running my fingers through Keith's hair more or less playfully, and he was like "Whoa! Your fingers are freezing!"
Keith is a really smart guy, I swear.
I'll have some pictures scanned in soon. I have a huge backlog, since I haven't had access to a scanner since most of the recent pictures were taken. The Colorado trip, the cross-country U-Haul trip, graduation -- oh yes, you will see all these things.
In other news. Keith was sitting next to me when I was checking my email last night. I was all excited because KING-FM (the classical station) sent me a notification that one of my selected composers was on the playlist for the next day. Keith started laughing, which initially pissed me off, because I thought he was laughing at me for listening to classical music, and I was going to retaliate by pointing out that Oingo Boingo and Devo are not exactly musical geniuses.
He wasn't laughing at me, though, he was laughing at the fact that KING-FM can program their playlist days, and in fact months, in advance. I guess they never really have hot new songs that have to go into the power rotation over there.
I've noticed that they do themes, though. Some days are heavy on piano, some days are heavy on flute. Today they're heavy on opera, which is making me want to switch to a station that has hot new songs in their power rotation. I can't really deal with those types of stations for longer than about an hour, though. I listened to one of the Top 40 stations for about a week, and it nearly drove me crazy. I mean, for Christ's sake, who the hell needs to hear "All Star" FIVE FREAKING TIMES A DAY? I was keeping a list on my desk of how many times each song was played, and by the end of the week there were fifteen hash marks next to a few of them. That's simply too much. I couldn't take it anymore. That's when I switched to the classical station.
I'm not going to switch stations today, though, because Aaron Copland's "El Salon Mexico" is coming on at noon. That's what the email is about. I'm sure I've mentioned my adoration for the oeuvre (ain't I smart?) of Aaron Copland before, so I won't totally rehash it now.
I'll just sort of rehash it, by saying that Copland's music draws me in like that of no other composer. If I'm sitting here at work and "Appalachian Spring" or "Lincoln Portrait" comes on, I have to quit working and just sit here and listen until it's finished. I can't think about anything else while his music is playing. I believe that it is that powerful and moving.
I'd like to hear someone say that about Smash Mouth in fifty years. Or Oingo Boingo, for that matter (OK, not counting Keith).
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