Stallone. Rocky 6. Best postscript to the story: “Rocky Balboa” is the first film to be green-lit by MGM since it was acquired by Sony Corp. May be the last…
Best postscript to the story:
“Rocky Balboa” is the first film to be green-lit by MGM since it was acquired by Sony Corp.
May be the last one, too.
I don’t necessarily want to be connected 24/7. Indeed, I necessarily do not want to be. That said, this news about RIM/Blackberry and the Treo 650 is good news. Weeks…
I don’t necessarily want to be connected 24/7. Indeed, I necessarily do not want to be. That said, this news about RIM/Blackberry and the Treo 650 is good news.
Weeks after announcing plans to ship the BlackBerry software with a forthcoming phone from Nokia (Profile, Products, Articles), Research In Motion (RIM) is expected to announce Monday that Palm will install the push e-mail software on the Treo 650 starting early next year.
RIM has had a licensing program called BlackBerry Connect in place for two years, but most of the customers for that program have come in Europe and Asia-Pacific, said Mark Guibert, vice president of corporate marketing with RIM. The company is now hitching its wagon to Palm’s Treo 650, which is one of the hottest selling smart phones or wireless personal digital assistants in the U.S.
Palm will implement the BlackBerry software alongside its Versamail e-mail client in order to keep a familiar look-and-feel in place for Palm OS users, said Joe Fabris, director of wireless marketing for Palm. Treo 650s with the BlackBerry software will be able to access e-mail delivered by Microsoft’s Exchange or IBM’s Lotus Domino e-mail servers.
While I can access my company mail via my Treo, it is slow and laborious. Having the capability, when offline and when I need it, to have better access to company e-mail, would be a Good Thing. Especially since the company already has a RIM infrastrcture in place hooked to our Exchange boxes.
This is a bit dated, but B5 fans (and BNL fans, and especially BNL+B5 fans) will get a hoot out of it. (via Orac)…
This is a bit dated, but B5 fans (and BNL fans, and especially BNL+B5 fans) will get a hoot out of it.
(via Orac)
Time’s critics pick the 100 best English-language novels from 1923-2005. Of those, I’ve read eight (two of them solely for school, back in the day) and pieces (often for school)…
Time‘s critics pick the 100 best English-language novels from 1923-2005. Of those, I’ve read eight (two of them solely for school, back in the day) and pieces (often for school) of several more.
Remarkably enough, there’s a graphic novel in there, too (and I can’t argue with their choice).
I find it darkly ironic that protesters against a white supremacist march in Ohio ended up, well, being a hell of a lot more self-destructively violent than their targets. But…
I find it darkly ironic that protesters against a white supremacist march in Ohio ended up, well, being a hell of a lot more self-destructively violent than their targets.
But the precautions were not enough to stop people angry about the march from looting and burning a neighborhood bar, smashing the windows of a gas station, and hurling rocks and bottles at the police on Saturday. Twelve officers were injured, with one suffering a concussion when a brick flew through the window of her cruiser.
In all, 114 people were arrested on charges including assault, vandalism, failure to disperse and overnight curfew violations. The march was called off because of the crowds, and the white supremacists left.
Yeah, that’s showin’ ’em!
Neighbors were divided about the city’s allowing the march. “They don’t have the right to bring hate to my front yard,” said Terrance Anderson, who lives near the bar that was destroyed.
Sounds like there was plenty already there.
I don’t hold any truck with the American Nazi Party, and the Woody Allen comment on the famous Skokie march (“I think you should defend to the death their right to march, and then go down and meet them with baseball bats”) is tempting … but not only don’t you win any moral points by rioting and burning the neighborhood, you only confirm to them (and perhaps others) that they hold the moral high ground.
Which is pretty disgusting in and of itself.
Gorram funny (even if no bunnies are involved). Also, obviously, riddled with spoilers, so don’t go there unless you’ve seen the movie….
Gorram funny (even if no bunnies are involved). Also, obviously, riddled with spoilers, so don’t go there unless you’ve seen the movie.
Actually, my back is doing well almost all the time except when driving — the sitting-on-butt and reaching-for-pedals stuff is not going well. Continue to pop Advil, and did some…
Actually, my back is doing well almost all the time except when driving — the sitting-on-butt and reaching-for-pedals stuff is not going well. Continue to pop Advil, and did some exercises last night, and slept well. Took the van in today, which helped, but was still problematic.
So I got some renewal notices for some domain names I have registered, and GoDaddy suggested strongly I renew for more than a year at a time, citing this: Google…
So I got some renewal notices for some domain names I have registered, and GoDaddy suggested strongly I renew for more than a year at a time, citing this:
Google recently filed United States Patent Application 20050071741. As part of that patent application, Google made apparent its efforts to wipe out search engine spam, stating:
‘Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith.”
Domains registered for longer periods give the indication, true or not, that their owner is legitimate. Google uses a domain’s length of registration when indexing and ranking a Web site for inclusion in their organic search results.
So to prove to everyone that your site is the real deal, register for more than one year and increase your chances of boosting your search ranking on Google.
Which made me go looking for some info on this. These folks scoff. These folks don’t. These folks think it’s probably not a bad idea regardless.
Think I’ll make it for two years. Or maybe three.
The remains of the aspen and the cottonwoods head for the landfill. Katherine has decided she wants this job. this post enabled by airblogging.com….
The remains of the aspen and the cottonwoods head for the landfill. Katherine has decided she wants this job.
this post enabled by airblogging.com.
Initial framing on the deck. You can see where the step is. What you can’t see from this angle is how much wider the deck looks, from the back door,…
Initial framing on the deck. You can see where the step is. What you can’t see from this angle is how much wider the deck looks, from the back door, than the old one. Which, of course, it is. The piers haven’t been poured yet, so the extension on the right isn’t framed out yet, either. But it’s looking great.
On a parallel note, the guy I hired to do the tree debris hauling came today. I also hired him to chop down a couple of the aspens that were dead, dead, dead, and he did so quite nice. So kudos to Kevin “Ox” Oxley and my recommendations for using him if you need trees cut down or hauled off (720-298-4382).
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Your pillow is a marvelous ecosystem of dust mites and killer fungus. Yay! Researchers at The University of Manchester funded by the Fungal Research Trust have discovered millions of fungal…
Your pillow is a marvelous ecosystem of dust mites and killer fungus. Yay!
Researchers at The University of Manchester funded by the Fungal Research Trust have discovered millions of fungal spores right under our noses — in our pillows.
Aspergillus fumigatus, the species most commonly found in the pillows, is most likely to cause disease; and the resulting condition Aspergillosis has become the leading infectious cause of death in leukaemia and bone marrow transplant patients. Fungi also exacerbate asthma in adults.
The researchers dissected both feather and synthetic samples and identified several thousand spores of fungus per gram of used pillow – more than a million spores per pillow.
How fun. Synthetic pillows seem to be more of a good fungal environment than feather ones.
Professor Ashley Woodcock who led the research said: “We know that pillows are inhabited by the house dust mite which eats fungi, and one theory is that the fungi are in turn using the house dust mites’ faeces as a major source of nitrogen and nutrition (along with human skin scales). There could therefore be a ‘miniature ecosystem’ at work inside our pillows.”
[…] Aspergillus can also worsen asthma, particularly in adults who have had asthma for many years, and cause allergic sinusitis in patients with allergic tendencies. Constant exposure to fungus in bed could be problematic. It can also get into the lung cavities created by tuberculosis which affects a third of the world’s population, causing general ill-health and bleeding in the lung, as well as causing a range of plant and animal diseases.
Dr Geoffrey Scott, Chairman of the Fungal Research Trust which funded the study, said: “These new findings are potentially of major significance to people with allergic diseases of the lungs and damaged immune systems – especially those being sent home from hospital.”
Professor Ashley Woodcock added: “Since patients spend a third of their life sleeping and breathing close to a potentially large and varied source of fungi, these findings certainly have important implications for patients with respiratory disease – especially asthma and sinusitis.”
Sleep tight! Breathe deeply …
(via J-Walk)
John Scalzi, who’s just publishing the Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies, puts out the canon of most significant SF films: All of this is designed to be both interesting and…
John Scalzi, who’s just publishing the Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies, puts out the canon of most significant SF films:
All of this is designed to be both interesting and informative, but the part of the book that’s going to get most people’s attention — and raise hackles — is The Canon, which features the 50 science fiction films I have deemed to be the most significant in the history of film. Note that “most significant” does not mean “best” or “most popular” or even “most influential.” Some of the films may be all three of these, but not all of them are — indeed, some films in The Canon aren’t objectively very good, weren’t blockbusters and may not have influenced other filmmakers to any significant degree. Be that as it may, I think they matter — in one way or another, they are uniquely representative of some aspect of the science fiction film experience.
Scalzi had final say on the list (reasons for each are in the book), but he solicited input from others. His list (with the ones I’ve seen in bold):
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!
Akira
Alien
Aliens
Alphaville
Back to the Future
Blade Runner
Brazil
Bride of Frankenstein
Brother From Another Planet
A Clockwork Orange
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Contact
The Damned
Destination Moon
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Delicatessen
Escape From New York
ET: The Extraterrestrial
Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers (serial)
The Fly (1985 version)
Forbidden Planet
Ghost in the Shell
Gojira/Godzilla
The Incredibles
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 version)
Jurassic Park
Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior
The Matrix
Metropolis
On the Beach
Planet of the Apes (1968 version)
Robocop
Sleeper
Solaris (1972 version)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
The Stepford Wives
Superman
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
The Thing From Another World
Things to Come
Tron
12 Monkeys
28 Days Later
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
2001: A Space Odyssey
La Voyage Dans la Lune
War of the Worlds (1953 version)
An interesting list. One could do worse than bringing those along on desert island exercise.
(via BoingBoing)
‘Nuff said. Greetings, all, and tremble in fear, for I am Doom! I am honoring you all with my presence here tonight, for I am seeking the title of reunion…
Greetings, all, and tremble in fear, for I am Doom! I am honoring you all with my presence here tonight, for I am seeking the title of reunion homecoming king! I am expected to tell you, in three minutes or less, why you should vote for me. Bah! Doom does not plead — he takes!
Jakob Nielsen does all sorts of consulting on web page design and the like. His work usually focuses on commercial sites, but he’s turned his view onto weblog design mistakes….
Jakob Nielsen does all sorts of consulting on web page design and the like. His work usually focuses on commercial sites, but he’s turned his view onto weblog design mistakes.
An initial caveat — a lot of his advice depends upon a shared vision of what one is after with in one’s own weblog. Is it something you want to become famous and cited and popular outside of one’s circle of friends and family? Then these are the tips for you. To the extent that’s not true, the advice becomes more problematic. Or, as Nielsen puts it:
Some weblogs are really just private diaries intended only for a handful of family members and close friends. Usability guidelines generally don’t apply to such sites, because the readers’ prior knowledge and motivation are incomparably greater than those of third-party users. When you want to reach new readers who aren’t your mother, however, usability becomes important.
His identified mistakes (and my comments on each):
1. No Author Biographies
Agreed. I have an “About Me” biography here that I try to keep up to date. It’s not majorly prominent, but it should be visible to anyone who looks for it.
As for other folks’ blogs I read, I like having at least some biog info, including, at least, a first name.
2. No Author Photo
*cough*
I don’t require this, but Nielsen’s point is a good one — folks remember and identify with faces better than names (as a hardwired talent). Memorability is useful.
3. Nondescript Posting Titles
Okay, this one I’m weak on. I just love wordplay too much, and word/phrase associations. Indeed, one of the titles I use all too frequently — “Hey, Kids! Comics!” — is one Nielsen particularly dislikes as too vague.
I dunno. I occasionally think I should do a more than that, though I don’t necessarily think that
My back hurts today
I got a Premier Mileage Plus card!
We bought lots of swag at the auction
are any more interesting than
Creaky
Hoity, and, occasionally, toity
Sold!
Nielsen, of course, would argue that interesting should take a back seat to informative.
On the other hand, when I go skimming through my RSS aggregator, I often (unless someone is always an entertaining read) use titles to determine if I want to read something. And sometimes informative trumps interesting, and sometimes vice-versa. I’m still uncertain on this.
4. Links Don’t Say Where They Go
Nielsen is a big believer in links being informative, rather than generic. So, rather than
Go here for information about me.
he’d suggest
I’ve posted information about me.
In other words, link text should be informative of what is linked, both to visually scan the page and to make intelligent choices in clicking through. I agree completely, though I’m as guilty as the next person of doing the former. I sometimes resist redoing my text in order to create intelligible links, but it’s something for me to keep in mind.
5. Classic Hits are Buried
Nielsen suggests including links to some of your “biggest hits” in the sidebar, so that folks who are visiting can learn more about you. Doing something based on hits (or on comments) would function as a secondary choice here; you probably want to do an explicit choice.
Nielsen also suggests crosslinks within posts — if you reference something you did last year, link to the post that you made about it then, don’t just assume that folks read about it or remember it. I’ve been trying to do more of that.
6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation
Use categories, Nielsen suggests, rather than just dates (or monthly archives). Categories should be narrow enough to be useful, but not so narrow that the reader has to flip through too many of them. He also suggests (less easy) highlighting in each category some major posts.
Good ideas, certainly. A lot of folks are bigger believers these days in “tags” and other ad hoc categorization, but I think a good set of categories is the best organization. To be honest, I rarely use monthly archives, and almost never use the “calendar” links that some folks have on their blogs.
7. Irregular Publishing Frequency
Expectations are essential for a strong readership. Exceptions should be exceptions. If you post too infrequently, or go from daily to weekly, you will lose some readers. This is less important, perhaps, with RSS feeds, since they’ll get pinged when you post something new, but it’s still key to a regular readership, if that’s your goal.
8. Mixing Topics
“Specialized sites rule the web,” Nielsen asserts, and that’s true to some degree. That said, some of my favorite, regular sites are personal ones, which touch on individuals and their busy, complicated, unspecialized lives. YMMV.
DDtB will never be a specialized site. I’m not specialized enough for that. Folks who come here just to read comics reviews, or gaming stuff, or politics, or whatever, will, indeed, be disappointed.
9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
Not only do you need to worry about people today looking up what you’ve written, but for as long as Google (etc.) exists, anything you write will be out there. I try to keep that in mind to some degree in terms of being discreet about stuff that needs discretion, but I will never get a job in the Bush Administration (or an Administration that is sympathetic toward it, or, heck, probably any Administration), due to some impolitic stuff I’ve written at times. I am aware of that, and have accepted that.
On the other hand, might some future boss object to something I’ve written here on some subject or another? Maybe. I try to be very circumlocutious with anything about my job, and I try to keep barriers up between job folks and my home domain, but I do know that I’m running some level of risk here about someone being more sensitive about things than I am.
10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service
Domain names are cheap, Nielsen notes. Many blogging packages (and services) will post to your own domain (or even host it). If you’re going to blog, get your own domain and just do it. You can move it to another provider, you can do anything you want, but you’ll be at a persisitent, expected address forever. That’s important.
And, obviously, I agree. And while I don’t necessarily stigmatize blogspot.com addresses, etc., I do get annoyed with folks changing from them to something else, or suffering from provider outages — and it does seem like more of a placeholder than a “serious” effort. So, maybe, I do actually stigmatize them.
Things (for me) to think about.
(via BoingBoing)
Fall in Denver — blue skies and yellow leaves. UPDATE: Well, not very yellow. My Treo’s camera is not … um … very good with color tones. This tree was…
Fall in Denver — blue skies and yellow leaves.
UPDATE: Well, not very yellow. My Treo’s camera is not … um … very good with color tones. This tree was a lot more yellow in person. (It’s also hard to tell the colors coming through on the screen when in full daylight.) It was, though, very pretty.
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The ethics of coming-real-soon-now memory and intelligence enhancers. Are they a good thing? The reason, it seems to me, is that we think cognitive enhancement is cheating. If, somehow, someone…
The ethics of coming-real-soon-now memory and intelligence enhancers. Are they a good thing?
The reason, it seems to me, is that we think cognitive enhancement is cheating. If, somehow, someone gets ahead through hard work, that’s okay. But popping a pill and mastering information after having read it only once seems unfair.
This position makes no sense. Among the normal population are men and women with incredible memories, fast learners of language and music, and those with enhanced capabilities of all kinds. Something in their brains allows them to encode new information at lightning speed. We accept the fact that they must have some chemical system that is superior to ours or some neural circuitry that is more efficient. So why should we be upset if the same thing can be achieved with a pill? In some way, we were cheated by Mother Nature if we didn’t get the superior neural system, so for us to cheat her back through our own inventiveness seems like a smart thing to do. In my opinion, it is exactly what we should do.
From a competitive standpoint (tests, competitions, artistic efforts — or, for that matter, jobs), it’s similar to the argument over physical performance enhancing drugs. Is it “fair” for a kid to be in a spelling bee if they’ve taking an mental performance enhancing drug? What constitutes “fair” in that case? What is it we’re testing for, and why (if we can improve on it) is that valuable? The open arguments over steroids and the like have to do with their adverse health effects (never mind the health effects of, say, rigorous training), but they are more fundamentally about altering ourselves (or other altering themselves) in a way that, by our own work (and short of taking similar drugs) we cannot. Changing what it is to be human, in effect — even if that baseline state not only varies widely between individuals, but has varied over time and is essentially a myth.
I think one reason for apprehension over memory and intellect enhancing drugs is much the same, only moreso. By altering our minds, we’re talking about changing, fundamentally, what makes people who they are. Bodies are one thing. Brains are another. If others change their mental capacities, we feel it’s unfair (even if they started off “better” than we were on some level). The virtues of hard work we’ve been drilled with become less essential (or only part of what it takes to exercise one’s mind). The bar gets raised. And, even more importantly, it raises the question of the meaning of self in a way that’s kind of scary.
An important thing to remember, of course, is that once the djinn is out of the bottle, that’s the end of it. Sports continues to fight a vigorous battle against performance enhancing drugs (with a vigorous debate over what actually qualifies for same, and a never-ending race between those who are looking for an advantage and those who want, for some reason, to keep them from it) — but that’s a venue where you have a limited set of competitors at a limited set of competitions, and in the still more limited set of top notch competitors and contests you can insist on drug tests. Unless, though, you’re going to force all college students to do the same, or all employees at a company, on a regular basis — and give a good reason for doing so — once mental performance enhancers get into the wild, there will be no stopping them. For better or worse.
Except, of course, through self-regulation. Not everyone who competes in sports uses buckets of pills from GNC, let alone illegal steroids. Professionals, perhaps, but not everyone. The costs, and the side effects, are too great. Similarly, folks may likely reach an equilibrium point on memory enhancers (as the author of the article points out, we spend much of our “off peak” time trying to forget about our day — will we really want to remember it better?) and other mental boosters. Are we, as a society, willing to trust that to happen, rather than try to legislate about it? Do we dare? Do we dare not?
(via GeekPress)
Well, since I thought of the idea of Game Day (alternate Sundays for socializing and playing of games, not necessarily RPGs), we’ve managed to do it only once — until…
Well, since I thought of the idea of Game Day (alternate Sundays for socializing and playing of games, not necessarily RPGs), we’ve managed to do it only once — until yesterday, which sort of makes it twice.
Sort of, since it turned out to be a serial Game Day — the Testerfolk were over (a brief appearance by Doyce) earlier, the Geissingers later, with a brief overlap in the middle.
That did have the advantage, though, of keeping the numbers down enough to play some “4 player” games, which worked out nicely.
First off, SPANC — Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls — in which up to four players maneuver their customizable four-person SPANC crews through challenges to their respective SP, A, N, and/or C rankings — in a quest for loot, toys, and pool boys. A bit more fun to describe than play (and with some fine Phil Foglio art throughout), it was still fun. Margie, myself, Jackie and Justin all joined in the festivities.
The rules are fairly straightforward, the challenges not too difficult to overcome. Results are subject to 2D6 bell curves, occasionally felt a bit too random. The highly flexible assignment of attribute-enhancing toys felt almost too flexible — giving someone something didn’t seem to be all that meaningful since, with just a few restrictions, it could be easily transferred away, even back into one’s hand (this is the subject of some discussion on the boards). The illustrations are fun and the encouragement in the rules to engage in cursing and mocking are entertaining but not enough to lend quite the level of personality I’d like to see. Lots of fine character names for CoH/CoV, though …
Margie eventually won (and handily). Overall time was about an hour and a half (mostly because of coming up to speed on the rules and nuances therein). Definitely interested in playing again.
After that, played some Outburst with the combined group. We’ve misplaced our “regular” Outburst box, and the estate sale copy of Outburst II I picked up for $2 last week was missing some pieces (and had a pretty lame way of tracking the correct guesses). Pulled out our Outburst Ultimate (or whatever it is) edition and used those cards/holder (which are, of course, in a completely different format). Need to find that green Outburst box …
Boys beat the girls, barely. The boys got a strong initial start, but a couple of zonker categories (Howard Stern? Men’s Fashion Designers?) gave the ladies a chance at victory.
After Jackie and Justin (and Kaylee!) left, we ordered Chinese and then played Strange Synergy. Another Foglio-illustrated Steve Jackson game, this is much more of a mock combat simulator. You command a squad of three, each of whom you’ve assigned three of the randomly-drawn powers / gadgets / mutations / etc. you are dealt at the beginning (in addition to a team power. The idea is that every game will be very different because of the zillions of different power combos.
The game was fun, if (initially) slow. We played about an hour and a half or two hours, and were probably about two-thirds done when we finished. It has a bit of a Cosmic Encounters feel, with some powers changing the rules only to be thwarted by other powers that change them in another fashion (often-times in secret until revealed). The game uses an amusing “stick the little cardboard flag into the top or sides of the figurine” way of showing weapons and status.
Less madcap beer-and-pretzels than SPANC, the mechanics are of a similar complexity. The goal is to get back your flag, as well as a “mystery” flag you choose beforehand. The only way to get flags back (though I’m sure there are some powers that affect this) is to defeat the person carrying it, then picking it up.
The game requires cunning as well as deliberate patience. The turn nature of it and various restrictions on movement and action (everything is at right angles, no diagonals for the most part) gives it a very chess-like nature, and keeps the action somewhat restrained. The highly random nature of results (most rolls require a 4-6 on 1d6) paradoxically adds a large element of chaos to a game that screams planning, perhaps too much so.
As I said, we hung it up around 10 p.m. or so, not yet finished. I’d like to get back to it again some time, but it’s definitely something more suitable to a mental challenge frame of mind than a “let’s have fun” one. That the game has a Yahoo! group devoted to it and rules questions (we goofed on targeting an invisible character with ranged weapons, btw) and strategy discussions and how to PBEM it and the like is a good sign that it’s a serious endeavor, albeit with a bit of amusing Foglio art.
Which raises an amusing comment I made to Margie last night as we were headed to bed. She actually excels at games like Strange Synergy which require strategy and planning. She’ll be the first person to tell you that she’s a planner at heart. If she were the sort that enjoyed that sort of thing, she’d be one kick-ass wargamer, or chess player — or, to pick at an old wound of hers, Risk player. She would surely kick my butt at them. A pity (or perhaps a blessing) that she’s just not into those sorts of games.
Hrm. A combo of yard work and a cat who’s decided that taking over vast swathes of bed during the night (pinning one into amazing contortions) is the current in…
Hrm. A combo of yard work and a cat who’s decided that taking over vast swathes of bed during the night (pinning one into amazing contortions) is the current in thing to do, has left me with a very unhappy lower back today. Which made the drive in something less than relaxing.
As a symbol of all my business travel over the last year, I am now (or once again) a United Airlines Premier Mileage Plus member, complete with silver MP card…
As a symbol of all my business travel over the last year, I am now (or once again) a United Airlines Premier Mileage Plus member, complete with silver MP card and all that jazz, good thru February 2007.
I think that means I get to board the plane early, but don’t get to hang at the Red Carpet Club. Whether I get to go through the Elite Line at the airport is unconfirmed.
Wow.
We did the church Harvest Auction dinner thing last night, with Doyce and Jackie watching the girl (thanks, guys!). A little bit less elaborate than the previous iteration (no band/dancing),…
We did the church Harvest Auction dinner thing last night, with Doyce and Jackie watching the girl (thanks, guys!). A little bit less elaborate than the previous iteration (no band/dancing), it was a fun evening.
Well, first off, what sort of swag did we end up with? A lot more than I’d expected. I was only moderately diligent about updating our silent bids, but still ended up the winner on all but a couple of things I’d put in for — which meant ending up walking out with a lot of stuff in our arms:
Total damage, $600. Could have been a lot more if we’d won more of the trips/accomodations folks had offered.
On the flip side, Margie was offering up a couple of cooking things. The “five weekday pre-prepped dinners for four” went for a steal at $85. The gourmet dinner for six, though … well, it was hot enoyug
Well, there were four full “gourmet” dinners that were offered as
Good times.