Misc Stuff

My daughter just came into the kitchen and peered at the cooling brownies. "Are these the sour cream recipe?" she asked. I told her that I didn't have a recipe for sour cream brownies -- "but if you like them", I said, "I could --" She shook her head. "No. I hated them." Ah. Ok. No recipes for sour cream brownies. Kahlua and Praline, yes, and Super Gooey -- this one's just the plain one. The one with the handwritten note: "These are excellent!" We'll have them after dinner - which, tonight, is Not So Sloppy Joes, another favorite.

I did a little poking around regarding the items on that list. It appears that 'Class VIII' refers to basic medical equipment, suitable for triage and first aid. 100 MPH tape is another way of saying tough, sticky tape -- aka duct tape. A LULA mag loader is used to make loading faster for weapon magazines. Tactical Tailor MAV vest is an armored vest suitable for hooking weapons, bags, etc onto. MAV stands for Material Armor Value. Snivel gear is cold weather gear.

We're done with our Federal and state taxes -- we get a small amount back from the feds, and we give a larger, though not overwhelming, amount to the staties. The local municipality tax will likely be a wash. This would have been done a week ago had we not somehow screwed up TurboTax's mind. I finallly got someone on the phone who walked me through how to fix it, and we were done ten minutes later.

I was joking with my wife that I think I'm ready to buy a plasma tv, and she said that she thinks its time. Its a joke because if I watch thirty minutes of TV a week, its a lot -- I normally go two or three weeks without doing so, though when I do, it'll likely be for a couple of hours. I was startled -- really? -- but she said she wants one with a V chip in it, whereuponI said she was taking all of the fun out of it. But I guess we'll start poking around. We do have a bunch of notes on what to look for. We also agreed in principle that in the next two or three months, we'll start looking around for a replacement for our sedan, which is a 1992 model. Its still in pretty good shape, but things break on it from time to time, and my wife, who is the primary driver, is ready to get rid of it. We will try to sell it locally, as I dislike the rigamarole of doing a tradein. Our standards for a replacement vehicle are fairly minimal, and possibly a bit unusual: since this is likely going to be the car that my daughter learns to drive in, we want it to be ultra-safe (airbags out the wazoo) but somewhat underpowered.

I'm just about done with The Man in the Arena, and for amusement I have been dipping into an Allen Drury novel I bought from a used book store a while ago. I used to like his style of writing, years ago, but not so much any more. Its just funny to listen to the way he has people talking -- you are never in any doubt which side he thinks is right, in any argument, and he clearly has (or had, as I believe he died) no use whatsoever for the United Nations. Still enjoying The Number -- he has a nice style.

I was just purging unneeded bookmarks, and one of the categories I trashed was Job Information. I'd set it up when I was looking for a job, six years ago. Now, I don't think I'll ever be doing that again. Still, getting rid of it was a weird feeling.