Rolling Pennies for iTunes

The Coinstar machines now allow you to convert your loose change to gift cards.  Doing so enables you to avoid paying the 8.9% fee Coinstar charges when you convert your change to dollar bills.  I’m excited about this since the gift card choices include Borders, Amazon, and iTunes – things I would actually use!  Now my spare change, which usually sits for months years on my desk, can be used to buy fun stuff.  It’s like found money!  And my regular pay can be saved up or used for real purchases, like a really expensive stick vac.  Okay, obviously I am still prone to purchasing things I could probably do without, but at least I can treat myself to some music or a book without feeling guilty.  After all, the spare change was just collecting dust.

So tonight I went to the local Shaw’s and turned my loose change into an iTunes e-certificate.  I’ve now got $50 to spend on tunes.  Happiness!

My first purchase?
“Elevator Operator” by Lolly Pop:

Because everyone could use some fun dance music these days

My second purchase?
“Happy Birthday To Me” by Bulldog Mansion:

Because they’re a cooler cut of K-Pop.

Because my “To Read” list isn’t long enough

Multiracial Sky has a post with an interesting list of books about racism and privilege:

A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present, by Howard Zinn (I’d actually heard of this one, and I think I saw him speak at a graduation ceremony.  I didn’t realize the significance of this book in detailing the Missing In History facts we never learned in school.)

Everyday Acts Against Racism: Raising Children in a Multiracial World, edited by Maureen T. Reddy

Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendships, edited by Emily Bernard

Yet another set of books I need to take a gander at.  Like I need more books to read…  At least I’ve curtailed buying books and check them out at the library first.

Gobfather update

A while ago I complained that I could no longer find Ben & Jerry’s Gobfather ice cream.

Well, much to my happiness, I found some!! And it was on sale!! Happy happy joy joy!!

SimCity’s siren call…

… is calling out to me. But I really should catch up on my TV shows. I have a backlog.

The nice thing about getting the DVR is that I can toodle on the PC and not worry that I’m missing the first 10 minutes of Heroes because the DVR is recording it. The downside is that I have a backlog – I’m behind two eps on Gilmore Girls, and odds are by tomorrow night I’ll be three eps behind. Oh, and I’m more likely to record stuff I normally wouldn’t, like some Discovery show on cities.

So I should go with my original plan of watching TV. Except that I’m feeling that urge to play SimCity. I started a new city this weekend, and it’s going well. But, of course, I want to do MORE. But, if I do play it, then I run the risk of staying up too late. And that does me no good. It just makes me sluggish and cranky at work.

Hmm… OK, Gilmore Girls can wait. I really want to see what is happening on Heroes. I will be good and watch TV and not give in to the evil that is SimCity.

I’m just weak

It’s 3:26 AM.  I was a loser and I restarted the game.  The program was a little wonky, so I set the game to slow…  I got  my solar power plant   I am not going to bed.

Sim City is evil… Or I’m just weak

So, did I watch Battlestar Galactica tonight like I had planned? No.

Did I watch L&O Criminal Intent like I planned? No.

Did I finish cleaning up after having people over? No.

Instead, I got sucked into playing SimCity. I had planned to play for an hour starting at 8. 9 PM came, and I thought, “Well, ‘Eye of Jupiter’ was a good episode, but it had the stupid Lee-Kara-Dualla-Anders quadrangle, so I’ll just keep playing.’ Then 10 PM came, and I thought, ‘Screw it. It’s the weekend. I’ll keep playing.”

It is now 1:41 AM. (Happy Easter, btw.) It was 11 PM at one point, and now it’s past 1 AM. That is SimCity for you. It just puts you in a time warp, and you keeping thinking, “One more zone. I want to watch things build. I want to tweak this bit over here. I want to…” And then you realize it is light years past your bedtime. And, what stinks, is that as usual, the game crashed on me. I was saving it fairly regularly so this wouldn’t happen, but it still crashed. I take it as a sign that I need to stop and go to bed.

I just hope I saved it after my city got enough high wealth residents for me to get the solar power plant. If the next time I play I find out I saved it before, I’ll be bummed.

And I need to learn to just stop playing when I plan on stop playing.

Do you think I should restart the game to check where I left off?  (Sad, I know. )