utenzi

UPS delivered a box to my house the other day. I had no idea what was in it since I didn't remember ordering anything. I brought the box inside and opened it up. Inside the box I found a pair of Teva shoes. I DO NOT remember ordering them. I think I might have a problem! Now don't get me wrong, I'm not sorry I ordered them. The price is great. I only buy things like this on clearance so that's not a problem but still... I should remember doing the shopping and buying. Shouldn't I??? Maybe I need some kind of Internet shopping 12-step program. They must have programs like that out there somewhere. In any case, here's what they look like. They're nice. Just the sort of thing I wear. I just wish I remembered buying them. I really do find it a mite troubling... and what in hell is "spider rubber?"

All day today I'll be shopping for Xmas presents. Yes, I've put it off to the last minute since I'm leaving for my parent's place in SC late tonight, around 3am, about 24 hours from now, and I want everything bought and wrapped before I leave. They say that the early bird catches the worm. Just look at that thing up there! Who really wants a worm anyhow?

I finally stopped deliberating over catalog items and placed an order for the painting supplies I need to get started. Back on August 30th I mentioned that I wanted to start doing some art work again. It's been about 20 years since I've done anything like that and I could use the creative outlet. In my late teens and 20s I worked with oils but I don't want to do that again. Too smelly, to be honest. It is the medium that I found best suited for me at the time but this time around I'm going to go with acrylics. And ordered some watercolor stuff also since I love the way they look on good paper. In any case, just before placing the order tonight I did an Internet search on the company's name and "coupon" and I found one for 15% off. I love the net. It makes shopping so much easier!

In like a lion, out like a bloody sheep; or maybe January showers bring February flowers? How do those pithy sayings go? Well, if nothing else, having February start with a rainy day is actually a good thing here in drought stricken North Carolina. We need the water! For me the noteworthy aspect of February is that it brings to a close my Xmas induced shopping frenzy. I usually try to close down that bad impulse of mine before this, but for me Feb One always means no more spending profligately. *whew* I need the break and so does my beleaguered bank account. It's too bad though. There's this really pretty fireplace on sale at the Big O, Overstock dot com . Isn't that thing a beaut? Lee and I saw one of these up in Asheville back in October but it was around a $thousand. This one is only $199 but the consumables would get you. The fireplace here uses 1 - 3 gel cans at a time and those things are almost $4 each and supposedly last 3 hours. Assuming the real number is more ...

On Saturday I ordered up satellite service for my lovely new television . The appointment for hooking up to the service is between 8am and noon on Wednesday, which is just in time for the season premiere of Lost on Thursday night (season 4, if you're counting) and of course the Super Bowl (XLII, if you're counting) on Sunday. Not to mention the Tarheels next game which occurs Thursday, against Boston College on ESPN HD. That'll be the first sporting event I'll watch on high density! I didn't watch the last season of Lost and I don't expect to watch it this year either but I will check out that first show just to see how much trouble the old crew is in. Preceding the season premiere at 9pm is a overview show at 8pm for folk like me that got too bored with the damn show. Season 3 just didn't grab me at all. TY Guide, after each show description these days, has a brief mention in red print of how many new shows are left. I guess it's a good time for me to...

My name is David and I'm a shop-oholic. Is there a 12 step program for his? LOL I'm good for most of the year 'cause I just don't spend much money and don't go shopping. But. Every year at Christmas time there's no choice so a shopping I go--and that jump starts my nasty habit. It's not as expensive as you might think 'cause most of the fun in it for me is trying to get the lowest price that I can (as long as it's not a lot of trouble 'cause I'm also lazy). This shopping takes many forms. I even look up prices of gas stations, as can be seen to the left, before filling up my car. I happen to live in a unusually expensive gas area and by driving 8 miles out of my way I can usually save 20 - 30 cents a gallon. Since my car gets about 35 mpg it takes me about a half gallon to save that money. Is it worth is? Well, based solely on cost, not time, if I get over 5 gallons I save some money. I usually wait until I need over 12 gallons so I save arou...

I had my first holiday season social visit today. Chris, my former girlfriend, stopped by on her rounds and dropped off some homemade cookies and Hershey chocolates with me. It was hard to believe I'd not seen her in over 4 months. Time does have a way of winging by, doesn't it? In any case she was looking quite lovely as you can see below. To the left you can see the tin of cookies she brought me, as well as the bag of Smarties that she was getting ready to grab and run with. While Chris isn't overly fond of sweets--unlike me--she does like the occasional Smartie. Of course that 19 ounce bag will hold her for a couple of months but would only last a couple of days with me. That probably also explains why she's so much thinner than I am. I don't know what happened in this picture. Something weird with the flash, I guess. But even with that weird light effect over Chris' head, it's her smile that really lights up the picture. You can see that she was clutchin...

Yesterday I did some bargain shopping. First I went to Kohl's online store and picked up a hooded sweatshirt, crew neck sweatshirt, a t-shirt, and a fleece pullover and it all totaled up to $22.50 --before tax and shipping, anyway. I love bargains! Most of the stuff was 80% off. Speaking of bargains, Wall Street had a big sell-off yesterday. The stuff I had was all small companies that weren't affected much. I dropped around $150 in value. I couldn't constrain myself from buying more tho--and now my cash balance is practically nil. But at least I didn't stretch out and use margin. I've done that in the past and got burnt bad. Charred limb type burns. I can't say that I've learned my lesson since I was out on margin just a few weeks ago but at least I'm a little more cautious now. Anyway, the lovely stocks I picked up are PCYC and THLD. The first company, Pharmacyclics, is a pharmaceutical company that is developing drugs to treat cancer. Their drugs are...

From 8am to noon my girlfriend and I were out at the stores south of Raleigh doing that last touches on the holiday shopping. I am now finished--and not only finished but I have a few generic extra presents just in case. This is one of the extras. It was on sale at Amazon for one day and I couldn't resist. I might keep it for myself--or to scare the bejesus out of cats! We ended up going to a bunch of stores in just 3 hours this morning. Let's see, first Home Depot, then Target, Kohl's, Circuit City, Borders, and a quick lunch at Burger King where I had their Angus Beef sandwich and it was tasty, and then finally an ABC Store. I'm scooting over to my parent's house in SC on Sunday--probably my normal 3am departure to get there around dawn, 4 hours later--so that means a lot of present wrapping tomorrow. My girlfriend is going up to her parent's place tomorrow morning. I was going to go with her but my belly has been a little precarious of late so I'm just go...

Not all that much happened this weekend. Friday night I begged off going x-mas shopping with my girlfriend and we stayed in. Just had some simple pasta with sauce from her Mom that was in the freezer. Saturday morning my gf made us both breakfast and we discussed the plans for the day. X-mas shopping would have to be done today so that made the top of the list. We decided to go later that day since of course watching the UNC b-ball game at 2pm was a top priority. We headed out shopping around 7:30pm and made the rounds at Crossroads Shopping Center (REI, Bed Bath & Beyond, Circuit City) then across the street to Kohls then across town to Wal-mart. We finished up at 11pm and then went back to her place. *whew* We managed to fill the back of the car with goodies though we didn't do the grocery shopping that my gf wanted to do. She doesn't like shopping and finds it less annoying when I'm with her. Go figure! Sunday was a day for sneezing. Wheezing too. Her younger son is...