I got woken up this morning at 7:45 by a call from my mom. The boiler had run out of oil, and shut off, and she needed someone to be at the house by 10 to meet with the guy who was supposed to turn it back on. Apparently it takes a special guy to do this, separate from the guy who fills the boiler. That seems sort of inefficient to me, but whatever.

I had parked last night on the busier street a block from my street, in the hopes that it meant I wouldn't get stuck. It didn't. Got stuck anyway. Luckily it's been warm enough for the last two weeks that it only took me about half an hour to use the shovel to break through the ice and shovel it away. Whoever uses that spot next owes me.

Unlike Comcast, the local company's guys showed up right after I called them to say I was here. At this point, the house was about 50. Maybe. The thermostat had bottomed out. Long story short, it took him five hours to do all the stuff he needed to do, while I sat on the couch under a blanket, trying not to shiver to death. And a bunch of pieces need to be replaced.

On a related note, I've decided I'm moving to the south of France.

Today is also my sister's birthday, so I told her I'd pick her up from Circuit City, where she was stranded while waiting for an automatic starter to be installed in her boyfriend's truck. We had lunch, and I also drove her around to various shopping places because, well, I rock.

I bought Lies and the Lying Liars that Tell Them for a dollar at the Dollar Tree. Also a grilled cheese size frying pan. For a dollar!

Toys R'Us, where I used to work during the summer between freshman and sophomore year of college, looks completely different than I remember. The video game section is twice as big, which is to be expected, and there are way less board games and puzzles. Because it's not fun if it doesn't beep.

And the store is split into genders. I am not effing kidding. The "boys" section has action figures and race cars and tools and the "girls" section has dolls, Barbies, and "just like home" kits that learn them how to get barefoot and pregnant clean like their mommies. No, really. There was a Mr. Clean kitchen cleaning set and a Dust Buster Jr. and, I don't know, maybe boys should learn how to do household chores too, and a girl might fight it handy to be able to use a hammer one day.

What the hell is going on?

When did we go backwards to 1955?

I finally got my car out (it took about 10 minutes of positioning my wheels just right to fit into the ice tracks that have been formed by the neighbor with the giant truck). I went to Best Buy because I had a brilliant idea of buying my sister an HD DVD player for her birthday, and had seen them listed various places on the internets for $150 - $200.

At Best Buy (which took forever, because I was in auto-pilot to work, and that is not the direction Best Buy is in), they appeared to have only one brand of HD DVD player, a Toshiba A30, and it was selling for $299. They had a bajillion "upconverting" DVD players (hahahahaha, I miss the days when we just called it Progressive Scan and weren't trying to fool consumers), and a handful of Blu-Ray DVD players, but only this one HD DVD player.

Quasi-tangent: can we just decide on a format? This stuff sucks for consumers.

So I ask a guy, who doesn't know. Then goes to ask another guy. The second guy wanders back to tell me that's the only HD-DVd player, but they have plenty of Blu Rays, because I'm an idiot who doesn't know the difference. Well, he didn't say that last part. But when I mentioned looking for cheaper DVD players, as I had seen listed in various places, he said there weren't any at all, those were all old models that had sold out and were no longer made. And he said it to me as if I'm a moron.

We all know I don't like being spoken to as if I'm a moron.

So I used my gift card on Sim City Societies (teehee!) came home, and bought an HD-DVD player from Amazon for $223.94, with free one day shipping (my sister's birthday is Thursday, so this is perfect), two free movies boxed in the box, and another 5 free movies as an option if my sister wants to deal with the rebate. So in your face, Best Buy.

Why does Apple no longer sell a 30 GB iPod? I don't want or need an 80 GB iPod, the Nano comes in nothing larger than an 8 GB model, and I don't really want to spend $250 if I don't have to. The iPod touch is cool, but it's expensive and I mostly just want something to listen to music on.

Which means, pretty much, that I'll either buy one off ebay or I'll have to break my brand loyalty to Apple.

Okay, and the Zune seems to have similarly limited options. There's a giant gap between 8GB and 80 GB where these companies are hanging us middle-of-the-road people out to dry. I don't have 80 GB of music, I don't want 80 GB of music. I want to spend $150 - $200 on a 30GB somewhat slim music player that I can also throw some videos onto, if the mood strikes me.

THe Zen is 30 GB, but it's $250. I may as well get the 80 GB iPod.

This is all assuming I don't find my iPod by January, and can come up with some money to replace it with. Which I probably won't. Because I probably threw it out. And because I want to get a laptop, so money will be tight again.

I'm just procrastinating right now. I need to revise an employment manual within the next... oh, hour and a half. Go me.