Geeking ensues, then some philosophical stuff.

I want to spend money! I think I am going to get the wireless headphones via Amazon. Unfortunately they come from a seller who charges almost $12 for shipping, but it’s still better than finding it slightly cheaper on eBay and having to pay out-of-pocket. As long as I can apply my $75 Amazon GC to them, it’s neither here nor there.

But there’s a bunch of other stuff I want - stuff from my wishlist that I had put in my cart for later because I was going to buy it used. And yet I have to refrain from putting it all in my cart, because Xmas is right around the corner. But I want the headphones NOW! I am trying to refrain from ordering anything until after Xmas; even though I know nobody’s getting me wireless headphones, they might have gotten me the very same used items from my wishlist. Augh! I did buy an A/C adapter for my new iPod, but I got that off eBay - no point spending $20 on the official Apple one when I can buy a non-OEM version for $6 shipped. I do have the official Apple A/C adapter for Firewire…but the 5G iPods don’t charge via Firewire, only USB.

Can you tell I’m a little hyper today? I am. I didn’t take my meds today, because I forgot to fill my medbox last night and so I had none left when I was leaving this morning. The really weird thing is that I think I was a better interpreter at a meeting this morning. I’ve known since starting this career that interpreting was a good fit for someone with ADHD - very little paperwork, you don’t have to retain information for long, etc. - but I didn’t think that having ADHD could make my output better. Very strange.

Oh, and I hate everybody who brings in junk food for the holidays. Today I successfully resisted the assorted truffles that were in the office kitchen, and fortunately they were gone after a couple of hours. I even resisted the mini PB cups that were in the candy bowl when I stopped by there for a Starlite mint. Yay for me. I’m hungry though! Is it time to go home yet?

Well thanks to redwaterlily I now have another $25 to spend at Amazon! She was logged into Blingo when she made a winning search, so we both got a gift certificate! I have actually won a few hundred dollars through Blingo, with a total of 15 prizes since I joined in April 2005. If you haven’t already signed up, you can do so here - make sure you’re logged in when you search! You’ll get the trustworthy Google results you’re used to, but with a chance at winning prizes and cash too…why not give it a try!

Now I’m off to analyze my choices for iPod accessories again, and I’m going to browse over my wishlist too, and try to figure out what to get…

I’m still all hyped up about my iPod, of course. So far my favorite feature - besides the big one, watching videos - are the fact that podcasts are dated and it shows which ones you haven’t listened to yet. I like podcasts, so that plus the scrolling title is an awesome benefit for me. And the whole thing is just awesome in general!

I’m trying to decide what, if any, accessories I should get now. For my old one I had a $15 pair of earbuds and they are working fine on this one, of course. My car charger and cassette adapter work fine too. I spent $25 on the iSkin eVo3 case (the “arctic” color) because I want the best protection possible for this iPod; for my old one I got a pink silicone case - which I have since lost! - but it was kind of cheap. For this one I want good protection.

I got a $50 Amazon gift certificate from the webmaster of a site I’ve worked on this year, so I am looking at a few accessories there. So far my Shopping List includes the USB power adapter, TuneJuice battery backup, Logitech wireless headphones, the Macally portable speaker, and the iTop button relocator. Or I could use the $50 for something from my wishlist, and just let the iPod be an iPod and not obsess over it so much. Input welcome!

I was asked by a family member to update my Amazon wishlist, so I set about to do so. I quickly realized that you can only delete one item at a time. This is very annoying, so I went looking for a Greasemonkey script that might do the same thing - and to my surprise, there wasn’t one. I’m sure there are people out there with the know-how to create something like that, but I don’t know how to reach them. I briefly checked out Dive Into Greasemonkey and peered at the source of a wishlist editing page, but I realized it was way over my head. I looked at the page with Platypus but I couldn’t figure that out either, and there weren’t any relevant Firefox extensions.

I don’t suppose anybody out there is taking Greasemonkey requests, are they? I think the holidays would be the perfect time for such a script to be written.

Last month I got my annual Amazon gift certificate for being a Literotica moderator, and it was more than it has been in years past. I also had a little over $20 from Mechanical Turk, so I added that to my gift certificate balance and then spent at least a week dithering over what to buy. I ended up with four books three of which arrived yesterday.

Subway Style: 100 Years of Architecture & Design in the New York City Subway

I have been wanting this for a long time, and I’m really pleased with it. It’s much bigger than I was expecting, and it is chock-full of photos! The book is broken into chapters based on design elements (light fixtures, decorative tiles, etc.) and each chapter has a few pages of text followed by several pages of pictures from all around the system and all the way back to its creation. It doesn’t quite have as much as I was hoping for about the City Hall station, but it’s a great coffee table book and I will be browsing through it frequently.

Female Chauvinist Pigs

I wasn’t expecting this one to be hardcover - I guess because of the subject matter I was expecting something more flimsy. Although I support some points of feminist philosophy, I do not actively consider myself a feminist; this book seemed interesting anyway.

Deaf Peddler: Confessions of an Inside Man

For some reason this came individually shrink-wrapped. The subject matter is interesting to me, although I didn’t realize that the author was also in a wheelchair, which seems like it might affect the telling of the deaf peddler experience - this guy probably was more successful as a peddler because he was in a wheelchair. In any case, I’m reading this one first because it’s pretty thin. The print is large, the margins are pretty big, and it’s only 136 pages.

Embassy Residences in Washington

If you’ve been to DC and driven/walked along 16th Street or Embassy Row, you know there are some pretty awesome buildings there. One of my favorites is an African embassy along 16th street - I think it might be for Uganda - that has fantastic African architectural details. This book hasn’t arrived yet because I bought it at a discount from an Amazon Marketplace seller, but I’m looking forward to browsing through the pictures and learning how the embassies came to be.