I went to Barnes & Noble today to buy my obscene amount of birthday books. I think I was successful. Thank you to both my parents for the birthday money and Stephanie for the Barnes & Noble gift card. Know that you helped make my dream a reality! I gotta get reading!
[You can click on the picture to enlarge it.]
Mr. W and I have been playing LA Noire recently and are really having a good time with the thing. Boy, I tell you what, once we got that walk through going and knew all the right interview questions that game has become a breeze! That’s definitely a game that I don’t mind cheating on. Not that my cheating bar is set very high. I cheat on games just because I can, not necessarily because I need to. Unlimited health? Lots of money? Where do I sign up?
Speaking of money, if I’m investigating a crime scene and find some money on the ground and make a comment like, “Not important” or “Seems irrelevant” then I should be able to put said money in my pocket. I keep trying and the game just does not understand. YOU TOLD ME THE MONEY WAS IRRELEVANT, SO NOW I WANTS IT. Also we love being able to commandeer vehicles. We will commandeer a car, then get back in our police car and drive off. Suck it, unsuspecting citizen!
Again, speaking of money, every once in a while I just get this urge to spend money. For the past week or so [and especially today because it is payday] I just want to buy something outlandishly expensive. Like a laptop. Or an iPad. Or something. I don’t even know exactly what I want to buy, but it needs to have the following three characteristics:
1. Shiny [this is almost always a given]
2. Expensive
3. Has lots of buttons [or touch-screen simulated buttons]
I should probably just hid my debit card until this urge passes, because no good can come from it. I’ve been saving money for a little while so that next weekend, on my birthday, I can go to Barnes & Noble and splurge on books. I am very excited about this. I can’t wait to treat myself to a Cafe Vanilla Frappuccino and browse through books. If you have any recommendations that I simply must read then let me know. I might believe you.
Doubly exciting is that I will be doing said browsing with one of my best friends, Stephanie, who is coming into town that weekend. Yay! This makes up for Mr. W missing my birthday again this year because he insists on having a life and doing things. Pssht. I don’t remember giving him permission for that.
Steph and I had originally planned on seeing Coldplay at Lollapalooza, but what with her being pregnant and my being cheap I think we are going to skip it. I will just play all my Coldplay mp3s really loud in the apartment while we play board games or something. We can turn the air conditioning off so we are sweating. Maybe the neighbors will invite over whoever it is that smokes weed at their apartment and we can leave a door open to get the smell in the apartment. That’s most of Lollapalooza right there.
So I turned 30 on Saturday. It’s one of those “big year” birthdays, so I figured I should probably mention it on my blog. I hate my birthday, and this year was no exception. And Mr. W was out of town.
It’s a sign that you have too much stuff when you can’t think of anything to get yourself for your birthday, right? I mentioned this on Twitter, but my parents sent me some birthday money, and I can’t think of anything to really get. My first go-to in this sort of situation is to buy some books, but lately I’ve been feeling like I have too many and want to purge some–doesn’t really make me want to run out and buy more. My absolute first thought for the money was to stick it in the wedding fund, but Mr. W said he would be upset with me if I did that. Speaking of, Mr. W is also having a problem figuring out what to get me. He thought he was being all clever and had a list of books I had mentioned wanting on my blog only to go through my bookshelves to see that I already owned each and every one of them. Sorry, Mr. W!
How about we use the money and go out somewhere nice for dinner? Perhaps even somewhere that’s borderline pretentious. That’d be nice.
First, an update: you couldn’t reply to the comments previous. My awesome webhost/tech guru, Chad, waved his magical wand and now you can. Hooray! So get out there and comment your ass off. I won’t stop you. Comments make my heart go pitter-pat.
Secondly, a picture! It was my birthday on Friday. I wasn’t too terribly excited about it ["depressed about it" might be a little more accurate] and Paige made this cake for me to cheer me up. Totally worked. Well, that and her other present: a bottle of Moscato wine. Yum!
I pretty much spent the day reading, which was awesome. Finally finished House of Leaves (Mark Z. Danielewski) and Outliers (Malcom Gladwell), both of which I had started months ago. That’s unacceptable, really.
Purchased with birthday money:
I feel like I’ve been gone a lot longer than four days. But that could also be because I’m pretty freakin’ tired. I have pictures from South Carolina to post, but it will have to be another day.
My parents got me a digital camera for my birthday. Everyone I know is now going to be so annoyed by the sheer volume of pictures I will be taking at all times. This is your warning. You will not be spared. Speaking of people I know–Josh, Cynthia, Paige, and Tim went in and bought me a new iPod. (Mine finally went completely and undeniably kaput a few days before my trip.) Thank you again, guys. I am really, really grateful.
Josh got a job offer in San Diego and is seriously considering the move. He asked Tim if he would come. Tim replied that he wouldn’t go without me. I have to admit that the idea of picking up and starting somewhere new does sound appealing. I’ve been jumping around so much the past ten years that it almost feels foreign to have lived in Chicago for as long as I have. But it’s all the way over in San Diego. I told Tim I’m going to have to think about it.
And now I’ll leave you with two of the pictures I took at Lolla.
See how close I was to Snow Patrol? Yay!
Tomorrow I’m going to a 311 concert with Paige and Liz. I don’t know how close we’ll be, but I will take pictures.