Fun with electronics

I went back through a few posts and realized that I'd never revealed my lucky purchase in St Cloud. I bought a Wii. Every evening (and most weekend days) for the last week or so have been a near continuous flurry of tennis and bowling in WiiSports, Super Paper Mario, and creating little cartoon versions of myself and various fictional characters on the Mii Channel.

I <heart> my Wii.

It turns out there's a planned/engineered/enforced scarcity of game consoles in Canada. According to separate people at two large retail outlets, every couple of weeks some guy comes in a truck and drops off a couple of consoles. They're not sure exactly when this truck will appear, or how many devices they're going to get at a time, but it ain't often, and it ain't many.

So if you're like me, and you don't want to admit to anyone you're going to shell out money don't really need to on a toy you don't really need, especially one that will just suck more money as time goes on, you want &deity; to tell you when it's time to buy one by providing one for purchase at some moment when you happen to be thinking about it. So once every couple of months, when you find yourself in the neighbo(u)rhood, you stop by We B Toys or whatever and ask if they have one. And if they ever do, it's clearly &deity; telling you that it's time to buy it. But this being Canada, they never do.

Turns out the distribution in the States is similar, in that some guy in a truck mysteriously appears at irregular intervals bearing devices. The difference is that in the States, the guy in the truck drops off a pallet or two of devices at the same time. Such that you sometimes see posts on web-based message boards saying 'they just got a bunch in at the (store) in (city) near the (landmark)'. And if you hurry, you can walk in and get one, although it doesn't take long for them to disappear.

So I thought I would increase my chances for divine intervention, or whatever, by hitting every big electronics store between "here" and "there" on my recent pilgrimmage to the Old Country. I hadn't actually meant to stop at every possible place on the road, but as long as I was (for instance) passing through Grand Forks, I might as well check at that Best Buy right by the freeway, or as long as I was spending the night in Fargo, I should check at the Best Buy and the Toys R Us in range of the hotel. Which I did, and no one had any in stock.

But then my tire shredded and I found myself unexpectedly stuck in St Cloud for a couple of hours. And there was a Best Buy across the street from the Mall (I checked, and no, they didn't have one). I wasn't quite willing to go the couple of blocks over to the Toys R Us, at least not on foot, and once the new tires were on I was anxious to get back on the road. But there was the two hours wandering around the mall.

And there was a little game store in the mall. And they had 'em. Hence my new reverence for St Cloud as a consumer, if not divine, shrine. Little electronics/games stores in malls rarely have consoles in Canada. They had a few dozen just sitting there. <cue angelic music>

So anyway, that's the big secret. I didn't mean for it to be a big mystery. I just didn't want to say anything until I was safely back in Canada.

Il pleut. Llueve. It's raining.

Fitting end to my pilgrimmage to the old country.

I seem only to have had fast food Mexican on this trip (if I can delay my drive back enough I'll stop in at a real restaurant for a late lunch/early supper later). But Taco John's is still a big step up above Taco Bell, at least in Canada. Chicken taco salad, and then later a steak burrito. Mmm.

Okay, shopping report. Albertville yielded a decent pair of shoes, four pairs of pants, shorts, and at least one shirt that I can recall. IKEA yielded toffee candy (for the office--I try not to indulge unless I'm hypo), a middle-sized saucepan to go in between the little one and the big one and the bigger one that I got as a set last year), a couple of small 'soda' 'pitchers' that I'm going to use as tumblers, and a pair of narrow-ended tongs. I like tongs in my kitchen. Trader Joe's yielded sundry jarred goods for me and gifties, and some cookies. Okay, those I'll indulge in, but in small quantities over long periods of time.

I'm now listening to Car Talk on the radio, having listened to about an hour of Weekend Edition this morning. I miss NPR.

I was too late for fresh biscuits this morning, so I'm having my Hampton Inn sausage patties on a bagel. Raisin, but it was the only one that looked like it had a useful grain. And some yogurt. And coffee. Ahh. I'm going to have to remember this kind of breakfast when I get home.

Note to Hampton Inn, Fargo: Hampton Inn, Maple Grove, has cute little round eggy things to go with their sausage and biscuits. Mmm.

Okay, must finish my yogurt (which thank &deity; isn't spelled 'yogourt' down here. It's the little things that make you miss your home country).

Mission Accomplished, or why I will never speak unkindly of St Cloud, MN, ever again

So I'm on my semiregular pilgrimmage to the old country. I had a nice dinner (Italian, tho) with a colleague from Moorhead last night. Got some sleep. Had a nice breakfast thanks to the people at Hampton (let me just say that sausage patties and fresh biscuits are da bomb, nutritionist and endocrinologist be d*mned). Then, somewhere around mile marker 124, my driver's side front tire's tread shredded itself. Quite an adventure.

Cell phone and CAA/AAA memberships pay off big time.

After about 10 minutes on the phone with various AAA people, owing to the fact that I wasn't sure where I was, except that I was eastbound on the I-94 and could see mile marker 124 in front of me, it only took 20 minutes for a very nice man with a bad knee in an old truck to come and change my tire for me (since the last few times I tried to remove a lug nut that had been pneumatized on I almost hurt myself, I thought it better to let a professional handle it). So I rolled another 50 miles or so into St Cloud, MN, on my now (I assume) trashed compact spare, found a Sears Automotive, and arranged for new tires.

Which left me with two hours to cool my heels. And let me just say between the arcade claw game and a lucky break in the mall, I was a very happy consumer. In the sense of acquiring things that were in need of acquisition (including tires) without too much trouble. So all told I was able to roll into the outlet mall at Albertville a little before six and Trader Joe's in Maple Grove about 7 and checked in and safe at the hotel (yay Hampton Inn again) by 7:30. Missed dinner with pal(s) in Minneapolis, but oh well.

Now I just have to find some food and go to bed. Tomorrow is IKEA day, followed by a long drive back to Fargo.

Did I mention my vacuum cleaner is still in the trunk of the car?

It's Tuesday. I woke up sort of late, meaning on time, but late in the sense that I had meant to get an early start.

I started my day at StB hospital, to have some blood drawn for some tests. I'm supposed to do it a week ahead of an appointment, but the appointment is on Thursday and I forgot about it until Saturday and didn't have a chance to go in yesterday.

I then had a 'baby' apple pancake at the Original Pancake House. Yum. And sat and had a coffee at the coffee place at the Forks, working on some notes regarding my latest Acting-Head crisis. Which we're going to have to suck up and pay for, and in the scheme of things it's not that much, but really, I'd rather not go begging for money from the Dean considering I've already done stuff to to make his life miserable. So I noodled out some questions for some others that might lead to some solutions I didn't/couldn't/wouldn't think of on my own.

Then I went to Diamond Sports & Medical supply, where I hoped to find a thick yoga mat, and better blocks. And maybe a knee pad for those lunge positions. Didn't find squat. Spent a long time playing with the stretchy bands and tubes and things they use in Pilates and stuff, and considered the purchase of a distance-gripper thingy and a bedpan as a gift for a friend of mine (long story, to be shared some other time).

Then I went to the mystery bookstore and bought some books, now that I'm back to reading at night.

Which was originally going to be the topic of this post. I've just discovered Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" series, featuring one Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, the only openly practicing Wizard known, who works as a sorcery consultant, sort of a PI of the supernatural, out of an office in Chicago. Good voice, well drawn characters. Lead with a shady past. Funny and atmospheric, lots of great supporting characters (my favo(u)rite being Bob, the lascivious air spirit who lives in a skull in Harry's basement). Good supporting characters with inner and outer conflicts. Not 100% sure about the world, the way magic works in this universe. But lots of hints of more to explore (The White Council, a Vampiress owner of a pricey escort agency, the mysterious Nevernever, a Warden with a sword and an axe to grind. And a mortal crime boss to get in the way--I particularly loved the line "I've never had a Godfather, but I do have a godmother, and she is, as it happens, a faery." Or something like that.) So I went looking for book #2 at the mystery place, which of course they didn't have. The did have #9, the new one, which apparently just came in, but I have to read things in order or it just doesn't work for me. Ended up buying some other stuff, but I'll have to go elsewhere to hunt up the rest of the Butcher novels.

So after all that, I did some shopping, bought groceries, and now I'm contemplating doing a whole lot of cooking so I can save some time as I go on this week. Really need to do laundry at some point. And get my new vacuum cleaner out of the trunk of the car.