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Do Tara D a favor and go vote for her blog in the Bloggys Humorous category. Thanks.

Once again I found myself debating a book on somebody’s blog today. It gave me a small idea: would any of you be interested in participating in a little online book group? I’m sure there are similar things already in existence, but I figured it would be more fun if the group all knew each other. We could pick one book a month (maybe via a poll to be democratic) and then discuss it at the end, either in normal weblog format or even via a group chat. What do you think? Anybody interested or have ideas?

There was no Friday Five last week! That sucks. Since my meme-propagation urge is unfulfilled, here’s a new one I picked up from madalog:

10 bands/artists you’ve seen live
REM, They Might Be Giants, Ani Difranco, Reel Big Fish, Indigo Girls, Violent Femmes, The Bangles, Huey Lewis and the News, Dave Matthews Band, and Ben Folds.

9 things you’re looking forward to
Our housewarming party, Snookums’s birthday, the start of summer, getting a full-time job, finishing my quilt top, getting down to my target weight, picking out a new dining room set, the Buffy Season 4 DVD, and the next release of Mac OSX.

8 things you wear every day
My glasses, my contacts, my watch, my ND class ring, two silver hoop earrings in my earlobes and one at the top of my right ear. (Altogether that makes 8 things, right?)

7 things that annoy you
Inappropriate children, guys who wear hiking boots at the gym, my inability to own a Tivo in Australia, the fact that IKEA never has anything we want in stock, insulting commercials for “feminine products”, George W. Bush, and Mac-bashers.

6 things you touch daily
My eyeballs (to put my contacts in!), my iBook, my mobile phone, my wallet, the TV remote, and Snookums.

5 things you do every day
Check my e-mail, visit my list of daily blog reads, watch Days of Our Lives, feel guilty about not going to the gym more often, and look for jobs.

4 people you spend the most time with
Ouch. The Snook. That’s pretty much it. I suppose you could count the three fish too. We do have friends, but a lot of them are outside the country for various reasons right now. And I don’t know anybody else!

3 movies you could watch again and again
Pride and Prejudice, Office Space, and anything from the Star Wars series.

2 favourite songs of the moment
Based on what I woke up singing this morning, “Dr. Worm” by They Might Be Giants and “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton. Embarrassing.

1 person you could spend the rest of your life with
You know the answer. My Snook. Awww…

Pacey’s thinking about getting married… and not to Joey! I really need to kick the Dawson’s Creek habit. (Link courtesy of Kim.)

Bill alerted me to the fact that a musical adaptation of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West is in the works. Cool. I just read it a few months ago and I think it would be a fascinating topic for a show. It doesn’t have as much in common with the Judy Garland movie as you’d think, though, which makes me wonder if deluded Manhattan parents will end up dragging their kids along to a musical about politics, culture, feminism, and fate. Oh, and there’s sex too. 🙂

CouchCam is back! You’ll note that our new living room setup looks a hell of a lot like the old one. You probably won’t see me on it as much right now, since we have an actual office and I don’t have to do my web surfing on the couch. (Although I’ve asked the Snook to put in a network access point down there, so I may revert to the old way if I get bored working without the telly.) Once we get ADSL installed, you should see us more often since it’ll be on 24/7 and uploading more frequently. Enjoy!

You might have noticed (yet again) that my server time is incorrect. It keeps resetting itself back to, like, July for some reason. They usually fix it pretty quickly, so just bear with me.

Moving sucks. It took us four days, but everything is finally OUT of our old apartment and INTO the new house. We’ve still got to put everything away, but at least we won’t be making anymore trips back and forth. Saturday Ma Snook arrived and helped us cart over several carloads of stuff. On Sunday morning the movers came and not only did they manage to relocate all the furniture without a scratch, they also miraculously got our big cast-iron bed upstairs and into the bedroom. (It was a seriously tight fit.) Sunday night we headed to IKEA for even more flat-packed Swedish goodness. We got two more bookcases, night tables, and some under-bed drawers. We’re all about the storage. Monday we brought home the last few bits of stuff and then paid some cleaners an outrageous amount to clean up the wreckage. Hopefully we’ll get most (if not all) our deposit back.

Anyway, the phone is finally hooked up here (same number, for those of you who know it) which means that I should be able to resume my normal weblogging schedule shortly. In other news, the Snook and I have been sticking to the diet and – according to the new scales I bought – I’ve lost about five pounds already. Kickass. And for those of you that are worried, the three (remaining) fishies made it here safe and sound. They were a little stressed at first, but they seem to be adapting.

As the connection is still up for another day, I couldn’t resist posting. Some random stuff:

• We signed the lease this morning! Since then I’ve made five trips between the apartment and the house, most with a gigantic heavy backpack full of crap strapped to me. Tomorrow (Saturday) brings the arrival of Ma Snook and her station wagon, which should help us with some of the bigger stuff. Then on Sunday the movers are coming to deal with the furniture. Busy busy weekend…
• Our new landlords left us a big beautiful orchid in a pot to welcome us to the house! How nice is that? We were also surprised to see that all the lovely terra cotta potted plants in the back courtyard were left for us. (We thought they belonged to the previous tenant.) We’ve got all kinds of herbs: parsley, basil, rosemary, lavender. There’s a big white magnolia tree in bloom in the corner. There are little pots of purple and yellow pansies. It’s gorgeous! Of course, we’ll probably have killed everything within a month, but for now we feel extremely grown-up to have a real garden.
• The diet is progressing well. The first two days I was having major cravings, but they seem to have subsided a little. Maybe I’m breaking the sugar addiction! I got some of the ketone testing strips Dr. Atkins recommends, and according to that I am definitely in ketosis (i.e. I’m burning stored fat instead of sugar). I haven’t been to the gym since I started, but I figure I’m going to get enough exercise with the move.
• I’ve already had two irate phone calls (from my Mom and sister), so let’s clear something up, shall we? I didn’t “put” the Snook on a diet. Yes, even I agree that he’s skinny. But he’s been complaining for awhile now that his pants have been getting tight, so he decided to be my partner in this. He’s not doing hardcore Atkins, though, so he’s not gonna keel over or anything. He’s just cutting back on the carbs and eating lots of fruits and veg. Don’t worry; I won’t let him starve.
• You know how serious I am about this plan? I talked the Snook out of buying champagne to christen our new house. I’m not drinking anything til our housewarming party in two weeks (which should coincide nicely with the end of the “induction” phase of the diet).
• Just to make it public, here are my health goals:
  • I will be a size 14. (Not that I really care how physically big that is; I just wanna be able to theoretically shop in any shop.)
  • I will run a ten-minute mile.
• Oh, and in case you didn’t notice, CouchCam has been shut down. The sign reads: “CouchCam is temporarily disabled while we move house. Back soon!”

Ugh. More packing to be done. Stay cool, everyone!

This is probably the last you’ll hear from me for a couple days. We sign the lease for our new place tomorrow and then begin the task of moving all our crap four blocks. We’re hoping to have the new phone connected on Monday, so look for me then. Have a great weekend!