gone to stumptown...

we're on our way south this morning for the weekend. taking the nana out to lunch, watching one of the wiener-nephews play a soccer game, have a nice roast beef dinner with the fam...

the highlight of the weekend will be sunday tho, when we go shopping tax free in portland. I'm getting a new compy for the first time in seven years. the fan in our hand-me-down PC from miyuki's work is dying, and while that would be easy enough to replace, we're using it as an excuse to buy a new one. I want the mac mini, the high end one with the dvd burner and 2.0ghz dual core processor. it'll be nice to get back onto a mac, especially since I haven't used much of os X on a compy that can actually handle it. eventually we'll get the wireless keyboard and mouse, but for now we'll just have a mismatched set. I'm okay with that. I will bug jules into helping me replace the fan in the old pc (Der Waffle Haus) so we have a backup system... pretty sure I'll yank out 160gb hard drive out of it and get an external case for it. I do need to think up a good name for the new compy tho... I've named all of my computers. Waffle Haus, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Yossarian, Nebuchadnezzar, I can't remember any before that... suggestions are welcome.

miyuki is also going xmas shopping... we're terrible people. I already bought my xmas prezzie from her, a new montreal canadiens pro rbk sweater, customised with koivu's name and number. it's in my closet. so she's getting a nice winter coat. we're justifying it as we don't really care about xmas, and she needs the coat anyway. I got my jersey when I did because it was on sale and we saved fifty bucks. I've already finished all of my xmas shopping otherwise for my family. mooki still needs to do a little bit for her family, but they're only getting token gifts 'cos I'm cheap and we won't be in canada this year anyway. I like how my family does xmas. we have a $25 cap on spending per person. my mom ignores this because she can afford to, and nana always breaks out the chequebook in a ridiculous feat of generosity, but otherwise we limit our spending. my sister has three kids, and I have $30k in student loan debt. maybe ten years from now we'll spend more. but for now, I'm fine with not getting as much if I don't have to spend as much. bah humbug.