Month: February 2011

Silly Rabbit, Tricks Are For Kids

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Remember the gift basket my mom made me for Valentine’s Day? Included in that basket were a pair of gloves. I put them in my purse and a few days later went to put them on when I became baffled. You see, one side has rubber balls on it for gripping, and it turns out my mom had accidentally given me two right-handed gloves. I called her and we laughed about it. The gloves were sold separately, and she had bought two pair, so she had two left-handed gloves at home. She mailed them to me and I received them yesterday along with this note (click to see a bigger version).

Another amusing thing that happened recently was what Joe did at Petco yesterday. We were checking out the ferrets nearby a guy who was buying a rat to feed his snake. Except Joe didn’t put two and two together (he didn’t notice the guy was holding a big bag of snake bedding), and assumed he was buying the rat as a pet. Joe asked the guy if it was his first rat and then went on to explain how we have one at home. Obviously the guy wouldn’t care since he viewed the rat as food, but I’m not sure he was really understanding what Joe was getting at anyway judging by his response which was that his snake was getting so big he’d soon be feeding it chickens.

I’ve been totally giving Joe shit about his observation skills since, quoting him, “Is that your first rat?” while he rolls his eyes at me. Luckily he’s a good sport and was ok with me posting this entry because I found the whole thing highly amusing.

When we got home I promised Templeton I’d never feed him to a snake. I don’t know if I could ever own a snake (they are boring anyway) because of that. It doesn’t bother me feeding crickets to my toad because they are nasty insects, but a cute little furry rat? Don’t think so.

Grammar Police – I vs. Me

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Since I’ve been seeing this mistake all over the place lately, not just online, but when people speak as well, I’m going to share a tip on how I remember when to use I vs. Me in a sentence.

Just remove the other person from the sentence and see if it still makes sense. That’s it.

Examples:

“Joe and I went to the store” becomes “I went to the store.”

“I can’t believe he gave Joe and me such a good discount” becomes “I can’t believe he gave me such a good discount.” It wouldn’t make sense to use I in that sentence because then you’d be saying “I can’t believe he gave I such a good discount.”

Try it next time you’re forming a sentence and let me know if it works for you. I did not research this method online because I wanted to hear opinions on it first, so feel free to comment.

Also, if someone wants to offer tips on the proper way to use punctuation in conjunction with quotation marks, please do, because I probably used them incorrectly in this post. It has always been one of my weak points grammatically.

Weekend Fun

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Birthday Cake

Friday we went to my parents to celebrate Brother #2’s birthday. We only had K with us since E had a school event he was attending. It was weird only being there for four hours because we usually go on a Saturday around 2 pm and stay until 11 pm but this time we were only there from 6-10. It’s also tough to keep track of everything that’s going on because it feels like everyone is vying for my attention at the same time, not that I’m complaining! I felt bad because my brother was feeling a bit neglected since my attention kept getting turned elsewhere. If only they lived closer we’d probably visit more often because they may be dysfunctional (and what family isn’t?), but they crack me up and I nearly always have a good time. My mom even gave me a cute Valentine’s Day basket full of candy and some socks and gloves. I love that she still does this for me even if I have to share the candy with Joe. ;)

Valentine's Day Basket

Brother #1 was kind enough to let us borrow a few video games for the PS3 and Wii. I’m not a big game player but I liked Rabbids Go Home for the Wii enough that I played it for nearly an hour today. That’s a record for me!

HTC Inspire

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Wednesday evening we found ourselves at the mall to take care of a couple of errands – Joe had an appointment at Sears Optical, and I wanted to take my new bracelet to the jewelery store where it was purchased to see whether they could remove a link so it wouldn’t be quite so loose around my wrist. They said they could, for $30, which I think is ridiculous. I’m going to wear it a few more times and if it bugs me too much I might just return it instead. I’m more of a necklace person myself. Speaking of which, the chain broke on my new necklace the second time I wore it so I have to go back there and ask them to replace it. I have another chain just like it from the same store which came with my pretty blue sapphire pendent and that one never broke so I think it was just a fluke.

Directly next door to the jewelry place is a new AT&T store. They used to just have a kiosk but the store is much nicer. We went inside to browse because Joe has been itching to join the 21st century and get a smartphone and he’s eligible for an upgrade in mid-March. He made a beeline right for the new HTC Inspire which I had told him about a few weeks ago before it was released. An employee approached us to help and suggested Joe call AT&T Customer Service to see if they’d allow him to upgrade a little earlier without penalty. Apparently sometimes if you’re within a month they are lenient about it.

Joe called AT&T and they said no problem. Before getting off the phone Joe confirmed, “so you are waiving the $200 early upgrade fee, correct?” and the guy said yes. We walked back into the store and the employee pulled up his account to see they notated the $18 activation fee was waived instead. Seriously? Are people retarded? Joe called back and spent ten minutes on the phone with them before they would notate the account correctly, but eventually everything was worked out and he bought the HTC Inspire for $100, and we also got a package of screen protectors and had the employee put one on since they do such a good job. You should have seen how excited Joe was walking out of the store with his first ever smartphone!



Initially I was jealous because the 4.3″ screen puts the 3.5″ iPhone one to shame, plus I was having new gadget envy because his phone responds faster than mine does to commands, but I think I’m still in love with my iPhone enough that I will wait for the iPhone 5 before I upgrade. I’m sure the faster processor, retina display, and improved battery life will be awesome. There are a few things Apple could learn from Android, however, and one of the big ones is notifications. The iPhone notification system just sucks, but so many people have pointed this out and complained about it that I’d be very surprised if Apple wasn’t already working on it for the next iOS release. They might be slow adding some features but they tend to design them well once they do. I’d also like more personalization options for the phone, the ability to create home screen widgets like the Android offers, and a larger screen too. Someone please tell Steven Jobs to get right on that.

Valentine’s Day

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We both out-did ourselves for this Hallmark holiday this year because we like to mix it up a little. We don’t need an excuse to be nice to one another, but it sure is fun! I thought I had Joe topped by getting him a Kindle, which he wasn’t expecting, but of course he beat me. He always manages to do it no matter the occasion.

In the morning there was a pretty sapphire heart necklace waiting for me by my purse, but it didn’t match my outfit so I had to run upstairs to change. :)

Then later on at work there were two dozen tulips delivered with a pretty vase and a card that said “to the best wife a guy could ever have… all my love. joe”. I wasn’t expecting that since Joe hasn’t sent me flowers for years after getting burned by 1-800-Flowers six years ago when they sent browning roses. Luckily these flowers were fresh although they never quite perked up even with plenty of food and water.

Valentine's Day Flowers

I thought that was it, but then he gave me another present when we got home – a pretty sterling silver bracelet with hearts and diamonds.

We ordered Lou Malnati’s deep dish pizza and hung out at home. I don’t care for the crowds on V Day, so we don’t go out to eat. It was a nice day even though work was involved.