Two links, submitted for your pleasure, and some rambling nonsense on the side

wintersweet finds an answer to a question I've had for a long, long time now: why Japan has all the good techie toys. (This would solve all of my problems, really: I just need to do my shopping for Chris in Japan. Oh, wait, there's that money-and-language problem again. And compatability issues. Right.)
(Hm. That Dynamism company ... I want one of those new Zauruses. Zauri? What's the plural of Zaurus? I like Zauri.)

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Also (from mactavish) a web based advent calendar. Neat! Day 2 has a Real Shortbread Recipe, which I now want. (I have yet to find a good non-British shortbread. I think this is analagous to the way people from the south feel about cornbread.)

adventures in the rain (get crazy with the cheez whiz!)

Today downtown I:

• picked up some books at the library and a shiny new moleskine and some new pens. I'm a sucker for new pens and new notebooks. Also some fiskars kids scissors to cut Seaners' hair - he's beginning to look like Einstein again.
  
• Nearly got run over by a woman in an electric scooterthing
  
• Nearly got knocked over by two random idiots who weren't paying attention
  
• After the second asshat knocked me over he tried to give me the hardsell for some charity he was collecting for, which seemed to want my credit card number (oh yes, I am going to give out my credit card number ON A CROWDED STREETCORNER, I apparently r an idiot, especially after the recent debacle with identity theft and the Fiberoptics Store) and offered to follow me whereever I was going when I said I didn't have time and then got pissy at me when I said I was reluctant to make longterm financial decisions without discussing it with my spouse and continued to not listen after I told him FOUR TIMES that I was not interested. (The biggest reason I wasn't interested was because of the hardsell, especially since he nearly frucking knocked me flat on my butt in a raingutter...)
  
• Had to exercise mass amounts of willpower to avoid laughing like crazy at 'Internet Porn' by DaVinci's Notebook on the Portland Streetcar. (It only mostly worked.)
  
• totally failed to think up anything for this week's non_plot challenge, damnit.
  
• forgot my bluetooth headset at home
  
• realized how much I tend to prefer interacting through machines while performing routine tasks