A Productive Day

I've read the Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Neal Adams, and John Romita (Sr.) issues. I think the Romita issue was most enlightening because I didn't really know a lot about his career before, only that I really appreciated his early Spider-Man work when I read it in Marvel Masterworks volumes a year or two back.

Lucy stopped by later in the evenings, having been dealing with a rough headache all day. We chatted for quite a while, 'til after 11. I lent her the first two volumes of Thieves & Kings, and we talked a little about the first volume. She enjoyed it a lot, she said. It really is quite good.

I did a few things worth noting today:

For instance, I went jogging. I jogged on Friday, too, but didn't get very far; halfway through my run I had this pain in my side which was really aggravated by the heavy breathing of exercise, so I had to stop and mostly walked back to the fitness center. But today all seemed well, and I did my run from home through the park nearby. Must keep jogging; that's the road to weight loss!

In the afternoon I called about three different apartments that had interesting ads in the paper. I got answering machines for all three, but later got called back about two of them. One of them sounds very interesting: Supposedly larger than my current place, being substantially remodeled, and not a lot more expensive. And in Mountain View! Its main drawbacks from what I can tell are that it's on a semi-major road, and it's part of a duplex, which means it's on the first floor. But I will go up and look at it; they allow cats!

The other place was a no-go, mainly because their minimum lease is two years, which I consider unreasonable. I can tough it out in a place for a year if necessary, but two? Ack. The third place sounded potentially interesting, depending on what sort of interpretation the ad actually takes in reality; hopefully I'll hear back from them tomorrow.

There's one other ad I want to call about, which I will try to call about tomorrow. We'll see. At any rate, at least I'm calling places!

Finally, while spending most of the afternoon watching television, I also cooked a recipe from Cook's Illustrated, which I've subscribed to for over a year but haven't yet done a lot with. It's a recipe for Rice Pilaf, the variant I made included pine nuts, currants (what the heck is a currant? As far as I can tell, it's a raisin), and some spices. It took me a couple of hours to make (since I hadn't made it before), but it turned out to be quite yummy. I ate more of it than I should have, but I still have enough left over for dinner tomorrow.

A pretty satisfying set of accomplishments, if I do say so myself. Plus, I've nearly caught up on all my backlogged television on tape.

Trish came by tonight, after first calling to ask if I'd already had dinner. She spends a lot of her time in the Valley these days, although she lives in points south. We basically hung out and chatted for a while, but she also told me that she's bought herself a new digital camera and is giving me her old one that I've been using! Wow! Thanks Trish! I'll have to do something nice for her in return, rather than just annoying her. :-)

Yes, a very nice end to the weekend, all-in-all.