Sold! To the man in the tweed suit!

Forgot to mention that I sold my computer, the one I listed on eBay. Got $265 for it. Sweet! It was worth nothing to me taking up space on a desk.
What did I learn in my first eBay auction? Make sure you have shipping figured out right. My bathroom scale incorrectly informed me that the box was 18 lbs. -- less than half its actual weight. For some reason I believed it (scales don't lie, right?) despite the fact that I've carried bags of water softener salt that weren't as heavy. The rude awakening came when I arrived at the pack-n-ship joint and was told it would cost roughly two-and-a-half times more to ship than I'd charged my buyer. Sweet. So I had to eat the difference.
Still, the whole take was pure profit in my mind.

Metanarratives

I often tell people that the reason I rarely watch movies is because I never have time. This is sort of true.
The part about never watching movies, I mean. In 2006, I went to Showplace 16 three times. I rented one movie from Blockbuster. Other than maybe catching part of Missing in Action 2 on a Saturday afternoon, I didn't see any other movies.
But when I do see movies, it's An Experience. I'm a 5th century BC Athenian witnessing theater for the first time. I mean, heavy catharsis.
So last night I watched my first movie this year. Stranger Than Fiction. Loved it.
There's so much in this movie. But what I saw was this: Harold Crick realizes he's part of something greater than himself; that he's in a story, a narrative much larger than his bare routine, a narrative that imbues the banal with meaning. He accepts this, even to the point of certain death.
Cried at the end. Plump raindrop tears.
I loved the movie because it's true. I'm part of a story much larger than myself. God help me to fulfill my role.

Do I hear $100? $200?

I just did something I've never done before. I listed an item on eBay.
I've bought a dozen things through the online auctions (usually electronics), but I've never tried to sell anything. So, if you need a mint condition desktop computer with a flat-screen monitor, place your bid.

What did you do Friday night?

For some reason, I decided that tonight was the night to reformat my desktop computer to get it ready for its impending eBay sale. This is a very long, arduous process, migrating all the important data onto my laptop and then feeding restore disks into the tower hard drive as it bombs the memory and rebuilds it.
Of course, there are plenty of other things I could be doing.
For instance, the dishes.
But when I went down to the kitchen, I noticed the goldfish was acting crazy. A few days ago, Meegan took it upon herself to change his water -- despite the fact that it's not her fish or her responsibility. Of course, she put lukewarm water into the bowl instead of letting cold water sit and gradually reach room temperature. She also used the softened water from the tap. I can't imagine one of the lowest vertebrates appreciated the climate shock or the salty residue. He floated stiffly near the bottom of the tank for a day and has been zipping across the bowl in frantic bursts ever since. Then tonight, I noticed he's doing a death flip: slowly listing to one side and sinking to the bottom. He valiantly tries to snap out of it, bursting forth to the top of the bowl and splashing around.
He's a tough customer -- the only survivor of the original three fish who occupied the bowl. That's why I decided to try to save him. But when I went down into the basement to get hard water from a tap near the softener, I noticed that there's about an inch of water on the floor. Gardening expert that I am, I left the soaker hoses on -- for nearly two days. I'm delegating that clean up to tomorrow.
Instead, I'm 20 minutes into the reformatting process... guess I'm committed now.

Getting creative

Nothing like a television appearance to wake me from my blogging doldrums. First, read my story about Rockford's ranking compared to other mid-sized cities based on its concentration of the "Creative Class." Then scroll down to the bottom of the gray box where it says: Related Content. There's a tiny video camera icon there; click on the link that says "Register Star reporter Nate Legue discusses Rockford's creativity ranking" to see a clean-shaven me on the television news.
Apologies for the audio sync problems. You get the idea, even if it's kung-fu movie style.