I grew up in the middle of the woods in rural New England. I don't think I ever even had a key for my house. I've finally gotten my mom to get new locks so she at least can lock her doors, but I'm not sure if she ever does. She certainly doesn't lock them when she's home. Different cultures, for sure.

I was getting worried that Caganer was Catalonian for goatse.

I leave my door open sometimes, but only when I'm awake in the front room. The door faces inwards to the courtyard which is key access only, so I feel okay with it. Simplest way to cool the apartment.

organic oat bran goodness:

I can't believe how tanked my Roomba battery is. After bitching it only got 20 minutes, it now only gets 1 foot from the base. My apartment sucks the life right out of rechargeables. I mean, this can't be typical performance. The market would have tanked.

Now I'm trying to work out which batteries-not-from-Roomba are the right ones.

other than running down the batteries, is the roomba effective? I've pondered getting one.

At last! I finally polished off my Thanksgiving turkey for lunch today, after having it for most of my meals since last Wednesday evening. I suspect fish and steak will figure prominently in my meal plans for the next week.

It works well for me, Austin, in principle. Really cleared up the dust mite reaction I was having, once I scheduled it to run four times a week.

all the Christmas stuff from the storage room is now in the apartment. good lord but I have a lot. I need to get it all into plastic bins this year, too many boxes as it is now.

I've also re-listed mac's old bike and V-Smile on craigslist, and 2 freebie things on the neighborhood list. Fingers crossed the stuff will have takers/buyers this time.

I think we will go get a tree soon, and possibly a cheapass tree skirt and the aforementioned plastic bins.

I wanted to get one, but then I was afraid it would arrive and be like a plastic decoder ring that looked nifty in the magazine but breaks after a day in real life.

Oh, and Matt, my company had lunch catered yesterday. We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes...I'm thinking they got a good deal on an after thanksgiving sale. Of course, I only thought about that after I had lunch. eta: Bastards.

I think the most important way of protecting it (barring airlocking your babies and pets) is to make sure it doesn't eat any cables or fringes when you're not around--it'll tangle with the doohickies. But there are replacement doohickies in the package.

Certainly no sea monkey disappointment for me.

I was thinking of getting a tree, but I remembered I'm going home for Christmas.

We just got a tree! Taz is quite taken aback.

This is the first tree we've had in this house!