I always confuse LL Bean and Land's End. I end up visiting both websites.

Drew and I are madly in love with our Eagle Creek Hovercraft bags, but they aren't cheap. Last forever, though, and SO friggin' lightweight.

Oh, Connie, that sucks. I hope things take a turn for the better.

I've been struggling with the car thing. CarMax has some good cars that are the kind I want and in my price range. Mostly, for some reason, they're in Milwaukee, so I may have my sister go test drive. But the Evanston place has some newer ones that are VW certifed (so you get 2 yrs/24k warranty) for a couple of grand more so I'm pretty strongly leaning that direction.

Hil, we've been looking at a lot of cars - and so many of the new ones have tiny windows and are just hard to see out of . You might want to look at the Honda Fit, as well -- small , tons of space for stuff , and lots of windows.

My roommate just wanted to ask me something kind of personal. ...he was concerned about the possible comfort level of the noise of using a riding crop in the middle of the day.

I believe this is contraindicated if there's an actual horse involved.

Hil, I'd find out if there's someone in town who can service a Mini. You don't want to have to have one towed a hundred miles. I am of the if-anything-can-go-wrong-it-will school of car ownership.

Our credit union has a way to buy cars -- and there are people that will do the searching fo r you . I'd have to say go with a personal recommendation if you use a autobuyer

I'll also put in a plug for the Nissan Versa.

My car is a Carmax one! But certified used by Toyota, not Carmax. Of course, I hardly ended up using the warranty, even though I probably should've a few times.

I'm thinking about this bag, in grey. Pretty, and could be carried, or wheeled. But 'spensive, and some of the reviews say it breaks. But I'm having a hard time figuring out the appropriate search terms to find similar things--"wheeled duffle" comes up with ugly dufflebags.

I saw one of those. [ETA: Versa] Looked nice. Since I decided to buy all I do on walks is check out cars.) I have a bias for VWs and Audis because I grew up with them and feel like I understand them in a way I don't other cars. I checked out the Matrix but new is above my comfort level and I didn't see much in the way of used.

Pick up is a big consideration for me. The whole 0 - 60 thing. It drives me batshit if a car is straining when I accelerate. And handling. I need strong HP. (I don't think Scola let go of the handhold the entire time we drove to Madison.)

Beyond that, a hatchback with a big enough hatch for that to be the dog's place would be good. That aside, a 4-door sedan is what I want. Heated seats are pretty close to a must-have, which skews European. Sunroof would be great. Nice shape is also a consideration.

Trudy, those awesome curtains include the gothy motif which Jilli doesn't like...

Oh, I know which curtains those are! The spider in them is tiny/stylized enough that it doesn't set off my twitching.

ION, the Adam Lambert concert last night was all sorts of fun, and HMOG, he is gorgeous.