Wouldn�t ya know that I was met with pretty little snowflakes that fell gently to the ground and formed a light layer of snow?

Mama Nature, I�m sorry I said cruel things yesterday and said that you could kiss my posterior end. Light snow is pretty. Thank you.

Guess who shit on my bathmat this morning! Looks like I can�t use that reason to eat off the good china.

I just read Bethany9�s entry for today, and it compelled me to sign the guestbook, where I included the following:

� It's a small, small town hidden in the skin of a big, big city.

Yeah, Chicago rocks. I may have the occasional bitches with the cold, but man-oh-man is there a lot of cool stuff.

My neighborhood is especially awesome. (I just googled it and came up with only one link that even says anything -- USELESS!)

I have restaurants galore! Bars all around! Cute little shops down the side streets! A quick walk to the Mag Mile! An almost-as quick walk to work downtown! Two major bus lines running by my house! The el is right there! I can choose between Jewel and Treasure Island for groceries! And the lake is RIGHT THERE!

In short, the Gold Coast is great! Chicago is great! Light snow is great!

Now excuse me while I go dork out elsewhere.

You an ofoto customer? Type in INSERT20 to get 20% off.

This and other great information over at Tech Bargains.

I browsed through the personal ads yesterday after I told C-Dogg I�d find her a good boyfriend, when I read through the Missed Connections.

The way Missed Connections works is that you place an ad when there�s someone you met or saw around town and didn�t get their contact info. They�re always pretty entertaining, and whenever I have a Reader, I always skim that section. I�m not looking for anything by any means, but it�s funny to see how people describe short encounters.

Well, yesterday I found an ad to me. I had to laugh. I remember the conversation on the el, and I remember the circumstances listed in the ad. However, I think I would have used to word mongoose, as that was how I described what we were talking about.

I�m not gonna call, but it was still funny and flattering.

I�m in the market for a brand new backpack. Everyday I carry my JanSport to and from work. That backpack has been damn near everywhere with me since I was a wee one in the tenth grade. My dad picked it out when I said I wanted a JanSport that Xmas, picking a lovely maroon shade. I had never seen a JanSport in this color, and everything was grand.

It�s a wonderful bag. After nine years of me dragging it halfway around the world and back, halfway across the US several times and back, and all over the various cities I�ve lived in, JanSport has done me well.

Three thumbs up to JanSport for making a quality bag that retained its cuteness after nine years!

(Yes, three thumbs up. I have ten toes, and that�s gotta count for something in the ratings...)

So now the zipper is starting to be a little busted. Occasionally the front pocket doesn�t close completely, and not the main zipper is sometimes off its track. And now that I�m a laptop-carrier, I have this Velcro pad thingy that slides around in my backpack.

After hearing my parents scoff at the idea of paying $24 for a backpack and me lucking out that they were on sale for $17 that week at Target, I think I�ve gotten my money�s worth over the past nine years. I�d prefer for the memories of my beloved backpack to go out quietly, knowing that if the zipper breaks as I�m rollerblading down Lincoln and I lose my loot, I�m likely to lose my cool.

The backpack deserves more. It doesn�t need to go down with a string of obscenities being its final words. I want to keep it in my closet, letting it hold my sports equipment. I want to keep my hedgehog keychain attached to it (reminding me of when I got my equally beloved Accord) and the plastic knot thingy my brother made for me in his YMCA summer camp back when he was a butterball of a boy.

This ending. [sigh] It�s peaceful. It�s calm. It�s letting the bag still feel useful.

It�s the way all good backpacks should go down.

So now I�m on the hunt for a new one. I�d like a JanSport laptop-carrying backpack, but they only make damn expensive and damn ugly ones.

I�m wiping a tear from my eye as I�m searching other brands.

Dear JanSport,

Please quickly come out with an inexpensive and attractive laptop-carrying backpack. If I could get it in that pretty maroon color, it would be that much better.

Thank you.

So now I�m in laptop-carrying backpack overload. I�ve narrowed it down to three bags, as each must be able to carry my work-issued Dell Latitude. I figure when the day comes that they steal my laptop from me and kick my ass to the curb, I�ll end up with another Dell or a Toshiba, and those are equally as large.

So, plans for tonight?

Same ol�, same ol�.

However, I�m leaving work today at 3:45 because my forty are up. I�m hitting the gym before everyone else gets there, and then I�m heading out for some undetermined fun.

We�ll see what trouble I get into this weekend.

See y�all on Monday.�