This week's Ledger

PLUS

• Snow. It can be kinda cool.
• Make your own mocha frappucino. Because nowhere around here is a convenient drive thru, I experimented like a mad scientist with various ingredients to make my own frosty treat. Somehow, between doses of chilled coffee, Starbucks ice cream, Nestle Quik, sugar, ice and milk, I found a mix that was passable.
• The new Sarah Connor show. Yes, some of the time travel paradoxes can make your head hurt, and some of the established "rules" are bent (how did the "head" go through the time bubble?), but it's a decent enough attempt at fun sci-fi and stands out like the Fountains at Bellagio in a desert of reality glop.
• Text messaging.
• iLounge. A must visit site for new (and old) owners of iPods.
• EZ Pass. No more fumbling for change at a toll booth.

MINUS

• Snow. It can be a pain in the ass.
• Cardboard is flammable. Earlier this month, I used a coupon to order a free pizza. I didn't eat it all, and put the box in the oven to keep the cats - mainly Mulder - from trying to have a feline Papa Johns feast. In the old days, I'd just take the box out to the garage and put it in the dumpster. However, I now have neither a garage nor a dumpster, so I have to remember to take the box to the central facility dumpster the next day. Oooops. So this week, I was going to preheat the oven to cook some snack, and just turned the knob to 450 (sadly, no digital touchpad here in apartment land. Nor an eye level window into the the top of two stacked ovens. Just a floor level device that looks like something June Cleaver used) and went about my business. About 20 minutes later, I smelled something. I thought it was outside, so I walked out there, but didn't find burning couches (I don't live in West Virginia, after all). After a while, the whole pizza box in the oven thing dawned on me, and I discovered a smoldering cardboard box in the oven, with charred remnants of a former pie going smoky in the tiny kitchen. I made like Tommy Gavin (without the drinking, fucked up family and sex with random hot chicks) and put the box into the sink, while opening the door to the deck to let the smoke out. Of course, it was about 5 degrees outside. Great experience, and killed my enthusiasm for warming up some cheese sticks. I haven't seen anything this stupid since some college buddies, under the influence of the devil's happy lettuce, tried to cook a Tombstone pizza with the cardboard circle still attached to the bottom.
• Only 3 more football games left.