Amber & The New Year

2010 is taking some getting used to, but I will get back in the blogging swing soon.

One thing for sure about 2010: I do not plan to be awake before Feels Like 3°.  In fact, maybe I will sleep through all < 0° temperatures in the new year.

Maybe.

Amber & News Flash: Sets

I've been to the near-future.  David shared one of his Google Wave invitations with me, and so he and I and Amy have been in the year 2013 learning about what online communication will be like.

In the future, people play a game involving the mathematical principle of sets called "sodoku."  The object is to complete each row and each 3 x 3 square within the grid with the unique members of the numerical set from 1 to 9.  Having been to the future, I can tell you this game is going to be very addictive.  I stayed up past my bedtime last night (but last night in the future) dealing with a grid with just not enough 3's or 8's.  I predict (and we know how I am on the cutting edge of things) that people will play these games on paper or their iPhones on the train, in doctor's offices, and online.

Better than those games where you shoot at stuff, right?  And maybe even good for your brain?

Amber & Perceived Values, Part I

How much do you think a pair of jeans should cost? I am stuck in Gap prices from 1992 when Y.T. Vega got an employee discount and I wore size 4: $35 seems like a reasonable price to pay for jeans to me. Now, I know they cost more. For example, I bought a pair of size 6 jeans at the Patagonia Avalanche sale in 2007 with my professional colleague, Laura (who is a super smart person and currently looking for work if you're hiring). On sale, they were $50, but they were organic cotton so it seemed worth it to me. And, earlier this year, I bought a pair of size 8 jeans at Macy's (who knew that tourist destination had so much stuff for sale?) for $39. They were on sale, though, too, and I had to dig through a giant messy pile to find my size. I felt like that effort was like the discount when you pick your own apples.

But, since, as I approach infinity, I appear to be expanding at a rate exponential to the metric expansion of the universe, I needed new jeans. I am pleased to report the discovery of the Levis website where you can find many different models of jean (505,501, 550, and other three-digit numbers that had no meaning to me as an infrequent jean buyer) on sale for a variety of prices, some of which are $35. Of course, sizing on the web could be an issue, but it worked out well for me. Of course, I may have a hard time convincing Pickles that I just bought myself two $35 pairs of pants rather than one $70 cat environment for him.


This also means, of course, that tomorrow I will wear new jeans that are ALREADY covered in fur. It's like buying the floor model coffee table that comes pre-scratched. You can avoid that awful "first time" moment.

Amber & Prunes

Lately, I am really enamored of prunes in the morning. I put them in my congee, eat them as a snack with my coffee at the office, and even sort of smoosh them onto my toast. Prunes are dried plums, as this rebranding campaign tries to point out. (First, we reject the Metric System, now we rename our fruits. I'm sorry, Rest of World, for America.)

You would not believe how hard it was to find a nice picture of a prune.