variousness

Going with the theme of my War on Christmas rant, I present this PVP cartoon.

And for the record, Happiness Is:

Thanksgiving
jack-o'-lanterns
m&m's
penguins
Thursday evening
Friday night
lime
lime green
ideas that create ideas that create ideas
autumn
beagles
candy canes
chocolate with mint
gourmet coffee with a fresh bagel

These are random things that, I think, make existence pretty cool, apropos of nothing. I keep a text file on my computer's desktop with bits and pieces of information I need to remember, and this list is one of them. When I think of another morsel of happitude, I add it to the list.

In other news, our non-refundable Broadway tickets came in the mail last week, so it's official: first weekend in March, we rock New York City. I've already requested the vacation time from work.

I just found out a few days ago that my employer is giving us Friday, December 23 off with pay as our "bonus." I actually couldn't care less about working on Christmas Eve, let alone the 23rd; it's the day after any given holiday that I like having off work. Especially with Christmas, we have our own family traditions that make it a busy day, so it's nice not having to go to bed early. As it turns out, because Christmas is on Sunday, we have the 26th off as our paid holiday, so that's handy.

Another bit of randomness: I love my car. It's a silver 2005 Honda Civic, and I'm impressed with how well it handles on the snowy roads we've had lately (I'm told this is thanks to the front-wheel drive). The Thunderbird, my previous car, was horrid on snow, even with sand bags in the trunk. It's also much easier to park, on account of its smaller size. I'm averaging 31 miles per gallon, and once it was even up to 35 (a few days of mostly highway driving with cruise control). The T-bird usually hovered around 18-20 mpg. And I'll put in a plug here for Pat Wehrenberg, who was my friendly sales associate at Jack Matia Honda in Elyria.

Speaking of cars and gas, check out Gas Price Watch. On the left side, option #2, you can type in a ZIP code and check the gas prices in the area. Unfortunately, it relies on user contributions, so it's not always up to date, but it's better than nothing. Another option is Gas Buddy, or for a shortcut to their Cleveland area site, use clevelandgasprices.com (select the city on the left side).