(no subject)

Some smiles for a Friday:

Seen all over the f-list: If Edward Gorey did The Trouble With Tribbles

I have feeds for Cute Otter and Cute Overload, but the one that really perks up the morning is schnuffi_daily. No idea what language schnuffi is or what it means, but the comm is one picture of one hot guy served up every morning. That's all. That's enough.

I think this is part of a gaming LJ and I'm not even sure who Lorne is (I always think of the green guy from Angel) but: a cooperative bit of Lorne/Ianto slash (NSFW!) that did it for me.

Late for work again. However, later today, a poll. Y'all get to spend my virtual money! (Well, you get to have opinions on the subject. As always, I reserve the right to do as I please.)

Virtual shopping trip!

I'm on the AmEx points thing, where you get a point for every buck you spend and you can redeem them at usurious rates for swag later. Now, I'd been saving my points for years with the thought of going to Hawaii. There are just two hitches in that plan:

1) I'd rather be going to England in the next couple of years and shopping/seeing plays than going to Hawaii and spending all day in the archives and libraries reading about how badly the first mission and their doctor hated each other. (The missionary project is not dead. It is just pining for the fjords.)

2) I'm discovering that it's a right royal pain in the ass to try to use points to travel.

For example, say I want to redeem my points to go to England next fall, for some hypothetical reason. I can save for 2-3 months and have $700 to put down and have a ticket nonstop from BWI to Heathrow. Or I can take a "free" flight that will either leave from Dulles (in the next state, about an hour's drive away) and/or have at least one stop in it (several of them involving a third country.)

Once landed, I can redeem my points at the Ritz or the La Snootface at the rate of a bazillion points a night in order to stay for "free," or I could go to some hostel or minor hotel for something not too painfully pricy (or if I *really* wanted to save my cash, back to The Generator.)

I redeemed some of my points early in the year for AmEx gift cards, but they turned out to be kind of awkward to use and don't, oddly enough, work at gas stations or grocery stores.

So now I want stuff. Lovely, free, *stuff* that I can use but is too extravagant to just up and buy.

Thing is, I don't have enough to get all of my top "would spend points for" items - a smaller iPod (for times and places I don't want to deal with/risk losing Wurlitzer); a large TV with VCR *and* DVD player; a combo DVD/VCR player (to hook into one of the current TVs); and a trip to NY (you can get vouchers for Amtrack and play tickets from Ticketmaster).

So you get to vote.

[Poll #1048115]

( Point values, for people who like to juggle numbers )

Note - it costs no extra money to use points. I wouldn't be actually spending anything, just redeeming the proportionally pitiful reward for the money I've already spent. With the exception of the NY trip (which would require a $40 fee for the gap between the Amtrack coupon and the ticket, plus dinner at Da Roscina because that's one of the reasons I bother going to NY), none of these would require a penny of real money.

ETA: Now that it's too late to edit the poll, I suddenly realize that I have not looked into the possibility of domestic flights to, say, ChicagoTARDIS. On the other hand, Thanksgiving is probably a blackout weekend for redeeming anything, so nevermind.

I keep forgetting it's the end of the month

Monthly spam!

STUFF I DID
RtE Book Reviews published:
- Organize Your Corpses
- Dragonwell Dead
- Postern of Fate
- The Penguin Who Knew Too Much
Current Handiwork Project: Handpainted yarn scarf
Learned:
- Um. That AmEx points are rotten for travel?
Homekeeping:
- Continued Sunday 7
- Sewed new sheets
Other:
- Traveled to Stratford (Ont) for the Shakespeare Festival


( Stuff I Gotta Do )

( Stuff I Wanna Do )

( Stuff I'm Thinking About Doing )

A bit troubled by the fact that I haven't crossed anything off the list in about 2 months. That's not how it's supposed to go, and I'm running out of year.