ask and ye shall receive

Work was fine today; if nothing else, I realized grimly that I'm slipping into the danger zone because I stayed until seven p.m. for the second night in a row. Given that I had to be there at 8:00am, it's not like staying until seven was necessary for my overall contribution for the week. This is not a huge deal, and I didn't work when I got home, but I still need to be careful not to slip into my nasty old habits.

However, on the bright side, it was quite the red-letter day in terms of acquisition of stuff! First and foremost, both my birthday card and my birthday present from my parents arrived two days early; greedy and impatient, I opened both of them, when I probably should have saved them for the actual day of. I was just so surprised to get them so early -- particularly the present, since I hadn't expressed any wishes to my mom until Saturday afternoon. But they got me a panini grill! Thanks Mom and Dad! (and please forgive me for opening early!) I'm v. excited about this; I eat a lot of sandwiches at home, and the only thing better than a sandwich is a hot sandwich. Granted, I need another kitchen appliance like I need another , but I'm quite happy about getting this.

In addition to the panini grill, I also got two more packages -- in fact, the security guard was so eager for me to come and relieve him of the packages that he must have been looking for me on the security cameras in the garage, because he shouted at me over the intercom at the second gate to come and get my stuff. One package was the 'Chicago Manual of Style', a must-have reference book for my ever-expanding writing library, since it covers a lot of the quirks of formatting/style that I need to get right with my manuscript. The other package was the 'Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names' -- another book for the reference library. I got it used through an Amazon reseller, since it's out of print, but I'm quite happy with it -- the key thing about this, as opposed to most general baby name books, is that it's a) only names that were used in England at some point in the past, and b) discusses first appearances, decades/centuries of popularity, etc. This is key for making sure I don't name my characters something that wasn't even around during the Regency period -- or, if I give them a ridiculously uncommon name, explain why.

Finally, as I mentioned yesterday, I was despondent because my iPod gave up the ghost. Then, today, Steve Jobs announced brand-new iPod nanos, already on sale on the Apple website. Coincidence, or fate? I would have been so pissed if I had ordered one last night when I started looking at the site, since the ones released today have 16GB of memory for the same price as the 8GB models I was looking at yesterday. So I went ahead and ordered one; I've actually been enjoying my commute, but it's much, much better with the varied music made possible by an iPod rather than the ridiculous CDs I have in my car. If I get an iPod and a finished draft of my novel by the end of my birthday weekend, I will consider it to have been a smashing success.

Now after this extended discussion of my crass consumer ways (and, that reminds me, a quick chuckle about the fact that those annoying Berkeley tree protesters finally climbed out of their damn tree -- maybe they're concerned that the world will end tomorrow when the hadron collider in Switzerland is fired up, and they wanted to actually shower before that happens?), I think it's time for bed! I'm looking forward to taking four days to work on the book -- I just have to make it through tomorrow at work, which should be fine. I did a little bit of book-work tonight, in the form of running back through the narrative to make sure that I know exactly how many days the narrative covers so that I can go back and assign dates. I also finally decided on a year for the book: 1811 -- v. early Regency period, but advantage is that it sets up later books in the series for heightened drama -- 1812 was both when Napoleon was invading Russia and when the War of 1812 started, and I'm thinking that the second book in the series will involve a French plot and the third will involve some privateering in the Caribbean in relation to the British/American war, and then that still leaves plenty of Regency-era years (including the lead-up to Waterloo) for future yet-to-be-determined spin-offs if necessary. Yay. Now really, goodnight!