I'm Linda Mason.

First, a moment of silence for my very trusty, very determined little Divx DVD player. Does anyone remember these things? First of all, I never bought into the whole Divx idea, but it was a lot cheaper than the other brands at the time (1997? 1998?) so I figured I didn't need that feature. Better yet, when Divx died out, I got a $200 rebate and boy that was cool.

I wish I had done this sooner, actually, but I upgraded to an HD-compatible player yesterday, a very sleek and sexy black Toshiba for $73. No shit. I even bought the HDMI cable (as our HDTV has an HDMI outlet), but so far it seems to be working off the component cables. I find this vaguely frustrating, but it's not essential at the moment. The picture is still amazing. I'll make my friend J look at it later.

Best of all? I go to put in Streets of Fire, my go-to for testing DVDs, and lo and behold. Lord have mercy. Those old DVDs that appear to have a box around them? (As if the TV is reading it as 1:33 and then making it anamorphic so the whole image has a black box?) No more. Which is WEIRD cause I thought that was something to do with the DVD itself (well, it still is) and not something the DVD could fix. Perhaps because the player is a upconverter? I'm learning.

But what a BAD ASS PLAYER.

Not that I have all that much money to throw around, especially since a little over a week ago I totally splurged and bought myself...

A new Canon PowerShot! It's just a li'l point and shoot but it's very cool. I'm not sure about the shake on it, but Alex says she's been impressed with hers. I haven't used it much yet...a combination of my forgetting I have it and my not having anything thrilling to shoot. The latter never stopped me before:



Me at Gloria's, the new location here in Arlington. I fucking LOVE this place. I can go for happy hour and they have this bitchin' bean dip and queso (two separate things, yes, located behind the drink) and cheap-o margaritas. So nice.



The view from my chair (notice no one is here at five in the afternoon, but again, that never stopped me either...and it IS five in the afternoon, thank you very much). This is the Studio Movie Grill, where my friend J works. He snagged my fajita leftovers.



The super yummy sweet potato rolls. The pretzel salt totally makes them. I could eat these all day.

I will try to remember to use my new toy more! Our friends Rob and Katie are going to come out this weekend (and presumably bring the Wii with Guitar Hero--**drool**) so I'll see if I can take some entertaining shots...