Sweet. Minneapolis Police are on Cops. I always wanted to see Minneapolis on Cops. It's cops breaking up an illegal protest against the war.

Great. My hometown shows up and it's of them busting heads. There goes our liberal image.

Geez, now I'm paranoid that I'm going to be on.

Ay. What a weekend. Although I'm glad it's over for emotional health reasons, I really don't want to go back to work.

This, I will remind/inform readers, is Odds & Ends Sunday. You never know what you're getting.

My mom just got a new computer after struggling with a Windows 98 piece of crap that took 20 minutes to boot up and made some disconcerting noises in the process.

It's still Windows, but at least it works better. Anyway, she's discovered iTunes. My stepdad didn't like listening to music, so Mom didn't listen either. But I'd get questions every once in awhile ("Who is that singer on the new Santana song?" "Rob Thomas, mom."). I'd accidentally leave CDs at her house ("I like that Mike Henry CD, Claire." "Joe Henry, mom. Joe Henry.")

But lately it's increased ("You know, Joss Stone has a great voice." or "I really like John Mayer's new one." or "O Brother has some good songs on it.")

So back to iTunes. I showed her how to import songs. I think she's got the hang of it. Then I showed her the Visuals feature. This week, I introduced her to the "Download Track Names" feature. She was amazed.

I love my mom.

In an attempt to illustrate my company's policy on time off this holiday season, I post the following:

Spotter: Er, well, I'm camel spotting. I'm spotting to see if there are any camels I can spot.
Interviewer: Good. And how many camels have you spotted so far?
Spotter: Oh well so far I've spotted nearly, ooh, nearly one.
Interviewer: Nearly one?
Spotter: Er, call it none.

Is that fair that we get practically zero time off? I think not!

God I love Monty Python.

So does anyone else watch Cops? I ask because everyone I know finds it really weird that I do. And I have since college. My roommate would just laugh and shake her head.

I have no idea why I like watching it. Maybe it's me—Oo! Another Minneapolis episode! How lucky am I?—but there's a mixture of feeling better about my lot in life, and watching how the cops interact with the perps. Heh. Perps. I mean, do they act like they normally would, or do they dial it down to make themselves look better? I'm going with option number two.

So it's Minnesota. In December.

It's cold.

It's always a bad sign when the thermometers have minus signs involved. I suppose I should start wearing socks and mittens, huh?

My mom flipped when she saw me. She calls herself a Weather-Worrier. I felt bad.

I really really really don't want to go to work tomorrow. Have I mentioned that? I hate Sundays. I will not rediscuss the reasons, but I hate them all the same.

You know, I'm trying to recognize landmarks (on Cops) and I'm not having any success. I mean, I semi-recognized some downtown buildings, and I think I saw an auto shop nearby on Lyndale, but that's it. Dang.

So for Christmas, my mom has been asking me what I want. I know she's already purchased several things, so I've been telling her I don't want anything.

Finally, up late, I saw a commercial for one of those automatic litter boxes. I'd always kinda wanted one, but wasn't willing to admit I was that friggin' lazy. So I thought, "Perfect! I'll call mom." Well, not at 3 AM, but you know.

So I asked if she would buy half of it. She agreed and I agreed to research the purchase. So I sallied forth to the local pet establishment on Saturday to check it out.

Cost of gas to get to pet store: $1.97
Cost of my time taken away from freelance work: $75
Cost of Automatic Litter Box: $180. On sale.

So... yeah, not gonna get one anytime soon. I just can't justify that sort of expense because I'm lazy.