Cheap DVD rentals

Redbox has come to St Louis. The have installed DVD vending machines in most of the McDonald's restaurants in the area. How it works: You go to the vending machine, press the "rent a DVD" button on the touch screen, and it gives yo a list of what's in the machine at the time. When I went last night, it was mostly new stuff, there was a fair selection, enough that there were several to choose from when Karyn's tastes were taken into account. The thing is, you don't have to return the movie to the same location, but to any location in the area, and the vending machine recognises the insertion of the movie and alters its inventory selection accordingly. The best part? It's just $1/night (plus tax). And when I went to get a DVD last night, a redbox rep was restocking it with some for-sale DVDs too. As I had to wait for him to finish, he gave me a discount code for a free DVD rental!

The process was simple - after seeing what was available and making my selection, and selecting the option to rent with anoffer code, I entered the code, got the full discount, and then swiped my debit card (so that it would charge the successive nights should I keep it more than one). It then asked me if I wanted to subscribe to their email newsletter. No big deal, just enter my email address, and I'm set. Whirr-Whirr, and the DVD pokes out of the slot. Very quick and easy.

Watching Madagascar with my wife in front of a roaring fire made for a pleasant evening.

Mild fright

Got a bit of a mild fright yesterday. While watching TV, the Severe Weather map appeared on the bottom of the screen, but the storm was well in the south-west of the viewing region, while we are pretty much in the centre of it. Didn't seem to be a big deal. A little while later, our county and the surrounding ones were listed as "Tornado Watch", but it didn't seem too serious. The weather guy's storm tracker suggested the main potentially tornadic cell was going to be east of us, so we'd be OK. Maybe another half-hour goes by. Then I hear the tornado sirens going off outside. We grab the radio, torch (that's flashlight for you Americans), some knitting and a couple of chairs, and camp out in the bathroom for an hour, as that's the only room in our apartment without any external windows.

Of course, it turns out that the storm did pass east of us, and was quite damaging in some areas of the St Louis region, so today there's quite a bit of storm cleanup. Fortunately there appear to have been no serious injuries.

Humph. I thought the tornado season was in the spring.

Pictures of the house!

Would you like to see some pictures of the house we are buying?

I thought so!

Something for our new home?

Wow. If you want to get me one, feel free. Details.
And don't forget, this Saturday is World Toilet Day

There's Engine Trouble, Jim

There's Engine Trouble, Jim.

HOLLYWOOD - A rocket which will blast the ashes of Star Trek star James Doohan into space has had its take-off delayed because of engine trouble.
The Falcon One was to take the remains of Doohan, who played engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott aboard the fictional Starship Enterprise, from California into space next month but the launch is now scheduled for January instead.

Charles Chafer of Space Services Inc says, "They had an engine test they didn't like so they will do another month of testing."

Canadian born Doohan died in July at the age of 85, and had asked that his ashes be sent to the final frontier when he was gone.

House Hunting

So, we're looking for a house. We've been to a number of open houses to try and figure out what part of town we would like to live in, what kinds of things we like in houses, with an eye to seriously looking in January to put an offer on a house then, so that timing would be nice for when our apartment lease is up, and I'd also know what my new salary would be (pay reviews happen in January).

Some of the houses have been nice, some not so nice. Some experiences have been... interesting. One Sunday we looked at 7 houses, and that was exhausting.

Last Sunday, we had 4 houses to look at. But I didn't really feel like going. However, Karyn really wanted to go, so I sighed, and agreed to go. As we set off, I remembered that some friends of ours, J&M, had recently said they were selling their house. So while on our way to the first place, I called J and mentioned we were looking at open houses, and could we perhaps come and have a look at theirs that evening when we were done. Just for interests' sake. He said they were having an open house right then, and their Seller's Agent (who is also our Buyer's Agent) was there, and that that would probably be the most ideal way to do it, especially as they were busy in the evening.

So, we decided that we'd skip the first on our list (partly because it wasn't really in our price range) and go and see their house instead. We'd been there before, several times, but never while looking for a house. You look at things differently then. We arrived, gave our Agent a surprise by turning up, because she wasn't really expecting us, and started looking around. We liked it. Two beds, one bath, unfinished basement, open porch, sunroom, unfinished basement, HUGE back yard. Not just that, but it was within our price range, possibly even without taking the potential pay rise into account. We looked around, asked lots of questions, and told our agent that we'd like to talk more!

We took so long looking around, that we blew off another two houses we were going to look at, but went to house number 4. That had some cute features, but was certainly not for us.

Yesterday, we went to see our agent. We walked through all the bits and pieces. We'd got a pre-approval from our lender, so that was great. We looked at our options, and we decided to put an offer on the property. We signed our bits of the paperwork, and then left, so the Agent could go and talk with J&M, the sellers. Within the hour, we had a call saying they had accepted our offer! Wow!

So, we're buying a house! Closing and taking possession January 31, and it's all very exciting! We have quite a bit of paperwork to get done, but it shouldn't be too big a problem!

My sister-in-law, Kris, was the first family member to hear the news, because she and my brother live in a time zone that meant it wasn't too late to call. When I told her, she gave a huge "CONGRATULATIONS" down the phone. Shortly after I'd given a few details, she passed me to Simon, my brother. "So, what is it you have to tell me?" he asked. I told him. His response: "Well, given Kris' reaction, I figured it was either that or Karyn's pregnant!" Thanks, bro. Oh, and for the avoidance of doubt, no, she isn't pregnant.

So, there we are. It's going to be an interesting few months. A very exciting few months. A very hectic few months!

Yarn!

Look what happens when your favourite local yarn store has a 40% off sale...