fine whine

I gave blood again today. This time around I didn't even try to time myself, though I know for sure that I beat at least two people. The volunteers were particularly chatty this time (but in a friendly and engaging way) so the whole process took about half an hour longer than it should have, but all I was supposed to be doing was working, anyway. It's not like I also left half an hour early to make sure I'd be virtually parked on the roads and make it home even after my usual time. Ah well, this is winter in central Ohio.

Winter in central Ohio wasn't quite the same last year, as there is one key difference between this December and the last. This time around I have a driveway, and the accumulated five inches of white stuff today needed to be shoveled. And wouldn't you know it, Jessica's ride from downtown took quite some time so the task was left to me. On the upside, her kind co-worker found herself pulling into a clear driveway on an otherwise snowy street. It's the little things that count.

Speaking of counting, tonight as I watched the final hour (and most of the DVD extras) of Shaun of the dead I knocked out another seven hundred calories over just over four miles. Sure, I was taking it easy, being tired from shoveling and probably a bit weaker for being a pint low, but there was just too much good stuff in that film for me to quit.

And it's not like I was going to park my sweaty self on the couch.

The movie's great, by the way. I understand now what people mean when they say that it is two films in one, a comedy and a zombie flick. The two intersect but it is not a zombie comedy (unlike the very underrated My boyfriend's back which I do so enjoy), oddly enough. It's a comedy that just happens to be set inside a zombie movie. And it's a brilliant one at that, even with its (slight) self-awareness and jabs at other movies (pay attention at the end for a newscaster shooting down the theory that it was caused by monkeys infected with rage). It's got a lot of heart and humor, and if I were to make a best of 2004 list it'd certainly be on it.

It's also nice to see the actors who played Dawn and Tim on The office getting some more work and showing some ability to not be pigeonholed as their BBC characters.

As for the basement situation, it's temporarily on hold. Obviously the house isn't going to drop out from under us this very week, so we've got a bit of time to sort things out. Clearer minds have prevailed, and we're going to shop around a bit before committing for sure to the seventeen thousand dollar solution.

Namely, I think we've realized that the best way to get somebody to take an honest look at the basement is to find somebody who gets paid to take honest looks at basements, not somebody who gets paid to fix basements with costly solutions and cunning uses of sketches. This is not to say that we won't be spending the cost of a new Mini Cooper, but this way we'll know for sure that we should opt for that instead of a perfectly adequate Kia-priced fix.