Survived the Week!

A week with a cold is one kind of annoying. A week working on a badly written report is another. Having them in the same week is more than twice as annoying. (It's math.) (Although right now I feel, if not better, at least not-quite-so-bad.)

However! I survived! It is Friday! Night!

Ahem. I may be feeling a little bit of a celebratory-Friday-night-caramel-corn-sugar-rush right now. Please excuse all the exclamation points, and I will try to provide some content.

Point the first: When I initially heard that my friend's husband had written a book, and was trying to get it published, I was a little nervous, because how do you tell someone that you don't want to support them? However, once I read the first two chapters, I wanted to read the whole thing! (Phew.) He is trying to get it printed via InkShares, which works by giving the writer publishing support if they pre-sell a certain number of books. He's asking supporters to spread the word, and though I may not have many readers, and who knows how many of you would enjoy a sort of detective/horror book about vampires attacking in Boston, I just ask that you check out the first two chapters. If you don't like it, no big deal, we can still be friends; but if you do? Order one, and spread the word!

Point the second: Last week on Boing Boing, there was a story about a website that can check if you have any unclaimed money or property in the US. I had just seen the listing for Massachusetts, since they print a booklet and put it in the Globe every once in a while, and I amuse myself every time by looking even though my name is never there. When I saw this story, though, it occurred to me that I could look in other states where I have lived, and what do you know? North Carolina said that they had an insurance refund for me. I thought, eh, okay--you give the confidential information through the actual state government page, not via some possibly fraudulent other site, so I put my information in, and today I got a check in the mail for $188! Man, there have been some times in the last 20 years when I could really have used that money; but I'm very happy to have it now, anyway, as I am going yarn shopping tomorrow, coincidentally enough. How about that? So, fellow citizens, I encourage you to check it out for yourself; if you don't like the idea of Claimdog, then go to the state websites of any states where you have lived, just in case.

And now I'm wondering if other countries have similar lists. Is this an American thing, and everybody thing, or something in between? I never thought about it before.

Point the third: That caramel corn is from Werther's, and I had cut a coupon out of the paper to try it. When I found it, I was squinting at the coupon's expiration date to make sure it was still good, because I don't know if you've noticed but in the last few years they've been printing such things smaller and smaller, and I looked at it and thought, "Oh, 3/30, it's no good any more! We're in April now." Which, first of all, no we aren't, and second of all, yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, and I had been seeing green everything all over the internet yesterday, and you would think that would have sunk into my brain a little, that and the fact that St. Patrick's is in March, but you would be wrong. Between the cold and the bad report, I have definitely lost some brain cells this week.

I did realize I was wrong almost at once. And the caramel corn is good.

I'm going to go rest now.