I got sick of my Droid Eris draining its battery and lagging all the time, so I upgraded early (via Craig’s List) to a Droid Incredible. It’s likely to have similar problems eventually since it’s also made by HTC, but it starts out with a faster processor, a newer version of Android, and a lot more storage space, so it should take longer to become obnoxious. My favorite feature of my “new” phone is that the camera has a flash; that should help make it a little more useful as a camera.

I thought about getting a non-HTC Android phone instead, but I honestly can’t get away from HTC’s enhancements for Android. Their mail client alone is worth dealing with their crummy phone book. And they really have made great strides from Android 2.1 to 2.2, an upgrade which the Eris would never receive.

This will at least tide me over until August, when I’m up for a real upgrade, and there should be a slew of 4G/LTE phones available.

For the last few days, I’ve been letting Ilse drink out of a bowl in the kitchen, filled with water from the refrigerator door. This isn’t where she normally gets water, which is what makes this story impressive.

This morning, I picked up the bowl and put it in the dishwasher, with the intention of replacing it with a clean bowl. I got distracted rinsing other dishes, though, so I forgot to replace it.

Fast-forward to this afternoon. I heard Ilse go in and out of the doggy door in the kitchen several times. (This is how she gets my attention.) When I went downstairs to see what was going on, she was sitting on the kitchen floor, staring up at the cabinet in which we keep the bowls. She looked at me, then looked at the cabinet. Looked at me, looked at the cabinet.

I pulled out a bowl from the cabinet, filled it with fresh water from the fridge, and set it back down while she wagged her tail with delight.

I’m drinking a Spicy Hot V8, and man, that stuff is HOT! It’s tasty, and it’s great that I’m getting vegetable servings from it, but I definitely need to follow it up with something non-spicy and non-hot, such as ice cream. Oh! I have a great idea: They should make Ice Cream V8.

I’d been thinking about getting a bicycle for a while, both for exercise and for something to do when I’m bored. Finally on Black Friday there was a sale on this Schwinn beach cruiser, and I couldn’t resist:

I didn’t need anything fancy and expensive since it’s just going to be a casual once-in-a-while hobby. But of course, I wanted it to look cool.

It was quite an ordeal just to pick it up from the store, and I didn’t even try riding it before I bought it. Thankfully when I finally adjusted it, inflated the tires, and rode it, the size was great, and I was happy with the ride.

Okay now, I wonder which Coffee Bean is within bike-riding distance from my house…

Ilse would like to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. She would also like to get out of this sweater as soon as possible. It took a lot of coaxing just to get her to lift her head up. If you’re wondering why her head isn’t in focus, it’s because I only had one chance to take the photograph.

A wise teacher taught me never to begin the concluding paragraph of an essay with the phrase, “in conclusion.” Being ornery, of course, I always began concluding paragraphs in her class with “in conclusion” and then crossed it out.

I think that was an exercise in philosophy. It’s similar to the question of the tree falling in the forest. If I write something and cross it out, she can’t dock points for it, yet it offends her sensibility just the same. If you write something and cross it out, did you write it? Or did you not write it?

For the record, she was one of my favorite teachers. I wouldn’t have been as difficult with a teacher I disliked. I think that’s only natural.

In conclusion, I have no conclusion.

Ilse dislikes Halloween more than I do. I’m just uninterested. She, on the other hand, is forced to wear uncomfortable clothing.

I finally found the perfect netbook (to replace my ancient laptop), but it hasn’t come out yet:

The Samsung NF310 is at heart a 10.1-Inch netbook but it will feature unique styling [and] various performance advantages over currently available netbooks. The netbook’s HD LED back-lit display for starters features 1366 x 768 pixel resolution… Also the NF310 when launched will make use of the 1.5Ghz Intel Atom N550 Dual Core processor. [» Netbook Planet]

I’m hoping I’ll be able to get it for myself as a Christmas present, although that might only be possible if everyone else on my list gets coal. So if you’re on my holiday list, please be very poorly behaved between now and Christmas.

There needs to be a word for the action of stirring or blending your drink with its own straw. I can’t decide if it should be a noun, such as strawrobics: “The frozen drink required considerable strawrobics in order to succumb to suction”—or a verb, such as strawgitate: “All of the sweetener kept falling to the bottom, so I kept having to briskly strawgitate my iced tea.”

I would just like to take a moment to point out that I have a cute dog. I have a cute dog. I’ve noticed that most of the photos I’ve taken on my phone camera are of my dog, including this one. I can’t help it: she always seems to be posing.