swords, gift card, book, rap music, work, elliptical

With the long weekend upon me - I decided to be a little productive. So, I headed to Lowe's to get some materials to make a couple of swords. Granted, not the most usual of things to do - but I got a sword rack for Christmas and I don't have enough swords to fill it. The rack is hanging in the computer room and it really needs something. In two words... more swords.

The first is going to be carved out of wood and will mimic the sword used by the Darkstalker hunter Donovan Baine - a sword called: Dhylec. It's got a strangely curved end and an open mouth in the side of the blade - with teeth. Should be fun to do.

The second is going to be made of Plexiglas - several sheets layered together and shaped like a lighting bolt. I've made more progress on this one up to this point - the wooden one had some knot-flaws at a critical area. So, I looked around for my wood filler and couldn't find it - prompting my second trip of the day to the day.

A previous purchase of a washer and dryer netted me a couple of gift cards for Lowe's and I used part of one for my lumber purchase. I intended to use it again to get the wood filler, but ran into a problem.

At the checkout - the card wouldn't scan. And the clerk had trouble punching in the numbers. A lot of trouble. She tried several times and kept getting it wrong. The line behind me kept getting longer and she kept getting more frustrated. So, I bailed her out and offered to pay cash. She was apologetic, but I think grateful as well.

In other news... I finished up a Clive Barker book - Mister B. Gone. It didn't get good reviews as his previous works have done, but I think a large part of that was the first-person style in which it was told. Kind of a strange book, but I liked it - especially the end where the tone shifted a bit to his more fundamentally odd style.

I've also been listening to some music - Sara Barellis, Rilo Kiley, and a little Mary J. Blige. The first two are really excellent - though a little short - but the third is a little difficult to listen to. Not because I don't like MJB - because I do - but because of the occasional bit of rap music added in there. I'm not a fan of rap music, but I can usually tune it out and it doesn't ruin the song. After the jury duty - where some amateur violent gangster rap was introduced as evidence - I'm having more trouble tuning it out. I guess I'm a bit more sensitized to it and I find I like it less and less. I suspect that will fade and it will go back to being just 'music I don't like' - but for now, I've got the remote in hand and I'm skipping some songs.

I've got a bit of work to do today - still trying to get caught up. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it, but it should be done.

Finally, since I'm off today, the repairman for the elliptical trainer is coming today. I'm hoping it's and easy fix and we can get that up and running. With me not having access to the pool last week or today - and the elliptical being down - I haven't got a lot of exercise recently.

That's about it for now. I think I'll play a bit of portal and then work on the sword until the repair dude arrives.

later...