on an average day 7 minutes of news happens

• The good news: $106.34 from my various change-drop banks, deposited this morning (along with the proceeds from the sale of the former TV and a travel reimbursement). The total will pay for roughly half of the new TV.
• The bad news: my girl from the bank didn't know as much as she thought she did. The bank doesn't collect state taxes for the purchase of a vehicle in another state, nor do they handle the transfer of title and plates. (Oops, kind of big things to be confused about, eh?) Considering that I've waited 17 days for the title to arrive from WI (which seemed like f-o-r-e-v-e-r!) already, I've now wasted another 3+ days dealing with this, because the Secretary of State's office was closed today for the holiday and won't be open again until Tuesday. Having been there on a Tuesday once before (they're always closed on Mondays but it'll be worse because of today) - I'll go in on Wednesday, maybe Thursday. At like 2:30. And still expect to sit for a good long time.
• The new news (albeit somewhat less thrillingly presented than it could have been): I have a new TV, the Vizio 37" Class 1080p 60Hz LED LCD HDTV (M370 NV). What that means in normal-people language is that it has a viewable area that is ten inches larger than the older one, but is roughly fourteen inches narrower. It has a zillion fancy settings, including four aspect ratios, which is sort of hilarious. The Mumbler was getting it set up (I recruited him to help move it in, and he ended up actually volunteering to accompany me to the store to pick it up, which added a new and oddly welcome domestic twist to our friendship, since there's really nothing like a retail outing to help you see a side to someone that can only come out that way) and trying to get all the elements just right. He kept flipping between widescreen and panoramic, but he was on whatever channel Wheel of Fortune is on, so Pat & Vanna's faces kept widening and broadening.... It was surreal and I couldn't take it seriously. The best part of the TV-buying experience? I'd picked out a 32" that I quite liked. I did the research on the Consumer Reports and CNet websites. I'd resigned myself to paying more - roughly $6xx - for LED, knowing that the price difference would resolve itself in decreased energy costs over the life of the machine. However, when Mumbler & I started searching for a place to buy it (trying to avoid having it shipped and blowing my budget completely) he found that a local retailer had the 37" model - which I hadn't considered because the prices were out of my range - for a remarkable deal. We backtracked and did more research, discovering that it was just as good, if not better, quality than the 32" that I'd originally chosen, and their price was $4xx. W00t! I went to the store armed with that information, and was even more pleased to discover once I got there that the local store had an even better deal, $4xx. That, combined with my willingness to accept their "financing" (an added 5% discount), brought the overall cost to $4xx. Considering that I was able to fit it in my car, drive it home, Mumbler carried it upstairs without breaking a sweat or injuring himself (or it) in any way, and he set it up completely in less than 15 minutes, I was totally happy with the purchase. Now I just need to acquire some cables...and an extraordinarily complicated VHS player...and a region-free Blu-Ray player...and TiVo....
• The old news: my apartment is an unbelievable mess. There is hope, though--the Cat is coming over for, well, I don't know what excuse we're giving, but she'll be here on Monday, so the apartment will be clean before then. God knows how. I can guarantee that all piles of books (potential toe-breakers) will be off the floor before she arrives. That alone will take a while.
• Wow, the really new news: Heidi is engaged.

[title quotation by Jon Stewart]