Been busy

I've been pretty busy of late, both with work and social life. I'll devote this post to my house, though, as that's where the most significant progress has been made.

I got my washer and dryer! It's a high efficiency front-loading washer. One thing I wasn't counting on was having to get all new high efficiency laundry detergent formulated to work with less water and the like. I gave my laundry detergent to a friend at work, so at least it'll get used.

Either today or tomorrow I plan on going to Nebraska Furniture Mart and picking up my breakfast area table and chairs, along with some bar stools for the kitchen counter area. My grandparents said hey want to make my kitchen table set a housewarming gift, but pretty much all gifts are hard for me to accept, let alone a $700 one. But, I'll go with it on this one.

Speaking of the kitchen, it's amazing how little cabinet space there really is in there. Alternatively, it's amazing how much stuff Carrie has. It is a very good thing that I have a roommate, or I'd be completely embarrassed at the empty nature of every room. She moved her big stuff in this weekend, too, which means I will soon have to move my couch into the basement.

Which means I need to get a TV for the basement! So far, my favorite is Toshiba 65" DLP at Newegg.com. If it weren't for Amazon.com charging taxes in 4 states, including Kansas, I would be able to get it cheaper there. Also, TV stands are ridiculously expensive. I'm disliking that whole situation and halfway considering throwing together some ugly plywood and making my own stand. But, as anyone who's seen my desk knows, that won't look very good. I'm making an effort to get out of college mode, but $300-$400 for a piece of wood that just sits there is discouraging.

Having a TV will be great for watching DVDs, but I will also need to get some sort of live TV feed. Comcast cable is horrible, in general, so it's between DIRECTV and AT&T's Uverse. I would like to go with Uverse because it comes with 3 free receivers, including one DVR, while DIRECTV charges $5/mo for extra receivers and more for DVR. Plus, with Uverse, I'd get cable and DSL without having to buy a phone line for some reason, so it would be cheaper. Unfortunately, my address comes up on their website as not having Uverse available. Houses down the street have signs in their yards about it, though, so I will have to call on Monday.

Also, I got my new wireless/gigabit ethernet router and gigabit switch. The router is pretty nice, but I can't get wireless encryption to work with Carrie's laptop. I will have to try configuring it with my laptop from work, sometime, to see what the problem is. The gigabit switch is primarily for LAN parties, for now.

That's all for the moment. I will try to update a bit more often.