House Envy

June 18, 1999

New! Check out my Real World Summaries. Episode I is up now.

Mary, Molly and I went to the Parade of Homes last night. It was AWESOME! Well, it was raining, so that wasn't great.

For those who don't know, Parade of Homes is where a bunch of builders make model homes, and then have decorators come in and fix the place up nice. Then they sell tickets to goofs like me, and we traipse through the houses and ooh and ahh over everything.

We got there about 6:15 p.m. and it closed at 8:00 p.m. We took a shuttle from the parking lot and the shuttle driver was REALLY annoying. You're driving the shuttle. That is your job. Your job is NOT to crack really unfunny jokes to all the passengers. So, shut up.

We paid our $6 and headed out. Because it was raining, you had to either take off your shoes or wear these surgical booties into the house. The booties were a pain because they were hard to pull on over your wet shoes, but it was also a pain to take off and put on your shoes quickly unless you wore slip-ons (which I did not!).

These houses were mostly beautiful. I've always thought I wanted to buy an older house, because I like the style, the workmanship and pretty much everything about old houses. But after seeing these brand new houses, I'm not sure anymore. One thing that has changed with the times is that rooms are much bigger now. Plus I really like the trend of big rooms with cathedral ceilings to use as a family room that kind of flows into the kitchen. So you can be making dinner or whatever, and your family can be in the family room and you can all be chitchatting.

We saw this one house that was gigantic. It had a cool family room, AND a formal dining room AND a formal parlor (which I would change into a library or something) AND a whole home office/den that was really cool. Plus the decorating was really cool in this house. It was kind of hip and funky without being cluttered. The only thing I didn't like was the back patio. They had a stone garden kind of deal with this wood island that had a grill. I would have preferred a standard deck. But that's easy enough to change, I suppose.

The only trouble with attending this shindig is that now I am suffering from serious house envy. But I can't afford a house right now, while I am in school. I am so jealous, last night I was seriously thinking about getting a real job and deferring my degree. Then I came to my senses and said, "But then I would have to WORK for a living and wouldn't be able to do my journal every day." I saw a job listed in the paper that I think I'm qualified for right now, without my degree. But then I thought that if I actually get my degree, I would probably be able to command a much higher salary. Maybe. Plus I have a scholarship, so I'm going to school for free now. I don't know, what do you think?

Some consumer groups are mad about ICANN (which basically manages the domain name registration process). ICANN is a private entity, but it's gov't related so it can tax people, which is weird. I just wish it was cheaper to register a domain. I mean, $35/year to run a database?

There's a new magazine online for teens, so of course I read it. And SOMEONE might be interested in the article about Ryan Phillippe.

Star Wars fans are all up in arms about the possible casting of Leonardo DeCaprio as Anakin in Episode 2. As Jim pointed out, he's not against Leo per se, but he is against casting such a well known actor, because it distracts you from the story.

Mark your calendars! The Buffy season finale has been rescheduled for July 13th. I saw it via Real Audio but it was really blurry and the sound wasn't great.

I was watching Hackers last night on Sci-Fi. What a terrible movie.