Christmas!

It would seem Christmas has finally arrived at the Fine Martial household.

This was going to be my big present this year, but when I went into the store before Christmas, the electronics department was so crazy that I decided to just wait until after Christmas to get it. Yeah, that meant that there would be nothing for me to open on Christmas morning, which was kinda sad, but it's the choice I made.

Now, I did get some presents.  My older brother and sister in law sent me a gift card.  My sister had already told me that my gift from her would be late, and my younger brother has always been kind of hit and miss with the gifts anyway.  Some years I get one, some years I don't.  Beverly and James had built me the new set of back steps as a combination birthday/Christmas gift, so I wasn't expecting anything else from them.  However, Beverly did call me Christmas morning and told me she had ordered me something else, so I'd have something to open.  She'd even paid extra for shipping to make sure it got here on time.  It didn't.  We're still waiting on that one.  Anyway...

This isn't really the TV I'd wanted. Wal-mart had one advertised in their sales sheet, a 42" Sanyo for less than 500 bucks, but they didn't have any of those in stock. They had some 40" Sonys, these, and some 46" Samsungs. I didn't really want a 46".  Rather, I didn't want to spend the money on a 46", so I decided to just get one of the 40" models.  I thought about getting the Sony, but when I looked at the display models on the shelf, the picture of this Samsung looked much clearer than the Sony, so that's the one I went with.

It was pretty easy to get it hooked up. I only had to move one cable from my old TV to the new one. Oddly, though, NBC won't come in on my new TV. It was one of the clearest channels on my old one. I can't figure out what is wrong.  Same antenna.  Same cable.  Same converter box.  So, everything should be the same, shouldn't it?  But it won't come in.

Well, no matter.  The only thing I watched on NBC was Sunday Night Football anyway.  I'll just switch the cable back to the old TV for the two remaining games.  And it's just until I get cable hooked up anyway.

Please don't try to sell me on DirecTV or Dish Network.  I'd get DirecTV, but I'm in the 6% of Americans who can't get local channels with it.  And of course, that includes the 4 major networks--you know, the ones with all the football games on them.  Yeah. Gotta have those. 

So I'm going with Cable.  I'll start with the basic package, for now.  Before football season starts again, I may upgrade to the package that has ESPN and ESPNU.  Depends on how my finances are.  Or I may just get that cable that I can hook my laptop up to the TV and stream games from there.

That wasn't all the Christmas that arrived today.  

Remember when I said I wanted to learn Latin? Well, what did that crazy girl Kristin do, but send me her Latin textbooks?

As as added bonus, she threw in some Italian texts as well. I'd been wanting to refresh my Italian before I completely forget it.

The hard part will be studying it and sticking with it. I have found that the best way to learn a language is to just start using it. Study a bit to get the basics down, then find a native speaker and start talking to him.

Hmmm, now where can I find someone who speaks Latin?

When the Fed Ex guy delivered the package, Rylea was out in the yard.  He looked at her dubiously and asked if she was going to bite him.  Well, I looked and she was showing curiosity, but no aggression, so I assured him that she wouldn't.  He said, "That's good.  I've already been bitten once today."

Now, if Jake had been out in the yard, I'd have had to go rescue him.  He's already bitten the UPS guy, so that he won't even get out of his truck if he sees Jake. 

He's very protective, and he isn't even mine.