Furious fuzz

[flexagon]

I found out this week that Colubrid does gift matching on donations to MIT. That makes me quite a bit more likely to donate. The only weird thing is that on the Colubrid gift-match form, it has some wording about I certify that neither my donation nor Colubrid's matching donation will be used to pay for tuition, books or fees. That could be a problem since what I want to donate to is the undergrad scholarship fund that keeps MIT's application process "need-blind" -- you know, the fund that enabled me to go there in the first place. :b I wrote to the gift office to see if that refers to tuition, books or fees for me or tuition, books or fees in general.

Also, the first pair of expensive shoes I ever bought finally broke a buckle on Tuesday, seven years after I wondered if sandals could possibly be worth $100. Seven years! Oh little sandals, how I loved you! You were worth it! I went out to replace them, and ended up getting these cute sandal/clog things for half off. Then I decided to buzz through the Gap on Sunday looking for sales, and found that all their cropped pants are marked down to $9.99 right now. Whee! They call people like me cherrypickers, and they don't like us -- but between always being generally frugal and now having a job in retail optimization, I don't think I can help it. When you know some of the Gap's business rules and you KNOW they have no good initial pricing system, and you KNOW they take a lot of markdown recommendations from the system you help write... well... cherrypicking happens.

Aside from shopping, I've been geeking out, in various ways. Spent a fair bit of time yesterday with the so-called wizard book, which is both good (brain exercise) and bad (shit! my weekend!). Then heisenbug and I went to TBC's house and played Fury of Dracula, which looks incredibly teenage-boyish and dumb, but in fact is just Scotland Yard on steroids. I liked it, perhaps partly because we beat the living shit out of Dracula by trapping him in the middle of Europe at dawn, and it also made me realize that I don't think I ever read the original Dracula. Shame on me.

I'm finding Acts of Levitation to be a little like James Joyce but a whole lot better (no obscure Catholicism, for one thing). It's so slippery though. I still can't get a grip on the characters' lives. I'll just have to finish reading it so I can scrape up something intelligent to say.

Comments

[nevers.livejournal.com]

acts of levitation makes a lot more sense on second reading, although some things remain impossible to pin down. (or pin up! on a wall! like a bit of muslin! oh how i love that book...)

[flexagon]

I looked the other day to see if you'd written a review! But nope. Not yet.

[bluechromis.livejournal.com]

That would be so bizarre if they barred any use for student necessities...I mean at least in the sense that they can't really dictate how MIT uses scholarship $$.

Those clogs are sweet...JS is sweet. Makes me want to go shoe shopping....must resist.

[flexagon]

Yeah, it turns out they meant I can't donate for the purpose of paying any one person's tuition or fees... but a general undergraduate scholarship fund is all right. Check went out in the mail today. I feel way virtuous.

Zappo's says the clogs are "slides". Perhaps only closed toe slip-ons are clogs.