...you get excited about buying a washer/dryer. karl and i have had it up to HERE with the laundry facilities in our building. they're in the basement, which is typical, and mostly fine. not ideal, but fine. but, you can't get to the basement from our side of the building. no. you have to go outside, around the corner, in the front door of the other side of the building, and down their stairs. (our landlord promised us, when we moved in a YEAR ago, that they would be building stairs down to the basement from our side, but notice, a YEAR.) once there, you have to deal with the moldy basement stench, the layer of mud and god-knows-what on the floor, the layer of grime on the machines, the unpredictable nature of when the machines are going to fail to drain, leaving you a heap of soaking wet laundry, and, recently, the overflowing utility sink. so, we're done. we went shopping for a washer at sears, and found that the portable sink hookup we needed was $550. toooooo much, when you add the $450 for the dryer plus the $50 delivery fee plus the $80 for the stand to put the dryer on (so it's stacked above the washer) plus the $25 for the vent kit for the dryer plus the $79 for the 3-year warranty. just on a whim, i searched on 'washer' on upenn-dot-forsale, knowing there wasn't going to be anything because it's all college students selling stuff, so you get a lot of old ikea furniture and old computers and free kittens, but not so many washers. but, lo and behold, there was a $150 washer/dryer for sale! with sink hookup! yippee! so karl and i rushed over, to make sure it wasn't a teeny 1 cubic foot one and that it was in decent condition. it was perfect. basically, the 3 year-old version of the one we were looking at in the store. we're bringing it home tonight. i have never been so excited to do laundry!

in other news, a friend of mine has started blogging. he's just left his job and is thinking of trying to get a job with the howard dean campaign. (for which you should sign up now.)