When I wasn't posting about spam and pedophiles or chatting, I've mostly been reading about Scientology [still]. Except for those few surprisingly warm days when we went wandering around the local stores.

Except...it wasn't all that warm, and I was noticing that something very important was absent from my coat collection. Something for those transitional seasons, when it was windy and often wet, that wouldn't keep me too warm, but would keep me warm enough.

So, after checking out the new Play-n-Trade, we went over to Kohls. And after trying on every athletic sneaker in the shoe department in the quest for the perfect shoe, [Nike is comfortable, but...not quite perfect. Close, though.] we went digging through the rest of the store looking for coats that weren't entirely useless or completely ugly.

It turns out that coats that are both 'not entirely useless' and 'not completely ugly' are generally kept in the male-gender sections.

I found this in the boy's section, on the clearance rack.

I'm not too thrilled about the colour, but it's not the worst thing in the world. Obviously, I was okay enough with it to buy it.

I'm glad I did, too. I've been wearing it on every trip out since, usually only the outer shell. See, it's got this zip-out liner that's also a fleece that can be worn on its own. The shell then becomes a slightly-warmer-than-expected lightweight springish jacket. With an MP3 pocket. And a hideaway hood that I haven't even tried yet.

The fleece compresses down nicely, and can fit into one of the smaller compartments of my backpack [which I also never leave home without at this point], so when it gets too cold for just the jacket, I can zip the fleece back into it, and be...less cold. Except 'less cold' isn't really the word for it. Depending on what else I'm wearing, 'too fucking warm' might be a better representation.

On Tuesday, we made a nighttime store trip to get a few more cases of soda before the sale ended. Knowing it was below freezing, I wore one of my hoodies along with this Coat of Warm, thus becoming 'Too Fucking Warm.'

Which isn't always a bad thing, I guess.

Backtracking a bit, to pre-coat days, one of our trips to get soda brought us to this very weird scene:

What appears to have happened is that someone [probably a drunk someone] ended up driving on the sidewalk, flattened the speed limit sign [that would be the object opposite the snow], and then continued to drive down the sidewalk until reaching the grocery store parking lot.

The speed limit there is 25, by the way. Just so you know. So you can be the one person aware of it, because nobody else coming around the corner and trying to hit everyone who crosses there seems to be aware of it.

The last time I was down there during the day time, the tracks weren't quite as obvious. I don't know if they've replaced the sign yet, though.

That would be the 'last time I was down there and paid attention', that is. Which, unfortunately, was probably 'when I took those pictures'. Usually, it's night, although there were two day trips very recently.

The first was where I found out that carrying soda back on my bike hurts my delicate female bottom, and the second was when I bought a nice new bike seat, and found out that the bike store near here is actually pretty competitive in its pricing.

This was my old bike seat -- the one that came with the bike. It'd hurt you, too, I'm sure.

This is the new one. I haven't tried it yet, because it's been too cold.

So cold, the aliens are stopping by and leaving funny patterns in the snow.

Also, I'm wary of riding my bike at night. I wouldn't want to end up a smear on the sidewalk between two wheel ruts on my way to the store to get some more soda, or Yan Yan.

I couldn't help myself. They were just sitting there, looking like a chocolatey dipping sauce/cookie stick kids snack that I used to enjoy. And then I found out that there were entertaining engrishey phrases on the cookie sticks....

Which is almost as entertaining as:

Good home my for my gray ferrel cat, must keep indoors, have vet.

Overlooking the 'my for my' thing as much as possible, 'ferrel'? That's one of two things, a typo for feral, or a typo for Ferrell. The cat's either wild, or Will Ferrell.

I wouldn't keep either of them in my house. The feral one would be upset, and the Ferrell might upset Zombi.

I wouldn't want to upset Zombi.

Wouldn't even want to keep her from stuffing her head so far into Gremlin's [empty] cup of milk that she gets it kinda stuck....

I think that's all the images I wanted to use, except for one.

That'd be the size tag of my new coat.

Aw. Kitties.

Thanks, femme_politik.