I've come across several fantastic things in the last few days:
O2 Optix: I'd been seeing advertisements for these new contact lenses, and simultaneously having increasing trouble with my contacts. I'd been using 1-Day Acuvue off and on for a few years now. I started using daily disposables when I was more affluent than I am now, and I got used to the convenience: I put them in if I want to wear them on a particular day, and at the end of the day, I just pop them out -- a maneuver I often perform in bed. Since coming to New England, though, the comfort of my contacts has declined to the point where I would only where them when I was going to be working in the Cave, where cumbersome LCD shutter glasses are required. Even then, I'd have to bring eyedrops and my glasses everywhere, because the lenses would dry out and quickly become intolerable after as few as six hours. I visited my eye doctor yestereday, and he gave me samples of these fantastic new lenses, O2 Optix. He explained that they don't contain as much water, and so they're less susceptible to drying out. When he first put them in, I blinked and exclaimed, "Wow! Those feel great!" The doctor laughed -- "That's probably because of the anesthetic I put in your eyes five minutes ago." Even after the anesthetic wore off, I'm still loving these contacts. No dryness! I do blink a bit more then when I'm wearing glasses, but the blinking isn't accompanied by discomfort, so I'm super happy.

Pages: Brown bought iWork '05 for me; I requested it because I was facing some technical writing and I just couldn't face writing another document in goddamn Microsoft Word. The simple documentation I need to write doesn't need all the power of Dreamweaver, but I'm not good enough with html to make things look just the way I want with just BBEdit. So, I've started using Pages -- so far for one of the few writing tasks less pleasant than documentation: a letter appealing a denial of health insurance benefits. I found the program simple, small, and pleasant. The table editor was just... easy to use. Painless.

I suppose the other fantastic thing is that I just cleaned my bathroom, tip to toe, fore and aft, everywhere. Tomorrow is supposed to be the kitchen... or maybe today. Now I get to choose between tech writing, cleaning the kitchen, and watching Curb Your Enthusiasm. Tech writing and dvd's simultaneously? Hmm.

I'm also trying to decide on a to-do list system. I started reading Getting Things Done, and even started doing it, over winter break... but the in box is an overwhelming pile. I probably do need a physical solution; I switch computers and OS's too frequently (minutes or hours) to use a single application, and a pure-web solution is subject to someone else's control. Any suggestions? There's got to be a perfect mac product out there... Oh yes, and the Palm etc -- nope, no new hardware purchases for me, especially since I've owned two or three palms and always stop using them after a few weeks or a month.