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My 6+ arrived last night. Got it all set up and I have to say that while it's going to take some getting used to, it's pretty awesome.

I her albums. She's pretty amazing.

Closed on the sale of the condo at 8:30 and on the purchase of the house at 4:00. Big day!

We're planning on the slide in range with a hood in the island for sure. The room has a really awkward layout, so we're actually carving out a portion on the room to better serve a functional layout. I do like or separates so I'm probably going to at least revisit that decision. And thanks for the background on the manufacturer... We were at least considering Kenmore because the pricing is pretty aggressive when you catch them on a sale. Thanks... Keep the recommendations coming!

So, we're closing on our new house on Friday, and we have a month to take care of a few things before we move in. The biggest project is a gut on the kitchen. Recommendations for the major appliances? Leaning towards a slide-in gas range instead of separates, though I do like the cook top and wall oven. And we're trying to decide if a French door fridge is worth the extra coin vs side by side. Liking the Kitchen Aid stuff I've seen, but we're not sure. And washer and dryer... We've been really happy with our LG combo unit, so we were thinking we'd stick with that, but I'm more than happy to hear real world experience and advice. Thanks.

At this rate they're going to have to ship me a 6s Plus(s), or whatever they're going to call it, since it'll be out by then. Ugh.

I'd been meaning to listen to this all week, and it's been good while I'm trying to wrap some stuff up. I like it a lot. I'm not sure anything grabs me like "What If We Could?" from TGWTDT soundtrack, but it's very, very good. And having read the book, I'm really looking forward to seeing how it all fits together.

I enjoyed the first few episodes, but once they abandoned the idea of a limited run our mini series of the actual book and decided to just start making shit up as they went to keep it going, I lost interest really fast. The book was great. The series? A world of no.

I updated last night right after it was announced. Went quick and easy for me.

I got to play with both when we were up at the Apple store Wednesday night. The 6 is very nice. The size looks just about right. I'd have to spend more time with the Plus to see if I could live with it day to day. It would clearly allow me to be a one-device person, something I've wanted to move to for a long time. On another note, it looks like we might be moving to AT&T Next, simply because in addition to her screen being shattered, the frame on Lauren's phone is bent significantly as well. That meant that instead of a $129 screen replacement it was a $269 phone replacement. While Next doesn't end up looking like the best deal, it's not horrible and any drawbacks are easily set off by the replacement cost. The plus is I could get a new phone, too. So we shall see...

Lauren smashed her screen last weekend and with a 16GB 5, she didn't have the space to update to iOS 8. On top of that, her iCloud backup appeared to have been corrupted so she couldn't do an OTA backup. The combination left her unable follow the recommendation of a current backup and up-to-date OS when bringing it in to have the screen replaced. I connected her phone to the iMac for the first time ever this morning, did a wired backup and was able to update to iOS 8 with less than 1GB free since the computer does all of the heavy lifting. I'll delete her iCloud backup and try again for convenience's sake, but agree that rendundant backups are worth while. Regardless, hardly the end of the world.

A co-worker showed me his new 6. I have to admit that the curved edges make it feel much smaller in hand than it is, and even two minutes with it had me comfortably using reachability mode. The experience has left me sad I have another year until I'm eligible and doubting the 6+ will be too big for an all-in-one device.

Thanks everyone! It's pretty exciting. Another kid? Not so fast... Another pup? Now you're talking!

And like that, offer was accepted. No counter. Go us.

Offer went in this afternoon. Fingers crossed.

Of course! How could I not? And I'm not sure one will make an appearance in the new house if things work out... I'm not sure it'd be appropriate in an updated 1850 colonial.

Got a signed purchase and sales (pending financing) on our condo and after getting pre-approved last week. Now we're just staff wrapping up some loose ends before putting an offer on a place we looked at yesterday. Excited and terrified at the same time. But with the addition of our little bundle of energy and Lauren growing her business, we're just out of room, despite loving our loft and its location.

I'm happy with my Pebble for a fraction of the cost. I just wanted notifications without having to pull my phone out of my pocket (when I have my phone in my pocket when I shouldn't at work). The only additional features I use are audio controls (nice when skiing and my phone is buried deep in pockets below layers) and the Starbucks app, which lets me pay without needing to pull out my wallet or phone. And truth be told, I could easily live without either of those.

A word of caution... If you order through your provider and you're grandfathered, you may get moved to a current plan. This happend when I upgraded my wife's phone for a Christmas gift a few years ago. I bought mine through Apple both times and I'm still on the old plan, which means I'm theoretically still on our old unlimited plan. The end result is she's got LTE and is capped at 3GB and I'm throttled above 5GB on whatever their so-called 4G network is. Of course, this was just what happened to me with AT&T, so your experience may vary.

I've been very happy with my 5s, and use my Mini for reading and most web browsing when at home. I'm curious to see the Plus in person to see if I think it could be an all-in-one solution for me or if I feel like I'd still need the bigger screen size for some applications. If I could consolidate to one device I'd be happy, but I'd have to be confident that the potential awkwardness of the larger phone would more than offset the convenience of only having one device. But the 128GB capacity is a no-brainer for me regardless of which size I choose... Between music and photos/videos and ever-increasing app sizes, my 64GB 5s is constantly at its capacity. But sadly I'm a ways away from being eligible for an upgrade.

The Nikon 1 series has very fast AF... It's one of its best ranked features. It also has a silent electronic shutter, which may or may not be a benefit. I paid $269 for my V1 (eBay refurb from Adorama), $30 for a grip (it is hard to hold otherwise) and $189 for the 18.5mm/f1.8 lens. The combo does quite well indoors with low light with ISO at 800-1600 and if you get the ISO and shutter speed dialed in @ f1.8, the fast AF leaves it as a point and shoot affair. I haven't run it in Auto or either of the priorities, so I can't speak to it's performance there, but for $500 I've been pretty pleased.

Yeah, I saw a pretty damning review that confirmed that after Heritage, I didn't need to check out Pale Communion. While that initially made me sad, I said fuck it and listened to My Arms, Your Hearse and realized that I'm cool with whatever they do moving forward because they produced an absolutely perfect album already.

I read this over the weekend... I had seen this post a ways back and had the book on my Kindle and finally got around to it. What a great read. Fast paced, great world building and surprisingly poignant climax (that was admittedly admittedly a little telegraphed, but shockingly well done and powerful). If a post-apocalyptic Trenton occupied by the undead intrigues you, check it out. Thanks for mentioning it, Peter.

Portishead - Dummy Just saw the Pitchfork article about Dummy turning 20... How the fuck is this 20 years old?

Had an awesome day celebrating Penlope's 1st birthday!