North Face Aleutian sleeping bag

I bought this sleeping bag a few years back for about $60, and I'm very conflicted about it. The weight-for-temperature-rating is nearly unbeatable at any price, and definitely so at this price. However, the temperature rating of 20 Fahrenheit is a little exaggerated. I've had this bag in 30 degree weather, and froze my ass off. The foot box can leak cold air, and there is no baffle around the shoulders to keep warm air in, so that you have to scrunch the hood really tight and close it up completely to keep the top air-tight. In addition, the bag suffers from an affliction common to all taffeta-based bags: it's loud! If you make the slightest move it rustles. I'm not so light a sleeper that light noises outside the tent wake me up, but if things are rustling right by my ear, I will wake up. This bag also has another weird property, to which I'm neutral: it creates a lot of static, to the point of glowing. This was initially a great source of amusement to me, but now I just ignore it. I remember on one occasion it even seemed to cause my indiglo casio from the 80s to phosphoresce longer when I checked the time. These days I've augmented the bag with a silk liner. This has taken care of the footbox air leak, and made the bag generally warmer and better-behaved. Unless you do as much backpacking as I do, in which case this bag's light weight will be a major plus, I would not recommend getting the Aleutian. Major points for the name, though!

Icebreaker merino stuff

I'm not the sort of person who gets addicted to things, but I am a little obsessed with Icebreaker merino wool clothes these days. I'm trying to remember what got me started... I think I needed a warm layer for Eastern Sierra trips, and I picked up a coral pink long sleeve crew-cut 260. Icebreaker gear is rated by the weight of the wool per square ... foot? I think it's foot, but you can check the website (www.icebreaker.com) to confirm. So far I have:
* the original 260 long sleeve crew
* a 200 short sleeve crew -- more about this one in a bit...
* a black 200 long sleeve zip neck ("Mako")
* a black 190 tank top
* a dark gray 190 tee with a cool as all hell print of a wave on it
* a light brown 190 vee-neck tee -- just bought this one, we'll see how I like it
Merino is simply superior to cotton! I have enough of these at this point that I probably don't need to wear any of my cotton t-shirts most of the time, and I just don't. Merino doesn't smell, so you can wear it many days before you need to wash it, it doesn't need ironing, it's washed in cold water, which is more environmentally correct, and it's more comfortable.
These are expensive clothes, but once I knew I was hooked, I started buying them heavily discounted at sierratradingpost.com, which is outstanding. Real story: I wore the 200 short sleeve, which was powder blue when I bought it, nonstop throughout the J/24 South European championship. Because you can only wash wool in cold water, it developed some serious pit-stains (foredeck on a J/24 is no laughing matter!). I didn't want to retire the shirt, but I couldn't very well wear it like that, so I dyed it! I picked up some midnight blue dye, soaked it for an hour, rinsed it in cold water, washed it and wore it on my trip to Bryce Canyon this past weekend. The color is definitely fast, and I didn't have any skin reactions to the dye. Bottom line, this icebreaker stuff is the shit!

After Dark

I picked up this Murakami book during a 2-for-1 sale, as a follow-up to "Hard-boiled wonderland", which Will gave me for x-mas. "After Dark" seemed deceptively simple. I really enjoyed it, but I don't know what to make of it. The script-like writing was interesting, the characters were very cool, and the setting was fantastic. Did I get the point? No.

Wristcutters

This is a cute little love story, which I watched at my brother's suggestion. I especially enjoyed the fact that it was obviously filmed around here. It had a cool texture, and the fantastic plot device of a black hole under the passenger seat of a car. The soundtrack was also amazing, as one would expect from a movie that Tom Waits is involved in.

Battlestar Galactica 4th season

The mid-season finale of BSG happened last Friday, so I downloaded and watched it last night, and, I have to say, it was brilliant! They wrapped up pretty much every thread they had going in a nice way, gave lots to be happy about, and tempered it a little with some dystopia in the end. The scriptwriters are following the tenets of great literature to the letter, and the outcome is brilliant!

Getting stoned with savages

I went to the bookstore physically aching for a Murakami book, and alongside that I picked up "Getting stoned with savages" for half off. It's a really fun, quick read, along the lines of "A walk in the woods". It's the author's second book, about Vanuatu and Fiji, the first one being "The sex lives of cannibals", about Kiribati. I'll save "sex lives" for an airplane read sometime...

BV Signet Collection 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon

I'm a little confused about BV. I've had some of their wines during wine night, and they've been barfalicious, but someone brought this bottle to our house on some occasion and Jenny and I opened it and were pleasantly surprised. Is it because of the "Signet Collection" part? Anyway, this was a fine "jammy", as Jenny called it, cab, which also kept well refrigerated for a week after being opened. I haven't been trying many wines lately...