Today I braved the cold to go spend a few minutes taking pictures downtown. There’s a tall parking garage (six stories) behind the American Tobacco campus that made a pretty decent spot for some pictures. My batteries died about five minutes in but thanks to my new camera using AA’s instead of some ridiculous, proprietary battery, I ran to the gas station and back and kept going. It was unbelievably cold. As katastrophes put it last night, the temperature was “negative ass.” The sky was exceptional, though.

Before this I went to Circuit City to see if they were really trying to sell me something and found that it was a bit bullshit as clearances go: videogames with a $20 price tag half-covered by a newer $60 price tag that was, in turn, half covered by a 10% or 20% discount sticker? No thanks. I don’t need to pay $54 for a videogame I can buy for $19.99 across the street at Target. Lots of people were milling around but not very many were buying. I texted The Boyf to tell him I would bet a nickel that the price was better yesterday on almost everything I looked at.

Between the two I stopped in to try Piper’s Deli after reading about it on a local foodie blog. Very, very yummy. While I was there the bartender greeted two other patrons by name as they walked in. It’s a place that knows its people, and that’s awesome. I want to go back and try their vegetarian burger; the turkey burger was delightful. I didn’t notice until too late that the special of the day was a vegetarian lasagna.