Just upgraded MovableType from 3.16 to 3.31 this morning.....and much of my trixy behind the scenes wizardry has been broken by format changes. Thus if the blog seems to be acting sketchy , you will know why...

UPDATE - The switchover has been.....interesting, to say the least. Still need to clean up the trackback and comment pages, plus implement a few tricks/tweaks, but the majority of the work has been accomplished.

Unless you're talking about furniture. Those glorious constructs of leather, wood, and padding upon which we rest our fleshy posteriors. That further proof in the eyes of others of one's pecuniary prowess. Seventeen months have I lived in my current residence, a modest two bedroom condo with a large living room and cathedral ceilings. Seventeen months, with naught but a bed, a desk, and two bookshelves with which to order my life. Since I formally moved in to this domicile it has always been a deeply running thought to furnish it according to my tastes. Fate, it seemed, always had other plans. Last August my furniture fund was destroyed in burnt offering to the gods of air conditioning. This March my nest egg was again rent asunder, destroyed in sync with the piston rod of my faithful Intrigue. It would be untruthful though, to blame solely those events for my lack of furnishing. As with almost everything, the truth begins within oneself.

Eleven months into this quest, my lips had tasted naught but failure...betrayed it seems by my own preference. Nine differing store/chains across two states, countless circulars and newspaper ads, and not a single piece was as I desired. I had thought my requirements rather simple. A sofa, long enough for pleasant napping, deep and cushioned enough to be most comfortable for those of a taller stature. Seems a simple thing, really, but finding those qualities in combination with a color/pattern pleasing to my sense proved most frustrating. Each failure reinforced in me the belief that my perception of the home furnishing industry was wrong. Furniture it seems was not utilitarian in nature, but had taken on the mantle of abstract art...meant to be viewed, pondered, aesthetically appreciated but by God never to be truly SAT UPON! A smarter man I believe would have given up by then.

Ah, but the tenth...in that tenth store, not one week past, nirvana itself opened to me. A sofa, long and luxurious, with smooth supple leather and a solid construction. As if some toiling laborer reached into my mind and dragged my desired out in order to give them form. I had found the pillar, that perfect center piece, to my arena of lounging. That combination of leather, wood, and padding upon which my fleshy posterior would find most of its repose. My mind screamed yes before my wallet could even wake, and the purchase was made. That should have been a sign...

Today, $1500 dollars worth of furniture traveled from a voluminous shipping warehouse in Pennsylvania. Today, $1500 dollars worth of furniture is making its way back to that voluminous shipping warehouse. In my quest for the perfect piece of furniture, it seems I left out one minor detail. A year of searching, it turns out, means nothing if the furniture cannot fit through the front door. More specifically the length and depth of the sofa is such that it proves incapable of navigating the right turn from the outside foyer to the front door, much less the immediate left turn from front door to stairs. The ceiling is too low, see. A scant matter of inches, it seems, scant enough to begin the cascade. Seeing as the love-seat matches the sofa, there is little point in accepting it when the sofa is an impossibility. With those two departed, the purpose of the table/end tables becomes complete negated. As the great philosopher Homer often said, "D'OH!".

Such accursed dilemma...as most would advise the simple, the obvious...find a smaller sofa. Therein lies the further rub. Select a sofa with less length and depth, and the front door problem is solved. Lessen the length and depth of the sofa, and the sofa will no longer interest me (as I seem to often have to remind some around me, I see no point in purchasing furniture that I don't want to use). At 6'3", the length/depth of a sofa is paramount as proper positioning can not be achieved when one's head or legs hang completely over the arms and the posterior feels no difference from an office swivel chair! Why can't they bring it in over the balcony and through the sliding door, a friend asked? The lawyers of the delivery company aren't too keen on that method...something to do with liability apparently. So back it goes, my living room still naught but bare carpet and most likely it will remain.

Ah yes, and in the spirit of heaping insult upon injury there was a further C.O.D charge for the paid in full furniture, a gift from that effete popinjay our esteemed(HA!) Royal Governor Johnathan Corslime, may his nethers boil and rot a festering meat. His sales tax increase it turns out, with regards to furniture, avoids the messy trouble of ex post facto status by being tied directly to delivery/possession. Though my furniture was purchased well before the legal deadline, the tax is 'retroactively' applied to the purchase as my delivery did not occur until AFTER the deadline. A hale and hearty thanks for the crafty wallet rodgering, you elitist Liberal jackanape!