We invited my brother, Adam Dotsey, over for dinner last night.  We needed a few things from the grocery store and I thought about going to Wal-Mart, but I was feeling too lazy to head over there near the 5:00 hour, so I decided to go to Food Lion instead.  Food Lion is just a couple miles down the road, as opposed to Lowes Food, which is at the end of our neighborhood, but I thought I’d go there just to switch things up.  Plus I was feeling the whim.

I got back to the house when I suddenly remembered that I’d forgotten two of the main things I needed: toilet paper and spaghetti sauce.  This time I went to Lowes.

I was talking to Michael Mercer to tell him about saving a bit of money with Time Warner today (oh yeah, I’ll get to that) and Amanda mentioned inviting him over too, so I did and he did.  Come over that is.

Adam got to the house right around 6:00, a couple minutes after our sister, Andra Sawyer, returned a phone call to me.  She talked to me for a bit then put my nephew, Jackson, on the phone.  He did talk much, but he did laugh goofily a bunch at me then Adam.  When I got the phone back I asked if I could speak to his mom, but he just laughed and said he wanted to speak to my mom.  My mom not being in the vicinity, I put Amanda on the phone and he just laughed at her.  Kid was in a funny mood!

I showed Adam Little Big Planet then Michael showed up and we ate then hung around for a bit, just chatting and the like.  Both of them took off a little after 8:00.  Michael had a Lakers game he wanted to watch.  Adam gave me a trunk of stuff to take to my parents this weekend.  I think it was all of his Army clothes.  He may or may not make it up to Raleigh this weekend, where we’re celebrating the 29th birthday of our other sister, Erin Dotsey.  He’s moving out of his apartment and will likely be moving and cleaning.

So, Time Warner.  I opened a bill from the provider of our TV, phone and internet today to see that it was $20 more than usual.  I knew rates had gone up, but I thought that was mighty high so I gave them a call.  Eighteen months ago I had mentioned the price of my bill to them and they lowered my overall bill, but apparently they did it by giving me a promotional package, which just expired.  So I asked them, “Well, do you have any promotions I can use now?”

Time Warner Cable does indeed have a package I can use now.  If I agree to remain a customer for two years (under penalty of a $150 termination fee) they’ll give me all I’ve got now for $129 (plus taxes and such).  I thought that wasn’t bad, so I ran it by Amanda then went with it.  I did drop HBO though, which I’m already kind of regretting.  There are only a few episodes of Deadwood left and I’m going to miss Entourage, True Blood, Flight of the Conchords and HBO On Demand.  Crap, I just remembered that HBO is having a special at the end of the month about the Duke-Carolina rivalry!  I might have to sign back up for it for a month.

Zach Dotsey