Von's, one of the local major grocery stores has started up a delivery service. Order things on the web, schedule delivery, and they come to your front door. Nice.

Five years behind WebVan and HomeGrocer, perhaps, but they went under during the bubble burst, leaving a gap for such a useful service.

Von's now serves our street, and since they gave us a coupon for a free trial (i.e., no delivery charge) we figured why not? We don't buy much from large grocery stores because we like the local Sunland Produce place a lot better, but they don't carry cans of club soda, so I ordered it online from Von's. A lot of it.

Now we have 120 cans in the garage, and await today's delivery of a case of various Torani syrups with which to make Italian sodas in flavors like chocolate mint and cheesecake. Ummmm, cheesecake...

We've also obtained a Brita pitcher and filter our tap water with it. The drinking water ain't brown anymore, and I thought it tasted better, but Shelley gave me a blind taste test and I couldn't tell the difference. Humph.