Wiki-what? Wiki-how?

I had set up an iGoogle homepage right around the last olympics to follow the medal race. At the time I spent a good 30 minutes or so looking through the different options that are available to personalize the page. I like things that are silly, make me laugh, but provide me with information. You can see this with the useless fact box that is on this blog. I used this kind of criteria to design my page. Once the games finished my default homepage somehow got switched and I simply forgot about the site.

Recently, gmail has had some blips and minor breakdowns causing gchat to bomb out. All I can say is that fortunately, these problems have yet to occurr at the same time that twitter has been overwhelmed and crashed. Losing the ability to chat with a friend during a stressful day at work can really kill you. iGoogle is a way around this problem. But let's keep this between me and you because last thing I want is everyone to use the iGoogle site because than that would just crash too.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that I started to redesign the page as the Olympic medal count is not so important at the time being and saw that I had added the Wiki-how application. Every day there are how-tos posted about some of the most ridiculous concepts and skills. My favorite example is the wiki that teaches you how to fall safely or even better how to dye karakeke (flax) with crepe paper.

These are fantastic. Please feel free to peruse. You can submit your own articles. I am trying to figure out what I can teach someone to do that would be amusing, yet helpful.

Taking the guess work out of drunk self portraits

Samsung came out with a new digital camera that has a small LCD screen on the front that lets you see what is in the frame if you are attempting to take a self portrait. On the back there is still a bigger screen to help you aim and set up your picture.

This innovation is really a great idea. The people at Samsung are really embracing my generations love of taking self portraits which involve to people squishing their faces together so that their cheeks get smooshed into one another.

The only downfall is that this would mean I would no longer have pictures of ceilings, walls, or the tall guy behind me.

Getting my mom interested in woot.

So when I first came back from Alaska, I felt like I really needed to do something nice for my parents. They did pay for the trip. But at the same time they know that I have really no money, so it would have to be small gestures or else I think they would try to give it back. My father is really hard to shop for and so I usually fail when I try. But my mom is a little easier. Probably because she goofy like me. Don't get me wrong, my dad is very goofy, but he has a different way of showing it.

Anyway, my mom told us how after teaching for what seems like forever, RI is now changing the curriculum requirements for middle school. She now has to teach astronomy. But not astrology. At least it was added after the whole Pluto getting demoted from planet to celestial body. Hopefully, her textbooks are new enough they also only show 8 planets. I wonder what the new pneumatic is to learn the planets is now. I mean it is no longer true that My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. Maybe she served us nothing? How sad.

It just so happened that on shirt.woot.com they had a shirt out for sale called "You're not one of us anymore, Pluto". I ordered it for her and called to let her know something was coming in the mail her way. It was supposed to arrive the first week of September but I kind of forgot about it. But while we were talking on the phone today, the shirt came into my mind and I asked her if she ever got a shirt in the mail. She got so excited and asked if it was from me because there was no paperwork with it. The only sad thing was they sent her a kids size 10 rather than a woman's medium. In the end she has decided to email woot.com to see if they will do something for her. In the mean time she is deciding between ordering a bigger size on her own or going for the chemist. (see below) Which funny enough, was the daily t-shirt that had sold out the afternoon I got her the Pluto one. She was having a great time going through the site looking at all the shirts. I think she might become a woot addict. :)

Buying Entertainment in Bulk

For some reason I decided that after I moved into this apartment I needed to finally get some magazine subscriptions. Having magazines delivered every month to my residence just makes me feel like I am really an adult. I feel attached enough to my address to have something I pay for sent to me regularly and happy enough with my life choices that I deserve the little bit of excitement each month when a new glossy covered magazine shows up.

Now, I was very determined to find some good deals because I did not want to only get A magazine subscription, but a FEW subscriptions. The idea of being able to have an array of reading material on my coffee table (that does not currently exist) thrilled me. I do understand that magazines are another added expense to my very limited budget, but then again, a subscription is so much cheaper than splurging on the occasional news stand purchase. And with this single life, I feel that I am going to want an option to curl up on the couch and peruse a magazine rather than commit myself to a book or just succumb to the seductive powers of my dvr.

Additionally, I think having completely control over my own mail box makes me eager to get the magazines. Once I came back from Alaska, I went out to find the best deals that I could to minimize the expense. FYI - Amazon.com is basically giving magazines away for free. If you are itching for a subscription, go there now! I subscribed to Marie Claire, Vogue, Entertainment Weekly and Teen Vogue (don't you dare try to judge me on that last one). No subscription cost more than $15. I got Teen Vogue for 2 years for $10.

What prompted this post? My first Entertainment Weekly showed up on Friday. If it hadn't been for the bachelorette dinner/bar night out, I would have immediately parked my butt down and had a lovely time reading about Jim and Pam's upcoming wedding. Honestly, I can't wait for next week's issue.

Trust me, when my first Vogue shows, you will know!

Clearly I need to learn this dance

If you thought the football players were impressive get a look at this baby!

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Glee Makes Me :)

Nothing better than a bunch of high school football players doing the "Single Ladies" dance by Beyonce. If you didn't watch last night. You need to now!

I'm a hounddog!

The Orangutan and the Hound

So freaking cute!!!

Rabbids - Wiiiiiiii

After watching the Pats loose with Tom Brady in the first time that seems like forever (and against the Jets of all teams) my friends and I opted to play the Wii. At first we played Raving Rabbids which is a WICKED fun game. Trust me. It was such a great 45 minutes. We played a bunch of short games against each other. There is one that involves dancing - it was to the Austin Powers music - it was awesome.

I think it helps if you have a sense of humor that likes weird bunnies that scream at anything and do weird stuff. We certainly did. The boys not so much. They were way more excited to play Mario Kart when we were done

Biggest Understatement

"Some products require assembly"

That was the disclaimer at the bottom of the commercial I just watched. What company was it for?

IKEA

Like I said biggest understatement.

Oxygen Thinks You Need Plastic Surgery

I saw a commercial that you can go to oxygen.com to use their Fantastic Plastic Makeover Tool to test out various forms of plastic surgery. You can plump lips, get rid of wrinkles, tan skin, change noses and alter eyes. The concept is rather disturbing.

I went to the site to take a look at everything, After looking at it, I uploaded a picture to see what it was like to use it. So disturbing! I know that the station has a show about plastic surgery, but I would never have thought a tv channel would promote the act so hardcore like. Shame on you oxygen. Oxygen is supposed to be a station for women, or at least I thought it was, and promoting that idea that women should be turning to going under the knife rather than enjoying their bodies.

Ugh. Just had to get that off my chest.

Hiss, hiss, whooooooooosh

I thought I would be out cold last night because I was pretty sleep deprived this week. But, instead I was tossing around. I felt like maybe it was too hot, but that didn't make sense because it was pretty chilly last night. Right around the time my alarm was about to go off, I could hear this hiss hiss whoooooooosh noise. I thought maybe the water pipes were being loud. Sometimes I can hear it traveling up to the floor above me.

Nope, that was when I realized it was warm in my bedroom. The heat was on.

I have radiators in my apartment and heat is included in my rent. Last week I was panicking that I didn't have a thermostat but learned that I have little dials on each radiator that are used to control heat. I must have spun the one in my bedroom a bit because heat was pouring out.

Lesson learned. Don't touch the dials because the heat is now ready to roll. Second, if I am going to touch it, be careful because the dial gets a little warm...

Getting Anxious

Work keeps sending out emails about the H1N1 virus. There will be vaccinations available to us shortly. In the mean time, we can get regular flu shots. They have also installed purell hand sanitizer stations in the different buildings. That stuff is actually bad for you. I understand the concept as they had them all over on the cruise ship, and it is a preventative measure, but I think it is overkill. Or at least, I hope is.

Tears have been falling

The Biggest Loser started this week. I honestly cried, a ton. The stories are so touching and they have so much weight to lose to become healthy. One female (yes, female) weighted just over 475 pounds! These contestants need to shed these pounds in order to become healthy.

It really makes me think about how every 8 months or so I have to get rid of a few pounds. A flat stomach is not a live or die kind of problem. Type 2 diabetes is.

I am hoping to become a little more tone, but really I should obsess too much. My body is in decent shape. Here's to the Biggest Loser reminding us all that we could in way worse shape.

Truer Graph Was Never Made

see more Funny Graphs

Yo NFL, There are real female fans too!

I received an email advertising Patriots gear. I decided to see if any jerseys were on sale since I would prefer to be wearing one of a player that would still be on the field. At first I was looking at the men's jerseys as mine is a men's and they come in nice big sizes. But they are also more expensive. So I clicked onto the women's section.

The only jersey that is on sale through this site is Tom Brady's. Really? Not even a Randy Moss. Just Brady's. I love my QB. But, I feel cheapened as a football fan that my ONLY option is the hot guy's jersey. I mean he is married now, and he has a second kid on the way with yet another gorgeous celebrity female. I clearly don't have a chance, let me wear a jersey of a guy I do have a one in a million with...

Just kidding.

My favorite players are usually on defense. I like a guy that can really bulldoze over the competition. The sound of the collision. Man I love football. Go Pats!

I WANT

Was browsing through the Project Rungay blog and saw some more sneak peaks of the Sex in the City 2 movie. I want this dress! It is amazing. Apparently it is from Season 3 when Carrie tries to apologize to Natasha. But it is beautiful.

PS I think that the next challenge on PR is newspaper. Which means we will finally have an interesting challenge!

Even worse

Who decided that the referees need to wear throwbacks from the AFL time? The orange stripes makes it very hard to look at them. Basically I am so distracted by everyone wearing the wrong color that I am not as distraught as I should be that the Patriots are TRAILING the Bills!

Wardrobe change?

Had no idea that the Pats decided to go back to the old school logo on the helmets and red jerseys. (Personally, I liked the Flying Elvis...)

I don't know how I feel about this. My jersey is for a player that recently retired (Bruschi) and it is dark blue. I like the blue jerseys. Hopefully the jerseys don't distract me too much from the game.

GOOOOOO PATS!!!

Cheesy Pick-up Lines - GO

I told a friend that I could hear someone flirting outside my office and it was, well, painful to listen to. My friend then quick fired out the following terrible pick up lines that just got me giggling...

Please note: She started at 4:25 and ended at 4:37

• was she trying to rearrange the alphabet to put U and I together?
• she find someone whose father must be neil armstrong, because he is out of this world?
• perhaps it's raining in cambridge, and she suggested they get out of those wet clothes and into a dry martini
• she could ask for a map, in case she gets lost in their eyes
• is she checking their shirt labels to see if they were made in heaven?

I have always liked the lets get you out of the wet clothing line, but never had I heard the second portion of getting into a dry martini....

But of course, my favorite cheesy pick up line ever is:
Your shirt is very becoming on you, but if I were on you I would be cumming to...

You loved it, don't even try and deny it!

CNN please stick to real news

So glad that of all the events that are going on in the news the top story on cnn.com is Kanye West's douchebag move of ruining Taylor Swift's moment on the VMAs. Since when are the VMAs something that matter? :P

They are wonderfully amusing, but honestly cnn.com, leave this outrage to perezhilton.com. I feel for poor Taylor. Kanye was such a tool taking the mic and praising Beyonce, but I just don't find the event CNN worthy.

I do love the title of the second video listed: "I was really excited...and then I wasn't".

PS If you don't know what this is reference to, you may need to catch up on your pop culture buzz.

Bringing Pigtails Back

My dear friends were running late last night and so I had some extra time on hands which was then spent working on my outfit. I tried out more outfits than I'd care to admit to, which was followed by hair and makeup. At this point, thanks to MAC and Sephora, I have some great tricks up my sleeves to create some seriously popping eyes and my lips simply speak for themselves - literally :P

My hair is the one aspect that I haven't been able to add some extra flair. It is straight and I have no skills. Last night, I decided to try and punk up some pigtails. I drew on the look that Audrey Hepburn sported when wandering around the city. The front has some height (think the BumpIt, the small one, not the celebrity version) and then a low set of pigtails.


I instead brought them up high and well, it surprisingly worked. Or at least I think they did, and my friend told me it was cute. Honestly, I think this might be a new fall back look.

I realize that high pigtails may make you envision trashy Britney Spears, but trust me. It was more punky, edgy even. They were awesome. And will become a staple.

Amazing Sighting

Driving home from Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Michael's this afternoon and I saw the most amazing vehicle parked on the side of the street. It was a stretch limo pick-up truck.

No. Lie.

It also had flames. I came close to pulling over to take a picture, but I didn't want to cause a traffic jam.

Brrrrrr.

Totally freezing here. I wore a sweater on Wednesday! A Sweater!!! I barely wear sweaters in the dead of winter and I pulled one out two days ago. Please understand I did buy this sweater from U.O. on clearance in July. It is super comfy. I totally enjoyed wearing it. But I was beyond bummed to have had to resort to wearing it so early on. This weather reminds me of freshman year of college where it snowed before Halloween! Eeeeep speaking of Halloween, what in the world will my costume be this year???

9.9.09

9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9

Totally posted on my gchat status today that being the huge math nerd that I am, I am taking great pleasure in the fact that today is 09/09/09. I couldn't explain exactly why I liked it any more than it simply looked good then my friend sent me the following:

in case you havent seen all the mathy jazz about todayThose who like to play with numbers will have a field day on 09/09/09.

The date falls on a Wednesday in September, both of which have 9 letters.

September 9 also is the 252nd day of the year. 2+5+2

In addition, if you multiply a single-digit number by 9, the resulting two digits add up to 9. Consider: 8x9

The last one is a DUH. But the rest makes it more fun.

PS. I would love to see 9 if anyone is interested...

Stress Hurts

Friday I was out for the count and couldn't make it into work. Not due to a hangover, but due to the worst neck/back spasms I have ever experienced. I don't know what happened. It wasn't like I over exerted myself doing anything physical that afternoon. All I know is one minute I was fine and then BAM around 3 pm my neck started to tense up enough that turning my head was a bit painful.

I started taking Ibuprofen by the handful, which definitely helped me. Thankfully we had a three day weekend. By Monday things were looking up. I thought today would be easy. I think I figured out where the problem is stemming from, one word - STRESS. About halfway through the day I realized that the day was not going smoothly and my week would not be as simple. (and by simple I do not mean easy, but merely that I knew what I was in store for and had some chance to finally catch up from my vacation) Around 3 pm, I was tensing up and raiding the communal pain killers.

I am looking into ways to find my center at work. I think one of my superiors saw how things are begining to get to me as he told me to not worry about things and asked me to not get stressed. I appreciated the request, but there is no way I can let go of my concerns at this point in time. My plan was to start yoga again in the mornings by next week. I hope I can make it...

Didn't mean to be a bit of a downer, but if you know any relaxation tips I'd be more than interested in hearing about them.

IKEAChristmasTreeShopTargetHomeDepot Thank You

My apartment is basically put together now. I have most of my stuff unpacked and most of my furniture has been purchased (and assembled). I have to give a shout out to IKEA, Christmas Tree Shop, Target, and even the Home Depot for doing so. It is really surreal living by myself still. Every day I just am beyond thrilled when I walk through my door and just start stripping off my clothing - walking up the hill home is beyond exhausting.

But now I have rugs - w00t Target and Home Depot - and so I think I am about ready to make my apartment a shoe free zone. I never thought I would be one of those people who prefers no shoes in the house, but I am kind of warming up to the idea. Maybe I'll post up some pics of the place. We shall see.

All I have left really is to find a cart/tall table for the kitchen - IKEA was sold out of the one I liked. I also have to hang up my art!!! That is the part I am really excited for. I just wanted to be sure all the furniture was in place before I started hammering into the walls. I think my new dream catcher will be the first thing to go up. I need my dreams monitored.

Mmmmm Fried...

I very much enjoy fried chicken and love fried snickers. Fried onion rings and fried calamari are some of the best appetizers to start a meal. Fried breading just makes any food taste better.

If I am honest with myself, I would say that I would to own a deep fryer. I would eat veggies more frequently if they were covered in fried goodness. Oh my mouth is salivating as I type this...

I never would have thought to deep fry BUTTER. Of course the guy who invented this is from Texas. He fries a number of items including PB&J and cookie dough. The cookie dough does sound rather intriguing.

CharlieCard is worth more than you think

I found this site randomly yesterday: http://www.mbta.com/riding_the_t/CharlieCard_Discount_Book/

Apparently you can get discounts by merely showing your CharlieCard. I put the link up on my gchat status for a while and saw that today BostonTweets tweeted the same site. I find it pretty amusing that we found it at the same time, then again, maybe one of my friends leaked it to him.

It has some deals that I would actually be interested in, but I feel like I might have to carry a printed version with me when I attempt to cash in on some of these savings. Who knows if anyone else has ever tried to use them...

GREEK is back!

Last night I got home and flopped onto my couch. Love that I own a couch. (I might still get a kick out of that) But I flipped on the tv, and checked my dvr. Told you I loved that thing, nothing was there, so I checked the guide. After a quick scan, I saw a rerun of Gossip Girl was listed, so quickly added the series as a reoccurring recording. But then I saw the something awesome...GREEK's new season started that night!!!!

GREEK is a terribly wonderful television show that can be found on abcfamily. It is centered around Greek life at some school in Ohio. The school looks like it is in Florida or Southern Cal, but in one episode the viewer got a glimpse of an address label and it was OHIO. Anyone who I force to watch it with me agrees, it does not make sense, but who really cares, its a silly little show.

Watch it! I have the first to seasons on dvd - just in case you have a need to catch up!

LIVE TV is for losers

I adore my dvr....

...and I am not the only one....

my friends do too.

I am not really sure what the difference is between TiVo and DVR, but I am pretty pleased with the product. Not only can I record a TV series, but I can rewind tv as I watch it! I'm sure after a while, this will no longer be nearly as exciting, but for now I am having a blast. A friend of mine came over the other day and she was so excited to rewind the On Demand movie and the trashy show I have been dvr-ing (Real Chance of Love 2 - don't even think about judging me on that one!).

People say that they think that DVR would cause them to watch more tv. I don't feel like it makes me watch more tv, if anything, I am able to only watch what I want. It makes tv more enjoyable, I will no longer be a victim of a CSI marathon. :)