We are not Snowflakes

With so much talk about Chuck Norris, people forget who the real threats in TV Land are. Julian and I have an ongoing debate over who would win in a fight: Vic Mackey from The Shield or Jack Bauer from 24. Funnily, we were under the impression that we are just dorks privately debating this, but with my mind wandering and a little bit of time on my hands I quickly found out we’re not alone. Several sites have sections dedicated to this very subject. Unfortunately for Vic, the only poll I found in his favor was on a forum for The Shield here. I tend to agree with the masses: Vic is scary, but Jack’s inhuman pain tolerance and knack for torture is going to get him the win.

And in case you’re thinking it, just know right now that I agree: I can’t believe I made a post out of this either!

An Educational Distraction…

I’ve been going to school part time for what seems like ages right now, but my degree is seeming within reach right now. One of the reasons for this is that I have finally enrolled in the Psychological Statistics class that rumors have scared me from for years. I’ve never liked rumors and it appears my fears for this class are another example of that dislike because I really love statistics! To the point that I plan to continue with stats in my graduate classes. What a relief!

There’s always money in the banana stand…

I have a friend who is constantly recommending TV shows for me to watch, and despite my hesitation, he persists. Also despite my initial hesitation, these shows end up being some of my favorites, like The Shield (please come back!) More recently I finished watching the 3 seasons of Arrested Development, which has quickly become my favorite comedy. I just read an MTV interview with Jason Bateman from the show that hints at a possible movie in the future. (Yay!) Julian also found a “Bluthcyclopedia” (All things related to the lovingly dysfunctional Bluth family from the show). Also, Wikiquote has, well, quotes from every season of the show. Some of them are all the more funny seperate from the show.

Cupcake Fever

I am a big-big fan of cupcakes, so I was really excited to find this cupcake group on flickr. It’s leaving me very hungry and wanting to bake. Before going to Chicago I heard about a cupcake buffet hosted at the Ritz-Carlton every Saturday night. At $8-18 a person, we didn’t end up going with the 4 of us, but I vow to be back!

DIY Computer

Lifehacker led me to a cool tech blog put together by a Georgia Tech student that offers tech news, reviews and guides. Instructions to put together a great $200 pc were listed this weekend. Specs for this DIY model are: 1.2GHz Intel Celeron 220 processor, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 250GB SATA hard drive and a small 90W power supply. This does not include a case, but designer Paul Stamatiou says you don’t necessarily need one. Even so, he offers an economical suggestion if you think it’s a must.

Julian and I are working on an office space in our spare room and I think this pc would be just the thing. Or as Stamatiou suggests, use it as storage for your home theater and/or projector, which we are also in the market for.

And the Nominees are…

Earlier this week the 2008 Oscar nominees were announced. I’m a big fan of the Oscars and try to watch as many of the nominee movies as possible before the big night. Right now I’ve seen about half of them.
In the past I’ve hosted several Oscar parties where attendees all projected winners on a ballot that is scored at the end of the night. The night’s big winner had the chance to bring home a human-sized Oscar cut out – just what everyone wants for their living room decor. I’ve found this year’s Oscar ballot here. Plumparty also has a huge selection of fun party favors and decorations that I’ve been dying to order from for years.

Hopefully the writer’s guild will get some love before Oscar night, so the show can go on. I have a feeling this event will bring all those money-hungry producers to their senses and end this nonsense.

Just Wormin’ Around

As most who know me know, I tend to get a little carried away with my interests. With that in mind, it won’t be much of a surprise to some that since I have a goal of recycling, I had to take it to the next level. After watching a fantastic tutorial from Martha on composting (with guest star David Hyde Pierce from Frasier assisting), I ordered up 1000 Red Wiggler Worms from Planet Natural and had to give worm composting, or rather vermi-composting a go. My worms arrived through FedEx yesterday and I named each and every one of them (maybe that’ll be in a future post). That’s right folks, this household is now feeding a family of 1004. Even more exciting, phase II of my recycling/composting plan is still to come!

I photographed the whole composting process for your viewing enjoyment and wrote some tutorial notes. Martha’s video has great detailed instructions, including how to harvest your compost. Hoo-ra!

Have a Look at the Yuck

Shoewawa is one of my favorite blogs to check out and is listed in my blogroll, for those interested. I almost gagged when I saw this pair of Miu Mius (a designer for Prada, and one of my favorites) shown on their site. To their credit, it was in the hideous shoe of the week section. When Shoewawa is not highlighting designer mishaps, they are showing off several pairs of gorgeous shoes a day. This site also inspired me to purchase a Shoe-of-the-day calendar that for a friend of mine. The pair of the day is a hit around the office. You can buy one here and catch up quick.   

A Virtual Education

Lately I’ve taken a big interest in the myriad of courses available as podcasts from Ivy League schools and the like. Stanford, Yale, Hopkins, Oxford, Berkeley and MIT are just a few of the schools who have made their courses available to the Ipod world. I’m trekking through the Psychology courses, but don’t plan to stop there. What a great way to keep your brain fresh when you’re not in school, and enhance the subjects you’re already taking while in college. I’ve already updated my resume to include my new courses taken at all the top colleges, of course.

You can find a great guide to free podcasts of courses by clicking here, and more info on podcasts that keep you intellectually savvy here. And because I’m so impressed with that site in general (put together by an assistant dean at Stanford), here is a link to the main page, that has now been added to my blogroll as well.

E-mail Gamin’

My family’s get togethers usually revolve around some type of game playing. During the past few meet-ups, my brother-in-law Jason has mentioned playing Diplomacy with friends at work through email. From what I gather, it plays like a kicked up version of Risk, which is great fun. 7 people start out controlling different areas of Europe in 1914. From there, players do much behind the scenes negotiating for power and territory and build alliances, but when it comes play time they are not bound to any deal they have made, leaving room for lots of manipulation. Adding to the suspense, the negotiation phase usually lasts a week and turns are all played on a particular day, leaving a lot of room for allicances to be built and then secretly broken without a person knowing. A judge also comes into play somewhere in the game, but I’m not completely grasping that part. Sounds incredibly wicked and entertaining – I love it!

There is debate in my family on whether this would be more fun to play with psychologists or attorneys. I’m thinking a mix of the two would be extra evil!

Recycling 101

My new recycling goal for the year has been quite a learning experience. Update: it’s a lot easier. No longer do you have to peel the labels off of cans and bottles before recycling, or clean them thoroughly, for that matter. Also, the greasy cardboard from your leftover pizza box does not make good recycling material – news to me! Apparently all paper and cardboard should be free of food and the like. This was quite a shock because over the past couple years pizza boxes were one of the few things I was recycling consistently. Here I thought I was doing a good thing.

I found a couple websites that have been invaluable to me in learning these new ropes:

The Internet Consumer Recycling Guide – A quick read with loads of info for recycling at your curbside, and what to do with stuff the truck won’t pick up.

Do it yourself: Stop Junk Mail Guide – I used my lunch break yesterday to call several of the organizations listed in this guide to get me off their mailing lists. Quick, detailed instructions for stopping catalogs, credit card offers and local bulk mailings.

Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers – An organization devoted to recycling all that strofoam from packing boxes and new products. I’ll save you some trouble and tell you right now: no one wants your styrofoam meat trays and coffee cups, but anything else is fair game. Several people also give great ideas for recycling those foam packing peanuts, my favorite being refilling a deflated bean bag chair. If you can’t find a recycling center to take this material in your area, you can mail it directly to this company for a very small price.

Ideal Bite - Gives modern day tips and tricks for recycling and green living in general.

Earth 911 – Gives extensive info on all the materials you will find yourself recycling. What is done with it, tips on storing hazardous materials like paint and oil, etc, and a wealth of information on recycling in general.  

Almost too Close to Call

Here you are looking at a side-by-side comparison of the much anticipated Macbook Air and the champion of its time, Commodore SX-64. Contrary to popular belief, it is apparent that the Commodore transcends waves of more current technology that supposedly would make it obsolete.

5-Finger Discounted Lunch

I ran across this picture recently under the Flickr header “Work Fridge: Let the Good Times Roll.” How bizarre. My work has two fridges that remain super-stocked with people’s lunches for the next couple of weeks. Never had I thought of stealing someone else’s lunch, regardless of how good it may look. Could you imagine getting caught? Yikes! As I open the fridge each day to store my lunch and find frozen entrees from coworkers long gone (R.I.P.), I kind of wish someone would start stealing their food.

Flickr comments on this pic also led me to Passiveaggressivenotes.com. Pretty self-explanitory and wildly entertaining!

Last Minute Ramblings…

Today has been so enjoyably and gloriously unproductive, so much that I almost missed my post for the day. Fortunately  Julian reminded me just in time, but unfortunately the mood I’ve set for myself today has left me uninspired to write much of anything. Because of this I’m going to invite you to play a stupid and juvenile web game that entertains me at work when I need a break (shh!) Go to Google (or your favorite search engine of choice) and in quotations type in your first name followed by “was arrested for.” If you’re feeling social, come back here and share your results. Apparently “Heather was arrested for felony DUI of drugs after a collision with a bicycle…” Variations of this wildly entertaining past time can be played by entering things like “Heather needs…” or “Heather will not…” Aww, the endless possibilities.

Fun with Potter

Some years ago I decided I had a thing against Harry Potter, probably stemming from my usual aversion to things that get too popular (I’m working on that). Both my kids have been big Potter fans though. My son Aidan is beginning the 5th book soon. Since I’ve been big into knitting lately I looked for a pattern of Harry Potter’s scarf. Atypically.knit has easy patterns and yarn suggestions for scarves from each of the Hogwarts houses. Unfortunately Aidan was gone when I finished this scarf, so I won’t have a pic with him modeling it for a few days, but I’ll be sure to put one up. For now, admire this one. Around 26, 000 stitches and around 30 hours to finish. This was for a kid size, of course, so I can’t imagine knitting up an adult scarf. Yikes!