Gets me every time

I got home to an email waiting for me from Apple announcing their holiday gift ideas.  Even though I can’t afford to stuff an iPod in anyone’s stocking this year, I decided to take a gander at the Apple store website.

I was in shock!  Had iPod prices gone down so much since I last looked?  Are shuffles only 45 bucks now?  And a top of the line iPod only 199?  Amazing.

And then I realized the prices were listed in £ sterling.

I’ve been living here for almost three months now, and it still throws me when I’m automatically taken to the UK versions of my favorite websites.

Piracy, now international

I’ve always been a fan of internet piracy because I’ve always thought of it is “sharing” not “stealing,” and as we all learned in grade school, sharing is caring.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been too good at it.  I download a song here and there from Limewire, but when it came to movies and big ticket items, I just couldn’t seem to sneak them out the door, if you know what I’m saying.  Not because I wasn’t brave enough, but because the downloads just wouldn’t work!  Either they wouldn’t work at all, or they would take weeks and weeks of tying up all the bandwith on the eastern seaboard.  Eventually I would just cancel the download and go to Blockbuster.

But I think I may have solved my problem.  Up until a few days ago, I had been using Tomato Torrent to download my spoils.  The other day I tried something new, a program called Transmission.   It works like a dream compared to Tomato torrent.

My quality of life rating has just shot through the roof.

Being a poor graduate student is hard enough without a shitty bit torrent client.

Dear Microsoft Word,

Why must you insist that the word “internet” is capitalized? That is so 20th century.

Sincerely,

Leah

Testing the System

I bought some banana sorbet at Trader Joe’s.

(Before I continue, I’d just like to say a few words about Trader Joe’s. Before college, I thought TJ’s was just a yuppie Wholefoods gone wrong. I thought the food was weird, and hated the fact that my mom never brought back anything normal! But now that I am in college, strapped for cash, and sick of chinese takeout, I have learned to love Trader Joe’s! Not only do they have reasonably good tasting ethnic food, but I can actually afford it!)

So the other day I go to taste my banana sorbet, open the container, and… and I am in shock. My banana sorbet is a deep purple! This was unexpected, and decidedly not normal. When I looked closer I saw that the big ACAÍ written on the carton was an ingredient, not a brand name.

My roommate and I wiki-ed it. Apparently the acaí is a super healthy deep purple fruit from Brazil. It has anti-oxidants, which my sciencey friend described to me as “a dating service for free radical electrons.”

Anyway, this led to a discussion on the amazing power of Wikipedia, and it’s overall 98% accuracy rate. I started to think about how some nut could totally sabotage the system, adding in random untrue facts here and there… so plausible they would slip past the nose of your average browser. So… I tested it. Just a little.

In the middle of a paragraph about the properties of acaí, I added two sentences. One saying that certain Brazilian tribes believed the fruit increased fertility. Another saying that it may be connected to a preponderance of multiple births in Brazil. (I have no idea if there even is a preponderance of multiple births in Brazil.)

We checked back in three hours, and the misleading info was gone. Impressive, my friends. Impressive.

I know what must have happened. Some expert on Brazillian birth rates bought some banana sorbet from Trader Joe’s and then wanted to know why it was purple…

Dateblog

It’s officially happened. I have been propositioned on my blog.

By starting this blog, I accidentally created a new form of futuristic personal ad that, up until now, never once mentioned the words, “walks on the beach” or “candlelit dinners” or even “curling up with a good book.”

In honor of this event, I would like to embrace the world of online dating, and make you a blueprint for your very own, customizable, personal ad.

Choose Your Own <Online Dating Personal Ad> Adventure

1. You are a:

SWM. SWF. SBM. SBF. MWM. MWF. MBM. MBF. DWF. DBM. DWF. BWM. BMW.

2. You are also a:

M4W. W4M. M4M. W4W. M4M/W. W4W/M. Bottom. Top. Switch. Vanilla. (If you don’t know what the last four mean, for the love of god say “vanilla!”)

3. Pick a body type:

Voluptuous. Trim. Fit. Athletic. Skeletal. Big and beautiful. Slow, curves ahead! Junk in the trunk. Well-padded. My mom thinks I’m cute. I’ve been to a gym. Great personality.

4. Pick a pastime:

Long walks on the beach. Chillin’ wit my homies. Dungeons and Dragons. Playa-hatin’. Theatre/opera/museums/looking over my monacle and saying “hrumph.” Karaoke. Having deep discussions, or alternatively, talking until the sun comes up. Boardgames. Going out. Staying in. Cuddling. The outdoors.

5. Your ideal mate:

Can cook. Is rich. Has a tight bod. Knows when to shut up. Gives massages. Likes geeks. Makes breakfast. Is Jewish. Loves Jesus. Is classy. Is a partner in crime. Is out of prison. Is fly. Is of age. Is clean. Knows (s)he’s hot. Don’t know (s)he’s hot. Likes my cat. Eats meat.

6. Pick your ideal first date:

Skydiving. Romantic dinner at a restaurant with violins. Sex. Coffee. Coffee then sex. Dinner and a movie. Dinner and a movie and sex. A picnic. A picnic with sex. (and so on.)

7. Pick a dealbreaker:

Children. Smoking. Smoking crack. Being a crack ho. No car. Loose skin. Playa-hatin’. Needy. Children. Skanks. Penis/no penis. Speaks english. Children.

8. You are using an online dating service because you:

Are sick of the bar scene. Are sick of the club scene. Are sick of the strip joint scene. Are ugly. Are weird. Are under house arrest. Are cheating on your significant other. Are bored. Can’t get no love.

 

One from column A, one from column B and BAM! You’ve just online dated!