Feeling Very Hipster

Maybe hipster's not the right word. Trendy? I don't know. In the past week-ish I have acquired a bike for transportation, an iPhone 4 (There's been much happy dancing.) and a yoga membership, so what does that make me? Cooler than two weeks ago? Probably.

In what Lee defines as my habit to "Name Any Purchase Over $100" (We should name the house!), meet Helen. Helen is named for Helen of Troy because they both have a gorgeous design that has led men (and women) to engage in expensive and obsessive behaviors. Please play Words with Friends with me. (I'm kmearley. You might also include a message letting me know who you are because stranger = danger.)

Have you noticed that as iPhones get smaller, they need bigger cases, and are now quite large? I have no idea what the actual size of my phone is because of her gigantic case. With the case, she is probably one of the bigger phones I've ever had, rivaling my first cell phone from 2000. (I've had a cell phone for the past decade. Wow.)

My bike does not have a name yet, but she's pretty sweet. She has taken me to work and back twice and we even went through the bank drive-through together. That was classy.

And special thanks to my dear husband for successfully attaching my basket (It was $15 (with coupon) from Michael's. Yay for not spending $50+ on one!) with a classy combination of zip ties and wood. I've questioned Lee's use of zip ties but it has held up well.

(Okay, I admit the zip ties were originally my idea but that was before I realized there are holes on the rack for screws, which seem sturdier than zip ties. But so far, so good.)

Riding the Wave

I love Google and am excited to announce that I am now Google Wave-ing. 

What is Google Wave you ask? I HAVE NO CLUE. But it's exciting! This video is my favorite for trying to explain it.



Caitlin has it too and we are trying to figure it out together and utilizing this tool for an upcoming project. I will try to keep you posted on my learnings. Today's important discovery: Shift + Enter will send messages so you don't have to click "Done" everytime! Apparently CTRL + Enter will reply but that didn't work for me so it might just be a rumor.

I have a few extra invites if you want one. You can e-mail me here and there's also an e-mail link on the left if you're at my actual blog. Feel free to offer bribes, but the only real requirement is that you wave with me, and we can learn together.

My Masterpiece

So I have this thing with Jane Austen and I'm active with the local region of JASNA. We're having a Jane Austen Festival next month and I somehow volunteered to make a video to promote the event.

Do I have any video making skills? No.
Have I ever operated a video-making device whose primary purpose is not to take photos? No.
Do I know how to use any video editing software? No, but I firmly believe that if I can use Adobe Photoshop then I can do anything (except Adobe Illustrator.)

Despite these many setbacks, last night I had some friends over to make this little video. I'm sure it will make you all want to reserve your space for tea this instant!

New Craft Idea!

I've been struggling lately with trying to decide how I want to organize my calendar. I like having it electronic, but I don't like the calendar format on my phone. I have a Google calendar, but since I don't want to pay for the internet on my phone that's not a portable option.

I'm starting to consider a return to the paper calendar.

At Target yesterday I found one I absolutely loved! Tragically, I can't find it online because I'm going to botch this description. It was a standard, spiral-bound planner but it had a cover made from really cute fabric. At the end of the year, you could slip that planner out of the canvas cover and slide a new one in.

My next thought was, "I can make this!" It didn't seem difficult really, I'm just not 100% sure on my current abilities. Especially since this would rely more strongly on me actually sewing in a straight line. Maybe with some practice though I can get one done for Christmas.

Death and Doom

I worry a lot sometimes. I'll have moments where I will just start to become very concerned about what will I do if I die. Okay, well clearly I won't be doing much of anything (other than getting fitted for my angel wings, fingers crossed! Actually, God probably already knows what size I need. I mean, He's God. Anyways...). But what about if Lee dies! Or what would Lee do if I die?! The nearby Arby's and Papa John's would benefit tremendously, but that would still suck! And sometimes during these thoughts, I wonder, what will happen to my or Lee's Facebook. Or my blog.

Seriously.

I've seen Facebook walls turn into nice memorials for the deceased. But I wonder, will that stay there forever? What if some people wanted to see my Facebook memorial who weren't already on Facebook or my friend, how could I accept their friendship since all my secret passwords have died with me. What if I needed to be untagged from some photos after death so my memorial is more...appropriate. How will I cancel any of Lee's video game memberships? Or notify the rest of the guild? (Yes, my husband is super cool.)

Call me crazy, but apparently other people have thought about this, web developer people, and there is a solution. Enter Legacy Locker.

You can keep all your passwords to anything here and when you die they will pass on to a beneficiary. You can also type up a Legacy Letter as a final message to your e-mail contacts. (Creepy. Please don't put me on your final e-mail. Somethings are really best said on paper.)

It seems a little crazy -- and I know this is terribly morbid (Maybe it's the clouds and the boil water advisory. Grr.) -- but this isn't a horrible idea. Of course this information could be typed out on paper and placed in a safety deposit box too. Perhaps the real audience for this are those with online businesses and regular online transactions. Like if you have an Etsy shop and people keep buying things but you can't fulfill those orders because no one knows the password and you're dead. That's a much bigger problem than Lee not showing up for his dungeon raid.

Let's close on a positive, shall we? From KSR's Twitter on May 8:

Answered Prayers

Look! God does answer prayers!

Or at least someone's working on it!

Analysts believe pressure is mounting on AT&T, Apple's only U.S. carrier partner, to offer a tiered data plan because they believe the current high price is driving away potential iPhone customers. AT&T's basic voice and data plan runs about $80 a month.

There should be multiple data packages, including a "light" data plan — "maybe $5 a month, $10 a month," Wolf said. "I could easily get by on a $5-a-month plan because I don't consume much data."

Makeover Complete?!

The combination of my indecisiveness and perfectionist tendencies can be crippling. I've been changing the look of my blog around a bit lately because I can never make up mind and I think I'm finally happy with it. We'll see. I'm still all tore up about my profile picture. I feel that it should showcase my most recent hairstyle (bob with side-sweepy bangs) (I think I just made up the word side-sweepy.) yet I don't have any great pictures of me with that hairstyle. I mean, I like the hair, but I chronically make dumb faces in photos and I'm being particularly perfectionist on this matter.

The highlight of the new blog look (Other than the fact that I made the header by myself in InDesign which makes me feel super talented.) is the tag cloud. I had a two-week stint on WordPress and have missed the tag cloud ever since. You too can add a tag cloud by following these directions.

Recent Reviews

I've seen some movies, read a book, and bought a new cell phone. Now I feel the need to share my thoughts on all this.

Rushmore was a hysterical movie! I don't always like Wes Anderson movies but this and The Royal Tenenbaums are the exception. The plays that Max put on were laugh-out-loud funny. Well, I laughed out loud, not so much at the plays themselves, but at the great theatrical detail Max put into them: the train, the explosions, the swarming helicopters. I knew that the woman playing Rosemary looked familiar and it's because she played Jane Austen in Miss Austen Regrets. Awesome.

The House Bunny was disappointing. I was hoping for something on the same quality level as Legally Blonde but it was no where near that good. Boo. Once again, I couldn't remember what else I had seen Shelley in, and turns out she was Erica on FRIENDS.

The Selected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay was very good. I don't always like reading poetry. I like poems individually, but sitting down and reading a whole book's worth doesn't always appeal to me, but I loved this! The rhythms and rhymes are intoxicating! Kind of like Sarah Arvio, in addition to being excellent poems content-wise, they're just so much fun to read sound-wise.

Samsung Propel is excellent. I'm still getting to use to the sliding but I like it's full QWERTY keyboard. Has a horrible ringtone selection but I can fix that.

Good News/Bad News

Good Death penalty repealed in New Mexico! I've always somehow suspected that killing people is not a good way to deal with people who kill people. It's also cheaper to just lock them up for the rest of their lives.

Bad It was really sad to watch Liam Neeson mourn his wife in Love Actually. Even sadder, is knowing that now he's doing it in real life.

Good UK is getting closer to having someone for real be point guard next year.

Bad All of the Billy-hating. Yes it's been a crappy season, but I still heart a coach who has no life outside the court and who cries when Ramon Harris goes down in a nasty-scary fall. If Mitch Barnhart reads this (about as likely as UofL losing to Morehead tonight, but not as awesome), please let Billy have one more year to work his magic!

Good A co-worker brought me some of her chives today. My herb garden has officially started!!

Bad I love spring and summer much more than fall and winter except for one thing: bugs. I have already been reminded of this by the creepy bug carcass at the bottom of the steps to my apartment. Boo.

Good Back to basketball, after all it is March: The President and a computer agree that UofL will not win the tournament. Although I'm about equally opposed to UNC winning the tournament too. Go Pitt!!!

And for extra basketball good because clearly I've got the March Madness...

A Tech-Free Night

I mentioned earlier that I was doing the Fast-Pray-Give Lenten Challenge at Busted Halo. Yesterday's challenge was to give up 50% of your technology use. Considering I spend about nine hours a day at work staring at my computer, 50% was a bit much, but I avoided Facebook all day and avoided technology once I got home. It actually turned out to be pretty great evening.

I went for a run. Cooked dinner for Lee and I (English muffin mini-pizzas). We watched The Big Bang Theory, which I know is TV but it's about the only thing on TV that Lee and I enjoy together so it's really more of a bonding experience. I called a friend who I hadn't talked to in months, which again was technology, but a bonding experience and great chance to catch up and something I wouldn't have done had I not been avoiding the TV. Then I spent the rest of the night reading which is something I don't do nearly enough! I read some sewing basics from a book my mom passed on to me, read this month's Real Simple and almost finished the book of Edna St. Vincent Millay poetry I'm reading.

It was a great evening. I'm thinking I might have to have tech-free nights more often. Often it seems like people view Lent as a wretched time of miserable sacrifice (And every morning as I wait for today's challenge to open, I do hope it's an easy one, generally unrelated to food and beverage consumption.), which can sometimes be the case, but sometimes in the sacrifice new joys are found.

Atleast Two of You Care

How am I doing today? Well, I'm not going to lie, it's been tough. I might have sat alone in the dark and cried a little last night. There might be a rant coming soon. I'll make it brief. So some say the problem is that UK isn't aggressive enough, the players aren't "competitive" enough, well WHO THE HELL COMES TO PLAY AT UK THAT ISN'T COMPETITIVE??!?!??!?!?!?!??!?! WE ARE THE FREAKING GREATEST COLLEGE BASKETBALL PROGRAM EVER!!!!!!!!!! YOU'RE IN IT TO WIN IT OR GO HOME!!!!!!!!! DO THEY REALIZE WHAT JERSEY THEY'RE WEARING?!?!??!?! DO THEY REALIZE THAT THEY GET TO CALL THE MOST SACRED PLACE IN AMERICAN SPORTS "HOME"??!?!?!?!?! DO THEY KNOW THAT WE GET TEARS IN OUR EYES JUST SITTING IN RUPP AND LOOKING AT OUR SEVEN BEAUTIFUL BANNERS?!?!?!??!?!?!? DO THEY EVEN CARE?!?!??!?!?!?!?!??

Moving on to things less depressing...

I have friends (approximately two of them) who like my Bachelor updates! It saves them the trouble of being quite so absorbed by the crazy while still being in the know. So if you go to Ellen's website you can see a clip from her interview with Melissa today where Melissa kind of confirms what I said yesterday, and what others have been saying all along. Melissa said that Jason started pulling away shortly after the finale, perhaps because she wasn't his first choice? Apparently, they broke up shortly after and so she knew that they weren't together when going to the After the Rose but she kept asking Jason if she was going to get blindsided by anything and he said no. She had also repeatedly asked him if he had talked to Molly because she had that feeling you get when your significant other might be cheating on you, and he said no. Although Melissa knows he contacted Molly once to "check up on her." Also, Melissa said that the e-mails that have been going around, that I linked to the other day are real. Hmm...very interesting! Jason and Molly are going to be on Ellen tomorrow so I'm looking forward to that.

I'm feeling very high-tech because I'm going to get my hair trimmed tonight and instead of printing out pictures I sent them to my phone via bluetooth. I don't know why but that makes me feel cool. Hopefully the new 'do will make me feel cool too!