In 2006...

- Isaac and I spent New Year's in Thailand with his family
- We visited San Francisco with friends
- We went to LA for Isaac's brother's graduation and and took a quick road trip to Arizona and Las Vegas
- Isaac got a new job and quit his job in MD
- I quit my job in VA to feverishly plan our wedding
- We moved up to NJ to live with my parents; Isaac then moved into our apt in NYC
- We got married!
- I moved from NJ/VA to our apartment
- We took a nice 2 week honeymoon to Hawaii where we hit the Big Island, Maui, and Kauai
- I found a job I like (!)
- We spent a week in Barcelona with Isaac's family

And in the lives of our families and friends...
...1 nephew was born
...1 brother graduated from college
...2 family members passed away
...3 family friends passed away
...4 friends got married (two of them to each other)
...3 friends got engaged (two of them to each other)
...2 friends had a baby (with each other)

It's been a very full year. Most of this stuff happened in the latter half of the year though. Actually, everything that's happened with our families and friends happened after we got married, which is a little weird. It feels like our lives were semi on hold during the wedding planning.

I'm writing this from our hotel in Spain - this trip has been a nice close to this eventful year. I can't wait to bust out some wedding cake for our six-month anniversary and start the new year when we get home.

Zafu

I love denim. I really need new jeans, but I haven't been able to find a pair with a fit that I like. I think I just tend to get overwhelmed by the vast amount of selection out there and I don't have the patience or endurance to test every pair in a store to find the perfect pair. Again, it's the paradox of choice thing.

I heard about this website a while ago on the NYTimes, but I couldn't reach the site at the time - it was probably flooded with requests. I recently rediscovered its existence when I was cleaning out my bookmarks, so I haven't tried any of the jeans they recommend yet, but it seems pretty helpful for lazy shoppers like me.

It asks you a bunch of questions about how jeans normally fit on you, your height, typical size, etc and it recommends jeans for you based on your body shape and what you want out of your jeans (perkier butt, no saddlebags, etc)

Also, is it just me, or does it seem like $100-$120 is cheap for a pair of jeans these days? I remember when I used to buy jeans for $30/$35, but after premium denim got big, my old Tilt jeans no longer seemed like real jeans (they felt paper thin compared to premium denim).

Anyway, if any of you have tried Zafu or have bought based on the recommendations, can you let me know? I'm curious about how good it actually is.

11 Spring St.

Cheryl, Julie and I took a trip to the 11 Spring St. today.

Basically, it's to be a popular graffiti target in lower Manhattan that's being converted to condos, and the inside is an exhibit that's sort of a last-hurrah for the artists (some flown in from other countries) before the conversion. After this, they'll be cleaning up the outside walls of the building, and constructing new walls to cover the inside - the art inside will be covered but preserved as a sort of time capsule.

Take a look at our pictures:

oww! wii!

Yesterday I was cutting a pineapple and one of the eyes stabbed me in my middle finger. I've often heard May say that she doesn't like to eat pineapple because it cuts her tongue, and I never really knew what she meant, but I guess the fruit can be pretty vicious! But I wouldn't blame the pineapple though - she probably just had some badly cut pineapple that still had sharp stabby things in it or something.

Anyway, the cut was totally worth it. The pineapple was so fresh and juicy - it made me want to go back to Hawaii. The pineapples there were so sweet and juicy and omnipresent - I probably had pineapple at least once a day there..yumm!

The only problem is that this tiny hole in my finger gets irritated everytime i use my middle finger to type, so it's a little harder to work today. I'm improvising though - I'm using all my other fingers to type. It's a little slower (although i get moments of quickness where my fingers feel like they're dancing across they keyboard) , but it's actually kinda fun. It sorta reminds me of the time I played this game where I didn't use my right hand for a day. By the end of the day, my right hand was really weak. I wonder if my finger will be weaker from underuse by the end of the day too.

In other injury-related news, Isaac and I recently obtained a Wii, courtesy of our good friend Tammy, who graciously waited in a line at Toys R Us for us during her lunch hour. We've been enjoying Wii Sports (the packaged game) very much. I think Isaac likes baseball the best, but I really enjoy boxing. It's pretty fun, and I've noticed that my arms and sides have been a little sore when I get up in the morning. It's kinda sad- apparently I'm so out of shape that a video game is kicking my butt and providing a good workout for me!

Speed up Firefox

If you only try one of these tips, try pipelining - either way, you will notice these changes.

Here's the source. (Works on FF, Mozilla, Camino, etc.)
Don't be lazy.

Enable Pipelining

Pipelining is an experimental feature, designed to improve page-load
performance, that is unfortunately not well supported by some web servers
and proxies. To try it out, by using about:config
to set the following preferences:

network.http.pipelining

Set this to true, to enable pipelining.

network.http.proxy.pipelining

Set this to true, to enable pipelining to the proxy server.

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Set this to 8, to have a maximum of 8 pipelining requests at once. Possible values are from 1 to 8.

Speed up page rendering

By default, Firefox doesn't try to render a web page for 250
milliseconds while it's waiting for data. If you use about:config
to add the Integer preference nglayout.initialpaint.delay, and
set the value to 0, Firefox immediately starts to display the
page, even without complete data. The drawback, especially on slower
machines, is that the total time to display the page will be longer.

Acela

I took a business trip to Boston this Tuesday for a one-day conference with the biggest names in computing to discuss the future of ... i guess computing. Pretty interesting stuff - the type of thing you would read on the front page of /., so I'm being intentionally vague (vayg). I didn't really contribute much of anything except to act as a witness, but the thing that interested me most is how political these types of things can be - entire corporations can be embodied in a few guys in suits (or black sweaters) arguing and blaming each other for past trespasses while trying to negotiate and work together at the same time.

Incidentally, since I had to wake up really early the nights I was there (6:30am and 4:15am) that I thought I might actually begin developing good sleeping/waking patterns. I've had Thursday and Friday to try it out; did I do it? ....not so much.

"What Not to Wear," White House edition

i always dread that this might happen to me...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003467352_laura08.html

"What Not to Wear," White House edition

By Jo Piazza
New York Daily News

NEW YORK — First lady Laura Bush hosted one of Washington's biggest parties Sunday wearing a splendid red dress from Oscar de la Renta.

Then a second lady showed up wearing the same dress.

And then a third lady and even a fourth lady followed suit.

To avoid embarrassing her guests at the White House reception before the Kennedy Center Honors, Bush quickly slipped into a black lace gown.

The style slipup left fashion insiders wondering: How could a first lady let this happen?

"If you're going to buy from the collection, request that it be made in a color that wasn't shipped to stores," suggested Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan.

Because Bush's style team likely bought the $8,400 dress — an embroidered tulle jacket and floor-length trumpet skirt — at a store instead of from the designer directly, de la Renta probably is not to blame.

"I'm assuming that Mrs. Bush shares a relationship with Mr. de la Renta," said stylist Robert Verdi, who has dressed Eva Longoria in the designer's frocks. "But she must not have spoken with him about this particular dress."

De la Renta's office had no comment.

Letitia Baldridge, Jacqueline Kennedy's chief of staff and White House social secretary, said the former first lady would never have let that happen.

"Jacqueline Kennedy, when she was first lady, made sure, and her couturiers made sure, that nobody else wore that dress that season," she told CBS News.

But perhaps the other Ladies in Red got their wardrobe ideas straight from the White House — in this year's official holiday photo that is released worldwide, Bush is wearing the very same red de la Renta dress.

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company

Laura:

Party Women:

no more painting!

After several months of false claims, we finally (re)painted last weekend. The act of painting itself isn't that bad, it's just the whole moving furniture out of the way, taping the walls and laying down newspaper that feels like a major pain. It took all weekend because we had to use primer on the wall first since we'd already painted it another color a few months ago. We liked the color on the swatch last time, but after the wall was done, we both felt like it was too green and slightly jarring. So this time we picked a more neutral color. It took three coats to get the paint as close to its true color as possible.

I don't want to paint anything again for a long, long time. I felt this way after we painted all our rooms at the Harleyford house, (which is probably why I also procrastinated this time). That time was definitely worse - we painted 4 rooms in 3? days while this time we only painted 1 wall. But at least the rooms were empty last time. Our apartment is kinda small, so we had very limited space to move around and do everything.

So anyway, we're one step closer to finishing our apartment!

Before:

After:

music memories

For a lot of people, songs bring up feelings or sometimes memories. For me, they do this, but often I'll recall a very specific person or situation.

A few examples:

"Motorcycle Drive By" by Third Eye Blind - This song came up on my iPod the other day and I was transported back to senior year of high school around graduation. Specifically, I remember leaving Anike's graduation party to go to Suzanne's graduation party and listening to this song as I drove away in my old light blue Nissan Maxima with the song playing in the tapedeck from a tape that Sarah made for me.

"Clumsy" by Our Lady Peace - This song always reminds me of heading to the beach after prom and sitting in Elvina's Civic as we listened to this song on repeat.

"Barbie Girl" by Aqua - This always reminds me of sitting on the bus with the field hockey team as we came back from a game.

Now that I'm looking at this list and thinking about all these songs, I'm starting to realize that my strongest associations with music have to do with high school. It's probably because I listened to music a lot more regularly back then than I have since and also because I have fond and untarnished memories from that time period.

But I do have a few from college..

"Hot in Here" by Nelly - I always think of Tim C. and Lan singing the chorus in falsetto as we walked from the parking lot behind Boston Market to Rita's (or was it Rose Tea?) for a summer night snack.

"Drops of Jupiter" by Train - I always think of sitting in Neil's? car, as we were crawling the streets of Oakland, looking for parking so we could eat at India Garden. This song came on, and Isaac protested by jumping out of the car and walking to meet us at the restaurant instead. One of the many times he's surprised me with his random, vehement reactions to silly things.

And from childhood..
"Hold On", "Release Me", "Impulsive", "You're in Love" by Wilson Phillips - We acagirls loooved their music. It reminds me of leaving Joy's house to go somewhere whenever we had sleepovers there.

"Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice - Another one from Joy's sleepovers. We had dance moves for this one..maybe the first time I realized that I can't dance!

what i'm watching..

Before I get into specifics of tv shows, here's an overview of the shows I've keeping up with this season:

Sunday
The Amazing Race - I've only watched this sporadically in the beginning, but have upped it to regular status as it nears the finale

Dexter - I first read a review in a magazine a while ago, and after I checked out the first episode, I was hooked. Maybe one of the best new shows this season.


Monday
Heroes - I was pretty excited to try out this show before the season began, but some storylines have dragged and some characters are unlikeable or boring, so it's the kind of show that I keep up with, but I need to be doing something else at the same time (like playing Zuma) so I can stand to keep watching.

How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) - I tried this show last year based on the reviews, and it was suprisingly funny at times. Funny enough to keep watching, at least. In its sophomore season, this show has only gotten better. It's now on my must-watch list.


Tuesday
Gilmore Girls - There have been a lot of complaints about this show since the original showrunner left, and it's true that the tone of the show is not quite the same, but it's a perennial favorite for me, and at this point, I just need to keep watching to find out what happens.

Veronica Mars - I had my doubts about this after an overly complicated second season, but this season has been a little better. Still doesn't compare to season one though.


Wednesday
South Park - I think season 10 just finished, but I recently became addicted to this show. It's crass, but really funny sometimes.


Thursday
Survivor - I was intrigued by the "race wars" premise, but this season is so much more than that!

The Office - Love it.

Scrubs - Returning tonight!

30 Rock - At first, I didn't like this show, but I gave it another shot when iTunes was offering a free download of one of the episodes, and I really like it now.

The O.C. - As I stated in a previous post, the O.C. is back!

Ugly Betty - I loved how Salma Hayek had a cameo in the telenovela inside the show in episode one! At time this show is a little formulaic and overly sappy, so it doesn't quite fall into my "must watch" category, but I do keep up with it.

Grey's Anatomy - Even though I hated the whole Denny storyline, I'm still watching. McShumbot mocks it, but I still love it!


Other shows I sometimes watch: Everybody Hates Chris, Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, Law and Order:SVU

Thursday is a busy day. So many shows, so little time. On the other hand, Wednesday is super empty for me. I'm not a Lost fan, I'm tired of Top Model, and Project Runway and South Park are over, so I've got nothing to watch that day. (That's not a complaint though - I've got plenty of other things to occupy my time...Tetrinet, anyone?)

"Bimbo Summit"

That's the headline on the front page of the NYPost today. The paper has an article entitled "3 Bimbos of the Apocalypse" about Lindsay, Britney, and Paris. My favorite part:

"Anyway: With full knowledge that the unholy alliance of these three may be over and done with by the end of business day today, we present a tale of the tape illuminating just what these three probably have in common. And regardless of how long these friendships last: Skanks for the memories!"

haha...awesome.

i've converted..kinda

I recently got this:


That's right, I converted. I've been needing a new laptop for quite some time now. My old MISM laptop was having overheating and fan issues, and one day while I was in the middle of an intense game of Luxor (the full version), the screen suddenly faded into black and I was never able to get it to come back to life. So I bought the Macbook. Kinda on a whim, actually, because I was really attached to my IBM laptop and always ignored McShumbot's praises of the Mac. But it was cute and white and small and with the Intel processor, I figured that I could run Windows on it if I hated Mac OS X. But it turns out that I LOVE my new laptop and the Mac OS.

The best thing about it? The remote!! That's right, my laptop has an awesome remote that has volume control and the ability to scroll through a playlist. Suggested uses include listening to music and slideshows. My personal favorite use? Watching my favorite TV shows in bed. Now I don't have to reach out and use the keyboard to control everything..the remote does it all. I LOVE IT! (so far I've only gotten it to work in itunes though)

Sidenote: I'm not a huge fan of the Camino web browser yet. I'd agree that yes, it does seem faster than Firefox, but a lot of sites don't support it yet, so it gets really irritating to use at times. Also, I kinda miss my games! There aren't as many good games for Mac OS X. Like Diner Dash 2 is only on Windows. Good thing I beat it already.

I'm using a spreadsheet

For you Google Spreadsheets users, there is a new feature that allows you to publish and embed you spreadsheets for the public to see. Take, for example, this sheet:



Normally you'd have to read that Simpsons reference in left-to-right text, but with the magic of the internet, the quote appears in grid form!

[waving hands and wiggling fingers] magic!

(edit: I apologize for the dimensions. You get the idea.)

urban etiquette

a few months ago, NY Mag had an article about urban etiquette that i found both humorous and informative. It had rules for subway, cab, office, and ipod etiquette, among other things.

I'd just like to add a few guidelines based on some recent observations and experiences.

On the subway:
- Do not fart or eat smelly food. We're all sharing an enclosed space with little to no air circulation and nowhere to escape to. Depending on the train conductor, the ride can be smooth, jerky, or brake-happy. Do us all a favor and hold it in or eat outside to reduce the nausea factor.

- When the train is super crowded, don't hug the poles in the middle of the train as if you own them. Other people need to hold onto them too. And not everyone is tall enough to grab onto the metal bars above the seats.

On the street:
- When walking around, don't make sudden movements or stops.
- If you own a dog, pick up its crap and don't let it pee in the middle of the sidewalk so that the pee runs all over the place and stinks up the block and mothers have to roll their strollers straight through your dog's urine. No one likes to have dog crap or pee on their shoes, so do us all a favor and curb your pets. We're living in a society, people!

target audience

We've decided that our target audience will include our friends, tv fans, and tech enthusiasts. But we can only think of one person who falls into all of those categories....Crystal!! So Crystal, I guess this is for you. Thanks for reading!

Just a bunch of links

Nothing really insightful here.


The 25 Funniest Analogies (Collected by High School English Teachers)

http://writingenglish.wordpress.com/2006/09/12/the-25-funniest-analogies-collected-by-high-school-english-teachers/


Waves in a Large Free Sphere of Water (In Space!)



This quiz really works.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."

What American accent do you have?

This Sundance winning documentary is available free on bittorrent.

Filmmaker Mark Achbar just released an updated “official” torrent of it. Everyone is free to download, watch, discuss, and share it.

http://torrentfreak.com/sundance-winner-the-corporation-released-for-free-on-bittorrent/

the o.c. is back!

The O.C. is good again! i finally watched the first two episodes of season 4, and i have to say, it's back to the same compelling, twisty drama that first captivated viewers in season 1. Killing off Marissa at the end of season 3 is probably the best thing they could've done to fix the dying show. It's a huge change for the show, as some of the most memorable moments from season 1 revolved around her (the o.d. in Mexico), but by the end of season 3, they had pretty much done all they could to the character. After dealing with alcoholism, drug problems, being taken hostage by fellow druggie and show killer Oliver, sleeping with the gardener, a brief stint in lesbianland, expulsion, partially being the catalyst for a friend's death, sleeping with the resident bad boy of the town and (gasp!) going to public school, I guess they couldn't think of much else to do with the character. They'd also really stretched Mischa Barton's limited acting abilities as far as they could . Admittedly, I teared up a tiny bit in the first episode of this new season when Ryan was looking at old pictures of her, knowing that The O.C. of old is dead for good, but again, I think that's a good thing. The show had a long sophomore slump (seasons 2+3), filled with stories of alcoholic moms, almost adultery and over-the-top cheesy spiderman kisses and unnecessary drama between Seth and Summer and many bad or worse, boring, storylines, but it's back now! With her death, not only did they get rid of the wooden, robotic actress that was weighing them down, they've actually brought the characters to new and interesting places. And I for one, am actually looking forward to watching new episodes of the show again!