Thursday, December 18, 2008

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Desk Lamp Clip Art

12 17 08am
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I have been trying to post a new powerpoint, which I think is quite funny (but that may only be because it is 3:30am), but slideshare isn't cooperating with me.

I will try again tomorrow.

but for now:

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

My New Experiment

Erin's Day 11-12-08
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Your Grass May Only Be This Long

It has been a while folks.

I was going to write something summarizing what has happened in my life in the past however long, but instead - I will tell you this:

Of all the people I have met that have been involved in their HOA (home owners association) I have disliked. I think this trend will continue.

This is what I have learned in my Internet Policy, Practice and Regulation class. Because I learn what I like/dislike about people, not any of the things I am supposed to be learning.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

I Want You...

To Win Free Things
And To Be Friends With My Co-Worker

Join ThisNext and check out of giveaways page.

OR

Here is a LINK to my team leader's blog who explains the whole deal about how to win and be friends with my coworker Chad!

Side Note: Aswan's blog is great and you should add it to your blog roll for some fun entertainment. Chad has a blog too - check it here.

Monday, September 15, 2008

iLike

Things I like:

1. sports - hockey, college football, pro football, water polo, swimming, and everything else. Especially live.
2. watching boys play video games.
3. interior decorating
4. orange
5. lynchburg lemonades
6. lox bagels
7. naps
8. daydreaming about ideal relationships with boys that I like IRL
9. lolcats, loldogs, matching faces, pundit kitchen, graph jam, fail blog, engrish, cake wrecks, photoshop disasters, gofugyourself, ontd, it's lovely i'll take it.
10. Dave, Chris Clark, Matty P, Rey Maualuga and the entire USC football team (espcially whoever was in Ralphs tonight), Lofa Tatupu
11. the word adorable
12. saying Mexico, Richard and bananas at inappropriate times
13. Since U Been Gone
14. Southern Comfort
15. Dr. Pepper
16. Southern Comfort in Dr. Pepper
17. my computer in all of her glory


that is it for now.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Okay, Now Ladies

I wanna see ya'll on ya'lls baddest behavior. shake it shake it shake it shake it like a polaroid picture.

So um, McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate. Apparently women are supposed to vote for her just because she also has a vagina.
It was rightly noted in Denver this week that Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America. But it turns out the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all. - Palin in her VP announcement speech
So... first of all Hillary was running for PRESIDENT not VICE president. And really I think forging your way and running for President of the United States and coming up just short is a lot more than piggy-backing onto a fossil's ticket. You aren't what women need. Second of all you are pro-life so I can't trust you, ever. You don't want control of your body or your reproductive rights, rather you'd like the government to tell you how to maintain your health. I hate you and what you stand for as a WOMAN. You also hate the gays, so I hate you.

This just strikes me as the lamest choice the Republicans could have made. She is inexperienced and that was really a major point they had against Obama.

It is going to take more than a pretty face from Alaska to make me forget that their ticket has NO TECHNOLOGY POLICY.

I REALLY LIKE CAPS LOCK IN THIS ENTRY.



Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

One, Two, Three, Four; Tell Me That You Love Me More

1. There is some sort of drilling operation going on next door to my apartment. About a month ago they started putting up giant ugly walls. They are just giant metal beams and bars with weird foam covers as the panels of the wall. They are hideous and are a terrible fleshy color. This whole thing is on the side of my apartment that has the windows so in the morning all of the once beautiful natural light is kind of a rotten peach color. It is like living next to a huge fleshy padded cell.



2. I think sex with clothes (dry humping - which makes me laugh and feel a little embarrassed to say, so we will go with sex with clothes) is mostly retarded. Lex said it is only good as foreplay and/or for 14 year olds. I agree. He said it is like an appetizer. Basically, it is garlic bread and while yummy it is not a full meal. You want the spaghetti. And honestly, if you are going to have Italian food why only settle for garlic bread not just have a whole meal?



3. Metal ≥ Rap. In the past few weeks I have been trying to broaden my musical horizons. I went through a gangster rap phase and listened to quite a bit of old skool west coast rap - all of which I have a great deal of fondness for and I have my usual collection of rap/hip-hop that appeals to me (some for what it says like Kanye, MosDef, Common, OutKast, MC Lars, and Gnarls Barkley [okay that is mostly sounds cool factor] and some because it is ridic like Lil Mama, Flo Rida, Juelz Santana, E-40 and Shop Boyz). And through all of this I have collected quite a bit of hip-hop/rap but I only have bits and pieces from various metal bands. And of course, Lex is a metal head so I thought I'd get him to drop some knowledge and give me hints on what to listen to. He gave me his list of metal essentials an I am slowly working through it and will soon venture into a bit of metal music discovery of my own (so far I am digging: Dragonforce [but that is at least 2 summers old], 3 Inches of Blood, The Absence, and In Flames) . Maybe it is because a lot of this is fresh and new to my ears and I don't know anything about it, but I am totally digging the riffs and craziness. C'mon anything that can be classified as Viking Metal is a winner in my book. Also, I have found that with rap I pay attention to the words so much more than with metal. Duh, rap is far more about the words than metal will ever be... but I don't know how to describe it... the words in metal songs are often intricate and about crazy shit but I just don't hear them when I listen to it. Anyways. I am finding that I like metal just as much if not more than rap. I will have to listen to a lot more if I am going to give a definitive answer. \m/



I Google image searched metal head and this was by far the best result.


4. I have been considering an East Coast trip sometime in the near future. I'd like to go when Courtney is in New Jersey so I can see her in her natural environment. I want to see her family again but Jersey style. Also, I really want to visit Jordan and see his apartment and where he is working and all that jazz. It would also be nice to include a detour to Connecticut to see Brad at Yale and Liz in her teaching program. And since I keep mentioning Lex - I'd get to see him too and I could get to do some more NYC sightseeing. All that being said, I have a HUGE desire to go on a solo road trip to Oklahoma to see the Survivor Tree. I've mentioned my love affair with this tree before and it is a major life goal of mine to accomplish this. I think doing this right after I graduate would be a good time for me, maybe not of the year (i.e. December- January) for driving or the tree. And going to the East Coast during that time wouldn't necessarily be ideal, though I did go to New York in January of this year and it was awesome. Some of the incentives of the East Coast may be gone though, who knows when Courtney will be there b/c of her comitments and Jordan may be moving his location since his job is rotational. I am really only in a position to do one as far as dollars go. So which would be the best choice? Ugh. I should probably figure out what I am doing with my life as far as employment and all that instead of just daydreaming about vacations.

OR

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Alice in Dazed and Confused

So, I recently came across information that Tim Burton is making an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland and then Houdini confirmed my suspicions (read his two cents).





I am a HUGE Alice fan. And I must say I really, really love the Disney movie for a variety of reasons, but I do agree with Houdini on this one - read the books. It seems that Burton wants to make a movie about a little girl trippin' on acid, which is not the beauty of the story. Fail.

And finally, I dislike the Disney Princesses line of merchandise because it excludes Alice (for obvious "not a princess" reasons). I would so buy Alice merch if it were available. They are loosing out on approximately $4 to $55 from me.



- isn't Pocahontas a princess?

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

What Matters To Me And Why

I feel like this is going to be a long one so be prepared.

Network Neutrality
I've had several conversations over the past week or so about the issue of network neutrality. I find the wikipedia article to be a fairly good overview of the issue. You can read it here. I feel quite passionately about the issue. I think it is very important for the FTC to take a stance on the issue. In a June 2007 report they said that the "broadband industry is a relatively young and evolving one," and given no "significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm from conduct by broadband providers," such regulations "may well have adverse effects on consumer welfare, despite the good intentions of their proponents." I honestly don't get wtf they are talking about other than they do not want to create any legislation that will limit large telecom companies. Pansies.
There are a lot of arguments out there for and against a neutral network, but it really boils down to the following for me: someone/some company/ some corporation shouldn't get to decide what information I see at what speed. They shouldn't put up roadblocks so that competitors information is shown at a slower rate (which will be clicked off by users). Freedom, guys. FREEDOM.




Presidential Candidates' Technology Policies (or lack thereof)
In my last post I linked to the candidates' technology policies and you can clearly see that Obama has one on his site and McCain lacks one. As someone who is currently seeking a master's degree that is focused on online communities, it really gives me great cause for concern when one of the candidates doesn't list an opinion on the industry that I and many of my friends are involved in/seek to be involved in.



My takeaways from Barak Obama's technology policy :
1. open internet (though his site spells internet as Internet and that bothers me. You don't spell television as Television - it is the same shit. Catch up grammar police).
2. Encouragement of diversity of media ownership - Yes. Standing up to The MAN!
3. open government up to citizens (he kind of wants to make the government a blog - "Giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days before signing any non-emergency legislation" - I like the idea of gov't as a forum, but this is just asking for crazies and censorship debates)
4. Government into the 21st century - a CTO [chief technology officer for the knowledge impaired] for the country. (p.s. I love this idea and want to be CTO of America someday).
5. Communication infrastructure investment - widespread next-gen broadband deployment! We are so behind on this compared to a lot of the rest of the world - especially compared to Asia (okay, Japan and South Korea).
6. Education - technology literacy! He talks about preparing youth, which I totally believe in - math, science, technology to stay competitive in 21st century economy. But I'd venture to say that we need to educate a whole lot of people that are currently in the workforce about technology. Productivity suffers because of technology illiteracy.
7. Investment in the sciences - since 1970 our investment has dropped in half in the physical sciences and engineering research. fix this - get competitive, start leading again.
8. Protect American IP abroad and IP at home [IP = intellectual property for the knowledge impaired again]. I don't know that he will be the man to take on the challenge of reforming copyright law, but I like that his is starting this discussion. His section on IP was very short, but I think it is something, as an electorate, we can push to have the candidates talk about. (Lawrence Lessig endorsed Obama, fyi).
For more on Obama's position on the issues go here.




My takeaways from John McCain's technology policy:

1. He wants to go to space. "Let us now embark upon this great journey into the stars to find whatever may await us." NASA!
I don't mean to be a dick about this, but really, he just doesn't have a technology policy.
Why this sucks and I want more from him as a candidate:
Does he have an opinion about any of the following and how will he help America to reach goals in these areas: open internet, broadband deployment, intellectual property rights, technology literacy, education in technology for workers (young and old), funding for the sciences - research level (on this planet), communications technology investment, media ownership.
I'd like some straight talk on that.
For more on McCain's position on the issues go here.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Monday, July 14, 2008

Hostage!

So back in October I got stitches in my eyebrow from an incident involving Jordan, some binoculars, and AirWick.

I went to Good Samaritan Hospital for the stitches and everything was swell. After my face was sewn back together, they just sent me on my way. I inquired about them taking my insurance information but they said it was all taken care of and everything was fine. So I went on my merry way.

It is now July and here is what went wrong in this scenario. Good Sam assumed that my USC student insurance was the plan I wanted to cover my visit and didn't involve me in the conversation about what was going on. I didn't do much to help the situation by letting this all fly by and not asking more questions and demanding more answers. So now we (and insurance companies) are in an epic battle over money that will all be resolved soon because we both realize the errors made by both of us. I have about 10 more hours worth of phone calls and time on hold ahead, but after next Monday I should be golden. Ugh.

In regard to these stitches I have another bone to pick... After the procedure I was sent a bill for physicians fees (totaling more than $600) which I promptly paid in full thinking this was my total hospital bill. I later figured out the error in my thinking and called them up to figure out if they had billed my insurance first etc etc. Turned out they didn't, so I was able to fill out an online form so they could process my insurance info blah blah blah. Long story short, they didn't contact me in any way about a credit so I figured it just wasn't covered and I was out the $600+ bucks. However, because of the craziness with Good Sam, I figured it would be a good idea to give the physician's billers a call to see if any similar error was made. They told me over the phone, Oh yea, you have a credit of $500+ we'll send it to you in approx 1 month. Ummm.... WTF? They were just going to keep the $$ hoping I would never ask for it. That seems a tad bit shady.

I am largely dissatisfied with this process as a whole. Such a headache over some shitty assumptions that were made while I was having my face sewn up.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

When Work Feels Overwhelming, Remember That You Are Going To Die

So a little clue into how I've been spending my day at work:

I've had the banana phone song stuck in my head for approximately 2 months and yesterday I found this on our site:


banana cell phone holder

















So I was inspired to make a "This Shit Is Bananas" list of banana products. You can find it here

When I run out of ideas I have been listening to the following YouTube Videos for inspiration:




and



my life is slowly becoming a big joke. 

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Awesome, Not Awesome, Awesome

Before I head off of the interwebs to exercise bike my little heart out here are a few things:

Make Someone Smile Week
I became aware of this because of work and wrote a blog post for the ThisNext blog which should be put up sometime soon [UPDATE: TN blog!]. It is a charitable event put on by Teleflora where they send out Be Happy Bouquets to nearly 40,000 people in need - "hospital patients, children in foster care, nursing home residents and many other people who do not usually receive flowers but whose day will be brighter because of this surprise gift." I think this is a fabulous idea and jumped at the chance to write the company blog post about how awesome they are for their generosity.
Teleflora's Be Happy Bouquet

(via Teleflora)












Fails and Funnies
Here are a couple things I found as I was going through the interwebs and things are exceptionally dumb and hilarilous:






Think Blue
and finally, because we have a couple Dodgers games this week and they are back in the race for the NL West (only .5 game back from the D-backs [which makes me thing D-bags]) here are a few picks I made on ThisNext of Dodger gear. I really love the spinner belt buckle!
Think Blue: Decked Out In Dodgers Gear

See more of my Think Blue: Decked Out In Dodgers Gear list at ThisNext.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Quotable

Check out this craigslist ad here
I love it.

And finally, my life is strangely like Fight Club in many aspects:
A house full of condiments and no food... how embarrassing. 


Monday, June 30, 2008

Only in Cali where we riot not rally to live and die - 2Pac

I was driving around today and took a few photos of the area around my new apartment. I was prompted to do this because of the people on the corner by the lavanderia and their small kid improperly placed in a shopping cart.

Trying to be stalker like and get a photo of the people and their shopping cart kid.


Better, but not good.


LDS building, church, temple - something on the corner. Also sign saying West Adams. holler!


School that is near my house. It is new since I started college (I think). Looks a little bit like a detention center.


Little park that is down the street. I want to have a picnic there and also shoot some hoops - but I would get schooled so hard by all of the people that live around me.


Mural covered in graffiti - sorrow. Exterior wall of the market at the end of the street.


More of the defaced mural. Please note that the speed limit is not 30, it is graffiti miles per hour.


The market at the end of the street. Carne Carne Carne!


Next door neighbors.


I blame that man for waking me up everyday at the ass crack of dawn.


Tonka trucks.


Giant drilling thing with poles they delivered last week. I couldn't get it all in the picture: too tall.


Our cute house.


Front o' the house (which is now 4 apartments)


View down the street. I took one the opposite way but that photo disappeared in the cable from camera to laptop.


AND FINALLY:
the only completely finished area of the apartment:

My bed and nightstand area! Woo! The middle of the long frame says "hidden in a valley beside and open stream, this is the type of place that you will find your dream." The best fortune cookie quote ever. Courtney sent me that as a text today and made my life 1000000% better.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Home Sweet Home

So after several weeks on bits of moving I finally have everything (well sorta) into the new apartment ready to be unpacked and put in its place. It has been super stressful and I still have about one box full of things to bring over - mostly things I am using to clean the old place and tidbits I forgot here and there in drawers and cabinets. I have been having major anxiety about moving out/moving in. I feel like there is a ton of stuff that has been made my job by virtue of me being around. I don't really mind making the call for the carpet cleaner or patching the holes etc. but it is turning into a lot of little things that are driving me crazy. In other news, I am giving Sonya my bathroom accessories and shower curtain. I am going to embark on a giant project of organizing all of my stuff. I have more clothes than anyone really needs and I have about a billion papers that need to be sorted, filed or shredded.

I also want to build a bar or some similar drink station for one corner of the kitchen. I think it will be using a lot of this stuff:

Millstead MDF Pre-Cut Panel

(via Home Depot)
















At least they do on HGTV...

I will edit this post later to include some pictures (mostly because I'd like Kate and Courtney to see what I've done with the place and for insurance purposes [apartment insurance?] and also so the thieves know what is there)

EDIT: OMG PICTURES



View from the front door - featuring a mess of stuff and some furniture that will only be there through mid July


View from entrance to Kitchen - featuring curtains that I love, blow up couch which I love ironically, giant TV courtesy of Joe and more mess. Oh, also, ugly beach cover up thing that the previous owners used to cover window in door.


View of our one wall of cabinets featuring the sink and stove. There is approximately zero counterspace. On the left side of the picture you can see the table I got for a kitchen island - covered in crap. The kitchen is the least unpacked area.


A sideways picture of the hall that I can't seem to fix or get to in a different order, damn you blogger. As you can see, everything in this part of the hall is unpacked.


Sideways picture of the kitchen from the area between the fridge and the stove. Featuring kitchen island table and piles of crap.


View of the other end of the hall (kitchen end as opposed to the bedrooms/bathroom end). Some junk is currently waiting in the closet-y area to be sorted out. broken bike, miscellaneous crap I don't know what to do with yet. I got a closet organizer thing to hang on the bar and act as our linen closet - extra towels, toilet paper, paper towels etc. I thought it was pretty smart.


Kate's Room featuring my Mom's blow up mattress (on top of Kate's mattress and box spring - my mom is weird) and my desk lamp. woo!


Courtney's room featuring Courtney's new/Jordan's old cooties bed, my computer because my internet jack doesn't work, lawn chair in which I do homework and interneting, and finally a headboard and footboard that I liberated from my old parking garage that is waiting to see if Courtney wants it.


View from window area of Courtney's room featuring my computer and Joe and Jordan's old lamp because I felt bad and didn't want to throw away a perfectly good lamp.


Bathroom featuring unorganized products (mostly because I don't have to share with anyone yet) and a rubber duckie towel - I stole all of the blue-ish towels from my mom because they match the floor tiles.


Picture of bathroom from inside the shower featuring blue floor and my box of tampons. Yea!


View of my room from the door featuring bookcase and a giant pile of bags of stuff - shoes, random bathroom stuff like cotton balls and a bunch of other junk. Once organized I think I will commission Kate to paint something for the wall so it isn't a big white wall as you go inside.


View as you step inside of my room. HUGE mess. Features my bed in disarray, my beloved exercise bike, fan because my room is a hot box, and more mess mess mess.


Picture of my room from the best thing ever - my exercise bike - features a view of my unused internetless desk currently covered in papers, my poorly utilized nightstand, and more piles and piles of mess.


and finally a view of my bed featuring gross unmade covers, my sort of headboard that hasn't been attached, and my nightstand with my favoritest picture of Lex and me, oh and my backpack.


people in the neighborhood are exploding fireworks.