NOISE blog

Website of the Year

I'm back for my second post, which I fully intended to do at least a week ago, but life keeps redirecting my energies. I am gleefully typing on my *brand new* computer at work, and I can't express the glee of a computer that not only does what you tell it to, but does it in some wicked cool way (the Adobe CS3 Suite is mindboggling in its coolness).

But what I'd really like to share is my new website obsession - www.pandora.com - the internet radio "station" of the Music Genome Project.

Inspiration

Inspired by this video clip (and a little turned on, I mean look at that guy's arms) I went to the pool this morning to get in some laps before work.

And my goggles broke, blah. But thanks to years and years of swimming I know how to make them last one last swim before they hit the trash. But I will have to make a trip to the sporting goods store at lunch for a new pair.

Oh well, the swim still felt good and although I won't be breaking any world records anytime soon I'm glad I made it there this morning.

Worst office chair ever?

The Hawaii Chair may be one of the craziest things I've ever seen. It's basically a chair that has a seat that rotates with the claimed purpose of helping you tighten your abs. I think if anything it would just make your butt really sore. But really could anyone really get anything done at their office on one of these. A short teaser ad for it can be found here. And then watch Ellen DeGeneres on her show as she illustrates exactly why these chairs are ludicrous. You'll work your abs harder from laughing than anything else.

DSL, decent so far

A couple of weeks ago I ranted a lot about hooking up internet in my new place.

I went with At&t DSL, I guess out of curiosity and my dad's advice. I finally got to hooking up the modem and wireless router (thanks Matt for hooking up the router, thanks dad for buying it !) and I am happy (but hoping I'm not jinxing myself) to report that it is working totally fine and at a pretty decent speed.

The most hard core thing I've done is upload photos on Facebook but it passed that test with flying colors so I guess I'm going to give DSL thumbs up for now.

Any blog readers have experience with DSL??

Still searching for a Wii?

Sorry, I don't have one for sale. And to those who horde all of them in the attempts to make a profit, I hope you all get lumps of coal in your stocking.
But for those who'd rather get a Wii by legitimate means and not stand outside of stores for hours in the bitter cold (like my poor 50-year-plus father did trying to snag one for my youngest sister), I recommend checking out www.wiialerts.com. It's a handy Web site that will actually send you alerts to your e-mail and phone when Wiis go on sale at web retailers like Amazon and others.

I've been hacked!

Today I got a strange e-mail on my MySpace account. It came from a girl I don't know asking me if the link she provided was me because who ever it was, was sending her mean messages.

I checked out the link and almost choked, there I was with my boyfriend, there were my sisters and I, there I was on the beach, there was all my info on a site that I did NOT create.

Needless to say it was freaky. I assured the girl it was not my site and apologized. She said she thought she knew who it was, her husband's ex.

Get advice from a ninja

So for a while I'd admired the podcast revolution from afar. I'd listened to a few on my computer at home (an explainer: podcasts are basically audio (and some video) files that can be downloaded and retrieved over the Internet by subscription, sort of a digital radio show) but nothing had really caught my attention - or my ear. But last night I tried again and was pleasantly surprised to see some new options. Including a ninja offering advice.

Funny links

Two funny things I've seen on the Internet recently.
The first is a video taken from the U of M campus where two people dressed as Pac-Man and a ghost ran through a library and a computer lab there during finals week in order to blow off some stress.
The second is a hilarious GAP commercial that Slate.com reported on earlier this week. It's a Spike Jonze-directed piece that only aired a couple of times in a few cities, but I don't understand why GAP decided to pull it. It's pure insanity, but that's what makes it awesome. My favorite scene involves the minivan. Enjoy.