e·phem·er·on noun
e·phem·er·a plural noun
1) A short-lived thing.
2) Printed matter of passing interest.

dis·trac·tion noun
1) The act of distracting or the condition of being distracted.
2) Something, especially an amusement, that distracts.
3) Extreme mental or emotional disturbance; obsession: loved the puppy to distraction.

Being a resourceful Renaissance type of gal, researchgirl has a plethora of interests to keep her occupied on rainy days and Sunday afternoons. For those of you who may say to yourselves, "I am frightfully bored. Whatever shall I do with myself?", here are some recommendations and fun things to waste time looking at. I've heard that researchgirl.com is a popular time-waster and distraction amongst my employed peers; I am quite honored to hear that. You might also want to visit the links page and explore the "mindless fun" list.

This, my friends, is actually pretty cool. While I don't currently have a high quality color printer of my own (Working on it! Working on it! That's what my Costco membership is for!) I have designed a rather cool official researchgirl.com bookmark.

At some point, when funds become available, it will be something I will have printed up professionally at one of my local printing places (or somewhere reputable on the internet) on a nice glossy card stock in full color. At that point, I will make it available to whomever would like it if they send me a SASE requesting a researchgirl bookmark.

For those of you who care to see it, you can open the .pdf file. It seems de rigeur to inform you that you can download Acrobat Reader for free by visiting the site, so consider yourself informed.

Here's the logo link, too!

The bookmark is composed of some of my favorite images on this site and perhaps they're some of yours, too. It proudly displays the researchgirl URL and not much else. I'm about simplicity and subtle branding ;)

If you like it and you have a color printer, please feel free to make yourself one in the meantime. You have been afforded FULL printing capabilities, though I have locked any modification or copying abilities. Clever peeps will be able to figure it out anyway, but clever people are often too lazy. Anyway, it might be a good few months before I can afford to print them, so go crazy.

Additional useless ephemera for y'all - a page consisting of my current favorite AWAY messages. Let this be a testament to the ravages of unemployment upon college-educated young women.

Aqui, para vosotros, es un papel pintado para la computadora. No es muy artistico, pero las palabras tienen mucha verdad en mi vida. Las mujeres cortas tienen sabiduría.

(Here, for you, is wallpaper for your computer. It's not very artistic, but the words hold much truth in my life. Short women have wisdom.)

It's a full-size 1024 by 768 desktop which says, "But it's no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then - Alice"

I dig it. I made it. Enjoy it. Just click on it and the regular size will open up for you to save...

Halloween: Alice in Wonderland.

I will admit to using Photoshop on this image to remove the dark circles under my eyes since I took this picture when I got home at 3:30 in the morning. It's hard to look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But my fake eyelashes were still attached. That's the close-up at left. You can almost see the outline of my contact lens!

I should truly just rename this page "shit I bought with my unemployment checks while feeling sorry for myself and the fact that I have no job and am sending out resumes left and right and have nothing to show for it." That takes up a LOT more space than ephemera, so that's what it shall remain.

The New Watch I'm Loving UP!!

Yes, ladies and gents, here it is. The current inanimate object of my affection. This image is not to scale unless you have a massive monitor. Actually, even then it won't be to scale since I have it controlled by pixels and not percents.

Regardless, this is it. It's a Fossil - black midgrade dial, leather strap, silver hash marks and day display. It looks quite becoming on my smallish wrists. I think it's also because my hands aren't long and slender; they're not stubby either. They're just proportionately small normal looking hands. The fact that I don't have long slender pretty hands prevents the chunkiness of the watch from looking bizarre. This goes for everyone really: you have to know how to dress and accessorize for your body. That doesn't mean wearing muumuus if you are a little zaftig or constantly wearing large sweatshirts if you're slightly Ruben-esque. Nope. Just work it, bitches. That goes for men and ladies. My exceptional male friend knows this. He's straight, mind, you, but he knows how to dress and accessorize to suit his good and bad points. It's an art and a skill, but you can do it.

I love my watch.

My gift to you today is this fine offering of not one, but TWO desktop images for your downloading pleasure. Use them at work and enjoy the stares. Use them at home and let yourself giggle or just go, "Oh."

They are both 1024 X 768 pixel jpg files. High resolution according to Photoshop, but only as high as I had the digital camera set, unfortunately :(

I didn't have the energy to create thumbnail pop-up action, but click on the little guys and the big guys will open on a new page. Right click and save as... and off you go!

I will call this area "MY FAVORITE STUFF I'VE PURCHASED RECENTLY." Is that OK?
Here goes.

This is a sticker I desperately want to put on my car. It's actually a black logo on a clear background, but I needed to Photoshop it up so it would be visible on here. I just can't decide where to place it. That's my issue with my tattoo, too.

Today's addition is a few pictures from my trip to England three years ago. My sister and I took a daytrip to Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge. Luckily for us, the day was overcast and drizzly, which was perfect weather for viewing such sites in England. It also made the lighting very eerie, and my use of black and white film (since I was feeling artsy) didn't hurt either. The Stonehenge photos will be up at some point, but here's some of the cathedral. They're all thumbnails, so when you click on them, a window with the full size image will appear.

In case you had any doubts about where you should go to find salvation, the First Baptist Church of Newport, NH has the answer for you:

There was also a store called "America's Mattresses" down the road which had a sign stating:

PRIVATE SIGN
DO NOT READ

I thought that was pretty funny, too.

Play videogames:

I myself have the PS2. I'm sure there are lots of great games out there, but only a few have attracted me with their crack-like addictive qualities.

The top of the list here is Kingdom Hearts from Squaresoft & Disney. Even if you've decided to boycott Disney for moral/ethical reasons, don't pass this up. My guess it that Squaresoft kept it from becoming sickeningly cutesy. At this point you can probably hunt down a used copy. You've got your dark versus light thing going on (one of those themes, yeah) and some pretty great gameplay to boot.

Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness is my current addiction. It makes me feel all empowered and kick-ass. Plus it's kind of funny to watch how she flops over like a rag doll when she plummets from ridiculously tall heights. The programmers must've had a fun fun time planning that. I'm currently vaulting from gargoyle heads and trying to avoid a certain skeleton warrior with a very long sword. I can knock him unconscious with no problem, but as you all know, the undead cannot be killed as easily.

This is a great old time public service advertisement I found reprinted in a sex education pamphlet. Apparently, there was an American Society for Social Hygiene which was responsible for warning young women about slimy men in hats and polka-dotted ties. I think it's terrific and I'm making it into a t-shirt. I hope the image quality is good enough so that you can actually read it.

Researchgirl's father enjoys traveling the world in his free time. I hope to someday be as financially comfortable and carefree and thus enable myself to travel the world as well. It's a fantastic place and while I've seen more than some, there's a great deal more I wish to see. RG's dad has most recently gone 'round the world and the image below is my absolute favorite from the over 1,000 images he captured.