(I must acknowledge my friend Sara as the originator of this quote/curse. Please note, this utterance is most often performed while shaking one’s fist at the heavens. There’s another variation of the fist shake in which you state, “I shake my fist at you!” but that’s more of an alternative to “the finger” than a generalized cursing of life. Cuz that’s how we roll.)

Anyway - UPS attempted to deliver my new digital camera (birthday present) today. At 5:03, they were here. And since no one answered the door to sign for the camera, it’s back at a UPS facility, waiting until it can come to its new home tomorrow. Boo-hoo. So I exclaimed, “Darn you, life!” Not that today was horrible by any means - I was just looking forward to a new gadget. New gadgets are tremendous fun.

I went rock-climbing at 8:30 tonight and rolled home a bit before 11. It’s now after midnight and I’m not at all tired. This means I’ll be up late reading.

Maybe watching a movie I’ve seen a million times.

Maybe watching this video until I’m delirious and start giggling uncontrollably.

But I couldn’t help it. I just couldn’t.

… but here’s some absolutely unprofessional proof of my specific nerdiness.
However, the whole “social nerd” thing is a bit confusing. I’m not particularly social. Oh, well. Maybe they’re counting the books as my friends.

This is pretty clever in terms of a Valentine’s tie-in. At TYPEmatching, you answer five questions and you find out what your type is. I am Helvetica.

Yes - it’s possible to be Comic Sans, but there wasn’t a moment where I thought I’d end up in that sad state.

This comic sometimes sends me into fits of laughter:

And then other times, like today, it surprises and touches me with its poignancy and ability to position a stick figure right in my heart:

The title of the image (not visible unless you mouse over it) reads: “Oh, look, the ‘make everything better’ button was here behind the bookshelf all along.”

I need a pet hedgehog so I can watch it eat.

Another installment of things that I find entertaining or interesting. Yay!

• A reading meme from someone named Eva (not me). I’ll be writing up my version later tonight.

• Hey, Mac users with Netflix accounts! Soon you, too, will be able to take advantage of the Netflix instant-viewing feature on your computers! That’s right - Netflix announced that they’re working on a Mac-compatible version of the online instant-viewing service. Not surprisingly, the thing holding it back has been that Netflix uses a Microsoft-based DRM service that only works with Windows. Gizmodo said it best, “only holdup is/has been the lack of a Mac-native DRM system that Hollywood approves as sufficiently draconian.”

• “Loneliness is marked by a sense of isolation. Solitude, on the other hand, is a state of being alone without being lonely and can lead to self-awareness.” That’s what I’m talking about. Thank you, Psychology Today, for this little article about the difference. I’ve been accused of being “lonely” - but I think my friends would disagree. I like my alone-time, truly, and sometimes I may feel lonely (that goes with the depression, I think) but overall, I think I’m far more of a lover of solitude than a sad and lonely person.

• Cookthink.com: A very cool idea for a site: “To find a recipe based on what you’re craving, plug up to eight tags into our Cookthink search tool.” Some more info in the little screen portion below. I was craving scallops and dill. So I popped those in. It brings up a little cloud of additional foods/ingredients you can click - or not. Submit those and voila - a recipe for Spicy Scallops With Bell Pepper, Fennel and Dill (that does sound quite good. Too bad I’m going to dinner at a vegetarian restaurant with friends tonight.) If it’s not quite what you want, you can click on a “show me more recipes” link, and you get other things in the same “family” - Barley, Zucchini And Tomato Salad With Mint was one of the secondary results for the shrimp and tomato search.

• Smart kids read “Lolita”? - Books That Make You Dumb [site]

Ever read a book (required or otherwise) and upon finishing it thought to yourself, “Wow. That was terrible. I totally feel dumber after reading that.”? I know I have. Well, like any good scientist, I decided to see how well my personal experience matches reality. How might one do this? Well, here’s one idea.

Amusing, if nothing else. Their “methodology” is pretty interesting, too.

• YouAreBeautiful stickers - a cool community art/social commentary project. Their artists/mission statement is:

You Are Beautiful is a simple, powerful statement which is incorporated into the over absorption of mass media and lifestyles that are wrapped in consumer culture.

The intention behind this project is to reach beyond ourselves as individuals to make a difference by creating moments of positive self realization. We’re just attempting to make the world a little better.

Intention is the most important aspect of the You Are Beautiful project in its idea of purity. Nothing is sacred. Everything that has a perceived value becomes commodified. We work extremely hard that this message is received as a simple act of kindness, and nothing more.

Advertising elicits a response to buy, where this project elicits a response to do something. The attempt with You Are Beautiful is to create activism instead of consumerism.

You Are Beautiful uses the medium of advertising and commercialization to spread a positive message.
Projects like these make a difference in the world by catching us in the midst of daily life and creating moments of positive self realization.

Send an SASE (and maybe a few dollars - though they’re not required) and they’ll send you some stickers that say “you are beautiful.” Or you can download and print your own. Adhere them to things, take pictures, and send them in for posting on the site. They’ve done huge wall and billboard installations of the same sentiment.

There. I just revealed the tree-hugging hippie portion of myself.

I read today that one of my favorite music videos of all time (and definitely of 2007) for a song I really like was selected by Directors File as one of their top ten videos of 2007. Well, yeah. I know I’ve posted it before, but I think that was on the “old” blog, so here it is on the new - “What’s a Girl to Do?” by Bat for Lashes.

And one that’s quickly moved to a top position in 2008 (though that’s not a big deal since it’s only the 22nd of January) is this one by Hot Chip for “Ready for the Floor.” Other versions have been pulled down by the record company (when will they learn??) so here’s hoping this one stays up for a bit:

The video made me love the song. The song made me really like the band (and yes, I downloaded some free mp3s from music blogs to learn this), and THEN I bought their previous CD and pre-ordered the upcoming CD from Amazon. They got $30 of my consumer spending dollars. See how that works?

Also, I want to make this herb bread.

All right then. “O Fortuna” is up in my playlist. I think I’ll call it a night after that thunderous finish and finally finish reading “Seeing.”

LibraryThing has this funky “view all your covers” feature.

So I fired that up and then did a little screengrab of the complete page. The books that don’t have covers (out of print or foreign books) don’t get included, but still - you can see the covers of something close to 900 books in one image. It’s pretty sweet.

Check out an image of the covers.

(You’ll have to click to enlarge to full screen size, btw.)

Everything’s heading over to 3D again these days. Like TETRICAL - 3D Tetris!