11.10.2000

dot.com fever

is still around. Our ears perk up when we hear about companies such as Pets.com closing their doors, content-rich sites such as women.com considering folding and even once-defunct companies such as boo.com changing into a fashion advice site. The dot.com mania is still around. We watch the stock market wondering what will happen when the new dot.coms open up, or if the remaining ones will make an impact during the Christmas season. We watch anxiously at the consulting firms that are laying off people left and right, Razorfish, Breakaway, Viant, Event Zero, Zefer and iXL...the ones that built the tanking dot.coms. I get a little freaked out everytime I hear about the troubles of Kozmo.com--what will I do if I can't order my movies for delivery, medicine when I'm sick or toilet paper when I suddenly realize I'm out?

And now, to celebrate the dot.com frenzy, you can immerse yourself entirely. There is now a dot.com Monopoly edition. Instead of a hat, you can be a mouse. Instead of a car, you can be a pointer hand. Instead of a boot, you can be a computer. And instead of Boardwalk, you have Yahoo! Who wants to be the banker???

2:07 PM | link | up| archives | comments [ ]

11.8.2000

The Latest Love News!

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - When you're in love, your eyes light up, your face lights up - and, apparently, so do four tiny bits of your brain. "It is the common denominator of romantic love," said Andreas Bartels, a doctoral student at University College London who presented his research Tuesday at the Society for Neuroscience. He used functional MRI, a brain scan showing the brain over time instead of a still picture, to examine 17 students who said they were truly in love - and whose statements were backed up by psychological tests. When the subjects were shown photographs of their sweethearts, different areas of the image lit up - indicating higher blood flow - than when they were shown photographs of friends. The friends were the same sex as the sweethearts, and were people the subjects had known about as long. Anywhere from six to 20 parts of the brain showed increased activity, varying from person to person, but only a common denominator of four were found in all 11 women and six men, Bartels said.
~
Wow. And it figures...I just picked up Diane Ackerman's Natural History of Love today. Perhaps I'll feed you all little tidbits of love from time to time...

3:56 PM | link | up| archives | comments [ ]

amazon fucked up

strangely enough. maybe it was a disgruntled worker handing out freebies. whatever the case, I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. It's not on my order anywhere and I definitely didn't pay for it but in my recent shipment, I recieved the new U2 album, which I hear is terrible. But hey, it was free and so that's okay.

I think the country might have fucked up too. If Bush is elected, it will be a sad day indeed. The country votes an idiot into office...someone who can almost match Dan Quayle with the idiotic things that roll out of his mouth.

11:45 AM | link | up| archives | comments [ ]

11.7.2000

(in)famous?

my pic is in the collage that can be found on the front page of nervecenter. oooo ahhhh. I'm a Nerve posterchild. I like that...to have my pic on a site dedicated to "thoughtful hedonists." Funny that it's my corporate pic too...

7:40 PM | link | up| archives | comments [ ]

and FINALLY

niki gives her opinion of Charlie's Angels. I agree. Drew does have more jiggle factor...


1:54 PM | link | up| archives | comments [ ]

opinion

people are opinionated about two things in particular... politics and religion. They fuel the fire for debates across the globe and most people have a strong stance on the topics. True, they might keep those thoughts to themselves, not stirring up trouble. They might say they are apathetic, but if you truly push those people, they'll let you know what they really think about abortion, about greyhound racing, about the state of healthcare, gay rights or about whether or not God is a man or a woman.

Today when I got off the T, I was bombarded with sign-toting animal rights activists and one man in particular who was holding two Halloween masks of Gore and Bush and was having a dialogue between the two plastic heads. He was campaigning for Bush and of course, he was acting just as idiotic as the man he was trying to promote. Mind boggling.

I am amazed at the way the Internet connects people together, sharing information and misinformation. Yesterday a good friend sent me a letter apparently written by one of George Bush's former classmates. It was intelligently written and basically shared his horror at seeing such a lazy, coddled, not-so-bright sort of guy running for the most powerful position in the world. I was fascinated by the letter, but mostly because I had no surety of its authenticity. Was it really written by someone who went to school with Bush? Or was it written by one of his antagonists? Here is this letter making the rounds to email box after box, spreading opinion and potentially swaying people with the words contained within.

I think that this election will be a really interesting one for the history records...the way that the Internet and the power of the people change the way the election works or doesn't work. The whole voteswapping thing is a case in point. People rallying together across the nation to swap votes in order to make sure that the Green Party gets funding for 2004 while at the same time, keeping those Nader votes from putting Bush into office. Wild. Someone told me that there is even a vote selling site...can you imagine? I can see that being illegal, but the voteswapping isn't...you can vote for whoever you want to as long as there is no money changing hands.

But on the good side of things, there is a lot of information there. I can download the official voters guide for MA to help me make a more informed decision. In the past, I've waited till I've gone to the polls and then just read the ballot summaries. Now I can go in, speed through the questions and be out of there.

It is exciting to be a part of this whole Internet thingy. The connected world. Children born in the last 7-8 years will never know the world without email or the Net. When I'm 70 I'll be part of the minority that does. Wow.

12:25 PM | link | up| archives | comments [ ]

11.6.2000

another random list

of things.

~If you are a Massachusetts resident, go here to support AIDS victims during Thanksgiving. Buy a pie and help save lives.

~I lost my T Pass after only using it once. Grrr.

~My friend Joanie's dad has a site called GeeksforGore.
~I'm shocked and amazed by the way people are using the power of the Internet to sway votes. Check out this story on voteswapping.
~If you are in Massachusetts and aren't sure where to vote, go here.

~I got the adapter for the DVD. My DVD guru hooked it up to my stereo for me...wow, the surround sound rocks. Need to get another splitter to make the surround sound work with the TV. It's amazing how much clearer it is than video. I can see why my good friend John is such an aficionado. Hey...I wonder if the surround sound will work with my Playstation (not PS2...that will happen after xmas prolly)? Imagine killing zombies in the dark with the freaky sound...

~I talked to my ancestor, John Billington, when I was down in Plimoth this weekend. He told me more about his son who got lost and the Indians took him to Cape Cod. They had to gather a whole mess of pilgrims to go down and rescue the boy. They lined up on the shore, muskets in hand, waiting for the tribe to turn over the boy, which they did without hassle, although they could have easily battled the pilgrims and won. The child had been lost for several weeks and passed around from tribe to tribe. The Indians had braided his hair and adorned him in traditional Indian garb. Of course, he thought it was a big lark, but the pilgrims were quite concerned and very relieved to have their son back.

4:24 PM | link | up| archives | comments [ ]

11.5.2000

i'm so jealous

of niki. It has to be more fun than a dented Kia. Or a Mercury Sable with a lumpy bondo job. Poor Sable.

But she didn't tell me if Charlie's Angels was a matinee movie or a prime time flick...

11:02 PM | link | up| archives | comments [ ]

money money money

seems to flow into my hands and then right back out. Rialto was wonderful. I had a really interesting chicken dish that I thoroughly enjoyed. The goat cheesecake was AMAZING. And I bought a DVD player, finally. But wouldn't you know it, I have to go buy an adapter because my shitty tv doesn't support the input. That is on the agenda for the day...that and picking up my laundry.

I took my laundry to be done by someone else because I have no time these days. Its the first time I've done that and the cost isn't so bad at all...perhaps $5 more than if I had done it on my own and believe me, that's worth it. But there is something unnerving about letting someone else wash, dry and fold all your undergarments.

Today is a very lazy day...the rain is delightful. Woke to thunder, just a few claps of it, but it was a nice waking up. Breakfast at home...omlettes...mmmm. Going to buy the adapter for the DVD and then watching Fight Club, which, by the way, was once recommended by Scott at Spoonfed, who was right when he said I would like it.

11:57 AM | link | up| archives | comments [ ]