You don’t work a blog for a few months, and suddenly there’s 299 comments waiting to be tended to, most of which are trying to people boner pills, or urge to me to click on a link (usually involving boner pills).  They go something like this:

I apologise, but, in my opinion, you commit an error. I can defend the position. Write to me in PM, we will communicate.(real link omitted because I don’t want to encourage them)I have a joke for you =) A neutron goes into a barber shop and asks the barber, “How much for a haircut?” The barber replies, “For you, no charge

They don’t even close quotation marks, but I’m sure it’s the fault of some poor kid in some far off land trying to make a buck or rupee or whatever it is they decide to use.  Each time I see one of these, it reminds of the This American Life episode in which people bait Nigerian scammers into doing humiliating and sometimes dangerous things, and it surprises me how a myriad of emotions can erupt from the torrent of spam comments I get on this site.

It seems a little late for resolutions, and this is on titanic tangent, but I’m set on having a more fun, exciting life, and so here’s what I’m going to start doing:

1)  Take more pictures.  If the pictures are still boring at the end of the week, then I’ll have to re-evaluate my time spent, but I’m hoping to have at least one jaw-dropping experience a week.  I live in a pretty magical place after all.

2)  Blog.  Also, so I can post the pictures.

3)  Get out of the country.  Some things on the horizon, but it’s too early to tell what’s going to pan out.

4)  Get serious about learning a language.  Portuguese, Japanese, French?  So much to learn, so little time.

5)  Buy a new laptop.

Is this list too humble or over the top?  The next post will have pictures.

Haven’t posted anything in a while, but this was very post-worthy!

Forget recycling.  It’s all about upcycling now.  I was so proud when I finished cardboard laptop stand:

Simple and easy.

Then I found the cardboard sculptures.  I am inspired and intimidated:

by Chris Gilmour

You can check out more at WebUrbanist.

This American Life did another great show about the economy, and how we all got into this mess.  You can listen to it here.  They always do a great job of breaking down the jargon that makes most of us tune out when it comes to the complicated and dizzying world of corporate finance.

Jonathan Jarvis also did a bang up job of visualising the credit crisis with these videos:

Hope this helps all of you that may be confused as to what’s going on, and why it’s going on.

I just thought I’d share a few of the random crap I find on the internet:

Passiveagressivenotes.com – I think the name says it all

Stuff White People Like – Again, the name says it all

Work it Out by RJD2:

Work It Out – RJD2 from Christoph Sullivan on Vimeo.

That’s it for today.  Love you.  Bye.

I got this email from my buddy Michele in regards to holiday gift giving this year, that I thought was insightful and important:

Please please check out websites like these first to make sure the products are not in violation of human rights:

globalexchange.org
corpwatch.org
hrw.org (human rights watch)
iccr.org (interfaith center on corporate responsibility)

In college, there was a point when I was so poor I lived off of canned tuna, bread and lettuce that was on sale. For about a month, i was able to live off of about $9 of food. With the second great depression going on, I thought it might be a good thing to post some interesting ways to stave off hunger on a budget.

One of my favorite blogs: Cheap Eats. This nifty little blog has tips, recipes, and techniques to eat on a budget. A very limited budget.

Bucket o’ Food. Costco has a vegan-friendly emergency food kit with a shelf life of 20 years, and 275 servings of food. If you eat three meals a day, that comes out to roughly 90 days of food. You could survive the entire year on about $340, less than a dollar a day. I’m going to send Sally Struthers one of these.

A true American

I listen to NPR way too much, and with the impending super-armegeddon-of-craptacular-doom on hand, I feel like I’ve been spiraling into a whirlpool of financial confusion.  How did this happen?  What should we support?  Am I going to lose my house?  What is the best way to preserve meat salvaged from the body of my dog/cat/snake?

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