Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Must See

Okay, scroll down on this Amazon.com listing of a wolf tee-shirt and look at the comments. I can't describe how happy they make me:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000NZW3IY/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp

Monday, May 18, 2009

Safari

I've always liked this picture --- looks like a windows desktop.

Friday, May 8, 2009

What a great idea!

The world is full of wonderful ideas. Here are a few I've discovered lately:

http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/
This is brilliant way Google found to both entertain us and help their own company. I'll just paste below the description from their site:

"Welcome to Google Image Labeler, a feature of Google Search that allows you to label images and help improve the quality of Google's image search results. How does it work?
You'll be randomly paired with a partner who's online and using the feature. Over a two-minute period, you and your partner will:

* View the same set of images.
* Provide as many labels as possible to describe each image you see.
* Receive points when your label matches your partner's label. The number of points will depend on how specific your label is.
* See more images until time runs out.

After time expires, you can explore the images you've seen and the websites where those images were found. And we'll show you the points you've earned throughout the session."



http://inventorspot.com/
This is just a really fun website for anyone fascinated by the art of invention. I mean, I no joke just read about a zero gravity micro car, basically a remote control car you can drive along your walls!!! I kid you not. If that's not awesome, I don't know what is.



http://www.blogtv.com/
This isn't really a new, ground-breaking thing. I just felt like including it because earlier this week I watched one of my favorite authors (John Green) reading poetry and fielding questions over this service. The window on the left will show the live video feed of the person while anyone watching can talk in the chatroom on the right. I'm sure most of the shows are lame, but I know my author was entertaining!



http://www.hotel626.com/
This is by far one of the most elaborate and creative advertisements I've ever seen. The site was put together by Doritos and is only "open" from 6PM-6AM. Basically you're led through a frightening journey out of a haunted hotel. Thank you, Doritos!



youtube.com
Okay, I'm throwing this on the list because it's RIDICULOUS if you really stop and think about it -- we live in an age where you can pull up a website, do a quick search for just about any recorded thing on the face of the planet, and be watching it in milliseconds. This is absolutely insane!!!! We've already learned to take it for granted, but just stop for a second and realize how absolutely insane this is!!!!
We ARE the future. wait, what(?), that doesn't even make sense. But here's a simple test of how expansive youtube is --- have you ever done a search for a song you wanted to hear and NOT found both a studio and live version on youtube? Whenever I search and can't find anything I'm SHOCKED. Haha, just goes to show.



http://www.readatwork.com/
Here is a really cleverly designed website for, as the url states, a person to read while at work. Even if you don't read, click on the site real quick and appreciate the look of it... it's pretty cool. Right now I'm reading Emily Dickinson Poetry that looks just like a formal work powerpoint.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Squelching a Funk

Let's talk about God's love for a quick moment; it's jealous, perfect, intentional, and never failing. I mean, seriously, He's passionately, jealously desiring to spend time with us. It shouldn't be complicated/difficult to feel loved-- He's never stopped loving us.

Yet every now and then we'll fall into a funk. I had the night off last night. I NEVER have the night off so I was pretty excited going into it. Would I do work? No! Would I start preparing lessons or research for papers or run errands? No!! I was going to bum around, play some video games or something, and get some rest.

But... going into the night I saw a couple couple's too many --- you know, the kind that are, uh, actually in love with each other. It's amazing how drastically a small trigger can throw off the next few hours.

Now fortunately I sensed the funk so did some things to snap me out of it --- for example switch gears, DON'T listen to sad music, find a good friend to talk to, etc. I tried cutting the funk off at the pass... and meh, was mildly successful.

Still, it shouldn't be hard for me to feel loved. I KNOW that God loves me, I've been blessed with years of Him making that love clear to me. But argh, somewhere along the way I picked up a lie that surfaces every now and then, a lie that says... well, doesn't matter what the lie says. What matters is that God's love is jealous, perfect, intentional, and everlasting.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Finally the end of the week

I'm way too hard on myself. Can any of you relate to that? Blech, it's horrible. I've been so busy this past week --- and I've learned that I haven't done a great job at building margins into my life. If I'm not able to get work done during the regular hours of the day, I normally stay up a tiny bit later to complete the spillover. Usually that process keeps me afloat because I'll have a few days of recovery between every late night.

When an abnormally high amount of schoolwork or friends' issues begins to peak, however, suddenly that rare late night turns into every single night of the week. I find myself at 2 in the morning thinking, "I have to get up in 4 hours. How has this happened to me again??"

And the unfortunate thing about physical/emotional exhaustion in my life is that it leads to a whole mess of new problems: I'm much less forgiving to myself, I have less energy to give to others, I start mixing up the little details one is supposed to take care of.

Plus, compassion is infinitely harder when I feel like I've been drained of every emotion I've ever had or even thought of having. Anyway, I write this just to say we all need to build some margins into our lives. Who knows, maybe all of you are better at taking care of yourselves than I am at taking care of myself. But if not, if any of this post resonates with you, then shame on you(!) ;-) you need to ease up and psh, get some sleep.