Volunteer, Advocate, Trekker.

Well, that year had it's ups and downs, but I think was a pretty un-interesting year overall actually. Sure I got a lot done, but I just don't feel that sense of excitement and adventure I always hope for. I student taught (man, that seems like forever ago), finished being Circle K Governor, graduated with much family and friend hoopla, went to New Orleans for Circle K and got my wallet stolen, went to the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas; went to my first Anime convention in Maryland, met the Green Power Ranger; picked up Patsy from Camp, visited the Jersey Shore and D.C.; passed the Foreign Service Officer exam; worked on Senator Brown's re-election campaign down in Chillicothe, got him reelected (woohoo!) paid my credit cards down to zero with the earnings from that, now in the process of getting my student loans taken care of so I have no debt to my name going into early 2013. Got myself a PS3, a new phone, mom got me a digital pictu...

(That is supposed to be a play on "What's in your wallet?") Today's blog is on reading materials. This past Christmas, I got mom an eReader (a Kindle Fire, specifically) because we have all generally agreed the age of print media is on the decline, and all my friends' parents had eBook readers. And yet, ironically (but probably not in line with the definition of irony) -- my Christmas list had a bunch of books and DVDs on it. Books, the supposed dying medium, and DVDs, another group angry about illegal downloading along with music. (I admit, there was no music on my Christmas list this year - but in years past, while illegal downloading has been popular, I have asked for CDs for Christmas.) Stolen from Andrew Chittenden, over at Chittyland . I think it was Lily Allen who was all for illegally downloading her music, because she understood the necessity to make money through music in other ways - legal downloads, youtube watches, concert sales, band merchand...

Okay, so I started this off kind of with the idea that Marina was copying off Lady Gaga, or at least there was an inordinate number of inspired-by scenes, but now I think I'm probably stretching a bit, and I'm actually coming to appreciate her music a bit more once I get over the fact she sounds a lot like Katy Perry. Still, what's done is done: and now I have these comparison shots and they have to go somewhere. It started with the above image, where I'm like "Oh. She's dancing in a white bath house. How very Bad Romance .  Then I noticed in Primadonna, the song that introduced me to Ms. Marina, that "walking around a rich person's house with a spot light on you" kinda sounded familiar. Low and behold, Gaga's been there and done that.   Then there was this confused dog. And I remembered Gaga serenaded dogs before! Only they didn't look as confused as Fido here on the right.  And if a dog is doing it, a cat's pr...

Patsy asked me yesterday if mom still asks me for a Christmas list. Ha! No, she doesn't, I try to make her one though because she's really... odd about buying Christmas presents. I'm all for presents not being as important as the love of family, and it's the thought that counts, but mom is of a more practical straightforward mindset: "all Gift-cards! So you can buy what you want." Nobody wants to wake up on Christmas and just have Gift-cards! We live in the instant gratification generation, and I can't buy that vest at Express on Christmas day. So I've constructed, for my friends and more as a thought excercise, what I want for Christmas this year. This will also help the week after Christmas during the sales when I'm all like "What do I want to buy that no one got me..." Section 1: Playstation 3 Games. So as you may or may not know, I just bought myself a Playstation 3 - and it has been a blast! I'm lovin the Uncharted series. So...

So I was googling, and apparently North Korea had a successful "satellite" launch test? (I like this story better.) A test they have been trying since 1998, but has yet to be successful. It got me to wondering, what's North Korea up to? So I did some searching, and let me just say one more time how much I love America. Ya see, while googling, I found these diagrams of North Korean political prison camps and these images of a North Korean missile site. And it reassures me to no end that if these are the images we freely, publicly share on the news and the internet -- imagine what CIA and Covert Government programs must be able to see. Kudos, America, on being awesome, and sharing what several steps beneath our awesomeness looks like. I drew in those squares, where I took the following zoomed in pics. The North Koreans surely can't tell exactly how many canoes we have, at any given location. Unless we feel like sharing that information on Google Earth, whic...

I've noticed, historically , that I watch more cooking shows in Winter than on average. Well, indeed lately I've been catching "Iron Chef" and "The Next Iron Chef: Redemption" and a few other shows here and there. Low and behold, my favorite TV Chef has returned.... Again! Haha, he's just good television! Marcel Vigneron, formerly of Top Chef season 2, season 8 (All Stars) and is back for The Next Iron Chef: Redemption after his "Marcel's Quantum Kitchen" got canceled after only 6 episodes. I tell ya one thing, he being my favorite TV chef, if I knew the show existed during it's run I would have tried to watch it -- but apparently I first heard of it after it'd already been canceled, so I only got to watch it on SyFy's website. But moving on. Did I mention "Eat at the Restaurant of one of my favorite Top Chef's" is #15 on my bucket list ? Carla, you qualify! Right this second I'm watching ...

Thought I'd post this image real quick. The GPS chip in my cell phone is starting to malfunction, after I've had the phone for approximately two years, so I took it in to get a new one. They told me I would need to give up my unlimited data plan to get a new phone, and they took a look at my data usage and told me that I used significantly more on average than the average plan. That to limit my data usage, I would need to in fact pay $40-50 MORE per month on top of my phone bill. That seemed fishy, so I said no thanks and walked out. Upon closer inspection of my usage though, I really don't use as much data as they made it seem under normal circumstances -- my time in Chillicothe not being normal circumstances. Haha, as you can see, I wasn't about to pay $150 a month to have I think 4-5 GB of data a month when I really only use like $1.5 GB of data in an average month. Still, the look on the guys eyes when he saw how much data I used reminded me of the Chinese...

Well, my friend Laura has been asking that I look into the documentary "Gasland" for some time now - probably since early summer, and I put it on my Blockbuster que (yes, still have one of those) at that time and they sent it to me probably in August. It's been sitting in it's sleeve since then (I even took it with me down to Chillicothe!) because I haven't had the time to give it the intellectual time I think it deserves, and at 2:11 tonight I think it's about time. So this blog will be my review, of sorts, of that documentary. Let me tell you my first impression of the anti-Fracking movement. I first heard of "fracking" when mom was signing petitions against it online, did some googling, it didn't sound particularly environmentally friendly so my instinct was to oppose it but learn more when necessary. Fracking eventually came to Ohio, and I had lots of things on my plate, didn't really have a chance or need to learn more yet. Then it l...

I've been blogging since High School! (Maybe even middle school? But AOL & Myspace deleted those early blogs.) And the fact that these blogs are generally aimless is intentional, I just like having a record of my life that I can google/search for specific things if I need answers later. A lot of blogs are more focused, like the ones I follow about politics or the Foreign Service. "Tots weird, that is cray!" Haha, the above video -- a movie preview, sort of, that I saw at the movies the other day made me think about just how many bloggers there are these days! Both of the characters happen to be bloggers, just saying, interesting coincidence. Every now and then, while I'm giving arrogant if informed advice on things, I feel like I would have a pretty interesting lifestyle blog like Men's fashion or Twenty-Something lifestyle. (Can I point out that, after googling, there are a lot of blogs out there titled some variation of " Twenty Something Lifestyl...