I’m talking job search. When I lost my job… nearly a year ago (I feel almost ashamed to admit it, but it’s like gaining entry to a not-so-special and not-so-exclusive club), I thought that while on unemployment, I could still afford to be picky about the positions I chose to apply to. You know, things that I was reasonably qualified for or things I thought I could grow into with the professional foundation that I had.

I was fantastic at networking. The number of contacts I have now as compared to a year ago… there’s a pretty big difference.

And now I’m noticing that there’s also a pretty big difference in what I’m applying for. Everything. Doesn’t matter if I’m overqualified or just enough qualified.

I’m waiting for that UI legislation to pass… because this is getting ridiculous. I’m hoping that somehow my site gets more hits than my Monster profile (the site is useless for connecting me to HR people who can match me to a position that is beneficial to both myself and the company they’re recruiting for) because I’ve just posted an edited version of my resume up there.

Whatever gets me noticed, right?

I feel like I should have done this a year ago…

Things go, as they do. I’m still looking for a job. This job thing … I do my due diligence, looking and applying where applicable… I’m still looking. Never give up. There’s bound to be someone out there who needs someone like me (and not the hundreds of others who are my competition). I’d say thousands, but that’s far too depressing to think about.

So I go. As I do. And try to live my life to the fullest, within the current restraints that I have. A thing I’ve discovered, it IS possible to explore NYC on a tiny budget aka nonexistent. Thank goodness for that!

Mothers’ Day is coming up… so I’ve decided to go home-home (aka back to my parents’) to spend time with them for a bit, as a present. It’s a good thing. And no expense on my part (except for gas). Yay for homecooked food.

I really wish I had something else to write about.

And I’m not ashamed to admit that i own one. And am blogging from it this very second.

Being the very recent owner of a new HTC Hero… Coming from a very beat up Palm Centro…. And lamenting daily, my lack of buttons…. I find myself being thrown in headfirst into the world of touchscreen typing. iPad wins for the larger landscape keyboard. Well. It was made to be bigger than a phone. It kind of makes sense. I can still employ my full bot handed typing skills, though still with several more typos than on a conventional full keyboard. Also, after coming off of Palm and the touchscreen than didn’t require a finger pad to complete an action, the whole notion of finger pad typing is a bit foreign to me.

At least Im no stranger to apple typos in general. Quite a few of my friends have iPhones, and I’ve been subjected to their typos for more times than i care to count. Here, my new phone wins out on auto correct. I just need to remember to double-check my texts before they go out. I’ve developed a lot of short cut texting over my years with palm.

Okay, so my post, which was initially just to be about iPad alone, has developed into some sort of love fest for both the ipad and the hero. I’m not ashamed. I’m just geeking out. A lot.

So… Things i like..
- syncing iTunes. Its also intuitive enough to not immediately download my entire iTunes collection. I only got the 16gb, and i have about 17gb in music. Thank you for leaving me some room.
- the sound quality is phenomenal. To be fair, my ex got me the cheapest speakers imaginable for my desktop (I have a pc). I have my iTunes running in the background while i type this. Win.
- the image quality. I still haven’t figured out how to view photos on this thing, but i have netflix. Hello HD, I love you. And the ABC player is pretty awesome too.
- battery life win. It’s got better battery consumption than any laptop or smartphone i’ve ever owned.
- news apps. I can now not just get all my news from Twitter. At least I admit it. BBC, Reuters, and AP. Love you all.
- NPR app. I don’t know why i just started finding them interesting now.
- Blogpress app. How do you think I’m blogging from the iPad now?
- the rotating views. Ok. I get a kick out of it on both devices.
- best for last — iBooks app. Kindle killer for sure. And extra bonus that a lot of the classics are free. Total win.

Things i dislike…
- little to no multitasking. Android phone wins.
- can’t connect to Internet while connected to computer. If there is in fact a way to do this, someone let me know. There are just some things that I’m too impatient to find out for myself. Share the knowledge people!
- it’s easier to put photos on my 2007 iPod nano than it is to figure out how to put photos on this thing.

Yes. I admit it. There are way more things i like about the iPad than i dislike. But that’s why i made the decision to reserve one however many weekends ago and fork over the money to get one on Saturday. For all the naysayers who are complaining that there’s no camera… WHY do you need a camera on a device primarily designed for media consumption?okay, yes I’m producing content right now, but a camera on here would just be clunky and irrelevant. That’s what the 5 megapixel camera on my phone is for (and may i say phenomenal job, HTC!). Another major giro i have is lack of manual. Or any guidance. Sorry, but those tutorial videos just aren’t enough. So now I’ve got this photos app i can’t use because I see no way of getting photos from camera/computer to iPad. Otherwise known as completely useless.

One more thing, this is so much better/worth it than an iPhone.

Necessary technological evils: smartphone, iPad, iPod/mp3 player, computer.

I’ve gotten back into the habit (well, trying to) of paper journalling for the time being to get back my groove for the online blogging.

I want to do well thought out long form blogging again, and my love of Twitter (11k+ tweets at time of posting) has been taking away from that.

Sincere apologies, dear readers. I will be back with a vengeance soon. Till then, enjoy all this awesome summery weather that Nature’s been hinting at us with!

10 years. Ten. TEN. X.

I’m only 27. I’ve been blogging (not necessarily daily) for 10 years today. It’s more than a third of my lifetime. I just started two small ones not even two weeks ago (will need to post more on those later). Obviously, I haven’t been blogging on this very domain… Obviously.

I opendiaried. I xanga’d. I livejournalled (and deadjournalled and greatestjournalled). I blogspotted. I’ve typepadded (not personally, though). I wordpressed and geocitied (RIP [Yahoo] Geocities). I twitter (yes, I count that). I’ve been on a lot of domains, I’ve saved most of them. I like to have that footprint to look back on. The young and (sometimes) stupid. The emotional. The mental. The just because.

10th blog anniversary seems so much more important and milestoney (I’m writing this on a severe and inevitable food coma, so you must forgive the tendency to make up words as I go along) than anything else before — though getting past that first year between my senior year of high school and first year of college was pretty monumental at the time. And the 5th year seemed like forever, as well as forever ago.

After the jump, a look back at years past… and my thoughts on them now.

PS: Why do they call it the ‘jump’ anyway? Thoughts?

February 23, 2000 – OD

I gotta admit. This is kinda weird, putting my journal out into the wide open Internet… for a good portion of people to see. But the intrigue is enough for me to try it out. Sure, I’ll still have my handwritten one — especially the entries I have during english class… those are more fun to write about. Considering I type a lot faster than I write, maybe this will be more appropriate. And since I’m on my computer for more time than I actually see my journal, maybe this option will be better. This is obviously my first entry — I really don’t know if anyone’s really going to read this… but the prospect of someone ACTUALLY reading this is scary — and yet, somehow fun. It’s weird, my roommate actually thinks that I’m writing a paper or something. This entire week is horrible. I’ve had 3 papers, 2 late assignments due this week. I have two exams next week. It’s horrid. And to top it all off! I’m SICK! sick sick sick sick. with the Common Viral Cold, they say. No cure. It sucks. It really does. Pounding headache, work –> those two just do not mix. Anyway… to give yall a taste out there of what my mind is REALLY like… maybe I should post a past entry. While I debate about that. I’ll type about today. We had a pointless meeting about sex, alcohol, and drugs in college — try a more inventive and interesting topic: like DEPRESSION in COLLEGE. ooh. there’s something we havent’ heard before. I went to see the BV Hockey game. we beat them good: 4-0. so their record is now 13-9. they still won their last two games. I’m so proud of the boys. Ok. I’m going to post a past entry. besides, I like to procrastinate. and typing is good therapy.

OpenDiary.com – 1827 journal entries. I found OD via bored.com. The 2nd half of this first entry was from a paper journal I wrote while on Sunday detention (I went to a boarding school) from 2/20/00. Obviously, I don’t think it’s nearly as strange for people to be posting quasi-personal entries online for other people to read. The age of information at everyone’s fingertips is the norm now. I don’t know if I realized the future was going to be like this back then. But I was thankful for the online outlet it provided. I was a senior in high school at the time, sick and on the verge of senior spring. And of the rest of my life. Who knew that one innocent little post would be the start of a major career move? Heck, at this point I still thought I was going to pursue medicine.

2001 – OD

for all the effort i thought i put into doing well at school — at the moment i’m not doing all that hot. for someone who was convinced that she wouldn’t miss anymore classes this year — i ain’t doin so hot now.

music lit yes? music lit no? he doesn’t take attendance anyway

chem yes? chem no? he doesn’t take attendance either, but i have a quiz today. lit con just ain’t happening.

wtf am i doing? wtf is happening? it’s like i’ve spiraled down into a world of *don’t give a shit about shit anymore* hell, i don’t even think it’s spiraling anymore… the world just dropped out from beneath my feet and nothing really matters anymore.

in the pit of my stomach, i know that this is a bad way to go. i know that i can go home for the sort of shit that i’m pulling right now. i know that i may never graduate class of 2004 from hws because of the stupid choices i’m making now.

funny, i can’t seem to care.

Yeah, see? Transition from high school to college wasn’t going so well. Even despite the fact I attended a college prep school. And for the record, I didn’t graduate from HWS either. I think I turned out better for it.

2002 – OD

fluffhair.

I actually don’t have any context for this at all.

2003 – OD

3rd year of my dependency to (Free)OpenDiary.

Good lord.

Here’s to another interesting year.

So sometime in those three years, OpenDiary changed their name to FreeOpenDiary. Nothing about the name rolled off the tongue or fingers well. At least I admitted I had a blogging ‘problem’ at this point.

2004 – LJ

Somewhere between then and now I made my transition over to LiveJournal. I remember blogging more than I had (and I may have had a Xanga somewhere)… but I may have had one or two long moments of purging… and these entries may be lost forever. Or another explanation is that I moved back home by this point, and lost my rather awesome and constant internet connection. No internet, no blogging. Makes perfect sense.

2005 – LJ

I copied and pasted a scene from Swingers here. The scene where Rob counsels Mike on whether or not to call back/take back the girl. Except change all the hers to hims and shes to hes (since I’m a girl and all)… and that basically sums up into yet another boy-girl relationship (or in my case, lack thereof) issue. I’m clearly still into the personal blogging stage.

2006 – LJ

Greg Flint, senior pastor at First Congregational Church in Eugeue, OR USA:

“Millions of public dollars have been spent on spreading the basic message that sexuality is a dirty, nasty, and sinful part of yourself that you have to save for the person you marry,” he said. “Imagine that, saving the worst, the dirtiest part of yourself for the one person you are supposed to love for the rest of your life! That’s just so bad, and it’s just so wrong. What abstinence education is really about is power. If you can control people’s sexual lives, you can control people.”

Discuss.

I’ve gone down the ‘blog as a discussion forum’ method. So, anyone still want to discuss?

2007 – LJ

pls tell me why i can’t be happy for J that he gets to go on this cool sounding business trip with skiing lessons and other fun things because he made an excel sheet that does permutations and he’s getting a crazy big raise. and i create something that no one else in my company knows about (blogs) and i get an ipod shuffle. im just avoiding talking about it with him  i figure its better that i just not say anything at all. he creates an excel sheet. i create a whole new protocol for the company. where is that fair?

Only 3 years ago, and STILL young and stupid. Also — NEVER date anyone you work with. Plenty of awkwardness ensues. Please see above. Note: this is about as open about my personal life as I get on here.

2008 – 25centlife.com

• I think I should go into hibernation every winter. I’m phenomenally good at sleeping for long periods of time. In addition to that, I don’t retain heat.
• You know there are people who are just walking space heaters? They just radiate heat all day long. I should be a walking air conditioner. The air surrounding me is a proven 5 degrees cooler than the rest of the atmosphere. **
• Young people like Barack Obama because of his potential to make change happen. For most of my life, I’ve been told that I need to look outside old conventions to be able to do something new and innovative. Hillary Clinton represents the old school, the old convention. Not only that, but she’s also a petulant bitch. Besides, she makes comments about how there’s been too much Bush for too long. So, why would we really want ANOTHER Clinton? Just sayin.
• I hate being political. I’m just plain averse to it. My last stint in politics was in 9th grade. I ran for Student Council Representative. I won once before, in 4th grade. And I was completely awful at it. I don’t know why I ran a 2nd time, nor why any of my classmates even nominated me.
• I hate when I come up with a series of awesome ideas for a post, but by the time I get to the computer, I’ve forgotten half of them.

**NOTE: It’s not really scientifically proven. Be smart about this.

This sums up well why twitter and I get along.

2009 – this site

Last year I was lazy and just reposted my first post ever in its entirety.

1) I blog a lot.

2) I like blogging a lot

3) This 10 year anniversary post wasn’t nearly as thought provoking or as reflective as I thought it would be. I should work on that for the 15 year anniversary

After 6 months of living on my own, it’s become painfully obvious that my cooking skills are nowhere near that of the food bloggers I love to follow (ahem: Anya, Michelle, Katy). But I’ve been known to be able to pull off a few miracles here and there — most notably, the New Year’s pancit bihon.

But I food tweet. Food twitpic. And take pictures of nearly everything I eat. And there hasn’t been much yet that’s disappointed me. So that’s one. The one I wanted to create in the first place.

I’ve also owned ‘stylepsandqs.com’ (the domain) for nearly a year now. And for whatever reason, haven’t yet mustered up the effort to keep that one going. I mean keeping up with this site is bad enough. No, not bad. Effort enough. At any rate, that’s the other. Eventually, I’ll move that tumblr into the owned domain.

So, there you go. Food and Style. The links will be up in the sidebar shortly.

Lost and Gone Forever preview – 2/9/10

GOOGLE BUZZ – coming to a gmail window near you

Google’s convenient little video:

Some short points that I gleaned (while not taking notes at all):

• You can get at it via Gmail
• There’s a handy little Buzz tab under your Inbox tab
• You can share with the people you talk to the most on Gmail
• Create conversation with your friends right in the little window (goodbye mass emails?)
• Supports @replies — like Twitter
• Can share Twitter things, but it’s only one way for now
• Integrated as a new layer with Google Maps
• Comes with a full photo viewer
• Integrated with Picasa and Flickr — yay full photo viewer!
• full video player (well, they bought YouTube, I should hope they have video)
• MOBILE BUZZ (droid and symbian (I think that was the 2nd one — someone correct me if i’m wrong)

I’ll be updating this post later with other people’s posts. Hopefully other people who took notes.

Mashable – Google Buzz Makes Gmail Social

Gmail Blog – Google Buzz in Gmail

Crunchbase – Google Buzz

TechCrunch – If Google Wave is the Future, Google Buzz is the Present

I’m super excited about this new product. You should be too. I foresee a lot of me playing around with this new thing in the future!

• WTF
• WTF WTF WTF WTF
• They’re on the plane again! Is that Jack as it should have happened minus the crash or is that Jack hallucinating?
• (I should have started this when I was watching, not when I started watching Teen Mom afterwards)
• Bernard came back from the bathroom..
• And Kate’s up in a tree… Why is she in a tree and where is everyone else?
• Where did Miles come from?
• (Crap, this can’t be a good sign.. that’s way more questions than I have answers so far)
• Yay! back to 2007..8?..9? it IS 2007 — right?
• Now, which hatch is that?
• OMG Juliet! (she’s probably gonna die… ) (oh look, I was right.) (SAD)
• Jacob! Hurley really does see dead people. Is Jacob going to come back? Or is Sayid going to be the next Jacob? And how the heck does this fit in with the Others? Or the Other Others?
• And aww. All the Oceanic 6 that came back (minus Aaron)… still connected with each other in some way.
• ARZT. God, he’s really annoying.
• NEIL. God, he’s really annoying.
• When did they film this? Back in the beginning when they were still filming the pilot?
• My god, the guy who plays Locke is AMAZING. He deserves a… what’s it called.. Emmy. Golden Globe? I don’t know the difference between these things.
• What worked? How did it work? How did she know it worked?!
• There was a whole lot of OMGWTF in the LAX airport…
• Do the temple others know about the Others… and if Ben didn’t know then.. um.
• What’s the difference if the water isn’t clear?
• And holy smokes (haha), not-Locke is Smokey so when was the ash broken so he could get out? Was it a Oceanic 815 piece?

Crap. I give up. I should have taken notes .. or tried to… oh I’ll figure this out somehow.

Far more coherent blurb here: Lost and Gone Forever (as in Lost, TV show, not Guster album)

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