Sorta Disturbing Yet Exhilarating Video

Susan Reid over at Alkamae blog posted the craziest video today. (Youtube is an amazing invention.) Take a look if you wish to see a human slingshot and marvel at the stupidity of human beings and our irrepressible instinct to have fun.

I initially thought the woman was an idiot for doing this, but then I realized that it was (duh) a male invention, meaning they tested it and risked their lives, so it was safe for her. For some reason, this video reminds me of Lost, I think because of the mountain in the background.

If you don't watch Lost, I feel bad for you. It is so good. Go rent it RIGHT AWAY if you have any sense of adventure, intrigue, and good movie-making. Season 4 starts Thursday so I've been watching Lost seasons 2 and 3 for the past 2 weeks. I'm about 2/3 of the way through season 3... and will probably go watch it right now. Click here to read full entry.

Fancy Pancakes: Let the Journey Begin

When it came to naming this site, I struggled; in fact, it's been two hours since I first decided I wanted to create this blog today. I mulled over a few names, asking myself: What is my essence? I then started checking blogger.com to see if they were taken. You need a simple yet catchy and memorable name that also reflects your personality.

Disappointingly, even the slightly obscure names were taken- blueblankie, sift, mindlock, mindsift. Fancy Pancakes was available, but I wasn't sure I wanted to tell people to "go to my blog, fancypancakes." I didn't want to have to explain the name every damn time, nor was I sure it captured my personality.

I started considering more options, growing increasingly surprised at how many names were taken: Read me, Read it, KO, Me.

What REALLY made me angry was that all of these sites.... NO ONE WAS USING THEM! They were dead sites; someone got the name in 2001, posted something like, "Haha this is a blog," and never returned. Blogger has a policy of letting people keep names even if they appear unused because "sometimes a person goes back to a blog after a long absence, and we want our users to be able to find their original name." Well, damn you blogger.com, get a clue.

Here is a list of names that are taken but unused: football, hyper, stalker, stink, poop, thegeorge, undecided, gogogo, googoogaga, Connecticut, mindtrap, mindsink (two entries), whatsshakin (one entry), feature (3 entries in 2001).

For some reason this really irritates me. I mean, it's OK. I can live with Fancy Pancakes, because it reminds me of the pancakes I make for my nephews.

Here are a few names I also considered, ONLY because they are available and relate to me SLIGHTLY: Stamfordloser, datawife, robotwife. I don't really want to explain these names, but if you like any of them better than fancy pancakes, let me know.

Note: This post was previously published in Aug 2007. Click here to read full entry.