Not To Be Trusted With Knives

This guy:

…is totally doing this:

Props to Monica for showing me the giant double rainbow video.

I just read on the blog of Wesabe, the free online financial management software I use, that they are closing down at the end of the month.

Boo-urns!  I’ve really liked using wesabe!  It’s helped me create a budget and to keep track of my spending and saving.

And now I’ve only got a month to figure out how I’m going to track my finances.  I checked out wesabe’s competitor, Mint.com, but their system doesn’t work with Canadian accounts¹, and from reading the forums there, there isn’t currently any online system that works with non-US accounts.  Apparently wesabe is going to release their website & infrastructure as open source so you can run it on your own computer, but it sounds like you have to know quite a bit more about computers than I do to get it set up.  So, I may be harassing one of my more tech-savvy friends to set it up for me, but I figure I should have a back up plan in case it doesn’t work or in case they don’t get it released by the end of July.

Possibilities I can think of at the moment:

• buy MS Money or Quicken
• use Excel (though that seems like a lot of extra work)
• give up and go on a crazy spending spree, wasting all my money on candy and shoes!

Anyone have any other suggestions?

1. they claim they are working on getting it set up for Canada, but I’m not going to hold my breath [↩]

Short on ideas about what to write a blog posting about?  Just start typing something into Google – the auto-complete will usually give you some nice gems to blog about.  Like this one, which I originally typed in to see if I could find out if bugs really do have an affinity for estrogen:

It’s intriguing to me that so many people are curious about the possibility of bug flatulance.

Then I tried to find out if the 8-legged monsters of my nightmares have an affinity for estrogen and got this:

And then I was on a roll, so started typing in random beginnings of sentences and found this gem:

and this display of geographical incompetence:

Not to mention grammatical incompetence.  I mean, really, enough people queried the incorrect “Canada is apart of what country” to make it the number 2 hit?

And finally, because I couldn’t resist:

All the red arrows I can understand, but the green one?  You are very much outnumbered, green.  Also, bonus points for the existential “Ed Hardy is.”

And while I’m on screenshots, here’s one I took while watching the new Harry Potter trailer:

Uh oh, I watched it even though I think I’m an “inappropriate audience” (based on how many times I’ve been told that I’m being inappropriate).

Not sure what I did to cause this group to follow me:

While uploading the screen shots for yesterday’s blog posting to Flickr, I noticed that I had also taken this screen shot:

I guess you do the second Google search after you realize that following the advice from the first Google search was a bad idea?

I have a vague recollection that I was reading a blog posting where someone was talking about the funny things that come up when you do a Google search and I decided to test out one of them and that was what I got. Which I thought was hilarious. ¹. And now I share it with you.  You’re welcome.

1. Hilarious enough to take a screen shot, though not hilarious enough to post immediately, apparently [↩]

Just got this email from an organization that I used to work for with a request to pass it along to anyone would might be interested.  So I thought I’d share it with all y’all in case anyone is looking for a new job:

Are you a people person?

Are you a ‘systems thinker’ with excellent attention to detail?

Are you passionate about science, engineering, and technology?

Did you master Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube long ago?

If so, we invite you to submit your application to become Let’s Talk Science’s:

Coordinator, Online Volunteer Engagement

We are seeking a highly motivated self-starter with excellent knowledge about web technologies and social media for this new, full-time 1 year renewable contract position. As the successful candidate we prefer that you have a graduate degree in science or engineering, and volunteer management experience.  Previous experience with Let’s Talk Science is also an asset as you will better understand the dynamic and exciting environment in which we operate.

As a key member of our volunteer outreach team, and reporting to the President, you will focus on: building and managing an online volunteer engagement program, program administration and data management; implementing our outreach evaluation program; and other special projects and events, including the All Science Challenge. You will employ diverse online engagement tools in an effort to enrich the volunteer experience.

This position is based at the National Office in London, Ontario. However, location may be negotiable to the right candidate.

For more details, including a full position description please contact Heather Small

(877) 474-4081 x 227 or hr@letstalkscience.ca.

Interested candidates should submit their resume and cover letter by 5 p.m. on Friday February 26, 2010 to:

Heather Small

Human Resource Assistant

Let’s Talk Science, 1584 North Routledge Park

London, ON N6H 5L6

Or via email: hr@letstalkscience.ca (please submit in Word or pdf)

FAX: (519) 474-4085

Let’s Talk Science is committed to employment equity, welcomes diversity in the workplace and encourages applications from all qualified individuals.  While we appreciate all applications, only those invited for an interview will be acknowledged.

So the other day I was complaining on the Twitter about how Outlook doesn’t remind you if you forget to attach the document you intended to attach to an email the way Gmail does. (I have to use Outlook at work.  Not of my own free will.)  And since my tweets automatically post to my Facebook status, someone I went to elementary school with 20+ years ago saw my lament and pointed me to this posting on Lifehacker.  And now I will never ever send an email without its associated attachment again!

For those of you following along at home:

Outlook (≠ Gmail) –> Twitter –> Facebook –> Lifehacker –> Victory over missing attachments!

FourSquare, for those who don’t know, is a sort of urban game where you use your iPhone or Blackberry to “check in” to locations that you go to and then get credited points that don’t mean anything. If you are the person who “checks in” to a given location the most often (or the most often + most recent or some such), you get to be the mayor of that location¹.  Mostly mayorships don’t seem to mean anything, although I believe that some savvy businesses do give FourSquare mayor special deal (like a free coffee if you show that you are the mayor of a coffee shop).  You can check into already existing locations or, if a location isn’t in their database, you can add it.  Like whoever lives at 1601 W. 12th Ave,who apparently dubbed their place “The Bat Cave”:

1. I’m currently the mayor of 11 locations using the “go places that no other geeks seem to go” and “be addicted to my iPhone” strategy [↩]

…she left this link for you:

5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen¹.

Related: a blog posting from 2.5 years ago: Things That Bite.

1. Props to Kalev for bringing this important piece of scientific information to my attention [↩]

i⋅ro⋅ny
–noun
“a discrepancy between the expected result and actual results when enlivened by ‘perverse appropriateness’.”