I dont recall ever being in an earthquake, but some of my friends up in St. Louis experienced one on friday.  The New Madrid Seismic Zone let loose a 5.2 earthquake at the early hours…  Kind of weird, in the midwest we aren’t used to hearing about earthquakes!!  The last big one was in 1812!

Here’s the Wiki link about the April 18, 2008 earthquake (Weird coincidence that it’s on the same day -different year- as the San Fransisco earthquake!).

On another note…

I got a Palm Centro!!!  Finally!  Great phone I must say.  It’s my very first smart phone, so I’m finally breaking my way into things a bit more tech savvy.  Yay for stuff I can afford!!  I’ll post a review of it once I get the feel for the phone/apps/etc…  I’ve just had it two days, so I don’t know if it’s the perfect phone or not quite yet.  I’ll keep ya posted!

I don’t know whether net neutrality is getting serious right now or not, but I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about it.  It’s kind of confusing to me…  From what I understand, net neutrality basically means consumers (thats me and you) are free to use the internet as we wish through whatever service provider we decide to use.  If we go for the same package, we get the same speed for the same webpages, no matter whether we use it for BitTorrent, youtube, or just email.  It’s freedom at it’s best.

Those that are against neutrality are those big communication companies who have tons of supporters and people that give them big money.  Those people that give them lots of money get fast websites, fast connections… fast everything.  Those that don’t give them lots of money get slow connections and websites.

Now, seeing that I’m a ultra geek who likes to watch videos, download tons of stuff, write blogs (duh) and whatnot, obviously I’m for net neutrality and internet freedom.  I don’t want to have to pay some big company who already has too much money, some of my cash that I need to save because Im a poor ass college student.  I don’t want my favorite podcasters having to pay a larger fee for their internet connection so they can keep their current bandwidths.

The internet started free, and it should remain free (once you’ve payed your monthly bill, of course).

Check out Amber Mac’s video blog about her view on net neutrality in Canada.

And here’s 90 day Tania and her friends talking about net neutrality in Europe.

I saw the coolest bumper sticker ever and I had to share it with everyone.

If you don’t get it, I really like Half-Life (The video game), and Gordon Freeman is the man.  I wonder how many people in Springfield have actually seen this jeep and understood the bumper sticker?

On another note, I got a hair cut!  Yay!  I found a wonderful hair dresser at Trade Secret, and she basically rocks.  It’s a shame I have to find a new hair dresser over the summer when I move!

It’s true!

The Hero of Time (The Legend of Zelda) is an full-length, independent Zelda movie being made by a small group of producers and film buffs called “BMB Finishes”. They have been working on this movie for nearly three years, and it is now nearing completion. It is a fully independent production. All of the people making the movie are big fans of the Zelda series, and they have put a ton of creativity and effort into this film.

Here’s a link!

And this is the trailer!

I don’t care how b-rated it looks.  It’s a low budget indy movie, and anyone who’s got the motivation and time to make a movie about my favorite video game pretty much deserves my 2 thumbs up.  I can’t wait til this is out.

I found this article on the new absinthe that came out last year. This guy tasted the new absinthe, called Lucid, and says it’s not actually as good as the imported version. I still want to taste Lucid, though…
Barely Legal: American Absinthe Passes the Taste Test

The absinthe revival, which has been on the move for more than a decade, just took a leap forward.

For years, American aficionados of the banned beverage that inspired such artists as Vincent Van Gogh and Marilyn Manson, have made do with quasi-legally imported European brands or, worse yet, near-substitutes made without wormwood, the critical ingredient that gives absinthe its distinctive, biting taste.

You need wormwood to make real absinthe, but the herb is a tricky one to work with — one of its key compounds, thujone, has long been considered the cause of the drink’s supposed side effects: hallucinations, artistic inspiration, degeneracy and homicidal mania. Thujone has been prohibited as a food and drink ingredient in the United States since 1912. (more…)

I’ll admit it, Adobe Photoshop is intimidating. You first open it and you think, wtf do allthese buttons mean? After playing for a lil bit, I found the filter button at the top.

This is how Glamour shots do all those spiffy effects that you pay hundreds of dollars for. So here ya go, if you’ve just downloaded Photoshop and wanna do something to impress your grandma:

I like the Diffuse Glow filter. So, all you have to do to create this effect is make your background color white

if you want a white glow. Make it pink for a pink glow, etc. Your foreground color can be any color, it doens’t really matter at this point. Both the foreground

and background buttons are on the side bar.

Then, once you have your desired color, select Filter–>Distort–>Diffuse Glow. You can also play with other filters using the filter gallery located under the filter menu.

Try it out!

This is one of the first things you can discover using photoshop. Open it up, toy with the features, and start developing your own pretty art

So I was on the internet last night…

And I ran across this blog called 90 Day Tania. It’s a suicide blog about this 25 year old girl who looks at life very depressingly. I read the whole blog, and I thought it sounded kinda inhuman on parts. I don’t know why someone would want to commit suicide other than to bring attention to themselves. If your life is so bad, then there’s nowhere to look but up. It couldn’t get worse, so try to make it better. 90 Day Tania is an “Anti ’suicide culture’ campaign aimed at these emo bloggers. Tania’s blog just seems odd to me, and I don’t know if it’s helping these depressed kids or not. Either way, it’s a very different/interesting read.

Also, while I was driving home the other day, I noticed this:

The bleeding logs at the base of the tree pretty much sum it up.

Here’s a nifty new site to check out:

Driftr.com - Travel Community

You can post blogs, pictures, etc. about your recent travels. It looks like a pretty awesome community if you are into traveling. I heard about this off the podcast CommandN and it looks really cool!

EDIT:

I just started my Driftr account…  Check it out!

Zomg Cali Lewis totally used my soon-to-be new room on her Geek Brief #334! haha! She’s talking about a new site called Journey2Work. Darren stole my camera to take a picture of his journey to his home office

Awesome!

For all of you from the US who have seen commercials for freecreditreport.com, don’t beleive it. I repeat: IT IS A LIE. I received a small fee of 14.95 on my credit card a few days ago, and today I called to find out why. Apparently I signed up for a credit monitoring charging program when I got my FREE credit report. As I do not recall seeing this in their terms and conditions, I called to cancel my apparent ‘membership’. The nice lady from another country cancelled my membership, but she didn’t refund my money. I asked for a supervisor, but she said he doesn’t take calls. I got her name, and she told me a confirmation number would be in my email soon. So then I went to the Better Business Bureau to file a complaint. After looking around that site I found out they have had thousands of complaints just like mine! And they’ve been fined Twice for a million bucks!

My suggestion: Get your credit report from another site. Don’t do business with CiC Triple Advantage (the head business of fcr.com). They are fraudulent, scammers, and deceivers.

Ugh. I’m so pissed off.