A Dean campaign friend, Amanda, IMed me urgently for the number of another Dean campaign worker, Zack Rosen, the other day. So in my search for his number I went to his blog. And as anyone who knows me knows, I have a thing about the tabs in Firefox and tend to have too many which tends to mean they live a longer life then they should. So Zack's blog get's refreshed and in my journey to find another tab I see this picture labeled Tony and I'm like, I know that guy from somewhere. And then it occurs to me, it was a different Amanda's boyfriend, otherwise known as the RA that lived downstairs from me my first year at college! This made me laugh uproariously, and of course post to the blog I never write on anymore. He probably doesn't even remember me, but here he is all those years later a friend of someone I used to work with.

Small world dudettes!

I am currently in charge of deciding the new family cell phone plan/provider, my mother's new laptop, a monitor and a wireless mouse for her, and my grandmother's new desktop computer.

There are few things as enjoyable to me as spending other people's money. (Because somehow I have failed at life and become a girl, i.e. someone who finds shopping enjoyable.) Especially when it's taking advantage of your market knowledge and it's fulfilling a need and a function. And did I say it wasn't my money?

So here are my thoughts on the current state of ecommerce. Drill-down shopping is where it's at. That said, they still don't know how to do it right. *cough* cnet, cdw, yahoo shopping, newegg *cough*

• Ranges over specifics would be an improvement.I don't really care whether the laptop has a 60 GB HDD or an 80 GB HDD. I care that it's 40+.
  
• I care about things others don't know to care about. I could give a hoot at the processor speed. I want a minimum of 7200 RPM on the HDD. I care more about the cache on the processor then the Ghz clocking.
  
• Instead of only being able to choose one out of a group (i.e. brand), give me checkboxes or the ability to take out of the group. For instance, I don't care what brand things are most of the time. In terms of computers I'm not going to let anyone buy a Sony/Vaio, an HP/Compaq, or an eMachine. But whether the decision ends up on a Dell, IBM, Apple, or Acer - I couldn't care less.
  
• Shopping.yahoo.com needs to standardize their feeds. Either they need to get their retail partners to submit their products by the manufactuer's ID number, or they need to gather all the manufactuer's ID numbers and then aggregate their retail partners products to the ID numbers. In either case, all the Acer Aspire 3004LCi's need to be listed as one product instead of, like, 5. Maybe it's just me, but it would make comparing products and prices easier.
  
• Remember how I want the results sorted. Again with the Yahoo! Shopping - this time it's trying to sort by some random factor everytime I add or subtract something from the drill-down instead of remembering I want it to sort by price.

When you get your credit card bill in the mail and there is an ad on the front of the envelope for a movie (Click, which has done so much marketing that it must suck) corporations have just gone too far.

Thanks to the wonders of PVRs, I watched the last 4 hours of this past season of Lost last night instead of oh, say, months ago when they were aired. I think the thing that impresses me the most is that they answered questions so we aren't left hanging and they don't have to write painful drawn out stuff but yet made the characters even more lost. I also think that this show will eventually make it into classrooms because it's a philosophy masterpiece. (Not that I know anything about philosophy.)

In other news, Jane Espenson is going to write an episode of Battlestar Gallactica! The level of awesome that statement has is unparalleled. I really like Jane, or at least the idea of her, because she seems to be motivated by what would be cool and by being a fan herself. I can't wait.

I don't know why I keep doing the start-a-blog-don't-keep-up-with-it-thing. I think it's because I don't grow enough of an audience for it to be worth it to me. Then again I used to write for 500,000 people a day - but that, that is not a topic that I will allow myself to discuss here.

I also have a little hatred towards blogs 'cause I think the '04 election focused on them too much. I want a bumper sticker that says "Blogs are not the answer, stupid."

Here's a self-challenge: get my previous blog entries entered here so they are all in one place. Wouldn't that be a novel idea?

I've gotten back into working on Wikipedia while watching TV. It's nice to be helping society while keeping my mind occupied. However, apparently using abbreviations in stub names isn't allowed so the last couple of hours of my work makes me feel totally unappreciated so I'm going to switch to Amazon.com's new "Artificial Artificial Intelligence" or "Human Intelligence Tasks" which will actually pay me as well. Now if Amazon could just get the bandwidth to deal with a slashdotting...

I'm currently debating where to put my energy. Should I try to build a female political blog? Should I try to build a consulting practice? Both?

The Colbert Report isn't even 2 weeks old and already I have decided to stop watching it. First of all some of his jokes aren't that funny, but I was willing to support the Daily Show veteran while he found his step. Then I saw him interview the author of He's Just Not That Into You. He was so rude while trying to make jokes. Even if he had suceeded in being funny that is no excuse for being rude to your guest. So no more Stephen Colbert for me. And for humor's sake please, please, stop showing him at the end of the Daily Show.

On the list of top ten stupidest things internet professionals can do is...

...buying Google as space for keywords you show up as the top result for.

Current example Here! TV. Glad to know my 3.99 (per movie!) is worth something.

It's been a long time since I've written, I know, but remember blogging used to be my job which makes it far less exciting to me now.

In any case I want to talk about cars. Having driven several different cars recently, let me tell you my impressions. First, Ford needs usability - the part of their front seat that has the cup holders you have to pull up the arm rest and then pull the cup holder part out from the back not the front; totally counterintuitive design and beyond frustrating. You can't use or buy a car without a cup holder. Second, Mitsubishi's SUV is awful to drive, you can not manuever the driver seat to a comfortable position so they're out. The best so far of all my rental cars was a Dodge - the cheapest one from Enterprise. Still, if I was to buy a car it would be a Prius. I mean does it get any better then Toyota's ad campaign for the Hybrid Synergy Drive? Seriously people.