1,000 words

2006-12-04T16:27:00.000-05:00

My twin brother plays in a metal band called Dim the Lights. Even if he weren't my twin brother, I would still think that he's the best guitar player I know... at least, as far as metal is concerned. Yeah, dang, I thought I had more to say but I started this post a while ago and then forgot about it. Well. You should check out their band... It's not my thing but they do know how to rock out. Speaking of rocking out, I must get going. Tonight, Owen is playing at Axis. He doesn't exactly rock out but he is still amazing. Indeed.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.

2006-11-06T22:05:00.000-05:00

I'm a fan of auction websites like eBay.
They're great for buying hard to find things or even expensive things very cheap.
I'm always wary of buying electronics on eBay, just because I'm afraid I will get scammed, but the last purchase I did make was of an Apple iSight. Apple has stopped selling them in stores, probably because they are coming out with a newer version, but... I finally decided to get my hands on one. And it was now or never. Needless to say, I love it.
Anyway.
The way eBay works is that it allows members to sell goods that they own or bid on goods that another member is selling. It's competitve like an auction because prices constantly go up, seeing as members can bid on items 24 hours a day.
EBay is pretty much a peer-to-peer network. Some people run their businesses on eBay, or have a branch of their business on eBay, while others may sell something once every couple of months. The sellers interact with the bidders/winners themselves, which is why I call eBay a peer-to-peer network.
One of eBay's very nice features is that it can provide a very detailed search. Whatever is searched for will be in the results, not just part of the word/words but all of it. If you are searching for clothing, you can even narrow it down to size or if you are searching for products related to a music group, you can narrow it down to posters, CDs, etc. There are various categories with various detailed features, that way, you don't get results that are unrelated to your search.

One of eBay's biggest known competitors is craigslist.
Unlike eBay, which is a corporation, craigslist is a very basic looking website which really is an online version of classified ads. Anyone can post a classified in various categories in craigslist. What makes craigslist more popular for some people is that it is broken up into search results by location, this way, whoever is looking to buy can look for something within their area. Ebay, on the other hand, is an international selling market, where people in the U.S. can buy from people in Japan and receive their goods in the mail. Ebay is less focused on location than it is on goods. EBay also has controls for what type of items may be sold and also has member ratings, so if a member scams another member and takes their money, that member gets lower ratings. Craigslist has no rating system and pretty much anything can be sold, so there is a greater need for trust between buyers and sellers. Another different feature of craigslist is that there is no bidding system like eBay. Craigslist is on a first-come-first-serve basis, or it is up to the seller to choose who they want to sell it to, if they have multiple offers. Two of craigslist's most used categories of search are jobs and housing, two things that eBay does not offer on its website. For this reason alone, craigslist will always be around to serve as competition for the growing peer-to-peer online marketplace.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.

2006-10-18T22:53:00.000-05:00

I guess all I really need to say is thank you, to Nellie Kluz, for posting a link to my blog on her blog site. You should take a look at Nellie's Blog- there's a link in my sidebar. It's a pretty sweet site.
And I think something else of importance to state is that Jeffrey Sebelia just kicked ass on Project Runway and won. Fuck yeah. Here's to you, man.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.

2006-10-09T17:44:00.000-05:00

I recently installed a google analytics statistics counter type of thing on this blog. It seems as though in the past week, I haven't been getting many visitors. Actually, I've only had 2 visitors and they've each looked at one page. I have a pretty solid feeling that I am that visitor, too. I'm not worried about it. I'm not so interested in getting myself out there in this kind of manner. It's all fun and games, for me.

Here are my blog site statistics so far:

Date Range	Visits	Pageviews
10/2/2006-10/8/2006	2	2

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.

2006-10-03T15:42:00.000-05:00

This post is going to be a combination of homework and a real post.

First, the homework part- I chose to find a path between Nordstrom and Hershey Foods because both of those companies remind me of home. I live 20 minutes from Hershey and all of its chocolatey greatness (I love Hershey, a ton) and about an hour from Nordstrom... which isn't close really but... there's no Nordstrom anywhere near BU, so I've only ever associated this store with home. Anyway. there are four people and three companies that directly connect Nordstrom to Hershey Foods. WIlliam D. Ruckelhaus connects to Nordstrom and Weyerhaeuser, Steven R. Rogel connects to Weyerhaeuser and Kroger, John. L Clendenin connects to Kroger and Home Depot, and Bonnie Hill connects from Home Depot to Hershey Foods. Bonnie Hill is also on the board of directors of two other companies- Yum Brands and Albertson's. She was my "Fatty Person" (connected to the most companies) WHICH IS IRONIC BECAUSE 3 OUT OF THOSE 4 COMPANIES ARE FOOD RELATED. Silly Bonnie Hill...

Alright. Here's what's going on with that map of Pennsylvania. I highlighted four areas on the map- Hershey, my home, Nordstrom (aka King of Prussia Mall aka the second largest mall in the US), and Bird-In-Hand, where the amish shootings took place yesterday. I wanted to give you an idea of how close I am to all of those different things... in particular, Lancaster County/Bird-In-Hand. Here's the history of my personal relationship with Lancaster County:
- As a kid, I remember seeing Lancaster as Pennsy's big city of fun- Dutch Wonderland, water slides that my family went to every summer, the Strasburg Railroad, Park City, the outlets... etc...
- As a kid, my mom took me to different parts of Lancaster County, once a week for violin lessons
- I attended Lancaster Catholic High School for part of my Freshman year, a 40 minute drive from home and took away some great navigational skills for driving around Lancaster County, in the end
- My boyfriend of well over a year is from Manheim, a city in Lancaster County.
Hmm. So, yeah. I guess I'm just disturbed with how much violence has been going on in schools over the past week. I'm also disturbed with the fact that this is the second shooting in Lancaster County that has grabbed national attention in less than a year. (Remember: the boy murdering his girlfriend's parents and fleeing with her across the country in his car. PS: my boyfriend has friends who are friends with that boy... three degrees of separation... ha.) I don't know. I can never rationalize murdering any human being, and yeah, that means of all shapes and sizes, of all ethnicities and mindsets. Capital Punishment? No. Abortion? No. Don't even get me started on that whole "A woman has a choice thing." Fuck that nonsense!
Alright, well. That is all I need to say for now. I hope the world settles down a little. Please...

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.

2006-09-25T20:20:00.000-05:00

Typically I post pictures that I have taken, but this time, I'm posting a picture from a movie I just saw because it captures what I loved about the film. Michel Gondry's newest film "The Science of Sleep" exposes more of his artistic direction and invention than his last major motion picture "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Science of Sleep is a lot like his music videos, some most notably made for the White Stripes and Bjork. The film tells the story of a boy's mixed-up real life and his even more bizarre dream life. (I don't really want to give a synopsis of the film because I'm not so great at doing so, but) This image is from one of the boy's dreams, where he is in the office of the new job he hates and his busy hands begin to grow and grow and grow the more his co-workers tell him what to do. He begins to go after his co-workers with his giant hands and tries to squeeze one of them to death. The amazing thing about this scene is that though it looks bizarre and one would assume special effects were used, Michel Gondry actually had the actor wear large hands and edited the scene frame by frame. This isn't his most astonishing directing in the film but it is certainly one of the scenes that made me laugh the hardest and made me love the film for all of its artistic endeavors. Gondry is more of an inventive artist than he is a director and I would encourage everyone to take a look at his newest masterpiece, "The Science of Sleep."

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.

2006-09-23T17:36:00.000-05:00

Another homework post. Here goes...

I guess you could say that half of the reason why I bookmarked Nellie Kluz's blog is because we're friends, but honestly, the other half of the reason for my doing so is because I find it a pretty interesting and enjoyable read. When she told me about it and how she sparked the idea for it from a book she read as a kid, I knew it'd be a quality blog... and oh, it is.
The other site I chose to bookmark was the BU calendar of events. Nine times out of ten, I have no idea what is going on at BU, so I thought bookmarking this important page would be a great boost in my... social... life...or something of that sort.

Check out the sites I added to the CS-103 bookmark group:

My own website

The Rejected Cartoons

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.

2006-09-23T16:27:00.000-05:00

Perhaps this can't be a picture entry because it must be a homework entry, so here goes.
I chose the Creative Commons License
Atrribution-No derivatives
so that people are able to redistribute my work only under the conditions that I am accredited and my work is not changed. I wasn't sure how I felt about someone changing around my words, pictures or anything else for that matter, so I stuck with the no derivatives rule. It's pretty self-explanatory I guess but here is the link to the Commons Deed page.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.

2006-09-14T18:07:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's just my family, but we always celebrate the birthdays of our pets like they're one of us(...minus the presents). We've gone through a lot of pets in my household. Three bullmastiffs- one was hit by a car after we got him, the next died at the age of nine and the last one we gave away because he turned out to be a vicious animal. Two yellow labs- the first I grew very fond of and he died at the age of nine last summer, and the second, who I'm also extremely fond of, is our only dog as of now. One phenomenal mastiff, Molly, who was unlike any dog I have ever met, who also died last year, three months after my yellow lab had died. She was only five. My mom seems to like cats (I could do without them), which is probably why we've had three of them- the first died at nine (there's a strange pattern), the second just had her ninth birthday (which is too bad because she's an awful cat) and the last is a silly cat who really thinks he is a dog. Hmm. And then of course there are the four hamsters that multiplied into 17 hamsters... yuck... and the many goldfish won at carnivals. I have always liked animals and have always treated them like they're human.
My parents were on their 25th wedding anniversary trip in Poland and Max, our newest member of the family, was having his first birthday. My sister and I bought him a cupcake and gave him a little celebration like we always do with our animals. I am especially fond of Max... maybe because I feel bad for him because he doesn't have another dog to play with... or maybe just because he has a great temperament. I loved watching him munch down his first birthday cup cake and seeing the icing hang all over his jowels. Animal humor. It gets me everytime...

For more things that make me laugh, click below:
Rhymes With Orange
If I could meet anyone...

2006-09-11T17:05:00.000-05:00

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then I have a lot of pictures with a billion things to say.

Two years ago, I spent my summer at a New York Film Academy film camp at Harvard. It's a summer I will never forget and a program I will forever support. Each student had to create three films- a mise-en-scene, a music video, and a final film. Being short on actors, all of us hopeful filmmaking students acted in each others pieces. I played it all- from a dead girl, to a vampire to here, a girl in a Fez hat, meant for a boy... in a Fez hat. Maybe this one wasn't my favorite (the vampire wins, hands down), but I did have a fun time improvising the act on my own. Somehow I felt like I was in Aladdin, missing Apu and that apple he rolled down his arm...so, I compromised and bought a bunch of bananas instead (Apu=monkey=banana=fruit=apple.... it all evens out). All in all, I had a fun time monkeying around with Rafi, my "match made in Heaven" and decided to post this picture first so you can have a little piece of the past and a little piece of who I am. A student, a filmmaker, a photograph lover.

That's not a thousand words, but I am only just starting.
Here's to bigger pictures with bigger meanings.
Here's to what's beneath the surface.