Oct 3, 2008

Woot.com

Woot.com is an ecommerce site that sells one item a day. What makes the site unique is that their one item a day is always told with an interesting "pitch." Take today's gem, for instance, they're hocking a blood pressure machine; the pitch? That it will help you review movies more scientifically. I can't help but love it. I've included the text below because each day is something new on woot.com, and this description will be gone by Saturday. So if you're looking for a new site to waste time on instead of working, this is a good one...

STFU Maltin

Maybe it’s Death Race. Maybe it’s Eagle Eye. Maybe Wanted. This year everyone has one pretty lousy action movie that they still very much wanted to see. That’s the dirty little secret of the movie industry. Namely, that the system used by movie reviewers is completely unscientific.

You can throw out “four stars” and “six thumbs” all you want, but what does that mean? There’s really only one measure of thrills and romance, and that’s heart rate. So we’re proposing an new system based on the Prevention DS-2200PV Ultima Upper-Arm Blood Pressure Monitor.

With the ability to measure Systolic, Diastolic and pulse rate, the Prevention DS-2200PV Ultima Upper-Arm Blood Pressure Monitor can finally tell us which is more exciting, the first time Jason leaps out of the bushes in Friday The 13th or when Freddie grows to a hundred feet tall and eats Johnny Depp in Nightmare On Elm Street. The built in memory stores up to sixty readings, so you can poll your friends to find out who is the better leading lady, Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct or Lauren Bacall in To Have And Have Not. And once you get those readings, you can move them via the USB connection to your Windows PC. The Hypertension Data Management System lets you break down the measurements by hour, day, month or year, making sure we can finally have a guide to movies based on real numbers, and not some jerkface who thinks Blade Runner was lousy. I mean, honestly, Leonard Maltin.

With the Prevention DS-2200PV Ultima Upper-Arm Blood Pressure Monitor, you can find that guy who hates the Batman movies and shut him up once and for all. You can even use the irregular heartbeat indicator to see if you’ve got an irregular heartbeat. Good to know before you get in the popcorn line. And having visual cues will really help you understand what changes your blood pressure.

Don’t waste your time trying to explain the complex nature of chaos and order and how they entwine in a unending dance. Pull out some hard figures like a geek should! The Prevention DS-2200PV Ultima Upper-Arm Blood Pressure Monitor is your ticket to winning every movie debate conclusively. What’s better than being right?


Sep 30, 2008

Too good to ignore....

Alan RickmanThis really was too good to pass up.

In other news, I had a pretty fun-filled weekend. I went to a toga party on Friday night, which was fun, although it did make me feel a little old. I went with Bekah, but most everyone else there was about 21-23 and very enamored of drinking too much. Still entertaining, though...On the plus side, I did get to help Bekah make her toga so that was fun. I also spent the night with Bekah because, joy of joys, our hot water heater broke over the weekend! (Hooray for our landlord, though, it was fixed by Monday evening.)

Saturday morning, I went to talk about Til We Have Faces, which is shaping up to be a really interesting study. (More on that later, I'm sure.) After that, Bekah and I grabbed lunch at McAlister's and checked out the TJ Maxx Home store. Bekah got a super cute hat, and I got a new pillow! (Sadly, I left my new pillow in Huntsville on Sunday. [fail]) After that, we went on a bike ride, my first pleasure ride, since last time I was trying to get to work.

Then, I went home and took a cold shower (because the hot water heater was still out at this point) and packed up to head home to Huntsville. I got in around 9:00 and hung out with my parents for a bit. I wish I could have been there a little longer because we are entering the final days that they will be sharing a house.

[more lol celebs!]
Sunday morning, Dad and I took off for Prattville to watch the LPGA tournament they were hosting. We were hoping to get in 9 holes at a course in Birmingham, but no such luck. The tournament was pretty interesting, though, even if it was absurdly hot. I did get scolded by a player for taking a picture while they were taking a shot. (It wasn't intentional. Her sound guy looked like Santa Claus, and I needed to capture him on film for posterity. So I wasn't looking when she was putting, and I clicked as she was about to hit the ball. No harm, no foul, though. She made the putt.) It was good to hang out with my dad for the day. I got back into Nashville around 10:00, exhausted.

All in all, it was a very sunny, happy weekend, and I hope I can pack in as much fun over the next few weekends while we have fabulous fall weather.


Sep 24, 2008

I'm so hardcore


For those of you not in the Nashville area, we are having a bit of a gas shortage. It's a little surreal, but interesting in a, "Someday, I'll tell my kids about it," kind of way. The downside is that for the last 4 or 5 days, I had no gas, and none of the stations close to my house had any fuel. Which meant that I couldn't really go anywhere, including church and work.

I had to miss out on church. No worries, I can listen to the podcast today. But Monday, I rode my bike to work out of necessity. Big thanks to my sister, Sara, for giving it to me for my birthday this year. This is something I'd been hoping to start doing so it was more like an adventure than a trial.

Overall, it was a very fun experience. I loaded up my messenger bag with a change of clothes and a little bit of makeup, because I really am that vain, and took off. The ride itself isn't too bad. It's a little less than 4.5 miles. There's a stretch that's on a main road where I rode the sidewalk, which you really aren't supposed to do, but no one seemed to mind. I made it to work in about 30 minutes, with another 10 minutes of clean up time on arrival.

I did have a minor spill on the way in to work. Clip-in pedals, for the uninitiated, are both a boon and a hindrance on the road. On the pro side of the equation, you stay connected to the bike, allowing you to pedal more easily, particularly on hills. On the con side, if you don't clip out when you stop (or if you clip out on one side, but pitch to the other because your messenger bag thought it would be an opportune time to shift), you will fall. And you may hurt yourself. I got a pretty awesome bruise / scrape about the size of half dollar just below my right knee and another on my left that was smaller but bled a little.

The ride home was a little more difficult, as it was mostly uphill and there was more traffic. I did a little more sidewalk riding (sorry, pedestrians!), but I also didn't fall so a success on that front.

Later that night, I was walking home from community group and the gas station just down the road from me had gas. I had to wait a few minutes before I could fill up, but not too long. The moral of this story is that I should ride my bike to work because it's not difficult and it doesn't take too long. We'll see if it sticks...


Sep 18, 2008

Five Things

I've been reading 5ives.com lately. So here's a little list of my own.

Five Things on my nightstand whose presence is only explained by the fact that I'm still organizing my room.
1. Three-sided architect's ruler
2. Disposable chopsticks (unopened)
3. Matches
4. Screwdriver
5. Gold acrylic paint

Tomorrow is my birthday party, and there will be bowling. Hooray!


Sep 15, 2008

If you can't think of anything nice to say...

You post a funny video. I'll be back soon. Really.