29 posts tagged “smorty”

     I almost did a sport during the fall semester: Rugby. I wasn't a big fan of the other women's sports on campus, and since it was a relatively lesser-known sport, I wanted to try it for the heck of it. Jon made fun of me because he knew exactly how rough and violent it was, but...that's what really drew me to it. I can remember gym class in high school: I would come home completely exhausted, worn out, and loving the fact that. I've been waiting for the fall semester to roll back around so I can dedicate my time to it and have some fun with it.

    For those of you who are either curious about it, or are really big fans of rugby, there's a site that offers a rugby podcast amongst other things pertaining to the sport. Right now, I'm using it to watch and read about the teams in other countries -- really, for something that popular, I'm surprised it seems like no one in the US really knows that much about it! Check it out.

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    I admit to having many vices: food, television, shiny objects...however, there's one thing that's managed to slip past my addictive personality: gambling. Jon, however, is a card-playing machine. I'll admit that since he turned 18 (a year ago), I've been a little nervous about him doing something stupid pertaining to money, but then I realize that he's too smart for that -- and a lot of other people are, too.

    It amazes me that there are so many resources for things online. There's a site called Pro360.com that provides reviews of darn near every online casino there is (there are some I haven't heard of, and like I said, I've seen Jon play online...for hours). It factors in things such as customer support, payment options, and payout speed. It's very clear-cut and it does factor in user opinions -- on the front page of the site, it has the admin reviews and then next to that, the user reviews. It really gives you an idea of where you're putting your money (even if you are putting some of it up to chance).

    I can feel a little bit better now -- mister "I want to participate in the world poker tournament" can practice online with a little bit of a better idea of what to expect.

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     I've been living with my brother for the last few days, and I realized two things about him: first off, he's trying to go into selling things online, and secondly...he knows nothing about computers. For someone like him who is so connected, I still find it funny that he's managed to go without a home computer or Internet access for so long.

     I'm not exactly sure what he's planning just yet, but he's been talking about selling things online -- possibly on his own site. He's been asking me to show him how to use things: AIM, Internet explorer, and I know for a fact it's not going to be too long until he starts throwing around bigger phrases like the ones he's learning about at these seminars -- like ecommerce software.

     I've looked at Ashop before, and their ecommerce software and sites are pretty-straight forward. Definitely good for someone who's just starting work online. It's web based, so neither he nor I would have to go through the hassle of installing anything onto the computer he's getting next month. He's also being pretty aggressive with his goals -- he wants to have his car paid off in six months -- so the fact that this helps sites accept credit cards online would definitely make things easier.

    Check it out if you're interested....heck, he's trying to get me into this now!

<a href="http://www.ashopcommerce.com"><img border="0" src="https://members.smorty.com/members/advertiser/14/2007924145846.jpg"></a>

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     It's finally changing seasons around here at the university. Sure, the last few days have been what I call "the Revenge of Summer", but it cooled down for about a week here and I got a taste of what it would be like when Real Autumn finally decides to set it. It is NICE. Nice, and, well...cold.

      I don't know how cold it's going to be in October, November, December, or even January (which is usually when we get snow in Maryland), but it's something I've been thinking about. Right now, I have a very light comforter and a sheet -- that's it. I love it, but I'm also getting bored with the colors. So, I really have been thinking about getting some new bedding for my dorm very soon.

     This site, Terry's Fabrics, has (obviously) fabrics for sale, but they also have bedding sets that I've been looking at. They've got these quilted bedspreads that I've been looking at that are REALLY cute. I really like the blossom chocolate design, but...alas, I am in the United States, and I can't get things from there. *sigh*

     If you're in the UK, though, you might want to check them out for their bedding, but maybe just for their fabrics too.

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    To me, the word "conservatory" brings to mind thoughts of music -- I was going to attend a school of music known as the "conservatory" back when I was considering going into music as a career. However, I found a site that helped me learn something new today: conservatories can also mean a greenhouse. I didn't know that.
     I love greenhouses/conservatories. I'm a big fan of gardening and growing things in general (even though I don't get to do it much now). I found a site that sells conservatories in England whose designs are really quite pretty (I'm a fan of the Edwardian conservatory they have on their site). It just makes me think about other things I'd like to have when I get a home of my own -- and trust me, with all this dorm life, I've been thinking about it a lot.
     So, if you're a gardener, you might want to give that site a once over. Check it out.

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    If you go to any blog now, you'll see that a lot of the more regular bloggers are using multiple networking sites to make a presence online and to share media. I, for example, have a YouTube account, a Flickr account, a Facebook account, a Livejournal account, a Twitter account, and a VOX. I post different information to each of them on a relatively regular basis. I'm not the only one who does this -- go to any popular blog. I guarantee you they have at least a MySpace account, more accurately a MySpace, a Flickr, and a YouTube account.
   
    What if you could see all of your friends' information at once?

    Spokeo is trying to make that happen for you. Simply input your login info from any of the sites that it supports (Bebo, Blogger, Dailymotion, DeviantArt, Digg, Flickr, Fotolog, Friendster, Hi5, Imagestation, Imeem, Last.fm, Livejournal, MySpace, Netlog, Photobucket...I'm going to run out of space if I keep going!), and it will load into a separate frame any new postings or updates to any sites you have entered. It has a buddy list on the left-hand side that's very convenient and easily understood.
    My only complaint so far is that Spokeo takes a while to load information. I added my VOX information about two minutes ago, and it's still trying to load all of it (actually, it just timed out). However, this might be because I have a lot of neighbors.
    It's a fantastic idea in my opinion -- I don't ever think there will be the "end all, catch all" social networking website, but Spokeo has a pretty darn good idea giving you a feed of everything that's happening in your online world. Check it out if you use a lot of different online services, or just visit a lot of blogs -- they will catch the RSS feeds of blogs and tell you when they're updated, too.

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    When Jon graduated a year ago, I was reading through his yearbook and saw a quote from one of his classmates: "Your 'I Will' is more important than your IQ." A lot of people may roll their eyes at that, but I can say from personal experience that it's true.
    I have a friend named Chris. He is not the fastest worker on the face of the planet; what takes me 20 minutes to read may take him up to an entire hour. I had my homework done in about 60 minutes every night (that I did it, that is) -- he took five hours a night doing his work, studying, reading, and reviewing. He got As in every single class for an entire year, and graduated valedictorian of our class. Do I think that there were "smarter" people in our graduating class? Maybe, almost definitely yes, but none of them put in as much work as he did -- he earned every high mark he got.
    In The Pact (the book I'm reading for one of my classes), Sam, George, and Rameck wanted to become doctors. None of them had the study skills or academic background leaving high school to do it, so they put in the time and took courses and tutoring to get themselves up to par for college and medical school. Guess what? They all became doctors, because they worked at it, and were willing to take the time to do it.
    If you want to do well at something, if you invest the time and energy to do it, I really do believe you can do anything you want. Academically, it's much harder to do that, especially now -- but I think that if you, for example, get a Tutor, you can make up for any particular deficiency you have in a certain area. When I briefly flirted with the idea of becoming an engineer, I talked to every math and science teacher I could to get an idea of what I would need to do. Now that I know what I want to do, I'm taking the time to improve on certain things, such as my handwriting (I had teachers who had chicken scratch handwriting, and it drove me nuts).
    If there's something you genuinely want to do, go for it. There are plenty of resources out there to help you.

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    Anyone who knows me can tell you one thing: I'm an organization freak, and I love it. I'm a fan of things to carry my knick-knacks for crafting and writing (needles, quills, papers, etc.) -- I just love feeling like I'm prepared, and frankly, almost every single organizational thing I've seen has just been pretty.
    It's something I get from my Mom -- she's a big fan of a Jewelery Storage devices because...well, she has a lot of jewelry, and like me, she likes how things look when they're organized.
    Yazzii has makeup storage, craft storage, and Jewelery Storage items that are really cute and efficient. If you're a crafter, or scrap booker, or an organization fiend, you might want to check them out. They've got plenty of stuff on their site.
    Right now, I'm looking up a makeup bag for Ginger. I think she'll appreciate it.

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    One of my little goals in life is to do a lot of traveling -- I want to be able to say that I've seen the world, or at least more than just what's in walking distance. I've talked about it with Jon a few times, and he said he wouldn't be opposed to going on a trip with me (he better not be opposed to going somewhere with me, heh) as long as it meets certain requirements:

1. It cannot be anywhere that is currently experiencing a land war (read: nowhere in the Middle East or Africa).
2. It cannot be a trip to an amusement park.
3. It cannot be to a place where neither of us are proficient in the language.
4. It cannot be overly hot. Cold places are preferable.
5. It cannot involve too many plane trips.

    I've never thought about this, and I'm sure he'd probably think I was kidding, but apparently, there is such a thing as an "Alaska cruise vacation". It's never even struck my mind, has it for any of you? When I think of a "cruise", I always think of a place that's overly hot, which would mean that we would never go on one. I'd like to go on a cruise one day, and I've always been interested in seeing all 50 of the U.S. states -- my cousin and her husband have a map that they use just to mark where they travel. Since then, I've wanted to go and see what each state has to offer, then go to different countries -- why explore the "big city" when you haven't even figured out your own back yard?
    Oh, and the pictures of the bodies of water and of the forests are just stunning. There's just not very much that resembles that where I live now.

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    I don't think I've ever talked about this, but when I was 14, I went to a college and studied American legal history. One of our classes-slash-lectures-slash-activities for the day was a field trip -- we got to go to a courthouse to watch "how things were done", since obviously, the hypothetical can only yield so much in comparison to the real thing.
    What surprised me was the fact that in Philadelphia (that's where we went since the college was nearby), there weren't many Philadelphia Lawyers with the people who were having their cases heard. So many people were there by themselves, and I can't imagine what that must feel like. To me, that would be one of the scariest things I could imagine -- one wrong word, and you might wind up losing so much.
    I had thought about becoming a lawyer after watching all of that -- it seems like a very meaningful profession. If someone's in trouble, they should have someone there who can help them through it. I think that goes for everything, but especially in something of a larger scale like court cases and things pertaining to the law.

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