Thursday, October 21, 2010

Un-Green Living


Desperate times call for desperate measures.  (Grad school + no dishwasher) x history of not doing dishes = unnecessary stress from a sink full of dirty dishes and eating cereal with serving spoon out of tupperware bowls or cups.  It started with paper bowls to stop the previously mentioned situations from happening and about a month ago I fully adopted an un-green kitchen.  I packed up my silverware (as to not tempt myself) and stocked my cabinets with paper plates, paper bowls, plastic cups, and plastic cutlery.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Hi, My Name Is Sarah

and I have Anxiety.  The capitalization of A in anxiety was intentional.  I'm talking about Anxiety as in this.

My therapist says I do an amazing job at keeping it under wraps (not managed, hidden), so much so that for the last year I haven't believed her about it.  It's likely that it's been present most of my life in a much milder form, however, when I hit one of my major life events in the last few years, especially grad school, it blew up and turned into a big bad ass disorder.  Sometimes I have anxiety attacks, other times it's just a perpetual beast.  Actually, I call it my "little monster."  I don't mean monster it a super crazy way, but like the monsters from Monsters, Inc.  My little monster grows and shrinks inside of me depending on the day, the situation, because it woke up on the wrong side of the bed - sometimes (a lot of the time) it grows for no apparent reason.  At it's simplest, it sucks.  At it's most complex, it's debilitating.

Well, my little monster is growing now as we speak about it, so I'll cut this short and see if I can build a machine like the one in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

I posted Tommy Knox's "Anxiety Again (3 am)" in on my video page a year or so ago.  I just found this music video of the same song - it's really good - and really accurate.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Do I Purchase Apps?

Yes.

I'm asked this question often, mostly in regards to my phone (android), but I also purchase a far amount of apps for my computer as well.  Here are the last 5 apps that I've purchased...

Clean My Mac - my most recent purchase.  More out of desperation than desire.  It's the best.  Expensive.  But according to MacWorld it's rated 4 and 1/2 mice.  MacUpdate also thinks it's pretty decent too with a much more traditional 4 stars.  The reason I sprang for this software was because when it comes to "cleaning" my computer I take it seriously.  Like, I seriously don't want the wrong things cleaned off of my computer.

By the way, my total "recovered" thus far is 4+ gb.



RipIt - I use this for ripping my dvds on to my computer.  My goal is to eliminate my dvd collection and instead have it all on a computer.  Less clutter, less hassle, and way easier to search, especially when wanting to watch certain tv episodes.  I've found RipIt to be SUPER easy.  I'll specify is where I want to play it when I'm done and it determines what format it needs to be in.  Example: I say I want to play it on itunes it puts it in the appropriate itunes format.  Or if I say I want to play it on my PS3 then it puts it in the correct format for that one.  I love this app.  Seriously.


Tagalicious - My music collection would not be the same - even close to the same - without this.  This little sucker can identify (magically) all those "untitled albums" I had lurking in my itunes library.  I had no idea how much more music I had until I got it all tagged, which wasn't that hard by the way.  It has a great user interface which always makes me feel more confident in an application.  This also inadvertently helped me find many duplicate songs I didn't know existed.

Rowmote - This is an app for my iPod Touch (that I got free with my Mac - love being a student).  I use to to extend the power of the Apple Remote app to the other applications on my computer - at the time, Hulu Desktop.  It's a nice little app that let's me control my computer from my couch.  Now, I'll also admit that I had an itunes gift card, which also influenced the purchase of this.  Not sure if I would have purchased it otherwise, but I've found it helpful.  Also, I sang "Row You're Mote" (to the tune of Row You're Boat the entire time it took me to find and upload this picture).

Chronories - This was my very first application I purchased on my new Mac.  It automates my journaling.  It also has little flashing things go off in my tool bar to remind me to write a bit or snap a picture or rate my mood.  I recommend checking out their website and checking out their video.  It would take me a long time to explain why I chose to spend $29 on this.  For me, someone who is a tad forgetful, seems to always be going at the speed of light, but wants to have a record of my life, it's perfect.

Looks like I lied about not updating soon in my last post.  I've learned I can't predict when I get in my posting modes.  When the next mood arises I'll put together a post on my free apps that I use.  There's a few more of those, get a excited.  While you wait I suggest checking out LifeHacker if you haven't already.  Love reading it.

Monday, October 11, 2010

I'm Alive

But you'll need to hop over to my site and check out my tweets, because it'll be awhile before postings happen again. Baby steps. Or you could just join the rest of us on twitter. :)