go-go gadget

i’m a gadget girl. i am horrrrrrible at technology (like i can’t even upload pictures to facebook or figure out how to turn on my printer), but i am obsessed with electronics. i am also very easily talked into buying things at stores. sucker for technology + easy target at stores = gadget geek.

of course i have a blackberry and a macbook pro and other normal electronics like that, but today i want to talk about two of my other favorite gadgets.

1. nook

i’m obsessed with my nook. it’s the barnes + noble version of an e-reader. it is SOOO convenient and useful. the nook holds an obscene amount of books. when i see a book i like, i order it on my nook and i have it automatically.  i am an instant gratification type of girl, so i love that i don’t have to run to the bookstore or library when i hear about a book i want to read. i have a backlog of books on my nook, so whenever i finish one i instantly have another at my fingertips. also, the nook is AMAZEBALLS for travel.  i spend several months each summer in africa, and there is noooo way i could lug all the books i want to read there with me. i read like 15 books this past summer, and those books would have taken up an entire suitcase! if you don’t have a nook or kindle or other type of e-reader, put one on your wishlist asap!

2. clarisonic face brush

this gadget is life changing. end of story. it’s basically an electronic brush that you use to wash your face. its bristles rotate and massage your face. it doesn’t hurt at all- i actually think it feels really good! my face feels sooo clean afterwards. also, this gadget has done wonders for my skin. it’s never been so smooth and clear. i have the brush with the body attachment too, which is really cool because then i can use it to exfoliate my body. supa cool!

go get your gadget on!

xo charlotte

oh the woes of technology

so i’m grateful that i was born in the 20th century where we have things like cars, tv, indoor plumbing, internet and cell phones cus seriously life would suck if you had to dig a hole every time you went to the bathroom. actually three years ago when i visited korea, my family and i visited a village that was subsidized by the government to remain “uncorrupted” by technology as a tourist attraction to see how koreans lived in the olden days. let me tell you…it sucked. the “toilet” is this HUGE hole like 10 feet or so deep with a 2 feet diameter that has two 2×4 boards across it where you have to walk across (one per each foot) and then squat to go to the bathroom. and there is a good chance you can slip and fall into it–especially if its raining or dark. apparently people have died in holes like those…oh what a way to go (haha no pun intended). another “toilet” i saw was this pig pen built out of rocks that was about 2 feet high where this huge sow was kept. i thought it was their pet, or at least a future dinner. that’s why i was extremely disturbed when i found out it was their personal toilet. there was a little opening at the bottom of the rock wall place someone could squat and provide “dinner” for this huge sow. i freaked out when i learned that–sounds like animal cruelty to me!!! (i hope they actually don’t EVER eat that pig..disgusting). so anyway, it definitely would’ve sucked to live in the past…can you imagine being the little girl on the prarie (if anyone has ever read those books when they were younger)? milking cows, obeying your mom and making sandwiches for your man…sucks for them. but i must say as much as technology has increased quality of life and in turn, happiness, there are definitely some downsides. for example: even though we are in completely separate countries, charlotte can BBM me for FREE and yell at me for not posting on the blog, and then i  can’t even pretend i never received the message because she is notified that i have read it. great. so now i am going to talk a little bit more about technology.

gps. how the eff did people get around without it, right? well like how i get around: with a handy dandy set of mapquest directions and a odometer! yeah it’s sad…if you see me driving on the highway trying to read a sheet of paper and drive at 75 mph at the same time…get away from me! that’s me trying to get to my dentist appointment. and hopefully i would not have missed a crucial exit or else i’d be panicking cus i’d be screwed. dunzo. that’s the worst cus there’s no way i’d ever find my way there now. i guess there’s some perks to not owning a gps–over the 3 years i’ve been driving i’ve developed an extremely good sense of direction. i can always get home no matter where i am, and if i’ve driven there once i can remember how to get there. sort of like a human gps. this comes in handy for intense on days like today. i went to my eye doctor that’s 30 minutes from my house in a town i don’t know but i forgot to get directions on how to get back home. i just turned right and kept turning right and trying to go in a direction i thought was north. 20 minutes later i hit the place i used to row from! from there it took me 30 minutes to get home b/c i remembered how to drive home from senior year. i don’t know how i ended up in that town because it’s not really close to the town i was in but i managed. however, it does suck when your trying to go home and you end up in the ghetto at 3 am when there’s no cars around, no building lights on, and no people on the street after you hear stories of what happens to girls that are by themselves in that city. that was just a little terrifying i’m not going to lie. that was one of the only time i locked my car doors…yea i’m a bamF.

OH and another creepy thing about technology. i can find you. these days it’s so simple to find out about a person’s life LIKE THAT. for example, if you sent me the first name of a person, his school, his graduation date, i can probably find him on facebook surfing through mutual friends of that school. if he told you the name of his street i can google map it to make sure it exists. then i can cross check the white pages for someone with his last name and find out where he lives. and then i can hopefully see his pictures, find out who his friends are, and then judge him off his facebook profile. then i can tell you if he’s attractive or not (in my opinion) and then you can hook up with him while weighing my opinions/your own opinions. CREEPY right? (by the way this is all theoretical…it did not really happen..)

technology does have a lot of benefits though so i shouldn’t be complaining…i have seen a 46.7% decrease in the amount of cavities i’ve gotten since i got the spinbrush and i can proudly say my ex is not doing better than me ;) OH and the best thing? you can order chipotle from an iphone! wtf. clearly iphone > blackberry (too bad the iphone came out for verizon 2 months after i got my bb fml)

until spring break is over because i will be NOT blogging til i need to procrastinate from work (and blogging takes away from quality time that can be spent sleeping, eating, and other fun things),
mary

cReEpEr

it’s kind of freaking me out that people are actually clicking one of the links on facebook and reading this blog because this proves that people actually read their newsfeed (too bad we can’t see who you are!) you’re probably one of charlotte’s 12903247897 facebook friends because i only have 580, proving that i am socially inept (according to her.) i would have more except i deleted over 300 friends last year because a) i’m weird and b) i creep myself out. i decided to do this last year when i was just casually thinking about my facebook habits. i’m a big facebook stalker surfer. last year i probably averaged about three hours a day. (Since i’ve gotten my blackberry i’ve cut it down to like 15 min tho!) my surfing has gotten so bad that i sometimes look at people’s profile who i don’t know and read all their wall posts and look at their pictures from five years ago. tthis sometimes becomes a problem because then i feel like i know the person, when i don’t. two winters ago, a boy i recognized came into my work and i was about to say “Hey Pat!” when i realized i did not know him, nor had i ever even seen him in real life. But I thought I did because he had commented on a mutual friends status and I had thorougly stalked his profile…oops. basically, I’M A CREEP. which got me wondering…i can’t be the only one cus everyone has a little creep curiosity in them. So who’s looking at my profile is the question? 800 facebook friends is a lot…especially when i probably only talk to about 50 of them (this might be an overestimation). 800 people can see my pics! my status updates! my wall! that is 800 people who can look at my facebook and find out about my life (except no one cares about my life) or in reality more like judge me for any pictures or comments on my facebook. i basically creeped myself out by thinking of all the people who could potentially be creeping on my facebook (except this is a little presumptuous because i don’t know any weirdos who would stalk my profile but the thought of it was still creepy). sooooo IT WAS TIME FOR A FACEBOOK CUT!!! i vowed to get my friend list to 500 which meant 300 people had to go. if you’re still my friend, congrats you made the cut! That means you are a) either a family member (except my mom), b) a friend, c) a former friend, d) a good friend of one of my good friends e) a hot guy or f) someone who I like to stalk regularly and/or live vicariously through. And it was kind of sad, not gunna lie, because everytime I clicked the ‘defriend’ button I felt a little satisfaction, like there goes one more person who could’ve potentially been looking at my facebook and laughing at my pictures! and yes, people do laugh at pictures because me and my bff have a continuous thread called ‘why the eff haven’t they untagged this/what were they thinking?’ so anyway, 300 less friends later, i felt relieved…until i got a friend request a week later from someone i had deleted. AWKWARD. and this is when i learned you cannot delete people from your facebook. it just makes you look like the biggest d-bag, especially when they know you were friends with them. and i realized, it doesn’t matter if people creep on my facebook…cus i don’t give an eff. judge me bitches cus HATERS GUNNA HATE. besides i figure i put up so many annoying status updates that people will either hide me on their newsfeed or delete me from their friends list. so anyway, this is my long-ass pointless story which is representative of me in real life where i tell stories and then people go “cool mary, can you tell it again?” and i hope you’re having a better night than i am, but probably not since you’re reading this. :)

mary

procrastination

so charlotte thinks that i’m not very interested in the blog but I AM :) .  this is going to be a GREAT procrastination tool. charlotte also came up with about a million things to write about and i am going to draw from that list for inspiration.  i’m lying in my bed attempting to do work while my roommate, a, is trying to tempt me to watch glee.  first thing about me: i LOVE glee, and basically anything where music is involved.  so she’s sitting here trying to tempt me by telling me that they’re drinking in school, and while that sounds fun i’m already procrastinating in blog form.

the first topic that i’m going to choose off of the list is blackberrys.  i am OBSESSED with my blackberry (it’s already been almost a year since i switched over and i cannot imagine my life without it, sad…) but it does come with its own set of problems.  while bbm is awesome because it’s soo quick, it also means that you cannot hide from ANYONE.  at our school this tends to be a problem when you live, eat, take classes, AND go out with all the same people–sometimes you need to escape and you just can’t.  this becomes a problem especially when you’re attempting homework, like i was a few minutes ago, and your phone does not stop buzzing with bbms.  it becomes an even bigger problem when the phone just freezes because the bbms are coming in too fast. why do blackberrys always freeze? or is it just my blackberry? anyway, once the three of us all had blackberrys it was amaazzing because we could have group chats.  those have made our lives.  my parents didn’t understand why we needed to be able to text, call, AND bbm each other while most likely in the same room, but like charlotte said–we’re clearly obsessed with each other. it also helps us live up to our names of bitch 1, 2, and 3 and to have quick convos about all of the craazy people around us. sometimes it feels like we’re the only sane people at this school which is really saying something =P

i’ve never blogged before so i hope this is an adequate post and i’m really excited that we started doing this!  my next post will be longer/better, but for now it’s time to go back to italian and research methods…or at least until i find a new way to procrastinate.

xx m

p.s. t-17 days til the dominican!