QUI

So I was trolling through MySpace again, searching for some info on Brett Dennan (since he is opening for Colbie Caillat at the 930 Club in November) and I came across these lemons... and they are Qui.

A little background: I am super excited that there is a female Colbie out there getting famous, even if she does spell her name wrong. I'm ok with having a gender-ambiguous name but I'm a little tired of having a guys name. Also - we've been going to some shows lately (yay, Blue October!) and this whole business of extended opening acts is getting tiring, so I want to see what he's up to. And - as most people who know her know - Qui eats lemons whole. Always has, always will.

Love ya girl

Read your drug labels!

I left my doctor's office the other day with a prescription for Augmentin and, although I recognized it as a drug I hadn't taken before, I didn't see anything wrong with it. I went down to my local CVS (which is convenient in its location but not its hours) and my pharmacists filled it without question.

Only when I got the medication home and noticed that my generic version of Augmentin was abbreviated AMOX did I worry. AMOX sounded an awful lot like amoxicillin, which sounds an awful lot like penicillin, to which I am allergic.

Turns out it's a good thing I checked... because all of my concerns checked out and now I have new drugs.

So, kids, it pays to read your prescription lables!

iPodding

My iPod has been acting up lately.

To be more specific, the combination of a 1st Generation iPod nano, a Dell Inspiron, Windows XP, and a massive external hard drive containing my entire music collection... is not playing well together.

After hours and hours of digging through help articles, discussion forums, and random internet rantings, I have come to the conclusion that my iPod is not corrupt, does not need to be restored, is not sharing a hard drive letter assignment with another USB-powered device, is fully charged, and (unfortunately) still won't sync with my computer. Not much of a conclusion for me, so I lie in wait, hoping that some helpful person will read my last plea for help and offer me some sage advice.

Any takers?

Boobs & Midgets

Reading through my Gmail, an ad for the latest sports headline on CNN popped up and reminded me of a funny story.

I was sitting at Ella's Pizza last night with some friends and were were momentarily sucked into the tennis match playing on TV: it turned out to be one the final round of the U.S. Open. We watched as Justine Henin masterfully defeated Svetlana Huznetsova, which was all the more amazing given their difference in size. Svetlana looked like she could crush Justine with her biceps or her thighs, but apparently, Justine was on the other side of the net lobbing 100+ mph balls at her opponent. Justine is on 125 pounds! (so that's the midget part)

This was all made the more funny by the crowd across the bar who was oh-so-into the tennis match. Jack and I were trying to figure out how in the world scoring works in tennis (we settled on something about 60 and love) and were close to asking for help. The only problem was that the sangria-imbibed expert had boobs that came about 10 miles before she did. I swear, I don't know how people let them hang out like that all the time... I don't have a moral issue with them, but I would be so afraid that one of those things would perk right out of that ever-so-low-cut sun dress and slap somebody across the face!

And you know that bar fights never end well. (so that's the boob part)

Globalization in my mailbox

I'm still reading through all of the mail that I got while I was on vacation - plus some that had piled up before I left. While taking a leisurely look through my catalogs, I came across a comforter from Garnet Hill. The description reads: "Neapolitan Stripe Flannel Bedding. Crafted in Germany in the traditional English style..."

An Italian stripe on an English item that is made in Germany? This is worse than the EURO...

Apples vs. Gates

I came across Mike Elgan's latest article today and it inspired me to comment. I've been thinking a lot about this blog today, especially as I read through my current favorite book.

A quick aside: I realize that it's always going to be difficult for me to comment on what I'm currently reading. When something is good enough to make me think, I just want to devour it and can hardly bare to pause in my reading to bend down a page, much less to high-tail it to my computer to jot down my insights. I also hate folding down the edges of book pages - though not as much as I hate bent book spines! Anyway, relating that to this blog... I realized that I might have better luck commenting on anything that I read, rather than just books. For example, this news article is short enough, and online enough, to give me time and motivation to write up my thoughts. So, we'll see if it sticks.

This article is pretty interesting to me, as it starts out highlighting all of the realistic ways in which Apple is coming to resemble Microsoft. Then it goes on to highlight the very-hard-to-see ways that Apple might be coming to resemble Microsoft. Then it breaks and tells you that the author is not out to put Apple down at all, nor is he attempting to defend Microsoft. He is merely pointing out the dangerous and non-business-friendly/non-consumer-friendly attributes that a company can pick up once it becomes very large or popular.

This speaks to me because I fear dearly for the future of my favorite site/portal/problem-solver: Google. I started using Google about 10 years ago, when I was sitting in the lab, trying to be different and more efficient by using Dogpile. (The different part was working, but not so much on the efficient front.) I loved the nonsense of the name and I remember having to look it up to find out where it came from. Needless to say, the success of Google's products and their extension into the beyond-the-search-engine realm has thrilled me. Gmail is my communication platform of choice and I'm usually one of the first among my friends to point out the cool new feature that is still only on the Google Labs page.

But lately I've started to worry. I love the products they are producing and I'm really not that worked up about the potential privacy concerns that have some folks all agitated. I just worry that they're going to get too big for their britches and start charging for all of these wonderful free services that I've become totally reliant on. Or perhaps they will just stop updating them, or adding features, or making them useful - which can be just as crippling to those of us web-o-philes out there.

Google has continued to make an effort to listen and repond to user feedback, but how long can this last?

I hope that Mr. Elgan's assertions about software companies are incorrect, but in this case, only time will tell.