tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51982122008-05-08T23:23:26.111-07:00Lauren's MusingsLaurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comBlogger218125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-2802207674657365622008-05-08T23:19:00.000-07:002008-05-08T23:22:23.285-07:00Gender of a ComputerA Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine:
'House' for instance, is feminine: 'la casa.'
'Pencil,' however, is masculine: 'el lapiz.'
A student asked, "What gender is 'computer?'" Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-40251406119987369192008-02-23T12:11:00.000-08:002008-05-08T23:23:26.143-07:00What Love Means to Age 4 to 6 Year Old ChidlrenWhat Does "Love" Mean?
A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:
"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-35847305741491936462007-12-17T22:08:00.000-08:002007-12-18T13:38:20.307-08:00Will Your Marriage Last?Jezebel posted a chart that was originally published in the October 1927 issue of Popular Science Monthly. Based on the analysis of over two thousand American marriages, the chart, devised by Hornell Hart, Associate Professor of Social Economy, Bryn Mawr College, is supposed to tell you the odds of a marriage being successful with the ages of the bride and groom being the predictors.
"Those Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-55246915028444954382007-11-30T22:00:00.000-08:002007-12-05T05:11:17.412-08:00Something That Made Me Smile TodayLife is short,
Break the rules,
Forgive quickly,
Kiss slowly,
Love truly,
Laugh uncontrollably,
And never regret anything that made you smile.Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-51864153100630804442007-11-27T23:00:00.000-08:002007-11-28T21:59:53.749-08:00Condom Hair AccessoriesI can't remember how I stumbled upon this site, but I'm quite addicted to the site Jezebel.com. Their latest article about condoms being recycled into hair elastics. Aside from being completely disgusting, using these products can be a health hazard. Quoted from the original article from InventorSpot:
"Even though the condoms are fully recycled, it has been shown there is still a marked amount Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-2663996888300539522007-11-26T23:00:00.000-08:002007-11-28T21:36:26.307-08:00Literacy... Kind Of!I can read this, but apparently not everybody can!
fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-72263645160728293162007-11-23T20:30:00.000-08:002007-11-23T20:23:09.966-08:00Women As Explained by EngineersLaurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-83139637251516301422007-11-23T20:00:00.000-08:002007-11-23T19:55:36.572-08:00jerkwater: M-W's Word of the DayI'm excited about this word because prior to learning about it, the only alternative I could think of is quite rude and should not be used in polite company. I found this from M-W.com's Word of the Day.
jerkwater \JERK-waw-ter\ adjective
Remote and unimportant
Trivial
Example sentence: "We're stranded in some jerkwater town in the middle of nowhere," said Larry when he called to tell us that Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-91772767457326267922007-11-22T23:00:00.000-08:002007-11-23T19:19:37.751-08:00Reduce Junk Mail Through Opt-OutI hate junk mail. It's a waste of paper. The worst type is unsolicited credit card offers because you need to shred them (if you just throw them away somebody may pick them out of your trash and apply for a credit card using your information).
In an effort to reduce the number of offers I receive, I recently used OptOutPreScreen.com to opt-out from lists used by creditors or insurers to make Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-5142231025346253902007-11-21T23:00:00.000-08:002007-11-23T16:44:04.628-08:00The Porn MythThis is an old article, but it's a great one titled "The Porn Myth". The tag line summarizes it well, "In the end, porn doesn’t whet men’s appetites—it turns them off the real thing."
Here are some other poignant quotes:
"Greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity."
"For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. TodayLaurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-42785896083671015302007-11-20T23:00:00.000-08:002007-11-21T05:17:39.436-08:00More Finance HumorInvestment Dealers are excited to announce the newest structured finance product - Constant Obligation Leveraged Originated Structured Oscillating Money Bridged Asset Guarantees, or COLOSTOMY BAGS. Designed to accommodate the most sophisticated investment strategies, Colostomy Bags contain the equity tranches of Structured High Interest Taxable Derivatives, or SH IT, and are leveraged an infiniteLaurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-63210914229647998432007-11-01T22:00:00.000-07:002007-11-13T19:08:39.496-08:00Words Women Use
Fine: This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to stop talking.
Five Minutes: If she is getting dressed, this means a half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.
Nothing: This is the calm before the storm. This means something, and you should be on your toes.Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-50259869392739776962007-10-31T17:04:00.001-07:002007-11-13T19:09:35.793-08:00Hedge Fund Gallows HumorI received this back in August when the stock markets were imploding. Here we are in November and... guess what? Experiencing a meltdown again! Last time around, the pundits blamed quant funds. This time around, investors are more focused on rising oil prices (again), writedowns at financial firms, slowing spending by U.S. enterprise companies and about half a dozen other things I'm forgetting. Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-14823555472690039232007-07-05T22:30:00.000-07:002007-07-19T20:51:22.786-07:00Caffeine DatabaseI've often wondered how much caffeine there is in regular coffee vs. espresso vs. green tea. Now I know thanks to the Caffeine Database. In case you're wondering, 8oz of brewed coffee has 107.5mg of caffeine, 8oz of drip coffee has 145mg, 1.5 oz of espresso has 77mg and 8oz of green tea has 25mg. There's also the Really Big Caffeine Database which is even more comprehensive.Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-79895643594248473122007-07-02T22:00:00.000-07:002007-07-19T20:40:48.918-07:00Quote of the Day"The Internet: where the men are men, the women are men, and the children are FBI agents."Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-8433424969787070702007-06-30T21:59:00.000-07:002007-07-02T22:00:03.875-07:00Moving from Yahoo!Mail to GmailIn the beginning, I used usa.net for personal email (I did have a Hotmail account but at least I was smart enough not to use it). From there, I migrated to Oddpost.com (back when it was an independent company) which I liked so much that I paid $25/year for the service. The things I valued the most from Oddpost was the (1) lack of advertising and (2) nifty drag and drop features. But since it was Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-86970955099651691472007-06-29T20:50:00.000-07:002007-07-02T21:01:27.406-07:00Indexedindexed.blogspot.com is a fantastic site that my friend Jenn recommended. It consists of simple, self explanatory and funny venn diagrams and graphs depicting humorous social theories. I'm not doing justice with the description so just go visit it!.
P.S. I'd love to buy a T-shirt but the graphic on the shirt appears a little small plus I have way too many T-shirts as it is (from various running Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-5939397418810924922007-06-28T13:56:00.000-07:002007-07-02T20:49:00.192-07:00Fraiche YogurtWhile I was traveling in Korea, I made a point of trying out Red Mango which is a frozen yogurt chain. I hear there's a similar chain in the U.S. called Pinkberry and the two franchises are duking it out in the States. I really enjoyed Red Mango because it's not as sweet as regular American fro yo. Imagine my delight when I discovered a new yogurt store in downtown Palo Alto called Fraiche YogurtLaurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-31388671442755012832007-06-17T01:33:00.000-07:002007-06-17T09:18:55.375-07:00ChinesePodI've been trying to figure out how to improve my Mandarin Chinese for a long time. David has some CDs but they're too basic. I did some searching on the web and I found a site called ChinesePod. As the name suggests, they provide a series of podcasts in Mandarin that you can download from the website or iTunes.
I like it because the podcasts are broken out into different levels from Newbie to Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-40947712628915758672007-06-11T17:43:00.001-07:002007-06-11T17:50:53.115-07:00Email Blogging from ChinaOne of the reasons why I have trouble keeping up with blogging is that even though I have ideas for writing, I forget most of them once I(eventually) get to a computer. I'm going to try posting via email. The problem is I am in China right now, and upon logging into Blogger, I have discovered that Google has "helpfully" recognized my location and has translated all the Blogger commands and Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-51627124686295495112007-04-08T17:41:00.001-07:002007-04-08T17:41:10.568-07:00Nerd TestI completed an online nerd test and discovered that I am 71% nerdier than other people who have taken it. What about you?Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-51667024673751922682007-02-10T22:02:00.000-08:002007-02-19T15:24:35.350-08:00Blockbuster Total AccessD and I rarely rent videos given we have HBO on Comcast and we already pay way too much on monthly subscription fees for content. I've considered Netflix on various occasions but we don't rent enough to justify it. There's the argument that we would watch more if we actually subscribed, but the last thing I want is yet another reason (excuse) to watch more TV/movies.
However, we finally caved Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-24751632526638986812007-02-05T22:10:00.000-08:002007-02-19T15:01:12.076-08:00Finally! Pho in Redwood CityAlmost every weekend, D asks me what I want to eat for lunch, and I almost invariably suggest pho, a delicious Vietnamese soup noodle dish. The trouble is that the pho restaurants I like are relatively far away. As we were driving around Redwood City, D spotted a new joint called Pho Dong on Broadway. According to the sign, it opened back in November 2006.
Pho Dong is the cleanest Vietnamese phoLaurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-26715911774361985512007-01-28T22:50:00.000-08:002007-06-17T07:51:11.319-07:00Code MonkeyA friend of mine introduced me to the song Code Monkey (you can read the lyrics and listen to the song here) by Jonathan Coulton. There's even a World of Warcraft Code Monkey video which is hilarious! I have been sending the video link to my programming friends, and they all love it.
I like the song so much that I bought a MP3 copy of it from Jonathan's website. You can also purchase it from Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5198212.post-65804530839092839212007-01-17T21:24:00.000-08:002007-01-17T22:55:02.782-08:00Ladder TheoryI was reading a Digg thread about why trophy wives are less popular these days, and I stumbled on a reference to Ladder Theory (original source). In case you are not familiar with it, here's the introductory paragraph on the topic from LadderTheory.com:
The ladder theory is a funny, scientific explanation of how men and women are attracted to each other. It also covers such topics as why women Laurenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904293861076531306noreply@blogger.com