I'm not the average girl from your video.

This first video stars taza and her husband josh from rockstar diaries. They are the cutest couple, and like mic and kent, are expecting a baby in January!

Postcards From Italy from ForYouLoveMe on Vimeo.

Craazy hand dancing video!

From one of my favourite fashion blogs- The Blonde Salad

Foursquare

Calgary was added to the list of cities used by Foursquare today. Foursquare is a social networking tool that goes beyond the simple ‘what are you doing?’ idea used by Twitter and Facebook status updates to ask ‘where are you?’
My experience with Foursquare, so far, has been via Twitter where I see my friends stating things like “I am at [this store] at [this address]” and it lists the exact address of where you are. I have even seen people become the ‘Mayor’ of a store/coffee shop/whereever they are, which, as I found by reading this article, you become a ‘mayor’ by playing the ’virtual game in which participants earn badges for checking in at various locations; those that check in most become a venue’s “mayor”‘ I have yet to see the ‘game’ aspect of Foursquare, aside from seeing a few people become the mayor of a location.
 

After it being in place for one day in Calgary, it has already made me uncomfortable and made me feel a bit privacy-invaded. Example: There is a coffee shop down the street from me where I like to stop and get lattes and I spend some evenings there reading the newspaper or a good book. I guess it is involved with Foursquare because I saw a guy I follow on Twitter tweet ‘I am at [my coffee shop] at [this address]“. I happened to be heading there for a coffee about an hour after that, and I became unsure about going because I knew he was there. Now, I have absolutely nothing against this person, and I have never met them in person, but I just felt so uncomfortable being there, knowing he was there too.
If I knew he was there and I was there too do I have some kind of social obligation to say hi to him? Did he recognize me? (I was the sketchy girl looking around all shifty-eyed.)

I will not be joining Foursquare. Between this blog and being active on Twitter, I need to have a modicum of privacy in my day to day life. I hope that Foursquare doesn’t prevent me from enjoying my favourite hangouts within my city from people advertising that they are there too. (I can be very awkward in person.)

Will you be joining Foursquare? What are your thoughts on it?

What I'm loving.

Micaela here. A few things I’ve been loving for the last month:

  • Anna Turns Six on Tarawhitney.com. A beautiful tribute to this photographer’s daughter.
  • I cut these shoes out of a magazine because I loved them so much, and then my favourite fashion blogger found a $69 version. (Fate.)
  • Maybe it’s partially the fact that I have been dying for really long hair lately, but there is something about Madeleine M. that I adore:
  • The bedroom at This Young House. I love so many interior design photos I’ve seen on blogs recently. It’s a shame, really, because I have no permanent residence to decorate at the moment. I love the chandelier, the lamps, and the huge curtains. And well, everything:
  • Most definitely the cutest daddy-to-be in the world! (Uh oh, mothering instincts quite possibly kicking in too!):
  • Youaremyfave.com has been focusing on a different design accent colour every day. The pictures she finds are so gorgeous that each colour quickly becomes my new favourite. Today, orange is our fave. Photo from where else but Apartment Therapy.
    guest20bedroom_small
  • And a couple that I tweeted about yesterday:
  • I saw this shirt on Design Crush today. The French: Moi, je veux te dire que je ne te quitterai jamais. Et puis, si tu es triste, je pourrais toujours te donner un peu d’alcool pour te rechauffer le couer. xo Basically this means that “I’ll be there for you always. And I’ll get you drunk when you’re sad.” Get it on etsy.
  • Peonies and Polaroids received this dress and a fancy camera from her husband on their one year anniversary. I am tres impressed. If you are inclined, check out her wedding in her archives (about one year ago!) It was perfect.
  • This wedding wins my heart. I’m having a tent wedding in 148 days (according to facebook.)

Bus Strike Adventures

OC Transpo Bus

OC Transpo Bus

For the past week (and before the Christmas break), I’ve had to find different ways of getting to school almost every day because there are no buses running.  Wednesdays I have no class, but I had to be at school to help recruit for cheerleading, so I was going to walk the hour to school, then someone recommended to me that I should take the shuttles (Carleton has school buses running from different parts of the city every half hour to help students get to their classes).  The closest shuttle stop from me is a half hour walk at our nearest shopping center/O-train stop, so I got bundled up, and left at about 3:45, since I had to be at school for 5, and figured that would give me enough time.  I got to the stop at about 4:20, and noticed a sign on the times board saying “Due to the weather, the shuttles will not be running today”.  There I was, boots on, with slippers underneath, down filled mitts, tights, yoga pants, a short sleeved shirt, a long sleeved shirt, a sweater, a down coat, and BOTH hoods on (I later got made fun of when I mentioned that I took off my hoodS.).  In other words, I was totally bundled up, and totally pissed that I walked half an hour to a bus stop where no buses would be coming.

After I got over my initial shock, and about 5 minutes of trying to call a cab (obviously busy every time I called, because how else would people get around these days?), I walked to the nearest Second Cup and called a teammate to come pick me up and bring me to school.  On our way to school I find out that they had changed the recruiting times from 5-7 to 4-6.  It was now 5:20.  So I get to school, take off my layers (and my hoods), and starting trying to recruit people.  Now has anyone ever had to attempt to recruit university aged guys to try out for a cheerleading team? NOT fun, let me tell you that.  Pretty much our approach is “if you think the guy is hot and jacked, go hand him a flier and chat him up”.  I’m clearly not very good at this.  I attempted to recruit for about 20 minutes, then a group of us decided it would be better if we’d just go to the residence and try to force people to try out hand them out there.  Well.  In order to get to the tunnels (do you really think we would walk outside?), we had to walk past one of the campus bars.  Now you should know that one of our favorite sayings is “Our drinking team has a cheerleading problem”, and we do live up to that saying.  We decided it would be easier for us to talk to people if we had a beer in us.  Well one beer turned into two, and two into three, and next thing you know we’ve forgotten all about handing out fliers, and were now talking about siblings having the same tongues, and things only the fiveblondes would understand like “touch tongues!”, and living on farms/ranches, since the group I was there with consisted of two sisters from Texas-Kelly and Kristina, and one guy who works on a farm-Matt (did I mention that he also is from a family of five siblings?  Only one sister though).  Kristina, by the way is my twin.  If you are looking at pictures from my cheerleading you’d better look twice to make sure that it’s actually me, because we have to do the same thing.  We were then talking about staying for trivia night, when I got a call that Krys was waiting for me outside res commons-almost all the way across campus.  So I grab my coat, say my goodbyes and run across campus…only to be met by a chihuahua in Krys’ truck!  Now I assure you, I wasn’t drunk enough to be seeing things…okay well maybe I was, but there was honestly a chihuahua in the truck.  I’ve never seen one up close, and Radar is enough to turn me off of them.  No offense to anyone who has one, but chihuahuas are creepy looking dogs in my opinion.  It turns out that this lovely dog is staying at my house for a couple of days while Krys’ sister visits us from Montreal.  I’ll let you all know how this goes.

I had totally forgotten that we (me, Emily and Krys) had planned a Monopoly date with Krys’ friend Dan and his girlfriend Felicia.  Monopoly is a touchy subject in our house.  We usually end the game in a big fight, and a win for Krys.  This time was different though.  This time I won!  It was a crazy game, and I didn’t quite understand how I won, but I’m not going to fight it, I’m going to take that win and be happy that I’m the one who broke Krys’ winning streak.  Oh yea, he also wins EVERY single  game we play, including Risk, Clue, and Whoonu.

Anyways, that was my wonderful adventure with the OC Transpo strike.  I was only planning on making it about my adventure getting to school for the recruitments, but I tend to ramble when I’m bored, and have 5 hour breaks in my schedule, which I do every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

What would you change about your cell phone plan?

I have found this really cool website that has been created  by a company in Canada that will be starting to provide cell phone plans. The way they have chosen to do their research is interesting – by opening up an online forum called “Wireless Soapbox” as a way for people to get their likes, dislikes and ideas concerning their current cell phone plan, and offer input as to what they would like to see in an ideal cell phone plan.

Think there’s a better way to do wireless?

Welcome to the Wireless Soapbox, a forum for people who believe that cellular can be done better. Have a complaint? Air it. Have an idea? Share it. Ask a question. Start a discussion. Whatever… it’s up to you. Choose a topic and get involved.

Whan an innovative way to do research! Essentially, their only expense was to create this website, it was advertised via ways of media interest, and pay a couple people to monitor it and BOOM – you have loads of free informtation coming at you right from the consumers themselves.

I, currently, have not yet contributed to it as I have not put a lot of thought towards what I like and don’t like about my cell phone plan. A popular topic I have noticed is the “system activation fee” and how people don’t like to see it on their bill every month, they would like to have it dissolved into their other fees. I agree with that one, I am charged $6.75 (or so) every month by my current provider, but that seems like something that should be included with my $25/month plan!

Would you contribute to this website (even if you aren’t Canadian) to get your ideas across? Canadians, this is your way to get the cell phone plan you really want. I am so intrigued to see what ideas and plans do come out of this Wireless Soapbox!

Picture Every Day for a Year

So after getting my new camera:

I’ve decided that I’m going to take one picture a day for one whole year. I’m going to try to find a theme to do each month, but I need one to start off with! Any suggestions? It can be anything!

I’ve made a flickr account, and once I get a theme I’ll put pictures on it, and put the address up on here so you all can look at my super exciting life…which includes driving to Ottawa a lot, and working!

Edit-by the way, the cameras name is Sophie Dallas, because there is an SD in the type name.

Luring you in just to send you away again

This will be a short post as I have another draft 99% ready to go (holy smokes I’m PLANNING AHEAD! Which also happens to be a topic of the next post!).  We’ve set out the welcome mat header, nevermind that it doesn’t say welcome but please rest assured that you are indeed welcome, and now I’m going to send you to sights possibly unseen by your eyes until now.  I promise that they are not evil and you will not go blind.

First up is MouthyGirl!  She is giving away an iPod.  All you have to do to enter is comment.  That’s it!  Bonus entries for suck-ups like me who tell people like you about the contest.  I’m increasing my entries, but at the same time decreasing my chances at winning because who knows how many of you will enter?

If you’re wondering who this “MouthyGirl” is, her name is Sabrina and I encourage you to read her page, What is a MouthyGirl?  Anyone can be a mouthy girl (unless you are a boy…)!  She has a list of qualities such as:

  • She is a true friend that helps you have fun, gives you a shoulder to cry on, and to provide a dose of reality, harsh or not, when you need it.
  • MouthyGirls are passionate people.

So there you go.  The Five Blondes are all mouthy girls for sure!

Secondly, another giveaway from a different kind of blog.  Katy is the author of I’m Blogging That! where she answered your blogging “How-To” questions.  I’ve been a fan of IBT! for quite some time and if you ever have questions about improving your blog or how to use mysterious websites like Technorati I highly recommend you take a look at IBT!

Katy is passionate about blogging and helping you blog – I think this qualifies her as a mouthy girl.  (See what I did there?)  She’s so passionate that she went to Wiley, the publisher of ProBlogger’s new book and now has 5 copies of ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income to give away.  This is quite a coup as ProBlogger is sold out everywhere!  There are several ways to enter so I encourage you to jump on over there and win yourself a great book.

Hmm…this didn’t end up as short as I thought it would be.  Oh well!

So…speaking of contests…if Five Blondes were to run a contest, what kind of prizes are best? Books? Electronics? Gift certificates? The possibilities are endless…

OK, not endless, we can’t give away a car.  Unless it were a Hot Wheels car.

Tagged

The List of Blogs  A-Z:
A acowboyswife.com
B bloggingcents.com
C chatbugkaren.com
D Domestic Goddess
E everythingandanythingblog.com
F fiveblondes.com
G GeekMomMashup.com
H hoysater.no
I ipentimento.com
J juliesjournal.com
K kabalyero.com
L Life is Beautiful
M My Happiness Haven
N nicusor.com
O originalmx5.net
P peapodsquadstuff.com
Q qweddings.com
R ringtailsquealer.blogspot.com
S shopaholicdiva24.blogspot.com
T TenaciousCreations.com
U utada-online.net
V valmg.com
W wickedbabylon.com
X xaviermedia.com
Y yimto.com
Z zbudapest.com

Replaced link: NONE! There was no ‘f’. Woo us!
Previous tagger: http://shopaholicdiva24.blogspot.com


We are tagging:

http://couturesmith.com/

http://julia-transition.blogspot.com/

http://goodfoodgoodfriendsgoodlife.blogspot.com/

http://sparklytospouse.blogspot.com/

A cruel internet attack.

I was never any good at coming up with April Fools jokes – I usually leave that to other people. I do, however, like reading about various jokes around the web, and discovering them on websites myself. I’ve already been rickrolled a few times (ugh!).

Anyway, while I was reading Wired’s article (linked above), I noticed another article on Wired that caught my attention right away: “Hackers Assault Epilepsy Patients via Computer“. Hackers attacked a forum at the Epilepsy Foundation and displayed flashing images – a definite trigger for photosensitive and pattern-sensitive epileptics.

The incident, possibly the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on the victims, began Saturday, March 22, when attackers used a script to post hundreds of messages embedded with flashing animated gifs.

Definitely no April Fools joke here. This was a planned attack on patients already suffering from a disorder that – in many cases – has turned their lives upside down. How evil do you have to be to plan something like this? I am sure that if just one of the “people” (hard to even call them that) who planned this attack had anyone close to them who suffered from epilepsy, this attack would not have happened.

I haven’t visited the Epilepsy Foundation forums before but after taking a quick look I can tell that it is an amazing resource for epileptics. I will definitely be joining the forum not only to seek support from fellow epileptics, but also to offer support to those struggling with coming to terms with their illness. It’s a really tough thing to do and cannot be done alone.

More info and responses to the story here:

http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2008/03/29/hackers-attack-epileptic-forum-and-make-sufferers-convulse/

I’m really lucky in that my epilepsy is not photosensitive or pattern sensitive. My seizures are completely controlled by medication – thanks to this I’m able to enjoy video games (I love my Wii!) and spend time on the computer without worrying about being affected. This month (April!) will be my one-year seizure-free month :D

I have had some seizures in funny/awkward places. They make for some great stories! I’ll share them this month :)

Lovable Websites

1. How About Orange

 

how-about-orange.jpg

 

  • Jessica
  • Orange is her favourite colour.
  • She’s artsy.
  • She’s crafty.
  • Graphic designer

2. Nienie Dialogues

 

nienie.jpg

 

  • Stephanie (Nielson= Nienie)
  • Wife.
  • Mother of 4.
  • She’s crafty.
  • Wonderful writer.
  • Inspiring

Check them out!