Tuesday, January 25, 2011

I'm back! And a list of things I like.

Giving myself restrictions or deadlines or "I'm going to do this every day"s never works.  I'm good at following other people's rules... just not my own.  So while I'd love to start blogging again, I'm going to go forward with the knowledge that it will be inconsistent, disjointed, and often poor quality.  Because who the heck cares?  Only a few people read this anyway.  =]

I've got some scientific papers to discuss, photos of salads to post (I haven't been cooking much lately), and posts on other blogs that you should check out... but for my first day back I'm keeping it simple.  Here's a list of things I have recently discovered that make me happy:

1. Mendeley
This.  Is.  Amazing.  It imports all your scientific journal article PDFs (parsing the titles and authors and whatnot), lets you organize them with folders and tags and whatever else you could imagine, AND it syncs them all to their web site so you can access your library anywhere.  And it's FREE.  There's some sort of paid membership, too, but I haven't done any research on that yet.  I credit Andrew from Evolvify with finding this - I hadn't heard of it until he posted about it a few days ago.  It's an extra big help now that one of my major hobbies is studying nutrition for fun - which meant I had both work papers and personal papers cluttering my computer.

It also is a sort of geeky social network, so if you use it, click this button to go to my profile... I think if you add people as contacts you can really easily share papers with them:
<a href="http://www.mendeley.com/profiles/amanda-strassner/"><img border="0" src="http://www.mendeley.com/embed/icon/1/red/big" alt="Research papers by Amanda Strassner"/></a>

2. Mitchell and Webb 
All I've ever seen are their clips on youtube, but these guys are FUNNY.  Check out some sketches about vegetarians, homeopathy, and hesitant nazis.  

3. Maybelline SuperStay 24HR Makeup 
 I'm not sure how helpful anyone will find this, since I feel as though this foundation were made especially for my skin, so it might not work for many people.  It gives full coverage (I've stopped using concealer!) while feeling really light (no heavier than a powder)... it lasts a long time, almost all day... it's very, VERY matte and keeps me from getting oily for a couple of hours.  

4. Playstation 3
My husband was going to buy me a fancy new watch for Christmas, but we couldn't find the one I really wanted in any of the stores nearby, and I wanted to wait until after the holiday madness to worry about ordering it.  Before we got around to it, our DVD player broke.  So I decided, screw the watch, we're getting a PS3.  If you weren't aware, PS3 plays Blu-Ray discs as well, so I'm looking forward to buying one, some day.  The only game I have so far is Little Big Planet 2.  My Playstation Network ID is Mayness, so hopefully you know what to do with that information, because I have no freaking clue how to add friends or whatever.  We also got Netflix (finally) so that we can stream movies and shows through the PS3 (and because the husband promised one of our best friends that he'd stop downloading movies illegally).  Which brings me to my next item...

5. Arrested Development
A new friend of ours has been hanging out at our house a lot lately.  What can I say?  We're super fun.  (Yes that was facetious.)  She's usually busy trying to convince us to watch old horror/thriller movies (I saw "Rosemary's Baby" last night - what a frustrating ending!), but she also turned us on to the TV show Arrested Development.  It was on for 3 seasons but I never watched it back then.  It's packed FULL of stars, including a lot of stand-up comics.  The writing is really smart and funny.  Michael Cera plays a teenaged Michael Cera, so if you've only seen him play adult Michael Cera, you're in for a treat.  Stream it instantly on Netflix (or obtain it in whatever other manner you choose), and if you like comedy, you won't be disappointed.  Except maybe disappointed that it didn't last longer.  But hopefully not the same devastating, soul-crushing disappointment you feel about Firefly (and if you DON'T feel that way about Firefly I'm not sure we can be friends anymore).