Catching up on podcasts

I'm a bit obsessive compulsive when it comes to podcasts. I subscribe to about 100 podcasts. It's just too much to keep up with...so two or three times a week I catch up on many of them. These are my favorites:

-Marketplace, which I listen to every day on the radio, and only grab the podcast when I miss it. I love me some Jeremy Hobson.

-The Dinner Party Download - by the same people who do marketplace, only it's fun.

-Infomania - kind of like The Daily Show, but it's only on once a week.

- In Our Time - a BBC Radio 4 Program(me) that covers all kinds of history and philosophy sorts of things.

- The Economist - just because I love the journalism.

- The Opinion column of the New Yorker - also because I love the journalism.

- F1 Minute - enough F1 news for my ADD brain to keep up with.

- The Guardian Books podcast - I love the recommendations and discussions.

These are the ones I try to keep up with pretty regularly. I grab a bunch of religion, buddhist-geek ones as well, but don't listen to them that regularly. So I'm catching up on podcasts today. Fun times.

Learning about Bear-Proofing our house

We've been getting regular visits from our new brown furry friend, Mr. Bear. He's just a wee cub now, but we don't want him hanging around as a grown up, so we're learning how to bear proof the house, so he doesn't get any ideas about eating the cats for dinner.

Other than that, not much going on. Visit from the inlaws over the weekend, and I'm re-reading Harry Potter number 6 after seeing the movie, and forgetting what was missed. I sure miss new Harry Potter books coming out.

travel and phone gadgets

So I was in Chicago over the weekend at the American Library Association's annual meeting. Lots of books and databases and security strips and other exciting things like that. Of particular interest - the mango smoothies and brazilian flipping dancers attracting attention at the Mango Languages booth (Mango is an online language learning service, kind of like Rosetta Stone). I enjoyed being in a walking city again - I really miss that in LA. I miss bumping into people, and passing by buskers and street life in general.

It's good to be home, though. I went swimming in the lake this evening, which was nice and refreshing. I've been really enjoying swimming in the lake.

For the next time I travel, though, I want this gadget. An overlay on your cell phone so that when you point the camera in your phone in different directions in cities, it adds in all the restaurants, tourist attractions, etc, right there on your screen. That is too cool.

Rocket Butt

I was on a plane today catching up on podcasts and had the pleasure of watching the latest Infomania (I love current tv). Every week they take a funny theme and find youtube videos that fit with that theme. This week it was people shooting rockets out of their butts. Seriously, where do these people live? Who does this stuff? I was laughing so hard, I snorted and the person next to me thought I was very odd.

Doritos new marketing gimmick...

To be filed in the Funny Marketing Ideas folder...

Doritos is now offering a virtual concert to anyone who buys a certain brand of their chips. If you like Blink182 and you like corn chips, you should check this out. Apparently you scan the bag in front of your webcam, a Blink concert comes on, and it's all instant-gratification from there - if you shake the bag, they dance more. If you scream loud enough they play an encore. Very weird idea. I wonder how it will work out.

Dude, I've gotta stop obsessing

I'm in a melancholy Dido-inspired mood. I love Dido, but she depresses the sh*t out of me.

So it all started yesterday when I went to the Getty and swear I saw an ex-friend. She dumped me as a friend because I was too much of a flake for her. I really am a flake sometimes. I wish I could be a better friend to people, and now that I'm settled, it is getting better, but for a few years there when I was all over the map I was impossible to have as a friend, and this friend got the worst of it. Cancelled trips, just not showing up for stuff, changing my number and forgetting to tell her - you name it. And she put up with it for about four years, and finally got sick of it and wrote me off. That was in 2005, and for the first couple of years I was busy falling in love with J and getting married and all that stuff. But now I really really miss her. She was totally a kindred spirit, and I don't think I'll ever have a friend like her again. Which is really sad. But it's totally my fault, and that's the lesson I need to learn, I guess. I will have other friends, and maybe even other best friends, but I won't have another friend like her, and that breaks my heart.

So yesterday I swear I saw her. Actually, I heard her first, talking on the phone. I looked over, and I swear it was her. I totally had a freakout for a second and ran away, but then looked back, feeling brave enough to talk to her, and she was gone. So I sent her a text. Then, after looking at art, I drove home, and the entire way I was thinking about some of my favorite times with her (we both lived in London at the same time, though we're both American, and I have so many happy memories of clubbing in Soho, and walking through Regents park, just shooting the sh*t and talking about our dreams) and then I got really sad. So what did I do? Made a video with my cell phone, which I emailed to her. But I guess the sound didn't come through, so she emails back wondering who I am and what I'm doing. So then I felt stupid. So then I emailed her a general gist of what I was trying to say, and I haven't heard back from her. I feel like a teenager trying to ask a boy out on a date. It's pathetic. I just can't get it through my head that she shouldn't be able to forgive me and give me another chance. But really, my nine lives were up somewhere around 2003, and she still gave me chances for two years after that.

I guess I'm just getting to an age where I'm valuing my friendships more, and sad to see one that was so special to me go away.

I don't know whether she might google me and read this, so if she has, S, I'm sorry for being a stalker. I suck like that. And I'm sorry for being such a lame friend. And I'm just sorry in general.

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Other than being pathetic, my weekend is going well. The neighbors who own the house next to us, which they use as a second getaway home and only come up about once every two months, are up having a bachelor party for the son of the guy who owns it. 10 boys all weekend. J is hanging out with them, fishing and going out tonight to the local watering hole, which I think is fun for him since he never had a bachelor party (he didn't want one). Me, I'm just doing chores, cleaning a little, watching Wimbledon, and generally putzing around.