Refraction

So remember the part where I’m a Gmail fangirl? Gmail has made me even happier with their new options for labels! I used to keep the labels menu closed by default since I had so many (I’d make one for each course I took…), but now I can keep only the active ones visible. Since I’m out of school, there are only three. 😀 Makes for a nice clean inbox, anyway, and I’m able to easily see just the messages I want.

I’m so glad I got my Gmail account when I did, so that I’m able to use my real name (sans numbers, etc.) Unfortunately, I seem to get a number of e-mails addressed wrongly to me. Some of these are amusing (booty call), some cause me a bit of concern (receipt for a plasma TV), some are oddly helpful (organic produce newsletter).

I can’t quite say the same for Facebook; I was beaten out to my real name (as a username) by someone else with the same name. Ah well. You win some…

So I’ve been a (mostly) loyal Gmail user for the last, oh, four years or so, but nothing has me quite as happy in Gmail as the rolling out of the TEA HOUSE theme. It’s cute beyond words. I think it’s worth switching (from Hotmail, or Yahoo!) just for the cute little fox 😀 And his fishy lanterns!

My three-finals-in-four-days streak is now over, and now I have two-finals-and-a-French-assignment-in-seven-days to look forward to. That being said, here are some more ramblings from me (since when do I do anything else?)

1) Went shoe shopping today and was witness to the most blatant customer-hitting-on-sales-associate incident I’ve seen in a while. At the end of it the poor guy was literally hiding from her and whispering, “Oh, please just leave.”

2) This also implies that I bought new shoes (not from the cute sales associate, alas.) I like my new shoes, a green pair of peep-toe slingback wedges. I usually rag on peep-toe quite a bit, but I figure, ah, I wasn’t a huge fan of wedges either. Very spring-y and really the first pair of non-neutral coloured shoes I’ve ever bought. (Unless you count those pink flip-flops.)

3) The shoe shopping was retail therapy, all right? >_>

4) So Gmail says that many Gmail users don’t archive their e-mail. I admit that I used to fall into this camp and let everything pile up in the Inbox. Hey, it worked in Hotmail, right? I don’t see how heavy users can NOT archive their mail. I’ve grown to like an empty-ish inbox, with the only e-mails sitting in there a kind of to-do list (oh yes, I need to reply to that e-mail, get clarification from that person, think up a witty reply to that Facebook message). It’s handy. And by archiving my e-mail, it’s all still there, satisfying my packrat tendencies.

5) I have decided that there needs to be some karaoke soon. Since I’m kind of tired of singing the same songs everytime I go (no, really–I haven’t bothered to listen/learn anything that might show up at karaoke) I have resolved to learn “GLAMOROUS SKY” and “HEART STATION” so that I can successfully fool people into thinking that I know the words. (…Naturally, this means that no Japanese speakers can come. Or, if they do, they’d do best to either a) help me out or b) keep their mouths shut.)

6) I have been getting up at like… 4:30 each morning. Actually, strike that from the record, I’ve been waking up at 4:30 each morning and not rolling out of bed until 6:00 am. I then catch the bus at 6:45-ish to make it to the library at about 7:30-ish and settle in for a day of studying. Woo-hoo.

7) Seeing everyone’s grad photos and everyone on Facebook is a little… sad. 🙁 I wish I were graduating with everyone else but then I realize that I wouldn’t really be graduating with anyone, since all those people on Facebook are high school classmates and I haven’t seen a number of them in years. Literally. Most of my chem friends are not graduating until next year, anyway, so GRAD 09 FOR THE WIN. 😛

First of all, my eternal gratitude to Petzee, who has invited me to join GMail! Yay! The username? gemtiger. Who said I wasn’t creative? You? Well, you’re right.

In other news, a friend of mine has recently discovered that a certain Canadian Party leader resembles a certain (deceased) right-wing European dictator with a few well-placed scribbles of the pen. It’s really actually quite scary.

Yes, it is pure gold. And it gives me more incentive than ever not to have anything to do with that party. (It helped this morning, when the candidate in my riding for that party came a-knockin’ on my door. Let’s just say there wasn’t a lot of chatting going on. No, there were no shotguns involved.)

But how does one get the word out? We could share the file on KaZaA, Googlebomb it, or simply spam a lot of Canadians. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages, of course…

Sharing the file on KaZaA is the laziest way, requiring little more than leaving one’s computer on for long periods of time. It’s also the most passive way. Not only does it fail to target Canadians (assuming that citizens of other countries don’t have a great interest in the political shennanigans here), it presumes that users will want to download this file. Unfortunately, there probably aren’t many ways of doing that short of giving it a name completely unrelated to the issue at hand.

Googlebombing is a rather complex process. In order to successfully acheive the level of misdirection necessary…. we’d have to create a lot of webpages. A lot. And it might not work all that well, in any case. Although I’ll admit that it does present a very enticing challenge…

Everyone hates spam. Case closed.

I suppose I could post it here, but I think that contravenes R.S., c. C-34, s. 263 of the Criminal Code of Canada. That’s right, kiddies, I’d be publishing libel. Maximum sentence: five years. By the way, R.S., c. C-34, s. 274 does not save me, since we’re not really commenting on his public conduct… just his looks. “Truth is not libel” doesn’t save me, either. Besides… the feds know where I live! O_o

I guess we’ll just send it as an email forward XP

It’s been a while since I last blogged, so this entry will probably be unnecessarily long and full of pointless rambling.

Yahoo! Mail has upped their storage limit to 100MB, and one can now send emails of up to 10MB. Things never load on the first try, however, and I’m getting a little impatient with its long load times. Interesting developments; I wonder if it’s in response to the rising hype about Gmail, Google’s highly anticipated email service. It’s still in beta testing right now, but there are people who would apparently offer an arm and a leg for one. As for me, I think I’ll wait until it becomes open to the public.

In other news, I now have [slow] cable interest service. It’s a mixed blessing, to be sure: sure, I can download things faster, but now I no longer have any reason to tell Michael to archive his blog.

Speaking of Michael’s blog, I feel that several of my friends need an overhaul in terms of their blog designs. *points at Anthony and Michael* I offer new layouts since I designed their old layouts, and they’re not aging very well. Although if anyone else wants a layout, you’re always welcome to ask.

Even though I’ve graduated from high school now, I won’t be changing this layout for a while. It took too much work. Plus, it’s not a trendy anime blog layout. And it’s accessible. Yeah, I’m proud of this sucker.

And that’s not all…!
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