Monday, April 29, 2013

A Case of the Mondays on 29 Apr 2013

It’s so nice today, so I’m eager to get our plans underway.

  • Monday (today) I had a dentist’s appointment. Everything is a-okay, and I just needed my front bottom teeth cleaned up a bit (I blame the Starbucks coffee.) I also have to update my bookblogarama. I also have Sims 3 to play, because that’s a huge necessity, of course.
  • Tuesday and Wednesday I’m free to take on any supply teaching jobs that may come my way. If not, on Tuesday I can go swimming finally for the first time this year, and Wednesday evening I have a chiropractor’s appointment.
  • Thursday is driving. Friday is hair appointment.
  • Saturday we’re probably going to look into getting a washer/dryer (I didn’t know such wonderful contraptions existed) and a bike for Steve.
  • Over the May Day holiday, we’re taking a trip to see Steve’s family. I love going on the train. I know it’s over-priced and a pain when you can’t sit down, but it’s just something that I really find interesting. Plus, I get to see sights. I could see sights with a car, you know, whenever I get one. Anyway, I’ll take pictures and video and post it here later on. Fun stuff.

So, Happy Monday to you all. Enjoy your next Monday off!

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Video games, books, and cars

Ah, it’s a nice, rainy day in England. I’m still wondering when a full attack of Spring will be upon us. I’ve been turning on the oscillating fan in the living room on at night, so I guess it’s getting a bit less like winter. Still chilly and windy so I need some sort of coat when I leave the house. After living in Florida for all those years, even if I wasn’t an outdoorsy beach person, it’s hard to live in a place that doesn’t have an inviting kind of day that makes you want to go outside.

Anyway, I’ve been playing The Sims 3 a lot lately. This has been my go-to obsessive game for years. When The Sims first came out, my poor PC couldn’t even handle it and I had to reboot it over and over. But the game was amazing fun, so it was worth it. There’s no skill involved in playing The Sims either; you just mess around in a little pretend world and screw up characters’ lives. Fun. Plus there are so many expansion packs, I’d work a couple of days just to buy them all. (No, I’m not kidding.)

Actually, I screwed up my back initially when I started playing The Sims again in March. I sat here at the computer desk for hours, leaning forward, then when I was on the coach watching The Hunger Games, I realized it was a bit sore. By the next week I was out for the count. Sims are fun, but not worth all that.

Also, I moved my book reviews and weekly reading memes to a new site: bookblogarama. I needed a fresh start because I see so many really well done book sites and I wanted one too. So I’ve started adding things to the Tumblr site too. Projects are nice to have, especially when they give you something to look forward to every day, and reasons to investigate things.

I went to City Library on Tuesday to investigate World Book Night. I wrote on my netbook in the cafe over my £2 Americano while I listened to the music in the atrium. I found no free book giving though (unless you could the books that you can borrow for free anyway.) I did check out Me Before You from the World Book Night display by the cafe so my mission was complete. I had to meet up with Steve so I didn’t stay for the Murder Mystery event they were having afterwards – that seemed fun.

And I’m still not test-ready because stopping on hills in a manual-shift car is just not an easy thing to do. So I keep practicing until I have this down pat, or I throw in the towel and opt for an automatic (which, in most cases, is considered a mobility vehicle in the UK.) But in order to keep my options open, I’m sticking to the stick shift and the steep banks. Incidentally, I found an article on USA Today called 10 cheapest cars: Why (almost) nobody buys them. that are supposedly they cheapest. They claim that, “the bottom-price model has a manual transmission. Few can or will drive a stick-shift nowadays.” Just the opposite goes for us in England. Also, USA Today sites issues with insurance that is different here too. Insurance is based on size of the car and its engine, so like a Fiat 500 is in the lowest price bracket.

But when I get my license, I’ll try plenty of them out. Now that both Steve and I have hurt our backs, I’m thinking a little car that sits low to the ground may not be the best choice. Sorry, Mini. Cute, fun, little Mini.

Monday, April 22, 2013

A Case of the Mondays on 22 Apr 2013

I’m going to start a new label for my posts on Monday, just to keep myself focused on starting the week right. It’s so easy to slack off when you don’t have anything planned, or the written proof of that plan.

The following are my aims for this week:

  • Monday and Friday – driving lessons
  • Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday – available to do any supply teaching work that comes up. (The teaching agency told me they’d been quite busy, so chances are they’ll call me. Problem is they call in the morning when I have no clue what bus and where exactly I’m to be by 8:30. (Hence my need for the driving lessons.)
  • Wednesday night – I could go to one of the meetings through Northumbria University to look into EYPS training. Since I am not doing very well at full time teaching work as is, maybe having some training in England will help. However, Early Years includes nursery schools and changing nappies (diapers); something I’ve not done before when I was training to read, write, compare, catalogue, and shelve books all day.
  • Sometime during the week I’m going to have to go swimming, go to the gym, get some writing done at the cafe and such various other tasks that are standard for each week of my life.
  • I will end up playing Sims 3 as usual too which I see as a stress relief mechanism rather than a time wasting activity.

Happy Monday!

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Taking care of a bad back

In the past month, Steve and I have both been suffering from back trouble. I threw mine out in March when I was working at a Primary School (trying to put things in very short cupboards and sitting in very short chairs is a good way to do that.) But last Thursday, Steve had a whopper of an attack.

Steve had stayed home the week before last with body aches, plus the back feeling as if it was going to flare up. He rested and then went back to work without much trouble (taking the taxi to work, taking it easy, etc.) Thursday afternoon came around, and I was scheduled to go to the chiropractor at lunchtime. Steve called me up and said he’d hosed his back up really badly and I was going to have to come and rescue him.

I dashed down the hill, got some money and a taxi and headed to his workplace. When we got there his co-worker was helping him just get out of the building, so I knew he was bad off. When we tried to get him into the taxi, Steve couldn’t even sit, so I made the executive decision to call the ambulance. I figured if the cops want me to call 999 if a drunken man is shouting at me in a bus station, then calling them to come and rescue someone who is totally immobile isn’t out of order. I knew he was going to have to see a doctor, and I knew how bad off he had been before when he threw his back out last Spring, so I made my first emergency call in England.

After the dispatcher asked Steve a bunch of questions, his ride arrived. Two nice gentlemen in green uniforms helped him into the ambulance and gave him laughing gas to “keep his mind off the pain.” Then we proceeded to take our first ever British ambulance ride through Newcastle. I even joked that Steve knew how to show a lady a good time and it wasn’t even the weekend.

We arrived at the hospital, and the paramedic told Steve to take a couple of good hits off the laughing gas pipe before trying to get back down the ambulance steps and into a wheelchair. After I got us checked in, we waited in the A&E waiting room for a good while. The paramedic told us that for bad backs, the hospital usually just gives you a bunch of pain killers, but in his condition it was just fine by us, if he wasn’t having to sit at home in agony.

We waited for a total of 3 hours, and I had to eventually get Steve up onto one of the hospital beds while we waited in one of the rooms for the doctor to come by. Since I’ve been going to the chiropractor, I know a handful of tricks that alleviate some of the pain – lying instead of sitting is one of them. When the doctor finally came in, he wanted to see how well Steve could move around, and even had him get out of that bed by himself, which was agony for me to see and not be able to help him.

The doctor was so nice though, and he told us that a chiropractor was fine if we wanted to go, but to always find one who was officially licensed because anyone can call themselves a chiropractor without any credentials (I should have looked into that career before I started taking out loans for my college education.) Anyway, the doctor was sympathetic and said that muscle relaxants work really well but they don’t like to give them out because kids in Bigg Market love to take those as a party drug. (Something I never understood – wouldn’t you just want to sleep instead of go clubbing?)

Once Steve was up, he couldn’t sit again, and the doctor said he was going to give him some painkillers and suggested he get himself moving again, even if he starts taking up biking to get himself moving. He was in horrible pain after getting out of that bed on his own, but a nurse finally showed up with a little cup full of pills that I had to help him take because without holding on to his back, it would spasm. His whole body was contorted as well from the muscle contractions, so I knew he was worse off than he’d ever been. But after he took his medicine, we took a walk past Newcastle University and back into town. 30 minutes later, Steve was ready to stop at Starbucks and Krispy Kreme before heading back home (standing up on the bus worked well.)

Since then we’ve been hanging out here at home. I went to my rescheduled chiropractor appointment (he had credentials, by the way) and did more of my preventative measures so I don’t get myself in a bad situation as well. (Two of us being immobilized is just not going to work.) Now that both of us have had bad backs, we’re going to take the necessary steps to prevent the same problems in the future. Here’s what we’ve learned so far:

  • Lying is better than sitting. Lie back on a couch when watching TV.
  • Use cold packs at 10 minute intervals.
  • Take ibuprofen and/or paracetamol with codeine (I can’t take codeine because it gives me terrible stomach aches.) Some doctors won’t give muscle relaxants but even if they give you one to take the initial edge off, it’s worth seeing a GP (or even the doctor in A&E as was in our case.)
  • Don’t lift, carry, or bend over. Leaning forward in a chair is probably what caused the problem in the first place.
  • Sit back in your chair. Use a pillow behind your back, and even use a foot rest if if helps when you’re at a desk.
  • Bend with your legs. Put your hands on your thighs when getting back up.
  • Moving helps the muscles. Swimming strengthens the back. Biking is good as well (get a Dutch style city bike first.)
  • Don’t be a hero. If you can’t move quick enough to grab something, or can’t get up, that’s fine. Crawl if you need to. Ask for help.
  • Don’t try to do anything too strenuous too soon. Slow and steady wins the race. You can easily hurt yourself all over again by getting in and out of the tub, or getting up too quickly out of a chair.
  • Do back exercises that stretch your gluteus. Lying down means the gravity is going through your belly-button, not down your spine like some yoga moves that have your twisting in a sitting position (I have a friend in Florida who injured herself that way.)
  • If you see a chiropractor, make sure they have credentials as some chiropractors are just there to take your money.
  • Beds get blamed for the problem, but mostly the stiffness in the morning is from being stationary for 8 hours.

I hope no one has to deal with what we have, but if you do, I hope some of these things we’ve learned can help you. In these kinds of situations, being ignorant like we were, is not bliss.

Monday, April 15, 2013

My first UK car–which should I choose?

From my last post, I mentioned that I have driven in Florida since I was 16. Now that I’ve been carless for 2 years and 4 months, I’m almost ready to take on the British road system. This means I can’t just go grab a car that I like off the lot, I have to take a lot into consideration. Size, price, reliability, gas mileage, number of doors, insurance price, tax price, and whether or not I can actually drive the silly thing.

Steve and I have a theory about Vauxhall Corsas – driving instructors must choose the hardest car to drive, so that you can drive anything one you pass your test. I’m suspecting the car I first learned on was a diesel. You couldn’t do anything in second gear, heck you couldn’t even change the gears. (My first instructor had two of them, both made audible clunking sounds and I had to hold the gear stick just right, otherwise it would not go into 3rd for anything.) You also have to dance your feet all around, constantly just to keep the car still with the clutch control. Even the turn signals were rubbish and you had to constantly mess around with those to keep them on (one click full down to turn it on, one half click down to turn it off or something stupid like that.) The set up for the headlights were all over the dash too, not just on the windshield wiper and turn signal levers at the steering wheel like every other car. Even Jeremy Clarkson said, “Vauxhall has never made anything decent.” Now that I drive in a better car (with a better instructor) I’d never consider buying a Corsa.

I’m learning on a 2010 Honda Civic now. Before, I was convinced that I’d never be able to drive anything larger, different, ect. than the Corsa but man, was I wrong. Even on the first lesson, I could hold that car still at a traffic light way, way easier than the Vauxhall. There’s a lot of ease to the pedals, and the gears too that make this car a contender for me whenever we start looking to buy. Granted, I would get a used one because the new ones are pricey. The 2010s aren’t bad, but the 2006s are a bit ugly. Plus, the back of the car has that spoiler in the middle of the window, so it’s kind of hard to see out of the back of it. I like the big side mirrors though (unless they come dangerously close to parked cars.) It’s also a bit too big I think but I don’t want anything too small like all the other hatchbacks around here are.

I know he’s the most popular car in the UK, and they’re really reliable, practical, etc. but the Ford Focus does not evoke any kind of emotion other than, “Bleck,” with me. They’re everywhere, and reviews say they’re cheap to service and maintain (a big plus) as well as being able to get a decent one for under £6000 (a huge plus.) But my parents owned a Ford Taurus once that died in a horrible way right after they bought it used. I kind of don’t trust Fords now (terribly unAmerican, I know) but I may have to get one of these if I drive it and like it. I still say it looks masculine and is a bit too big. (And ugly, don’t forget ugly.)

I love these little Minis, it’s true. I mean, how can you not love a little face on a car like that? (Very girlie, I know.) I know they’re rated high and, heck, made for the type of driving I’ll be doing. For under £6000 I could get a decent one but I’d need to make sure it had air conditioning and low mileage and that may be a bit tricky. I’m thinking of just having my first car for a few years, so this isn’t a bad option (is it?) I mean, there’s only 2 doors and the hatchback. It sits close to the road so I’m not sure how safe it is (but heck, I’ve been in one that drove on 1-4 in Orlando and that’s insanity waiting to happen.) I just don’t know if I should go the practical route or enjoy my first little car that can zip around British streets (if I can, in fact, get it to zip up hills with my driving learning impairment.)

Of course, I’ve considered just going back to my roots with the tried and true Toyota. The Auris would be the modern version of my Corolla if they still made them in the UK. Sadly, Whatcar doesn’t rate them very high but Parkers gives them 4/5 stars. I can get a decent one for the same price as the ones above. I’ve not driven a manual Toyota here, but my past Toyotas ran without giving me any problems, so I may play it safe with this one. The Yaris looks like it may be a bit too small for us, but I could always try him out too.

I don’t know why I can’t fall in love with this Fiat Panda. He’s cute, the right size, and prices right with good reviews but I’m just not sure. We sat in one when we first looked at cars. It’s got a really neat set up inside too, but I’m way more about practicality than how the interior looks. There’s a lot of stuff going on inside, and the handbrake is an odd, boxy shaped thing. I’m not opposed to test driving one, but I’m still semi leery about buying a Fiat since I hear it’s been called a Fix It Again, Tony for so long.

I’ve researched used car sales, new car sales, Top Gear reviews and consumer reviews. I’ve looked at these top contenders up here as well as:

Nissan Note - is it too narrow in the cabin?

Hyundai i20 – drove a Hyundai in Florida during last vacation, but read that the gears are clunky on the manuals here, plus I’m not sure if this is too small either

Volkswagen Polo – price is the issue, especially price to maintain, and size compared to the Golf

Kia Soul – it is so stinking cute, but I think it’s too big for over here because it was taller than me, plus bad reviews.

So what so you think I should get? Are any of these a definite Yes or No?

Read part one of my car journey: History of My Automobiles’ Past

History of my Automobiles’ Past


When I bought my cars in Florida, it just happened. My parents loaned me their beige Pontiac right after I first got my license, until I took over their Chevy Beretta. Dear Lord, did I love that car. Just looking at old pictures of it, makes me nostalgic. Cars should give you that kind of emotion. You should feel a kinship to them. My first, proper car. He was so fast (I got it at 120 on US1 in the middle of the night one time.) The bottom was low and the front scraped a lot if you hit a speed hump too hard (as if those really deter you from going fast.) I had this from the time I was 17 up to age 22 or so, I guess. Ah, Beretta. I miss you!

I couldn’t even watch when my Beretta was taken away. When he finally died, I got myself a Geo Prism – a Chevy with a Toyota engine. This car took me to Orlando twice a day in many cases. I went to college, my friend’s apartment, the club, everywhere. I even remember the first day I got it and taking it to Downtown Orlando thinking the lights weren’t on bright (because my Beretta just did stuff, without a hitch you know?) It was almost totalled when an elderly lady pulled out in front of me on US1, one morning on the way to class. It even got broken into once (I do not miss being downtown.) Sadly, after I started work as a full-time teacher, the signs were there that my Geo was on his last legs, er, wheels. Mind you, the A/C always worked and the paint was a mess from the Florida sun, but he was still running.

I looked online, and for under $10k, was a 2003, green-silver Toyota Corolla on sale at the local Nissan dealership. I went down, drove it, and bought it. Nothing fancy at all. No power windows, no alarm, no sports pack. In fact, I resented the stupid car because despite it being a Toyota with the same, cute headlights, it wasn’t my Prism and I still drove that little clunker around until he was finally taken away as well. I had both of them parked in front of my apartment for a while too. But I learned to love him, and I called him Yoda (as in Toy-Yoda.) The Corolla did me very, very well so I’m an avid Toyota fan. It survived a side-swiping and the back seat full of crap that I put in there (I always brought everything in my car.) I even picked Steve up from the airport on his first visit to America in my Corolla. But when I moved, I had to have my folks sell my little Yoda for $4k. He had the side scraped up, and the check engine light going, but he was still going strong after having him for 8 years.
So now that I’ve been carless for 2 years and four months, I’m trying to figure out which should be my first, British car. I’ll discuss what I’ve considered, and the research I’ve found on each one in my next post.
Read part two of my car journey here: My first UK car–which should I choose?

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

The bus station and the crazies who lurk inside

It’s nice to sit here this morning and listen to the bird’s singing out my window. It seems like Spring is upon us, but it’s still way cold and it snowed a bit yesterday morning. Wonder how Florida is today…

Yesterday I had a bit of a situation. First, I travelled to the local JobCentre to sign up a new claim. I’m sure I’m not eligible for compensation, but I wanted to see if there was anything they could do for me to try and find full time work somewhere. I was interested to see the types of people who were among the unemployed ranks: everyone. Seriously. All sorts of people where in there. People as young as 18, people much older, and people my age.

It’s not a pleasant place to be, obviously, but I honestly don’t know how any large amount of people can be living off of the system. You have to produce 10 job posts that you’ve applied for, and check in every two weeks. I’m suspecting that most of these people are like me; applying over and over and getting nothing back from the employers. (At least some of them interview me and/or send a nice note letting me know I wasn’t chosen for the role.)

After I went to the JobCentre, got my groceries, even allowed a lady and her granddaughter to use the pay-toilet after me so she didn’t have to shell out 20p, I had my encounter.

I was sitting on the bench in the bus station, waiting for Steve to call me. There was some big, loud, ginger dude talking to some lady and her kid about a phone to my left. I wasn’t paying much attention except I could hear the woman yelling, “Stop it"!” to the (presumably) the kid, as the guy continued loudly blahblahblahing. I’ve seen my share of loud, obnoxious people in town because, heck, they’re going to be everywhere you go. I didn’t think much else about it, until the lady and her kid walked off and the drunk dude came up to me, an inch from my face, blathering about something.

Now, since I live by the age-old practice of “Don’t acknowledge and don’t make eye contact,” so potential crazies will leave me alone, I did just that. But when he got closer to me, slurring about how he wanted to use my phone, and he’s give me a quid (no money visible, of course.) I was like, “What? No.” Seriously. Are you kidding me? Then he got pissed off. “But I need to call my effing neighbour!” I just kept telling him, “No. Absolutely not. No,” and putting my hand up for him to back off. He then proceeded to shout and call me all sorts of names (some of which I don’t know the meaning of) and he went on, ranging and raving through the bus station about what an effing blankety-blank I was.

I may be, dude. But I ain’t stupid.

That was enough to shake me up a bit, so I tried to find a security person of some description, but finally settled on going into the ticket agent’s and telling her about the incident so she could alert security. Steve called and I grabbed the next bus so I could get the heck out of Dodge.

Steve wanted to make sure that I reported the incident to the police, so I called the non-emergency number and let her know some crazed, drunken man was trying to get cell phones off of people. My concern was people with little kids or elderly people (though I’ve seen some of them in town who will push and shove to get on the bus or through a store, so I doubt they’d be very intimidated.) When I talked to the police, the dispatcher told me that I should have called 999 right then and there to let them know. I told them it wasn’t anything I needed to make a statement about, but the police still wanted to come over and talk to me.

About an hour later I had a nice policewoman in my kitchen discussing the woes of people with drug and alcohol problems in public, as well as the phone theft concern. She told me she had a friend in London who grabbed a phone out of her hand while she was sitting on the bus. (Remind me never to live there, would you?) I told her about the situations I’d seen at the schools in Florida with kids blatantly stealing phones from other students and even teachers. Heck, when I worked at the NASA contractor, one of my friends had her phone stolen off her desk. When we were at O2 over the weekend, we saw that an iPhone can cost up to £719 out-right. Good thing I only have a Windows phone, but still.

In Orlando, it was illegal for people to be visibly drunk in public and cops were everywhere, waiting to nab someone. Here, according to the policewoman, it’s illegal for anyone to shout obscenities like that in public. (Can you imagine how many people in Florida would be arrested if that were the case there?) The logic is, children may hear this, or elderly people would be intimated (heck, it intimidated me) by the rude, loud, bullying type of behaviour. The policewoman thought that these kinds of incidences would be more prevalent here. I told her Americans have less shame about being rude to people; plus they may or may not have a weapon.

Moral of the story is: sit around other people, not alone on a bench where no one can see craziness take place. Be aware of your surroundings. Stay away from loud, potentially drugged/drunk/mentally disturbed people.

And drive a car because the bus station can get creepy.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Social networking–life’s necessary evil

I love blogging. I’ve done it since the word weblog was created for news-only sites, until we all decided to make journals out of the capability. I like to write. I like creating content. I like technology too, but I’m starting to really fall behind and I sort of don’t care.

I was asking about book promotions online the other day, because it’s long been discussed that Twitter should not be for spam. Still people do it – a lot. My Twitter feed has gotten to the point where most of it is just links and little discussion. But people will still say they never, ever read or buy books based on a writer’s promotion on Twitter. The alternatives suggested, when I posed the question, were Tumblr and Goodreads.

Tumblr may be the place to be, but after updating my Pick Books page, I didn’t see a lot of original work there. If you’re an artist, fine. If you make animated GIFs, fine. But, just like Pinterest, reblogging and repinning content doesn’t take much effort, so there isn’t much life in the posts. Granted, I like the funny ones like Dog Shaming, but I don’t need to look on Tumblr for anything. (Pinterest still doesn’t interest me either. Someone on my FB credited Pinterest for her cute, colored dish of devilled eggs for Easter. Yeah, I don’t have any use for that in my life.) If people are making book trailers, I totally get that. I get the book promos too, but aren’t they going to get lost in the mix of funny Doctor Who and Harry Potter photos? (I like them to an extent, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not a fan or anything.) If they were photos I took with my own camera, I would be fine with uploading and sharing them. I had that idea when I started No Intent to Buy and my Foodie Blog. Other than that, it’s not that compelling of a situation to invest time in.

Goodreads is a reasonable book promotion tool even though Amazon has bought them and it’s such a big deal now. (I solved the dilemma personally – it has an app to update my book progress, therefore I keep my Goodreads account.) I understand how easily it would be to offer book giveaways and contests, but I can’t be the only person who ignores them. I get invites for those all the time and I never participate. I would think Twitter would be a less intrusive way to offer book giveaways – I’ve participated in contests from links there and I hear that plenty of people have legitimately won free books.

Aside from these sites, I’ve talked before about how Facebook has lost its heart and soul too. In the past few weeks I’ve demoted friends’ posts to allow “only important” updates show up. I’m tired of the cutesy motivational photos, the awful, blurry photos of people at bars, and the insipid updates every five minutes about their daily activities (that’s what Twitter is for, ya’ll.)

Still, I am a bigger fan of FB than Twitter because people I actually know let me know what’s going on in their lives. I don’t love it either since all people seem to be able to do is mindlessly share things there too (though I did post a funny punctuation joke yesterday.) I don’t mind chatting to strangers online but I don’t base my life around it. I just don’t feel the need to do that. When I worked full time I was glad to have the focus outside of the technology spectrum, so I didn’t have to feel obligated or bored enough to just habitually check or update Twitter. I know I’m in the minority on this, and I do not begrudge anyone who enjoys it. It’s all in how you use it, and for me, it’s something I can just take it or leave. Now that Lost is over, I don’t feel as enthusiastic about the discussions. (Besides, the discussions are very limited for me personally, from what I’ve found.)

Lastly, I set my LinkedIn profile to private today. I got an invite to connect with a girl I use to be friends with, who was full of idiotic gossip and drama that I put behind me years ago. I’ve blocked them from FB, and email, yet since LinkedIn can’t block specific users, they can still see my current address and work-related information. No. I just can’t abide by that, especially when I know the reason for the invite was just to be nosey rather than a good-natured outreach of rekindling a friendship. I know the idea of LinkedIn is to keep contacts with former work-mates in order to find job positions, but if someone whom I specifically don’t want knowing my business, can, then it’s not worth bothering with having my resume up for public viewing. It really creeped me out when I realized that this girl and her group of numbskulls have been snooping around on my online profile. (I’m honestly surprised she could figure out how to create a LinkedIn account in the first place.)

Anyway, needless to say, I’m finding social networking less and less interesting. Everywhere I look, I hear people raving about Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, but I’ve just never been in love with any of it. Well, at least Megan Fox is on my side.