As previously mentioned, I've been working on my Russian at www.lang-8.com. And now I've met a few people that I wouldn't mind talking to--however, they're in Russian and Japan.

So, I've signed up for Skype. While I'm still trying to figure out how to use it (I still have to find my computer headset), there's no easy way to import mailing addresses and see who else has it. The search function is quite good, if you have a full name, email address, or skype name. But I can't import my yahoo mailing address and have it match up emails.

So, if you have this program, send me a message, or reply to this, and I'll email you my skype name so we can link up.

The number of communication websites is getting a little unruly. And I'm still not that good about keeping in touch with people. =/

Okay, I've always wanted to make a website where you could rate issues that are important to you and see the candidates that agree with your views. I'd start it for a presidental election, and expand it to include local elections too. Once place where you can see what the candidates have to say. However, while I have a working model in my head, I don't have the programming knowledge. Plus, you'd never get most candidates to say one way or the other what they really mean.

But then my uncle turned me onto something that MN public radio came up with.. Gotta love public radio!!! =]
http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460

When I took it, only 1 candidate got a 14. Then it was a five-way tie at 11. Followed by everyone else at 1 or 2. Some of the answers I hadn't heard of before, so I may have to do some research and take it again... We'll see. =]

So, I keep trying to learn Russian. It's not an easy language. It fights you, it doesn't want to be learned by outsiders.

However, I've started my 3rd blog on a new website: www.lang-8.com. This one on MySpace is for random thoughts, the second is on livejournal is for writing notes (a must for anyone who is pre- or post-published), and now the third one is for writing in Russian.

So, what does this have to do with you, curious reader?

Well, if you have any lanugage that you really want to learn, I suggest checking the site out. You see, the whole website is built to help you learn a lanugage. All you have to do is post a blog in the language you're trying to learn. Native speakers will read it and tell you what you screwed up. To thank them, read their attempts to write in English and tell them where they screwed up.

It's a great concept, even though the website is still in Beta format. And becuase the site is hosted in Japan, some of the English is a little confusing. But they're fixing that fast, as more people write to them and have it corrected.

Right now, to see the site, you need to be a user. But that will be changing in the next month.  But really, do you want wait that long? My goal is to write 1 blog a week until I can actually congegate some of these verbs faster. It takes me forever to write a 5-sentence blog.

So, even though I had planned to wait until January to start looking for a new job, they found me. Three different jobs (well, staffing agencies) called me. It's one of the better sides of monster, I suppose.

One of the big secrets I discovered is a new format for your resume. I had interviewed at a few places in the beginning of this year using a traditional resume.  I noticed that the questions focused on very random aspects of my resume and overlooked some of the bigger accomplishments. So, I did some research and found the "functional resume," aka "skill set resume."

This format highlights the stuff you've done by area of expertise, not job location. This was particularly important since I was thinking about going freelance and wouldn't be able to list everywhere that I might be working on one form. I still listed where I had worked, and how long; but it was just a section at the bottom--after I had showed off the type of work I'd already done.

So, to all of you looking for something better... do some googling and find some examples. At first, converting the resume is a little awkward--this goes against the "proper" format that we've all been taught. But in the long run, it's worth it.

Last month was NaNoWriMo, and I failed to meet the 50,000 word count. While upsetting, this is mostly due to videogames. To rectify this situation, I've banned myself from video games for the month of December. I'm looking at it kinda like Lent, but getting ready for Christmas instead of Easter. And it's working quite well!

I've up my daily word count by quite a bit (though nothing worth showing), and I've gotten some wedding stuff out of the way (see last blog on jewelry). All of these trips to the craft store have pumped my creative juices into full gear. And I'm searching out new territory. Last year, my mom got me a jean jacket. At first sight, I wanted to bedazzle it. (Who wouldn't right? ) But I'm not going to be spending the money on the machine. Luckily, they sell iron-ons!!

Most of the "bejeweled" iron-ons say something like "Princess" or "Rock star." Even my ingrain tacky desire has its limits. I finally found a wicked butterfly patch with big spiky wings. Yea! Too bad its too cold to wear the jean jacket right now.

Also, I've been working on some of the wedding stuff. Because I'm encouranging wedding guests to do flowers, fruit, and/or beads in their hair, I've been creating some jewelry for my bridesmaids. Everyone's wearing different colors, so I'm trying to follow the styles they were interested in, as well as bring a certain type of unity to the looks. So, here's two of them...

Okay, it's been a few weeks since my mom gave me the ShowerBow for my birthday. When I first opened it up, I laughed a bit and said thank you. Jon later said what I had been thinking: Oh no, she found another gadget. But every so often, a gadget is actually useful!

Basic concept relates to the increasingly popular curved shower rod. As you may imagine, it pulls the shower curtain away from you and makes the shower feel twice as large.

However, I live in Pittsburgh, where bathrooms were an afterthought in the house design. Every Pittsburgh apartment and house I've seen is small--like you can touch the shower, sink, and door while sitting on the toilet small. Such luxuries as a curved shower rod are just not possible.

Ta DA! ShowerBow to the rescue. It's a weighted curved arm that holds the curtain away from you while you're in the shower, and returns to an upright position out of the shower.

It's not as effective as a curved shower rod, but it does work. Even Jon has admitted to liking it--and he really is a no gadget kindda guy.

There are two warnings I give you for the ShowerBow.
1: Be sure that the curtain is still touching the walls once you're activated the ShowerBow. This isn't a big deal, but if you don't take a half-second to check, you'll get water on your floor.
2: Return the weighted apparatus back to the upright position slowly. The one that originally recieved was an older design than the replacement they sent me (I know, actual customer service! It's crazy!). Even with the new design, if the metal weight gets away from you, the whole thing wants to keep rolling over the other end of the shower rod. However, my curtain rod is really thin, so you may never have this problem.

So, I would recommend it to everyone in the Pittsburgh area (as well as the rest of you with small bathrooms). =]

It's been awhile, and SO much has happened (or in the process of happening). I have a dozen and ten blog topics on my mind, but no personal time. Many of these include topics-yet-to-be-announced, so be sure to stop back soon. Look for the next one to be about the ShowerBow. It's an interesting product, and well...next time.

Tonight's topic is PaperbackSwap.com. It's an awesome website for anyone who enjoys reading (but doesn't destroy books).

It's very simple. When you're done with a book, enter the ISBN and wait for someone to want it. Then you mail it to them (about $2.00) and get a credit. Take your credit and start searching for whatever book you want (that someone else has posted).

It's a lot like Half-Priced Books, but you have a better selection and can always add something to your wish list. When someone else enters a book on your wish list, it'll notify you and hold it for you.

You'll get a credit when you enter your first book. And you'll be surprised what people want. I've gotten rid of three college books that sat in a box for the last three years. Books should be in decent shape. And if you sign up, you need to use my email as a reference (so I get a free credit for refering you).

So, I've been trading books on Paperback Swap (which is an amazing idea--if you sign up, use my email as a reference so I get a free credit for the referal). I've created an amazing collection of Terry Pratchett books. But I didn't know which order to read them in because they're always listed slightly differently. I've jumped around in the books I've read before because it was always based on what I found at HalfPriceBooks. But now that I have nine of them, how do I read them in order?

Terry Pratchett's "official" website doesn't list the books in the order they were printed. It doesn't even list them in their mini-series.... Grrr...

So, I did another internet search and found them listed in published date, with main characters and satirical themes on Wikipedia

Now I also know which ones I need to find before I finish the ones I've got.

BTW: Best book I've read so far: Interesting Times. You won't find it on Paperback Swap. No one wants to get rid of their copy.

There's two ways to get ahead in the corporate world. First, you could learn and understand how everything works in your area of interest. Or you could become an industrial bureaucrat. If you think this has changed in the last 50 years, check out the excerpt from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

   "Mr. Constant," he said, "right now you're as easy for the Bureau of Internal Revenue to watch as a man on a street corner selling apples and pears. But just imagine how hard you would be to watch if you had a whole office building jammed to the rafters with industrial bureaucrats--men who lost things and use the wrong forms and create new forms and demand everything in quintuplicate, and who understand perhaps a third of what is said to them; who habitually give misleading answers in order to gain time in which to think, who make decisions only when forced to, and who then cover their tracks; who make perfectly honest mistakes in addition and subtraction, who call meetings whenever they feel lonely, who write memos whenever they feel unloved; men who never throw away anything unless they think it could get them fired. A single industrial bureaucrat, if he is sufficiently vital and nervous, should be able to create a ton of meaningless papers a year for the Bureau of Internal Revenue to examine. In the Magnum Opus Building, we will have thousands of them! And you and I can have the top two stories, and you can go on keeping track of what's really going on the way you do now." He looked around the room. "How do you keep track now, by the way--writing with a burnt match on the margins of a telephone directory?"
    "In my head," said Noel Constant.

--The Sirens of Titan (1959)