Tag: common sense

Boston & Cambridge area people- big freecycle event in July

Harvard University and the Harvard Square Farmer’s Market are having a huge freecycle event on July 8th, 2014 on the Plaza in front of the Science Center.  There will be tons (ok, maybe not tons, it depends on how much is donated) of stuff there for people to take and reuse.

Donations will be accepted as early as 9:00am.  Details on the website are here.  You can bet I’m going to be there to drop off the growing pile of stuff Geoff and I have in our “To Donate” corner of the guest room.

Harvard Square Famer's Market Freecycle event poster
Harvard Square Farmer’s Market Freecycle event poster

Tell your friends, coworkers, family, etc.  I’ll see you there.

~Kelly

ETA: Month fixed.  I was tired.

How to Play Internet Bingo!

No, our blog hasn’t been hijacked or hacked and this isn’t about some internet gambling site.  This is about something that most people deal with every day and probably don’t even know it.  I first ran into the idea in Childfree circles and discovered that it pretty much applies to everybody in one way or another.

It’s called Internet Bingo.  There are many forms of this “game”.  It happens online and offline and it certainly happens to all of us.  Trolls do it to us, well- meaning friends and family do it to us, even strangers do it to us.  You know what you get when you fill your Bingo card?  Congratulations, you’ve just been “Bingoed”.

Ready for the tutorial?

Continue reading “How to Play Internet Bingo!”

The Internet tells me things

And today it has been telling me things with pictures.  And so, I am telling them to you.  A lot has been changing in the world and in our lives in the past few days, so you get pictures.

First, my favorite.

h/t to Teri for this one

Continue reading “The Internet tells me things”

Hey, Boston!

Today is a beautiful day.  In fact, today is supposed to be the best day this weekend.  Do all of us who are stuck inside working a favor:

GO OUTSIDE

Take your dog for a walk.  Find a bench and read Game of Thrones in the sunshine.  Go to your local park with some friends and practice your light saber dueling.  I know we’re in the grip of Marathon frenzy right now so maybe don’t take a backpack anywhere, but go out and do something.  Get some of that Vitamin D that we New Englanders lack.

And for the love of all that is good and holy, don’t hole yourself up in a library, museum, mall, or other indoor windowless place.  Those of us who are stuck working inside one of these places thank you in advance.

~Kelly

A couple of clarifications

1) Yes, the bomb squad has had a busy day today in Boston.  Yes, they did just blow up two things in controlled detonations (as in, within the last two minutes) at the Marathon Finish Line.  Geoff and I are both fine and were nowhere near any of the controlled detonations today.  Yes, there were more than just those two detonations, no, we were never in any danger.

2) To all the crazies/”patriots”/martyrs/whatever who think that today is a day for demonstrations of their ideologies by throwing backpacks full of stuff into random places: Go back under whatever rock you came from.  We don’t want you, you will get caught and possibly killed, and your “message” just gets lost in the kerfuffle.  Stop already, enough.  April 15th is for paying taxes.

3) To the people heading up the security theater that now invades so much of our lives: I want my rights back.  Catching the guy who tossed those backpacks into the middle of a heavily guarded street was no biggie.  Stopping the guy who shot up KS yesterday?  Not a whole lot of warning on that one despite his obvious history of hatred.  Oh, and that was terrorism too, in case you missed the memo.  Just because a white guy did it doesn’t mean it isn’t terrorism.

And finally, to leave the serious topics for a minute:

4) Geoffrey and Joffrey aren’t the same person, thank all the Gods.  If you’re looking for information about the character on Game of Thrones who died, his name is Joffrey and that post is here.  Geoffrey is my husband and he is a) not a psychopathic murdering boy king and b) very much alive.

~Kelly

ETA by Geoff:  And c) I am very much loyal to the Starks and hate the Lannisters very very much.  I am a true man of the North.  Nyah.

Internet in Greater Boston – fewer options for more money

Greater Boston, and especially our home of Cambridge, is undoubtedly one of the technology capitals of the United States, and certainly of the East Coast.   And yet Kelly and I have struggled for years to find a decent, reliable Internet provider for a reasonable price.  Currently we are using Comcast, because we simply could not get reliable service from Verizon no matter how hard we tried.  It was depressing, but at least we figured it probably wouldn’t get any worse.

And then earlier this week I read that our Internet/phone/cable provider, Comcast, is going through yet another merger.

Sigh.  No good can come from this.

Continue reading “Internet in Greater Boston – fewer options for more money”

Today in Equality

With the opening of the Sochi Olympic games on Friday there are all sorts of things going on right now to remind us that the world is full of both hateful bigots (I’m looking at you, Putin) and wonderful people (Canada, Scotland, that would be you.)

This is what has popped up in the latter category in my various news feeds today.  Enjoy.

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Zombies vs. animals? The living dead wouldn’t stand a chance – Boing Boing

Kelly found an article recently that she knew would interest me.

One of the things about zombies that is commonly accepted within the genre is that they are dead and rotting.*  And in the normal world, all dead flesh is eventually broken down and picked apart by Mother Nature, leaving only bones, which will also one day disappear.  Everything from bacteria to bugs to birds to bears, all feast on whatever carrion they can find.  And so one scientist finally asks, how would zombies fare in the real world?  Pretty poorly, apparently.  As the author puts it:

Relax. Next time you’re lying in bed, unable to fall asleep thanks to the vague anxiety of half-rotten corpses munching on you in the dark, remember this: if there was ever a zombie uprising, wildlife would kick its ass.

-Geoff

*There are notable exceptions.  The zombies in films like 28 Days Later and Zombieland, as well as the zombies in the Left4Dead video games, are  technically alive, but have been turned into rabid/feral monsters due to some nasty disease.

Recent news roundup- Political cartoon edition

These are mostly what has been popping up on my Google+ feed lately.  Some of them are doozies.  Enjoy.

Continue reading “Recent news roundup- Political cartoon edition”