Noma Bar's Art

I was recently called to Noma Bar's work with negative space.  You can see a lot of his illustrations here.  I'm impressed.   Also be sure to check out his minimalist portraits.

Pick #298

Morcheeba - "Blindfold"

Computer Problems/Chromebook

Both of my computers broke (laptop & desktop).  I tried everything I could to fix.  Erin called in a favor from a friend and my desktop is working but my laptop is toast.  I'm thinking about getting a new laptop.  I don't really need one though.  I made due with only a desktop through all of college and the first part of grad school.  If I do get one, I'm thinking about a Google Chromebook.  They're weird and way different and I don't know what to think.  I like part of the concept, but not other parts.

I think that I might get one if it had remote desktop compatible with both Windows and Ubuntu, a good way to compile LaTeX, and a bit more than 16GB on the hard drive (SSD).  I would like to have a number pad to the right of the keyboard, but understand that this is not likely to happen.  I really like that it has such a long battery life, the ability to connect to your documents no matter where you are, is made by Google, its size/weight specs, and the purported start up speed.  I'm not sure how I feel about needing to be online all the time.  As long as it's really easy to get on to wireless networks, I guess that's fine.  The 3G option sounds cool for trips in the car and whatnot.  I wonder how much a service plan would cost.  I think I could make due almost all the time with just wireless.  I read a post about a guy who bought the cheaper Wi-Fi only model and used the extra $ to turn his cell into a wireless hotspot or something like that.

If anybody has experience with Chromebooks, let me know...especially if I can come play with it.

Miser May Recap

So, Miser May was not as successful as Frugal February.  Total expenditure:  $1,516.40.  Large expenditures were made on: 1. my house ($345), 2. tuition ($377), 3. food/groceries ($419).  Spending outside these categories totals 375.40.

I couldn't have done much to cut back on the expenditures on tuition or my house, but I could have definitely eaten cheaper.  Eating cheap was not one of the goals of the month.  I think it might be kind of neat to incorporate that into Stingy September.

My discretionary spending was $34.50...about 3 times as much as discretionary spending in February.  My partially discretionary spending was $133.67 which is pretty high, and my overall spending was 1,516.40.  It's months where I spend about $1,500 that are the motivation for projects like this.  I'd like to end up spending around $800 and bank the rest.

Overall, pretty boring and non-interesting results.  I broke the eating out rule near the end to use a Groupon with Walker.  We ended up going over the Groupon amount and I picked up the entire tab.  He'll get me back next time.

New Ab Exercise

Today I had the bright idea to combine a balance board with an ab roller to do an ab exercise.  You put your knees on the balance board then do the ab roller like normal with the goal of keeping the edges of the balance board off the ground.

THIS IS INTENSE.  I can't think of an ab exercise I've done that's more difficult.  I'm not yet able to do it very fast and it requires a lot of concentration.  I imagine I will get better at it.  I do not know anything about the physiological benefits of this exercise so I don't offer any official endorsement for you to do it, but if you have a chance to try this, I say to give it a shot.

Pick #297

Baby Huey & the Babysitters - "Hard Times" from The Baby Huey Story:  The Living Legend

Pick #296

Roy Orbison - "Pretty Woman"
This version is awesome, filled with an all-star line up.