One Picture More

Most people have their "off" days once in a while. You know the feeling: everything that has a possibility of embarrassing you or revealing your secret addition to Yu-Gi-Oh! cards is given a starring role. I tend to experience these days during the beginning of the week, which is conveniently referred to as a "Blue Monday." This week's off day wasn't on schedule. Instead, I had a "Blue Friday," but I would go with the title "Hell Friday."

I had a letter to mail in the morning, so I carried it with me on my way to the bus stop. By the time I realized that I had walked past the mailbox without mailing the letter, I was standing next to three kids that were about to board the school bus. "Oh well," I figured. "I can just mail it at school."

A few hours later, I asked the school secretaries to mail my letter. It wasn't a problem at all. "As long as it's stamped," they said, but I had already handed my letter to them. When they glanced up on me with a Well Aren't You Smart-expression, I figured it wasn't going to be a good day. I was carrying around a wet unstamped letter. I put it in a shopping bag that I had been carrying around. The bag had some cans of beans for a local charity.

We had to write a boring essay during Spanish class. We were supposed to use about twelve thousand verb tenses, but I decided that two would be sufficient. The writing process went something like the ultra-fluent paragraph below: (I've translated it for your enjoyment).

If I encounter a woman one day, I want it to be enjoyable and pleasing. It would have a character of this things, such as comical and intelligence. I think these coconuts--

As soon as I realized I had just wrote the Spanish word for 'coconuts' in place of the word that meant 'things,' I couldn't help laughing. It was one of those I Can't Help Laughing At This Stupid Mistake I've Just Made-laughs. And that was how I choked on my gum. I was laughing so hard that the vacuum suck of my mouth pushed a small piece of winter mint gum right down into my throat. It stayed there collecting dust while I keeled over the side of my desk in hopes of spitting it out. At this point, the entire Spanish class had gotten out of their seats. They were frightened. "Benito! Benito! Are you okay!?" screamed the teacher. Later that day, she told me that her heart had doubled in rate and that it didn't slow down until the end of the day. My little coconut error had put the class in panic.

After I left that class with an inch of gum base in my stomach, I figured I would drop off my cans to the charity box. They were sugar-free, sodium-free, fat-free, organic black beans. Mother couldn't wait to get rid of them. In one way, I was glad to have gotten rid of that bag.

On the other hand, I wasn't.

After gym, I seemed to be under the impression that the day was over. I went to my locker, put on my jacket, got my umbrella, packed up my books, and went outside to wait for this buses. "That's weird," I thought to myself. I began worrying that I had missed the buses. I asked a friend if this was the case:

Ben: Where are the buses?
Friend: Ben.
Ben: What?
Friend: It's sixth period.

When the buses actually came at 2:20, I got onto the wrong bus. This became obvious when I started asking every single person, "Are you new?"

At home, I decided to call Blockbuster customer service to check on a complaint I had filed. I waited on hold for fifteen minutes and then got disconnected. Twenty minutes later, I got a rude woman who had no idea how to handle my situation. When I called back with the intent of being connected to a different agent, even after waiting forty minutes, I was magically connected to the same person. Wonderful...

Then I fell asleep in my jeans without brushing my teeth or taking allergy medicine, with the lights on and the doors open.

I can't wait until Monday!

Labels: blue monday friday bad day

Okay... so I am a die-hard fan of NBC's Heroes. That is why I have also become a fan of the new Heroes 360 degree experience.

If you have payed attention to every scene, you will remember the number of the business card for Primatech Paper. Call that number.

Welcome to a new dimension of advertising.

:-D

Labels: godsend, heroes, nbc, primatech paper

Non-techies can skip this blog. Otherwise, here are my top picks for December:



Hellodeo [hellodeo.com] is a new service from the makers of Odeo that allows users to easily post thumbnail-sized videos to a blog, forum, etc. I find it particularly useful. Here's an example:







Listal [listal.com] was started in 2005 and seems to be entirely maintained and developed by one guy named Tom - sort of reminds me of early MySpace days. Anyway, Listal was my selection for a DVD cataloging site after my 250+ count got a little out of hand. It features some nice ajax, web 2.0 feel, and lots of cool features.


AllofMP3 [allofmp3.com] isn't new at all, but I really wanted to blog about it under the current circumstances of the music industry. With iTunes revenues reported to have decreased by 65%, now is the time when we are seeing lots of rival music stores with unique claims to fame. For example, trendy BurnLongue allows consumers to open their own music store. AllofMP3's claim to fame is its Russian-based origin: their music is cheaper than the McDonald's ketchup. Due to some ridiculous Russian compliance, they sell $2 albums and $0.12 songs (with variations). They also offer increments of audio encoding, meaning you can pay less for music that won't make it past your Dell living rooms speakers.

More important, however, I've bookmarked ALLofMP3 this month because of Music For Masses, AllofMP3's on-demand free music program. PCs with the Music for Masses application can listen to any song downloaded in the ".mp3x" fomat as many times as they want. A user who signs up gets 100 song downloads with an additional (and generous downloads) for every few dollars they spend. These free downloads are great for the songs you just like to hear on your computer (but don't belong on your iPod).




FlipClips [flipclips.com] isn't quite new to the world, but it's probably new to most of its target market. FlipClips will ship a custom flip book produced from a short video clip that is uploaded to their servers. It would make a great gift!


See you in 2007!

No doubt whatsoever.

Read it.

******: what did you get for Hanukkah so far
******: ?
Ben Zweig: A chocolate bar
Ben Zweig: A small bottle of Windex
Ben Zweig: A coupon for a car wash
Ben Zweig: 3 fake teeth
Ben Zweig: An inflatable cockroach with light-up eyes
Ben Zweig: and
Ben Zweig: lastly
Ben Zweig: an oversized bandaid as big as a couch (it came in a really big box)
******: cool
******: i got
******: a teen quiz book