Goodbye Google Reader!

Hi there everyone.  I just wanted to pop in and let you know, in case you didn't already, that Google Reader is going away tomorrow.  If you follow me through that and still want to be notified when I write new blog posts you need to follow through a different method.  My preferred reader is Bloglovin'.  It puts all of the posts of blogs you follow in one place.  You can categorize blogs in your own categories and one of the features I love is that you can look at similar blogs to any other blogs you enjoy.  If you want to follow me through Bloglovin', go here.  Another method to follow me by is email or feeds.  You can find those methods up in my right sidebar, right below Search.

I have never personally used Feedly, but I checked it out after Martin mentioned it and it looks pretty good.  It also has One-Click Google Reader Import which seems pretty handy.  If you'd like to follow me on there, either do the Google Reader Import or go here.

There are also many other readers you can use.  You can find more in this post by a great blogger lady.

Musings on Imperfection

I painted my jewelry box with nail polish and filled the empty space on the door.  It's an imperfect fleur-de-lis and I like it a lot.

I like things that are imperfect, like blurry photos.

You might remember that post I wrote awhile ago sharing some things that I'm bad at.  You might have read it and wondered why I'm focusing on my weaknesses.  Well the truth is that I'm happy to be imperfect.  I might not dress perfectly (haha, I never dress perfectly) or say the right things at the right time (socially awkward right here!), but I like being imperfect.  How boring would the world be if everyone was perfect?!  Seriously, think about it.  My imperfections are what make me who I am and I like who I am, so I like my imperfections.  Plus it makes me quirky and awesome so what's not to like?

Happenings

I had a fairly lazy, yet eventful and productive weekend.  On Saturday I finished my first custom Etsy order, which was exciting.  I'm already working on my second custom order.  After that I did some more room cleaning/organizing and inventoried my jewelry supplies.  I made enough space in my room for a shelving unit, so my jewelry stuff will be more organized, instead of just all on top of my dresser like it is now.  I haven't bought the shelving unit yet, but I will soon.  Then I went to a gluten free sushi place called Mio Sushi.  It was really good and it was nice to be able to eat anything on the menu (aside from two dishes) without having to ask a million questions first.  Usually at sushi places, I just get nigiri, which is just fish and rice, as opposed to rolls.  So it was nice to be able to eat sushi rolls again, and I also had a lot left over.  I ate some for lunch today.  It was really good sushi and I highly recommend it.  They have locations in Seattle, Vancouver Washington, Camas Washington (which is near my hometown!), Portland Oregon, Bend Oregon, Eugene Oregon, and Changchun China.  I'm not sure if all of the locations are gluten-free but I know that the Greenlake Seattle location I ate at is predominantly gluten-free.

After sushi, I went to the movies and saw This Is the End.  It was a movie that falls into my completely-ridiculous-but-I-love-it category.  It has a star-studded cast and more laughs than you can shake a stick at.  (Sidenote: How did shaking a stick at something ever become a method of quantifying things?!)  This Is the End is basically about celebrities trying to survive the apocalypse.  I don't want to give anything away, since it's still out in theaters.  Besides the big stars, including Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, and James Franco, there are small parts and cameos by lots of other celebrities including, but definitely not limited to, Mindy Kaling, Emma Watson, Rihanna, and Aziz Ansari.  If you enjoyed The Hangover, you'll probably like this movie.  Also for some reason this movie made me have a celebrity crush on Jay Baruchel, so I have my first celebrity crush!  It's weird because I've seen him in a bunch of other movies and felt nothing.  I think it's because I feel like I can relate to him in this movie, the socially awkward one who doesn't know anyone at the party.

And then on Sunday I introduced G to The Office because somehow he's never seen it! (other than maybe two episodes).  He loved it and we marathoned our way through the first season and part of the second.  It's on Netflix.  I didn't want to spoil anything, so I had to be very careful with my response when he said he thought Jim liked Pam, and then again later when he said that Pam likes Jim back, and why is she with that other guy?!  After that I napped and then beat the first two stages of Pandora: Purge of Pride.  (I'll review that game in its own post at some point.  Spoiler alert: I love it!)

And besides that I inadvertently made myself (AKA my Etsy shop but I can wear it for shop promotion, plus I haven't listed it for sale yet) a bracelet that matches my toenail polish, so that happened.  I made the bracelet on purpose, but the matching was unplanned.

Nerdish Delight: Holiday in Cambodia

When I was a little kid, I wanted to be an archaeologist when I grew up.  I don't want to be an archaeologist anymore but I do love exploring (although mostly just my own city).  So when I saw the news that a group of archaeologists in Cambodia discovered a 1200 year old city, I was really excited!  One of the news articles called the expedition Indiana Jones-style and while I do love Indiana Jones movies, I think it sounds more like the sort of thing I would read in a Michael Crichton book, like Congo.  (If you haven't read that book, and enjoy science-y murder mysteries, I highly recommend it)  They discovered the city using laser technology developed in the 1960s for measuring clouds.  Lasers!  Seriously, lasers alone nerdishly delight me.  But there's more.  After they detected the outline of the city using Lidar technology (which, using ultraviolet, visible, or near infrared light, pulses lasers to "see" through dense vegetation, in this case jungle), they trekked through the jungle (which was full of live land mines, by the way!).  I'm picturing lots of khaki and machetes.  They also had a guide, who had never been to the lost city either, a one-legged soldier.  Does this not sound like something that would be happening in a book or a movie?!  And then they found the city, and were attacked by cannibals who hadn't seen humans other than their own tribe before.  And then the ancient city was destroyed because of ancient booby traps, obviously.  Oh wait, no that last part with the cannibals and destruction would happen in a movie, but thankfully didn't happen in real life.  In real life, it was pretty anti-climactic.  They just discovered a city, called Mahendraparvata, that hasn't been seen by anyone who is alive now, or anyone who has been alive in the past 1000 years.  That's all.  It also reminds me of Timeline, also by Michael Crichton, which is another book that I highly recommend.  There's quantum physics and time travel in it!

The other really cool thing about this discovery is that the ginormous temple of Angkor Wat, which I've thought was super cool since I was a little kid with archaeologist dreams, is part of the newly rediscovered city of Mahendraparvata.  It's like they just keep on finding more pieces in a puzzle (and I love puzzles!).  First Angkor Wat and then Mahendraparvata.  I have to wonder what they'll find next.  I love urban decay (and I'm not talking about the makeup brand) and I love ruins.  Ruins are really just extreme urban decay, from times when the urban landscape was very different.  My absolute favorite examples are Macchu Picchu (another one I've loved since I was teeny tiny) and Nara Dreamland (a much newer example of urban decay).

Oh and one more thing it reminds me of is the children's movie The Road to El Dorado, where they discover El Dorado, the lost city made of gold.