unsweetened.ca

Monkey see. Monkey do.

Inspired by andrea's recent post with the same title (different punctuation), and for my own amusement, I decided it was time to get this blog rated.

"This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

• dead (3x)
• hell (1x)"

If I'm getting PG from that, I'm wondering what some of my reading list will get rated.  So I'm tagging: creampuff, deadrobot, m.tinto, Venus and ScribeMama.

All Around The World

Have you ever wondered where all your blog hits are coming from?  Who's reading you and where did they come from?  I'm fascinated by this, so when I read about the new tool globetrackr, I thought I'd plunk it onto my sidebar and see how it worked.

I've had it up on unsweetened.ca for under a week and already the traffic report indicates readers from around the world.  That gets me wondering who they are, so  I've tried guessing who's in each of these towns.  I'm at a loss for most of them.  Did I get you right?

(The naming convention for those without existing identities/nicknames - first 2 letters of first name + first 2 letters of last name = nickname.)

globetrackr details: all recent traffic

-- Thailand
Bangkok 

-- United Kingdom
Watford 

-- Saudi Arabia
Riyadh 

-- United States
Las Vegas, NV - - Rockr & Junkii?

-- Canada
Montreal, QC  - - Sath?

If your home town is on this list or the continuation below, I'd love to know...because I'm nosey.

Light Box For Lexa

  Light Box  -- Originally uploaded by LexnGer

Ger did a GREAT job making this and I love the results so far.Check it out

We're already talking about Lightbox 2.0 for bigger items and shots and I haven't even had it for 12 hours yet. I am lored!

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Gerry made me a light box... let's see what trouble I can get into now.

Squidoo Two Woo Hoo

After the positive response to Squidoo Lens #1 - Gourmet Gifts, (completely ignoring Venus' comment on my grater-fetish) I figured I'd spend a little time finishing up Squidoo Lens #2 - my Essential Cookbooks lens.   

"From the Basics to Cooking Like a Chef, I've cherry-picked 5 Cookbooks for each category that will guide you along in your own culinary adventures, whether you are looking for your first cookbook or to expand your collection."

(Yes, this squidoo thing is almost as addictive as vox... and damned near as easy. But I didn't believe Katr when she said it months ago, why would you believe me?) 

Yes... yes... there is a point.  I'm testing out the Plexo feature that *should* let me "Add this Plexo list as a widget on your blog, site, forum, whatever."   If this works anyone  who wants to should be able to grab this list and reuse it on their blog, site, forum, whatever, too. 

Ready, set, save..... 

plex7432

   

 

Joby Joins Us

A wonderful gift, so precious and sweet.
Our hearts are full, our lives complete.*

We welcome our new arrival

Joby Gorillapod Thorpe-Clark

January 19, 2007 at 4:34pm
9.8 inches, 0 pounds, 5.8 ounces

Joby is already showing his flexible and playful side to the world.

Proud Caregivers: Lex 'n Ger

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[No One Cares... #25 - Offer classified information]  * wording thanks to Announcingme.com

1. Gerry, Joby & Juice, 2. More Than Just A Gorllia Pod, 3. Gorilla Pod Man, 4. GorillaPod's Gonna Getcha!

 

Favourites of 2006

For my birthday last year Gerry bought me a Pro membership on Flickr and this year my gift to myself was to renew it. My "gift" to you is this collage of my photos which flickrites tagged as their favourites from 2006

1. Branching Out In Hemp, 2. Crabapple., 3. Street Grass, 4. Berries To Go,
5. Saturation, 6. Ungodly Early, 7. Bursting with Colour, 8. Speed Past Keele,
9. Raccoon, 10. Nachos, 11. Run Gerry Run, 12. Soap Dome,
13. Foggy Afternoon, 14. OH BOY!, 15. Flaky, 16. Not Your Day,
17. Stripped, 18. Strawberry & Nutella - YUM!, 19. Resting, 20. Intertwined

 

You can ever take a look at Last Year's Favs

Technorati tags: flickr, lexnger, photos, favourites

I'm The Answer To Everything.

I'm posting quickly random bits about my day to address those concerned that I've been abducted by aliens. (You know who you are.)

For those of you who called, or emailed, or just thought about it.. yes, you got it right, today is my b'day.  My 42nd b'day in fact.  Which means, I'm the answer to Life, the universe and everything. 

Though I think the pressure is getting to me, I barely slept last night.  Not due to excitement really... just ... well... I'm not sure what. But I watched a LOT of late night tv and it sucked.  So when Ger relocated me to bed this morning at 8am, I stayed there.  Until 12. (There are some serious advantages to working from home.)

Since then I've been hyper-busy - emailing, processing book orders, showering, and foraging for breakfast at 3pm on Yonge Street. (I got Tacos ($6.50) at a new takeout - Chimichanga Fresh Mexican Grill - on Yonge just south of Gould.) 

But now it's time to clean up all the Xmas wrapping paper so the plethora of b'day candles on my Chocolate Fudge Extreme b'day cake don't burn the house down. 

Oh, and for my birthday I gave myself super-powers:

4 Ways My New Cell Kicks Ass!

Just before heading to the cottage I picked up my brand new cell phone from the folks at Matchstick.

1. it was free. Rannie hooked me up as part of a blogger's buzz marketing promotion from Matchstick. Free! Now that kicks ass!
2. it has a built in 1.2M camera. I know, everyone has one now... but did your phone take a video of Tiny Tom's donuts at the Ex? Mine did.
3. all my other tech toys that are all metalic grey, but my new cell phone has a really slick and sophisticated pearlized cover that's kind of pinky-beige. It makes me feel all girly.
4.  it came with serious toys:
   • a blue-tooth headset that clips on my ear and makes me feel like a borg (yes, a girly-borg),
   • two sets of earphones (one white, one slate grey) that make it possible to listen to music (yes, it plays music too) and also have a phone conversation using the same earphones!
   • an extra 512M of memory so I can take over 800 photos, or over an hour of video, or... well, really, the possibilities are endless.
   • software that will let me blog, read PDFs, Word docs, and syncs w/ Outlook... so it essentially replaces the Palm that died on me 4 months ago. Okay, okay, it's WAY more integrated than my palm was.
   • OH, and the plug has a piece of velcro permanently attached so the cables will never have to get tangled again. They will get tangled, they just don't have to.

I've only just started playing with the features, but the week at the cottage will give me plenty of time to dig into the blogging and web access features. The manual says it'll work as a wireless modem too... so perhaps internet on the island is now a possibility?

What others are saying: Russell Beattie, Sameer Vasta, Tanja-Tiziana Burdi, engtech, Geni Teasin

[Existing comments on unsweetened.vox.com]

Tags: free stuff, nokia 6682, cellphone, camera phone, cuz i buzz, rannie, buzz , matchstick, 4ways, swag for bloggers

I'm Peeking At You

If you are paying close attention, you might have noticed me peeking at you, kilroy-esque, from your navbar when you are checking out the posts on unsweetened.ca.

Or if you are a reader of the CheapEats Toronto blog:  www.cetoblog.com or CheapEats Ottawa blog: www.ceotblog.com - you might have seen one of these or appear in your RSS reader.

Inspired by the cool kids and thanks to some expert advice from Kate, I've been able to setup favicons for all our blogs.  (okay, I don't have one for spunkymonkey.ca yet... but hey, when was the last time that guy blogged anything anyway?)

Want one for your website or blog?