Name Pending

1. Gather a half-dozen people to blow bubbles from the Golden Gate Bridge (mightygirl.com)
2. Adopt
3. Visit 4 continents
4. Back up my computer
5. Eat more locally grown food
6. Send a singing telegram
7. Find Asher Simon
8. Watch a horror movie without cringing
9. Eat meat again
10. Learn sign language
11. Finish reading Lord of the Rings
12. Raise money for charity
13. Earn a lot of money
14. Become ambidextrous
15. Get organized
16. Go to Paris
17. Go to Belgium
18. Go to England
19. Go to Brazil
20. Learn to roller blade
21. Go to India

I've been playing it for hours and hours with my friend on AIM! No one's lost yet, even though Y's and E's are hard. >< We should start a shiritori thread!

The food was GREAT. I had so many of the Mediterranean sandwiches!! <333333333

Wednesday.

So we've approached that great characteristic Californian spring-summer sub-season; the sky is a brilliant blue, the weather's warm and the flowers are blooming, filling the air with all kinds of nice smells. By the time my birthday comes around, I'm sure it will be foggy and cold, but the two weeks of summery conditions before a bout of cold are always nice.

As the for the birthday, I'm not sure I have enough money to do anything, but I'll gather all my friends round me anyways, just for the hell of it. I rarely get to see any of them, anyways.

Stuff I gotta do:

• Room
  • Throw out all that junk
  • Find a way to clean the comforter / buy a new one?
  • Buy a vacuum cleaner that will work on that carpet...
  • Buy something with which I could organize all of my stuff
  • Get on the laundry
  • Maybe buy a desk
  • Move that random piece of furniture out (needs help)
  • Organize Wii games
  • Organize closet
  • Make bed
• Food
  • Buy some
• Clothes
  • Buy some

...As you can see, this is how I procrastinate. It'll probably be a year before I do even just this. Laziness is an awful plague.

I figure that with my lack of an interesting life, I should take the opportunity to blog about things that could help other people; today's issue? Stalking. On the offhand that you may have caught some part of tonight's CNN Anderson 360º, which I more or less half-did, you may have heard that 3.4 million people are victims of stalking every year in America. Yes, at least 1.1% of Americans have and will be victims of stalkers this very year, my mom having been a past victim twice, once with an ex and once with a stranger. Getting threatening or strange e-mail or calls recently?

Karen recently clicked on a pop-up (big mistake) claiming that she could get a free CD on how to get rich quick at home (second mistake). So the CD comes in but she doesn't have time to use it. Next day, she gets a call from some sales guy who asks her some vague questions about how much money she would like to have, and then asks her if she has any credit cards, if her husband has any, and what kinds of cards they have. She, in her wisdom, hangs up and calls the FTC. After being told about this, I went to Google and reported the name of the company, Google Treasure Chest, to them, as the site has no affiliation to Google and as such would be eligible for a cease and desist on Google's behalf. And she was actually lucky. Most people had to pay three dollars for the CD, only to be signed up for some "membership program" and charged $70 three days later and every month after the fact. (For more on this issue, see the IveTriedThat.com entry for information and user comments.)

So what have we learned?
> Don't click shady advertisements.
> Get rich quick / at home sites are scams. Yes, all of them.
> GOOGLE EVERYTHING before you buy it. You have no idea where this stuff came from.

Be smart on the Net, assume that everyone on said Net just came out of prison for rape, arson, treason and fraud and act accordingly and maybe, just maybe you'll keep your bank balance.

I was considering dedicating some of the site towards charitable work -- that is, turning Pikits Organization into a charitable trust. Of course, there will be a lot of legal stuff to work through, but I think it might be worth it. While I would like to find a way to help the women in Afghanistan, I think that it would be best for our donors that they would be able to choose a list of charities to donate to all at once, and with given or equal user-given proportions.

Or at least, one of my more important domain names has lapsed! Fortunately I was able to renew it just now, before someone else nabbed it!