I love Google, and I love having an Android phone that is obviously all about Google. Every single one of my Android phones have made it amazingly simple to find whatever it is I’m looking for, whether it be a must-have shade of nail polish or the going price for a small spa cover.

Google is also handy for finding/confirming my neighbor’s phone number, which I did today instead of walking down to her house (I know, I know, LAZY LAZY JENN. But hey, in my defense, I’m getting over bronchitis, and I still have a broken foot!). I was pretty sure I had her phone number, but I didn’t want to call it unless I was certain, so I did a reverse phone number lookup. It worked like a charm.

Why must heat be so expensive?! Am I terribly naive or ridiculous to think that as civilized human beings we should not have to pay for heating or water, that as requirements in order to sustain life (much like oxygen) it should be a guarantee? In any case, brrr! It’s 70° in my house, which I know is not cold; but because I am very tired, sick, and lost 165 lbs of insulation over the past two and a half years, I am coldddddddddddddd. I’d hook up my electric blanket, but Ryan threw up all over it last night.

It’s times like these I’m glad I don’t wear heavy rings like mens titanium wedding bands, because when I’m cold my fingers shrink, which make my rings spin like crazy – and spinning rings, in particular heavy ones, can be a real pain to type with!

This morning, somewhere between being fully asleep and being fully awake, I daydreamed (or perhaps just dreamed) about guestbooks. Once upon a time guestbooks were all of the rage with websites. Of course, this is back when blogs weren’t called blogs – they were called online journals, websites, domains, even homepages. So I think, after I get some work out of the way today, that I may mosey on over to WordPress’s plugin repository to see what guestbook plugins are available. And if I don’t find a plugin that’s suitable, I’ll simply install a standalone guestbook script. Why not? That’s how it was done in the “old” days.

I am in the process of transferring all of my domains from GoDaddy to Namecheap. As if the whole elephant hunting fiasco isn’t enough, then GoDaddy had to go and align themselves with those who are pro-SOPA. What the eff? I believ I have the right to state my opinion on everything from CNN’s latest advertisers to my thoughts on house cleaning services holly springs, without worrying about my website being shut down because someone disagrees with me.

Don’t get me wrong – I see how SOPA may have been founded on good intent, to root out major piraters. But this is definitely going the wrong way about it all, especially when you stop to consider all of the little people who may be caught in the crossfire.

So I bid you adieu, GoDaddy. And hello Namecheap!

I definitely take issue when my home doesn’t smell as good as I think it should. Since I work from home (I not only blog, but I do other things too, like help with putting together designs, and writing content, and troubleshooting designs and WordPress installs), I notice pretty quickly if my house isn’t smelling too good. I usually rely on electronic plug-in air fresheners, but lately I’ve been branching out more and using things like soy candles, scented wax melts and warmers, and more recently, Ribbonwick candles. Candles and wax melts are nice alternatives to electronic plug-ins, since they don’t contain all of the harmful chemicals that the commercial products do.

How do you make your house smell good?

This evening I decided to join my husband at work, just to give him the pleasure of my company (yes, I am in fact that awesome) since he was having a bit of a bad night. I figured I could wile away my time doing the same type of work I was doing at home, since I have a mobile 3G service plan from Comcast. Ha. Silly me. For the first half an hour the connection was slower than motherfucking molasses. It took me six minutes to send through four individual tweets. It took me twice that long to write two blog entries about cheap artists canvas via mostly text-based websites (WordPress dashboards).

So I did what any paying customer would do (between our digital cable service, telephone service, broadband internet service, and the mobile 3G service, we’re paying Comcast almost $300 every single month), and called Comcast for help. The guy I spoke to was very unhelpful. At first he said that “their end” wasn’t showing any issues with the 3G service. When I pushed for him to please look into things and at least attempt to troubleshoot the issue (I confirmed that I had the latest software installed on my laptop and wasn’t using any bandwidth-draining programs, such as torrents), he then changed his tune and told me that they have no way of monitoring what’s going on with their 3G service, just their 4G service. After the Comcast representative basically lied to me, I pretty much hung up on him.

Tomorrow I am going to call T-Mobile to see if they are offering mobile 3G or 4G plans. If they are, I’m going to have one added to our family plan. If not, I’ll go crawling back to Spring and hope that they’ll take me back. I may pay more with T-Mobile or Sprint, but that beats consolidating a bill and saving $15 each month when the service doesn’t work for shit.

Not to be confused with a staycation. Because I work from home, a staycation would be a mistake – I’d wind up working and continuing with the housework as I always do! No, if I wanted to get away, I’d have to actually get away. I’d also have to make the supreme sacrifice of not bringing my laptop, netbook, or Macbook with me. To do so would be to set myself up to continue working. A prime example of this is last summer – Dan and I spent three days in Wildwood, New Jersey, with our friend Jason, and I probably spent a quarter of the time working. Argh. I could just see myself at a spa in Huntington Beach, getting a massage while checking my email. What can I say? I’m a workaholic. Sometimes that’s not a good thing though. D:

Happy New Year, and all that jazz. I’m three days into the new year, and so far it’s been quiet, though quite productive on the work front. I do have a few goals in regards to blogging this year, and they are as follows:

• Update all of my blogs at least three times per week
• Keep WordPress installations up to date (speaking of which, WordPress 3.3.1 is available, so go update your installation of WordPress ASAP)
• Experiment with plugins instead of relying on the same ones for years (literally, years) on end
• Interact with other bloggers more frequently

It’s a good list, no? It may not seem like much, but trust me, it’ll be plenty for me!

It’s “only” January 1st, but I fully intend on making the most of my blogging connections this year in terms of advertisement, sponsored posts, and product review opportunities. Product reviews are the most fun out of the bunch, especially when I get awesome products like external USB drives, lingerie (ooh la la), and pet products. I sent out a few inquiries early last week, but considering it’s the tail end of the holiday season I’m not surprised that I haven’t heard back from anyone yet.

I’ve noticed that t-shirt reviews are increasing in popularity, with a lot of bloggers writing about shirts similar to those like the funny t shirts at FoulMouthShirts.com. Eh, I’m not much of a t-shirt girl. Maybe it goes back to my Fat Girl Days and thinking that I looked ten times worse in t-shirts than I did in other shirts, but I am just not a t-shirt person. Plus, with the exception of the occasional turtleneck, I’m very used to lower-cut tops (not necessarily cleavage-revealing, but you know…), so the higher necks of t-shirts feel nearly stifling in comparison!

Lately I have been on a giveaway entering spree. Marketers have realized how beneficial it can be for them to team up with bloggers, offer them a spiffy product for free, then offer them the same product to give away. The result is hundreds and even thousands of entries via email newsletter subscriptions, Facebook fans, and Twitter followers. The downside? Now your email inbox, Facebook timeline and Twitter stream are all overrun with newsletters and promotions and blurbs.

Fortunately, through my own experience, I’ve managed to maintain control over my email inbox, Facebook feed, and Twitter stream, so that I’m still receiving newsletters and am following bloggers and companies alike on both Facebook and Twitter, but I’m not being overwhelmed with their content, which can often hide and push out content from family members and friends.

Email inbox

The easiest solution to preventing your inbox from exploding with dozens of emails on any given day is to use filters. I use Gmail, and its filters work wonderfully. I simply apply filters to newsletter subscriptions – I instruct Gmail to mark them as read, label them as “Newsletters”, and then archive them. There, that’s so much better. By using this particular filter, I never even see the email in my inbox. Instead, it’s waiting in my archives, filed under “Newsletters”, waiting for me to view it at my leisure. Outlook and other email programs have similar features, usually labeled as rules rather than filters.

Facebook feed

Facebook has a super-awesome feature that, while not broadly advertised, is still available on all Facebook updates from users, both users posting on personal walls and on company page walls. It’s known as “Hide all by X”, and when you click it, all updates from that person or company will be hidden – and you’ll still be a fan/follower of theirs. This option is located to the right of a wall post, right where the little “down arrow” appears when you hover your mouse.

Twitter stream

While I’ve heard that Twitter itself may (or may not?) offer filtering features, what I do to keep my stream from being overrun with nothing but promotional posts is create lists (twitter.com/lists) – one for the people whose tweets I want to see at any given time, and another for those people whose tweets I don’t want to see unless I specifically see them out. Then, I use TweetDeck to create columns just for those lists.

I know blog giveaways can be fun to enter, so I hope these tips help you keep control over your inbox and streams.