Favourite Dollar Store Finds: Wine Stopper

I drink a glass of red wine every day, which means that a bottle will last me three to four days (my red wine glasses are LARGE). This wine stopper, while not state of the art, keeps oxygen out of the bottle adequately. Would I use this for a $30.00 bottle of wine? Hell, no! A more expensive bottle of wine should be drunk in a single evening and shared with friends. But, for my $9.95 Chateau de Point St-Charles, this works just fine. A great gift to add to the bottle of wine you bring to a friend's for dinner.

Three times this week I have been privy to email gone wrong. In two instances, I received email misdirected to my email accounts. In another, an ex-colleague managed to leak some sensitive material to pretty much my entire customer base.

• To the guy or gal complaining about the weather and being home alone with Spencer: I am not the Maggiek you think I am @ gmail.com. Just bundle up and get the hell out of there!
• To the woman who sent me the entire summary of the conference she chaired in Dublin late last year: I do not know why I am copied on your email, but the German guy who replied to your email seems dreamy. Thank you.
• To the ex-colleague who managed to send a very personal email about my business to everyone I do business with: While I realize this was inadvertant, the fact that you didn't contact me after to apologize or take any responsibility for this costly blunder (you blamed the autocomplete feature in Outlook, but not yourself) is mind-bogglingly rude. I spit in your general direction.
• To the rest of you: Check your email addresses before you send something important. The life you save may be your own.

Favourite Dollar Store Finds:Tiny Colander

This is the object that inspired me to think about the other dollar store objects I thought were true value for the money. This colander holds just enough strawberries for one or blueberries for two. Can also double as a hat for your pet on Halloween.

Favourite Dollar Store Finds I am my father's daughter in many ways. I inherited his sturdy, tree-stump legs, sugar addiction, and ability to make on-the-spot decisions based on something indefinable occurring in my stomach. I also inherited his ability to seek out a bargain. If I frequent church sales and flea markets with the zeal of a squealing girl, it's partially because I am a squealing girl and partially because I know that there's something sitting on someone's sales table that is rare, precious, and will only cost a dollar. It might be a necklace, a pair of overalls, or an unused kit for making your own pinhole camera. With the dollar threshhold in mind, over the next couple of weeks, I'll present my favourite dollar store finds. "You won't believe what I paid for this....!"

Free is just another word for nothin' left.... I confess to an addiction. An addiction to free movie downloads. Of movies that aren't always very good. Ya know, I don't need to use my computer all the time. Why shouldn't it go to work for me, downloading when I'm not busy doing battle with the world of visual effects ("We can't do it for a pixel less!"). Three weeks ago, I didn't know what a torrent was. Now, I'm all about seeding and giving back to my peers. I've downloaded some pretty sweet stuff:

• The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (a classic that inspired Reservoir Dogs)
• Westworld (Yul Brynner as a cyborg with a stubborn streak stronger than The Terminator)
• Rude Boy (the Clash's indulgent and brilliant semi-chronicle of their lives and times)
• South Park, the Movie (omigod, still brilliant, still relevent)
• ...and a tonne more

So, I know this is illegal. And stuff. But, I just can't help it. It's so democratic, it can't be wrong.

Jimmy Kimmel Unnecessary Censorship One of my business partners is American, based in San Francisco. He often teases me about becoming something akin to a draft dodger if the US gets any scarier than it is now and moving here to camp out in one of my spare rooms. He's keenly atuned to anyone who has a semblence of an oppositional voice and will send me links that I think help him afirm to himself that American isn't as *ucked up as all that. With this in mind, I share with you -- via my partner -- this ode to censorship. Warning: graphic cookie content (you must watch it to the end).

The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook I've been wracking my brain trying to find a new name for a new service my company is offering--something with the name "soup" in it--and came across this. It's full of great bogus entries, like this one: "October 6 I have realized that the traditional omelet form (eggs and cheese) is bourgeois. Today I tried making one out of cigarettes, some coffee, and four tiny stones. I fed it to Malraux, who puked. I am encouraged, but my journey is still long." It's rare that something will make me giggle this much in front of my computer--except my online bank statement (Example: I spent $65.00 for 4 tiny pots of jam and a tube of sun-dried tomatoes. Am I insane?).

Last Plane to Jakarta: Betty Friedan: "It was Betty Friedan who pointed out to American men and women that there was really no reason a woman couldn't be anything she wanted to be. It was rather radical, in 1963, to suggest that a woman could be perfectly happy with neither a husband nor a child to her name. " Actually, it's still a rather radical thought. Is it is really this simple? Gosh, I hope so, because I am keenly aware that despite all that I have and all I've achieved, I am still defined by "lack".

Had a great birthday on Saturday. A bunch of us gathered at Philino's on Parc. I hadn't been there in a few years. I remembered huge platters of food that reminded me of a Greek restaurant in Maasmechelen (Belguim) where you simply ordered large plates for everyone to share--kind of like Chinese food. Word of warning: the huge platters of food I remembered from Philino's are actually for 1 person...not a crowd. Needless to say, we ate well and had a great time. My birthday cakes (yes there were 2) came from Cocoa Locale. The waiter brought out two perfect dainty cakes; one was a vanilla bomb shape covered in pink icing and the other was a divine chocolate cake with exquisite vanilla buttercream icing. Thanks to A and L for arranging this in advance. I still have a birthday lunch to get through this week, and then it's over until August, when I celebrate my half-birthday.

YouTube - Brokeback to the Future The truth revealed about Marty and Doc....

CNN.com - Meow I help you? - Jan 27, 2006: "A spokeswoman for PeopleStaff said it would cost more than 300,000 yen a month to employ a person for this type of work, but warned that the robots were not capable of doing everything human employees can do." Duh!

In the wake of the woman who sent $40,000.00 to a bank in Togo expecting to receive a 38 million dollar inheritence from a dead uncle, I offer this (received today): "Good afternoon, unfortunately some processings have been cracked by hackers, so a new secure code to protect your data has been introduced by visa.You should check your card balance and in case of suspicious transactions immediately contact your cardissuing bank.If all transactions are alright, it doesn't mean the card is not lost and cannot be used. Probably, your cardissuers have not updated information yet. That is why we strongly recommend you to visit our web-site and update your profile, otherwise we cannot guarantee stolen money repayment. Thank you for your attention. Click here and update your profile." Stupid, stupid, greedy, stupid....

Another Day Older and Deeper Birthdays are funny things. The more you have, the older you are--older and closer to death. I don't think so much about death. I do think about being older. Older, but not necessarily wiser. Wise enough to realize how little I knew, and how little I know now, even though I know more than I did. So birthdays are about mortality and ignorance. And the only thing you know for sure is that you'll die a little wiser than when you were born, but not as wise had you lived another day. All that to say, there's no escaping that Thanatos is inherent in every birthday, so surround yourself with the people who make your life rich and full and hope that you can do it all again next year. Happy birthday to me!