mipmup.

rent your books.

with shoulders slumped, i left barnes + noble last night, guilty for buying a brand new book. i really try my hardest to avoid buying new books, but i couldn't help myself! the new title wasn't available at either of my local libraries yet nor at the used book store and i didn't want to wait for amazon. too bad i didn't read this post about bookswim, a book subscription service. basically, it's netflix for books. subscriptions start at 14.99/month, there are no shipping fees and you keep the books as long as you like (no late fees!).

and yes, the have the book i bought. i may just head back to the store and return it.

karma=intact.

you can't hide.

i can't decide if spokeo is the end-all, be-all in stalking, or just rather handy. for example, i just found out my landlord is a promise keeper. lord help me.

from techcrunch:

Spokeo 2.0 is like a blog reader for all of your friends’ activities across more than 30 social Websites, including Bebo, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Hi5, imeem, Last.fm, LinkedIn, MySpace, Pandora, Slide, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Windows Live Spaces, Yelp, and YouTube. (Delicious is conspicuously absent). Similar to FriendFeed, it presents the latest actions on the Web from your friends as a continually updating stream. It is like a blog reader for what your friends are up to.

yay peet's!

you may know that i'm a total peet's coffee + tea fanatic and i'm also a vegan, so i was delighted to see that peta has awarded the company a proggy for "most vegan-friendly coffee chain." it's often hard to find vegan treats, especially at a national chain, but peet's offers a variety of vegan options including chocolate chip cookies, double chocolate muffins, oatmeal raisin cookies, fat free apricot oatmeal scones and ginger cookies. traveling about, i notice that different stores carry different vegan goodies, but i do see their ginger cookies quite regularly.

find a store near you or buy someone a cuppa!

save some paper.

yes, we all recycle and try to do "our part" as much as we can, but can one simple change make a big impact?

from "good:"

the website changethemargins.com is calling for printer owners everywhere to take the simple step of, well, changing their margins from the current luxurious standard 1.25 inches to a the more modest .75 inches. It may sound like a small change, but if everyone in the nation did it, we’d save a little less than a Rhode Island’s worth of trees every year. Does tinkering with Word’s cumbersome preferences scare the fonts right out of you? Another goal of the site is to petition Microsoft to change the default margins on all its Office products.

Changing your margins in Microsoft Word:

Go to “File,” then “Page Setup.”

Once on “Page Setup,” click the “Default” key, and you’ll be offered “Do you want to change the default settings for the page set up? This change will affect all new documents based on the normal template.”

Set each margin to .75 and save an immense amount of paper.

it's a new year: what do you believe?

happy 2008! i came across this interesting compendium of new year's traditions this morning as i'm nursing a mild hangover. it includes lucky foods to eat, why a handsome man should enter your house first thing after midnight and why you should be wearing something new today. it reminded me that our family used to eat pickled herring for good luck every new year's eve. while i found the fish fairly gross, i liked that we had a tradition. as i'm getting older, i find myself craving traditions. last  night, we tried to implement the "record a song" tradition for the second new year's eve in a row, but unfortunately, the belvedere got the best of the boys and it was not to be.

what's your tradition? what do you believe brings good luck in the new year?

image credit: sanrio.