Jenn The Geek

Recapping 2009: The 101 in 365 list

December 31st, 2009 / Cooking Geek, Geek At Work, Media Geek, Photo Geek, The Geek / 2 Comments »

Last year my roommate April and I set out to write a list of 101 things that we each wanted to accomplish in 2009. It’s hard to believe that today is already Day 365. SO much has happened this past year that I don’t even know where to begin, but I think it’s safe to say this was one of the most eventful years of my life so far.

Throughout the year I really enjoyed having my list to come back to when I was feeling bored, unproductive, or reflective. It was great to have a tangible set of things that I wanted to do that I could check off along the way. It’s why I created 101in365. I wanted to do it again, but even better this time around.

I rarely made a conscious effort to accomplish one of the items on the list. I generally just let life happen and along the way hope to tick off as many as I could. I’m disappointed that I couldn’t finish a few of them but overall I’m happy with what I was able to accomplish this year. So, without further ado, the list:

START: January 1, 2009
END: December 31, 2009

In Progress
Complete
Didn’t Complete

New Experiences:

1. Go skiing.
2. Master something I’ve never tried. – This is a tough one to determine completeness. I definitely learned that I need to make these goals more specific. I’ve done a lot of things I hadn’t tried before over the course of the year, but did I master any of them? Some more than others. For example, I’m excellent at dealing with my bills and things now, but I wouldn’t say that’s something to check off. Not like becoming a black belt having never done martial arts before. Let’s call this one a push.
3. Ride a Segway. – This one wasn’t for lack of trying. I’ve looked into Segway tours pretty much everywhere I’ve gone just to try it out but they’re always so darned expensive and not really worth the cost. Adding this one to next year’s list.
4. Road trip from Northern CA to Southern CA.
5. Tour Europe. – DEFINITELY accomplished this one. And it was the best decision I’ve ever made. I would do it again in a heartbeat. (See travel.jennvargas.com)
6. Travel to a country I’ve never been (Canada doesn’t count). – I consider this one kind of cheating since I’d never been to any of the countries I visited in Europe, but yes, this one gets the check mark.
7. Try real sushi – like raw fish sushi, not crab/shrimp/veggie sushi. – I’m not sure whether to check this one off. I’ve had raw fish, but I don’t know if it would be considered sushi. Raw fish is still a huge step for me considering seafood is probably one of my least favorite things, so I’ll call this a win.
8. See at least one Broadway show that I haven’t already seen.
9. Visit 3 states I’ve never visited.
10. Visit a place where I don’t speak the local language. – Another one that I can group in with the cheating list. I didn’t speak the local language in most of the places I visited in Europe.
11. Watch the sun set over the Pacific.

College Things:

12. Avoid senioritis at all costs. – I worked my rear end off for my final semester. I think it had to do with taking classes that I actually liked.
13. Become a morning person again. Up at 8 or 9AM, none of this 11AM nonsense. – I have to say that this one didn’t actually happen until after college, but I definitely wake up early now.
14. Go to the top of the Clocktower for a chimes concert. – This is the one I’m most disappointed about not accomplishing. I even had a chance when I went back to Cornell in October, but I didn’t have the time to go. I WILL get to the top of that clocktower.
15. Have lunch with a friend at least once/week. – Did this during school and arguably still since I have lunch with my coworkers.
16. Read at least 3 school/major-related books. (3/3) – I really should have written down the names of the books but I know Here Comes Everybody
    was one of them.
17. Try to complete as many things possible on the “161 things to do before you graduate Cornell” list — in one day. – Did pretty well with this one. Can’t remember how many I ticked off, but it was a decent number.
18. Go to sleep before 11PM twice/month. – Sadly I go to sleep before 11 more than twice/month these days. I usually fall asleep around 10:30 watching TV and then doze on and off until I actually go to sleep in my bed. This whole getting up early thing is a killer.
19. Hand off the Photo Department to Matt in a state that I can be proud of. – I like to think that I did a pretty solid job with the Photo Department during my time as Photo Editor and I think Matt got to start his term on a strong foundation. (02.28.2009)

Food-related:

20. Bake more.
21. Cook at least twice/week. (You’d be amazed at how many meals of chips and salsa or hummus and crackers one can eat in a week.) – I was doing really well with this one during school but then once I moved I lost it. I have been traveling too much lately to keep food around but that’s definitely one of my goals for 2010.
22. Go back to Pinkberry. – Went with Meghan and Matt during winter break. Now that I’m in San Francisco again it’s not nearly as novel but I still love this stuff! (01.13.09 [photo])
23. Go back to Serendipity 3 (thanks Lissy!)
24. Go on a picnic. – Another cheating one since most of my food consumption while traveling was picnic style.
25. Have more dinner parties. – Another where I did well during school but lost momentum after graduation.
26. Learn to cook empanadas. – I KIND of learned, but I need to get my hands on the recipe.
27. Learn to like wine. – I no longer have a complete aversion to it so I call this a win. There are some wines I enjoy – mostly whites – but I’m slowing acquiring a taste.
28. Make chocolate covered fruits (strawberries in particular). – I bought one of those microwave melt chocolate things and dipped strawberries in them every day for like 2 weeks. That was fantastic. (02.18.2009)
29. Make macarons.
30. Make my own pizza from scratch. – I’ve yet to make my own dough so I consider this incomplete. I do make my own pizza, though. Wraps make excellent bases.
31. One last Cooking Extravaganza.
32. Order out at most once/week, but as infrequently as possible. – I set a rule for myself: eating out more than once a week is OK when it’s with friends. Every once in a while I stop by the Taqueria on my way home from the train station, but on average I don’t pick up dinner on the way home more than once a week.
33. Try a new recipe at least once/week.

Friendship:

34. Call a friend, no matter how busy I am, once a week to see how they’re doing.
35. Catch up with at least 4 old friends who have drifted away. – I’m really excited about this one. I got to reconnect with a lot of people over the course of this year and I’m so glad to be back in touch with them.
36. Hang out with Bayonne friends at least once before moving to CA. – more than once! Ioanna and Jimelle came to visit me at the shore and I also went up to Bayonne for the night just before I left for my going away party. I have to hang out with those guys more often.
37. Have Sunday Brunch with friends at least once/month. – This has become Saturday brunch but is still an almost weekly ritual.
38. Keep in touch with old friends: distance and time are not excuses.
39. Meet up with Natalie at least once (it’s been over 3 years!). – Natalie came to visit me at Cornell. (2/22/2009)
40. See Erin at least twice. – Sadly we only got to see each other once this year and that wasn’t in the happiest of circumstances. Hopefully Erin will be able to come visit San Francisco in 2010.
41. Snail mail is fun: send holiday/birthday cards. – I was SO CLOSE to finishing this one. In fact, the cards are all written, sealed, and addressed in my backpack right now. Life kind of got in the way and I never got to the post office to get stamps. Sad.
42. Spend more time hanging out with Margot. – Yep. We hung out a bunch. Now she’s in Ithaca and I’m in SF so that’s tough, but I did see her when I went to visit!
43. Visit Shannon in Portland. – Another that I’m really disappointed I didn’t get to do.

Habits:

44. Be less wasteful. – With all of the moving I did this year I was definitely very wasteful. I did have a garage sale and donate the things I didn’t want any more, but with all of the packing materials and boxes, etc., this definitely wasn’t a “green” year for me.
45. Blog at least once/week. – I did so well with this until I moved out to SF. With the lack of school and travels I’ve yet to find my new blogging mojo.
46. Don’t be a lazy typist. Use capitals and punctuation where necessary, but not unnecessarily. – I’d say I definitely got better at not typing like a high school student. Still a long way to go, especially in terms of accuracy.
47. Don’t sit at the computer for long periods of time. – HAHAH yeah. Right. Like this one is going to happen.
48. Don’t slouch, especially when I’m sitting at the computer for long periods of time. – I’ve definitely improved in this area though. Now if only I could get my hands on a Herman Miller.
49. Go an entire month without caffeine. (I don’t drink coffee or soda, but I do drink a lot of iced tea.) – This one wasn’t very difficult considering I don’t really drink a lot of caffeine in the first place. I basically just had to cut out iced tea.
50. Go outside at least once/day. Pajama days are better when they’re infrequent. – Not quite there yet, but making progress. I don’t have much of a choice now that I have Penny.
51. Make my bed every day for a month (bonus points if I can keep it up for longer!) – I tried. I just don’t get what the big deal is. I’m just going to unmake it in a few hours anyway.
52. Pick 1 day of the week and limit myself to email and classwork-related internet use. No twitter, flickr, facebook, RSS, or other time traps. More on that later.
53. Use the word “I” less often. It’s not all about me. – Made a conscious effort with this one over the course of the year. Tough to measure if I’ve actually managed to complete this one but let’s call it done.
54. Water is my friend. Drink it. – Water is good.
55. Wear my hair down at least once/week or get it cut shorter. – It still surprises me that I’ve actually managed to do this one. I used to HATE wearing my hear down, and to be honest it still bugs the crap out of me, but I do it.
56. Write more. You know, like with a pen. And while I’m at it, fix my handwriting. – I promise I tried, but my handwriting is atrocious.

Having a Job:

57. Aim for 30-under-30. – Nothing to report. Boo.
58. Find an apartment in San Francisco that I love. – Yep.
59. Keep up with new CSS things. – Made up a couple projects over the course of the year just so I could play around with the CSS3 things. Still a few more things that I’d like to try, but at least I don’t feel completely out of touch.
60. Learn my way around JavaScript and Processing.
61. Learn my way around RoR.

Money Things:

62. Have at least $3000 in savings account at the end of the year. – Yeah. Not so much. If I didn’t go to Europe it probably would have been a different story, but it was money well spent.
63. Have no credit card debt by the end of the year. – I follow the gospel of I Will Teach You To Be Rich
64. Finance a good portion of my trip to Europe by selling things I don’t use anymore. – Yep.
65. Learn how to do my taxes. – Postponing this one until next year. Graduation, moving to a new state, and all that other stuff make this one a year for an accountant.
66. Make good progress on paying back my college loans. – Grade period just ended. Now I just have a process in place, the progress part won’t be noticeable until next year some time. Hopefully.

Organization:

67. Don’t keep junk. I only need so many free pens.
68. Get my bank accounts in order and track where I’m spending too much money (yay Mint.com).
69. Keep my desk neat. Piles are the enemy.
70. Keep my room clean/organized/neat for an entire month. – This one is easy now that my bedroom is literally just a bed and a side table. My whole apartment is generally very neat though.
71. Throw away/sell/donate at least one thing I’ve been keeping “just in case” each week.
72. Organize my out-of-control music collection.
73. Plan aforementioned trip to Europe. – See travel.jennvargas.com.
74. Reduce my RSS subscriptions to <100 quality reads. – I think I’m around the same number I was last year. Some of the old standbys are there but more photography and less Engadget type echo-chamber-y sites.

Photography

75. Be in more photos rather than just taking them all the time. – Did well with this one, especially toward the end of senior year.
76. Find and organize non-digital photos from childhood. – Made good progress by digitizing a lot of the photos I found in the process of cleaning out my room for the move.
77. Finish my Project 365. – Matt and I agreed to end it sometime over the course of the summer. It made photography too much of a chore.
78. Print and frame at least 5 of my photos. What’s the point if they’re just sitting on my hard drive?I printed a lot of photos, but never framed any of them.
79. Try to make at least 1 HDR. – Tried and failed. I don’t particularly like HDRs.
80. Sell a photo. (I’ve sold a bunch of photo shoots already, but no photos that I’ve already shot)
81. Shoot and develop at least 8 rolls of film. – Far surpassed this one doing my Psych of Visual Comm final project

Just Because:

82. Build a snow man. – Just last week, in fact!
83. Buy a pair of awesome black heels.
84. Buy a really cool vintage camera. – Bought a bunch of them but still want more.
85. Complete the NYTimes Crossword Puzzle at least once/week (bonus for Sunday!)
86. Get the Sims 3, but curb my addiction. (read: practice self-control). – Got it, played with it, over it.
87. Go ice skating.
88. Go on a date (perhaps combine with #23?).- FAIL.
89. Learn 50 ASL signs that I don’t already know.
90. Lose 15 lbs. – Backpacking for 6 weeks helps.
91. Make decent progress on watching CSI from start to finish.
92. Make a “soundtrack of the year” with 20 of the songs that I loved in 2009.
93. Read at least 1 book by Jane Austen.
94. Read at least 3 non-school/non-major-related books. – Definitely read more than 3.
95. Re-learn Spanish. – Going to Spain really helped but I have a long way to go before I’m anywhere near fluency again.
96. Re-locate my imagination. – Still not where I’d like to be.
97. See at least 25 movies from the AFI Top 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) list – SO CLOSE! (21/25)
98. Sell something on eBay or craigslist.
99. Sell something on Etsy.
100. Try a sport other than volleyball, soccer or softball. – Unless paragliding counts?
101. Watch all of the Star Wars movies (I haven’t seen any!).

All I can say is thank god I don’t have to do that manually next year. 46 completed. Less than half, but definitely the better half. Almost done with my list for 2010. These things are tough! Check it out on 101in365: 101in365.com/jenn.

Announcing 101in365. 101 things to do. 365 days to do them.

December 15th, 2009 / Geek At Work, Web Geek / No Comments »

As 2008 was coming to a close I was searching around for some good new year’s resolutions. I’ve never really been good at resolutions. They’re too intangible. “Be a better person.” “Keep my apartment neater.” “Drink more water.” How could I measure whether I was able to accomplish these things at year’s end?

It was out of this that I wrote my first 101in365. A simple list that I put on my old blog. It’s still there and I still update it, but now that 2009 is coming to a close and it’s time for me to start working on my 101in365. I wanted something better for 2010. I wanted a way to automate it so I didn’t have to go through and add strikethroughs to each item and so I didn’t have to go into a blog post and scroll down to find my item. I wanted a way to keep track of the number of items I’ve marked as done, as in progress, and just as empty. I wanted to be able to manage my list more easily with a quick “heads up” view of my status. So I tried to automate it.

I started on Thursday night after a holiday party. I worked on it Friday night and all day Saturday. Some of Sunday and a teeny bit of Monday and here we are. A tiny weekend project to make my life easier that sort of snowballed into a multi-user site with a whole to-do list of features (not quite 101 of them, but close!) that I still have to add.

I’m really excited about this project and I hope you’ll join and start creating a list of your own. It’s most certainly still a work-in-progress, but I’m a firm believer that getting a site out into the wild and into the hands of users is the best way to learn what works and what doesn’t and go from there. So head on over to 101in365.com and sign up!

Things I Love: Christmas Edition

December 3rd, 2009 / Media Geek, Web Geek / No Comments »

I’ve been having a tough time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. True, it’s only the first week of December, but I think a large part of it is the lack of seasons here in San Francisco. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas. I haven’t even seen snow yet this year! In an attempt to try to force myself to be cheery, here’s a little round-up of cool Christmas/Holiday things I find around the web. I’ll probably keep updating this post as I find more but I wanted to share these two right away since they’re more time sensitive. Enjoy!

1. Send a Snail-Mail Holiday Card from Google (for free!)

Google has a cool little offer this year: They’ll send a post card to someone via snail mail on your behalf. No stamps required! The cards all have little GMail icons on them, some more obvious than others, but they’re all pretty cute! There are only a limited number of cards available and each person only gets to send one, so hurry up and choose wisely! Check it out here.

2. Amazon’s Christmas Music Advent

Amazon is one free holiday song every day from now until Christmas. I bookmarked the page so I have something new to listen to every day. While I’m sure I won’t like all of them, it’s good to mix up my usual Christmas playlist!

If you’ve found something awesomely Christmasy in your online travels, let me know down there in the comments! Like I said, the list is still a work-in-progress – follow me on twitter and I’ll let you know when I add something new!!

The Importance of Having Projects

December 1st, 2009 / Geek At Work / 1 Comment »

I’m a projects person. I love projects. I love having something to play around with when my regular responsibilities get to be old hat. I love the challenge of having something else to think about besides school work or real work – something that stretches my mind a bit and keeps me from losing touch with reality.

I’ve been struggling with not having a project for the last few months. When I got back from Europe and found myself with a few weeks with nothing to do but enjoy summer vacation I was itching to DO something, to create something, but I didn’t know what. Instead I played around with my blogs. I decided to leave forever-digital behind and move here. And that kept me occupied for a while, but it wasn’t the project I was looking for.

It was incredibly frustrating. I hadn’t started work yet, I was in the process of moving and starting my post-college life, but at the same time I felt almost directionless. My mind was idling.

When I started work a lot of these frustrations were set aside as I learned the ropes of the corporate world and had some work projects to keep me occupied for a while, but now that I’m more settled in and I’ve gotten to a point where I’ve struck a decent work/life balance, I’m ready to get back into my personal projects. Now that I know how much time I need for work and how much time I need for a social life and all that, I’m ready to tackle MY projects again.

Having all of this time to really think about what I want to do has been incredibly helpful and for the first time ever my need to create something has matched up with having the time to do it. I’ve had this idea mulling around in my head for a few months and I’ve finally gotten it down on paper and it’s almost ready for the next step: action.

I’m really excited about it and when it gets a bit more fleshed out I’ll try to share some of it, but for now I’m just really thankful to have a problem that I find personally interesting to work on for the first time since I finished school in May. Here’s hoping it all works out!

Have You Tried Google Wave?

November 19th, 2009 / Geek At Work, Web Geek / 10 Comments »

I’ve been toying around with Google Wave for a month or so now and I have to say that while it’s not exactly the answer to all of my troubles, it’s definitely an interesting attempt at re-inventing the way we communicate within a group. With the Notifier for Firefox installed, I’ve found that it’s become a pretty good way to keep up with a group of friends all at once. While Facebook allows for one-off catch-up sessions, Wave allows for less linear chatter which I think is well-suited for informal communication.

Have you gotten your Google Wave invite yet? What do you think of it? What are you using it for?

And if you haven’t gotten your Wave invite yet, I have 17 invites left. Leave a comment here with your email address and I’ll add you to the invite list. They sometimes take a few days to go through. Once you’ve taken it out for a spin, I’d love to hear your impressions!

Procrastination and Self-Discovery

October 24th, 2009 / Geek At Work / 2 Comments »

I’m a huge, huge fan of Merlin Mann. The guy seems to be able to articulate everything that’s been brewing around in my mind at exactly the right time. If you haven’t read/seen/heard of his stuff, I strongly suggest you go check out merlinmann.com for a quick digest and links to follow him wherever you consume your internet-goodness.

His latest video, Makebelieve Help, Old Butchers, and Figuring Out Who You Are (For Now), seems to go on forever but it’s worth it. Go on, hit play:

Anyone who knows me in person knows that I’m a huggeee procrastinator and as such I really enjoyed Merlin’s explanation, or perhaps even his defense of procrastination: it helps me think! When I was in school my friends were constantly perplexed by the torture I put myself through by rearranging my room, watching TV, editing photos, playing with a rubik’s cube, etc. on nights where I should have been writing the paper that was due the next morning. Was it insane? Absolutely. I should have spent those hours actually writing the darned paper, but that would have been sensible. I’m much better at reading the paper topic, going off and doing whatever suits my fancy at that point, letting the thoughts stew, and then going to sit at my computer when I’m good and ready to just write. It’s just how I operate. I’ll probably go grey at a young age because of it, but hey, that’s why they invented hair dye, right?

So thanks, Merlin, for giving me a reason to continue working the way I’ve been working. Now to go dig that rubik’s cube out of that one box I haven’t unpacked…

Google Wave Notifier for Firefox

October 14th, 2009 / Web Geek / 1 Comment »

Of my many peeves with Google Wave so far, the absence of a notifier is high on the list. If I need to keep a site running in a browser window just to keep on top of what’s going on, I’m probably going to close the window and forget about it for a few weeks. Google Wave has fallen victim to that habit and many a Wave has come and gone before I even remembered to check it. I’ve missed out on entire conversations between friends because I closed the browser window accidentally and didn’t realize it for 5 days.

Browsing through Lifehacker today I found the Google Wave Notifier for Firefox. If you use Google Wave at all I think you’ll really appreciate this add-on. Believe me, once you get a critical mass of friends using Google Wave (which I do thanks to the all of the invites Google gave us to send out and the general nerdiness of my friends!) it’s definitely a must-have.

That said, there’s still a LOT that needs to be fixed with Google Wave before I consider it a service-I-can’t-imagine-the-world-without (see Google Docs, Twitter), but for now I think baby steps in the right direction are helpful. Now if only Google itself would develop a notifier (perhaps connected to my existing Google Notifier) and release some sort of instruction manual for how to use the darned Wave thing…
But like I said – baby steps.

Designing Obama

October 14th, 2009 / Media Geek, Web Geek / No Comments »

Every once in a while I poke around Kickstarter looking for cool projects. It’s inspiring and an interesting model for supporting a project or cause. Not to mention, pretty much anything that Andy Baio gets behind is going to be cool.

I’ve seen a few cool projects go here or there that I was intrigued by, but I haven’t necessarily felt compelled to contribute – until today. There is a really good batch of project proposals vying for support and I finally gave in to one of them: Designing Obama.

The proposal is this:

…The Design Director of the Obama campaign, Scott Thomas, has collaborated with artists and designers to create Designing Obama, a chronicle of the art and design from the historic campaign. Get the inside story on how design was used by the campaign, and scope out the pieces, created unofficially, by grassroots supporters.

The 360-page book is full-color and hardbound, highly crafted with an embossed sleeve…

I’m a bit of a design geek and I can’t wait to get my hands on this book! Fellow design geeks and Obama supporters alike should definitely help Scott Thomas reach his goal. He’s 3/4 of the way there! And while you’re at it check out the other Kickstarter projects – there’s something for everyone!

Twenty-Three

October 8th, 2009 / The Geek / 2 Comments »

I’ve majorly slacked off on blogging these last few weeks, but I promise I have good reason. Life has been going in all sorts of directions that I never would have expected. I would have been remiss, though, if I didn’t take the time to come back here to write my 8th annual birthday post.

I turned 23 today. It was different than any birthday I’ve had in the past. I wasn’t at home. I wasn’t with my friends. I wasn’t cramming for and then taking an Econ exam. I wasn’t counting down the hours until Fall Break or Columbus Day weekend. It actually kind of snuck up on me this year. Like I said, it’s been a crazy last few weeks!

I knew 22 was going to be an incredibly eventful year for me. What I couldn’t have known, however, was just how amazing this year would turn out to be.

I’ve experienced things and had opportunities I couldn’t have dreamed of this time last year. I survived my last year of college, pushed myself to succeed in classes that I thought I was guaranteed to fail, spent countless hours turning the Photo department into something we could be proud of, made some amazing friends, and graduated from college. Those were all pretty predictable, sure, but then there were the things that made this year REALLY cool: I had photos published in the New York Times, backpacked around Europe for 6 weeks, tried things that still shock me – like paragliding in the Swiss Alps. I moved to San Francisco, started a job that is turning out to be exactly what I wanted, and to top it all off, I spent the last week on my first business trip – to Taiwan!

Those are just the things I can enumerate. There are the things you can’t count on your fingers like the friends I’ve made, the nights out with those friends that I’ll remember forever, the days where everything felt like it was going just perfectly. Sure there were some bad days here or there, but why dwell on that? I learned a lot and grew even more and that’s really all you can ask for. Twenty-two was a great year and I hope that 23 will bring even just a few of those amazing experiences.

I’ve been incredibly lucky this past year and I want to thank those of you who were along for the ride with me. My friends mean the world to me and I hope you all know that. Here’s to another great year of friendship, adventures, trials and tribulations, but most of all – happiness.

Cool Stuff: Free is Free!

September 11th, 2009 / Media Geek / 1 Comment »

Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired and the man who made The Long Tail into one of the most used phrases of the Web 2.0 era, has a (relatively) new book out called Free: The Future of a Radical Price.

I’ve had the book on my to-read list for a few months now, but as part of one of my “money management” resolutions, I’ve decided to only buy books if absolutely necessary, especially considering the number of unread books sitting on my bookshelf at the moment and even more especially considering the fact that there is a branch of the San Francisco Public Library about 2 blocks from my apartment. It’s rather ironic, but absolutely fitting that I wouldn’t buy a book called Free. I’m glad I waited, though!

Yesterday, as I was browsing through the iTunes store looking for podcasts, I stumbled across this one. It’s a podcast of Chris Anderson reading the book! Why they chose to call it a podcast instead of an audiobook is an interesting question in itself, but that’s not the point. The book is free. Download it.

I haven’t finished it yet, but so far it’s pretty interesting in a Freakonomics meets the Internet sort of way. It does have a lot of real-world, offline examples, especially in the history of the Free model, so it’s not entirely tech-centric. From what I’ve heard so far it’s definitely worthwhile. There is a print version available too, if you prefer page turning and dog-earring.

Not sure if I’ll do any sort of review of the book once I’ve finished listening to it, but I thought it was a pretty nifty find (it is a $22 book after all!). If you’re into techy/culture/sociology types of books, almost all of Lawrence Lessig’s books are also available online under a Creative Commons license with more coming soon. I haven’t found any free audio versions of them (or any other good books) yet, but if you have, let me know!

Enjoy!