I’m off to Columbus, Ohio for NO REASON WHATSOEVER
Well, I suppose there’s at least one reason: I bought airline fares for $10! =D The other week, Sthris mentioned Skybus.com as a place to get cheap airline tickets. So recently, I started checking the website occasionally to see when they update it, and if I might someday see some of those fabled $10 tickets pop up. Well after only about the 5th day of checking, I noticed a smattering of $10 tickets sprinkled throughout November, of all months, and a couple of them seemed to frame a nice 5-day weekend trip. After some (lively!) discussion with my husband, we bought the tickets, betting the money ($81 total, round trip for two) that we’d be able to get the time off from work on the appropriate days. (We did, whew!)
Of course, the only place that Skybus services from Seattle is …. Columbus, Ohio. That’s it. So, like….. that’s where we’re going!
We’ve never been out that way, and have no idea what there is to do there. Especially in early November. =P So, to remedy this, I’ve asked several friends who live in the area to fill me in on what we should do, and also I’ve posted some ads on various boards local to Columbus, asking the natives to help me decide where we should eat, and what we should see! I’ve already received 5 or 6 very helpful emails from said natives, suggesting their favorite sights, eats and haunts. It looks like we might have some fun on this vacation! The food sounds fairly promising (although there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of ethnic foods, /cry), and there are some neat things to see, and cute shopping areas, too.
We’ll have 3.5 full days there, and on Friday night, we’re going to have dinner at Sthris’ house, and perhaps there will be some other members of my guild there, that would be fun!
I’m hoping to book a hotel in downtown or the German Village, someplace like that, close to walk-around areas.
More info on this coming soon! If you have a suggestion of where to go, eat, or see stuff, please post!
I’m addicted to Caffeine. Maybe. (Update)
Well, I’ve been paying attention, this last week…
Seems like it takes about 1.5 to 2 days for my headaches to kick in, after the last dose of caffeine. A pretty small dose of caffeine totally kills a caffeine headache.
And yesterday, I noticed that my other, non-caffeinated energy drink might actually be a strong catalyst for my headaches. I’m still investigating that. I drank some, and wham, the tiny headache just blossomed almost instantly. That was weird. Still need to check that out.
So I’m at 1.3 days without caffeine atm, and I’m on asparin for the pain. Regular aspirin seems to be working just fine. Tomorrow, I’ll work out in the morning with no energy drink at all, but in the afternoon or evening, I’ll let the aspirin wear off, and then take some of my non-caffeinated energy drink and see what happens. It’s kinda hard to test out what it does to me, if I’m on aspirin all the time, except for the test, hmm. Not sure how that’ll work out.
Not a terribly riveting update, but I thought I should post something.
UPDATE II: Sept 25th, 6AM
2.5 Days with no Caffeine, Last time I had some was Sat. Afternoon. I did forget yesterday about chocolate, and I ate the chocolate coating off of a mini-size candy bar. It was very thin chocolate, not like the thick coating of a snickers bar. Anyhoo. This morning, I took a full-strength dose of that other energy drink, [in preparation for the workout that I didn't do, due to some chick being on my machine at the gym (Long story =P)], and it doesn’t seem to be giving me a headache at all, so that’s good!
UDDATE III: October 25th
Well, I was off caffeine for a while, and I did get at least two more headaches of “that type”. They didn’t seem to be related to the last time I’d had caffeine, tho. Hmm. I haven’t had any of those headaches for a few weeks now. I also haven’t had any depression at all for several weeks now, which is awesome. But I never had headaches all through the most-of-the-year that my depression was the worst, tho. So that’s probably not related. I’m back to using caffeine casually now, and actually right at this time, every morning, since I’m out of my ‘new’ workout drink, I’ve gone back to my old one. If there’s anything to report, I’ll report it!
Sweet website: TinyURL.com
TinyURL.com shortens URLs into a short, easier-to-type-and-or-remember mini-URLs.
For example, you could try to type or remember “http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0918024765/sr=8-1/ qid=1146407893/ref=pd_bbs_1?_encoding=UTF8″ Or you could just use “www.tinyurl.com/exm4pl3″ Much better, eh?
Now, in our world of rampant copy-pasting, and handy remember-stuff-for-you sites like del.icio.us, You may think to yourself, “Well, I could just paste it, or save it, I don’t need a shortener.”
How woefully wrong you would be.
Example #1: Availability messages or small posts on facebook, myspace, etc. It’s so ugly and space-wasting to look at a long icky URL. A TinyURL can tidy things up for you, and also save precious characters, when you have limited space to type. See picture.
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Eww, you don’t want that! Using www.tinyurl.com/hy2c3y is so much better. And far less unsightly. Another good use of this would be giving any sort of weblink to your grandmother over the phone, or to slap on a business card or invitation, etc.
Example #2: Anonymity in Linking. People can’t tell what they’re visiting. So if you’d prefer that someone not know where they’re going until they get there, it’s a good thing. Use this power for good, and not for evil. *waggles finger* -IF you want to provide the person, however, with an assurance that you’re not playing some horrible trick on them, the website does have a feature that will allow the person to preview your link first, to see that it’s legit and as expected, etc. I’ve never used that feature, but TinyURL provides it.
A good scenario, I think, to use the anonymity aspect of this for good would be: You’re teasing someone about being a monkey. They’re taking it well, and getting all exasperated. You and your friends are having a great time. You allow the hullaballoo to die down just a bit, and then send them to TinyURL.com/a7e8y4, claiming it’s a videogame-related website you want them to see. They click on it, and guess what? IT’S A MONKEY WEBSITE! *the crowd goes wild* etc.
So there you have it! More information about the particulars of this service are on the main TinyURL website.
