It’s Monday, and although I’m wishing it was still the weekend, here are a few things adding joy to my day . . . Awkward Family Photos You know how sometimes you get worried that you’re more weird than normal weird? Like maybe you have a secret obsession with Barbies and you’re 45, and you [...]

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Growing up in a car-collecting family does wonders on a person. For example, I became extremely adept at identifying the make of a car by the sound of its engine, and I can still name the make of a car by only seeing the slightest bit of detail. Since today is my parents 30th wedding [...]

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These wicked cute microphone-looking objects are called music balloons. They’re external sound devices intended for plug in to iPods and cell phones. As far as I can tell, music balloons are not yet available in the US, but you can order one from Japan at the Web site Yuen’to.

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The Center Of Land Use Interpretation is probably the greatest thing I’ve been introduced to –  and a productivity prohibitor.  According to its mission statement the CLUI is “a research organization interested in understanding the nature and extent of human interaction with the earth’s surface.” Its database (which includes a free, partial listing online) house of thousands [...]

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My friend Matt sent this to me this morning, with the subject line, “You’ll have a better day cause of this.” Indeed you will. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3Y_2GEGeWM&hl=en&fs=1] For more information on the Oregan Coast Aquarium, visit its Web site.

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While wasting time on Facebook, I became intrigued by a friend’s new profile picture, which looked suspiciously antiquarian and like it had been swiped from my parent’s yearbook. Upon further investigation I discovered it was generated by a Web site called yearbookyourself.com, naturally I checked it out. It’s pretty straightforward, pick your sex, upload a [...]

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We recently opened The Function Key mailbox and found, to our pleasant surprise, a package from COOSH headsets! Inside were a pair of its iPod/mp3 player headphones, sent in some very fun packaging. To review the sound quality of the COOSH headphones, I decided to listen to The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips. It’s long been a [...]

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This new online ad campaign caught my eye for two reasons 1) my family has a long love/hate relationship with Saab’s — my father and uncle have owned and sold many, and they’ve all a) cost more to repair than own, b) left them stranded, or c) caught on fire. To this day my father [...]

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We finally caved and bought an iPod Touch. However, after using it for less than a week, I’m really not too sure that we’ll keep it. Besides its obvious niceities — design, convenience, etc., I’m not bowled over and already have a couple of minor grumbles: Unless you can pick up a wireless signal, most [...]

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The Target “Red Hot Shop” missed my radar. But I checked it out today and genuinely liked some of their picks. The “shop” presents a handful of unique finds to Target customers each month (like ladybug-shaped computer mice and a bunch of other stuff that you probably don’t really need but if you purchased your [...]

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