Lifeline Gallery June 27, 2008

A good friend of mine has a tough job.  He does marketing and tech stuff for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.  It’s an organization that helps people who are thinking about committing suicide or dealing with the loss of a loved one.

A few days ago my friend helped launch this site The Lifeline Gallery which is an interactive gallery of people’s stories of loss.  They discuss their own battles with suicide or how they are dealing with loss.  The concept is quite brilliant.  A person creates an avatar or likeness of themselves.  They can either call in their stories or type their stories and the computer will speak the words.  This creates a beautiful quilt of visual stories all dealing with suicide.  Although the site is tough to stay on for too long, I think it really addresses the issue in an engaging, tasteful way.

Please support this cause and check out the site.  I think you will find it as moving as I did.

Feeling like the smelly kid June 26, 2008

I, like many of you, are totally obsessed with Twitter.  But I’ve noticed something about this little web 2.0 app that could.  Sometimes, it makes me feel like the smelly kid at lunch that no one wants to sit with.

I think it’s just because the Twitter experience can be a bit overwhelming and since there’s so much going on, and you’re not involved in much of it, you feel like you’re not involved at all.  I often feel that my friends in real life, care more about their twitter friends when they are tweeting.   I know it’s silly, petty and mostly untrue but there’s something about this system that makes me feel that way.  I feel like I’m constantly waving my arms saying “look at me, look at me!” and no one is looking.  Sad.

anyway, follow me on twitter and please say hi. I’m feeling very lonely in the twitterverse.

</marissa>

Xoopit: The greatest gmail plug-in ever! June 19, 2008

I think I may have found the most useful plug-in ever.  It’s called Xoopit and it’s awesome.

Basically what it does is find all your media sent you via gmail and displays it at the top.  For me, a graphic designer, this is a major time saver.  I need to find that picture of Lisa Loeb that her manager sent me to put on the website?  Well look at that!  There’s a thumbnail right there with the picture I need.  When I click on it, it goes directly to the media!  Fabulous.  I can’t tell you how obsessed I am with it.

So how it works:  You go to xoopit.com and sign in using your gmail account.  Then xoopit begins the arduous task of cycling though all your emails and finding media.  This process takes a while so give it an overnight cycle before it kicks in.

Then you install a firefox plug in that will actually work with gmail to display your media above your email like this:

After all your media has been catalogued you can see it in gmail or you can go to xoopit.com/feed and they show you all your media in 1 handy-dandy site.  You can even separate everything by media type.

Basically, this is the coolest thing I have ever seen and I demand that you try it out immediately!

</marissa>

Craft or Crap? June 18, 2008

Last night I had a business dinner at Craft’s Private dining room.  I was totally expecting Tom Colicchio and his band of Top Chef’s to come out, do a quick-fire challenge for us and then dazzle us with their culinary offerings.

I was sadly mistaken.

First off, the pros on the experience.  The dining room is beautiful.  There are carefully chosen decorative elements gracing the dining room.  One wall is completely taken over by a chain-mail wine rack which was surprisingly empty but beautiful non the less.  There were sliding doors to reveal and hide the actual kitchen which looked immaculate.  Even the bathroom doors were elegantly hidden behind a sliding door.  And our waiter was fabulous and so nice. Oh and the wine was pretty good.

The cons though, far outweigh the pros.

Unfortunately, the food was kinda…eh.  I found the vegetables to be overcooked, kinda soggy and dare I say it, oily.  Nothing was presented all that well which killed me because on top chef, he’s always preaching presentation.

I must say that dessert was pretty good but there was WAY too much of it.  We were served a chocolate cake, a benoit, 2 dishes of ice cream and a meringue and then given a scone to take home with us.

So all in all if you were going to throw a party at the craft dining room I would say skip it, save your money.  It just didn’t seem that worth it to me.

When good ideas go wrong June 13, 2008

I was sick of my bangs being in my face so (1 week before my next scheduled haircut) I decided to cut my own bangs.

Photo courtesy of Matt Knell

Person Matt Knell

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Why I love Kathy Griffin June 13, 2008

Last night I watched 2 hours of unadulterated Kathy Griffin-ness on Bravo.  And it was awesome.  Bravo showed Kathy Griffin, my life on the D list back to back with the Bravo A-List awards, hosted by the Red-head herself.

Kathy Griffin seems like one of the bravest people I know.  She’s not afraid to say anything and she’s not affraid of looking silly.

Highlights from last night:

• Kathy decides to show a “quick change” to the entire audience.  When she undresses she is wearing spanx and duct-tape to hold her boobs up.
• Kathy makes Tom Callicio of Top Chef do a quick-fire challenge.  As they are done, she begins to bring the food over to the judges table and falls flat on her face.  Then she proceeds to eat the food off the stage.
• Kathy very seriously introduces an “in memorium” segment of the show.  The first slide is Ryan Secrest.  She stops the show and says “oh I forgot to mention.  These are not people who are actually dead, they are just dead to me.”  The slideshow ends with none other than President Bush…basllsy.
• Kathy and her girlfriend Lance Bass come out, do a “rap” dance and Lance pulls Kathy’s top off. Kathy retaliates by pantsing Bass.
• Lastly, Kathy comes down the runway in Nick Verreos‘ beautiful gown, looking completely fabulous.

All in all I found the show completely stupid and terribly entertaining which I believe was Bravo’s intention.  Kathy is a shameless genius and I love her. Person Nick Verreos Right click for SmartMenu shortctsPerson Nick Verreos’Right click for SmartMenu sho

Organizing all the peeps June 12, 2008

Last night I spent 3 hours of my life (that I will never get back) organizing my contacts.  I decided that using the lifehacker google/addressBook sync hack that I would sync my contacts.

I was diligent.  I first saved an archive of my current Address Book contacts and then made the leap.  Ugh! over 1500 contacts, mostly crap in my Address Book.  I knew there was no easy way to tackle this behemoth so I decided to just grin and bear it.

I started by deleting or combining duplicate entries.  This was probably the most work.  I’m amazed that Address Book doesn’t know that amy jones and Amy Jones are the same person but I digress.  After that it was time to delete all the addresses like info@something.com.  Despite what google thinks, there’s no reason to have these addresses in my address book.

When I was finished, I had a respectable 945 contacts in my address book.  Yes, it’s still a lot of people, and probably a lot of people I don’t even know, but at least there aren’t duplicate entries and one-off emails.

I feel cleansed.  I feel as if I have done something good for myself, for my gmail and for my new iPhone (coming in July).

</marissa>

iPhone Ambivalence June 11, 2008

As many of you saw on Monday, Steve Jobs announced the new 3G iPhone.  Frankly, I’m not impressed.  Of course, I will most likely get one to replace the one that was stolen from me a few months ago but I’m pretty sad about the surge in Data Plan costs.

Over the 2 year locked in contract with AT&T I will pay and additional $240 in data costs.  Factor that in with the $20 you already need to pay for data, plus the $50 in phone charges, plus NY’s astronimcal taxes, it comes to about $100/month or $2400 over 2 years.  Whew!  That’s a whole lotta cheddar yo!

I was really hoping that the new phone would come with some really appealing features that would make me want to stand in line at the apple store July 11th.  But really, the only new features that I will find at all useful are the 3G and maybe the GPS (although I can’t realistically see myself using it that much).  The enterprise stuff is great for people who’s company will let them use their iphone for business, but I will still be toting around a blackberry as well.  I was really hoping for a flash and more hard drive space.

I did purchase a mobileMe account.  I’m curious to see what that will do for my iPhone/workflow.

Anyway, those are my inital thoughts.  Because I’m a sucker, I will most likely buy the phone as soon as it comes out, but with some grunts and grumbles along the way.

</marissa>

The perverbial first post June 5, 2008

I am deciding what to blog about.  I suppose that’s the first step.  I think because I started my illustrious career as a cast member of Girls Gone Geek that I needed to have a blog.  So here is it, my blog.  I’ll probably just make it a breeding ground for my thoughts and fancies and I hope that suits you just fine.