A nice techy-sort-of-girly site. She doesn’t post much (like once every week or so.. or less), it’s more like a personal blog, but she wrote a fabulous book called “How to become a Geek Goddess“, which I loved and highly recommend to anyone who wants to up their geek quotient.

She also gives helpful websites, hints and tips.

This girl is obsessed with shoes. Really.

Literally, she has the most amazing collection I have ever seen, and her old shoe closet was TO DIE FOR!

Her shoe shots are also artistic and incredible. Very inspiring, even if you aren’t into shoes. Just like art.

I love her taste in shoes, and how she teeters on those heels, I have no idea but applaud her on behalf of all envious women who can only wear 3″ heels.

(Actually, I’ve started training on 4″!!)

I’m a relatively new reader to this blog (only for a month or two), but I like his writing style, and his posts while are personal finance related, are not dry, boring and repeated PF hash, if you know what I mean.

He is also a fairly savvy world traveler – something I’d love to do every month, but can’t justify spending the money on most of the time, because I keep vacations down to once a year.

Not really a blog, but it deserves a mention. This is a great resource for doing some pseudo Googling so to speak, on the products you are about to put on your body and face.

Even what you might consider harmless, like Burt’s Bees, or Palmer’s Cocoa Butter, can be laden with nasty toxic chemicals. Anything in the 0-3 range I consider to be “okay”, although I aim for the “0″ rating range of items, but when it hits the 4-6 and the 7-10 range, there are some ingredients in there that are NOT safe for you.

You may not end up throwing out your facial cleanser or moisturizer, but it may give you some pause for thought the next time you go to absentmindedly reach for a replacement bottle.

L.L. is a former broadcaster who posts some pretty interesting food for thought topics, particularly this one about that fat lazy family I blogged about a couple of months ago who was getting fat off government money.

She’s loud, opinionated, and even if you don’t agree with everything she says (although I have yet to find a bone to pick with her), you can agree that she has a point.

Past Blog Features

• January 2009
• February 2009
• March 2009
• April 2009
• May 2009

Ginger from Ginger Won’t Snap had to shut down her blog for reasons she cannot disclose right now.

I’m worried about her safety!! But I want to post what she put on her blog because she had to shut it down again:

Hello my darling readers.

-Ginger
xoxoxo

*bites nails* Well, looks like I’m doubly warned to be careful with the blog (Val from Life of a Valley Girl was stalked last year and she shut down her blog as well)

Had a great time at the wedding! Then came back to this video shared in my Google Reader that I had to pass on.

Watch it. You may not last through it without emitting some salty discharge from your tear ducts.

*sniffle*

It’s a father surprising his daughter on her second-to-last day of school, after she hadn’t seen him for a year!

What to do when you meet with someone professionally for the first time – like someone you want to begin networking with, or someone you talk to all the time on the phone but have never seen in person.

WHERE TO GO

Be aware that a dinner as the first meeting may not be a great idea because let’s face it, they could be duds in the conversation department. Lunch is a better idea because you can always gracefully duck out by saying you need to get back to work.

If you go over coffee, take them somewhere with nice seating and where it is quiet.

WHAT TO SAY

As for topics of conversation, you want to start with things like the person who introduced you, the companies you work for, the atmosphere of the place – all neutral things.

You can also just pop out the ol’ “Tell me about yourself” and you KNOW people love talking about themselves!

Do not talk about religion, politics, or any other loaded questions that might make them uncomfortable or start a fight and have you two end up breaking what might have been a good professional relationship based on personal views.

Talk less, listen more and know a bit about the world (pick up a newspaper that morning or quickly scan the news online before going) so that you can talk about world events.

ORDERING & PAYMENT ETIQUETTE

If you invited the person, you pick the place and pay. You can even do something like pre-arrange payment with the waiters so that you don’t do that cheque tug-of-war when it comes.

Or if you end up doing a tug-of-war, if you were the one that really invited them, then pay. They can always get the next treat which is another opportunity to meet them again for coffee.

But as the guest don’t just sit back and let them pay without giving them a bit of a fight because it’s only polite. Or at the VERY LEAST, go Dutch (split the bill).

As a guest, I have never ceased amazement at how rude some other guests at dinners are. You always carefully watch what the other person orders, and you can even ask them to suggest something from the menu that will not kill the budget.

So if they say the duck is out of this world, then you should check the price of the duck, order it if you like duck, or order something at exactly that price or below it. Also, if they don’t take an alcoholic beverage like wine or a beer, then you don’t either.

It’s only polite. Unless you were the one that invited them then you don’t get to order or drink what you want.

I have also been in situations where the host ordered for everyone ahead of time, like “everyone is getting steak because it’s their speciality here”. If you are a vegetarian then you do NOT have to pick at the vegetables at the plate to be polite because you should just say “I am sorry, I’m a vegetarian”, and you order something AT or BELOW the price of the steak.

Even if you are considered the guest and they said they were going to pay, bring enough money to cover the whole bill because you just never know what might happen.

Google Reader.. OFFLINE?

… and Meg.

Thanks for tipping me off on the offline Google Reader thing.

I was wondering how the hell I was going to sync everything once I got back online and I’d spend more time sorting it out and missing articles, rather than reading!

No pictures or videos (Boo to no pictures!) but at least I can read the stuff..

Trip to Portugal is getting cheaper

Prices for the tickets dropped another $320. BF is price-hunting right now and waiting another month or so before buying the tickets.

Am getting excited, but all of this talk about a blazing hot sun, and super steep hills is making me less and less excited about going to Portugal in particular.

Maybe Spain or Italy instead?