It's moving weekend. I don't expect to be online much between now and Tuesday. But I should be back next week with plenty of stories from Adventures in Relocating.

Until then, there's this guy . I featured Jeremy Harper on CNN back in June. He gets kudos for keeping at it.

Happy Labor Day.

Is it just me?

I don't feel like Facebook is exploding in popularity right now so much as I feel like it's throwing up.

Speaking of food,

I'm not much of a cook. And by "not much of a cook," I mean, I don't cook at all. I can make turkey chili and rice, and that's about it. And even the rice part is hit or miss most of the time.

But I love food. I watch a lot of Food Network. I have food preparation envy. I'm just more of a take out/order in kind of gal.

I never cooked much as a kid. My mother was an excellent cook and my father was a spectacularly particular eater so there was no need to mess with either side of that equation. When I got to college, there wasn't much cooking involved in maintaining the frozen yogurt and pretzel diet. And living in various studio apartments in Manhattan with microscopic kitchens, I was never inspired to buy decent cookware, let alone attempt to fire up a meal.

I'm sure if I ever get to a place with space, I'll take a stab at learning to cook. I think it'd be fun to try. Worst case scenario, I contribute to The Burnt Food Museum .

A liquidity crisis is when there's too much milk in my oatmeal

I HATE runny oatmeal. I actually don't like oatmeal that much even when its NOT runny. And I hate that people call it that. It's "oats" or "rolled oats". "Meal" denotes flour that is made of something. Corn meal is corn flour. Corn Flakes are not corn meal. "Oats" are not "oatmeal". It's sort of like saying "tunafish," which everyone says, even though "tuna" never refers to anything but a type of fish. It's not like the reader was going to think maybe you had a "tuna bird" wrap for lunch.

My meds have worn off so I get derailed easily. The point I WANTED to make is about business. That's what I do for a living - I talk about business. Not to you. Not right now. All the time. And right now I am saddled with the least sexy confluence of stories imaginable. A "subprime" mortgage meltdown, combined with a credit crunch and a liquidity crisis. It's the business equivalent of a "tuna fish" wrap with a side of carrots and runny "oatmeal". I can't make this sing if I wanted to. My producer, who shall remain nameless, but we'll call him "Adam" for purposes of this entry ('cuz that's his name), says he's bored with the story. It's become like identity theft: it happens all the time, to millions of people, but it doesn't matter until it happens to you.

So I have decided to put a face to the mortgage story. Tomorrow morning I go public with the fact that I am, in fact, subprime. Uh huh. According to research I have done, having a credit score of less that 700 makes you sub-prime. Guess what? I been late a few times. On my payments. I never automated them, and I am habitually late. My car company, for whatever reason, feels the need to report my late payments to the credit bureau EVERY SINGLE TIME. My credit score has taken a fierce beating as a result, and I am one of the millions of subprime homeowners that are, apparently, part of the problem.

If you can't beat em, join em. Maybe I'll kick it up a notch. I'll be Optimus SubPrime.

Bad Poetry for the masses

Ever sat on the floor
And scraped gum off a shoe?
That's now how hopeless
I feel about you.
I poke and I prod
I can't seem get through.
But I'm not giving up
It's just not what I do.
Cause like it or not,
I stepped in that gum
And I'm bound to keep going
'til I've dented it some.
Plus I like these shoes
They look good on my feet
And if I scrape hard enough
I might have that gum beat.
Sure there'll still be a spot
Where the gum used to be
But if it's no longer sticky
Then it's ok by me.

You do the math

I should probably stay away from sexual content simply because you never know what's going to come back to haunt you, but this is just too good to ignore.

Reuters reports that HPV could be causing a rise in oral cancers in men.

One study found that men with 6 or more oral sex partners were at higher risk.

Where are all these men that are performing all this oral sex? Seriously. I love men, but did the researchers explain this meant giving not getting?

Plus, the CDC says that by age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have acquired genital HPV infection.

With numbers that high, you'd think all these "generous" men would just be dropping like flies.

I'm just saying.

Technically speaking

I've always been fascinated by the Internet. I remember sitting at my Mac IIsi in the playroom in my parents' house logging into AOL for the very first time. I skipped from chat room to chat room peeking in on a world that was totally foreign and yet totally fascinating. I spent five straight hours online talking to strangers until one took the chat a little too far for comfort. I instantly escaped. I had tested my boundaries and found the difference between alright and wrong. At least for me.

But what I remember most about that night is how fast the time flew by and how I lost myself in this world of connectivity. It was something about people engaging in a way I'd never seen before. No physical recognition. No significant sound. Just this constant scroll of line after line. A/S/L. Hi room. Hello? There was never a good way to jump into the noise. I was alone in my actual space but well aware of the crowd in this virtual space and eerily concerned about what they might think of me. Was I doing it right? Was there even a way?

By the time I got to Pseudo, the concept of online community had matured and evolved into a creature all its own. I not only had to reacquaint myself with the etiquette, but I also had to learn all about chat clients and admins and bots and a whole world of interactivity that had grown exponentially in a short period of time. It was exciting, and when I got the chance to marry that interactivity with the TV skills I'd picked up in the interim, I could not have been happier. The best part of all of it was how small the world became. I could talk to anyone anywhere at any time. And so could they. You. Whoever was reaching out through that computer to connect to people with similar interests or intentions. I don't think online community makes you antisocial. I think if you are predisposed to avoiding personal contact, then yes, it can give you an excuse to continue to cocoon. But the majority of the people I have met through some online venture or another over the years have been interesting, smart, and creative people thrilled to have an additional outlet for what they choose to contribute.

Not enough is ever said about the good that comes out of online community. Predators and identity thieves and criminals dominate the news because worst case scenario always does. But I'll see your creepy stranger who pushes the envelope of decency and raise you a whole slew of honest, compassionate, intelligent, forward-thinking chatters or bloggers or blog readers or friends or contacts who make the world - and the world wide web - a better place.