Last night’s meetup was, like the December meetup, a very fun experience. This time we met at Christopher’s in Porter Square instead of Grendel’s Den in Harvard Square. Both places make very good hamburgers – last night I had a “Burgah” with carmelized onions, thick juicy bacon, and tangy jack cheese. Yum.

I also got to meet a lot of interesting people:

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***Anonymous|http://peacebang.blogspot.com/***, a minister who keeps a blog, but is keeping it secret from her congregation. Not because there’s anything ‘bad’ about it, just to keep some privacy between her and the congregation and to give herself some space to post her thoughts.

***Joshua Darden|http://www.joshuadarden.com/***, a typeface designer working from Brooklyn, NY, but up to visit his friend and colleague, ***Susan Kaup|http://www.sooz.com/*** (also present at the meeting). He told me about some interesting projects he’s worked on, including designing a custom typeface for a newspaper’s printing presses. Joshua is also a Mac user.

Dermot O’Rourke, a charming gentleman from the Old Country, who is currently a visiting scientist at MIT’s Clinical Research Center. We discussed topics ranging from taking long driving trips, to the different meanings of “By-The-Sea” in the names of European towns as opposed to American towns. (For example, Manchester-by-the-sea in Massachusetts carries an image of upscale living, sophistication, and desirable real estate. Cardiff-by-the-sea in Great Britain, on the other hand, was a fairly rough town and not at all the image of sophistication that ‘by-the-sea’ projects in America)

***Mary Bridges|http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/mary_bridges***, a freelance journalist working for the Boston Globe. She was present to do some research for an article. The Globe has recently done some articles on Meetups, so I’m not sure if she’s working on another Meetup article, or something about blogging, or maybe both. (It’s been a couple of years now since my name was in the Boston Globe – last time was when the iTunes Music Store first opened, and I was quoted along with some other local Mac users. Who knows, maybe I’ll make it in again – though I was hardly one of the more interesting folks at the meetup.)

***Jared Dunn|http://www.jareddunn.org/***, yet another Mac user, who I had met at the last Meetup. He works as a lab manager in ***MIT|http://web.mit.edu/***’s Picower center, and is also a freelance web developer.

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There were a bunch of people down at the other end of the table, who I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to talk to: ***Rob Sama|http://www.robsama.com/***, Clair Degutis, ***Steve Garfield|http://www.stevegarfield.com/***, and ***Susan Kaup|http://www.sooz.com/***. Hopefully at the next meetup, our seats will be shuffled around a bit so that it’s easier to chat with other folks. Also, I at least have their blogs on my blogroll now, so I’ll be able to stay up to date.

I’ve got some photos from last night ***here|http://gallery.prwdot.org/boston_blogger_meetup_20050131***. Meetups are a lot of fun, and I’d highly encourage everyone to check out the ***Meetup website|http://www.meetup.com/***. Find some Meetups in your area, meet some new people, network, whatever. It’s a blast. And maybe I’ll see you at the next Boston Weblogger Meetup!

The Boston Weblogger Meetup is ***tomorrow|http://blog.meetup.com/3/events/3946711/***. If you’re in the Boston area and are interested in blogging, join us!

I got a new hat today:

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I like it. Becky likes it too, even though she didn’t make it. Do you like it?

Yeah, you. The person(s) reading this blog entry. Who are you? How did you find our site? Got a website we can point to, if we don’t link to you already? Leave us a comment, whoever you are. Thanks!

One of the things I love about our photo gallery is that it’s searchable by the general public. Google indexes all of the albums, including photo captions and comments. That’s why I try to make the album names as descriptive as possible, and also why I try to leave captions whenever I have time. Then people will be more easily able to find photos of their favorite people, places, or events. And I’m happy for our gallery to be one of the places at which they end up.
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I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but when you hear a radio advertisement featuring the voice of Santa Claus, there will typically be one of two dramatic interpretations: Jolly Old Santa or Demonic Santa. Jolly Old Santa is your basic, cheerful sounding “Ho, ho, ho!” The type of guy who you would certainly want to be bringing you presents in the middle of the night. His voice is warm and friendly sounding. The other type, Demonic Santa, sounds like Jolly Old Santa taken a bit too far. He has the low, rumbling voice, but it also sounds like it’s been lowered a few octaves, run through a reverb effect, and has a faintly maniacal edge to it. The kind of Santa who you’d rather not have consuming your milk and cookies as he brings fire and brimstone to put in your stockings in the night.

Anyone with me on this?

Today on the way home from church, Becky and I stopped at one of our favorite stores: ***Family Dollar|http://www.familydollar.com/***. We picked up one of those scrubbing devices with a sponge on one end and a handle that can be filled with liquid dish soap, as well as some cough drops, since we’re both feeling a bit under the weather. One dollar each! On the way out, I noticed that the Family Dollar brand cough drops had a handy comparison chart on the back to show how they stack up to Halls brand cough drops.

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This answers the age-old question, “Are Halls cough drops economical?” NO!

Update: We were at ***Wal*Mart|http://www.walmart.com/*** tonight and spotted Halls brand cough drops on sale for $0.97! NOOO, we’ve been duped!! Dark is the day when Wal*Mart even outsells Family Dollar.

I seem to be doing a lot of metacognition lately. The last post was a blog about blogs. In this post, I’m thinking about how I think about things.

From time to time, I stop and try to get a handle on how and why I perceive things the way I do. I often run into situations where everyone in a group will react one way to something, and I react a completely different way. Or I see a situation one way, and nobody else has any clue what I am talking about. Today I had an insight, or at least an insight into how to concisely label my way of thinking, making decisions, and expressing myself: Form Over Content.
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Here are some stats for our website during November:

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4,089 unique visitors
10,423 visits
57,940 pages viewed
85,242 hits
2.18 GB of data downloaded

53 blog entries
48 comments on entries made during November

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This averages out to about 347 visits per day, 1.76 new entries each day, and less than one comment per entry. So my question is, if so many people are visiting our blog, and there’s more than enough content, why don’t we get more comments?

First, besides Becky and myself, there are a few people who I’d consider “regular” commenters. These people have left more than 10 comments total, and I’ll list them here, in descending order of number of comments, as a way of thanking them for their continued contribution to our site’s comments: ***Michelle|http://mikao.blogspot.com/***, ***Jenn|http://junefourteenth.blogspot.com/***, ***Will|http://pulchersentio.prwdot.org/***, ***Chad|http://jayseae.cxliv.org/***, ***Mike|http://mike.refugeisland.net/***, ***Nikkiana|http://everytomorrow.org/***, ***Amy|http://waltondammerunprwdot.org/g/***, and ***Bob|http://bobgolding.blogspot.com/***.

What do these people have in common?
* With the exceptions of Mike and Chad, most are in their twenties
* All of them profess a Christian faith
* All of them have their own blogs
* All of them have time to use the Internet for more than just a few minutes per day
* All of them share at least one common interest with either Becky or myself

So what I don’t know is why other people don’t comment on our blog. I would simply love for people other than those I listed above to leave comments on this entry, explaining why they don’t comment regularly. Is it because you don’t have the time? Is it because you don’t like that our comments form is in a pop-up window, or because your browser doesn’t allow the pop-up window? Is it because you simply don’t have anything meaningful to say? Or are our posts simply uninteresting and not worthy of comments? Or do you simply not understand how the comment system works? I apologize if my writing tone seems accusatory, but in reality I’m simply curious.

I’d love some feedback. Thanks!

One of my favorite stores at the mall is our local ***Williams-Sonoma|http://www.williams-sonoma.com***. I love to go in and look at all the neat seasonal items like turkey shaped butter molds, spice cake mixes, and Christmas cookie cutters. All of their products are so unique and high quality…. I want one of everything. Therein lies the problem. Somehow, entering any W-S turns mild-mannered, make-do-with-what-you-have Becky into SUPER NEEDY CONSUMER Becky. She is not so mild-mannered. When I see those cute, pink, nesting mixing bowls I am convinced that I also need the Silicone spatula, Pink KitchenAid Stand Mixer, and anything else that even remotely coordinates. Yikes! Luckily I know I can’t afford much there, so I always walk out empty handed.

In the car today I was assured that the Christmas season had truely begun… The radio played “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” [NOTE: Quitadamo clan… maybe this is a good Christmas Eve to pull that video out again…??] As if that wasn’t enough, all I’ve heard about on the news is how much the retailers made on “Black Friday” and the following weekend.

I seriously considered participating in ***Buy Nothing Day|http://www.ecoplan.org/ibnd/ib_index.htm*** this year. (also mentioned by ***DrJames|http://drjames.blogspot.com/2004/11/bought-something-on-buynothing.html***) Don’t get me wrong, I like a good bargain just as much as the next gal, but waiting in the cold outside Wal*Mart at 5am seems a tad bit extreem to me. I’ve also found that most stores are still offering pretty good deals at times when the shops aren’t packed with crazed shoppers.

Despite my desire to keep my money to myself, I did find myself at Building 19 purchasing a few super cheap items. Also, I needed some grocery items, so off to Market Basket I went. I counteracted this spending by bringing three bags of gently used items to the Salvation Army. I’m hoping that I can make this a yearly tradition. Not only would I not be contributing to world wide commercialism, but I’d be actively working against it.