The New Pi-xelated

I just finished redesigning and coding my husband's persona. The new pi-xelated.com is inspired by 1980s arcade game, Galaga, which reflects a lot about Jason. This is the game he and his dad have played together since he was a little kid and always challenge each other on whenever we see a system. The website has had many iterations and we finally agreed on this styling for it. Enjoy his work!

Why I Returned My New Galaxy Nexus

I had been looking up cell phones knowing the life of my Droid 2 is limited these days. I love Google products and really enjoy the Android OS, so I was excited reading about Ice Cream Sandwich and this phone. Curved glass, zero shutter lag camera, etc all enticed me to buy the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, even though I was wary of the battery life.

I love Google and Android - my Droid 2 is by far the most amazing phone I have ever owned. I got my first cell, that Nokia 3310 up there, in the 6th grade. It was meant for me to call my dad to pick me up from school things. I didn't use it to call friends until about my sophomore year of high school, which was when I got the upgraded Nokia with a colored screen, that blue phone there. My favorite phone in high school was a tiny Sony Ericcson T290 which was about the cheapest thing you could buy, but it was SO small and fit in anything. My small and short affair with Sony Ericcson phones started there - I tried a W810i, a Walkman co-branded phone with actually great music integration for 2006, that ended up failing, and let me into a free k550i, a Cybershot co-branded phone. I loved that phone. It had Japanese stickers on it, cell phone charms, and felt like a "smart phone" in that time. The last phone I had on my home network (Cincinnati Bell, I think Cincinnati, Ohio may be the only city with it's own cell company) was a Nokia XPress music, which was terribly slow, brick like, and hard to type on. I hated the thing. Every few weeks I had to take the battery and SIM card out or else it would stop making calls. I would randomly call people without touching the phone. Weird things. Then my husband got his Droid, I got jealous, and made the switch to Verizon.

It's been wonderful. My Droid 2 is, and still is, everything I have ever wanted. Easy to type on pull out keyboard, pretty darn fast even still, and customizable. It's only missing a decent camera. It's getting up there in age, and with some "upgrades" on our account, I figured while my husband is in town, I might as well upgrade. Having a phone that works well is important with us living apart, and I have been worried that my harsh treatment of my Droid 2 has shortened it's poor life. I should be nicer to my phones.

I made the switch to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus on Monday and returned it on Thursday. I was so excited for Ice Cream Sandwich, curved glass, and all of the Google goodness that I have come to love so much. But poor battery life made me stressing for the three days I had the phone so much I constantly felt like I was having a panic attack about my phone dying before I left work (which it did 2/3 days, and the last day it died at 6:30pm).

Cincinnati's 21st Annual Reindog Parade

This is also posted to my other blog with a few extra photos, but here are some adorable images from this weekend's Reindog Parade in Mount Adams in my hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. It's a great event that raises money for our local SPCA and allows us all to get our dogs in super cute get ups and parade them around for a large crowd of onlookers.

Teemo was dressed as an adorable reindog.

harrisburg

i've lived in cincinnati my entire life. okay. not my entire life. i was actually born in new jersey and lived there for awhile, but i honestly can't remember any of it. still, i moved in october and marked the first time i moved out of the great city of cincinnati.

moving to harrisburg was a great choice, i must say. i took a job at CODi, a company that makes laptop bags, security locks, and other various things for mobile professionals. i am the sole designer and i work with amazing people, like julie, jonathan, and jim. obviously, my name should start with a j though.

anyhow, this means that jason went to grad school also. he is living in florida & attending full sail to continue his education while i continue my career. so teemo and i are living the life, or rather teemo is! he gets bones and gets to go to the dog park.






also, i now live crazy close to hershey, PA and jason lives near walt disney world. near the sweetest and the greatest place on earth.







i'm sure there will be lots more to come in the next few months. my and jason's birthday is coming up soon so i will be visiting him in florida and seeing raynor for the first time in awhile. oh and jason. i haven't seen him either!

oh hai : what it means

i realize that over the time of using "oh hai" or "o hai" for basically everything (greetings, my flickr name, something i say to my husband when i don't want to admit that i again didn't clean a fork before putting it in the dishwasher) that i have explained many a times what it means and where it comes from.

well, it literally means "hi" in "lolspeak". what's lolspeak? familiar with the internet sensation of lolcats? if you aren't, i'm not sure you are missing out truly, but i personally think you are. basically, just images of cats with silly titles.





here is a handy translator to translate whatever you need into "lolspeak".
speak lolcat

not a cat person? there are loldogs too. i love those. especially when they involve corgis or bassets





so those are the origins of "oh hai." i also enjoy it because it does sound like the state i grew up in (ohio) and the japanese word for good morning (ohayou - pronounced similarly to ohio) and is one of my favorite phrases from japanese class. that's just random little tid bits, but mostly, it's all about those lolcats.
strangely, i'm not a cat person.

stainless steel no-spill pet bowls

want a chance to see one of my designs? better yet - a chance to own it? here are some stainless steel pet bowls i designed for frontgate. i researched pet bowls for a long time - pulling reviews for everything from plastic bowls that cost 2 dollars at petsmart to high end designer bowls. in the end, this bowl was meant to be elegant but simple, and super, super sturdy.





i'm ordering my pup one - my corgi is terrible about sloshing water out of his bowl (understandable when you have a massive overbite) and i think it will be great for him! i'll put pictures up of him with it someday!

the grey weems

your super hero name is going to suck be awesome like mine! long live the grey weems!
(weems is teemo's nick name. it sounded better than teemo.)

via geekologie