The Zereps

Buyer Beware! I just bought a mini SD card off of eBay for my new cell phone the other day only to find out that it’s a counterfeit! They had me fooled–it looks exactly like an original, but apparently it’s some foney-bologna knock-off memory card. The branding/logos and everything are spot on. I was contacted by another user on eBay who told me that he got a fake card from the same seller I bought mine from. Sure enough, I checked the serial number with the manufacturer and they said it wasn’t in their database!
I tried to reformat the card (which was supposed to be 2GB) and it only held 1GB of data! I guess you get what you pay for from the lowest price seller on eBay. Next time I’ll have to be more careful, but who’d a thunk you’d get scammed from a user with >5000 (99%) positive feedback ratings.. Somebody did have a good point thogh.. once you have that many feedback ratings, that 1% of negative feedback could be up to 500 people! Don’t buy anything from eBay user ‘webd’!! We’re getting a small possie together and gonna nail this sucka! 😉 One guy’s already contact the FBI. Hopefully we can get this guy’s account suspended and put him out of business.
Here’s a picture of a real mini SD card (left) and the fake one I bought (right): (I accidently cropped off the right edge of the fake memory card.)

The major difference that I can see is just the spacing between the “2.0” and “GB” is way off. Other than that, the counterfeiters did a pretty good job copying the original.

it’s 3.30. i had planned on being comfortably seated in a theatre watching the braodway production of wicked right about now, but eric accidentally got the dates mixed up, so that’s where i’ll be *next* week. 🙂 but thanks to his little mix-up, i got to read/finish a super yummy book today – anne rice’s queen of the damned!

this is the third book in her ‘vampire chronicles’ and it was definately a very entertaining read! having read interview with the vampire (book 1) and the vampire lestat (book 2), i was eagerly looking forward to reading this one. and of course i loved it! reading anne rice’s vampire novels is like dark chocolate, bordeaux, a good book, and a good movie all at once!

i can’t really go into details because that would divulge too much of the endings of the preceeding books, but it didn’t disappoint me! 😀 and i’m totally looking forward to acquiring the next in the vampire chronicles, the tale of the body theif. the setting for these stories is so artfully rendered by rice that i can’t help but become completely engrossed. i totally recommend these books, eventhough they’re just super-fun reads. when i read books like these, it’s just nice to get so absorbed in a different world that you forget your own ‘stuff’ for a while. like i said, dark chocolate, bordeaux, movie and book all at once. 🙂 (i will admit that i’m a little embarassed to read such purely entertaining novels that don’t reveal any hidden nuances or whatever about the human condition, blah blah blah….but come on! who can resist dark and seductive vampires and their partaking of the pleasures of the flesh?! hehe)

and yes, i’m still reading ‘the brothers karamazov’ although i’ve had to sideline it until i find a better copy. and i took a break in george eliot’s ‘the mill on the floss’ to read this one real quick, just for fun, but i’m really enjoying it, too, btw….review will follow…

Well, I guess that’s what you get for not planning in advance; a whole lot of sitting around. We did make a trip to H&M on Sunday, did some grocery shopping (oh boy!), and a whole lotta not much else. Candice did some baking today–it sure smelled good around here. Jabba got more than his share of little scraps of this and that (I did too. ;)) I can’t tell you what she made though, ’cause it’s a suprise!

I spent way too much time on my computer this weekend.. and a lot of that time was spent doing stuff for work–I know, shame on me. I wasn’t exactly doing work, per se–I came up with a really cool project idea on Friday and decided to flesh it out over the long weekend. It turned out really cool, so I hope my co-workers like it. It’s something that will make their daily lives working in our proprietary web-based marketing platform a little more interesting.

That’s it for now; time to rest these tired wrists a bit… au revoir.

i’ll be honest…i’ve been reading dostoevsky’s the brothers karamazov at work, but i just haven’t brought myself to open it up here at home. thus my unimaginably slow progress. soooo, i was forced to seek out something else for home – yesterday i started reading sarah blake’s grange house and just now finished it.

i would normally quote something from the jacket, or from amazon, but i’m lazy today. the novel is summed up fairly well by simply stating that it is a gothic romance/ghost story written by an author with a doctorate in victorian literature. 🙂

i enjoyed it quite a bit (hence the less than 24 hour reading period) and i recommed it to others who enjoy victorian books, etc (this one being on the lighter side). it had lots of references to the bronte sisters, jane eyre and the mill on the floss (which i just picked up yesterday, btw, and am eagerly anticipating!). the author’s blend of styles was a bit confusing at first, making me think of it as an obivious ‘first work.’ but after a hundred pages or so, it blossomed into a mature novel, with a very enjoyable and well-told story.

anyhoo…i liked it! 😀 great read for a rainy day!

OK, so we had the sushi last week, but didn’t have time to write about it until now. As you may have gathered from the title, it is raining outside and it’s sunday, and thus the extra time right now for blogging. 😉

So, last Sunday I also spent most of the day at home; I love cooking, and I’d had a hard time finding nori (dried seaweed sheets) for making sushi and I finally found some at a health food store around here. As I don’t eat any type of dead fish and I find most sushi is rather overpriced, I wanted to make some of my own, ’cause it’s cheap and fun. So, exactly what do you put in ‘vegetarian suhsi’? Well, let’s see I usually put in cooked broccoli, carrots, water cheshnuts, baby bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, and this time I also used zucchini from our CSA share (organic vegetables we get every week straight from the farmer.) I set up one of our side tables with bamboo placemats, made some green tea, and made up some packaged miso soup to go along with our sushi. Here are some pics:

Nothing too exciting going on this weekend w/ the rain and all. It’ kinda nice to be able to stay home and relax sometimes though. Have a great weekend.

last night we celebrated jabba’s second birthday. 😀 i made him ‘fleas-navidad nibblers’ for breakfast and ‘let them eat cake’ cupcakes for dessert (recipes from the three dog bakery cookbook ). they were pretty tasty. we also spoiled him with a new bed and harness. you can check out all the action over at jabba’s blog.

notice jabba’s little bow tie and shirt front…very dapper.

more pictures over at jabba the pug!

yes sir…it took me a little longer to finish (due to an altered work schedule), but i have finished gabriel garcia marquez’s one hundred years of solitude.

here’s what the back jacket had to say: “one hundred years of solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women–brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul–this novel is a msterpiece in the art of fiction.”

this was such a wonderful and beautiful book…i completely loved it. it’s definately one that i’ll keep around and reread, not sell for quick cash on half.com. i had to keep referencing the family tree page to keep track of the characters, since all the men’s names are interrelated, but it all made sense eventually. if you have time, i definately recommend that you read this one, if you haven’t already!

(don’t buy the ‘oprah’s book club’ version…screw you oprah! this was a masterpiece long before you picked it for your precious book club!)

i haven’t decided on what to read next. there are several more books of marquez’s that i would LOVE to read, including memories of my melancholy whores, the autumn of the patriarch,  and especially love in the time of cholera. we’ll see! that would require a trip to the bookstore, though. maybe i’ll dig up something i have laying around…

“thezereps.com” and all of its affiliates will not be held responsible for lost work time, low-productivity levels, or inter-office fueds resulting from the viewing of following link:

cute overload.

i also personally apologize for the cheesy-ness of the above link. the bunnies and puggies made me do it. i am very weak-spirited.