AskMen.com has released the Top 99 Women 2007, the latest in their annual list compiled by readers and staff. Obviously a full rundown of every woman is well beyond the scope of this project, and more like something that Mikey Boom would work on, however here are the top 15 with links to their pages:

#15 Rachel McAdams

#14 Gisele Bundchen

#13 Heidi Klum

#12 Marisa Miller

#11 Halle Berry

#10 Elisha Cuthbert

#9 Angelina Jolie

#8 Maria Menounos

#7 Shakira

#6 Alessandra Ambrosio

#5 Jessica Biel

#4 Adriana Lima

#3 Jessica Alba

#2 Scarlett Johansson

#1 Beyonce

Do you agree or disagree?

A few days left to go and I’ve been splurging a little bit on the excess funds so it’s probably best to start off this post with a recap of where I stand in terms of budget. If you recall my first post in this series, my trip to the grocery store, I spent $12.96 which left me with $17.04 remaining for a month. To my surprise I never touched this money; granted I did get some freebies, particularly on weekends, but I ate A LOT of rice.

In my last post I mentioned that I went to Dunkin Donuts (aka DnD) and purchased a hot chocolate as it was the coldest day in 2 years and I was freezing. While I seem to have misplaced the exact receipt for this I recall it being somewhere between $1.99 and $2.19, so for the sake of erring in the right and including tax we will say the hot chocolate was $2.50. I almost mentioned that I had Loud Lady (Chinese food) for lunch on Monday, which is always a steal of a deal at $4.65 for a lunch special plus soda.

Yesterday I got Chinese food again, but this time from Suzie’s, which is a much better quanity of food/price ratio than any other Chinese food place in the area, however as it gets delivered the cost can be a bit higher. The total for Suzie’s yesterday, including tax and tip, was $7.

So, $12.96 + $2.50 + $4.65 + $7.00 = $27.11. This leaves $2.89 for the remainder of the experiment. It seems fairly plausible at this point that the experiment will be completed, the only thing that remains to be seen is how it will go down. I can use the $2.89 to do a DnD one day, or pick up a bagel for lunch one day, or not touch it at all and bring rice to work again (recall I skipped lunch for 2 weeks). At any rate I’m getting excited, the Super Bowl is this weekend so with the festivities that will be taking place this experiment couldn’t be ending at a more opportune time. We’ll see how it pans out…

Microsoft is officially launching Vista today, the latest and “greatest” in its line of Windows operating systems. I say greatest in quotes because I for one have not been too overwhelmed by Microsoft’s latest OS. Microsoft claims that Vista is their most stable system yet, and that its new Aero interface improves usability. I caught Bill Gates on the Today Show yesterday with Meredith Viera, and she asked him why she should buy it. Gates proceeded to go into a rambling about Vista this and Vista that, but in the end didn’t really say anything convincing enough. Fortunately I have been able to try it for free, the full retail version, through Microsoft TechNet.

I installed it on this current laptop I’m writing on now (which has since been converted back to XP). While initially I was delighted by the “eye candy” aspect of Vista, I soon realized I was losing productivity. My laptop had constant issues with it, frequent rebooting itself, not detecting peripherals properly, etc. Granted, my laptop manufacturer will certainly be making a firmware update for Vista, but at a little more than a year old, it shouldn’t have to. Microsoft should accommodate to my needs if they want me to install Vista. I already had to double my RAM just to run the thing, I’m not willing to make any other concessions at this time when my XP works just fine and if I’m going to spend any money I’ll be looking into OS X before Vista.

Getting closer and closer to the end this Friday. Again my apologies for missing a few posts over the weekend as I was away from a computer, and then just before returning home from Carin’s house Sunday evening I sliced open my thumb (we won’t get into how) so I didn’t really feel like sitting down and blogging.

I have finally spent more money! But probably not how you might think. No, I have not ventured back to the grocery store. Rather, I have been splurging a little as I had quite a bit (almost 50%) of the budget left. Friday I bought a hot chocolate from Dunkin Donuts (it was the coldest day in New York City in 2 years), and yesterday I bought lunch from Loud Lady (infamous chinese food place by work known for the screaming of its owner at her workers). I don’t have the exact receipts on me, although I should at home, but I guesstimate that when adding these two items to the funds that were spent back at the beginning at the grocery store that the total would be roughly $23, give or take a bit. I don’t know if I’m going to spend anything today. But should I decide to get lunch, I know that I have at least $5 to spend, then I would have to tally up a total and see where I stand.

Getting closer and closer, only 3 days left after today. For those just tuning in or for those who haven’t been keeping track, the experiment ends Friday at around 7pm. More updates to come!

Tonight was the first time I had some time to mess around a bit in Photoshop since getting it last week. I have used an older version of the marvelous product from Adobe, but my previous experience is constricted to saving objects for the web, and not much more than that. So tonight Carin said to take a couple of photos of us and see what I could come up with. Through a series of blending options which I cannot recall, the following have come to life:

This was my first creation. I thought it looked cool but this is Carin’s favorite picture of us so she obviously didn’t approve of what I did to it lol.

My second creation. After striking out tonight on pictures of the two of us, I decided to do a solo one of me, one of my favorite photos. I always wanted a good black and white photograph of myself, although this doesn’t necessary satisfy that requirement I still think it looks kind of cool.

So there are my first two Photoshop creations; let me know what you think!

The New York Times is reporting that since early 2004 more than 100 judicial rulings have relied on Wikipedia, including 13 circuit courts of appeal (one step below the Supreme Court). According to Judge Richard A. Posner of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, “Wikipedia is a terrific resource.” He goes on to say that Wikipedia is updated recently and “very accurate.”

Let pause for a second and recap: US judges use Wikipedia as a reference in their judicial rulings. As someone who has been told repeatedly by college professors that using Wikipedia as a source is not valid and may even be considered plagiarism, I am baffled. How is it that our instructors are disallowing Wikipedia as a reference, yet one of the highest authorities in the United States is incorporating it into its resources? Judges have access to any document in history that may aid in helping them to deliver a judgment, however on scores of occasions they have chosen to use Wikipedia; to me that speaks to the validity of the service. I’m not saying that it is time to ditch hard covers and rename Wikipedia to the Library of Congress, but I think people, particularly college professors, should certainly look into accepting it as a valid research tool.

Another one for the books! Today wasn’t too difficult though, as I got to eat lunch at the Google Cafeteria in their NYC office. If you’ve heard about Google recently being named the best place to work for you’ve certainly heard about their cafeterias. And I thought my old Seton Hall cafeteria was great, ha! I can’t really give details about anything as they made us sign non-disclosure agreements, but it was definitely the greatest office meal I’ve ever had, it felt like I was eating at a gourmet restaurant.

Dinner was rice once again. Carin brought over some more soy sauce (recall that I ran out last night) which saved a trip to the grocery store. Thus, the remaining funds remain. We talked about maybe buying some celery next week. Although it may be a little expensive, it probably falls within the remaining budget as there is only 8 days left and it is certainly very healthy for you.

So I’ve been slacking a bit on the blog the past few days. I was away from a computer all weekend and the first two nights of this week I have been pretty busy (also Christine hasn’t been there to harass me about this topic ha). However, where I may have been slacking in one respect, I have not been in the other. I am still doing my thing and am now very much on track to finish it pretty easily. I have spent no additional money yet. I wanted to go to the store tonight and buy some more soy sauce (I ran out tonight), but Carin insisted we wait until tomorrow. So tomorrow I’ll be looking to get some soy sauce and maybe something else, seeing as next week at this time I’ll be starting to wrap things up.

I have continued the practice I began last week of not eating lunch. Some days are no problem and I don’t even notice that I miss it, other days can be like torture. It does, however, make dinner extra special when I get home from work, even if its just a bowl of rice, which I must confess I have become a master at making.

A great clip mocking the iPhone and its capabilities.

Today was mostly a review of the stuff I have learned in lessons 2 and 3 over the past few days, however one notable exception is that I learned how to count from 1 to 10 today. I already knew how to count from 1 to 5, Carin and her cousins in Poland taught me that on the 4th of July in New York City when they were visiting and we went for the fireworks. They tried to teach me 6-10 as well at the time, but it was too difficult for me back then, which makes the fact that I’ve learned it now all the more enjoyable.

So without further adieu:

1 - jeden
2 - dwa
3 - trzy
4 - cztery
5 - pięć
6 - sześć
7 - siedem
8 - ociem
9 - dziewięć
10 - dziesięć