hobbies... inspired by hobbies!

I'm never, ever bored. I can't really remember a time in last five years that I was bored because, well, I have a lot of hobbies. I am entertained easily, I own practically everything I want (and the things I don't own I obsess about via research), and I am constantly surrounding myself with people who say very funny things. I have two TV shows to keep up with for each day of the week, I have 152 subscriptions in my Google Reader that I read 80 percent of, I usually work at minimum of 50 hours a week at my day job that I love, I have a fitness routine, a video game routine, and a library card. I spend plenty of time practicing my mirror face. I'm happy nearly all of the time.

But the thing I love most of all--and smugly think I'm pretty good at--is giving advice. Oh do I love giving advice. I love hearing people lay out their problems, and then I love them saying "what do I do??" and asking me (me!) to tell them what to do. I love thinking it over and then assuredly explaining the steps to the right answer. I love knowing I'm right.

(In contrast, I hate annoying people, I hate when I know I shouldn't be the one making the decision so I sadly take the high road, I hate it when my advice isn't taken when it's certainly right, and I hate people assuming I'm judging them.)

So, I think I want to try something. It feels a little risky, but how about we play advice column today. I was planning on slacking off at work anyway, so you ask away and I will tell you what to do. We'll call it Dear Schilbo.

*titled inspired by kittens!

In case of a loss of oxygen, please place your masks over your faces to hide your terrified expressions from the other passengers

When I told Amy we were writing about hobbies this week, and that I didn't know which one to talk about, she started listing off the things I do for fun (hiking, reading, painting, writing, photos, cooking, video games) and stuff I collect (comic books, Harry Potters, Moleskines), but I kept finding reasons not to mention that stuff.

"You love taking photos," she'd say.

"Yeah, but I'm not very good at it," I'd say.

She'd say, "You're really into painting these days."

And I'd say, "I paint like a five-year-old."

Amy, of course, has to say things like, "Your writing is hilarious! Your chicken marsala doesn't make me gag! Your Harry Potter collection isn't lame at all!" But the more she protested my protesting I realized that I am barely adequate at all the things I love most in life -- except for one: my travel spreadsheet.

Every day I participate in a hobby called Planning A Trip Abroad. Here's how it works: Each morning, I open up my email, and lo! Yahoo Finance has sent me a list of exchange rates for countries I want to visit. Also,Suntrust bank has sent me an email with the balance of my travel savings account. So, I open up my Travel Spreadsheet and go to work.

First, I key in the current exchange rates, and my travel savings amount:



Look how rich I am in Iceland!

Pretty much all of these cells are linked to the other sheets in this workbook. See the other sheets there? Ireland, Iceland, Thailand, Australia?

Next, I go to Clark Howard's Atlanta Travel Deals page to see what good airfares are waiting for me.

Once I find a reasonable fare I go to the corresponding country on my spreadsheet and key it in, along with the number of days I'd like to holiday. (Things in pink on the spreadsheet are keyed-in numbers; things in blue are foreign currency conversions; everything else is basically a formula or conditional formatting.)

Then Excel just does its work. See, it multiplies the total number of days I want to travel with the per-day cost of lodging and meals and such. (Estimated by Lonely Planet or Let's Go Travel Guides.) Then it adds that total with the total of the airfare, compares it to the amount I have in travel savings, and uses a little conditional formatting to tell me if I should book the trip.

Today it is excited because I can go to Thailand!



But look how upset it would get if airfare increased, say, another thousand bucks. It's practically hissing it's so angry.



I'm also really, really good at Mario Kart. And watching cartoons.

Phone it in Friday: Phone it in, bitches!

Hey-oo! Clearly this is Abigail because I couldn't sign out of my Blogger account to be ANONYMOUS. Want to know why? Because when I sign out of Google my Firefox crashes. Which is very annoying because then I lose all my tabs. ALL MY TABS.

Tabs are very important to my obsessive internet gleaning skills. What is important to you? Tell us YOUR favorite place online!

Is this real life?

It's no secret that I spend a lot of quality time with The Internet, except maybe to my (almost-former) boss. Zing! Anyway, at my (almost-former) job, the workload has been slowing down for weeks and I have to fill my days SOMEHOW. Sure, I could take a stroll around the building but I try not to do that very often because then people like, stop and talk to me. Nobody wants that. Especially at work.

My first order of business each and every morning is checking my email AND THEN, of course, I see what Google Reader has to offer me. I consider it a bonus if anything at all in my "awesome blossom extra awesome" folder has been updated. Once I finish Google Reader (lies, Google Reader is never finished if you're doing it right), I mosey on over to Facebook, even though it's practically useless to me because I can't play Wordscraper at work anymore. And then Tumblr, which is my new favorite form of blogging because I can write less than a sentence and it still counts as a post. At that point, I usually feel like I'm about to run out of Internet so I may go ahead and blog myself, although there were a few very scary days where Blogger and all blogspot sites were BLOCKED on my work computer. Luckily, those dark days passed and have never returned. And I don't care if they do return to this particular computer because I'm saying goodbye to it FOREVER as of 2 o'clock tomorrow and good riddance, because it is the slowest piece of crap since . . . well, my old personal computer.

If I get really desperate, there's always Etsy. And Amazon. And ThinkGeek. Free Rice*. Craigslist cheap/free crap. Lately, both because Heidi and I are moving AND because, as of next week, I will be working less than 10 minutes from one, I've been frequenting the Ikea website.

And if I could search The YouTubes at work, well, you can bet I'd be watching this over and over. Also this. And this. Maybe this. DEFINITELY this.

But still, my favorite place on The Internets (besides The Collective, of course) is here:



Always has been, always will be.

*Joe: Free Rice?
Me: Yes.
Joe: "I like to define words!"
Me: Shut up, it's fun!

Ugh.

Before he flew back to the East Coast on Monday morning my boyfriend managed to give me a computer virus. Whether it was from poker or porn I know not, nor do I want to know, but from this hobbled laptop I can tell you definitively that my favorite site on the internets is now and ever after McAfee.