TV in America is strange… there are so many more ad beaks, and the commercials for medicinces - even laxatives and weight loss medicines like generic acomplia - have all these discalaimers about side effects and the ingredients. The person narrating or in the commercial will be all upbeat and nonchalant while telling people all these worst-case scenarios - but the med is awesome, so get it anyway!!

The ads in magazines are full-page, and on the back is an entire page of tiny, tiny fine print with the full medical details and more disclaimers, like on the leaflet you’d get in the box if you got the prescription at home. I wonder why they do this? Because they’ll get sued otherwise, or something, if someone claims they weren’t warned about a certain side-effect? It’s all very strange… But hey, better to be warned!

We went to see 21 last weekend - what they’re claiming as America’s number one movie! It was pretty damn good, I have to say - I love Kevin Spacey, and he was awesome in this. The story was well-done and funny, but also believeable. Everyone in the cinema, as soon as we saw the opening shot of the Mass Pike (at least we think it was the turnpike), with a T on it, immediately went “it’s BOSTON!!”. Like, we knew the movie was set at MIT and everything, but it wasn’t until we saw that that it sank in that it was Boston!

ANYWAY! Good movie, lots of fun, and definitely worth seeing.

Finally, finally, we have proper internet access of our own. No more spending endless half-hours trying to find that one random unlocked network we found, or trips to the libray or coffee house just to check email.

Now to get back to the online world! I’m so excited!

Goodness, I’ve not written here in a while. Oops. I need to get back into this! I’m going to, now that I actually have internet access again (thank goodness!).

This time of year is pretty stressful, what with money issues after Christmas (and just life in general being so damn expensive!). I swear, though, when you get paid for blogging, it really makes a difference, it’s great. So far I’ve used paid blogging money to pay for computer software, and things like Paid LJ time. It all helps! And now I can actually put the money in my everyday bank account and use it to pay for… ooh, I don’t know - coffee! (I’ve become such an addict since I’ve been here - it doesn’t help that there’s a Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts on literally every corner!!). Or a trip to the cinema. Or even bills and rent (boo, hiss). The possibilities! (Then again… maybe just the coffee!!).

I have to admit, I find keeping up with all the awesome blogs, journals and news sites in my feed reader a bit of a challenge. The little counter on the icon blinks at me, unread items in their hundreds, and I feel guilty for not having been through them all! (And yet I refuse to unsubscribe, because it all matters to me! :P)

I just found out about www.readlatestnews.com, though, which is pretty cool and takes away the need for having sites like BBC/NYT/CNN etc. etc. in your reader (and let’s face it, those are the sites most often updated, and can add a huge chunk to your unread item count!). It’s a one-stop shop for all things news! You can get international, local, specialized (politics/tech/etc.) from every source you could want, in one place!