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HELLO. THIS IS THE INTRODUCTION PARAGRAPH. THE END!

Adobe has unveiled Creative Suite 3. There are 4 different Creative Suite 3 packages. If you aren’t quite sure which one you might need, then you can use Adobe’s handy little flash product selector (I ended up needing the most expensive package: “The Master Collection”). Prices are pretty high but standard. If you want to see a sneak-preview of some of the new features in Photoshop CS3, you can get a brief tour here. I think the new way of showing curves and histogram are great! :)

Sick.

I’ve posted about these so-called “Purity Balls” before, but what I never thought of was how interesting of a photo documentary these could turn out to be. As crazy as these balls (events) sound, I think they would offer a solid look into how some families are encouraging their children to stay pure and “unblemished” until marriage.

In what is becoming a trend among conservative Christians in the United States, girls as young as nine are pledging to their fathers to remain virgins until they wed, in elaborate ceremonies dubbed “Purity Balls.”

The gala affairs are intended to celebrate the father-daughter relationship.

But check this out:

But critics say that while teaching abstinence to children may be laudable, it is just as essential to make them aware of sexually transmitted diseases and condom use.

They also point to studies showing that the majority of adolescents who take purity pledges break them within a few years, often by engaging in risky and unprotected sex.

One study conducted by researchers at the universities of Columbia and Yale found that 88 percent of pledgers wind up having sex before marriage.

“Teens may pledge with the best of intention… and then as they break their pledges they are so shamed and embarrassed that it’s unlikely they will go for help.”

Eeks. I dunno…crazy evangelical Christian ideas just always freak the heck outta me.

I have a fair share of friends that attend the University of Michigan…so for those of you who are there…please tell me this: Are these signs real?!

The Fratellis are great!

Heh, it’s odd that I read about Mute Math this afternoon on Gizmodo.

What the hell does “scroll lock” do? Absolutely nothing…sorta.

YES! The Samsung ULTRA II’s are coming to the US!

You know you want to play episode 4 of You Don’t Know Jack.

HA (x2). And just why the hell is the RIAA suing students?

We know some in the university community believe these figures overstate the contribution of college students to the illegal file-trafficking problem today. Yet new data confirms that students are more prone to engaging in this illegal activity than the population at large. While college students represented only 10 percent of the sample in the online NPD study, they accounted for 26 percent of all music downloading on P2P networks and 21 percent of all P2P users in 2006. Furthermore, college students surveyed by NPD reported that more than two-thirds of all the music they acquired was obtained illegally.

Yet this is about far more than the size of a particular slice of the pie. This is about a generation of music fans. College students used to be the music industry’s best customers. Now, finding a record store still in business anywhere near a campus is a difficult assignment at best. It’s not just the loss of current sales that concerns us, but the habits formed in college that will stay with these students for a lifetime. This is a teachable moment — an opportunity to educate these particular students about the importance of music in their lives and the importance of respecting and valuing music as intellectual property.

They want to teach us a life lesson. That’s why. Read the comments underneath that article for student backlash and rebuttals.

This is a neat Google Maps hack: NYC Garages. It compares the average daily and monthly rates of garages in NYC by using an easy color system (much like the Homeland Security advisory system). This might come in handy later for me.

Only if you’re really bored and are internet-savvy: Search Engine Smackdown game.

I love NY.

Joel should love this place (I think): The LES now has a real Ping Pong parlor. The place looks tiny from the photos on their website. They’re charging $3 per person for 20 minutes of play time (they have $35 membership prices too that include a t-shirt…or you can shell out $50 for an event party for one hour). They’re obviously banking the success of this place on the idea that complete strangers will actually want or even bother to wait for games to finish. Terrible, just terrible. Oh yeah, and it looks like they only have one table. WTF. Keep in mind that for the price of just several full event rental games, you could buy your own ping pong table and never have to wait in a line or actually travel anywhere to play ping pong again. I just don’t see this idea (at least not in its current state) being of any use to most folks.
If anything, maybe their t-shirts will sell a lot.
Or…you could play virtual ping pong.

This is a fantastic ad concept from Olay. The only problem I see with it is that people who don’t use computers a lot might not understand the idea behind it. But since I do understand it, I think it’s great.

I joked with Chris about accidentally eating the recalled dog food since he was sick for a couple of days last week, but I had no idea it actually happened! It turns out that a woman was hospitalized recently for ingesting dog food that had been tainted by rat poison. The woman was apparently trying to get HER DOG to eat the dog food by showing her dog that SHE COULD EAT THE DOG FOOD. Tasty, eh?

Subway Blogger puts it best in these two lists of the most annoying kinds of people in the NYC subway system. I couldn’t agree more.

Pwahahahahhahahahahaahahaha. Sucks to be him.

ESTHER, IF YOU’RE READING THIS IN THE MORNING RIGHT BEFORE CLASS, MAKE SURE YOU’RE ON AIM IN THE AFTERNOON. I WANT TO 300 @ IMAX! :P