SO! There’s been quite a bit going on this side of the Hudson lately! I feel like I owe an explanation for the lack of activity. Maybe not, but here’s my life within the past few months anyways:

• Ahmadinjad came to Columbia University amidst great controversy. I had a few hearty political debates with around three cameras in my face at all times (as did every other student that day). Check out some interesting photos from the event.
• I got through my first semester of college! Woohoo! And no. Unless we’re Facebook friends, there are no “interesting photos” so see from that.
• I have reaffirmed my belief that New York City is the best city in the entire world and that every undergraduate who isn’t attending college here is seriously missing out.
• I interned for two months at College Humor as a web developer—owned by Connected Ventures. I subsequently learned that working for free is not cool.
• I became online editor at The Columbia Daily Spectator. Since the beginning of the semester I have launched an entirely new blog network—entitled SpecBlogs—completed many upgrades for the publishing company’s websites, and have many big plans in place! (Including some super awesome web applications never before seen by any other College Daily… no Harvard… not even your “Crimson” will be putting out stuff as cool as us.
• I hatched up a brand new business plan… which involves fashion and websites; these are very obviously two things I truly enjoy. More on this possibly soon…
• I bought a black fedora and I wear it everywhere.
• ... because I have finally started to take on new projects at Blog What? Design and will hopefully be blogging quite a bit more after the semester settles in.

And life couldn’t be happier :) Anyways, that’s it for now!
<3 Lara

Thank you Bill Sullivan Works for these beautiful photos. I don’t think you could have caught the drudgery of the subway any better:

View more from this set here.

Found a simply AMAZING website today called Retro Junk. Basically, this site showcases the movie trailers, commercials, and other bits of nostalgia that my generation (including the 70s, 80s, and 90s) all knew as kids.

A few of my favorites are the (now politically incorrect) cereal commercials, and my favorite cartoons from the 90s.

Here are Sprinkle Spangles... an extreme example of how the obesity epidemic has taken over the lives of so many children. Small bowl? No problem for the Sprinkle Genie!

Haha, another hilarious set of picks are the Pizza Hut: Pizza Head commercials from the 90s. There’s a great “Star Wars” version right here.

And you just can’t forget the awesome TV cartoons of the 90s: Duck Tales anyone?

Stop on by Retro Junk and see what you can dig up from your childhood!

Ahhh, gotta love the lefties taking advantage of the situation once again (Ahmadinejad = Bad, Bush = Worse) to push their leftist agenda. Here’s a shot from the protest at Teacher’s College yesterday on campus due to a hate crime in which a noose was placed on a black faculty-member’s door.

Thanks Spec.

During the fall semester, students help to construct—and then quickly devour—a mile-long sandwich known as THE BIG SUB. [Wikipedia]

There’s a college on a hilltop,
That’s very dear to me
And a certain group of women
With ties of camaraderie

So we’ll sing to dear old Barnard
And loyal be and true
As we show to coming classes
How we love to EAT REALLY BIG SUBS.

The Barnard song actually finishes with “How we love the white and blue.” Then it repeats. It’s very nice and sweet. But not nearly as sweet as our mile long sub.

Yes, I must admit that the women here at my beloved school sure know how to eat. So much, in fact, that nearly the entire school joins in on the ritual of spanning this sub all the way from our quad, down the campus, past the gates, and into our mouths.

I haven’t experienced this fantastic phenomena yet as I’m a first year… but, I can tell you this much: I couldn’t be more proud of my dining service people. You guys are the greatest!

Enjoy the photo at the top right. It’s some strange illustration I found while Google-imaging “largest sub sandwich in the world.”

Looking for some fantastic freebies like the rest of us?

Have no fear, no “fill out thirty-thousand sponsors to win this mac book pro” gimicks here. My good friends at College Humor have a slightly different idea in mind: Leg-Guitar Thrash-Off.

The first 20 contestants to send a picture of themselves thrashing on their leg like a double-necked Gibson to OhManOfCourse IWantAFreeDVD@Gmail.com will win a copy of Reno 911!: Miami on DVD. If you like the show, you’ll love the movie. And if you love the movie, you’ll really love the DVD. So lift those thighs and start strumming.

Enjoy!

The New York Times has seen a steady decline in stock prices within the last six months. Of course, many of you don’t need to be told that this “publication” only prints what it sees fit. However, let me share a little tid-bit with you about the Time’s latest blunder.

On September 10th a full page political ad run in The New York Times – funded by “big-man” George Soros – rallied readers to label General Petraeus as a traitor because he failed to agree with MoveOn’s position on the Iraq war (as seen in the little gem of a graphic at your upper-right.) Clearly, this demonstrates the left’s inability to act rationally on a national level. Just like a child’s mind, it’s always easier to call someone a nasty name rather than argue your claim in a decent manner.

On to the point, what the New York Times failed to note beneath this ad was the fact that their friends at MoveOn.org only paid one third of the $181,692 price tag for an ad of this type. Talk about a nice break for your buddies on the left.

The Black Five blog has even petitioned the Federal Election Commission “for redress of grievances, specifically illegal political advertising practices by the New York Times and MoveOn.org” They correctly cite that: “in order to be fair newspapers and TV aren’t allowed to discount political or advocacy ads so they cannot favor one side.”

AP later reported that the Time’s insisted it was a simple “stand-by rate;” that is, the ad was only going run if no other firms were willing to pay more. However, Kathryn Jean Lopez pointed out that:

“On Sunday we read that it would run Monday and the ad that appeared on Monday said the testimony was happening “today.” A lot of people seemed to know ahead of time the exact day the ad would run. What exactly does “standby” mean? This doesn’t sound like what any normal person would consider “standby” to mean.”

As the Publius Pundit poignantly put it: “What would the Times editorial page say if George Bush attempted to justify his conduct with this kind of ‘explanation’?”

As stated previously, The New York Times is definitely feeling the heat (whether it be from their loss from decreased ad revenue, or many of their other front-page catastrophes.) Let’s just hope the Time’s moves out of print a bit sooner.

The lovely Char at Essential Keystrokes put up a post today that sent the hugest smile to my face :D

She’s taken part in the tradition of “Blogtipping” begun by Easton at Business Blogwire as a way to share new blogs with readers and give “kudos” to others. It takes place on the first of the month and includes any three blogs.

Char was so kind as to choose three of my blogs as her picks!

This month I have been introduced to an extremely talented blogger/designer named Lara. She has (at least) three blogs so I am going to tip each one of them – they definitely deserve the attention. And did I mention that Lara is just finishing up her senior year of high school? This girl has got a very bright future.

She did a run down of Blog What? Design, Crunchy Mustard, and this blog, The Desired.

So, head on over to Essential Keystrokes. Char’s blog is great. She offers tons of tips and perspectives on blogging, and other internet goodies.

I found this nifty system today online – “Carbonite Online Backup.” It attracted my attention because it offers a complete online backup system that runs automatically.

I figure, since I’ll be toting my laptop away to college next year with some extremely important files on it, it will definitely be a good idea to back things up often. Right now, I’m using the 15 day trial and we’ll see how things work from there.