Unapologetically Mundane » administrative http://unapologeticallymundane.com An NYC Blog About a Girl Who's Entirely Unembarrassed to be Fascinated by the Boring Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:00:13 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Wait, Do You Find My Blog Annoying? http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/08/09/wait-do-you-find-my-blog-annoying/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/08/09/wait-do-you-find-my-blog-annoying/#comments Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:00:21 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=3025 After this

and this

and this

took place at Ulysses on Friday night after work, my friend Eric turned very seriously to me and said, “I have to tell you something, Katie.”

His wife-to-be looked at him like, “Oh, my god, what totally embarrassing thing are you about to say?”

It turns out he really hates my SnapShots. You know, the little boxes that pop up every time you mouseover an external link. Like this:

He said he understands that I use them because they make me money, though. But, um, they actually don’t. I put them there for you. So that you know what you’re clicking on before you click. And in the case of Wikipedia links, you can actually read the definition of whatever I’m linking to without even clicking on the link.

But that isn’t the first time someone’s told me that he hates it. Another friend said that if he didn’t know me, he would’ve exited my blog the first time one of those things popped up and never looked back.

So, how do you feel about them? Love them? Hate them? Never even notice them?

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/08/09/wait-do-you-find-my-blog-annoying/feed/ 18 A New Site Design Entirely for My Enjoyment http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/08/02/a-new-site-design-entirely-for-my-enjoyment/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/08/02/a-new-site-design-entirely-for-my-enjoyment/#comments Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:00:31 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=2960 Basically since the beginning of this blog, my header background has been an image from the illustrious Circleville Pumpkin Show:

It’s potatoes with ribbons on them. Prize-winning potatoes.

I always thought it was brilliant. What could be more unapologetically mundane, right? Well, after two and a half years of staring at the thing (because of course I reload my blog twenty times a day just to marvel at it), I decided that maybe I should try something a little more, um, relatable. Like, you know, something to show what a good-time gal I am.

So I whipped out a new header, showed a couple of friends, and found out that:

a) half of them didn’t even get the prize-winning potatoes angle until I explained it, and
b) the half who did get it didn’t even like it.

(Well, Kamran liked it. But probably only because it made him feel smart that he got the joke.)

So I have a new header! And also a new seizure-inducing background! And apparently it actually all looks okay in Internet Explorer, which apparently it didn’t for, like, a whole year! Things are really looking up over here.

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/08/02/a-new-site-design-entirely-for-my-enjoyment/feed/ 30 You Would Have Me Starve http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/07/22/you-would-have-me-starve/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/07/22/you-would-have-me-starve/#comments Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:30:34 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=2898 I was torn about whether to put today’s post in the personal files or the food files.

To appease those of you who don’t care what I eat (namely the person photobombing me below), I played it safe. So check out today’s donuts4dinner post for a fun food truck outing!

NYC Food Truck Rally

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/07/22/you-would-have-me-starve/feed/ 13 What Are You Doing Here? http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/03/24/what-are-you-doing-here/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/03/24/what-are-you-doing-here/#comments Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:45:09 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=2335 I’ve been really into writing about food and not so much into writing about myself lately. WTF, right? If you don’t regularly read donuts4dinner.com, check out the sweets-centered posts from this week, including a review of this:

Also check out my best friend’s really excellent scrapbooking and general-things-that-are-pretty blog, Feast on Scraps. She’s actually been updating it lately, and the results are lovely.

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/03/24/what-are-you-doing-here/feed/ 13 This City Life http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/01/19/this-city-life/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/01/19/this-city-life/#comments Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:15:33 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=2028 I’ve somehow managed to make for myself a life that entirely overwhelms me, and all I want to do is make it worse by starting more blogs, making more friends, doing more things, taking more photos.

And it’s like the more that goes on, the more overwhelmed I get by it. If a blog post of mine gets more than about 4 comments, I greedily read through them, licking my lips lecherously, and then just mark the WordPress e-mails as unread until I have a chance to respond to them. Or, like, if I get an e-mail with more than two sentences in it, I lustily consume it, congratulate myself for having such awesome friends, and then don’t reply to it for weeks. Which is how I end up with an inbox that looks like this:

But hey, at least I’m keeping up with my spam folder!

The worst part is that I totally, totally crave constant contact. (I imagine this is a product of leaving all of my friends and family behind three states away and having this ludicrous fear of ending up on the streets because I don’t know enough people here to convince someone to take me in when I inevitably lose my job/apartment/boyfriend through total fault of my own, because homeless people must get that way somehow.) But if I don’t reply to people’s comments/e-mails/texts/phone calls, they’ll stop bothering, so it’s all a big catch-22.

And that’s just my way of explaining that despite a month-long lapse, I updated Lost and Lonely Leftovers finally. So go look at it, subscribe to it, and understand that I am actually going to update it regularly this time, I swear. As long as you send me pictures, I mean, because I only have, like, twenty-five of them in my backlog.

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/01/19/this-city-life/feed/ 9 Happy 3rd Birthday, Little Blog! http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/01/17/happy-3rd-birthday-little-blog/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/01/17/happy-3rd-birthday-little-blog/#comments Mon, 17 Jan 2011 17:00:29 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=1978

Who would’ve ever guessed that when I started this thing on a total whim three years ago to the day that it would become the

MEGA SUCCESS

it has, that it would gain me

WORLDWIDE ACCLAIM

and a level of

SELF-ASSURANCE

I never thought possible.

Haha, just kidding. But I totally do love blogging here, and I totally appreciate your reading.

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/01/17/happy-3rd-birthday-little-blog/feed/ 7 Starting a Blog: How to Choose a Host http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/01/13/starting-a-blog-how-to-choose-a-host/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/01/13/starting-a-blog-how-to-choose-a-host/#comments Thu, 13 Jan 2011 17:30:59 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=1988 People ask me all of the time how I decided on WordPress as my blog provider and which provider I think is right for them, so I thought I’d more or less copy and paste the response I sent to a friend the other day who wondered if she should get a blog or stick to posting on Facebook.

Facebook: First, I think you have to decide if you want to do the little bit of work it takes to get a blog going. With Facebook, your audience is built-in; to get them to read your updates and notes, you don’t have to do anything except have not beaten them up in high school. The tradeoff is that since most people have protected profiles on Facebook, there’s no chance someone’s going to stumble onto you while searching for glory holes (the #1 search term used to find me) and forward your stuff to their friends in the publishing biz. With a blog, you have to get people to look at your posts. Unless you’re already super-famous or just really, really good-looking, people are going to need a reason to follow you. You have to comment on their blogs to get your name out there and then keep writing great stuff that will get them to return.

I also think how much you plan to post is important. If you really think you’re into posting for the long haul, then definitely go for a blog. But a lot of people seem to wimp out pretty quickly or only post a couple of times a month, which I think is more appropriate for Facebook.

Tumblr: If you just want to post a photo or one snappy paragraph and don’t mind possibly feeling like you’re talking to a void, Tumblr is for you. It’s awesome for beginners because the interface is so easy to get the hang of, and the “like” function on each post makes it so people can let you know they dig your stuff without having to think of an actual comment to leave you. The lack of a built-in comment system is a major drawback if you want to actually build community with your readers, though; you’re not going to get to know someone personally, as I have with a lot of the bloggers I read, if all of your interactions are just “liking” each other’s posts. And since you have to be a member of Tumblr to do anything but read posts, you’re never going to get any “likes” from non-Tumblr-having-people who stumble onto you. It’s great if you want to talk about yourself but don’t want to bother with getting feedback.

WordPress.org: For me, conversation is sort of the point of this, so being able to receive comments and reply to them is an absolute must for me. I went with WordPress.org because it’s extremely customizable, and someone out there is making a WordPress plugin for absolutely anything you want your blog to do. The fact that you get an e-mail every time someone replies to one of your comments or that you see a list of related posts from my blog at the end of each of my posts or that I can create a simple poll on IS IT PEE-PEE? is thanks to a free plugin someone wrote. The drawback is that you have to pay a company to host the server you store your blog on, and it’s a little expensive if you won’t be making any money on the blog.

Blogger: So if you want comments but don’t want to spend anything, Blogger is great. They have tons of layout options, the comment system is built in, and they have a Google Connect feature that makes it easy for you to follow other people’s blogs and for them to follow you while still allowing non-Blogger-users to comment on your posts. It doesn’t have nearly the plugin library that WordPress.org does, but there are a couple of free Blogger add-ins that make it possible for you to reply to comments and for the commenter to get an e-mail with your reply so they can come back and continue the conversation. My best friend and I use Intense Debate for that, which you can see in action on our low-carb blog, UNBREADED, at the bottom of any post. I don’t see any drawbacks to Blogger once you install something like Intense Debate; without it, I’m annoyed by the fact that you have to post a new comment in order to reply to someone else’s, which doesn’t ensure that they’ll ever see it.

WordPress.com: This is the free version of WordPress.org that needs no additional setup nor server space on your end. Intense Debate isn’t available for it yet, it doesn’t have the Google Connect community-building of Blogger, and only a handful of customization options are available until you upgrade to a paid account. The only upside to using it that I can see is that its user interface is better-looking than Blogger’s.

So to sum it all up, my advice is:
• Tumblr for lazy egoists.
• WordPress.org for OCD chatterboxes who are really, really into blogging, maybe even professionally.
• Blogger for everyone else!

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2011/01/13/starting-a-blog-how-to-choose-a-host/feed/ 17 Nothing to See Here http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/11/15/nothing-to-see-here/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/11/15/nothing-to-see-here/#comments Mon, 15 Nov 2010 18:30:14 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=1774 But there’s plenty going on on my other blogs! Whoooooooo! Yeah!

• an NYC public transportation article that you need know nothing about except that your reading it earns me a whole penny

• maybe the best Lost and Lonely Leftover EVER

• a new pee-pee that is so obviously pee-pee it hurts, despite the current vote

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/11/15/nothing-to-see-here/feed/ 1 I’m Not Wrong About Shrimp Heads Being Inherently Gross, Right? http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/10/07/im-not-wrong-about-shrimp-heads-being-inherently-gross-right/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/10/07/im-not-wrong-about-shrimp-heads-being-inherently-gross-right/#comments Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:00:04 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=1605 I didn’t want to cross-post the whole thing here, but my donuts4dinner post today is about a stupid fight Kamran and I had over my not wanting to eat shrimp heads, and it’s not to be missed if you’re a little bit squeamish about food like I am.

READ IT.

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/10/07/im-not-wrong-about-shrimp-heads-being-inherently-gross-right/feed/ 2 Flavors.Me http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/10/01/flavors-me/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/10/01/flavors-me/#comments Fri, 01 Oct 2010 17:35:15 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=1572 The other day, I was thinking about how really, I should just have one website that links to all of my crap. Because you wouldn’t believe this, but some of my friends actually seem to read more than one of my blogs.

(Tracey, of course. Bachelor Girl when she isn’t busy planning a wedding. Tessa and Ash, I think. Cristy and Bluz even commented on IS IT PEE-PEE? once or twice, which blew my mind. thickcrust, who leaves mean comments that I appreciate all the same. And Ellie, of course Ellie, who has a new blog.)

I own plenty of webspace, and I’m not afraid of buying up every URL in sight, obviously, but I wanted something even simpler than that. And I found Flavors.Me.

It’s a free website that gives you an easy-to-remember URL–mine is flavors.me/katieett–with lots of easy design options. You can have your tweets, Facebook status, Etsy products, YouTube videos, or blog posts show up directly on the site, or you can just provide links to them like I did.

Try it out!

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/10/01/flavors-me/feed/ 8 IS IT PEE-PEE .COM http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/09/08/is-it-pee-pee-com/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/09/08/is-it-pee-pee-com/#comments Wed, 08 Sep 2010 16:00:05 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=1408 I know this will surprise no one, but I have a new blog full of pictures, polls, and the opportunity for you to experience the unexplainable wetness I do every day here in NYC.

IS IT PEE-PEE?

When I pre-released it to my BBFF Bachelor Girl last week, she said, “Dude, you know you’re going to have every perv in the free world following your blog(s), right?”

One can only hope.

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/09/08/is-it-pee-pee-com/feed/ 9 Become My Fan on Facebook! (If you want to. I won’t hate you if you don’t.) http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/05/26/become-my-fan-on-facebook-if-you-want-to-i-wont-hate-you-if-you-dont/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/05/26/become-my-fan-on-facebook-if-you-want-to-i-wont-hate-you-if-you-dont/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 16:00:53 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=1144 I have a Facebook page for this here blog.

I started it because one of my friends said I should, and I do everything my friends tell me to, but I quickly realized there was no point to it, since I link to all of my blog posts on my personal Facebook page already. But then Bachelor Girl, amazing BBFF she is, made all of her friends fan the Unapologetically Mundane Facebook page.

I felt fine about myself when I only had 6 fans, because I thought it was clear that I wasn’t trying very hard. But now that I have 60+ fans, it’s clear that I’m trying and not doing all that well. Not that 60 isn’t great! It’s actually amazing! But apparently Facebook doesn’t consider you a real entity until you get 100 fans, and they only give you certain privileges at that point, so now I kind of need 40 more people to like me.

I could send out an invite to my bazillions of Facebook friends, but I’d rather coerce people who I know already read my blog. So . . .


Click meeeeeeeeeee!

No pressure, but if you feel like becoming a fan/friend of my page by Like-ing it, I won’t stop you. I realized this morning that it’d be a good place for us to talk about all of the things I’m too embarrassed to bring up here, like how I don’t understand how to use toilet seat covers, how I wonder if I can go on being friends with Edward people when I love Jacob so much, and who’s going to win “American Idol”.

That doesn’t really make anyone want to Like me, does it?

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/05/26/become-my-fan-on-facebook-if-you-want-to-i-wont-hate-you-if-you-dont/feed/ 3 My World is Falling Apart http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/05/07/my-world-is-falling-apart/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/05/07/my-world-is-falling-apart/#comments Fri, 07 May 2010 15:00:14 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=1104 Tracey tells me that the WordPress plugin that e-mails my replies to your comments has stopped functioning. This is good news for you if you’re annoyed that you have to read my replies but are too polite to not include your e-mail address in your comments. But it makes me feel like one of those normal bloggers who can’t even have plugins.

I might as well not reply to comments at all!

I might as well stop blogging!

I MIGHT AS WELL DIE!!

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/05/07/my-world-is-falling-apart/feed/ 8 I’m Paying $10 Per Year for That Domain, Darn It, and I WILL Use It http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/02/25/im-paying-10-per-year-for-that-domain-darn-it-and-i-will-use-it/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/02/25/im-paying-10-per-year-for-that-domain-darn-it-and-i-will-use-it/#comments Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:15:07 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=910 Because there might be one of you out there who isn’t following me on Twitter, Google Buzz, or Gmail chat:

I updated www.lostandlonelyleftovers.com with a real doozy.

You should be subscribed to the RSS feed and sending me photos daily, anyway, but I understand that I haven’t exactly been as diligent about dropping food on the ground solely to take pictures of it to encourage you as I should have been.

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/02/25/im-paying-10-per-year-for-that-domain-darn-it-and-i-will-use-it/feed/ 3 Does This Look Less Terrible? http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/02/23/does-this-look-less-terrible/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/02/23/does-this-look-less-terrible/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:30:14 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=900 I’ve sort of been thinking about changing the layout of my site, because I basically had no idea what I was doing when I chose my WordPress theme and only later discovered that mine was built for WordPress version 1.1 or something and was so messed up that it took the smarts of every programmer at my software company to make it look reasonable. And even now, its a complete wreck internally.

So, I’ve chosen a new layout and done a little work on it to make it suit me more, but basically all of my friends think it’s too emo for my subject matter. I like it, though!


Click to enlarge.

What do you think? You know I can’t make decisions on my own.

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/02/23/does-this-look-less-terrible/feed/ 29 wd-50: Proof That All Great Meals Need Not Involve Bacon http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/01/13/wd-50-proof-that-all-great-meals-need-not-involve-bacon/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/01/13/wd-50-proof-that-all-great-meals-need-not-involve-bacon/#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:15:52 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=824 Not to toot my own horn or anything, but Wylie’s cooking and my camera make a pretty good team on donuts4dinner.

Check it out if you like food that looks nothing like it does in nature, food that costs more than your monthly rent, or chefs made famous by being “Top Chef” judges.

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/01/13/wd-50-proof-that-all-great-meals-need-not-involve-bacon/feed/ 1 I Might Have Been Wrong About Twitter http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/01/12/i-might-have-been-wrong-about-twitter/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/01/12/i-might-have-been-wrong-about-twitter/#comments Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:00:45 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=816 So, this Twitter thing is sort of over, huh? After talking about it for weeks, my best friend, Tracey, convinced me to join last week so we won’t become those old ladies who wear Winnie the Pooh t-shirts, still listen to Poison, and are afraid of the Internet.

I added the 36 suggested people from my Gmail contacts, and 17 of them have added me back. SEVENTEEN! The other 20 of them haven’t logged into Twitter since August.

The problem is that I think I really like Twitter now. I didn’t see the point of it before, what with my writing dissertation-length diatribes here and all, but now I see that Twitter challenges me to be a better writer by forcing me to cram all of my brilliant thoughts into 140 characters. Or to be willing to separate them into twenty different tweets of 140 characters each. Doesn’t that sound great?!

Plus, I like the interface, and I like that I have so many fewer friends on there than on Facebook that I have some interest in keeping up. At this point, I actually care what my Twitter friends are saying, notice when they say something about me, and care to reply to them. Some of them are actually clever enough that I want to retweet their tweets! I was so busy being annoyed that CNN and Ashton Kutcher thought anyone cared what they said that I totally missed the boat. Sort of like the way I might someday actually watch any of the Star Wars movies and find out they’re not lame.

So follow me on Twitter! And also follow Tracey, because she doesn’t just spout feminist propaganda on there, unlike on her blog!

There’s also Bachelor Girl! And Noel! And Tessa! And Aaron! And Serial Monogamist! And Nat! And those are the only people I’ll imagine you’ll know, but you should add them all, because I want all of my friends to be friends with all of my other friends.

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2010/01/12/i-might-have-been-wrong-about-twitter/feed/ 14 Blog #3! http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2009/09/16/blog-3/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2009/09/16/blog-3/#comments Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:30:56 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=546 Oh, you thought keeping up with my two other blogs was too much? Well, GUESS WHAT. There’s a third one.

WWW.LOSTANDLONELYLEFTOVERS.COM

This one is entirely impersonal, though. Just the way you like it.

Here’s the RSS feed, and I’m sure someone who loves me will make me a LiveJournal feed soon.

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2009/09/16/blog-3/feed/ 14 This is Your Fault http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2009/08/25/this-is-your-fault/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2009/08/25/this-is-your-fault/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:29:21 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=487 An Examiner article that’s about Michael Jackson simply to get Google hits.

A donuts4dinner post that you know I wouldn’t have to link to you if you’d just subscribe to my feed over there. Just sayin’.

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2009/08/25/this-is-your-fault/feed/ 0 In Case You’re Lonely http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2009/08/24/in-case-youre-lonely/ http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2009/08/24/in-case-youre-lonely/#comments Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:23:07 +0000 plumpdumpling http://unapologeticallymundane.com/?p=483 A restaurant review that includes kiwi sorbet with kiwi seeds in it whoa.

An Examiner article about Manhattan as a parking lot.

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]]> http://unapologeticallymundane.com/2009/08/24/in-case-youre-lonely/feed/ 2