I had noticed it was approaching, and today I reached 1,000 followers on Twitter.

I am happy to report that I think that most of my followers are real people or businesses.  I have blocked some followers that I just wasn’t interested in, and haven’t auto-followed anyone back, which has resulted in my follower numbers fluctuating regularly as those I didn’t follow back unfollow me. 

I follow quite a few Third Tribe members, adding them has significantly increased the great content coming in through my Twitterstream.  I follow celebrities that interest me, although I am quick to unfollow if it becomes too random or erratic.  I follow many online friends that I’ve met through message boards and other places I’ve frequented over the years.  I almost can’t explain to people what it is that I like about Twitter, other than mentioning that most of the greatest content I am exposed to online is because of the quality of the 1,676 people that I follow.

So, now what?  It’s just a milestone, just something to acknowledge and then move on, a lesson learned from turning 30 a few months ago.

What are your thoughts on follower count? Is there a magic number that matters?

Obviously I’m a bit behind, because the Olympics have been over for a week now.  However, I wanted to be sure to comment on the online coverage available from NBCOlympics.com.  In this post, I will focus on the “You Be The Judge” feature that was available to use during the figure skating competitions.

So here you can see the first panel that was present – there’s some information on the skater (in this instance, my favorite figure skater, Johnny Weir), along with their planned program elements on the right.  As those elements are performed in the program, they become highlighted so that you can then score the skater on their grade of execution for that particular element.  As you can see in the image, I’ve given Johnny the highest scores for each element.  The unfortunate thing here (and I am fairly certain that you can’t fix this) is that skaters sometimes change elements in the middle of the program – they can fall, make a planned triple jump into a double, etc.  This means that you are scoring that person on whatever they do, which means that the base value of that jump is going to reflect what was planned, not what actually took place.  In addition, what looks like a triple jump to us at home can be downgraded based on super slow-motion replays that the judges are using these days.

Anyway, so after scoring the individual elements, you are shown the following scales:

So once you determine these ratings, you are given the final score.  If you go back to the first image, you can see that I put Johnny in first place.

In addition to “You Be The Judge,” the less ambitious watchers could use the scoring that was live updating after each skater, and also provided a bit more information than was was on the television screen.

So, at the start of Johnny’s program, this was on the screen:

As soon as the scores were up, it updated to this:

…and then, of course, also being live-updated are the overall results.  A bit less detailed but the information was still available for each skater.

As you can see, the Olympic judges know nothing and somehow Johnny Weir ended up in 6th place, underneath other skaters who were messy and fell down, but that isn’t the point.  I was already a big figure skating nerd, and this has just added to the fun.  I’m interested to see if we will be scoring gymnastics the same way for hte London summer games in 2012. 

I’ll be writing part 2 soon, where I will cover the online event coverage!

Did you watch the Olympics? Did you utilize NBCOlympics.com to enhance your experience?

So, I’ve been MIA from this blog, because I’m working on a new project that I’m really excited about.  It is almost ready and once it is, I’ll be posting a big announcement here.

In the meantime, I wanted to share something from one of my favorite blogs.  I only discovered Gala Darling within the last few months and have been greatly enjoying her content.

Anyway, in February, Gala will be posting additional content, in a series called “The Playgirl’s Guide to Radical Self-Love.”  Gala is incredibly positive and inspiring, so I highly recommend her blog.  She has suggested that there will be homework assignments to go along with this month’s additional content, and perhaps I will even post it here.

I hope to be back within the next week to announce my new project!

I have recently been slacking on a number of things, including this blog, because I have spent much time dealing with a recent move into another apartment.  One of the things I was most looking forward to in this moving adventure was the chance to paint some new colors on the walls. 

The first wall that was painted in the apartment was completed with a Zero-VOC paint that I picked up at Lowe’s.  I picked the brand because I liked the color, there weren’t really other factors involved.  I really loved having paint without fumes, so I went back to the same brand to paint my bedroom this past week.

Unfortunately, I was unaware of the mystic qualities of grey paint that make it so paint that looks grey in one place looks like baby blue on the bedroom wall.  As I wasn’t convinced of my defeat, I went ahead and used a sponge roller to apply texture with a dark grey paint over the (alleged) light grey color.

Still looked blue, even started to look more blue when my husband came home and asked why the room was blue.

We tried texture in another color to add a third color to the wall in order to balance things out, but we ended up with what I can only describe as “country kitchen,” which is not in my taste at all. 

I consulted with my trusted advisor, Google, to amend the situation.  A quick search of “best paint for paint coverage” resulted in many recommendations for the Benjamin Moore Aura paint line.  I checked out the site, and although using the Interior Paint Chooser suggested that I use the Natura line of paint, I decided to pursue Aura as it was the one I had read about and also mentioned “extreme hide” on the site.

As a side note, the Benjamin Moore website also has a great color-selection section on the site that allows you to pick a room with similar furniture, etc, as the room you are intending to paint, and you can then try the paint out in that room.  We had wonderful luck with this tool and soon settled on 546, Courtyard Green.

It’s nice, right?  I think so too.

A different experience was having to go to an old-school, non-chain hardware store to pick the paint up, as we don’t have Benjamin Moore stores in my area of New Jersey.  (I’ve heard from my good friend Alex that BMoore stores do exist, I am just not that lucky.)

I digress.

So on New Year’s Day, I got started on covering first the wall to which I had already applied 3 layers of paint, and right from the beginning, it was a beautful application process.  Very smooth and I could tell from the first coat that the coverage was really excellent.

Slight downside that I noticed right away – this is not a Zero-VOC paint and there are some fumes.  They are minimal though.  As I mentioned, BMoore has Zero-VOC paint available, but I put more emphasis on the coverage of previous paint jobs.

I continued painting, other priorities and circumstance resulted in my bedroom painting project taking 3 days to complete (not full days, mind you, partial ones).  I am not 100% convinced that the Aura paint can cover a wall in 2 coats, without a primer coat or another darker paint color on the wall first.  The grey/blue paint that I started with acted as a great primer and let the Courtyard Green start on a darker surface. 

Realizing this was a good thing, as I was able to use the grey/blue reject paint as a primer coat underneath the unpainted walls (we weren’t painting on naked drywall, these walls were covered with a white flat paint that had been applied by the apartment management company).  When this primer coat was in place, the Aura paint was well-saturated after 2 coats of paint.  I believe that part of my problem might have been that the Courtyard Green isn’t too dark, if I had been trying to go from white to yellow, I’m fairly certain that 2 coats would have been more then sufficient in terms of color saturation.

Here’s a really low-quality phone photo of the wall.  You can still see how beautiful the green is!

So, all in all, I’m really happy with the Banjamin Moore Aura paint that I purchased for this project.  It was quite expensive, costing around $60 for the gallon, 3 times more than the paint I had previously used successfully in my living room.  However, the colors I was able to review on the BMoore website and in person on the hardware store color wall were beautiful and I would certainly go back to Benjamin Moore products again.  I would hopefully NOT be in a rescue situation for my wall the next time I’m buying paint, so I’d probably lean to Natura (have also heard good things about the Affinity Colors from BMoore) for my paint needs.

I’m pleased with the results of this project, it was a long week of painting, being disappointed, painting some more, making another plan and finally finishing.

Do you have a paint brand that you are loyal to?  Do you do your own painting or do you leave it to the professionals?

I did a lot of shopping for the holidays this year online, and inevitably, I always find some great new places to shop AFTER the gift-giving has come to a close.

I’m extremely happy to have located The Curiosity Shoppe.

How cute is that homepage?

They have a blog too, although I’m disappointed that there isn’t an easy way to subscribe unless you use Bloglines.

I’m looking forward to doing some shopping online at this retailer in the future.

So, readers, where are your favorite online shopping destinations? Which major ones do you like, and which smaller ones do you use?

Posted via web from Jamie Sanford’s posterous

Posted via email from Jamie Sanford’s posterous