I’m somewhat of a closet Martha Stewart fan. Her cooking show was one of the earliest cooking shows that got me started in the kitchen (along with Jaques Pepin, Martin Yan, Julia Child and other culinary staples on PBS).

I was sad to hear Martha’s mom, who was often featured on her shows, had passed away over the weekend. She lived a long and fulfilling life (she just celebrated her 93rd birthday) and will be missed dearly.

After buying my Nikon D40 Kit, I tried to learn as much as I can about it by reading the manual. What I initially thought was: “Bad idea.” However, after reading this article, I’m beginning to rethink my whole strategy. It has great tips on how to read your camera manual. They recommended using Post It notes and breaking down your bookmarks into the following categories:

• What do I already know?
• What do I need to know right now?
• What do I need to know a lot of the time?
• What do I need to know some of the time?

If you think about it, this is actually a fantastic idea. The manual is supposed to have all the information you need about the camera. All you have to do is know where the information you need is located and mark it for easy reference.

Real Simple has an article on 8 surprising household deoderizers. Here’s a tip for cleaning the garbage disposal:

Give the disposal something nicer to chew on. Run hot water, drop orange peels down the hatch, and turn on the switch. Lemon, lime, and grapefruit rinds also do the trick.

I actually do this every time I use a lemon. Let me tell you, it’s much better to have the wafting scent of lemon zest coming from your garbage disposal as opposed to the wafting scent of, well, garbage.

Some old and new stuff because I’m behind!

Multi-Charging Station and Hide the Cables

Finally, someone read my mind! Paperclippy.com and Unclutterer.com featured a couple of products that will organize all your chargeable devices in one area.

Grocery Shopping With a Strategy

How many of us are guilty of grocery shopping on an empty stomach? *raisehand* This article has some helpful strategies for grocery shopping such as looking for lower priced store-brands on lower shelves and higher shelves (anywhere other than eye-level).

Your Boss Could Own Your Facebook Profile

Social networking and the workplace are now intermingling. Evidently the company you work for could own your social network profile if you used it for making business contacts. The lesson here, boys and girls: always keep work and personal stuff separate!

Behind the Apple and Universal Breakup

It’s time for the aging record companies to wake up and smell the digital music player sales.

Today at work, we had this random discussion about Martha Stewart. Eventually that led to me asking the mandatory question: “If Martha Stewart and Oprah ever got into a fight, who would win?”

The results were pretty surprising by just asking random people around the office, because it actually is a thought-provoking question. Both women have tons of money and are super powerful, but while one rules with a heavy hand, the other one rules with free gifts for audience members. Martha did time in the slammer (although it was a country club prison). And Oprah lives on the mean streets of Chicago (albeit specifically Michigan Avenue).

Clearly, it’s a tough call.

Feel free to leave your comments of course!

Using Synergy to Merge Desktops Between Two Machines

Matt Cutts has this really cool tutorial on setting up Synergy to merge desktops from two different machines. In his case, he merged Ubuntu with Windows XP. I wonder if you can do this with a Mac and a PC….

Blogworks Features Back in Skinny Jeans

I love finding new blogs. Today BlogWorks featured Back in Skinny Jeans.

Manpanties.net

I think the URL speaks for itself.

Treat Your Email Like Photoshop: A Designer’s take on handling email

This is a great email productivity article. I think one of the biggest mistakes people make with their work email is to use their inbox as a holding bin. What you end up with is an inbox with over 20,000 emails (believe me, I’ve seen it) in their inbox. People think they can just do a search on a particular subject and all is well. However, in the end, all they have is an overstuffed inbox that takes several minutes to search when it would’ve been easier (and faster) to just go to the appropriately labeled client folder and search that folder or look through it.

Stockholm Project Cases from The Container Store

I love The Container Store. They rank right up there with IKEA and Pottery Barn for me. Unclutterer.com featured a Before and After article on the Stockholm Project cases from The Container Store. This is actually a fantastic idea–I’m thinking about getting a couple for my cube.

Why do old married couples look alike?

There’s a really interesting article at HowStuffWorks.com (which, btw, is a great website for the curious-minded) on why older couples tend to look alike when they get older. They mention genetic similarities and our subconscious thinking other people with genetic similarities work better together.

How to build a hidden door bookshelf

This is so awesome. I would totally buy a house just to be able to do this.

Beware! Lame alert: BuyBlogComments.com

I came across this link from Optiniche.com and I couldn’t believe it. I’ve seen people getting paid for blogging (which I think is borderline), but I mean this I think this is an insult to the blogging community. It completely discredits the real bloggers who read other blogs and leave legitimate comments. Though they did bring up a good point about writing a comment policy. I really need to finish mine.

“Life’s Too Short For the Wrong Job”

Geekologie.com posted a collection of clever advertisements scattered around Europe for a job website. Never seen these before, but very clever

Bastille Day at Allrecipes.com

AllRecipes.com is celebrating Bastille Day. Choose from a hand-picked grouping of classic French recipes such as Creme Brulee, Creamiest Chocolate Mousse, and Creme de Pirouline.

The New Vintage: The Commercial for the First Cell Phone

GeekSugar.com posted a blast from the past: A really old commercial from 1989 for the first cell phone. My, how far we’ve come!

I don’t know much about World of Warcraft (except that it destroys lives!), but I think this is funny…

This is a video clip of Izzie playing chase with her friend Sebastian

My favorite lyric: “You see the voices that control me from inside my head say I shouldn’t kill you yet.”

Totally laughed my ass off.

OK, so 2 days ago I was wearing shorts and had my AC on.

Today, it’s snowing and sleeting with temperatures below freezing.

Did I miss something here?