More WaPo Love

Continuing from yesterday; all the stuff I wanted to share before going off on the Front Runners tangent:

Post retail reporter Ylan Q. Mui became a holiday temp at Sam's Club for a day, and here's her evaluation (it ran yesterday). I can't explain why, but I really liked this piece. I've read a lot of her articles, and it's nice getting a glimpse at the person behind the byline.

Today's Business front has some tips (seven to be exact) to get your new computer running right, and then five things that should be on everyone's computer. All this computer talk, coupled with the fact that my mom found a trojan on my dad's computer, made me rush to mine and back everything up. As quickly as I can, I'll explain my beef with computers: You see, I'm a pack rat in real life, meaning I throw absolutely nothing away (though I've gotten a lot better over the past few years. This summer I actually brought myself to recycle all my old algebra II notes and chemistry lab write-ups, though it was quite the tearful good bye). So, when it comes to saving things on the computer, I feel the need to back up and save every single thing I type, even though we all know I'm never going to look at it again. The other thing that drives me crazy is that even though I'm not a terribly organized person in real life, on the computer, I want everything to be hyper-categorized in folders arranged by date and everything. You don't know how many hours I've wasted organizing it all, only to find out I messed it up somehow, and have to do it over again. (Man my eyes are going to haaate me for making them stare at this screen for so long). Okay, phew, enough with the rant; now back to interesting articles.

Quarter collectors rejoice! DC will be getting its very own quarter (as will Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.)

And on a side note - the English dork in me had to point out the beauty of this sentence:

"We get snubbed, disrespected, belittled, forgotten, overshadowed and minimized in every way," said WTOP radio political commentator Mark Plotkin, a virtual thesaurus of how the city is disparaged, denigrated, underrated and calumniated.

I love it, just love it.

Complaining about the commercialization of Christmas? Then you may not like this Post piece on the cost of Twelve Days of Christmas. That's right, they found out how much each of the items from the famous carol cost, and it looks like the traditional turtledoves and leaping lords will set you back a little more than $36,000 (Though you may have to bend the rules a bit when it comes to the French hens and the maids-a-milking. Just read the article, you'll see.)

In other, more serious news, Fareed Zakaria's column, The Power of Personality, in this week's Newsweek, which I read at the dentist's office, made an interesting point that I wish other people would understand. America may be the dominant power in today's world, but it certainly isn't the center of the universe. Not everyone thinks like we do, and that is so important for us to understand.

And, on that slightly philosophical note, I'm off. Happy reading!