Girl Friday

Confessions of a Minneapolis Concierge

My Photo

About

Other Stuff I Do

  • Personal Touch Errands and Assistance
  • My "Alexis on the Sexes" column at vita.mn

My Wish List

Visit this Wish List at Amazon.com

All Twin Cities, All the Time

  • AliShops.com
  • Chasing Windmills
  • Heavy Table
  • Hennepin Theatre District
  • How Was The Show?
  • LiveJournal Twin Cities
  • LOL/OMG
  • Minnescene
  • Overheard in Minneapolis
  • Simple, Good and Tasty
  • TC Free Market
  • Thrifty Hipster
  • Twin Cities Night Clubs
  • vita.mn

Other Babes Who Blog

  • Amber-colored Life
  • Cafe Cyan
  • Cherish
  • Coco
  • doniree
  • My Plastic-free Life
  • Judy McGuire
  • Midwest! Fuck Yeah!
  • Le Petit Connaisseur de la Mode
  • Marrina
  • Reetsyburger
  • The Minneapoline
  • Will Work for Food

Guys Who Have My Attention

  • Aaron Landry
  • Afterglide
  • Behind the Mortgage
  • Blogumentary
  • Chow & Again
  • Cook To Bang
  • DeRusha
  • Fimoculous
  • Iggers
  • Snarkmarket
  • Taylor
  • This is Why I Love Minneapolis

Holiday Drinks

This is one of my personal favorites. Check out this week's issue of Vita.mn for Holiday Drinks: Making Spirits Bright. I rounded up 5 specialty cocktails of the season from local establishments and charmed the bartenders into sharing their recipes so we can make them all at home.

Would you use wifi at McDonald's? Something about the ambiance, the smell and the fact that it's the genocide-committing, Earth-destroying McDonald's would really deter me from plopping down with my laptop.

Gridskipper's Foodie's Guide to Minneapolis. I'm the second "guest" commenter because of course I couldn't resist setting them straight.

Alie's cat needs our help. Agent has a necessary surgery coming up and Alie is looking for any donation you can spare to help offset the vet expenses, which will wipe out her savings. 

Sorry for the fly-by blog post but I'm having quite a week over here, and not in a good way. I'm on day 3 of no heat or hot water due to a boiler replacement gone horribly wrong. The gas company is here right now repairing a broken line, so hopefully these radiators will be back in business by the end of the night. Thanks to my friends who have offered up their showers, laundry facilities and beds. And have tolerated my increasing crabbiness.

December 17, 2009 in Animals, Drinking, Enticing Links, Food and Drink, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Keep or Return: Yellow Striped Sweet Pea Dress

I know things have been quiet around here and I'm sorry for that. I need a new laptop so badly right now that half the time I'd just rather not even try to get any real work done on this computer. Trying involves screaming, grunting, slamming my fists down on my desk, that sort of thing. I'm kind of torn because, as I understand it, Walmart is the place that currently has the best price on the kind of laptop I prefer (though I think Best Buy will price-match).

Furthermore, my brother-in-law is telling me to wait until the new Windows OS comes out later this year. My cousin asked if I can repair my laptop -- you know, add RAM or whatever -- but I'd just as soon pay for a brand new machine and clean up and donate this one. It's more than a few years old. And I just remembered that there's something wrong with the disc drive, anyway.

The Dell Mini I bought from my friend Barb a couple of months ago is definitely faster, but that has its downsides, too, especially if I'm doing any length of writing. But it's certainly more zippy as far as web surfing. A new page can take up to 2 minutes to fully load on my regular laptop-- multiply that times working on it for hours at a time and you understand why I'm so frustrated.

Anyway! We haven't played "Keep or Return" for a while, so let's have some fun.

I bought this striped, cotton cowl-neck Sweet Pea dress at Von Maur last week. It was marked down to $39 fro $78. It's very comfortable and I like the style. Two problems with it, though: one, I'm not crazy about the colors, lemon yellow and heather gray, and two, I'm at a loss for shoes. I thought some cute deck shoes would be great, keeping with the casual nautical theme, but a trip around the MOA didn't yield anything that I loved, at a price I loved.

The style is pretty timeless so I could eventually find shoes that work, even if it's not this summer. But then we're back to me not being crazy about the colors. How much wear would I get out of this dress? $39 worth?

Keep or return?

July 29, 2009 in Shopping: Trends & Lucky Finds, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBack (0)

Still Alive

Wow, I haven't updated this blog since last week? For shame, Alexis. For shame.

I haven't died or anything. Rather the opposite, as this week I've been busy obsessing over obese flight attendants on vita.mn and Chris Shaffer on Twitter. He has amazing hair.

I want to give a belated shout out to Nintendo for throwing a party for my friends and me a few Sundays ago, and especially for giving everyone a free DSi. And for catering it with awesome food and for being cool with the fact that we drank every last drop of booze in under three hours.

Also, big ups to Cirque du Soleil for the gratis tickets to Kooza last week. I'd never seen a CDS show before and I was totally blown away. Highly recommended, for all ages.

Alright, my inbox is full of great stuff, so here we go:

- The Uptown Market will hold its second event this Sunday. Check out wares from local artists, crafters, farmers and food vendors from 11:00am-5:00pm. They're on 29th Street between Lyndale and Dupont.

- If you loved the antics of my fellow 10 Second Film Festival judge, the misguided philanthropist Mrs. Smith, head to Patrick's Cabaret this Friday and Saturday night. Local actor and musician David Hanbury will be performing as Mrs. Smith for "Queer Boyz Nite," starting at 8:00pm both nights.

- Minneapolis Picks has launched Minneapolis Picks Perks. Take advantage of great monthly specials at all the best local shops and boutiques in the metro area.

- Arc's Value Village is having a storewide summer clearance sale next Saturday and Sunday, July 25th and 26th. All merchandise (except white-tagged items) will be 50% off.

-The Living Room at the W Hotel is now hosting Martini & Mani Mondays. Every Monday from 5:30-8:00pm, just $17 will get you a martini and a manicure (courtesy of Denny Kemp Salon) or a martini and a massage. That, as you know, is a great deal.

- No more confusion, it's definitely this Saturday, July 25th: Blacklist Vintage is having a Digger's Sale from 11:00am-7:00pm. Owner Vanessa Messersmith says she's lining the sidewalk with $1-5 bins full of vintage textiles, clothing and housewares, and the shop's entire inventory will be 10% off. There will also be free cupcakes and drinks, $1 regular and veggie hot dogs and Transmission DJ Jake Rudh spinning from 12:00-4:00pm. Sounds like a party!

[Or is it August 22? Or 29? Or, and this is most likely, is it really this Saturday, July 25th? Stay tuned for a correction. The email I got last week definitely says "Saturday, August 25."]

July 16, 2009 in Celebrity Obsessions, Cupcakes!, Drinking, Enticing Links, Food and Drink, Games, Minneapolis Miscellany, Shopping: Trends & Lucky Finds, Travel, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

I won a what?!

I was feeling a little sloth-y today, not having gotten dressed until 3:00pm and still in need of a shower after spending the previous afternoon gardening at my parents' house. Turns out, whiling away much of your day on the internet can really pay off. I entered a contest via Twitter for a 5-night Mayan Riviera getaway from Karisma Hotels & Resorts and, by the time I finished showering and touching up my roots (a task I will never attempt again), Karisma had announced that I was the winner!

Yucatan, baby, here I come!

I'm still waiting for an email with the full details of the package, but I'm crossing my fingers that the blackout dates aren't too strict. The Mexican won't be able to accompany me if I have to go soon and, if that's the case, he's making me bring my mom.

July 07, 2009 in Enticing Links, Travel, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

The FTC is gonna be watching you.

This is kind of ridiculous, isn't it? Via my dad:

FTC Plans to Monitor Blogs for Claims, Payments

The Federal Trade Commission is expected to release new guidelines this summer that "would clarify that the agency can go after bloggers — as well as the companies that compensate them — for any false claims or failure to disclose conflicts of interest."

This part is particularly alarming:

"If the guidelines are approved, bloggers would have to back up claims and disclose if they're being compensated — the FTC doesn't currently plan to specify how. The FTC could order violators to stop and pay restitution to customers, and it could ask the Justice Department to sue for civil penalties.

Any type of blog could be scrutinized, not just ones that specialize in reviews.

So parents keeping blogs to update family members on their child's first steps technically would fall under the FTC guidelines, though they likely would have little to worry about unless they accept payments or free products and write about them. But they would need to think twice if, for instance, they praise parenting books they've just read and include links to buy them at a retailer like Amazon.com Inc.

That's because the guidelines also would cover the broader and common practice of affiliate marketing, in which bloggers and other sites get a commission when someone clicks on a link that leads to a purchase at a retailer. In such cases, merchants also would be responsible for actions by their sales agents — including a network of bloggers.

Well, we're not going to take this lying down, are we?

Some bloggers believe more uniform disclosure and practices would help instill trust and make advertisers more comfortable working with bloggers. To them, the question becomes whether the FTC should be the one crafting standards.

"It would always be better for bloggers to self-police," said Robert Cox, president of Media Bloggers Association in New Rochelle, N.Y. "We have laws on the books. They apply to everybody, not just people who write blogs."

I'd say that the FTC might not be able to grasp the now vast concept of what, exactly, a blog is nowadays. This is a blog -- and one that provides the service of product, store and restaurant reviews, not to mention deals on or at said items, solely for the benefit of its readers -- but what about my Twitter account? My vita.mn contributions? My sex column even mentions helpful products and websites on occasion. I'm sure the MBA is already planning on doing it, but I'd also make the argument that virtually everyone blogs now. So all of those people that link to, say, a great pair of jeans that finally fit them perfectly will end up having to attach a disclaimer to their blogs somewhere? That's like requiring dudes who wear Ed Hardy tee shirts to walk around and tell every person at the club that they did not receive compensation for sporting the company's name and logo.

Locally, Punch Pizza is notorious for using Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and their own blog to reward customers by offering printable coupons and spreading the word. Once the new guidelines are in place, does Punch have to use a disclaimer, and everyone who retweets on Twitter or shares the offer with their blog readers, and then everyone who mentions that they went to Punch, and then me because I used this example? Seems silly and, above all, really unnecessary.

I've never allowed banner, sidebar or Google ads on this blog; it's got as much to do with integrity as it does with not wanting to bother my readers with a bunch of flashing crap or suggestions for products that I don't personally endorse. I also turn down freebies all the time-- just in the last 2 weeks, I've passed on tea from Tea Source and store credit from Buffalo Exchange. But that's not to say I don't take advantage of occasional freebies, either. Proprietors and managers of restaurants frequently knock a drink or three off my bill, but that's just good business when you're opening up a new place. When I'm impressed by a restaurant, I'll say great things about it, regardless of whether or not I paid for all my drinks or food. I mean, duh, that's the whole point here.

(Disclaimer: Nintendo just sent me a free DSi, but I only agreed to be one of their "brand enthusiasts" after it was made perfectly clear that I am under no obligation to write about their products here unless I really feel the need to. I kind of feel the need to tell you to try playing Rhythm Heaven, which both The Mexican and I find to be incredibly addicting.)

June 22, 2009 in Music, Movies, and Dining Out, Shopping: Trends & Lucky Finds, Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Finally a Reason to Join Foursquare?

Finally a reason to join Foursquare? Via Aaron Landry's Tumblr:

For years and years, we tried to get dodgeball users free drinks… and we were finally able to pull it off with Foursquare (I really like the idea of foursquare as a vehicle for letting local merchants reward their locals/regulars). Woo!

I got the 3rd degree from Steve Marsh and Jason DeRusha at dinner on Friday night about why I'm not on Foursquare. My excuse given was that I don't have an iPhone (how accessible is it on a BlackBerry Curve, really?) but honestly I'm just not sure what the point is. Dodgeball never did catch on and most people (including me) use Twitter now to alert followers when they're arrived at a restaurant/bar/show (in addition, of course, to all that delicious microblogging). A free drink once in a while might make the extra effort worthwhile.

May 26, 2009 in Drinking, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Happy Your Mom Joke Day

IMPORTANT:

I've officially declared today, April 25th, to be Your Mom Joke Day.

If you Twitter, use #yourmomjokeday.

April 25, 2009 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

The Kodak Zi6, Starring Coco and Steve

As fish are generally wont to do, my goldfish Coco and Steve have grown to maximum size in the 2.5-gallon tank I bought for them last year.  You may recall that I saved Coco and Steve from being flushed down the toilet last June.  Looking at the photo in that blog post, you can see how much they've grown since then.  You can also correctly reason that they have eaten every single live plant I've put in there (including any growing algae), aside from the hardy, thick-leaved fella I have in there now.

Here are Coco and Steve as of this afternoon:

This is the first video I've shot with my Kodak Zi6, which is a pretty slick little camera.  It took me all of 20 minutes to read the manual, shoot a video and upload it directly to YouTube.  Glory!  The picture quality is great, too.  To see it in high definition, go to the video's page and click on "watch in HD" in the right corner.

The only sound is a backround hum from my humidifier, so don't even bother with the volume.

January 13, 2009 in Science, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

G1, I Hardly Knew Ye

After 2 weeks of endless frustration, I finally returned my G1 today to the T-Mobile store in Rosedale.  Several tech review blogs, T-Mobile's G1 forums and even the Android community are all reporting various problems with over half of the G1s out there, and mine was definitely one of the bad ones.

Starting with the most common problem: POP3 and IMAP email relay.  As in, it doesn't work.  I stopped getting my business emails over a week ago and, while doing a soft reset by pulling and replacing the battery would fix the problem for a few hours, I still wasn't able to manage my email accounts from my phone.  Not receiving work emails on my mobile presents a huge problem for me, as I'm sure it would for most people.

Randomly, the sound and/or vibrate on my alarm wouldn't work.  No major disasters occurred, since I don't start my workday too terribly early, but for someone else that could mean a job reprimand or a missed flight. 

This is more of a gripe, but the G1's camera wasn't impressive.  There's a fairly long delay (maybe 4 seconds, which is kind of a long time when you want to snap something quick) and the picture quality wasn't anything to write home about.

My Gmail didn't work on the G1, which I found just perplexing.  I had a pretty much constant connection error message for the last 6 days.  The help forums I read and the tech rep I spoke to offered a couple of suggestions--again with the quick fix battery reset--but nothing remedied the problem.

The browser stopped working a few days ago, and I would just get another form of connection error message there.  The application I downloaded that required daily information retrieval from the internet also stopped working and, again, gave me another type of connection error message.

The last two problems were most likely related to the fact that the 3G network just plain isn't there.  I could pick it up sporadically but, more often than not, there was just no signal to be had anywhere in Minneapolis.  This is the number one problem I've heard in talking to my friends who have also bought the G1; where's this 3G everyone keeps talking about?  Again, kind of pointless to have a phone with so much capability, yet can't deliver on what it promises to do.

I understand that when a piece of technology is mass-produced, there are going to be some bad bananas in the bunch.  But each of the 4 people I know who have this phone are having one or all of the above issues with it.  I'm just lucky mine started acting up within the first 2 weeks and I was still able to return it.  My friends were not so fortunate.

Fully functional, the G1 would be a cool-ass phone.  I'm bummed out that I can't use it and pretty disappointed that it was released with so many widespread problems.  When the next generation comes out, I'll definitely consider trying the technology again, but for now, it's back to my beloved BlackBerry.  I picked out a red Curve today and, though the EDGE network seems a bit slower than the 3G when it was working, at least I have an immediate and reliable line to my email accounts.  Also, the camera and video camera take damn good pictures.

December 10, 2008 in Shopping: Trends & Lucky Finds, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)

Twitter Updates

    follow me on Twitter
    Bookmark and Share

    Recent Comments

    • nanyMypeaffep on See Ya
    • Cialis pen on Rediscovering Three Buck Chuck
    • customized stickers on Bumper Sticker Theft
    • payday loans calgary on Getting Cash for Your Clothes
    • Bexley on It is time to say goodbye to Felicia.
    • Wrought Iron Furniture on Uptown Cafeteria - First Impressions
    • Helena Antle on Thrifty Handbags
    • Get Ex Boyfriend Back Guru on It is time to say goodbye to Felicia.
    • payday loans canada on Getting Cash for Your Clothes
    • Louis Vuitton Sale on Drama - Aging Variety

    Recent Posts

    • It is time to say goodbye to Felicia.
    • Potato Kale Soup
    • Don't Worry
    • Cactus Salad
    • 5 Valentine's Day Love Notes
    • Recipe: Veggie Menudo
    • Unsolicited Pimping: Rituals Bath & Skin Care Products
    • Eat Your Vegetables!
    • Pretending to Sound Smart on Fox 9 News
    • In Season by Don Saunders to Open Early November

    Categories

    • Animals
    • Appalling Customer Service
    • Books
    • Celebrity Obsessions
    • Cupcakes!
    • Current Affairs
    • Drinking
    • Enticing Links
    • Film
    • Food and Drink
    • Food Miscellany
    • Games
    • Minneapolis Miscellany
    • Music
    • Music, Movies, and Dining Out
    • Narcissism
    • Real Estate Geekery
    • Science
    • Shopping: Trends & Lucky Finds
    • Strictly Business
    • Television
    • Travel
    • Web/Tech
    • Weblogs
    See More

    Archives

    • January 2012
    • September 2011
    • July 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010

    More...

    Subscribe to this blog's feed
    Blog powered by Typepad