It could be a wet weekend here in New Orleans. There is yet ANOTHER tropical storm lurking out there in the middle of the ocean, and it’s currently headed straight for the Gulf. Fingers crossed that the impact is minimal. I didn’t live here during Katrina, but I did experience my first hurricane in 2012 right after I moved down to start business school. Silly Emilia thought it would be “fun” to hunker down instead of evacuating. I wanted the experience. What I got was no water, no power, no TV, no internet, and no A/C for a week. Some experience. It was truly miserable. Lesson learned: always evacuate if you can. The storm coming this weekend is only expected to be a category 1 hurricane, so we’re staying put and hoping for the best.
Also, being the genius I am, I ordered Jeni’s ice cream online, and it was delivered today. Just in time for the hurricane to knock out our power and melt it all. At least I now have an excellent excuse to mow through five pints of ice cream in two days.
Wish us luck!
1. It is truly the end of an era. AOL is finally shutting down AIM. Unimaginative screennames (mine: Bates1982), buddy lists, and passive aggressive away messages. Thanks for the memories. And for teaching me how to type better than any class or computer program ever could.
2. I once read an article called something like, “Death By a Thousand $10 Monthly Subscriptions”. Describes my life (and I’m sure many of yours) perfectly. Well, get ready to add a few more dollars to your monthly subscription budget, because Netflix is jacking up its prices again. Ugh. I guess they gotta pay for all of that binge-worthy original programming somehow.
3. I’m a fan of “wearables” and excited to see what the future holds for this space. But this is just dumb.
4. Not sure if you guys have noticed a recent change that Instagram made, but I’m still not used to it. On one hand, I appreciate that the app is trying to be smart and if I’ve turned the sound on for one video, I’m probably ok with it being turned on for my entire “session” (read: the 30 minutes of zombie-like scrolling that I partake in almost every night of the week). On the other hand, it still startles me when sound comes blaring out of my phone before I’ve realized I’ve hit another video in my feed. Gets me every time.
5. For all of you Snapchat users out there, they ALSO released a couple of new features recently. And THEY. ARE. INCREDIBLE. 3D Bitmojis, and sky filters. If you haven’t checked them out, open the app immediately and prepare to be amazed. I included some visuals down below as well. Instagram may have the user numbers, but Snapchat feels like the place where true innovation is happening. Sadly, it still may not be enough to prevent getting swallowed up by the whale that is Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp.
Bitmojis are awesome, but 3D Bitmojis are simply incredible. Your move, Instagram.
P.S. If you don’t know what a Bitmoji is, I’ll try to write something up about them soon.
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