Frog’s been using Aweber to handle the mailing list on his new project, FrogsThemes. It was hard to choose between MailChimp and Aweber – they’re similar services so it really came down to how many people he was sending emails to, and how much it cost to do so. After growing his email list to thousands of sign-ups, Frog was looking at his email provider, and thought he might be paying over the odds – something he Tweeted about.

The next day, Aweber left him a voicemail message explaining the situation – they’d seen his tweet, tracked down his Aweber account, found his phone number and *called* to help. How good is that? Frog was certainly impressed and I am too. Taking the time to read mentions of your company on Twitter, and then contact your users in a less-public environment to get them back on side is above-the-call-of-duty customer service.

Aweber – you deserve a gold star.

That’s quite a dramatic title isn’t it? “Making Sacrifices!” As if I’m going to announce I’m donating a kidney, or spending all my free time in a soup kitchen. In reality, by the end of this post you’ll probably just think I’m really spoilt.

I bought my dream car when I was 22. That’s almost two years ago, and for a 22-year-old it was pretty good going. I’d always wanted a 2-seater convertible so one Sunday, on the way home from Morrisons, Frog and I wandered into the local Mazda garage and I somehow came away £3k lighter and with a rather scary finance agreement. And, of course, a beautiful new car.

It’s a bright blue MX-5, with two exhausts, shiny alloy wheels and a fancy leather interior. It has heated seats, it goes like the clappers and corners like its on rails. It also costs me a small fortune. Insurance is the best part of 1k every year, road tax is £235, servicing is over £200, petrol is…well let’s just say it doesn’t get very good MPG and work is a 44-mile round trip every day.

I didn’t buy any clothes for almost a year. I was in my overdraft for 18 months. I’ve only just got my finances back onto the level, and each month I still have to pay for my car. It’s time for it to go.

Without my car (my beautiful car) I’ll be so much better off. I can save…save lots! Save a deposit for a house and get onto the property ladder. If you’re buying alone you need all the cash you can get, right?

My car is going tomorrow, and I’m getting a Corsa in return. I’m actually quite sad, because I love driving it. It’s fun and it goes fast and it just works really well. A Corsa won’t be fun, and it won’t go fast, and I won’t feel like I’ve achieved anything by getting it.

Still, this is all about saving money for a house. A house is a much bigger achievement than a fancy car, so I just need to hold onto that thought and learn to love my new Corsa.

So why does it still feel like a sacrifice?

Don’t worry! You can also get this totally cool Pikachu car to drive around in…

You can then go home to your Pikachu house…

Yours for just $89, this adult Pikachu costume fits most people from 5′5” – 5′9”. Available to buy here.

This is a wizard who was turned into a cat. He is over 1000 years old.

The trouble with bringing lunch to work is that you end up at your desk all day, which kind of defeats the object of having a break. To reclaim the lunch hour I’ve been making the effort to geek out on random sites. There’s the old favourite io9, and a few recent discoveries. Including…

Tumblr

I checked out Tumblr ages ago, dismissed it as “a bit weird” and never went back. I’ve just discovered a whole host of “fuckyeah…..tumblr.com” blogs, which have opened up a whole world of awesomeness. Seriously, type in “fuckyeah[yourfavouritething].tumblr.com” into the address bar and marvel that a site exists for it! The best one so far is Star Trek based, but there are blogs for everything from celebrities to sewing, so get guessing at URLs!

It’s not all swearing on Tumblr. Look at this Little Thing is a blog all about the teeny tiny, and it’s super sweet and engaging.

Cats

There are loads of cat blogs, but for the sheer variety of pictures and captions, Funny Cat Pics is currently winning.

History

History is cool. A Blog About History is my new favourite history/archaeology blog with nice pictures and well-written content. It’s updated really often too so it’s great for history junkies.

Fashion

I used to read the Sartorialist, and that’s still good, but Advanced Style is my new winner in the fashion stakes. It’s a photo blog capturing super cool clothes worn by real life older people. I hope it inspires us all to be eccentric and colourful in our old age!

Picture the scene….it’s late at night, all is dark and quiet. You’re trying to get to sleep and have just started to drift when…

BUMP

A creepy noise comes from the other side of the room. Somewhere beyond the foot of the bed, in the corner, behind you. You’re suddenly wide awake, heart jolting, hairs on the back of your neck standing up. What do you do?

You force yourself to sit up in bed, turn around and CHECK FOR MONSTERS.

WTF?

Most of us when questioned would say that monsters don’t exist. So why when it’s dark or creepy and there’s an unexplained noise, do we have to MAKE SURE there’s not a supernatural being in the room?

My first thought is never “it could be a burglar”. It’s always “it could be a monster!”.

Of course, I bet most people think of a monster like something out of “Paranormal Activity” – kind of invisible but most likely an animal with a creepy man-face. Not like this guy, a claw-fingered naked bloke riding a winged dog-lizard with an angry snake-friend –>

Or maybe they do?

It’s Friday, and all I can think about is the bacon sandwich I’m about to go and get. In the meantime, here are some amazing cat pictures:

Frog and I saw Death of a Salesman at the West Yorkshire Playhouse last Friday – last time I went to the theatre was to see Othello back in 2009 so it was a bit of a treat!

Reading up on the play, I’m pretty astonished to find out it’s been around for over 60 years – I knew it was old but to have been on stage for that long is quite an achievement. I can see why – one of the first scenes involves the eldest (and prodigal) son Biff, talking about how he’d rather be working on a ranch somewhere than wasting his life in a City job, always hoping for something better. He talks about being a cog in the machine, and not even knowing you are, and he makes it sound like a waste of a life. He says if you know yourself, and stay true to yourself, you’re happier…even if it means turning your back on what people ‘expect’ you to do.

It’s really evocative of the despair some people feel once they’re trapped in the system, and it still resonates even today.

The acting was probably the best I’ve seen at the theatre, with a strong central cast. There are some quite physical scenes, and a lot of the scenes segue seamlessly into each other taking us back and forwards in time. Three hours went by really quickly, whereas before I’ve found plays to drag on a bit.

I totally recommend seeing Death of a Salesman- it’s on at the Playhouse till the 29th May.

Karen Bruce, Labour activist in my contituency, has a website. I quote from her latest blog post entitled “What will the parties do for women?”:

“I was sorry to miss being at the LSE’s ‘what about women’ election debate I was meant to be at this week. I have just watched it on video and it was a great debate. You can watch the debate between Harriet Harman, Lynne Featherstone and Theresa May here. It’s a disgrace though that women (apart from the leaders’ wives) haven’t had the chance to be more prominent and at the forefront of the general election campaign as they should be. You may not get the chance to see women from the three parties debate in a high profile TV debate such as the leaders’ debates, but it’s well worth watching it via the LSE website.”

Sorry, what? “It’s a disgrace though that women (apart from the leaders’ wives) haven’t had the chance to be more prominent…”

Since when was it universally accepted that leader’s wives (or husbands, or whatever) should be prominent in politics? They’re not politicians! When leader’s wives get in front of the cameras, all that comes out of the media is who looks prettiest, or who’s the most fashionable. It would do us all a favour if they stayed in the background and didn’t detract from actual, political discussion. We need to be voting on policies, not who has the nicest family.

There’s more:

“Labour has taken action and through the new equalities legislation employers will be banned from having secrecy clauses. Employers will also be able to take positive action to allow them to diversify their workforce.”

Nooooo! Positive descrimination is bad! You can’t descriminate against men just to get more women into a workplace!

Argh! Karen Bruce looks to be a staunch supporter of Harriet Harperson…possibly the most terrifying, dangerous woman in politics today. Her closing sentence:

“Next Thursday I’ll be casting my vote to keep Harriet and her colleagues in a position where they can keep up the good work already done for women, there’s a lot more to do and only the Labour Party will do it!”

Good work? I would disagree.