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…that is, if not paying attention in class were a crime, this would be insight into the mind of a criminal. As it is, it’s just insight from the mind of Me, Karen, from SayNoToCrack.com. So less a criminal and more a slacker.

And it’s not so much insight either…During class, rather than take notes or pay attention the way ordinary students do, I let my mind frolic off into the recesses of memory, imagination, and sleep-deprived stupidity. And in my hand, I keep a pencil. While other students write their notes, I scribble and doodle and make weird images, and by the time I’m done, I’m not even sure why, what they mean, or how long it took me to draw them.

I have literally filled whole notebooks with this junk. It makes time pass like a charm. A papery, time-passing charm.

So I thought it’d be cool to share with you the drawings that come out of my head on days like these. If you like them, maybe I’ll make a routine thing out of giving them to you now and again. If you hate them…hey…it’s not a video right?

Without further ado, sketches from Karen’s notebook:

“Bunny and Butterfly”

…he knows what he did.

“Lovebirds”

“Nihilist Gastropod”

See? I don’t get it either, it’s just what happens when you let your mind wander off into space with paper and pencil. But, flipping through the pages, I think I’m most confused by this one:

I’m not sure why I drew ham and a dinosaur. I don’t think I meant for them to go together as a total image, but that’s how I’ll present them.

And this has been, Into the Sketches of Karen’s Notebook.

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Filed under: Before the bell, Earnings reports, Analyst reports, Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), Apple Inc (AAPL), eBay (EBAY), Coca-Cola (KO), Amazon.com (AMZN), Intel (INTC), Walt Disney (DIS), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Altria Group (MO), United Technologies (UTX)

A slew of earnings just came out:

• United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) reported a 20% increase in profit for the third quarter, earning $1.21 per share, and beating estimates of $1.16 per share. Shares are currently nearly flat.
• Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO) reported third-quarter profit fell 8.4%, but income from continuing operations rose 18.1%. The company also raised its full-year earnings guidance. The company beat per share earnings by reporting $1.21 EPS higher than the $1.14 expected. Shares are up over 0.9% in premarket trading.
• The Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) reported a 13% increase in third-quarter profit on a double-digit increase in sales, beating Wall Street expectations.
• JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) shares are rising over 3% in premarket action after the nation’s third-largest bank managed to turn out a 2% profit rise in the third quarter despite rocky market conditions and a rough lending climate. Earnings per share came to 97 cents, up 5% from 92 cents last year and handily beating the 90 cents per share analysts had expected.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) shares are up over 2% in premarket trading to $173.00. Yesterday the company announced the release date — October 26 — of its new Leopard operating system. The new version will cost $129 for a single user and $199 for a family pack, a price many users have voiced their dismay on the blogosphere, especially what seems for now a lack of price point for students.

Along with Apple, and following Intel and Yahoo!’s strong results yesterday, many other tech stocks are trading higher in premarket action including Google, which reports tomorrow an is up over 2%, eBay, which reports after the close today and is up over 3%, and Amazon which is up over 2%. Barring any surprises, expect today to be a strong one for tech and the Nasdaq to lead gains. Many analysts have been raising target prices on Intel and Yahoo! this morning.

The Walt Disney Co (NYSE: DIS) is planning to spend $1.1 billion over five years to overhaul its California Adventure theme park, the Wall Street Journal reports.

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Looks like 22″ or even 22″ LCD monitors just don’t quite make the cut anymore these days, with 30″ being the target size for many people especially gaming addicts. The Eizo SX3031W-H LCD monitor might share the same size as other offerings from Apple, Dell (read our review), HP, and Gateway, but it doesn’t fare too well in terms of specifications with a rather dismal 14ms refresh rate. While the quoted LCD monitors range between $1,280 and $1,799 in price, the Eizo SX3031W-H LCD monitor is the clear loser with a $2,555 price tag attached to it. No idea who would pick this up considering the rather ordinary specifications and extremely high price, so here’s to seeing a steep discount pretty soon.

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Come to think of it, how many circular LCD panels have you come across for commercial use? Practically none, which is why Toshiba’s circular LCD panel has created quite a ripple. This display measures 62mm in diameter with an outer border of 3″, and makes living proof that an LCD display can be of any shape instead of a plain old rectangle or square. The specifications ain’t too shabby either, with a 240 x 240 resolution, a brightness level of 500 nits, and a contrast ratio of 600 to 1. Toshiba hopes to push these circular LCDs to the automobile industry and mobile devices, but it remains to be seen when these prototypes will actually enter production. Car dashboards will never be the same again, and you will probably see a round version of the nano next time round.

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Gamers will definitely drool at the Battle-Rig Pro, featuring a relaxing and cozy seat to help you remain comfortable even under the most intense of gaming situations. It comes in different color combinations in order to make it easier to match your home’s decor, featuring a storage system that allows you to integrate your speaker system into it for surround sound quality without having any unsightly wires and cables running across the floor. You can even order the Battle-Rig Pro without the included seat in order to customize it further to your own liking. Currently, this superb piece of gaming furniture can be delivered to Germany, Austria and Switzerland, but on-site pickup is allowed as well.

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Once upon a time, a morning, a child who would like to hang out with his friends and play Dungeons and Dragons instead of visiting his grand parents, well this toaster would do it. A subliminal request can be printed on the parents’ toasts and the little gesture of preparing the breakfast will convince the parents that role playing games assure their child the development of a sense of otherness and care. I don’t really know what designer Sasha Pure envisioned when developing this concept, but I believe there is a poetic and idealistic rationale behind it.

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Filed under: On the Blogs, How To

Back in July, I wrote about my own efforts to carry reusable bags to the grocery store. In that post, I confessed that my reusable bag purchasing habit was potentially canceling out the effectiveness of using those bags, as I kept buying new ones. I’m happy to state that I’ve gotten that buying bug under control and that I am now using and reusing the same bags (although the one I took to the grocery store today has a funky, spoiled milk smell going on. Scrubbing may be in order).

However I do still long for a new bag or two and happily the Green Home at Apartment Therapy has come to my rescue with a post about ways to make your own grocery bags. They’ve got links to bags you can knit and bags you can sew. This is very good incentive for me to dust off my Aunt Flora’s long-neglected sewing machine and see if I can’t make very own, unique grocery bags.

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Filed under: On the Blogs, Health & Medical

We try to keep on top of the latest food recalls around these parts, but occasionally we miss one or two. However, Consumer Union, the company that publishes Consumer Reports, has made it a whole lot easier to stay on top of current consumer recalls. They’ve launched a website called Not In My Cart that gathers recall notices from three federal agencies and posts them for all to see. This way we’ll all be able to find out easily and quickly if we need to pull cans of soup off our shelves or toss those burgers that are in the freezer.

Via The Daily Green

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Filed under: Breakfast, On the Blogs

Late last week, the Washington Post’s Kim O’Donnel wrote a post on her blog, A Mighty Appetite, about the food that makes you cry. The food that evokes memory in a way that is bittersweet or layered and complex. She recounts a friend’s tale of his mother’s post-Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches and her own experience teaching a young friend to cook Joe’s Special (the recipe is at the end of the post) while in Zambia.

For me, the foods that make me cry are linked to simple joyful times. During the years when I was in college, I always went home to live with my parents for the summers. On weekend mornings, my dad would often cook breakfast for us, concocting vast egg scrambles bursting with spinach, zucchini, tomatoes and basil from his garden. Having breakfast made for me always made me feel so cared for, a true sign of love through food.

What are the foods that make you cry? (Tears of joy and sadness are both welcome).

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