The Adventures of Curious George

For the last two years there have been European Hitchhiking Gatherings (Paris and then Odessa, Ukraine). The next one is coming up in August, but we're hoping to organize one in the States, too. Maybe Colorado. I don't think anything has been officially announced yet, but check out this video from last year's European Hitch Gathering. http://casarobino.org/2010/03/789-hitchhiking-festival-video

[Update 2010-03-11 10:03 - Conspiracy theorists will love to believe Groupon got caught with their hand in the cookie jar (by accidentally purchasing too many votes? because I my tweets about the purchased origins of their votes showed up on their twitter-feed?). Others might think they decided that the purchased tweet-votes (purchased by someone else?) were a no-no. In any case, Groupon has removed Robert's video from their site after just a day or so of the 15,000+ votes in question being up (video link below changed to original posting on youtube)] I'm curious about this " Live Off Groupon " challenge. $100,000 to give up money for a year and live off of pre-paid vouchers. To skip to the intrigue part, scroll down to highly curious below. I spent quite a bit of time on my video submissions for the competition: Introducing myself to Groupon A conversation with a local business Judging by the winning finalists, I didn't show off my zany side enough. Oh well...

I read a rough draft of an essay on freeloading. I'm frankly wondering if the essay is dead-pan satire or devil's advocacy, or if, perhaps, someone connected to one of my circles of friends really does see the world that differently than I do. The rough-draft essay. My response: To play devil's advocate [edit: upon further reflection, though my opinions don't line up with his beliefs, I'm not really playing devil's advocate here, as my arguments line up with my beliefs], and perhaps provide some constructive criticism about holes some may perceive in your argument... - A few points Regarding Couchsurfing. 1. Your costs lists is not generally applicable, nor is it specific. You mention food, but not all couchsurfing hosts provide food. You also say "utilities" and what is "whatnot?" Specifically, I have had CouchSurfing hosts (and once, out of necessity to both me and the surfer, been a host) who *provided* nothing but a safe place on the ...

Some new activity over at http://georgejemmott.com .

Today's missions: Install aero-bars (those elbow-rest thingies) on my bike. Get map transfer to my GPS working in Linux. Transfer the location of a few sporting goods stores. Ride to said stores, using said aero bars, returning said aero bars if I don't like them, and purchasing waterproof over-pants (not of the XXL or XXXL varieties, which are the only ones left at the downtown stores).

I got transparent windows in Linux working (so I could do mapping work, laying one map over another)... only to realize when I restarted that I made 20% opacity the default, and I don't remember where that setting is! All my windows start out so hard to see... :)