I’m taking a break from the computer for a week or so, and while I’m away I’ll be posting about a few sites you should read more often. Check back Monday for the first installment, and I’ll see you in a bit.

Own Your Failure

Some of you may not care about free stuff, and for you, I have four photos of people interacting with wildlife in inadvisable ways:

1. Seals
2. Rhino
3. Sharks
4. Crocodile

Now.

I know, from that survey a while back, that lots of you are teachers, librarians, students, and parents. I’ve never done a sponsor giveaway before but holy crap, some of you are going to need this.

Intel is giving away $5,000 in brand new tech equipment to three people who post over here about why they need it (photos and/or video encouraged). They’ll also send over the guys from Hot Hardware to install everything and teach you how to use it. Nice.

Selection is based mostly on how compelling your story is — and you can nominate other people (!). The odds are pretty effing good, and you will be excellent at this. You will make the judges, laugh, cry, and bend to your will.

So what do you need that Intel has? They could make a tech station for your class. They could give you the ability to write and print term papers without fear of losing a month of work to a hard drive malfunction. They could provide a functional workstation so you could run a business from home and see your kids more.

Here’s more info, and here are the rules. I’m one of the judges, but please limit your persuading to the Intel site.

Do some good for yourself, your team, or someone who needs your help. I’m rooting for you, and I’ll tell you who wins.

I was watching TV last night when, suddenly, my shoulder and upper arm began to tingle and erupted in gooseflesh. It was so startling that I jumped a little. Did something just brush up against me? Some sort of crazy energy field? (We have those in California.) A ghost? Or perhaps the bony, beckoning finger of Death?

The isolated patch of goosebumps continued to prickle, and the bumps were extreme. “Look at this!” I said to Bryan. He examined my arm and murmured in appropriately confused tones.

Then I remembered I had eaten a single pretzel a few minutes earlier. Turns out they were coated in some sort of yeast powder. I tried another one an hour or so later, and the isolated goosebumps resumed.

So, it wasn’t so much an ectoplasmic energy transfer from the netherworld. It was a pretzel.

But! You may be saying, “Maggie? What if it was a magic pretzel that gave you psychic powers?” And that’s an excellent point. I’ll keep you posted.

Last weekend, we had media passes to the Outsidelands festival, a multi-day, outdoor concert in Golden Gate Park. The passes were courtesy of Crowdfire, a Web app that makes it easy to find out what people are saying about an event by aggregating attendees’ Twitter, Flickr, You Tube, and Facebook feeds. Useful, yo.

Anyway, Hank had a great time, and I was amazed at how many families were there. It’s nice when organizers take a few small steps — like allowing strollers, or not charging for wee ones — that make it possible to include your kids in the fun parts of grownup life.