Open post of the week (16th Feb)

If the week is dragging on for you, I’ve got a bit of good news. It’s Wednesday, and that means two things – firstly, it’s all downhill to Friday from here, and secondly, it’s time for Open Post! Come have a chat about whatever is on your mind and catch up on what’s been happening around Mamamia HQ…

Office life

According to the Chinese zodiac, it’s the Year of the Dragon. Well, I’ve renamed 2012 The Year of the Cupcake, because being at the office this week has been like being stuck at a sponge cake bake-off at the local country club. MM’s Managing Editor Lana brought in all the leftover treats from her son’s birthday – date slice, rocky road and a bright blue birthday cake (the cake was great, the colour not so much). And then Tuesday saw the arrival of some stunning Mamamia cupcakes which were devoured pretty quickly. Check out all the baked treats – and lots more! – in our gallery of what’s been happening around the office this week…

Social media site of the week

With all the social networking sites floating around – Facebook, Twitter, Linked in, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google+, to name just a few – you might not remember MySpace. It faded way into the background when Facebook came along, with as many as 10 million users jumping ship from one site to the other within a single month. Well, MySpace is making a comeback. This from the SMH:

MySpace claims that it now has “an average of 40,000 new registrations daily” and says it has added more than a million new users since launching its new MySpace Music Player in December.

The site also touts its library of 42 million songs as the world’s largest collection of free music, signifying that services like Spotify — not Facebook or Google+ — may be its real competition.

“The numbers tell an amazing story of strong momentum and dramatic change for Myspace,” company CEO Tim Vanderhook said in a statement. “And the one million-plus new user accounts we’ve seen in the last 30 days validates our approach.”

Would you use MySpace as an alternative to the ever-changing, increasingly confusing Facebook? Or maybe you’re like me and suffering from complete social media overload, constantly trying to remember all your passwords for different things… thoughts?

Spunky Goanna Legs

What’s your pet name for your significant other? Babe? Sweetheart? Honey-munchkin-pants? The Telegraph has done a survey on the nicknames that lovers use, and you might be surprised at some of the things people are calling each other:

Spunky Goanna Legs, Anaconda Pants and the Minister of War and Finance, take a bow. You make up the honour guard of Australia’s unusual nicknames for lovers.

By contrast, those of you calling to “Babes” could find 20 per cent of any given crowd replying “Yes?” It’s Australia’s most common pet name for lovers.

More than 2500 people responded to our call to tell us their lover’s nickname. Women were slightly more likely than men to call their partner Babes, while men were much more likely to call their lover the 9th and 10th most popular responses – Chook and Pumpkin.

Others perhaps showed a strain in relations, Harvey Norman (No Interest for Years!) and Life At The Turn Of The Century among them.

I can’t even begin to imagine what the story would be behind “Spunky Goanna Legs”, although I’d probably appreciate that more than “Harvey Norman”… is your name for your partner in the list of most popular names (which also include bub, honey, bunny, pookie, princess) or is it more original? And if you don’t have a partner, what would you call your future significant other?

Wardrobe Week

As you might have read before on Mamamia, Wardrobe Week is part of our new approach to showcasing diversity in 2012. We often struggle to find appropriate images for our street-style galleries, which is why we want our readers to star in our posts so we can ALL start contributing to a more realistic portrayal of women in the media.

We want to feature anyone who’s happy to send us a few photos of what they’re wearing that week and tell us where it all came from.

We’re still looking for submissions, so here’s how it works. You submit a week’s worth of photos of yourself to wardrobeweek@mamamia.com.au and tell us what you’re wearing.

The key is to make sure the images are full-length and shot in the same place each day, preferably against a white wall. Well lit. 5-10 images are perfect (if, for example, you have two in one day) and make sure to include details of what you’re wearing in each shot.

If you’d like to see an example, we put together a gallery of some of the Mamamia staff and what they wear around the office – check it out:

So boring, it should be free

I spent $12 to go to a class at the gym on Monday, which didn’t fuss me too much until I started thinking about all the money I’ve spent at the gym over the years. An awful lot, I’d say. And in my opinion the gym is such a boring place that it should really be free – after all, I’m just going to attempt to get fit and be healthy – I’m not actually enjoying myself.

It got us back to thinking of what else is so boring that it should be free. What do you think – tampons? Socks? Getting a passport? Going to the dentist?

So that’s all from me – over to you. What’s been on your mind?