Category Archives: Nifty things
Photographs by the blind
Filed under Nifty things, Photography
on sitting
“I am having a great love for this chair. It’s a love that’s lasted 2 days so far,” said the enormously indebted girl in love with an $800 chair.
But also! Copper buttons!
Sigh.
Filed under Nifty things
all the pretty presents
I don’t count New Year’s Eve for much of a holiday and thus feel I can safely say that the holidays are over. It’s kind of a Yay! to have all the chaos finished, but also rather ho-hum to be faced with 31 days in the month of January, festivity-free.
There’s lots that I love about Christmas, and none of it’s to do with the baby Jesus. Like any good five year old, what I love is the presents. And not because I’m some kind of saint or anything, but I love the buying and picking out of presents more than I like getting them. It’s because I consider myself to be a present buying master. Although maybe ask the guy who doesn’t shave his head and for whom I bought this about that…
While it’s still fresh on my mind, I’d like to jot down some notes about my favorite gifts of the year, just in case I need to remember for later.
I got David a samurai sword handled umbrella from ThinkGeek.com. It has a strap to wear across your chest so that the handle is sticking up over your shoulder and it pains-slash-amuses me to admit it, it its pretty bad ass ninja.
The Zander gave me measuring cups made from Russian nesting dolls. They’re so charming, and I totally had some successful measuring with them last night!
I got this letterpress poster from 4505 Meats for the pork lover in my life: 
I took the cue from my workplace and made a gift with my own photographs, and sent my parents a calendar of Flowers, Leaves and Berries. This present is really only super if you happen to think I’m super.
Dooce posted this gorgeous printed wall art photograph of a hedgehog in one of her fabulous gift guides. I love it. Want it. Ever so much. But the cheapest, smallest one is $250! Tragically more than I can pay for a poster of a hedgehog, even with me being me.
But lo! The artist has also published a book and with that, you can have ALL of the pictures in one handy little package. Rad.
And speaking of hedgehogs, how about a boot brush? 
This went to David’s parents who I think were puzzled by incessant search for rogue hedgehogs while in England. (I was unsuccessful.) The dad says that the bristles are quite stiff. I believe that in dad speak that roughly translates to “I like it!”
Despite a handful of flubs, I felt pretty successful, and a bit inspired to try to be a better more thoughtful gift giver consistently throughout the year.
Filed under Holidays, Nifty things
Neighborhood Maps
Love love love the maps of Ork Posters, designed by Jenny Beorkrem.
Filed under Nifty things
Wee Planets
Dooce posted something about Alexandre Duret-Lutz’s images on Flickr quite some time ago, and as ever when it comes to her aesthetics, I had much agreement. He’s wee planets are excellent.
I love this one.
But they’re all great and really neat as a set. You can see them all here.
Some of the images can be printed and framed with Imagekind. Even for $300+, I’m still a bit tempted.
I was reviewing books today for staff picks and discovered that he’s publishing a book with us!
People at work are always bandying about the names of “famous” photographers, none of whom I’m ever familiar with. So it feels pretty darned good to have a bit of a clue for once.
Filed under Nifty things
Wishing the lyrics to “My Obsession” were more amusing
I have become obsessed with Twitter.
It’s not an entirely new obsession. My first tweet was on July 30, 2007 and since then, I’ve updated 476 times.
But a few days, someone with 600+ followers tweeted a message about following me and my followers have since doubled. And a very few tweets have been favrd by someone other than Allib.
Because of this, I’ve started harboring delusions of grandeur, if grandeur could possibly mean Twittery success. And that supposes that you can somehow achieve Twittery success. But whatever it is, I feel fever pitched in my pursuit of churning out up to 140 more characters of something amusing.
When I was in New York, a friend there was griping about how dumb and pointless Facebook and Twitter are, and she challenged me to explain why I liked Twitter. I said that since I couldn’t write a novel, I got a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that I could write one, just one, nice sentence. She couldn’t argue that really, but couldn’t to sniff about how she’d never do them.
So I do love how Twitter lets me write a little tiny bit in a non-intimdiating way. And I love how it feels a little competitive. Like the Twitter gods are goading “how good can you write it? just 140 characters? bring it!” And I love having something that updates so frequently. Better than any good conversationalist, I can ask Twitter to “Tell me more!” and it will. And, I admit it. I love having a tweet Favrd. Oh, the indulgent joy it brings me! Like a pat on the had, but with a little yellow star to boot!
And thus, I am reduced to constant stalking and plotting. I try to Favr other people in the hopes that it will engender like mindedness. I search for new people to follow who might follow me back. I am manic about checking Favrd.com and Favotter and in a constant state of puzzle as to why the two don’t match.
Sweet David watches all with amusement and warns “don’t try to be funny. It isn’t funny.”
Filed under Nifty things, these are the days of my lives
I used my PTO
I went on vacation! I left on a Friday and didn’t come back until the next next Sunday. I took 6 whole days off from work! 6!
This means that I no longer have 100 hours of unused PTO, but more like 50. And I will be whiling those remaining ones away in less than a month.
Oh, what a leisurely life to lead!
I guess I hadn’t appreciated how much better and easy and simply more likely to happen travel was when you have A Person. Which is a very nice thing about having A Person, but is probably only like #14 on the list of nice things about it.
We went to New York, where David had never been and then… I think a list is in order.
We:
Ate bagels.
Walked around Williamsburg, Brooklyn and crossed the Williamsburg Bridge.
Had caprese salad and white wine in Little Italy.
Canoli.
Visited Stephen at La Botega where he keeps bar.
Drank sake in the Village.
Had excellent sushi at Bosu, back in Williamsburg.
Crossed the Brooklyn Bridge with Aunt Nora and Gordon.
Wandered the Village and had Mexican with large mojitos.
Discussed the psychoticness of family at length.
Saw Othello and glimpsed Times Square. Actors spit and sweated copiously.
Took the bus to Clinton. David met the mother. Did downtown Clinton.
Drove around Hunterdon County countryside and small towns.
Met the brother.
Started drinking with the brother and the father and the Maggie and the David.
Dinner in Clinton.
Escape.
Met up with Peter in Newark.
Ginormous dinner at a classy Jersey dinner
Yankee game in the rain. Tied after 9 innings. We left.
Met up with Riggsy and Jay and had Thai in Union Square.
Saw Fuerza Bruta, which was awesome.
Beers in Williamsburg.
Took the Staten Island Ferry to Staten Island.
Drove with mom to Long Island.
Hung out with Nana.
Visited Aunt Mary, who got a cake that said “Welcome to New York David!”
Dinner and drinks in Hells Kitchen with Rebecca, Sarah and Jay. Kind of a mess, but whatever.
Went to Nina’s apartment on the upper West side, walked through the park and wandered the Met.
Strolled down 5th Avenue.
Dinner at very nifty restaurant, La Esquina.
Drinks at Russian vodka bar, Pravda.
Listened to a band in the village.
Shared a slice between the 3 of us.
Finished it and got a second one from a different place.
Crossed back over to Brooklyn, one more slice.
Back in Williamsburg with Bek and Jay.
English fish and chips with mushy peas for lunch.
Checked out Grand Central Station and the whispering hall.
A cupcake from Magnolia.
Viewed vistas from the Top of the Rock.
Snacks and wine at Bread.
Back to Brooklyn. Dinner at Snacky.
And away…
Filed under Nifty things
“your wedding day is not a photographic event”
I get to look at a lot of wedding pictures. A LOT.
At first I was fascinated by them and wanted to critique every dress, choice of flowers, bridesmaid dress color and bridal/groomal attractiveness. I would take the time to look through every book and no matter how simple the affair, I would get a bit caught up in the moment of it.
Time passed.
And then I got bored. The weddings just turned into a never ending stream of sameness.
Occasionally, I will still come across pictures that stand out. For my own amusement, I do rather like it when they stand out like these ones:
But I can still be impressed by goodness, too. Every now and again, I come across a photographer whose wedding pictures move me. Sometimes, they make me cry a little. I should be fairly immune to this by now, but I am happy to see that there are some real photographers out there, even though everyone and their mom is taking pictures.
My current favorite is this British guy, Graham Morgan. I was particularly impressed by his candid pictures of the guests. He somehow got beautiful, unobtrusive portraits of many (all?) individuals at the wedding as they watched the ceremony.
I also just love the british-y ness of the weddings he does, which speaks less about him perhaps and more about his geography. Or it could be about the kind of clientele he picks up. But I love the ladies in hats and old stone churches and gray lighting of overcast skies.
So when time comes that I happen across someone needing a wedding photographer in Bath or Bristol, I will be very emphatically recommending this one.
portfolio screenshot from http://www.grahammorgan.com
portfolio screenshot from http://www.grahammorgan.com
Filed under Nifty things
The Parkway Theater
On Thursday, I learned (from Facebook) that the Parway Theater would be closing for good on Sunday, March 22.
Because David had never been and because I welcomed an opportunity to go one last time, we made a visit on Friday night to see Revolutionary Road.
I was paranoid that it would be a mob scene and that we wouldn’t be able to get in at all, so we got there an hour early. It wasn’t as busy as I’d feared, and we totally snagged a couch. Yay! I did get a little teary when we bought the tickets, though.
We got a pitcher of beer and ordered a pizza. I took a lot of pictures. I remembered coming here to see Zombie Strippers with the Uber Nerd. And Best in Show, with Tuck. (His cat kept smacking me in the head when we were kissing.) I saw The Kite Runner there with Bek. I saw Dreamgirls with Peter. I fell asleep watching that one.
I loved the Parkway. They didn’t have great deal of variety, and movies would play there for ages. The show times were often inconvenient or impossible. So I never went as much as I wanted to. But it was in my neighborhood and it was unique and just cool and special.
Filed under Nifty things
Apple Hat
This is my nephew, Max. He is 3 months old.
He is wearing the apple hat that I bought for him, because I am the best aunt ever. And by “best,” I mean that I now have a whole new outlet for my creative shopping endeavors.
The lady who made this hat has a whole slew of fruit and vegetable hats; I very badly wanted to buy several of them. Like the blueberry. And the beet. And the pear! Oh, the cuteness of the little pear!
Filed under Nifty things
margaret edith 