Things I Love Thursday

Birds With Arms

Forget bird watching, birds with arms is the next best thing. See the tumblr here.

Happy Independence Day

Music Mondays—SCIENCE!

Mates of State—I am A Scientist

On July 3, Spare the Rock Records will release Science Fair, eighteen exclusive tracks — all sung by women and girls — themed around and benefiting science and engineering education for girls. The album will be on sale for $3 (JUST $3, PEOPLE), to support girl's foundational science education programs, from rural areas to the suburbs to inner cities.

This video was the first video to be released from this album.

Project 365 Update: June

June has been my worst month, by far. One of the reasons for this is that my DSLR has been on the fritz. Something inside is rattling, and for two weeks, we were unable to get it to work. The last picture I took before it broke was of J walking downstairs to grill our burgers. The next time it worked was when I photographed my Moscow Mule. It was as mysterious as it was concerning and if it breaks when we go on vacation I will blackout rage, I swear.

My favorite photo this month was by and far this one:

This is the first photo from one of my last packs of 600 Polaroid film. I was testing my SLR 680 to make sure it (and the film) still worked, and lo! It does. Maybe it will find its way to Europe with us when we finally take that vacation.

Music Monday

Twin Shadow—Five Seconds


Today's offering is this video from Twin Shadow. A B-movie and a new Bowie-esque synth-song all rolled into one. You're welcome.

Music Mondays

Leona Naess—Swing Gently


Ignore the fact that this song is from an episode of Private Practice that aired in December 2008 (Worlds Apart). Ignore the fact that I am not discovering "new" music this week. Also, ignore the ugliest video ever posted on the Internet because since 2008, no one has made a respectable video for this beautiful song. I came across this song because I have started watching Private Practice from the beginning again, and it struck a chord with me.

The whole album, Thirteen, is something I wish I had had in high school—maybe even in 2008. It's a little young, but I think that's the point, but this song just sways so melodically, and the title, Swing Gently, is exactly what it does.

I just downloaded this one track, though. I have enough angsty female pop vocalists on my playlist.

Things I Love Thursday

JUBILEE!!!


The Queen's Diamond Jubilee, marking her 60 year reign, happened June 2^nd-5^th. The Jubilee used to mark the 75th year of reign, but Queen Victoria withdrew from public life after Albert's death, and they decided to bump it up fifteen years then, and it's been tradition since.

IKEA decided to celebrate with the above marketing—a corgi dog (CORGI DOG OMFG).

Google did what Google does:

Even though I am in America, I am and have always been an anglophile at heart. I must admit I got sucked into this whole thing. My favorite part was still the corgmonsters.

Music Mondays

Hot Chip's new album, In Our Heads, comes out today, but you could have been streaming the full album this whole time! Only I didn't post this until today! What a bitch! Anyway, the streaming link is here, but seeing as how you should just buy it and all, I don't see how that's useful.

The song I chose to represent this album is If I Was Your Girlfriend—a Prince "cover" if you will. It starts out all Hot Chip, and then gets all Prince on you, but they riff the lyrics in a great, unique way. Pretty Much Amazing describes this song as a "slow burner." True, but if you listen to it fifteen times in a row like I did before I chose this song, it sticks to you like glue.

My House Is Never Cleaner

I have a school assignment due on Tuesday. During a normal semester, class meets once a week, but in the summer, classes meet Tuesday and Thursday. There's not a lot you can get done in 40 hours, so Thursday—Tuesday is when the meat of the work gets done. As a professional procrastinator, this is how a typical day goes during the semester:

"J just left to run errands and get some work of his own done...I should really get to work on this assignment. Let me sit down at my desk and focus."

"Hmmm...I have a lot of old emails. I should play the email game (emailga.me) and try to clear that out before I get started."

"Ah, Inbox Zero nearly achieved. Close the browser. Now I can start working."

"Is that dust on the floor? I need to sweep before I get started."

"Well, the floor is clean, but my desk is a mess. Better clean that up before I dirty up my assignment."

"Okay, my desk is acceptably clear. Just a cup of tea, and then I'll sit down and get to work..."

And so forth, and so on.

My house is never cleaner, and I am never more hydrated than when I have other, more pressing things to do.

Things I Love Thursday

99% Invisible—Guilt Free

I really enjoyed this 99% Invisible podcast about sustainability and design. They talk about the lunar-resonant streetlight project, which utilizes available moonlight instead of overwhelming it, and returning the cityscape to a more natural environment while still providing adequate lighting. The whole podcast is interesting, but what struck me as a designer was this part of the discussion: 

I think a lot of the current design discussion is about how to make design more relevant…how to make it part of these processes that really shape the world: government, all of the sort of processes that we don't think of being designs or having a relationship to design.

Climate change is a design problem, you know, the national debt is a design problem. All of these things are design problems in different ways if you expand the scope of how you think about it a little bit.

Our challenge as designers, really, is to expand that scope and to become part of bigger discussions.

This was a portion of our discourse during a graphic design class I am taking at MassArt this semester, and so the whole episode really struck a chord. The podcast itself is really interesting, too—definitely worth checking out (at 99percentinvisible.org)

This XKCD Comic


Although I rarely if ever think about a certain ex-boyfriend now that I'm happily married, sometimes I remember him—like when I saw this comic, which I had to laugh at because it's so uncannily true, it's almost like it was written about him.

As is usually the case, the mouse over is the best part: "I'll never forget you--at least, the parts of you that were important red flags."

Music Mondays

The West Coast may be the Best Coast, but the East Coast is the Beast Coast. Still, surf rock is pretty cool, I guess.

Project 365 Update: May

I thought May would be even better than April, but it wasn't. There was one week there that I just didn't feel like leaving the house, much less taking pictures. I don't really like any of these photos, but the one I chose this month is from Plumb Island, a 16 mile bike trip J and I took this month to go bird watching.

I like that the bird is the focal point against a neutral and kind of boring backdrop. I thought it was best in square format.

Music Mondays

Animal Collective—Honeycomb

Things I Love Thursday

Grilling

J has been eyeing this grill for a while now, and we finally ordered it on amazon last week. We spent this weekend grilling every meal we ate at home. Rain has put a damper on the week-time grilling, but the point of buying a propane powered portable weber was that it takes 20 minutes, tops, to have a delicious grilled meal, anytime we want.

Firing up the charcoal grill was so much work that we never bothered grilling for ourselves—it just wasn't worth it unless at least six people were eating burgers and dogs. We still have it, but we just plan on busting it out when we have company and want to spend the whole day grilling.


This grill is fantastic, and I can't wait to see what delicious meals we concoct this summer.

Bird Watching

via flickr user villes

We have started a weekly routine of riding our bikes to brunch on Sunday, and stopping at Mount Auburn Cemetery afterwards. We usually spend about 20-30 minutes at the cemetery watching for birds, and taking in the beautiful views. So far, we have seen turkeys, falcons, chipmunks, and other really interesting birds that I am not equipped to identify. Armed with a new pair of binoculars, though, we are going to start making the most of our cemetery walks and bird watch the hell out of Sunday afternoons. I am even going to get some bird identification books from the library.

I am officially a 50-year-old woman.

Music Mondays

2:54—Creeping

Things I Love Thursday

Stephen Colbert Says MIT is the Harvard of DeVry


But the thing I loved most was this response from Stu Schmill, MIT Dean of Admissions (Class of '86—note the brass rat). A perfect example of what makes MIT such a special place. Read his blog post about it here.

Music Mondays

Passion Pit—Take A Walk

Things I Love Thursday

Some Kids Demand Listening to Gotye in the Car


Originally posted on swissmiss.


Walk Off The Earth Covers Gotye

Okay, the kids in the car were cute. If kids aren't your thing—watch this version. It's way, way, way cooler. Also, much less weird that adults know the lyrics to this song, you know?

Also, This.

Music Mondays

Last week I posted Sad Baby Wolf's cover of Neutral Milk Hotel's Everything Is, but here's the single they released in December, 8th Level.

Project 365 Update: April

April was my best month so far. Quite a few of these are iphone photos, but I still tried to capture the days as they happened, not just out of convenience, but because I had my phone on me, and the moment happened. Now I will remember my decision to get that brightly colored outdoor rug. I will remember when they put the new sharrow in front of my house. I will remember when I stocked up on red truck individual sized wine.

My favorite photo this month was the one I took of our dining area:

Our apartment has come a long way towards a home, especially so since we've gotten married, and this picture is a strong reminder of how beautifully it has done so.