Happy Birthday Blog: the Ugly Underbelly of Blog Envy

This blog is officially a year old. It’s been a rough ride at times (like now due to HTML issues...this is the wrong font). It’s gone through periods of emotional angst (the apple post), periods of writer’s block (oh the horror) and periods of neglect (the ultimate taboo in blogging) but hopefully it's always been humorous because that is why it was created.

One of the things that unfortunately happens to most bloggers is blog envy. It’s ugly, it’s evil, and it crops up like a bad rash that won’t go away no matter how much industrial strength cortizone you put on it.

Blog envy can strike at any time and in varying degrees. It can manifest itself in occasional, mild pangs of jealousy when you see a font which is nicer than yours on another blog, or it can be full-fledged blinding jealousy at a fellow blogger’s colorful background, their clever word play, or the frequency of their posts (how do people have TIME?)

Anyway, enough whining and more showing; here are 5 blogs that inspire the deepest, darkest type of blogger envy possible, which is, in a round-a-bout way, a compliment:

1. The Sartorialist. A unique blog that melds everyday street fashion with photography; it was selected as one of Time magazine’s 100 design influencers. The idea behind the blog is to artistically capture creatively dressed everyday people on film, instead of models in designer’s clothing. The sartorialist also has a monthly page in GQ magazine and is a recurring guest blogger for Style.com.
What’s to envy: The creativity and uniqueness of his blog.

2. 101 Cookbooks recipe journal. The food photography in this blog is simple, vivid, and spectacular. You know a food blog is good when it makes you want to eat a chocolate oblivion truffle torte…and you don’t even like chocolate.
What’s to envy: Heidi’s ability to concoct marvelous, picturesque recipes and her restraint to take fabulous pictures of the food *before* wolfing it down like a ravenous hyena.
3. Project RunGay—Project Runway from a very gay perspective. The subtitle of the blog is: “THEY SEW, WE RIP”. It is in the off-season right now so the blog isn’t at the height of its glory, but come November (new of season of Project Runway starts) and the boys (or queens) will be back in action!
What’s to envy: the humor…it’ll leave you in stitches (sorry).

4. Malcolm Gladwell’s blog: He’s the author of Blink and a writer for the New Yorker.
What’s to envy: He doesn’t blog often and he doesn't have to, because when he does, you savor his thoughts for months since they are intellectual GOLD.

5. The New York Times Freakonomics blog.
It’s spawned as an extension of Freakonomics, the book everyone was proudly and pretentiously reading on the metro last year. I could say that this blog spawns blog envy because of the interesting array of personalities interviewed on it, they’ve had everyone from the myth busters to the editor of Playboy (nope, not linking to that, sorry). Or I could say my blog envy is caused by their powerful backers (The Times), or their intelligent reader demographic…but those would be LIES. The real reason for the blog envy is the catchy title: Freakonomics; it sticks in your mind like fluorescent orange play dough on a nice white rug.


picture credits go to: Jupiter Images

Pop Culture 101: Hipsters, the new cool kids in town

I’d heard the word hipster thrown around a lot lately, but the definition seemed a bit vague. This demanded one thing: a quest to discover what a hipster really is, to truly understand the essence of the hipster lifestyle. This mission was successful…here are the findings:

Explanation from friend of a hipster: “A hipster is someone who takes great pride in going against the grain. They shun new things, not because they necessarily don’t like them, but because it’s hipster-cool to like really old things. E.G. Shopping at Good Will.”

Explanation from a hipster: “I like old things; they are deck.”
(Side note: hipsters say “deck” instead of “cool.”)

The following is a generalization but serves as a great guideline to general hipster interests and habits:
Hipsters adore being eco-friendly, eating vegetarian food (extra points for vegan food), riding bicycles, drinking pretentious beverages such as pomegranate water, listening to NPR, buying old or vintage things, possessing no more than 2 percent body fat (arguable), being contrary to mainstream pop culture just to be contrary, voting independent, and loving indie music and films (whether good or bad).

Excerpt from the Hipster Handbook (yep, real book):
Clues You Are a Hipster
*You graduated from a liberal arts school
whose football team hasn't won a game since the Reagan Administration.

*You frequently use the term 'postmodern' (or its commonly used variation 'PoMo') as an adjective, noun, and verb.

*You carry a shoulder-strap messenger-bag and have at one time or another worn a pair of horn-rimmed or Elvis Costello-style glasses.

* You spend much of your leisure time in bars and restaurants with monosyllabic names like Plant, Bound, and Shine.

* You bought your dishes and a checkered tablecloth at a thrift shop to be kitschy, and often throw vegetarian dinner parties.

* You have one Republican friend whom you always describe as being your 'one Republican friend.'

* You enjoy complaining about gentrification even though you are responsible for it yourself.

*Your hair looks best unwashed and you position your head on your pillow at night in a way that will really maximize your cowlicks.
(end of excerpt.)

Hipsters are basically rebellious yuppies. Clarification: hipsters try to be everything a yuppie isn’t (entitled, conformist, and materialistic), but ironically in their quest to separate themselves they end up being homogenous and pretentious just like yuppies.

Despite the obvious paradox that comes with being a hipster, hipsters are generally lovable, soulful, artistic beings and everyone should have at least one hipster friend. If you don’t have one there’s a chance you can rent or buy one—check Ebay (no seriously, check).

What does a hipster look like? Clothing designer Alyson Fox looks like a hipster. Her eco-friendly fashion line and the set décor in the innovative real-time fashion show on her website have a decidedly hipster-chic vibe to them. Some might even go as far as to declare it deck.





photocredits go to: college media

Homeless Hustla's

There are two categories of homeless panhandlers. Category A: people who genuinely need our help. Category B: hustlers who find appearing “homeless” a convenient and profitable side job. Working or living in a city generally sharpens your instincts about who is genuinely homeless and who isn’t, but sadly, after a while, your radar becomes jaded and you come across so many deceitful category B’s that you start to accidentally categorize a lot of category A’s as B’s. Here are the different types of homeless hustlers (category B’s):

The Cheerful Hustler
Location: Business district. E.G. K Street.
His clothes are thrifty, but suspiciously clean and ironed. He runs his homeless gig with the efficiency and cheerfulness of a small business owner. Sometimes he takes breaks from panhandling and answers personal phone calls (the pink elephant in the room is how he can afford a monthly cell phone bill). He covers all bases: he actually has a marketing jingle. Example of a jingle recently heard:
“Small change! Small change! Quarters, nickels and dimes please…small change!”
(Notice—the penny isn’t even an option anymore).
Who gives him money? Tired 9-5ers, business men who are amused by his roguishness, and dumb tourists.

The Scary Swindler
Location: Sketchy parts of the city E.G. Questionable sections of U Street at 2am in the morning.
This category typically consists of petty thieves and muggers (sometimes high).
When he asks for money you automatically know that means hand over your wallet.
If you aren’t certain whether or not handing over your wallet is a suggestion or a command, his crazy eyes and the broken liquor bottle he is waving at you should make it clear.

The Gentleman
Location: Affluent areas of the city. E.G. Georgetown
He is usually old, well-turned out, and respectable looking; wears clothing such as newsboy hats, well-worn tailored blazers, and nice—but scuffed—walking shoes. He doesn’t beg per say, just nobly tips his hat as you walk past and gallantly bids you "Good day". He is very selective about who he accepts money from and very aimable in general. If you are extremely observant you might catch him discreetly dining in a fine Georgetown bistro that you can barely afford.

The Storyteller
Location: Everywhere…they quite mobile and specifically enjoy "working" Metro stations.
There are all sorts of storytellers—the female ones really tug heartstrings with elaborately fraudulent tales of woe—but the most successful storytellers are the Metro ones.. They wait in Metro cars or right outside Metro stations and plague everyone they see. They always dolefully claim they are just $1 away from having enough money to ride the Metro home. Most commuters have fallen for this trick once…or twice…then realized they were conned the next day when the same guy stood in the same metro station asking for them for another dollar.

There are plenty of other homeless hustlers out there; but those are the four major types.

Switching gears: On any given day there are 754,000 homeless people in the U.S. who genuinely need help. To help out you can go to websites such as this, this and this.

photo credits: unbossed.com

Oh Google: Always Getting To Eat Your Cake and Have It Too

Read this Google blog post
Quote from article: "...our pastry chef, Danita Holt, drew up the blueprints.."

They have their own company pastry chef?

The Circuit Box Theory: Wiring a New Theory on Men and Women

A friend recently presented me with his theory on men and women:

Friend: “I just can’t understand why women are so complicated; I was talking to my wife the other day and she was telling me about how she and some other girls are going all out on this bridal shower for a girl they don’t even like. The girl is rude and bossy…yet they are going crazy organizing this elaborate party for her. Why?!”
Me: “Yea, women planning events can get intense.”
Friend: “She also told me that when women walk into a room they check out the other women in the room (to see their competition) before even checking out the men! That’s nuts! Men don’t do that…we ALWAYS survey the women when we walk into a room.”
Me: “Yup, it’s awful isn’t it? I think it might be this subconscious, competitive streak that is coded into female DNA.”
Friend: “Women are so weird. It must be awful to walk into a room and immediately think: Oh I better scan around and see if I’m the ugliest woman here! Guys don’t think like that or compete like that…we barely even notice each other at an event unless there’s food involved. If I see a big dude shoveling all the shrimp at the buffet…I find a way to get over there STAT!”
Me: “I don’t know…women are just wired differently. I had a friend tell me that his female friend once admitted to him she only goes to bars with girlfriends that are less attractive than she is…so she’ll always be the prettiest girl in the group—that’s an extreme case though.”
Friend: "Here’s my theory: if you opened up a guy, like he was a machine, there would be about three wires in his hardware.”
Me (imaginatively): “Red, yellow and green?”
Friend: “Whatever. The wires would be attached from his eyes, to his stomach…and to some other part. Simple and straightforward wiring, right? Now if you opened up a girl it would be CRAZY! There would be a million different wires, coils, and springs.”
Me: “Oh… like a gigantic fuse box, or a circuitry mess?”
Friend: “Exactly, and if you tried to pull one wire out it would look deceptively short, but it would actually be everlastingly long. You would NEVER be able to get to the end of the wire…you’d just keep on pulling forever.”

Me: “Yea and if you foolishly messed with the wires there would be a high probability you would activate something and it would explode. Wonderful theory! I’m probably going to steal it from you, write a best seller about it, and brand the book as the new version of Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus."
Friend: "All right."

Photo credits: Galleryspacebar.org

Game Over!

Gaming News: Jessica Zenner got fired from Nintendo for maintaining a personal blog that bitterly complained about and mocked her bosses and co-workers. I've tried to answer some essential questions I assume you might have:


How was she discovered?
She didn’t have her last name on the blog, but she did have numerous pictures of herself posted on it. I’m sure her bad judgment will be a marketable commodity in her search for a new job...NOT.


Did she get a makeover after she became infamous?
Yes…here is her “before-I-got canned” blog picture….and here is her “after-I-got-canned-and-became-temporarily-semi-famous” blog picture.


Is she single?
I’m sorry it seems you got this site confused with E-Harmony.


Will she be buying her 3-year-old son a Playstation Handheld instead of a Nintendo D.S. for Christmas?
That would probably be a fair assumption.


Is there a cartoon strip of this unfortunate Nintendo human resources incident?
Naturally, there is. Please reference below.

(If you can't see the image click here for a close up of the comic strip: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/10/05)

Photo/comic credits go to: Penny Arcade.

A Convenient Win

Al Gore just won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his effort towards making climate change a top global socioeconomic priority. He received it jointly with the United Nations panel, but a win is a win. He even beat out the guy that protected orphans from the Nazis (I bet that guy wants a recount).

It’s sort of weird to put Nobel Peace Prize and Al Gore together in one sentence. It’s been a crazy ride for Gore…one minute he’s wearing too much make-up during presidential debates, being parodied on SNL by Hammond, contesting election votes at the Supreme Court, and the next minute he’s winning an Oscar, and the Nobel Peace Prize.

When I heard he had won it I felt shocked, intermittently hungry, incredulous, and jealous (yea, I don’t get the whole jealously thing either). But you know what? It is Gore’s time to shine and one can’t begrudge him this…he won it for a great reason. Besides, there is something really comforting about Al winning it; in the past we’ve had Nobel Peace Prize winners such as the International Atomic Agency, Yasser Arafat, Doctors without Borders, and Elie Wiesel the holocaust survivor. Now with Gore winning it, for the first time I can confidently say: “If Al Gore can win the Nobel Peace Prize, dude, so can I.”

I’m going to go gnaw on a stick of celery and work through my mixed emotions about this entire thing…okay fine I was being pretentious…I hate celery…I’m gnawing on a Keebler cookie instead.

http://www.floppingaces.net/wp-content/gore3.jpg

"Pushing Daisies"

A lot of people will tell you they don’t own a TV and while others watch TV for entertainment, they just pop open their first-edition of War and Peace and saturate themselves in the richness of literature instead. Truth be told, you shouldn’t believe half of these people because they are probably the ones standing first in line at Best Buy to purchase the latest plasma screen television on the day after Thanksgiving.

I love television so I can never be accused of being a full blown “television is just a vapid wasteland of toxic slush for your mind” crusader; but at the same time I do realize that 80 percent of what’s out there is a mish mash of clichéd story-line sludge and lifeless acting.

When word got out that ABC was creating a primetime show based on the Geico caveman commercials, I knew the fabled TV sludge had slid everywhere including into the brains of TV producers at ABC. But out of the trite crime-lab detective spin-offs and over-worked cop drama muck comes a fledging flower on Wednesday nights: Pushing Daisies. Perhaps the suits at ABC aren’t completely sludge compromised.

Questions you might have:
Why is this weirdly titled show good? Why not continue to watch my Wednesday night TV sludge? My TV sludge may be disgusting and it may slide into my brain like tar-coated petroleum jelly but it occupies me and I love it!

Okay TV sludge lover I shall answer your impetuous questions.
Here are 3 reasons why the show is great.
1. The actors are not well-known. This is refreshing… just like iced pomegranate water after being chased by your neighbor’s crazy flesh-eating Rottweiler. The lack of familiar faces in the line-up makes the cast fresh, prevents viewer distraction with Hollywood gossip, and increases the quality of the acting.
2. The show takes place in a vivid version of a modern day setting. The sets are bright and imaginative, the wardrobe is colorful, and cinematic quality of the production is flawless. It’s visual candy; who doesn’t like visual eye candy?
3. The storyline is very original. You’ll find no harassed district attorneys, no meddling Italian mother-in-laws, and no fashionable-yet-confused New York writers with shoe fetishes and ties to a revolving door of emotionally unavailable businessmen in this script. The idea behind the story is sweet and creative, but the writers skillfully temper the saccharine elements of the storyline with large dollops of showy morbidity. It’s like flavorful sweet and sour chicken without the heart clogging MSG.Yum.

The only problem: the challenge for the writers will be keeping the storyline fresh and stopping Pushing Daisies from becoming a one trick pony show…which will be tough. Regardless…it is a great show…surprisingly even critics agree.

Hopefully they won’t flog the storyline to death like the networks did with Law and Order VIX (or whatever spin-off number they are on now), or Friends, or Will and Grace, or CSI Miami, or Desperate Housewives, or Extreme Home Makeover, or Survivor, or America’s Next Top Model…alright you get the point.

I mean seriously…how many times can Jack Bauer save the world with his ruggedly good looks, resourcefulness, can do attitude, and buttery leather man purse? Okay maybe a lot …truth be told they could make that show go 12 seasons even if Keifer Sutherland is in jail for 3 of them.

(Watch the premiere of Pushing Daisies)

photo credits go to: http://www.english-country-garden.com/a/i/flowers/daisy-3.jpg

A Tale of Unneccesary Fast-Feet Fears and the Rapid Resolution to this Crippling Condition

I walk VERY quickly; it’s my thing. Some people collect funky art, some crochet dustpan holders, and others religiously reorganize their collection of cloth dollies but I, I walk quite rapidly. For the longest time I didn’t even realize I walked quickly… I just thought everyone else in the world walked very slowly.

But I began to notice when I strolled with people they’d breathlessly say: You walk very quickly! I started hearing that a lot and then one day while walking to work from the metro I overtook a man who was about 6 feet 7 inches. He was a giraffe of a human being and probably was once an NBA basketball player and if he wasn’t one shame on him because he should have been.

As my legs scuttled past him on the sidewalk, he looked down at me the way a giant would regard a hobbit and incredulously said, “Whoa…YOU are the one overtaking me?!” and that’s when I truly understood the swiftness of my feet.

What makes me walk so quickly? I’m not quite sure…perhaps it’s because I’m always behind schedule and I think I can catch up to my agenda if I walk rapidly, or maybe it’s my long legs itching to be of use because they are confined to a cubicle for 8 hours a day…or it could be my subconscious competitive self, longing to race all pedestrians on the sidewalk, who really knows?

Back to the point: Lots of people are apprehensive about becoming old…I mean really old. Take Joan Rivers for instance…she was obviously so scared of looking old that she chose to mummify her face into a state of permanent plastic atrocity just to avoid it.

Since I am in my 20s this really shouldn’t be a concern for me, but it is a SCARY prospect!
It’s not the warts, the wrinkles, the shrinking, the curvilinear back, or the senior citizen’s discount that gets me. I’m not even terrified of acquiring the old people smell, or being shipped off to a nursing home, or finding friends in the obituary section of the paper every Sunday. It’s the halting… and creaking tortoise-like walk in orthopedic shoes that troubles me.

When you alight from the metro each day you always see a really old man or woman that takes one step every other minute. Step…after…step…they… slowly…plod …in… their… orthopedic shoes. As you hurry past them you inevitably wonder where they are going and how long it will take them to get there. You also lament for a minute at your certainty that the event will most likely be over by the time they arrive.

To go from being a natural born speed-walker to needing white sneakers with cushy sole support that offer posture alignment and the promise of no blisters…ahhhh. It’s the stuff of nightmares!

I ruminated on this for days and then days turned into weeks. All I could envision was metal walkers and agonizingly slow footsteps. Finally I took action…I did what everyone is supposed to do when they have a fear…I expressed it aloud to a great friend so I could get it out of the dark wrinkles of my mind and into the sunshine drenched daylight.

She sympathetically listened to my fears and when I was done confidently said: This won’t happen to you.
Shocked and encouraged by her confidence I said: How do you know?
Without skipping a beat she replied: You walk freakishly fast. Faster than the average person…so by the time you are old, yes you will have slowed down a bit, but by then your speed will be equivalent to a normal person’s speed. So when you are old you will walk like a normal person. See? It's all relative…you have nothing to worry about.
I pondered it for a minute and thoughtfully said: Hmmm, you might be onto something here. My grandfather does walk pretty fast even though he is pretty old…and my mother is constantly telling me he is from a family of strong and fast walkers...

And that is how I instantly got over my fear of losing my fast feet.

Photo credits:http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/SSPOD/SuperStock_291-1825A~Fast-Moving-Feet-and-Legs-Posters.jpg

Hiatus

Took a brief hiatus, will be back next week!