Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Fairy Lights

so magical and serene. sorta calms life down for a brief moment.




“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think of, say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, & that is our attitude… I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me & 90% how I react to it. & so it is with you… we are in charge of our attitudes.”
— Charles Swindoll

kurt vile

kurt vile ::: beach on the moon (recycled lyrics)
via: GvB

sounds like:
when u wake from a long and glorious slumber, then u realize u don't have to go to work, then u fall back into long and glorious slumber...

4th of July Margarita


Patriotic Margarita

Toast your country all year long with this red-and-blue beverage, one of many signature drinks featuring the vodka-based liquor HPNOTIQ.

To make this festive cocktail, follow these simple steps.

1. Puree thawed frozen strawberries.

2. Blend 2 tablespoons each of the strawberry puree, dark rum, coconut milk, pineapple juice, fresh lime juice, and ½ cup crushed ice in a blender until smooth.

3. Pour 2 to 4 tablespoons HPNOTIQ into a glass, and top with 2 to 4 tablespoons of the strawberry mixture.

from Coastal Living
via: here

Monday, June 29, 2009

Traffic Jams - Jamitons

I found this incredibly fascinating....




"Mathematics of such traffic jams are strikingly similar to the equations that describe detonation waves produced by explosions, said Aslan Kasimov, a lecturer in MIT's Department of Mathematics. Realizing this allowed the reseachers to solve traffic jam equations that were first theorized in the 1950s. The MIT researchers even came up with a name for this kind of gridlock - "jamiton." It's a riff on "soliton," a term used in math and physics to desribe a self-sustaining wave that maintains its shape while moving.

The equations MIT came up with are similar to those used to describe fluid mechanics, and they model traffic jams as a self-sustaining wave...

The MIT team found speed, traffic density and other factors can determine conditions that will lead to a jamiton and how quickly it will spread. Once the jam forms, the researchers say, drivers have no choice but to wait for it to clear. The new model could lead to roads designed with sufficient capacity to keep traffic density below the point at which a jamiton can form.

Kasimov found that jamitons have a "sonic point," which separates traffic flow into upstream and downstream components, much like the event horizon of a black hole. This sonic point prevents communication between these distinct components so information about free-flowing conditions just beyond the front of the jam can't reach drivers behind the sonic point. Ergo, there you sit, stuck in traffic and have no idea that the jam has no external cause, your blood pressure racing toward the stratosphere."

(via Boing Boing)

my awesome mixtape

[mp3] my awesome mixtape ::: me & the washing machine

An Italian band with similar infectious melodies as The Postal Service.

(via: i guess i'm floating)

Cowgirl Love

As much as I am a beach girl, I did go to college in Texas and have a love of all things western. The moment I saw this collection of photos, I knew a blog post was in order. If you have not yet been able to tell by my recent Chris Craymer posts, I love his work.








Sunday, June 28, 2009

video wedding invite

how clever!

Mexico City House






(via Design Crisis)

Top 10 Most Absurd Time Covers



Radley Balko and Jeff Winkler of Reason put together a fun gallery of the "The Top 10 Most Absurd Time Covers of The Past 40 Years," with appropriate commentary.

(via Boing Boing)

Charlie > Sam



Sam Champion drives me crazy. Not only will he never be as entertaining and likable as Charles Gibson but I find him to be "goofy" in a way that should be considered unacceptable for Good Morning America standards. Watching GMA with the Diane/Charlie team, while eating Cheerios in the morning before school was a cornerstone of my childhood.... so maybe I'm a little biased. Sigh... I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that GMA will never be what it once was.

Origami in a bag

Designed by Magdalena Czarnecki, the proceeds go to the WWF to help save the endangered animal and it’s dying population




(via Lake Jane)

AIR FANCE

[mp3] air france ::: GBG Belongs to Us

a great summer song from gothenburg's air france

(via: gorillavsbear)

Saturday, June 27, 2009

did you know...

It is estimated that a week’s worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.



via: swissmiss

surprise wedding reception

how fun!

Doctors Baffled, Intrigued by Girl Who Doesn't Age

From ABCnews.com....

By BOB BROWN
June 23, 2009

Brooke Greenberg is the size of an infant, with the mental capacity of a toddler.

She turned 16 in January.

"Why doesn't she age?" Howard Greenberg, 52, asked of his daughter. "Is she the fountain of youth?"

Such questions are why scientists are fascinated by Brooke. Among the many documented instances of children who fail to grow or develop in some way, Brooke's case may be unique, according to her doctor, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine pediatrician Lawrence Pakula, in Baltimore.

"Many of the best-known names in medicine, in their experience ... had not seen anyone who matched up to Brooke," Pakula said. "She is always a surprise."

Brooke hasn't aged in the conventional sense. Dr. Richard Walker of the University of South Florida College of Medicine, in Tampa, says Brooke's body is not developing as a coordinated unit, but as independent parts that are out of sync. She has never been diagnosed with any known genetic syndrome or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why.

Watch Brooke's story on "20/20" FRIDAY at 10 p.m. ET.

In a recent paper for the journal "Mechanisms of Ageing and Development," Walker and his co-authors, who include Pakula and All Children's Hospital (St. Petersburg, Fla.) geneticist Maxine Sutcliffe chronicled a baffling range of inconsistencies in Brooke's aging process. She still has baby teeth at 16, for instance. And her bone age is estimated to be more like 10 years old.

"There've been very minimal changes in Brooke's brain," Walker said. "Various parts of her body, rather than all being at the same stage, seem to be disconnected."

Brooke's mother, Melanie Greenberg, 48, sees a different picture. "She loves to shop," Greenberg said. "Just like a woman."

Brooke rides in a stroller while her mom shops for clothes in the infant sections of department stores near their home in a Baltimore suburb. That Brooke is in her mid-teens is so mind-boggling that if another mother with a toddler asks Greenberg how old Brooke is, she usually doesn't try to explain.

"My system always has been to turn years into months," Greenberg said. "So, if someone asked today, I might say, she's 16 months old."

read the rest of the article and view slideshows here.....

John Hodgman and President Obama



John Hodgman at the Radio and TV Correspondents' Dinner, addressing President Obama at the head table on the subject of being a true Nerd President.

(via Boing Boing)

Deadline Post It note vid

3 months of planning, 4 days shooting and 6,000+ post-it notes.....
See how they did it here. Filmed by Jay Tseng and edited by Bang-yao Liu.



(via Black Eiffel)

Friday, June 26, 2009

chris craymer

i love this other photo by chris craymer. i don't know why, but it makes me really happy :)

Moon

Sam Rockwell... one of the best actors of our time and one of the most fascinating and kind hearted people I've come to know. A great interview from New York magazine....

"Are mainstream audiences finally about to recognize Sam Rockwell as a national treasure? It'd be about time: The prolific actor, whose versatile work has ranged from leads in moody indies like Snow Angels and Joshua, to scene-stealing supporting turns in Charlie's Angels and The Green Mile, seems poised for a breakthrough — if that's the right word — with his haunting performance in Duncan Jones's sci-fi drama Moon. As the lone inhabitant of a corporate moon base, Rockwell's got the screen pretty much to himself. Until, that is, he bumps into a guy that looks an awful lot like him and his performance becomes something else entirely. Oh, and he'll also appear next year in a little movie called Iron Man 2, which he's currently shooting. Vulture caught up with Rockwell to find out what it's like acting opposite oneself. (Warning: He drops a few spoilers.)

Moon seems like it'd be an incredible challenge: Not only are you playing more than one part, you're pretty much the only guy onscreen. So, basically, you're the movie. Was that daunting?
Yeah, definitely. It can give you nightmares. And it became more daunting the more I worked on it, as I realized how hard it was going to be to pull off. I started preparing a few months in advance. Duncan [Jones] and I would work on it, and then I would work on it with my acting coach. Then I'd go back to Duncan and I'd express any concerns I might have. Then I'd work on it some more on my own. Duncan would come over to New York, and a friend of mine and I would read it together and ad-lib stuff. Duncan would film that and then go back home to London and incorporate some of the ad-libs into the script.

What kind of stuff would you talk to Duncan about?
I kept pressing him on the backstory. We'd start with these very archetypal characters. As we got closer to the shoot, we'd try to make the differences between the characters subtler. We worked this out: The original Sam had done this for a while, but at some point he had to leave. And the company said, "You've done such a good job, we'd like to clone you, and put your clone to work on the moon." And maybe the guy was strapped for money, and just did it, not thinking about the moral ramifications. In fact, maybe he was even a bit of a selfish guy — maybe not necessarily the greatest guy. So we talked about that a bit more, becoming more and more specific.

It's strange: You're not really playing brothers or look-alikes or anything like that. They're basically the same guy, but not quite.
Exactly. It wasn't playing twins. It is different — 'cause they are the same guy. The difference is that the three years one has spent on the moon has changed him a bit. That's what we focused on — that Robinson Crusoe, castaway-ness of it all. It'll change a person, being on the moon for three years by yourself. So we thought about how three years on the moon might affect you — like being in prison, or a concentration camp, or isolated in some other way. That was the basis of the difference between the two clones.

Was it strange being the only actor on set?
It was weird — a big festival of narcissism for me. I was also the only American there, since we were in London. And we were shooting at Shepperton Studios, which was a bit of a ghost town because of a writers strike. But it was good for the climate of the scenes, too. You can control the environment of a scene more. Still, you realize you really appreciate having other actors there. You realize how much you need their help. I welcome surprises from other actors, like Vera Farmiga, Steve Zahn, John Malkovich, Robert De Niro. You want to be challenged.

So, you're doing Iron Man 2 now.
Yeah, I play this guy named Justin Hammer, and he's a rival arms dealer to Tony Stark.

Has it been an adjustment to go from the more indie stuff you've been doing of late to a big-budget sequel?
There's a lot of new stuff, but it's also a bit of a return to what I was doing in Charlie's Angels. The guy I play is like an interesting cousin of the character from that film. [Chuckles]

In the last few years, it seems like you've cornered the market on playing forlorn family men — with Moon, Joshua, Snow Angels, and The Winning Season, which played at Sundance earlier this year.
Yeah, there's probably a theme there. I feel like I'm finally getting to play men. It was a while before I got to do that. The first time, I guess, was Welcome to Colinwood. Then maybe Joshua. I'd never related to the younger parts, really — when I was 10, I felt like I was 40. So maybe I've finally grown into the parts I was always meant to play.


Bonnaroo pics Part 2

Some randoms...more from our incredibly artistic friend Drew...



Dark Mean

dark mean ::: frankencottage



Hamilton Ontario's Dark Mean represent the rare exception of a band that I took one listen to and knew I was on board. The trio's debut 4-song EP Frankencottage is an eclectic hodgepodge of folk rock, electonic elements, and pop. The title track is built on a thudding bass riff, stuttered drums, and 80's-tinged keyboard, while the aptly titled "Happy Banjo" melds melancholic lyrics with upbeat instrumentation that includes banjo (naturally) and horns. Vocally, the different ranges of voices weave together seamlessly to create an intoxicating blend that will have you nodding your head uncontrollably. Frankencottage is the first of three EP's that will form the band's first full-length, and it is available for FREE on the band's website. Highly recommended. -- Capt. Obvious
I couldn't have put it better myself.

dark mean ::: happy banjo


Thursday, June 25, 2009

bridesmaids in cowboy boots

Bonnaroo pics Part 1

From our lovely photographer friend Drew....

Phish
Neko Case
Andrew Bird
Elvis Perkins

more modest mouse

[mp3] modest mouse ::: autumn beds

if you cannot already tell, i have a serious love for modest mouse

(via: i guess i'm floating)

romance photographs






chris has a true gift.
photographer: chris craymer

Before and After kitchens




Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Triumph at Bonnaroo

Hilarious... a little edgy but paints a pretty good picture of the Bonnaroo weekend.




amazing room



Sunflower Wedding

It's wedding season! I went to such a beautiful Santa Barbara wedding this past weekend. It took place in the bride's backyard overlooking the Pacific Ocean, followed by the reception at The Biltmore. Everything was purposefully placed and it was truly a well done wedding. Best of all, the bride's dress was stunning and perfect for an intimate outdoor wedding. She had the bridesmaids in the cutest black/jeweled cocktail dresses. She gets an A+. O ya, she also had a 'pick whatever type of donut you want' station. And to-go goodie bags. And an awesome band. She did it well.

I just came across this wedding below. Looks like another awesome summer wedding.