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Posts Tagged ‘words’
Between Here and There
A few weeks ago a friend and I were talking about the fractions of life – how events can shift your course depending on the smallest difference in circumstance or how you handle a situation. I feel this acutely every time I walk around my work neighborhood in Portland, a pocket between the Pearl and Chinatown. In the Pearl, well-to-dos get their nails buffed and highlights touched up, while a few blocks away in Chinatown down-on-their-lucks wait in line for a bowl of soup.
Fractions are funny, my friend and I agreed, in that they are intangible and hard to measure until the repercussions of an action are fully unfurled, and sometimes only become apparent when you stack each fraction of change on top of the other. I am somewhere between these two worlds of well-to-do and down-on-my-luck, but walking the line down 5th Street in Chinatown makes me wonder how many steps there actually are, between here and there. #occupywallstreet
Eli, No! Lucy, Yeearrrchhh!
Earlier in the year I had the pleasure of meeting some new designer acquaintances who were on a travel adventure across the USA. When Nathan Strandberg and Katie Kirk of Eight Hour Day made a stop in Portland, we bonded over our chocolate labs on a rainy day spent walking the dogs at Thousand Acres on the Sandy River Delta.
Eli: no mischief here, no sir, not at all.
While the Northwest weather may have driven Nathan and Katie on to their next destination with haste, their pup Eli and my pup Lucy didn’t seem to mind the rain, mud and driving wind that makes Portland fall something special. Those labs seem to have an unwavering love for life that shines thru so clear that it makes it easy to put up with some of their eccentricities.
Lucy: the face that could trick you into just about anything.
So when Katie wrote and illustrated the book Eli, No! about her faithful companion’s shenanigans, it all felt very familiar. If I had to write a book about my dog pal, it would be titled LUCY, YEEARRRCHHHH! because that is the pterodactyl noise that I make when she is doing something inappropriate. It’s not the most endearing sound to come from a human, which is why you probably won’t be seeing a sequel from my neck of the woods anytime soon. Instead, I’ll just use Katie’s book to relive Lucy’s less glorious moments.
Katie loves her dog, so she wrote a book about him.
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A mule by another name…
I received three figurines in the mail from my friend Sarah, who wrote that she knew I liked horses and thought I might do something fun with these half-inch tall toys. I opened the tissue paper wrapping she sent them in to find two horses…and a baby calf?
I was pretty sure that Sarah knew the difference between a calf and a foal…but what WAS the relationship of my three new charges, and did THEY know that something was off kilter? I have a feeling an uncomfortable confrontation between the baby calf and the Parental Horse Units will be happening soon.
Son, there is something we need to tell you...
Add to your ‘Most Ridiculous Riders Ever’ List
After reading an article on The Smoking Gun about the Foo Fighters’ rider, my pioneer rabbit started to get real persnickety leading up to his participation in the Stumptown 40 Pinewood Derby Car Race. So he hired a crack legal team to craft a ridiculous rider. Probably never should have taken those glossy head shots. Rabbit knows what rabbit wants, I guess.
Who knew a fake pet rabbit could be so demanding...
Technology Used to Find Dinner, Hunger Averted
A recent brush with hunger left a North Bend, Virginia, man shaken, yet thankful for the support of his wide network of digital acquaintances. Local field correspondent Noilly Prat sat down with John Davis to recount the events leading up to his stomach rumbling near-miss.
Davis recounts, “You shouldn’t settle on where you’re going to eat dinner lightly, so I tweeted ‘NEbody know wings joint with HH deals between Woodby street and 6th ave?’ as well as updating my Facebook status to ‘going out to eat tonight, any suggestions?’ After 45 minutes passed without a response I knew I’d have to dig deeper to find my evening meal.
Social networking isn't always on time.
“First, I tried to think of all the places I might like to eat, but nothing seemed quite right. I wanted something light but savory, but not too greasy, with wings on the menu but no cracked peanuts on the floor, and of course a screaming deal on happy hour,” he explained. “That’s not too much to ask, is it?”
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The Fun Theory
When I was younger, my dad used to cut out newspaper articles and highlight the important parts for me or his students to read. Now that he’s fully emerged in the digital world, I get short, unpunctuated, uncapitalized emails telling me what to read.
His most recent recommendation was this video from The Fun Theory, a “site that is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better”. I’m all for that!
The Fun Theory is an initiative of Volkswagon. Normally I would be the first paranoid Gen-X denouncer of a big company trying to convince me to “like” something on Facebook, but for some reason this just makes me like Volkswagon more. Good job marketing team!
Watching the Fun Theory videos solidified some thoughts I had been having about my blog and its purpose. My blog is a way for me to 1) explore ideas, 2) get better at making things, and 3) bring people enjoyment or encourage thinking about things a bit differently.
Number 3 is the important one, because I believe that people are at their best when they are happy or inspired. Whatever we can do to poke at each others brains to spur positive action, the better. And if it turns out that my blog is “just fun”, well that’s not so bad either.
Sunshine Farts
When I saw this page in the recent Urban Outfitters catalog, I knew exactly what I was going to do with it. I imagine the photographer shouting directions at this young impressionable model…”Pretend like you’re eating the sunglasses and farting sunshine!”. We’ll probably never know what really happened, so let’s go with it.
I've been told that people like fart jokes, so...
The Printing Press is Your Friend
![[image of a campbell newspaper letterpress machine] THE PRESS: The printing press is one of the best friends we have. By its use, we are in easy possession of a great deal of useful knowledge, that we could not otherwise obtain without great labor and expense. It makes good books and newspapers so numerous and cheap, that every body who wishes can have them. Have you ever seen a printing press? If you never have, ask your parents to please take you to a printing office to see one. It is a very curious machine.](http://bureauofbetterment.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/the-printing-press-is-our-friend.jpg "the-printing-press-is-our-friend")
Found Via Keegan Wenkman at Serial Machinist, from Kyle Van Horn’s collection.
Noilly Prat and Isabel Branco
You might have seen the vintage liqueur bottles my neighbors brought me a while back; here are a few more that didn’t seem to fit in with the first batch.
Noilly Prat and Isabel Branco: two mean mofos in the miniature alcohol bottle world.
Noilly Prat and Isabel Branco seem like the alcohol version of Bonnie and Clyde in comparison to the Crema Liqueur series. If they met in dark alley, I have no doubt Noilly would off the Sabor de Platano without a second thought. Upon further scrutiny it turns out Noilly Prat is a French company that uses floofy flourishes all over their website. I’m guessing that means the “t” in Prat is silent, which negates most of the badass connotations. That ALSO means that Noilly PraT (emphasis on the “T) is up for grabs (just like the URL www.discountbordello.com).
Therefore, let it be known that I claim Noilly Prat as a pen name for times when I need go undercover to tell tales like Turkey: 1, Mormon Boyfriend: 0. Like all legendary duos, Noilly needs a comrade, so I am hereby seeking an Isabel Blanco to be my partner in crime. The position is currently undefined (I’m imagining we can have cheese eating contests, watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the Musical, and see what a turtle on roller skates can accomplish if they set their mind to it) and will stay open until filled.
Noilly Prat, quick draw, seeks partner in crime.
Be my Isabel Branco.
Toasters VS Bananas
The Povey Building (where I work) is filled with creative folk. Sometimes that leads to tangential exchanges that aren’t even understood by the people taking part. I-kid-you-not correspondence in its entirety transpired as follows. Get me my paymaster, I’m putting this on the tab.
Turkey: 1, Mormon Boyfriend: 0
A while back my friend Jen from Under the Table was promoting an event called “It’s Not You, It’s Me: Stories from the Dark Side of Dating”. She asked some of her food loving friends to contribute their disastrous food-related dates…my submission unfolds as follows in a story I like to call: Turkey: 1, Mormon Boyfriend: 0.
Bringing your new boyfriend home to meet the parents is always a bit stressful…especially when said boyfriend is of the Mormon faith and your parents are of the faith where herpes, safe sex and religion in the Middle East are liberally discussed at dinner (maybe even at breakfast if the coffee is just right). Apart from anticipating the rousing and explicitly vulgar games of charades my family usually plays after dinner, I thought our first meal together would be a fairly stress free affair.
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