Feed me
So after weeks of slaving away, hunched over my laptop poring over code*, you can now add my blog to your RSS readers! The moment you've all been waiting for! Just click on the little purple link at the bottom of this page that says "Subscribe to feed." I personally like using Google Reader.
*AKA occasionally looking over the shoulder of the very brilliant guy who added RSS capabilities to my blog in about 1.5 total hours of work
*AKA occasionally looking over the shoulder of the very brilliant guy who added RSS capabilities to my blog in about 1.5 total hours of work
Certain gentlemen of other days...
I went out for a few rounds of drinks last night for a friend's birthday, and was reminded of an inscription in the Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book:
'Recalling certain gentlemen of other days, who made of drinking one of the pleasures of life-- not one of its evils; who achieved content long ere capacity was reached or overtaxed; and who, whatever they drank, proved able to carry it, keep their heads and remain gentlemen, even in their cups. Their example is commended to their posterity.'
It's not very often that I go out on Friday nights-- and I consider myself someone who really thrives on social interaction. I think the above quotation, and the fact that it is recalling an earlier time and obviously not the present, could have something to do with this. What is up, these days, of gentlemen, and ladies, who are well into their legal drinking years and not yet knowing their limits or proving "able to carry it"?
N.B. I am very happy to report that the friends in our party were all of the sort that make drinking "one of the pleasures of life." Happy birthday, Jeff!
'Recalling certain gentlemen of other days, who made of drinking one of the pleasures of life-- not one of its evils; who achieved content long ere capacity was reached or overtaxed; and who, whatever they drank, proved able to carry it, keep their heads and remain gentlemen, even in their cups. Their example is commended to their posterity.'
It's not very often that I go out on Friday nights-- and I consider myself someone who really thrives on social interaction. I think the above quotation, and the fact that it is recalling an earlier time and obviously not the present, could have something to do with this. What is up, these days, of gentlemen, and ladies, who are well into their legal drinking years and not yet knowing their limits or proving "able to carry it"?
N.B. I am very happy to report that the friends in our party were all of the sort that make drinking "one of the pleasures of life." Happy birthday, Jeff!
Keeping up with the Ephrons
So, I have mixed feelings about writing a totally consumer-oriented blog post in an economy like the current one, but at least I have someone to blame for it: Mindy Ephron (aka Mindy Kaling aka Vera Chokalingam).
For whatever reason, she has not updated her amazing, addictive blog in over 2 months-- and I am going through serious withdrawals! In its absence, here is my own starter list of Things I've Bought That I Love.
Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch Sunblock, SPF 70
In the words of Ms. Kaling herself: Oh my God, you guys. This stuff has completely changed my life since I first discovered it in Walgreens last year. For, like, 10 bucks a bottle (which lasts for months) I can hang out in the sun all day without doubling the freckles on my nose! What a concept.
Seriously: even though I vowed three years ago at the age of 21 (while on vacation in the Greek Isles, of all places) that I had officially gotten my last tan, ever, I am still always worried about the wrinkles, sunspots, melanoma, and worse that could result from my youthful sun-related indiscretions. Wearing this stuff every day makes me feel like I'm atoning for those foolish years my Anglo self was trying to keep up with the "golden tan in time for prom" standard set by all those beautiful, olive-skinned Italian girls that populated my high school back in Western PA.
Maybelline Express Finish nail polish in Blushing Bride
I was turned off the first time I tried Maybelline Express Finish nail polish in the late 90's-- I thought the 60 second drying time didn't make up for its dullness and terrible staying power. Oh my God, you guys. If you doubted this stuff at first, you must RE-CON-SI-DER. I bought a bottle of Express Finish earlier this year in a manic rush en route to a meeting when my nails were just a plain-looking mess. I'm happy to say I finally discovered the key to Express Finish love: buying the right, neutral, sheer color.
In the months since I made this re-discovery, I'll be damned if I'm ever *not* sporting Express Finish on my finger nails (for toenails, I defer to professional help.) It lives up to the claims of taking just 60 seconds to dry, and even if it does chip a bit after day 2 or 3, the color is so neutral that imperfections aren't all that noticeable. If you'd like to have shiny, pretty nails all the time, but think you are too busy for anything but the dreaded "bony, unpolished" fingers of Selma Blair's character in Legally Blonde, this stuff is so for you.
Clif Builder's Bar Protein Bar
Numbers are worth a thousand words:
270 calories
20 grams of protein
And DELICIOUS. Like, light-years beyond any protein-heavy bar made thus far by the likes of Pro-Max. I have probably eaten an average of 5 Builder's Bars per week since they hit shelves earlier this year, and have not gotten sick of them yet. My personal faves: peanut butter and vanilla almond. Yummmm, protein.
For whatever reason, she has not updated her amazing, addictive blog in over 2 months-- and I am going through serious withdrawals! In its absence, here is my own starter list of Things I've Bought That I Love.
Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch Sunblock, SPF 70
In the words of Ms. Kaling herself: Oh my God, you guys. This stuff has completely changed my life since I first discovered it in Walgreens last year. For, like, 10 bucks a bottle (which lasts for months) I can hang out in the sun all day without doubling the freckles on my nose! What a concept.
Seriously: even though I vowed three years ago at the age of 21 (while on vacation in the Greek Isles, of all places) that I had officially gotten my last tan, ever, I am still always worried about the wrinkles, sunspots, melanoma, and worse that could result from my youthful sun-related indiscretions. Wearing this stuff every day makes me feel like I'm atoning for those foolish years my Anglo self was trying to keep up with the "golden tan in time for prom" standard set by all those beautiful, olive-skinned Italian girls that populated my high school back in Western PA.
Maybelline Express Finish nail polish in Blushing Bride
I was turned off the first time I tried Maybelline Express Finish nail polish in the late 90's-- I thought the 60 second drying time didn't make up for its dullness and terrible staying power. Oh my God, you guys. If you doubted this stuff at first, you must RE-CON-SI-DER. I bought a bottle of Express Finish earlier this year in a manic rush en route to a meeting when my nails were just a plain-looking mess. I'm happy to say I finally discovered the key to Express Finish love: buying the right, neutral, sheer color.
In the months since I made this re-discovery, I'll be damned if I'm ever *not* sporting Express Finish on my finger nails (for toenails, I defer to professional help.) It lives up to the claims of taking just 60 seconds to dry, and even if it does chip a bit after day 2 or 3, the color is so neutral that imperfections aren't all that noticeable. If you'd like to have shiny, pretty nails all the time, but think you are too busy for anything but the dreaded "bony, unpolished" fingers of Selma Blair's character in Legally Blonde, this stuff is so for you.
Clif Builder's Bar Protein Bar
Numbers are worth a thousand words:
270 calories
20 grams of protein
And DELICIOUS. Like, light-years beyond any protein-heavy bar made thus far by the likes of Pro-Max. I have probably eaten an average of 5 Builder's Bars per week since they hit shelves earlier this year, and have not gotten sick of them yet. My personal faves: peanut butter and vanilla almond. Yummmm, protein.
Thomas Wolfe on travel
Some people can watch the same movie, or read the same book, over and over again. These are the kinds of people with nice DVD and book collections. I am not (typically) one of those people.
But right now I'm re-reading Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again," and I am enjoying it immensely. I'd say this is partly because it is a work of real genius (trust me, read it-- there is not one throwaway sentence in the whole thing) and also because the time in which it's set (late 1920's early 1930's) and the surrounding macro-economic issues resonate today. Not that it wasn't relevant back in 2004, when I first read the book, but now I'm old enough to understand more of it.
The book was published posthumously in 1940, two years after Wolfe died at the age of 38. The feverish, brilliant way it's written makes me think that somehow, he knew this would be his last hurrah. It has that much of a passionate, almost polemical feel.
I've been so fortunate to have a job, and a lifestyle, in which I've been able to travel so much more than the average person. Since the first time nine years ago I boarded a plane solo (for a church convention in Denver, also the trip that I eased my way into becoming a coffee drinker with daily Frappuccinos), I felt what Wolfe describes in the book:
But right now I'm re-reading Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again," and I am enjoying it immensely. I'd say this is partly because it is a work of real genius (trust me, read it-- there is not one throwaway sentence in the whole thing) and also because the time in which it's set (late 1920's early 1930's) and the surrounding macro-economic issues resonate today. Not that it wasn't relevant back in 2004, when I first read the book, but now I'm old enough to understand more of it.
The book was published posthumously in 1940, two years after Wolfe died at the age of 38. The feverish, brilliant way it's written makes me think that somehow, he knew this would be his last hurrah. It has that much of a passionate, almost polemical feel.
I've been so fortunate to have a job, and a lifestyle, in which I've been able to travel so much more than the average person. Since the first time nine years ago I boarded a plane solo (for a church convention in Denver, also the trip that I eased my way into becoming a coffee drinker with daily Frappuccinos), I felt what Wolfe describes in the book:
Perhaps this is our strange and haunting paradox here in America-- that we are fixed and certain only when we are in movement. At any rate, that is how it seemed to young George Webber, who was never so assured of his purpose as when he was going somewhere on a train. And he never had the sense of home so much as when he felt he was going there. It was only when he got there that his homelessness began.
