Mashup bash

My nails are painted with smiley faces, I'm grabbing all the neon in my closet, and in two hours I'll be en route to Philadelphia to finally take part in our generation's answer to the dance rave: a Gregg Gillis (a.k.a. GirlTalk) concert. Yay.

For the love of literature

There are few thrills in life that compare to getting something for free.  There are also few feelings as comforting (at least to me) as adding a book to one's permanent collection, to keep the others and the owner company.  Thanks to the Concord Free Press, an organization that publishes books and gives them away via their website and various independent bookstores, we can all have our prose without dropping a penny.  In exchange, they ask their readers to make voluntary donations to the charities of their choice, and to pass the book on in order to generate a network of literary giving.  They proclaim to take on the project of "re-invigorating the book, which isn't dead yet, by the way."  I have faith in you, Concord.  One free book at a time.

Have a heart, Michelle

Let Malia and Sasha's sense of humor and whimsy shine through.  Frank and Moose are some good old-fashioned, clever pet names.  Portuguese water dogs all look like they should be called Frank anyway.

The good Doctorow

Some wise words:

"This is the best time in history to have a worst time - the time at which our capacity to do things in a way that's outside of traditional economics is at its highest.  It's never been easier to come together to have fun, to make stuff, to change things."

-Cory Doctorow via BoingBoing

Right on.  Seems to echo a certain someone's address to Congress last night, namely this part:

"The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach.  They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.  Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure.  What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more."

The guy is a freaking oratorial genius.

Hold the dead baby jokes

Those who may be a few (thousand) miles away from New Orleans today, as I am, needn't let distance impede their Mardi Gras celebrations.  Even if you don't have any beads left to encourage Hopkins students to take their shirts off for, you can get still into the holiday spirit with this easy King Cake recipe - a Mardi Gras tradition.  It tastes like an oversized cinnamon bun with sugary icing and appropriately colored sprinkles, and can be filled with such delights as bavarian cream, pecans, cream cheese, fruit, and more.  Most importantly, there is a tiny plastic baby meant to represent a lil' Jesus hidden inside, and whoever gets it is obligated to bring a King Cake to the next party.  I found the baby in our all-of-2-minute devouring of a cake inside the car on the way home, so let's hope class doesn't get in the way of bake-time today.

Image courtesy of gambinos.com

Dances for Beads

Before beginning to recap the events of the past weekend, I'd like to acknowledge the extremely deserving Oscar winners: Heath, Penelope, Kate, Sean, Slumdog - I was rooting for you, and I couldn't be happier.

OK.  So, my travel companions and I got back to Baltimore at about 9:30 this morning after leaving the Big Easy around 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon.  The nearly 40 hours we spent in the car to get there and back were 100% worth the 48 hours we spent eating and drinking ourselves into physical pain, walking all around the city in increasing states of unkemptness, and sleeping on various hard surfaces (southern hospitality is no myth - our last night in New Orleans was spent on the floor of a yoga/meditation community center run by a friend-of-a-friend who teaches a class on Tibetan Buddhism at the university).  We feasted on beignets, eggs and grits, king cake, coffee with chicory, and hurricanes.  We procured pounds and pounds of plastic beads, whose weight became so unbearable we had to periodically let them loose into the streets.  We saw celebrities (James Carville and Kid Rock), parades by the French Quarter, the uproarious ridiculousness of Bourbon Street and the pastel turreted homes of the Garden District.  Considering that we arrived in the city with no plans whatsoever, we experienced a series of adventures the likes of which will never be forgotten (hysterical drunkenness notwithstanding).  The only shame is that we had to leave before Tuesday.  Looks like Baltimore's just gonna have to see its own Mardi Gras parade.

The best bad decision

At nine o'clock this evening, I will pile into a small car with four friends, three of whom will switch off driving 17 hours straight through the night to get us all to New Orleans for the weekend preceding Mardi Gras.  This decision was made approximately three days ago.  We have no real plans for a place to stay (a friend of a friend has some floor space for two or three of us, another friend's ex-whatever may be able to house some, and I'm planning on trying to mooch off the few people I know at Tulane).  We'll be there through Sunday, hopefully returning on time Monday morning for a neuroscience exam that my champ of a pre-med friend wouldn't let stand in her way of the road trip.  But hey, it's definitely worth it, right?  Especially after the more-than-mildly disappointing news about Preakness.  

So I'll be out of blog-touch for about four days ... in the meantime, here's hoping that Hopkins lax beats Siena and that Slumdog Millionaire rakes it in on Oscar night!

Wonder how many beads these Mardi Gras mamas got for their super-creepy body paint?

Techies hang ten

Who knew the Germans were so gnarly?  The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence is perfecting a mashup of the Wii balance board and Google Earth, such that users will be able to surf the Swiss Alps or their own cities without leaving their rooms.  

See for yourself here.

How to get hired in the midst of a recession

Yesterday's gchat convo with one of my few friends who knows what she's doing after graduation:

Lauren: I got lucky

me: ahahah

Lauren: my mom was at the bagel tray at the right time at the right bat mitzvah

Lesson learned? Keep your chin up and don't discount the power of schmoozing.  Or the bagel tray.

Nice little Sunday

Because second semester senioritis has turned me into a master procrastinator, I thought I'd share the events of one such day in which work should have been a priority and instead failed to factor into the equation at all.  This was yesterday:

9:30 a.m. : Wake up to an alarm meant to jumpstart a day in the library.

10:30 a.m. : Get out of bed.

11 a.m. : Watch youtube tutorials on how to create leopard-print nails.

12 p.m. : Admire my hot pink handiwork.

12:30 p.m. : Have the bright idea to make decal-inspired cutout flowers.  Attach to wall, finishing off with erasable crayon stems.

3 p.m. : Catch a ride to Trader Joe's, purchase random unnecessary groceries (mochi ice cream? butternut squash? chocolate yogurt? - that last one was nasty).

7 p.m. : Back at school in time for sorority meeting. 

8:30 p.m. : Mess around on Photoshop CS3.

10:00 p.m. : Watch "In Bruges" (wowww, Clemence Poesy is gorgeous. And Netflix is the greatest).

Oh well, today's a new day . . . pshh.

Get me to AC on time

I think some sort of void has just been filled - the ACES (Atlantic City Express Service) train takes passengers from New York's Penn Station to Atlantic City for a mere $50 coach ticket from Friday to Sunday.  2 1/2 hours from now (give or take a little), you could be at the Borgata with a drink in hand, on your way to winning big.  Check it out here: www.acestrain.com.

Weird and wonderful

Had the pleasure of attending Beach House's free concert at the Zodiac (former restaurant next to Club Charles) to benefit the endangered Senator Theater.  Although the band truly rocked, my memory of openers The Creepers is what will stick.  They played to the date (Friday the 13th on the eve of Valentine's Day) by creating an effectively freaky, bleeding-heart ambience that appealed to romantics and creeps alike.

Beach House themselves were awesomely haunting and atmospheric, and I'm harboring a major crush on mustachioed dreamboat Alex Scally, as well as a mini-girlcrush on 26-year-old organist and vocalist (and fellow Charles Villager!) Victoria Legrand.  For those Baltimoreans who missed out, the beautiful duo will be at Sonar on March 11.

The breakfast that smiles back

They don't call it a morning pick-me-up for nothin.'

Janis Paintbox by way of Boingboing

Heidi Kenney by way of Boingboing

Gonna make that oatmeal for myself.

Creative cupcake creations

Cause there's really nothing better than having your own personal cake.
Want this cupcake seat.  But since it's slightly out of my price range, I'll have to settle for the cheaper (and arguably more delicious) alternative, also known as the real deal.

This is a batch of obscenely easy pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (I got the piping effect by using a ziplock bag).

Next up: peach cupcakes with mascarpone icing ...

... adapted from The Cupcake Queen's recipe (I used cinnamon instead of nutmeg and dyed some of the frosting peach-colored for decorative purposes).  Note: if you don't have an electric mixer, beating the frosting 19th-century-style will make your arm fall off. Ouch. But it still works.

Martha Stewart, eat your heart out.

Delightfully creepy

Writer-director Henry Selick of "Nightmare Before Christmas" fame has done it again (although I must admit that the previews for his new movie mislead me - I was under the impression that at least one of Tim Burton's gnarled paws was involved the making of the flick): "Coraline" is the first stop-motion feature film ever to be animated in 3-D.  The fantasy of the animated world coupled with the realism lent by the third dimension make Coraline's dual universes come to life in an eerily whimsical manner that I, for one, couldn't take my eyes off of.

Coraline, a spunky little blue-haired chick whose penchant for yellow raincoats and galoshes is sure to spawn a sea of Halloween imitations, is a classic fairytale heroine who journeys through her unconscious to eventually find home.  The story draws from many familiar elements (the portal into dreamworld is reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland's rabbit hole or Dorothy's cyclone into Oz, but psychologically darker still - the tiny door looks just like the entry into John Malkovich's brain), despite the fact that crucial plot points are somewhat lacking.  Taking aside the missing explanation of what links Coraline's real world to that of her dreams, the movie's astonishing strength lies in the complexity of its images.  The handmade-puppetry feel is no special effect.  Painted popcorn forms lifelike cherry blossoms, sweaters are knit in miniature, and spinning dog toys create a garden of blooming flora.  It took thirty animators almost three years to bring this wonderfully wacky fantasy to the screen, and with good reason: "Coraline" is a virtual tour-de-force of modern animatronic capabilities, one which I feel fairly certain will not be the last of its kind.

If Oprah digs him, I can too

"We live in stressful times and are bombarded daily with bad news.  In contrast, how little we hear about the trend of tremendous good that is being done, the trend of compassionate, generous humanitarian action that is occurring on the planet.  Here's some good news: we have the power to unlock ourselves in this very instant, to drop the cell phone, the earplugs, and just for a while, sit still and simply be.  Not be someone, but rest in our pure being.

"Right on the ground where you now stand, dare to unhook from all of the complaining, excuses, projections onto others, blaming - all the rackets that we run in order to cope with life.  It is absolutely within our ability to rejuvenate, regenerate, and resurrect ourselves.  When we hear about others who have transcended their individual challenges, we can be confident that they have first transcended the tyranny of trends by beholding a deeper dimension of their innermost core."

From "Spiritual Liberation," by Michael Bernard Beckwith

Bright side of the moon

The first penumbral lunar eclipse of 2009 occurred early this morning.  The February full moon (the "snow moon," as it was known by eastern Indian tribes) is symbolic of the change our country must make towards collective priorities and away from individual worries and ego, as the Earth blocks the light of Leo's moon.  I'm gonna do a little Monday meditation on what this means for the new year - I think it's a good thing.

Let the sun shine in

57 degrees and sunny in New York today!

Lefties of the world, unite

Obama is a lefty.  This means that not only are we related, but we write with the same hand!  My quest to bring myself closer to this mystical man continues.

Note: I have chosen not to label any of these posts due to the embarrassing ratio of Barack-worship/affiliation attempts to non-Obama-related musings.

And now for your listening pleasure, a link to audio clips from the president's book in which he curses like a sailor.

Recession, schmecession

My favorite downtown Thai-ish restaurant-cum-diner has sprung back to life after being shut down for months due to fire damage.  Lovely Day, the darling of Nolita funksters and foodies alike, will start with delivery orders before a full-on re-opening.  My tastebuds could not be more excited.

Photo courtesy of Gavin Thomas via nymag

First poem of '09, eek

Blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter, for those out of the proverbial poetic loop) assignment due in an hour that I spent the last 25 minutes on ... damn you, senioritis.

newyork.craigslist.org/missedconnections

The A train, 6 p.m.  I'm heading home

and sweating.  Set my heels at shoulder-width

to ride the wave.  You sit across from her.

You read "A Thousand Splendid Suns," and so

does she.  You cannot see (I'm planted in-

between you two).  She's cute.  Not fat, but not

a salad gal.  She looks at me.  Nice eyes.

I think you could be into her (if you

could see).  I'd move, except there's no room free.

You're reading pretty slow.  It's possible

that she's too smart for you.  Perhaps that's what

you need.  Is it my job to point this out?

Madam, monsieur, excuse me but the book

you hold (that lived a hundred billion weeks

on NY Times Best-Seller List) - well, it's

the same.  You're riding the same subway train.

And both at rush hour, at that.  What's more,

it's likely that you both have read Khaled's

"The Kite Runner" (because it comes before).

There's even something vaguely foreign-ish

about you both.  I think that this could be

the start of something interesting.  At worst,

an entertaining tale.  It could work out.

But isn't it a little strange or sweet

that they don't have a clue?  He's getting up.

It's Broadway-Nassau Street.  That's my stop, too.

The seaweed is always greener in somebody else's lake

Maybe it's 'cause I'm a Pisces, but I've always had an intense relationship with the ocean, a mixture of intense awe, fear and fascination.  My seaworthy itch tends to get stronger closer to my birth month (I watched "The Life Aquatic" last night and had crazy scuba dreams).  So it's fitting that I recently came across the piece of news that Google Earth has delved into another, darker dimension - their new undersea view, announced Monday, depicts maps of the ocean floor as well as videos and photos of the plants and creatures that reside there.  Additionally, users can go in the opposite direction for a close-up of Mars, or see how aerial views of the earth have changed with the impending climate crisis (Al Gore is clearly a fan of that one).  For more on the new and improved Google Earth, check out earth.google.com for yourself!

Be fruitful and multiply

As a kid, I never got junk food in my lunch box, so as a result, the relative worth of Gushers and Goldfish skyrocketed.  Many a recess was spent trying to trade my boring bag of baby carrots for a taste of a pal's more illicit (and thus tastier) treats.  Even though I pack my own lunch these days, Fruit Roll-Ups seem just as delicious as they did then (they're stretchy! and sweet! and tattoo your tongue!).  The combo of their now-retro cool factor and the opportunity to make 'em uniquely your own ... well, I just don't think I can resist the strange and wonderful option to personalize my Fruit Roll-Up.

That's one way to encourage literacy

French president Nicolas Sarkozy announced his plan for the country to provide free newspaper subscriptions to teens on their 18th birthdays.  Weird, but at least he's paying some lip service to the dying media.  Think Obama will follow suit?

via Associated Press

Seven layers of Superbowl scrumptiousness

I don't really watch (read: understand) football, but somehow Superbowl Sunday never fails to ignite a spark of excitement each year.  I think it has something to do with the surrounding culture - beer, comfort food, and a rockin' halftime show.  I'll be cheering Bruce on with a bottle of Smithwick's (not very American, I guess, but a delicious new discovery of mine nonetheless) and digging into a veggie version of 7-layer nacho dip.  Goes a little somethin' like this ...

Photo courtesy of Elise.com

One layer each of the following (in whatever order you please):

- Refried beans

- Sour cream (can be substituted for a layer of nacho cheese)

- Salsa

- Guacamole

- Diced tomatoes

- Chopped olives/lettuce

- Grated cheese 

And if you're missing the meat too much, maybe this banned PETA commercial will help convince you otherwise.  Or maybe it will make you too nauseous to eat, which accomplishes a relatively similar result.