Happy Merry

Something small and simple and lovely to end the year

Sing a Song for You - Christmas Mix 2010

I have finally finished my Christmas Mix for 2010 (yay!) and for the first time in recent memory I have even finished it before Christmas! 
 
You can download a free zip of the mix from Dropbox here: http://db.tt/ix2vVLz  

(You don't have to sign up for Dropbox to get the file, but I have found that it's a handy (and free) filesharing site that works pretty well.  If you think you might want to sign up, use my referral link!  https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTY3ODYyNTU5?src=global0)

Merry Christmas and enjoy!


Sing a Song for You - Christmas Mix 2010

Hang With Me - Robyn
Shutterbug - Big Boi
Postcards From Italy - Beirut
Klara - Olof Arnalds
Sorrow - The National
Streets of Philadelphia (With Concern) - Casiotone for the Painfully Alone
On A Good Day - Joanna Newsom 
Impossible Soul - Sufjan Stevens
Radiolarians - The Pandas
Go Do - Jonsi
Shark In The Water - VV Brown
Tightrope (feat. Big Boi) - Janelle Monae
Clap Your Hands - Sia
Pursuit of Happiness - Kid Cudi
This Must Be The Place - Talking Heads
Shelter From the Storm - Bob Dylan
I Know It's Over - Jeff Buckley

cat gif

These made my day.

 

 

via Yaldabaoth

JD +MPs

FYI

All I want for Christmas

Anybody can feel free to get me these: 

Henry VIII ladies pants from Five Go Mad

 

For less than 20 quid you can make me deliriously happy and give a gift fit for a king!

Frames

 Sue says they make me look Asian and a co-worker told me that she had basically the same pair when she was 8.  I don't know that either of those things are compliments, but I think I like them anyway.

Pursuit Of Happiness

Specs

Yesterday I went to New York for the afternoon to look at glasses and hang out with my friend Heather. I impulse bought a pair of new frames from Moscot.  The style of frame is called Yale, so I figured it was pretty much meant to be. 

The most charming and perfectly round old Columbian man named Frank helped me pick them out after making me try on a host of wacky frames and "seeing what happens".  They didn't have my lenses in stock (damn you, you astigmatic eyes), but they're going to ship them to me, hopefully before Thanksgiving.  I also went to Fabulous Fanny's and got a pair of very large round frames that I would describe as being a burnt ashy blonde.  I haven't decided if they make me look like I'm trying too hard to be "ironic" (not my goal) but they were pretty cheap so I figured they're worth a shot.  I need to get lenses put in and then pics will be posted. 

The rest of the evening involved lots of walking around LES (I only JUST figured out what that means.  I'm so not cool), eating the most meat-full sandwich ever at Katz's, HP7pt.1 being sold out and chocolate truffles.  Not too shabby.  

connecting

I feel like this is a pretty good representation of me trying to meet and connect with people.

Pumpkin

This past week has been one of my worst in recent memory.  Luckily I have some things to look forward to in the near future.  

For Thanksgiving I'm going to be in Philadelphia looking after this

and this

 I love these guys and I'm pretty excited to see them. Additional Thanksgiving day plans involve seeing Andy at some point (because we've seen each other on Thanksgiving for like the past 12 years and now it's a tradition or something like that) and some type of potluck with Ashley and co. where I'm really looking forward to making this:

Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good

Along with a few other bits and bobs and possibly a very large quantity of some type of meat.  

I've generally been feeling pretty lonely here and unsure of what to do with myself (aside from copious amounts of baking).  So if you feel like visiting or you have any suggestions, let me know.  

Also, HP7pt1 opened last night and for almost all of the other HP movies I went with a huge group of friends to opening night and it was all a super fun clamorous hullabaloo.  This year, I didn't have any one to go with so I passed on the midnight show.  I can't decide if going to see HP alone as a single girl in her 30's who is also a librarian and has a cat is fine/funny or just the lamest thing ever.  

killing them softly

I love how gracefully they all just roll over.

So

I've been told before that I should blog more about things in my life and less about things I find on the internet that I like.  However, I think my life is pretty boring because I don't know tons of people here and while I find talking about working in a library really interesting, not everybody else does.  However, there have been some interesting things so here are a few highlights:

• giant ceilings/big windows
• pretty leaves
• every other weekend trips to Philly
• dinner parties
• so much cooking/baking
• sailors/hickeys
• apple orchards/book barns
• apple themed baking
• Saarinen womb chairs
• extremely tall German nano-physicists that love electronic music
• really cute Asian children
• tights!
• cast iron

I am also planning on posting some pictures of my apartment soon.  I haven't gotten around to hanging everything up on the walls yet, because it's hard to do that kind of thing by yourself; you never know if anything is really straight or not.   It'll happen soon, though.

better

My friend John pointed me towards this funny site, Better Book Titles.  The (obvi) premise is they alter books titles to more accurately capture the book's essence. Alright, I've already over-explained this, but some of them are pretty good.

 Michael Ondaatje: The English Patient

 

James Joyce: Ulysses 

Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita

Craig Thompson: Blankets

Dan Brown: The DaVinci Code 

this must be the place

I can't stop watching this video over and over again.  love. 
 

Philadelphia Love Letter

I remember hearing about the Love Letter mural project going awhile ago while I still lived in Philly.  I think I may have even seen a picture or two on people's blogs (was that you sue?)  Anyhow, these murals are full of whimsy and lovely and often pretty funny.  

Recently, I have been missing Philly more than ever as I am getting ready to transition to a new city/state/job/life again. 

I'll be passing through Philly on the 26th on my exodus north and will be back again the weekend of September 18 for Siobhan's wedding.  I think during one of those trips I need to go find some of these.

Anatomical Typography

love.

covers

Coralie Bickford-Smith is a book cover designer at Penguin.  I stumbled across some of her work on the shelves at Borders and was delighted to find her website.  Her work is so beautiful; at some point I must get all of her hardcovers.  There are few things I find more lovely in life than a beautiful book.

Lions

Learn something new every day.  Do it.

New Haven

I'm moving to New Haven in exactly 3 weeks.  It terrifies me to write that out because that is so so so soon.  

I'll be working at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.  I have an apartment in New Haven, but I haven't seen it yet.  A colleague from the library took pictures for me.  The woodwork is Arts and Crafts and it has a private porch.

I don't know anyone in New Haven at all.  Come visit me?

 

changing

Things look weird because I'm changing everything up.  bear with me.

they're people

Solar

A lovely Solar System music box.  
(click on the image to try it out)

Whitevinyl via Information is Beautiful

junior

So last night I went on a first date with a boy who is a video game graphics programmer, enjoys taking pictures of baby animals, has a Norwegian Forest Cat named Link, is bi-lingual in Croatian, and spent a good bit of his childhood living overseas because his father is in the diplomatic service.  So far, in every email he has sent me there is at least one smiley face and usually 1-2 exclamation points.  

We met up for dinner (Afghan restaurant, Kebabs), and had a totally normal nice conversation.  We split the check (also fine) and each put half on our respective cards.  They only brought one pen, though, which he got to first.  I began digging around in my bag for a second pen, and came up with what was actually a pencil, with something brown and sticky smashed around it.  He could clearly see the confused and perplexed look on my face as I picked it off and I could clearly see the perplexed look on his face as he wondered what that gross brown sticky thing I now had in my hand was.  I then realized that it was an errant Junior Mint that must have fallen out of the box the other day when I went to see 'The Third Man' at the AFI.  I got a little flustered and said, "oh, it's a junior mint, haha" and then said, "oh, and now my fingers are all sticky, I'll be right back." At which point I left to go wash my hands, and my pencil.  Awesome.

oh hai guys!

I'm so excited to be headed to Philly this weekend!

Health

to be completely honest, I haven't followed the whole health care debate, even though I now live in the fishbowl of D.C.  It seems like wanting everyone to be healthy and have access to health care is something we should just all want for one another and I don't have patience for all the arguing.  All of the interviews I heard on NPR last night were just about how angry everyone is at one another and how long people are going to stay upset.  All that being said, I like the colors in this poster.

Good Luck Zerbe

Do you remember that awful-looking Dane Cook/Jessica Alba movie "Good Luck Chuck"?

w

I've never seen it myself (although I'm pretty sure Nick watched it at one point), but my basic understanding of the "plot" is that every time Dane Cook's character sleeps with a girl, the next guy she meets is the guy she's going to marry.  I know it's a bit of a stretch for me to equate myself with this character, but it seems like most of the guys I've met down here and gone on dates with have immediately met someone else and moved on to something serious after hanging out with me. It's honestly not that big of a deal to me, I wasn't feeling any of them anyway, but I am surprised at how often its happened. Oh, and I didn't sleep with them either, which maybe means that I am even more "luck-ful" than Chuck?

Data Crunch

I stumbled across this interesting article that crunches data about Girl Talk's album Feed the Animals. 

Some of the data is what you would expect (list of samples from the whole album, number samples per song, etc.) but they take the data further and also chart the start times of each sample across each song, the median year the samples from each track came from, and the actual sample release dates for each track.  

 

The most interesting thing to me was the fact that a lot of the data was crunched using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. I had never head of this before today, but Mechanical Turk describes itself as a "marketplace for work that requires human intelligence". It seems like you can sign up to do small tasks that take a very short period of time for minimal amounts of money.  For example, I stumbled across another site called The Sheep Market that is collecting 10,000 drawings of sheep by online workers for $.02 a piece.

Anyhow, I think the whole Mechanical Turk thing is pretty interesting and I don't know why I hadn't heard of it before now because it sounds like it's been around for awhile.  If anybody has ever done it or looks into it more, let me know what you find out about how it works.

vortices

the classiest one

supplement

I love charts, especially pretty self-regenerating interactive ones with really interesting information.

undo

by Jon Schramm

late

Alexandria Neonakis aka Beavotron on deviantART

old-timey

spectral

Finally!

I expect visits from everyone!  No more excuses.

brother doctor

I got an email from my dad this weekend that just had a link to a news article about my eldest brother Dan, who apparently went to Haiti for a week at the end of January.  

Perry Doctor Back from Haiti Mission (article)

In general I have some issues with my family's beliefs and how it affects they way they live their lives and treat other people.  However, sometimes I am truly humbled by the strength of their faith and how selfless they can be.  I know it's super dorky, but I'm really proud of him. 

How to