On stuffophilia

So, it's one of those days...

Zombie White (and no Huntsman)

I *really* want these origami speakers. In addition to being awesome in the capacity of being ORIGAMI SPEAKERS (!), they also sound pretty cool sound-wise. Want.

(Also, from this fabulously awesome site I might be addicted to now ((designfetish.org)), it is worth checking out the posts about people as pixels, the Pixar minimalistic poster series, and not to mention Zombie Attack Barbie. Once she's through with Ken, she can have a go at Snow White...) 

I don't really believe the following really happened, but that's sort of the point, isn't it...

(I wish it were true, though. Bill Murray FTW)

I have inherited from my grandfather a clock (of the mantel variety) that require a deposit of 1 krone (though unfortunately not the currently used version) per week to power it, like a savings arrangement. I don't have a picture or link, but I felt the mentioning of it belonged in this post.

*snort*

I know someone whose potential wedding cake should look like this, but I am not going to tell him because I don't want him to think I am making suggestions... (You know who you are and if you are reading this: I am not. Making suggestions. I am reading it. After having written it. Checking for typoes. Probably missing a few.)

Also, I looked up "who's" versus "whose" for the umpteenth time. And now I looked up umpteenth... Gah. 



Aaaaand one more posting from designfetish(I think I might have one, yes).org:

It's a GUMMY BEAR DRESS!!! OMD - could I pull it off? Probably not, but I could eat it off! Ha! I made a funny! 

And now I need to get off the internet, or at the very least go back to Facebook lurking. Laters, taters!

On my desk

...there is a bottle, empty, but it once contained orange juice. No longer. Someone drank the juice. Me, presumably.

On my desk there is also a postcard, blank, but I originally bought it with someone specific in mind. I still look at it from time to time and find a special guilt in my heart. I should write the postcard soon-ish.

There is a telephone, or two, actually. One is my cell phone of five years this fall. It's been with me through a lot - across oceans, through a master's thesis, several jobs. I've had good news and great news and terrible news and oh-well-it's-probably-for-the-best-news handed to me through it. I've heard voices I despise, and voices I love. Texts that have made me cry. Some that made me glow.
The other phone is the land line to the office I currently occupy. It's rarely in use. This morning it nearly startled me to death, as I'm not used to the sound of it. The conversation was comical and irrelevant.

On my desk there is a Starbucks travel mug. Sakura 2011 edition. I bought it sometime in the early spring last year, expecting to actually be able to see the 2011 sakura blossom in Tokyo. Then the earthquake changed my plan. I hold no grudge against the mug, though.

There is a timetable on my desk. It is too full for my liking.

On my desk there is a pair of sunglasses. They long for usage.

On my desk there is a lot of papers. Some of them belong there, some of them really don't. I should take some time to organize them. I probably won't.

A couple of books - history books - open on the pages of "World War Two" are covered with a pair of gloves and a cheerful scarf.

Another pair of sunglasses. They too long for usage.

On my desk there is three pairs of earrings and two regular rings. And then a keyring. With lots of keys on it. Most of them are to my apartment (4), the rest (3) are for a) work; b) my parents' house; and c) and old bike I haven't used for at least ten years. The figurines attached to the keychain are all bought in Japan, but with 8 years in between.

I have three types of lipgloss and/or lipbalm lying around on my desk.

The various equipment for writing include: one keyboard, three ballpoint pens, two pencils - one of them red, three different colours of highlighters, two felt-tip pens, one "gel-ink" marvel.

On my desk there is a watch. It's not working. Benefit: I didn't have to adjust it for daylight saving this weekend.

Post-it notes of at least three different shapes and colours are spread across the desk.

There is a water bottle on my desk.

On my desk there are two fairly good loudspeakers. The problem is that they only work about half the time.

On my desk there is a dead fly. It's been sitting in that exact position since I moved into this office in October.

On nail polish

I'm gonna have a shallow-moment here, and recommend all the lovely ladies out there (and those of the men in touch with their feminine sides, I guess) to invest in a MAT TOP COAT to reinvent all those nail polishes you are tired of. Red? Try matte red. Black? Matte black. Sparkly? Matte sparkly! Everything goes with matte, and it looks so - elegant. Worldy. Sophisticated. Lush velvet matte nails. Your hands will thank me.

(Also - I know that it is perhaps more commonly spelled "mat", but that just doesn't scream elegant, worldly, sophisticated, and lush like matte does. So there.)

Picture proof:

(For the record, none of these nails are mine. I couldn't be bothered to take a picture of my - equally velvety, but less perfectly manicured - nails)


(For the other record, this has been a public service announcement in no way sponsored [seriously. It was expensive as crap. I mean crack. And no one offered to pay me to write that. I would totally let them. But for some reason, this seems not offered to me. Hrmf!].)

(If  someone is keeping a record at all - for that record - this blog will return to non-shallow, non-girly topics tomorrow. I promise. I know I said that with the ecards too, but this time I mean it. Really. I think.)

On awkward awards

Okay. This might be a case of shooting myself in the foot, but I think I have to say it.

Awards are awkward.

There. Good to have it out.

I remember when I first started noticing blog awards I was curious, and in awe. How great these blogs must be, getting all sorts of "awards"! I didn't at first ponder over who gave the awards, or even why. Thus, when I got my first I was thrilled, and I proudly displayed it in my sidebar as I had seen others do. Someone liked my blog enough to give it an award!

That last part is the one thing still remaining in my opinion about awards from the first encounter. It is nice to be liked, and I do think that most people genuinely like the blogs they choose to give an award to. Which is nice. Also, it helps spreading the word about these likeable blogs, which is also nice. Nice, nice, nice.

Despite this, however, I have now decided to remove myself from the whole awardosphere within the blogosphere.

There are several reasons. First, and it's an important one, is that almost all the awards require quite a lot of work. You have to pass it on. Link to whomever gave it to you, to everyone you pass it on and their uncle Fredo. You have to display it in your sidebar, or on a different page, or in a post or on whatever metaphorical mantelpiece you choose (but you ought to pick one, or you'll feel bad and ungrateful). And often you have to answer 5-50 questions about yourself, write 17 lies and one truth, confess 3 sins or say a Hail Mary.

Because of all this work, I have for several months been slacking whenever a friendly "you have an award!" pops up in my inbox. I'm flattered, and I think it's sweet, but I also feel like pretending I didn't see it. Once or twice I simply forgot about the entire thing, and probably came out as the most arrogant, ungrateful person on earth. More than once or twice I have said I would put it up on my site, but still failed to do so.

A second reason I feel awkward about awards, however, is that while most of them are sweet, some of them have ulterior motives (or rather, the person giving them do). I have seen what I'd like to refer to as "spawards" - they are the award equivalent of spam. Many bloggers receive them at once, from a previously unknown sender, whose only intent is for each and everyone of us to display an icon with a link to their site on our blogs. They don't give us anything (other than fake credit), but we give them ads. For free.

I don't do ads on my blog, on principle. Similarly, I won't do spawards. Occasionally, however, they are hard to distinguish from "actual" awards. Recently I got one I suspect is a spaward, but rather than being from a company or organization, this was from a person, a single blogger. A clever way of promoting your blog, or an annoying and cunning trick to lure people you have no intention of networking with into visiting it?

Finally, and more shallowly, I am sick of the way the awards clutter up my sidebar. They made it look messy and disorganized, less pretty and less professional. So now they're gone. For good.

In the future, if I get an award, I will naturally still think it's nice (especially if it's from one of my blog buddies), and I will thank him/her, and I will mean it. But I will not pass it on. I will not display it or mention it here on my blog.

I really hope this does not offend anyone (as it is not intended to do so). It's really just a matter of giving myself an award I've been wanting for a long time.

On makeovers (home edition)

If I had a Twitter acount, today’s tweet would have been: ”Why do home makeover shows always make me cry?”

Since I don’t have a Twitter account, however, I can also add that it used to only be Extreme Makeover, Home Edition”, that made me cry, and it used to be because of all the sad stories getting (seemingly) happy endings.

But no more.

Now I get weepy-eyed for everything that contains a paintbrush. It doesn’t matter if it is a surprise makeover, a 60 minute-makeover, a “how to get more money for your house when you are about to sell”-makeover, or even one of those “your house is now so cluttery that you need professional help to sort through it and because you or a loved one has finally sought it with the help of a television show, we will reward you with new furniture and wallpaper”-makeover.

There really are a lot of home makeover shows out there, and one might wonder if perhaps there are too many. The real question, however, is why in the world I watch them all when they only make me cry. It’s not like I have a house I can makeover…