Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Smell Like a Kid Again

I wanted to invent these! They are colognes/perfumes with those wonderful kid smells...
Dirt, PlayDough, Orange Cream Popsicle, Paint, Crayons, Waffle Cones, BubbleGum, Cotton Candy, Birthday Cake, Glue, Sawdust, Vinyl (as in New Car Smell). Oh well, I'll just have to settle for buying them... but which one first? http://www.perpetualkid.com

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Tracey Ullman - State of the Union

Was listening to Fresh Air on WHYY on the web today, and caught a great interview with Tracey Ullman. She is quite the character (as herself)! Look forward to checking out her new show on Showtime for some good laughs.

WHYY for Windows Media
Tracey Ullman's State of the Union


Monday, March 24, 2008

FreeCycle.org

I've been slowly de-cluttering clothes as we grow. So, last weekend I used my local Freecycle.org group to unload some of the used threads. I was so happy to pass on maternity clothes and newborn clothes and have plans to also get rid of the boys' outgrown clothes along with some other recently acquired second-hand items that we don't like. It's fun to browse the group each day and rewarding to imagine that my used stuff is somehow benefiting someone else. I've considered acquiring some other people's used Offers, but since will be moving soon, I think I will just stick to giving for now.


Check out http://frecycle.org to find a local Freecycle (Yahoo) Group near you where you can 'recycle' used household items and save them from the landfills for a little while longer. All the offerings are FREE (really, truly FREE), all you have to do is arrange a pickup with the donor.

Content Starved

Lately, I've realized that I've been starving for GOOD QUALITY CONTENT. This concept seems ridiculous at first thought because, ideally, I have access to all kinds of content... anything I want, I can find on the internet. There are videos, movies, music, books, blogs, magazines, newspapers... multitudes of media. But I'm still starving! I've finally figured out why...

It's all about content discovery! While so much content exists in the world, I only have a limited exposure, and without extraordinary effort, only hear about the mainstream media (Oscar Winning Movies, Top 40 Artists, NY Times Bestsellers etc). I've found that I want more.

I have been disappointed by the quality of the mainstream media. For example, I recently watched "No Country for Old Men" (actually, I fell asleep, but that's another story) and was disappointed with it after all the hype it received at the Oscars.

I have cable TV... hundreds of channels, but there's still nothing on!
I HATE listening to the radio in the car. For the short time I spend driving the kids to and from daycare, I only ever hear the same old crap!

What do I want? I want to be inspired! I want to watch movies and listen to music and read articles that make me think, keep me up at night, inspire me or change my perspective. This process sounds like a full time job. But alas, I have other things to do than to dig through mass media in search of the gems. I am dreaming of hiring a personal assistant who's job it is to research and discover new content for me to view. I'm not quite there yet, but perhaps I can find content about content: reviews and recommendations by other people who have taken the time to dig and discover and share the results.

I guess part of the purpose of this blog will be to share the results of what I've discovered with the rest of the world, in case someone else is starving too.

Here's the recent discoveries:
CollegeAnywhere.org Preview Courses: Some of the PBS archives available for streaming over the web. Just the previews are interesting.
http://video.collegeanywhere.org/preview/

Vidics.com: Mostly mainstream movies, but you can pick and choose what you want, when you want it.

Still searching for some good music and book recommendations and indie film or short video clips!