GObama!

Cave Exploration

An awesome photo gallery on cave exploration from National Geographic.

A Mushroom Primer

We've got some interesting mushroom species here in North America and fungi geek David Fischer takes you through the mysteries, smells and colors of a few of the coolest ones on his site American mushrooms.

World's Oldest Eyeball?

Neatorama reports that an 80-year-old man in Norway can still see with a 123-year-old transplanted cornea. Bernt Aune received the transplant in 1958 from a donor born in 1885.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the oldest living organ in the world,” an eye doctor at the hospital said.

World Biggest 'Thriller' Dance Party

Thrill The World is a event where a group of crazed Michael Jackson fans attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the Largest Simultaneous Dance to “Thriller.” According to the site, a record breaking 4,177 zombies in ten countries participated this year on October 28th.

Today is National Candy Corn Day

That's right. And what better time to highlight possibly the most specific blog I have yet to come across, one dedicated to the mysteries and joys of the yellow and orange candy that comes out once a year. It's called Sweet Candy Corn.

Highlights include:

recipe for candy corn sugar cookies

candy corn soap

candy corn photo gallery

and giant candy corn

Vote for Donuts

International chain Krispy Kreme is giving away a red, white and blue donut to anyone who votes on November 4th. I guess every little bit helps! Click here to find a location near you. One per customer.

The Pumpkin Chronicles

A man spent 8 days floating down the Wisconsin River inside a 750-pound pumpkin to raise money for charity.

p.s. - It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown airs tomorrow, Tuesday Oct. 28 at 8 p.m. eastern on ABC.

Who, Meme?

A one-word Meme from Kat:

Where is your cell phone? purse

Where is your significant other? unknown

Your hair color? brown

Your mother? sweet

Your father? calm

Your favorite thing? computer?

Your dream last night? hazy

Your dream/goal? contentment

The room you’re in? cubicle

Your hobby? travel

Your fear? mediocrity

Where do you want to be in 6 years? elsewhere

Where were you last night? couch

What you’re not? snobby

One of your wish-list items? house

Where you grew up? Baltimore

The last thing you did? email

What are you wearing? sweater

Your TV? consignment

Your pet? none

Your computer? mac

Your mood? Friday!

Missing someone? sure

Your car? missing

Something you’re not wearing? earrings

Favorite store? etsy

Your summer? hot

Love someone? deeply

Your favorite color? purple

When is the last time you laughed? today

Last time you cried? October

...Pass it on! (and remember, try to answer in one word!)

Vegetarians: Avoid Space Travel

Why? Well, apparently outer space reeks of steak. Says the UK Sun:

Astronauts reported the bizarre scents on their suits when they returned from space walks. The space agency has commissioned Steven Pearce of British fragrance firm Omega Ingredients to recreate the smells to help train spacemen. He said: “When astronauts were de-suiting and taking off helmets, they all reported quite particular odours. “We think it’s a high energy vibration in the molecule and that’s what we’re trying to add to it now.”

Lighten Up

There's a new lamp called Energy Seed that runs on the leftover juice in "dead" batteries. There's also the Spark Lamp, that lets you know how much energy you're using to power your home. Inhabitat says:

Conceived by Beverly Ng, the Spark Lamp is incredibly simple. During the day, the lamp is flipped upside down and placed next to the window to recharge. At night, the lamp is turned upright and switched on. At this point it establishes a wifi connection to the Internet and displays your home’s energy consumption by giving a soft green, yellow, or reddish glow for around three seconds.

For Your Information...

There are few things more strange looking than platypus and echidna babies. I think an echidna is an anteater. That thing looks like an uncooked turkey!

Elephants in Tennessee: Who Knew?

South of Nashville, in Hohenwald, Tenn., lies the nation's largest natural-habitat refuge. It's an elephant sanctuary that's home to 17 lady Asian and African pachyderms. Apparently, the nonprofit is not yet open to the public. They are still building a visitor center. But I would love to go. I saw a lady elephant at the zoo once that had a beard!

The NYTimes Home & Garden section visits Flaming Lips rocker Wayne Coyne at home. He and his wife are both junk freaks and their house seems pretty cool:

Seen from the street, it resembles a do-it-yourself version of a Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie House; inside it feels mazelike and eccentric, qualities the couple have tried to enhance with color. Ms. Martin-Coyne painted an upstairs bedroom “breathless blue,” she said, after a sky blue shade of nail polish, and her art studio across the hallway has a pink rubber floor.

Water Cooler On Wheels to Help Developing Nations

As part of the first ever Innovate or Die Pedal-Powered contest, engineers at Ideo created a sort of water cooler on wheels called the Aquaduct. Accoring to the site, Aquaduct "is a pedal-powered concept vehicle that transports, filters, and stores water." They won the grand prize and hope to come up with a working model that people can use all over the world.

This is a great example of a simple design that can make a lot of people's lives easier. The site says that more than one billion people worldwide lack access to safe water and the UN estimates that in the developing world, women and children walk an average of four miles a day to collect water. Instead of walking, why not bike? And filter it while you're at it!

This reminds me of an article article from Popular Mechanics explains the new field of "appropriate technology," where engineers use "practical, usually small-scale designs to solve problems in the developing world." MIT professor Amy Smith is coming up with innovative solutions to bring charcoal to Peru, where people suffer respiratory infections as a result of burning waste for fuel.

Fake Baby as Travel Accessory?

Gadling reports on the "fake baby" trend, apparently popular in the UK, where women carry a lifelike doll so that they can avoid social interaction while traveling. They're called "reborns." And a UK talk show interviews other women who are feeling like empty nesters and like the attention that carrying a real looking baby around gets them. I have one word: creepsville.

Coffee roaster's guide

Finally! A step-by-step guide on how to make coffee with a French press! I always seem to screw it up...

Punk Rock Turtle

Weird turtle with an algae mohawk.

A 'cardboard' duvet helps the homeless?

A Dutch company is marketing Le Clochard quilt cover, made to look like a cardboard box. Forty percent of the proceeds go to housing young homeless people.

A Recipe for Country Living

Since I've been daydreaming about becoming a country bumpkin, I'd love to order Lehman's Non Electric Catalog.

Lehman's is a 50-year-old company in Ohio's Amish country, with a unique bunch of well-made, carefully selected and useful tools for "sustainable" living," says Cool Tools. "Emphasis is on cooking, homesteading, farming, gardening, and doing things for yourself....Kitchen equipment, canning supplies, copper kettles, cheese-making supplies, grain grinders, toboggans, kerosene lanterns, axes, water pumps. The hard copy (172 pp. catalog) is way better than the electronic version. If you're into this stuff, and/or you live in the country, you'll end up reading it like a book.

Recycle Your Netflix

Netflix Origami gives step-by-step instructions on how to shape your Netflix sleeve into a functional work or art. My favorites: the snack tray (above) and the "starched shirt."

Should hotels charge for Internet service?

Why are some hotels still charging for Internet?! Even the mid-grade brands. A breakdown of which hotels charge, plus, a list of hotels that offer Internet for free.

read more | digg story

Five-star hotels at a one-star price

Leading Hotels Hotels of the World is offering a huge discount for its anniversary: Pay $19.28 a night this fall. Register for the October 1st auction.

read more | digg story

First E. choli, now this?

Is this photo for real?

The Easiest Forecast Ever

Umbrella Today lets you punch in your zip code and simply answers the question. Who needs weather.com?

Surprise! Medalist Phelps is a Skeev!

Radar writers saw Michael Phelps "massively skeeving on girls at the Playboy Club" in that Las Vegas. And there's pictures to prove it.

Funky Design

A cool bench.

On My List

Go to "Drawing Babar"

Good Neighbors

Last night, I could smell the most delicious curry wafting through the hallway of my apartment building. I noticed my neighbor's door was open, and asked her if she was making curry. She immediately came to the door and invited me in, and made me a bowl full of rice and chicken curry. I was stunned. I'd never spoken to her before, and with just a few words, I had dinner in my hand and had made a new friend. Thanks, Angela!

The Great Muppet 'Caker'

Check out this ridiculously (and wonderfully) ornate Muppet cake. Looks like Zoot's even got a marzipan saxophone!

The Glass House

I wrote earlier about the Octagon house, and now I want to visit the Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut. The transparent building was the private home of American architect Philip Johnson, built in 1949. It's now part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and its re-opening to the public aims to drive home the need to save modern architecture.

I'll Take Two of These, In Blue

Check out The Lifepod: Lodging for the Modern Nomad. Design blog Inhabitat says:

Escape to the beach, the mountains or the trees in San Francisco-based Kyu Che’s sustainable Lifepod. Loosely based on the traditional Mongolian ger (or ‘yurt’ as the Russian translation goes), the Lifepod is at once organic and high-tech. Built to be highly portable, the Lifepod is a fully functioning, off-the-grid mini capsule for modern nomadic living.

Design of the Day

Neat, handmade clocks by artist Roger Wood.

Start Getting Angry

The Department of Health and Human Services is about to limit access to birth control and abortion for women on the grounds of protecting those who find it morally objectionable. According to the Washington Post, "The rule empowers federal health officials to pull funding from more than 584,000 hospitals, clinics, health plans, doctors' offices and other entities if they do not accommodate employees who refuse to participate in care they find objectionable on personal, moral or religious grounds."

DailyKos breaks it down here.

Cloud Nine

Check out this unusual cloud formation in Hawaii...

Staten Island Adventure

Finally, here are photos of last month's Staten Island adventure. We took the free ferry over to a fantastic, hidden gem of a restaurant called Enoteca Maria where we enjoyed incredible delicacies, great wine, and great company! Mary was very interested in the history of the ferry -- apparently it's had quite a few accidents since starting in 1898. Still, we can't wait to go back. Oh, and at Enoteca Maria, I highly recommend the zuchini flowers stuffed with ham and mozzarella. I was skeptical that zuchini could taste so good, but Laura convinced me to get them and I wasn't disappointed!

The Incomparable Alec

"I still want to do the episode of '30 Rock' where we make fun of 'Grey's Anatomy'--where everyone on our show talks about something important for thirty seconds and then goes in a room and fucks each other."

--Alec Baldwin, in the Sept. 8 issue of The New Yorker

Brooklyn Flea

This morning I enjoyed a delicious peach clafoutis that Laura made. I know, cla-WHO-tee, you may ask? It sounds funny but it's a delicious fresh fruit baked in a light batter. Yumm! Then I went to the fabulous Brooklyn Flea Market and bought these four antique tin ceiling tiles. I've been wanting to hang a tableau of old tiles for a long time now and couldn't resist these beauties from the booth of Olde Goode Things. This is how they're now hanging on the wall. What do you think?

Too Strange for Words

"A 'dead' man's son spots him on television after eight years," reports the Telegraph. Long after he thought his dad was dead and buried, this guy in the UK sees him on a show about missing people. Apparently, he had been in an assisted living facility nearby the whole time, but could not remember his name.

"Police have apologised for an extraordinary series of errors which led to him being declared dead and an unidentified man being cremated in his place." Um...

Walk this Way

A new study in The Journal of Sexual Medicine finds that you can infer a woman's history of vaginal orgasm by observing the way she walks.

"Trained sexologists were able to correctly infer vaginal orgasm through watching the way the women walked over 80 percent of the time. Further analysis revealed that the sum of stride length and vertebral rotation was greater for the vaginally orgasmic women. "This could reflect the free, unblocked energetic flow from the legs through the pelvis to the spine," the authors note.

This is weird.

Sounds to me like some scientists were having fun watching young women "videotaped from a distance while walking in a public place" and placing wagers on their "orgasmic history."

A Mass E-mail

Now as you may or may not know, I'm a bit of a technology curmudgeon lately -- go figure! So I thought Amy Ozols' paen to the mass e-mail in this week's New Yorker was super funny. Absolutely everybody prefaces their mass e-mails by apologizing for sending them! And you know those e-mails that get sent out because someone lost their phone and can't remember anyone's number? That's what she's talking about and she knocks it out of the park!

Two work lunch faves

There's nothing like a steaming bowl of matzoh ball soup from Ben's Deli! My other favorite lunch spot near work is just a few doors down at Pick-a-Pita. A pita jam packed with falafel, tabouli, carrots, onions, cucumbers and pretty much anything else you can think of. At $5, it's pretty much the best lunch deal in this neighborhood. Both are on West 38th street between seventh and eighth avenues. They also both happen to be kosher. This area is an interesting mix of fabric shops, kosher food, and tourists looking for Times Square!

Say what?

Cindy McCain's RNC outfit priced at $300K!

And the GOP keeps talking about getting back to basics and how they are "real people." Ironic, eh? Cindy McCain scares me.

Labor Day Fun

I can't believe I haven't written about the lovely (and very last minute) vacation I took with my sister and her two little kiddies. I had been jonesing to get out of the city for weeks and wanted to get on the beach for Labor Day. My ill-fated attempt to do a house swap came up short.

If you can believe it, I called a rental cottage that I found online in Watch Hill, Rhode Island on Friday morning before the weekend and they had a vacancy! I even managed to talk the woman down in price. I happen to be fact checking an article about vacation rentals and all of the questions you're supposed to ask and how to prepare in advance. I did none of that. I just asked when we should show up. And it worked out perfectly (thank God). Kat was an incredible trooper agreeing to hop in the car at a moment's notice. We piled the trunk with the requisite high chairs and blankets and diapers, cranked the Deb Talon and we were off!

The cottage was simple and suited us perfectly. The one glitch was the terribly soft bed, but after wine and unisom Kat and I slept like babies. There was an adorable antique carousel down the road from the cottage that Gracie got to ride each day and we all had our share of the local homemade ice cream. The ocean was super refreshing and Charlie kept us on our toes chasing seagulls and making a bee-line for the surf. A seagull pooped on me and I thought it was sunscreen at first and then ran into he ocean to wash it off--no biggie! And we walked to the Watch Hill lighthouse with stellar views and friendly locals. What a way to end the summer -- small town bliss!

Sticking it to the Ad Agencies

The brilliant Anti-Advertising Agency has come up with their latest subversive message: the "You don't need it" sticker. The guerilla group sticks the signs on ads as a statement against our consumer culture. You can get a free set of stickers by following the link.


Full disclosure: I am the child of a man with a "kill your television" bumper sticker.

Save those pennies

Remember what I said? Always save those coins! This man bought a car with his.

Random Manta Ray Found On Busy Street

The Experience Project writes about a manta ray sighting on a sidewalk in downtown San San Francisco. Apparently the ray gathered quite a crowd and no one knows how it got there. Weird!

Relish Victory

Relish takes the gold at the half-time condiment race at the Brooklyn Cyclones game!

Shortie Gets her Shortening

At this year's Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, hometown girl and Olympic silver medalist Shawn Johnson will be memorialized in butter, according to the local paper. "Butter Johnson" will be displayed alongside the traditional butter cow. Hmm...maybe you have to be from Iowa? I'm speechless.

re: Dan Aykroyd

By the way, after I mentioned the former SNL actor in a previous post, it turns out the actor now has his own Ontario-based winery and wine label. The Blues Brother went from bass milkshakes to Sauvignon Blanc -- go figure!

Eel-fated New Product

I'm having deja-vu. Ever seen Dan Ackroyd blend a live fish on the Bassomatic 76? Tokyo-based Japan Tobacco Company has introduced Unagi Noburi, a new drink that promises to boost your energy and keep you cool in summer. It's made out of ground up eel parts. All I can say is: "Wow that's terrific eel!"

Three things I want to do before summer is over:

The Public Theater's revival of HAIR in Central Park's outdoor amphitheater.

Rooftop Films

A Brooklyn Cyclones game at Coney Island

And looking forward to fall:

A free tour of the Steinway Piano Factory in Queens

Klondike Rage

Seen this completely ridiculous Klondike Bar commercial? A guy keeps his eyes on his wife even as a pretty young thing walks by their table. The punchline? This guy deserves a Klondike Bar. And apparently, so does the guy in another inane ad, who actually listens when his wife talks. He "deserves" a Klondike, too. The fact that they are making these out to be exceptional or difficult tasks for which men should be rewarded much the way a skinner rat is rewarded with a piece of cheese makes me sick!

What are these people thinking? I always loved Klondike Bars as a kid and haven't had one in years. Guess they've decided their target audience is men. Or male chauvinist pigs. I won't be having one anytime soon after that marketing campaign. How insulting to both men and women. Yikes!

Squid mania

In case you didn't know, I'm a giant squid freak. That's why I was morbidly fascinated by this video of a giant squid dissection in front of a live audience. Gross, but it's so great to be reminded that the stuff of legend actually does exist.

On a somewhat related note, according to an interesting article by the AP, another creature of lore, the yeti, a sasquatch-like creature, is losing its place in the cultural memory. As the once-isolated nation of Bhutan modernizes rapidly, legends like the yeti are no longer as central to the belief system. I say the yeti lives! And the abominable snowman, too. Good thing we still have our squid!

The Now

She calls herself a Navy wife. I call her my sister. She teaches me every day about patience and care, routine and flexibility. About living right now.

When we care for children, in a sense, we become children. We inhabit a world in which time doesn't exist. I watched my sister become a mother and I learned from her that we only have the now. We can only do one thing at a time.

We must plan and prepare for the future, devise a reasonable schedule, have expectations, but be ready at any moment to change when, for instance, your son doesn't take a nap when he's supposed to or the U.S. government screws up your health insurance. You must roll with it, glide, like we did when we were kids sliding across linoleum in socks.

As caregivers we are right in this moment of spilled milk and bruised knees. And we are constantly doing laundry.

Solar powered purse

They start at $330, which basically makes them untenable, at least for me -- but check out these neat purses from noon solar. A solar panel on the outside of the bag charges a battery inside the bag that will connect to your cell phone, iPod, etc. What next? And, if you think about the price many people are willing to pay for say, a Coach bag, this is a drop in the bucket and saves electricity, too!

Exercise Across America

I'm walking across America! Well, in spirit. I'm on a new walking regime and have found a neat way to keep track of it. A lab that studies exercise set up transcontinental virtual trip across the United States. Each time you enter your exercise mileage, they total it up and show you where you are on the map. The basic trip is from Yorktown, Virginia to Florence, Oregon. They even show you photos of what you would see along the way at various mile markers. So what are you waiting for? Sign up and we can be walking buddies!

Architectural Salvage

This place called Housewerks looks awesome. And it's in Baltimore!

Scholarly Storage

My latest obsession: Finding an antique library card catalog in which I can store odds and ends. They're so charming and can be quite beautiful. Not to mention all of the items you can store in them.

This blogger suggested that you can sometimes find them for sale on a neat site called GovDeals. Wow, who knows what else you could find here for neat decorating ideas from old school lockers to playground equipment. Of course I've already scoured craigslist and eBay and just might have to take a roadtrip to pick one up I saw in Pennsylvania. Nevermind that it's $750! I guess I'll keep looking.

Shopping for a cause

I just ordered these adorable shoes from TOMS. I saw someone wearing them on the subway, made a note of the name on the tag, and promptly impulse bought them online. They looked so comfy and simple. But what clinched the deal was that it turns out to be a really neat company: For every pair of shoes purchased, TOMS donates a pair to a child in need. Not bad!

A City Too Small

I went kayaking out on Jamaica Bay with the canoe club yesterday. It was a lovely day and I have a nice farmer's tan to show for it! Everyone was really friendly. I didn't fall in the water and I saw an egret.

Then I went to Laura's fifth annual brunch party. The quiche was amazing. The kicker was that this guy I went on a 15-minute date with a few months back was there! He had written me that I wasn't his type after our brief meeting when I walked him to the subway. Small world. We said hello, ignored each other the rest of the time and then he asid goodbye before he left.

"The Place Where Bison's Graze"

Last month, Aunt Marina, Uncle George, and I met for an adventure in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach neighborhood. Some go so far as to say it's the largest Russian-speaking community outside of the USSR (disclaimer: this has not been fact checked)!

Uncle George had a field day looking for gypsy music at St. Petersberg, a CD and video store on the main drag, Brighton Beach Avenue.

I wanted to get some buffalo grass to make my own Zubrovka vodka. I'd tasted it (subtle, smooth, sensational!) at Easter, when Uncle George and Uncle Eugene were drinking it in the kitchen and commenting on how hard it is to find good grass. They were right -- even in "Little Odessa" the plant was hard to find. I ended up just buying the ready-made Zubrovka at Oksamit Liquor near the metro.

In the end, we sat on the boardwalk looking at the ocean and eating kabobs, which Aunt Marina called "shashleek." People were milling about, barely clothed and the air was sticky. I didn't mind. I felt like I was in Europe.

Not one to give up on obscrure home projects, I'm thinking about buying the buffalo grass (translated as "The Place Where Bison's Graze" or called sweetgrass) from here, though it makes me a tad nervous to buy obscure herbs online with Paypal. I'll keep you posted.

The Octagon House

My latest obsession is checking the National Trust for Historic Preservation's list of historic properties for sale. Some of them are as little as $100. My favorite is the 1852 Octagon House in Barneveld, New York (right near the Adirondack Park!). It's so lovely. Here's another photo. I'm definitely going through a phase where I want to just sell all my possessions and move to the country. This seems like the perfect bed and breakfast, no?

July 4th Weekend

The holiday at Water Taxi Beach was amazing. Great atmosphere, decent hot dogs, and though the potato salad left something to be desired, it couldn't have been a better view for the fireworks. The show lasted nearly 30 minutes with everybody oohing and aahing and Eva and I had a good time catching up.

I'm thinking about joining the Sebago Canoe Club in Brooklyn. After two weeks in Vermont, where I learned to kayak on Echo Lake in Camp Plymouth State Park, I've fallen in love with it and am happy to learn I may be able to continue kayaking in the city, even at a reasonable price!

Went for lunch at this vegan place in Park Slope -- am I granola or what? It was shockingly good. Who knew vegans eat lasagna and paninis?

Tomorrow, it's back to the grind. I need to call Australia, French Polynesia, Nicaragua, and Indonesia. What a strange life!

She Who Shall Not Be Named

So, someone who shall remain nameless called her ex-boyfriend yesterday to inform him that he should never contact her again. It was an umpteenth attempt at closure. We'll see if it works. He was somewhat flabergasted and apologetic. The fact that this someone is still reeling from an email that he sent her three weeks ago was enough to push her to call him just to tell him not to reach out to her again. Now it's really over, I spose. Or I hope it is.

Then I went out to dinner with my friend Michelle and she was completely grossed out when she found a hair in her tabouli. I was preoccuppied with trying to figure out whether the flowers in the restaurant were fake. She told me her own love woes and I felt better.

Afterward, went to "an intimate drinking and eating room in Park Slope" called Beer Table. We took forever to order because we were so caught up in the adjectives used to describe the beers. Soapy, crunchy, a hint of spring, rambunctious, meaty, smoky -- Michelle, the vegan, was aghast and ordered nothing. Some of the brews were exorbitantly priced -- $95 for a bottle of beer? I don't think so. I like beer and know a thing or two about it but honestly this place intimidated me.

Michelle is excited because Feist is playing in Prospect Park this summer. Maybe I'll get tickets.

Random tidbits

Went to lunch yesterday with two lovely people from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office . We had delicious Chinese food in midtown and I learned about a sport they have there called "river tracing," where you wade in the clear water and hike a stream or a river to its origin. ... They've also got gorgeous, little-known islands in the south China Sea called the Penghu Archipelago. It looks beautiful and under the radar. I'm trying to scheme my way over there.


I also want to take a wild food and ecology tour through Central Park with "Wildman" Steve Brill who goes foraging for edible plants (sassafras, mustrard greens, mint, field garlic). According to his Web site, he was arrested in 1986 for eating a dandelion.

Since I had already eaten my sandwich at my desk by the time 11:30 rolled around, I decided to take a free tour of the Grand Central neighborhood
with historian, and storyteller Justin Ferate.

Well, let me tell you, it may just be the city's best kept secret (though there were well over 50 tourists there). The mustachioed and bow-tied Ferate gave an energetic one man show with a Strand tote slung over his shoulder. He played everyone from Donald Trump to the Queen of England, regaling us with all sorts of deliciously improbable history. I couldn't stay for the whole thing and the tour hadn't even left its meeting point at the Whitney Museum sculpture garden when I had to leave about half an hour later. I kept thinking that my Dad would love it.

The Date Nut is back

Holla! I'm back. And I want to marry the street vendor I've been buying coffee from every morning. I'm drawn to him not only for the caffeine, but because he is so unbelievably friendly and always comments on how nice the weather is. I can't believe he sits in that cart all day with stale donuts and sugar packets.

"You're always so cheerful in the morning," I told him today. Then I ordered a large with milk and two Splenda. He smiled.

He probably drinks coffee all day.