Category Archives: this & that

3 Writing Jobs!

this & that January 15, 2014 Leave a comment

Added three writing jobs that popped up recently on the Poets and Writers’ job board to my creative job listing.

Writer at New York University – The dean’s office at the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies (NYU-SCPS), is seeking a versatile and experienced writer/editor to produce well-written, informed, and highly polished communications for the dean.

Spring 2014 Internships at PEN America – Digital Marketing Internship

Writer at Dscape Interactive – We are a multimedia development company specializing in e-Learning and e-Marketing programs for Fortune 500 companies. We are seeking freelance creative writers

 

How To Adjust Subtitle Delay In VLC Media Player

this & that January 13, 2014 Leave a comment

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Note: This tutorial is for a Mac.

VLC is one of the best and almost certainly the most versatile media player out there, so if you don’t have one already, get it here. Among many of its other amazing features, it makes playing subtitles(srt files) incredibly easy; all you have to do is put both video file and subtitle file in the same folder and give them the same name, as I explained here, and then use VLC to play the video file and it will automatically sync the subtitles. Sometimes, however, the subtitles are slightly off(usually because the translators used a slightly different video version than yours).

In that case, what you need to do is change the delay time, depending on whether the subtitles are before or after the audio. The easiest way I know of is to use the hotkeys, which should be automatically configured already to “h” and “j’ for the subtitle track.

While the video is playing, hit “h” to increase the subtitle delay and “j” to decrease it. If this doesn’t work. “ctrl + h” and “ctrl + j” will.

Each keystroke adds or subtracts a 50 millisecond delay. Keep in mind that this is milliseconds so that if your subtitles happen to be really off, like 30 seconds or so, you’ll have to hit it a decent number of times to get where you want(generally subtitles are only a few seconds or milliseconds off however).

If your hotkeys aren’t configured to h and j, go to VLC>Preferences>Interface>Hotkey Settings and check what your hotkeys are for changing the subtitle delay and use those.

Presto!

 

Beauty Review: NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil In Dragon Girl

this & that January 13, 2014 Leave a comment

Picked up this combination lipstick/lip color at Sephora. It was actually my first lip pencil so I wanted to choose carefully, and went with this partly because of rave reviews from beauty bloggers, and partly because NARS is a brand that I trust (the Orgasm blush? It’s been said a thousand times already, but it’s an absolute must for any beauty collection).

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The Civil Wars

this & that January 11, 2014 1 Comment

on-the-verge-the-civil-wars-taylor-swift-adele-AT5BNSP-x-large The Civil Wars…one of my favorite bands, the creators behind the ethereal, heartbreaking Poison and Wine, one of the most tender, gorgeous love songs I’ve ever heard…and the group that made their title a sort of living reality, heading suddenly and with what appears to be some finality into an ending.

The push-and-pull, closeness yet distance required between two people who clearly had some level of personal chemistry and an oceanload of creative chemistry, who toured together, crafted and performed love songs together, yet were not together romantically (Williams’ husband is their manager) – finally destructed.

And while I do not believe that it was personal differences, but largely creative, that severed an intense connection, it is hard not to see an undercurrent of longing, however stifled, in some of their earlier work. Regardless, here’s a look back at earlier, better times, and oddly, these photos capture well the simultaneous closeness and distance between two people, a man and a woman, locked in a creative twosome.

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Interview: Natasha of The Snooty Tea Blog

creativity, this & that January 9, 2014 Leave a comment

Photos by Annushka Munch Photography-3

 

Natasha lives in New York and is the tea-genius behind The Snooty Tea Blog, a blog I am a big fan of in which she curates, reviews, and extensively discusses tea. I reached out to her to find out more about her inspiration, and below are her delightful responses. Follow her on Facebook or Twitter!

Do you remember your very first cup of tea?

We’ve always had some form of tea in the house, and one of the first cups of tea that I can remember was made by my grandmother, who was staying with us for the winter. It was a mug of Celestial Seasoning’s Red Zinger, which she had doctored up with honey and lemon because I was suffering from some flu-y thing or another. She had made one for herself as well–maybe I’d tasted hers and requested one of my own. Dangit, the more I try and recall exactly what happened, the blurrier the details get. Call it senili-tea.

How did your passion for tea start? How did that segue into the The Snooty Tea Blog? 

My passion for tea started after ordering up some Adagio goodies during the “Woo, green tea is the magical skinny-bullet!” craze of ’09. Since I wasn’t keen on purchasing creepy tablets of tea extract, I went the more natural route and decided to treat myself to some high-quality full-leaf bags. I became so enamored with the tea itself that I wanted to try more and more, as many varie-teas as possible–which is still true today.

The Snooty Tea Blog came about because all that sip-‘sploration had accumulated with it a hefty load of senseless tea knowledge. With nowhere else to put it, I dumped those tidbits and tea-scoveries onto a cabin-fever-inspired blog that I had started, but never had any real goals for. As it turned out, people liked reading my posts! Go figure. Everything else fell from there–getting contacted by tea companies for reviews, starting the Youtube channel, meeting some really amazing tea folks like Elyse Peterson of Tealet, Jeff Fuchs of Jalam Teas, and Nicole Martin of Tea For Me Please… Ece-tea-ra.

Recommend a black, a green,  a white, and an oolong tea.

Netflix and the Ghosts in the Machine

film & television, this & that January 3, 2014 1 Comment

“Let me get philosophical for a minute. In a human world, life is made interesting by serendipity,” Yellin told me. “The more complexity you add to a machine world, you’re adding serendipity that you couldn’t imagine. Perry Mason is going to happen. These ghosts in the machine are always going to be a by-product of the complexity. And sometimes we call it a bug and sometimes we call it a feature.”

–How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings – Retreat

creativity, this & that January 2, 2014 Leave a comment

Gorgeous animated video teaser for Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings‘ upcoming album. Smooth, quirky, bold – just what I’d expect from this powerhouse group.

New album “Give The People What They Want” out January 2014 on Daptone Records.

Creative Job Alert: Communications Assistant

this & that December 27, 2013 Leave a comment

missreprestation

Miss Representation is hiring in San Francisco!

Reports to: Director of Communications
Classification: Non-Exempt
Location: San Francisco, CA

“The Communications Associate augments the story-telling capacity of the organization by designing, creating and maintaining inspiring and relevant content for The Representation Project website, blog, social media and all collateral and branded materials.”

Check out more information and apply here

Top 5 Websites

this & that December 27, 2013 Leave a comment

manchesterpress

Unfiltered 

1. Tumblr. Look. I get all my geek girl and fangirl cravings satisfied by Tumblr and then some. There’s a reason it’s seen an absolutely explosive amount of growth since it started. If you’re not on Tumblr, you don’t get it. If you are, you do. The corner I inhabit is a big ginormous world of people who love the Awesome, in this case the Awesome mostly being television and the occasional minor sci fi or fantasy flick like Star Trek or Lord of the Rings. In particular, we really really really love Friends, Doctor Who, and Jennifer Lawrence. There are GIFs, hilarity, quotes, trailers, news galore. And somehow it manages to be small enough that there’s a real sense of community, and large enough to take anyone who wants to in in a warm, slightly smelly, huge hug of fellowship and fandom.

2. The Atlantic. And now for something entirely different. When I’m not inhabiting my fangirl side and going mad for the latest Sherlock GIF, I get most of my world and health and some of my entertainment news from The Atlantic. The journalism is crisp, wide-ranging, often brilliant, and long-form without being overwhelming Wall Street Journal length. And unlike The New York Times, it’s free.

3. Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed is a time-warp that sucks in All The Things on the Internet. It is a glorious morass of time-wasting, informative, funny/sad/terrible/romantic/pointless, pop-culture-and-everything-else content. It is beautiful and terrible. It has lists to end all lists. That is all.

4. Lifehacker. Lifehacker is my baby. Lifehacker tells me how to live well, what not to buy, and provides hundreds of deliciously informative articles which I read, remember 0.5% of, bookmark and never look at it again. It is one of my life goals to write for Lifehacker.

5. Goodreads. Little known fact: I once interned for Goodreads. And they are as awesome behind the scenes as they are, well, in front of them. Regardless, Goodreads is the perfect website for organizing, rating, and tracking the books you read – which for OCD bibliophiles like me, is perfect. I also get a fair number of book recommendations there from other readers. These days, I  probably visit Goodreads every other day.

And there you have it! Inside me is a fangirl, a bibliophile, a life-betterer, and a pseudo-intellectual.

Chocolate Strawberry Wine

this & that December 22, 2013 1 Comment

This past week in one of my periodic trips to World Market, that mecca of both fake and real treasures, what did I spy in the wine aisle but a bottle of Chocolate Strawberry wine. Yep, that’s correct, all packaged with a gorgeous red and white label emblazoned “for chocolate lovers!”

Obviously I bought it.

The Chocolate Shop’s Strawberry Chocolate wine

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Tasting note on the label: “Bright, ruby red-colored wine with high tones of freshly picked strawberries and an undercurrent of dark fruit and cocoa. Strawberries and chocolate individually delight the palate; when combined, they reach another level of decadence. Smooth and balanced wine with lingering notes of strawberry on the finish.”

Alas – I don’t particularly recommend it. I love rich things, but you know how chocolate and cheesecake, individually, are divine, but chocolate cheesecake is too much of a good thing?

That’s what this wine is – too rich, too sweet, almost, dare I say it, too chocolately – at least for wine. Wine should taste like, well, alcohol, and oddly enough the strongest flavor this wine has is of fruit. And yet it’s not even strawberry flavored – if I had tasted the wine without knowing what it was I would probably have said it was very strong grape juice. It’s not a bad flavor, just incredibly fruity and overly rich, it tastes like a dessert. And I would rather eat dessert than imbibe it, thank you.

I like it enough to drink the bottle, but won’t be buying it again.

In the meantime, however, I noticed The Chocolate Shop also has just a straight Chocolate Red Wine…