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.

Quotidian: Laughter

quotidian December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

laughtereecummingsquote

How And Where To Download Asian Dramas

film & television December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

Note: most of this was adapted from my post at an earlier blog

Watch dramas online:

Viki

Dramafever

Download:

For downloading, there are two options as far as subtitles go: hardsubs or softsubs

1)Hardsubs and softsubs:

soft subs – soft subs are simply subtitles which come as a separate file and aren’t directly attached to the video file, so you need to download them separately- they’re usually titled/in the form of “.srt”

hard subs – subtitles which come with the video and don’t have to be downloaded separately – ie if  you see “episodes 1-10 hardsubbed” in means that the episodes are already subbed and all you have to is download the videos

Hardsubs are nicer in general as you only have to download one file, but they take much longer to come out and most people end up using softsubs for the most part as episodes get released with softsubs by fansubbing groups much much faster than with hardsubs. The good thing about soft subs, however, is that they’re very small files; they usually download in seconds. Figuring out how to sync them with your video file/make sure they show up on your screen can get a bit trickier, but it’s really not that hard…

Continue reading →

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

chocolatestrawberrywine

 

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…

Words to Live By

life & love December 22, 2013 Leave a comment

lifeinspiration2

Most Like the Human Voice

books poetry lit December 21, 2013 Leave a comment

the cello. I’ve heard voices, women’s voices,
men’s, deep, almost suntanned, the bow drawn
trembling across the past, finding the line
somebody else drew, before, ago, far, ages,
the long lasting, the note held in glass, the rim
muscled fingers, strong arms, the woman’s shape,
knees grasping, the unaccompanied suite.
Bach, his mind, moral-scaffolded, tune climbing coil,
fakir’s spiral, above, above.  He holds us, bears
us.  Math music.  Twenty something, David,
whatever holds us, holds us aloft, keeps,
hopes.  The woman, the cellist, going to buy the dress,
the black dress, the woman sitting there, spreading
her legs, embracing imagination, sawing the bow
back and forth, saying. “I don’t think this dress,”
and the saleswoman snatching the dress,  “No,
not for what you want a dress for.”

at the funeral, the dead man not religious,
played Bach.  How few nights later, the boy,
boy he was, David, will be, went where he should not,
to what he couldn’t live with, without, white
heat, argument, wanting more, playing less, lead,
the only way to settle fire, habit, what lifted him
when Bach didn’t.  The dropped bow, the voice,
so like ours, if it were reasonable, still, every note
the dead hear, the rest of us twist the knob for,
never completely clearing static about the score.

-Starkey Flythe in Inkwell

Books

art & illustration December 20, 2013 Leave a comment

bookart

Speak with Conviction

this & that December 20, 2013 Leave a comment

Brilliant. 3-minute bombastic exploration of our culture and speech. “Like and you know.”

Animation Opportunity!

creativity December 20, 2013 Leave a comment

I was blithely reading the New York Times today and noticed this amazing opportunity at the bottom of an article – 

If you are a motion animator or illustrator and would like to create a video for the Modern Love animated monthly series, please e-mail your sample reel and contact information to animatemodernlove@nytimes.com.

NYT? If I had any video-making skills, I’d get on that, stat. Check out the Modern Love column (opportunity is referenced at the bottom of each). 

Today in Bohemain Interiors

design & style December 20, 2013 Leave a comment

I’ve always loved the vivid colors and bold patterns of boho spaces. bohobedroom bohobedroom2 boholivingroom