Preoccupation

I've been extremely remiss in my bean blogging lately. Now, some people hate when bloggers apologize for such neglect of their duties. Others, like my husband, hate when the blogs they like to read are neglected. I don't have enough readers to bug a significant number of people with either of these options, but I thought I'd explain myself anyway.

I've been working on a new business endeavor, AnaStella. My sister is a graphic designer who specializes in invitations and stationery. As with most designers, she despises dealing with the sticky business end of things. This is where I come in. I live for Excel spreadsheets, don't mind filing out tax forms, and actually enjoy wading through the endless uploads and downloads to get a website, blog, online shops, social networks, and all other technological junk up and running for public consumption.

Together, we are AnaStella, Invitations with Style and Spark! The name came from our two grandmothers' names, and the slogan came from my head. We design custom invitations and stationery for all kinds of events, especially weddings. You can see us on Etsy, 1000 Markets, Twitter, Facebook, www.AnaStella.com, and our blog. Pick your poison!

Hopefully if I get some things sorted out, I can get back to posting regularly on this site. Either way I'll keep you posted.

Whorange You Glad You Remembered Whorange?

Looking through a long-abandoned to-do list, I saw Whorange. I had totally forgotten about Whorange! I somehow stumbled across her blog months and months ago, and made a note of it because I loved it, and I never went back. Now I'm so glad I did because she has the most interesting posts. Most design blogs have significant overlap, and I often feel like I've seen it all before. Not so with Whorange. It's all fresh, all new, all Whorange. It's so much fun too. Even though I'm not a big fan of the color orange, and she seems to have more of a committment to brightness than I could ever get on board with, I love the name, I love the eye candy, I love the personality. She's going on the list.

Speaking of the list, I fear I may need to begin a cruel game of "Survivor: Google RSS Feed Reader." At 72 sites and counting, I may have overestimated my daily capacity for intake of new info, forcing my brain into overload, and giving me tension headaches from too much read-scroll-read-click-scroll-click-read-scroll-click. But what to cut? My fun Fark headlines? My gooey Gawker goodness? My Limey Londonist lowdown? I don't want to miss out on anything, but I don't want my brain to pop either. For now, I'm putting all of my blogs on notice. No one is immune. A girl can only take so much.

To Blog Or Not To Blog

Roger Ebert has a great blog. He waxes philosophical on a variety of topics, touching only incidentally on film, and his readers' comments are often as insightful as his words. Today's post discussed writing and the internet in general, mainly the idea that everything we write and say will most likely be forgotten in a few years if not sooner. He goes so far as to say that even the works of Shakespeare will eventually be lost to future generations.

This leads to the question of why anyone writes anything at all ever. Blogs offer a prime example, considering that many are uninteresting to all but their writers. In writing this blog I've had the same thought: Is this totally stupid? Is it at all worth reading? Does anyone care what I'm writing? Do I care what I'm writing? Well, I'd like to think that at least I care what I'm writing. If I find myself writing something that I'm starting to get bored with, I think, "If I can't make this interesting to myself, then why would anyone else care," and I just delete it and stop wasting my time (and yours).

Before all the bloggers (and other writers) decide that life is meaningless and go jump off the Blogtown Bridge, despair not. In closing Ebert gives us a little uplift, a reason to live, and to write another day:

""A person has to participate," Studs Terkel liked to say. That's how I feel. Meditating on futility--that's no way to live. One of the most useful pieces of advice ever given me, at a time when I despaired, was: Act as if. Act as if you make a difference. If infinity is too big for you, live in the day. Shakespeare as usual expressed this better than anyone else, and it took him six words: To be, or not to be. That wasn't simply an expression of the Existentialist choice between choosing to live or die. It was the choice to act, or not to act. To participate."

While it may not all be sweet flowing poetry, I'd like to think that my writing is at least improving slightly, and at least I'm participating!

Dr. Strangemap

Via Designboom's blog, I found an awesome blog about strange maps. It's called "Strange Maps," and, like the Shitty Beetles, it's not just a clever name. Judging by his 10 million plus hits, I'm not the only map nerd out there, which makes me feel slightly better. Strange Maps features maps that display some statistical information by geographical area, or have some creative spin, or are just plain odd. I could spend all day reading this site. Oh wait, I just did.

One of the more interesting, if not useful, maps plots the frequency of hairdressers in Germany with salons named after three different hair-related puns. This could get very confusing, resulting in lots of missed appointments and ill-coiffed Germans.

Strange as rampant German hair puns may be, I feel that this map takes the "strange cake" and runs with it. It maps the availability of cole slaw as a hot dog topping in the counties of West Virginia. Apparently it's a big deal down there.

While Martha likes to decorate with maps, these plates might be a bit too kitschy for her. I think it would be fun to have an EU themed party with the foods of Europe displayed on their respective plates. Sadly, England and Italy are sold out.

The Maligned Secrets of the DABA Sisterhood

The last couple of days have found the NYC news and blog worlds abuzz about these girls, girlfriends of men in finance who are dealing with the fallout of a tumbling Wall Street. Their blog is meant to provide support to the women whose significant others are stressed about the security of their finance-industry jobs.

Oh yeah, it sounds all warm and fuzzy and "let's stand together and comfort each other in this hard time." Yet it quickly becomes apparent when reading their posts that these women are not feeling the economic pinch in the same way as other Americans. While millions are trying to figure out how to pay their rent or feed their kids, these soulless wenches are bemoaning the decreased frequency of spa facials and $400 dinners. They complain about being stuck with men who they think are pathetic shells of what they once were. I swear, as you read the blog, your stomach turning further with every line, you can actually hear their high-pitched whining clawing its way out of the computer. I believe the highlight of the site is when multiple women, some married, exclaim, "this is not what I signed on for!" Um, no, you signed on "for better or for worse." Did you ask your husband if he signed on for a gold digger who would find him repulsive without his billion-dollar bonus?

I would suggest that someone should take these girls to Darfur or a Mumbai slum for a weekend getaway to give them a little perspective, but that would imply that they actually had a conscience or a shred of self-awareness, and would be able to comprehend why they should perhaps keep their sob stories to themselves. That being said, blog on ladies, and stay strong in these trying times!

From Rustic to Ridiculous

My best friend is an amazing chef, who makes all kinds of things I would never think to put together. She just started a food blog, which I've added to my list at the right, called "not lazy. rustic." The name comes from one of her culinary school instructors who, when a student said that his somewhat imperfectly plated dish was "rustic," told that student that in cooking there is no such thing as rustic, only lazy. Obviously, she does not subscribe to this theory, and rightfully so. After all, if it tastes good, who cares if it doesn't look like a sculpture?

Speaking of food sculptures, my sister and I spent all (and I mean ALL) of Saturday watching the Food Network. Watching Ace of Cakes and a Food Network Challenge with cakes lead us to one of our favorite websites, Cake Wrecks. We spent hours laughing at all of the cake mishaps. It really is mind boggling just how bad some people are at their jobs. I guess they aren't putting the most talented people in charge of cake decorating in your average supermarket, but it would seem that some of these people had never actually seen a cake before, and that they just learned how to write the day before. My favorites, however, are the cases where the person gave the bakery a picture of what they wanted, and the bakery gave them something horribly horribly wrong in return.

Designo (from Decorno)

Decorno has become one of my favorite design blogs because she's not afraid to say what she feels about the design world when most bloggers just blather blithely away about pretty things. This post really says it all.

I understand bloggers' reticence to post anything negative for fear of the torrent of snarky comments from self-righteous losers with nothing better to do. Can you believe someone commented to her that her marriage wouldn't last five years? What a miserable person you must be to say that to someone. As my mother always said, if you don't have anything nice to say, then... um... uh. Clearly I wasn't listening to her. Because so many people play it safe and avoid the wrath of the commentariat, I find it especially refreshing to hear from a someone who will gladly speak the truth, and who manages to do so without being mean.

But back to my point. Decorno's recent experience with a delinquent contractor provides a perfect example of why I left the interior design business. You are constantly forced to deal with insane contractors who see no fault with telling you they would rather work on their own home than yours, or with taking your money and leaving you high and dry. And when you aren't dealing with the contractors, you are dealing with clients who are not used to having someone treat them this way, and can't believe that a businessperson would do that, and thus decide that it must be YOUR fault. It's madness! The design mags, blogs, and shows only give you the pretty, shiny, finished product, not the months of torture and tears the designer goes through to make everyone happy. I know I sound like a whiner, but I'm not alone. Many of my designer friends working at many different firms have come to the same conclusion that it's just not worth it, and have fled to other industries. I hope I haven't dashed anyone's designer dreams, but they don't tell you any of this good stuff design school (or in Elle Decor).

Striking 'Scapes

I love photography of all kinds, especially pictures of natural things that you can hardly believe are real and unaltered pictures. These are the winners of the Take A View Landscape Photographer of the Year competition in England. It is the "brainchild" of Charlie Waite, a landscape photographer. I think my favorite is "Autumn sunrise at Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland, England" by Adam Burton (I would post the pictures here if not for the site's warning about copyright infringement.)

I found this competition through one of my favorite blogs, Diamond Geezer. The "Diamond Geezer" is a Londoner, who frequently posts about things to see and life around London, and who cracks me up. Occasionally he'll post a random poem or rant about some aspect of everyday life. He's pretty nutty and hysterical in a desert-dry British way, and anyone going to London should definitely check him out for some real deal information about uncommon stops to make on their trip. He's way more interesting and truthful than even the most honest guidebook, and much funnier. I wish I knew what he looked like, but I don't think there are any pictures of him on his site.

I'd love to comment on a few other pictures in this competition, but they lead me to talk about other topics, and I'll just keep going on forever if I don't stop at some point, so I'll save them for tomorrow and perhaps Friday. My 8th grade English teacher is rolling over in her grave at my gratuitous and unabashed use of run-on sentences.