Harry Potter - A Look Back
For all you Harry Potter fans out there, here’s an interesting look back at the movies and an opportunity to watch Harry grow up fast - like in 5 minutes. :)
Beautiful South Australia Ocean Sky Time Lapse
Mitchell Gold & Bob Williams have a 30%-70% sale going on now through July 31st. If you don’t know their furniture already, you should. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!
I seriously can’t say enough about these hot dogs. Even if you’re not a “dog person”, please keep reading. I was that kid that would literally make myself sick if I had to eat a hot dog - I HATED THEM! But the folks at LET’S BE FRANK are amazing, they know their encased meat. I met Sue Moore at a party and I haven’t looked back. I’m now a DOG PERSON! Go to wherever they are and have a dog! Their schedule:
@ the Helms Bakery Complex in Culver City
(Helms Ave btwn. Washington & Venice Blvds)
Hours: Wed-Fri from 11:30a-3:30p & Weekends from 11:30a-4:30p
@ Silverlake Wine (seriously genius - wine & hot dogs!!!)
2395 Glendale Blvd.
Hours: Most Thursday nights from 5:00p-10:30p
What is Family?
I was with my family this past weekend for the 4th of July – hopefully you were with yours. On the way home as I watched our babies sleep on the plane, I started to think about how much I miss my family, how much I need them and how much I want them around more. We’re an odd bunch, our clan. My grandparents were products of the Depression and had an unbelievable work ethic matched with a strong sense of humor. They believed that you could be anything you wanted but hard work was the only way to get there. They passed down a strong sense of self-served, with tongue firmly planted in cheek. They all picked themselves up by their bootstraps and when they made mistakes, they picked themselves up again. They suffered. They fought back. They came from hearty stock. Read More
This article at by Ted Cox at The Good Men Project on waxing is really funny…..
In case any of you are also active on Facebook, I’d love it if you would “LIKE” my FB page. Thanks! :) -heather
Ha! I reblogged a very similar sign about a week ago! It’s still funny.
Recycled Brooklyn Reclaimed Furniture - this is excellent!!
We’ve always been the type of guys that would rather do it ourselves when it comes to improving the place we call home. Saving money is definitely a part of it, but the satisfaction that comes from finishing a project—regardless of how small—with our own two hands is only eclipsed in excellence by the cold brew we enjoy after. Unfortunately, there are only so many pipes that need to get run, shelves that need to get hung and projects that need doing, so you think about designing your own stuff from the ground up. If you’re anything like us, that’s where it ends. Recycled Brooklyn goes the whole nine yards with everything from benches made of wood planks salvaged from a film studio to tables created from salvaged bowling alley floor to padded benches covered in recycled coffee sacks. Being green has never been this manly. $85+
Car-mageddon: This one may be confusing if you don’t live in Los Angeles BUT next weekend they are closing down THE main freeway in West LA for the entire weekend. Here’s a guide to help you out!
So, Armageddon didn’t happen a few weeks ago. But stay vigilant—Car-mageddon is now upon us. Yes, the 405 is just days away from the long-dreaded three-day closure that will plunge our vast city into a nightmare of gridlock and heartache.
But if you play this right, you can turn it into a three-day happy hour.
Assuming, that is, you’ve done your research on the website called Car-mageddon, a thorough resource for surviving LA’s imminent traffic travesty, online now.
Initially, you thought this all sounded like some apocalyptic Michael Bay movie… but it’s worse. And it’s very real. Consider this website your salvation. Just click on the neighborhood you’ll be stuck in—for these purposes, LA is broken into Westside, Northside, Mid-City and Eastside.
What you’ll find: a lengthy list of proprietors banding together to bring you food, shelter and the occasional all-night happy hour (Zengo) or a round of $3 Gridlock shots (South), all in whatever neighborhood you’ll be holing up in. Because honestly… you’re not getting in your car, and you’re not leaving your hood.
The list of participants is still growing, so keep checking back as the end draws nearer—or follow the site on Twitter for continuing updates on happenings on both sides of the 405.
Because we’ll only get through this with cocktails and Twitter.
Nothing I like more than a fun new wine shop in Los Angeles - even if it is downtown!
We were admittedly confused by all of the people wearing coveralls inside Buzz, Downtown’s newly opened wine and beer shop. Alas, we hadn’t stumbled upon the L.A. Mechanics Who Love Natural Wine meet-up; the one-piece suits are the uniform of Buzz’s self-proclaimed “wine sales geeks.” But please don’t let the gimmicky dress and titles turn you away. Buzz is a welcome addition to our city’s wine scene, and people who shop at Domaine L.A.and drink at Lou will find themselves right at home among the predominantly wild-yeast-fermented, sparsely sulfured bottles Buzz stocks–all 4,000 of them. Buzz gives plenty of shelf space to obscure varietals such as Trousseau Gris, a white mutation of the red grape. Only a few California producers make a single-varietal vintage from the grape, including Wind Gap ($23); it’s a flinty, melon-inflected departure from our state’s Sauvignon Blanc- and Chardonnay-tending status quo. We’ve also been gleefully mulling over the nuances of a 2008 Savennières Chenin Blanc ($30) from producer Loïc Mahé. Notes of pear and citrus sprout from the wine’s rocky salinity. And should you ever find yourself in dire need of, say, a rare bottle of Batic Pinela ($33) late at night, Buzz stays open until 2 a.m. Buzz, 460 S. Spring St., Downtown; 213-622-2222 or buzzwinebeershop.com
This sounds AMAZING!!!
Summer Bloody Summer: Drink Orangecello this summer.
With the solstice behind us, the markets are now flooded with various stone fruits. So we’ve bid a tearful good-bye to winter’s citrus glut. Fortunately, Ventura Limoncello has perfectly timed the release of its new Orangecello ($16 for 375ml) to help us combat our winter-citrus separation anxiety. The liqueur utilizes the fragrant zest of blood oranges from Ventura County’s Old Gold Farms and Petty Ranch, each pebbly, orange-red strip exactingly separated from the bitter pith. The recipe is an heirloom of co-owner Maneula Zaretti-Carling’s family, and calls for macerating the peels in a neutral grain spirit, then cutting the booze with sugar syrup to yield a slightly sweet liqueur ideal for sipping neat. Seeing that the beloved berry-like flavor of blood oranges resides more in the fruit’s juicy innards than in the zest, the Orangecello isn’t exactly bloody. But it does carry a substantial dose of the vivid, refreshing spice of the skin’s oils. Straight from the freezer, a pour is a fitting end to a leisurely summer meal. For the other end of dinner (or lunch), Ventura recommends mixing equal parts Orangecello and Aperol with two parts soda over rocks–a concoction we wholly support.
Funny!
I posted about these guys a week or so ago (remember, they’re the ones that give away a pair of glasses for every pair they sell) and in the meantime they have launched their line of sunwear AND they emailed me! Brian Magida thanked me for my post - now THAT’S customer service and a company I want to get behind!
My partner has been messing with their online “Virtual Try On” for the last hour - isn’t she supposed to be working? Just click on a frame style and then Virtual Try On, upload a picture of yourself and off you go.
I wish I wore glasses!!!! :)
Custom Subway Art featured on Red Tricycle - what a great idea for baby’s nursery!! :)
Decals have been all the rage in kids’ rooms since 2006. It’s easy to see why – they’re a snap to install – even for the most inept among us – as well as remove when the kiddos get older. The styles have also (thankfully) evolved in the past five years beyond Disney characters and teddy bears, to geometric shapes, nature (fish, trees,dandelions) and silhouettes of musical instruments and cityscapes. The latest trend in decal decor is customization – frominitials, a name or a special quote – that makes each nursery a cocoon of individual expression. A recent favorite is the cool Custom Subway Art we saw in one lucky little boy’s nursery. Not only does the custom design from graphics designer Stacy Wilson incorporate personal deets like DOB, height and weight, but you can add other words to the design including favorites foods, toys or newborn milestones. Wilson will send over three different layouts for your Custom Subway Art and then you can select a color and hit, “go.” The best part? You can do the whole room over again when your kid is into fairies, dinosaurs or airplanes.
50/50 T-shirts
I know…I love t-shirts….here’s another awesome line from Cool Material.
For nearly fifteen years, Westchester, Pennsylvania-based Matt Glick has been creating art in every form. With the 50/50 Company, he shares his work in the form of prints and tees. Every month in 2011, the company has unleashed a limited edition (batches of 50. duh) screen print alongside a fly T shirt. Printed on American Apparel tees, each one aims to visually assault the general public with designs that are part macabre, part awesome.
Stock Touch: A powerful and intuitive new app that helps you monitor the stock market.
This is my friend’s new iPad app. Check it out!
Interesting article on why we have scandals and how people could avoid them if they would only honor the marriage ABOVE an infidelity. WORTH THE READ!!
Married, With Infidelities
Last month, when the New York congressman Anthony Weiner finally admitted that he had lied, that his Twitter account had not been hacked, that he in fact had sent a picture of his thinly clad undercarriage to a stranger in Seattle, I asked my wife of six years, mother of our three children, what she thought. More specifically, I asked which would upset her more: to learn that I was sending racy self-portraits to random women, Weiner-style, or to discover I was having an actual affair. She paused, scrunched up her mouth as if she had just bitten a particularly sour lemon and said: “An affair is at least a normal human thing. But tweeting a picture of your crotch is just weird.” Read More
Laughing twin babies!!!
Independence Day
I love the 4th of July. It’s warm out, the food is generally being cooked by some burly man in an apron over an outdoor grill, and there are fireworks. I mean really, what’s better than fireworks and men cooking for you over an open flame? Fireworks make me think back to being a kid in Vermont. My parents would take us to what was probably a small park but to me it felt like a gigantic field that went on for days. I’m sure there were like maybe fifty people there but it felt like an ocean of people to me. I remember that feeling on a summer night when the air is finally cool and the sun is setting, your skin still slightly damp from the day’s heat. I always loved slipping into that jacket my mom always made sure I had and finally feeling warm; lying down on the blanket and smelling the cut grass. It always felt like such a treat to be out so late with the grown-ups as if something very mysterious were happening at that time of night. I’m sure mysterious things were happening – it was the 70’s in Vermont.
This year we’re celebrating the 4th at my parents’ house in the great state of Tennessee – I say “great” somewhat facetiously since they’re trying to ban the word “gay” there. Is it possible to ban a word? I’m sure we will be requested to engage in conversation about it while we’re there. Not with my parents but instead with some random, slightly intoxicated retiree that is still trying to figure out how we conceived our kids.