Lifestyle
Do Recessions Produce Nicer People?
Newsweek concludes an article about the long term effects of the recession on the American psyche and ponders whether the recession might have an unexpected side effect in that we all might become more empathetic and community-minded, and so turn into nicer people. Read the full article.
My Grill by Pete Evans
Aussie TV chef Pete Evans has written a new book, My Grill, which giveshe BBQ with a sophisticated spin with dishes such as Spiced Lamb Skewers with Pomegranate Molasses, Baby Octopus with Smoked Spanish Paprika and Sweet & Sour Capsicum and French Toast with Figs. Hat tip: PSFK
Roxxxy – Techno Sex Doll
The Telegraph reports that Douglas Hines, an artificial intelligence engineer, has invented a life size robotic doll that can perform a range of ahem, ‘activities’, including talking about Manchester United and snoring. Unfortunately, she’s not mastered the art of vacuuming. Punters can specify race and body type and choose from five personalities: Foxy Roxxy, Wild, […]
Kid in a Kit
Are you childless and fed up with covering for your colleagues who are always leaving work early to pick up their children / go to their sports days / parents evenings? The Office Kid comes to your rescue. For $19.95 you can get a framed picture of ‘your kid’, some childish scribblings to proudly display […]
Wedding List Wishes
Upon Our Star is a wedding registry with a difference – instead of listing the household goods they want to receive on their wedding day, they make a list of experiences, such as plane tickets for a round-the-world trip, breakfast in bed on the honeymoon, the wedding dress or even a house. Read more about […]
Gay is the New Black
Dangerous Breed is home to political T-Shirts that make you think: the slogan that is provoking most comment at the moment is “Gay is the New Black”, which refers to the denial of gay marriage rights in the USA. Others include “Ski Iraq” (as seen on Six Feet Under), “Gaza Strip Club” and “Petrosexual”. Get […]
Expedition 206
Expedition 206 is a Coca Cola funded mission to try to find out what makes people happy. To do that, they are sending a team of three “happiness ambassadors” to the 206 countries where Coca Cola is sold – they will set out in January 2010 and their trip will take 365 days. Along the […]
Name Translations
Save your child future embarrassment when she is the CEO of a global corporation by checking out Today Translations and before you choose her name. Read more.
Who’s Jack TV
Who’s Jack is a London-centric online TV network with five branded channels (Jack, Jeff, Marco, Vox and Zoe) and style/trendspotting magazine. Viewers of the videos can buy products featured in the programmes. For example, in this interview with Speech Debelle you can buy Speech’s album or the interviewer’s Lacoste shirt or Vans trucker cap. The […]
Student Seeks PA
Not only do students want to outsource their essays, they also want to outsource their chores too. The Washington posts reports that 19-yr-old Charley Cooper advertised for a personal assistant ($12 per hour) to ferry him to and from work, sort out his closet, do his laundry, put fuel in his car and book barber […]
Breast is Best… For Ratings?
Local TV station WJLA Channel 7 in Washington DC caused a stir when it showed fully exposed breasts on its late afternoon and early evening news programmes in segments about self-examination as part of National Breast Cancer Awareness month. Cynics suggested that the timing might have more to do with it being ‘sweeps’ month when […]
AltUse.com
Altuse.com’s mission is to help you “save money and heal the earth by extending the life of everything you already own”. It’s a compendium of grandma’s tips such as using vodka to clean your glasses (or it may just be the vodka that’s blurring your vision) and using old coffee grounds to fertilise the garden. […]
Happy Farming
Shanghaiist reports that white collar workers have taken their addiction to an online farming game, Happy Farm, offline. They are buying and farming their own plots at the weekend in an effort to increase parent child interactions and get the satisfaction of growing and harvesting their own food. Read more on PSFK.
Urban Farming
More urban farming, this time a yard and skills sharing scheme for hyprlocavore devotees – that is people who try to eat food that is grown as locally as possible. Visit the hyperlocavore site to find out more. Curiously, the site says yard sharing is perfect for apartment dwellers, famers lacking land and bastards.
Scar Trends
In an age of the quest for physical perfection, a scar can make you feel self-conscious and embarrassed; but some people have decided to highlight and enhance their scars with tattoos or specially made jewellery. And if you really don’t want to show of your scar, there’s still the option of using camouflage. Visit Trendhunter […]
Oh, the Indignity.
Depending on your viewpoint, dressing up for Halloween is a) fun b) a pain in the ass to be endured. If you lean more towards b), spare a thought for the dogs that are dressed up especially for the occasion. See a slide show of the ‘best’ dog Halloween costumes here.
Wi-Fi Detector T-Shirt
With Christmas Trees appearing in shop windows it must be time to start panicking about buying your Christmas gifts. If you have a geek in your life, over to ThinkGeek for some techie presents such as a T-Shirt that lights up to alert you when are in a WiFi hotspot, a T-shirt that does double […]
Three Die at Self-Help Retreat
The Huffington Post reports that two people (now three) people died when they took part in a sweat lodge at the end of a self-help retreat in Arizona run by spiritual guru James Ray. Sixty people had paid $10,000 to attend the retreat and were confined to a tent for several hours, as the temperature […]
Clown Convention
Clown fearers look away now: 200 clowns recently descended on Mexico City for a clown convention. In among the seminars and make up tips, they were protesting Mexico’s raising of taxes, which poor clowns can’t afford. Hat tip to: @barryjamesgibb Watch the video:
Exactititudes – Uniform Groups
Exactitudes, a 14-yr anthropological photographic project from Rotterdam based photographer Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek. I is a visual representation of different groups of people who consciously or unconsciously strive to look like each other in order to belong to a subcultural group or differentiate themselves from others. Check out Chairmen in Beijing, Habibties […]
Fire Escape Gardening
Mike Lieberman has taken gardening to new heights, by planting vegetables on his NYC fire escape. He’s got handy tips on building a kitchen compost bin, making a hanging planter from recycled bottles and self-watering containers. Get inspired at the Urban Organic Gardener
Truly Madly Dating
GQ.com and Glamour.com have come together in unholy matrimony and given birth to trulymadlydating.com, which is an Internet dating site (in case you hadn’t guessed), which aims to “unite glamorous girls with fashion-conscious GQ-reading boys”. Worth a browse if only to see if you can spot your neighbour / boss / boyfriend on there. Sign […]
Travel Writers Recommend
If you think professional travel writers would know a good place to stay when they saw one you might want to take a look at this poll that 101 Holidays conducted. They asked well-known travel writers for their recommendations. As the survey was twitter based they had to describe their favourite lodgings in fewer than […]
Heading for Extinction?
The Washington Post worries that the sandwich is threatening traditional Parisian cafe culture, as a lack of cash and time encourages office workers to grab a quick lunch at their desk, or as they walk down the street. The number of bars and cafes has fallen from 200,000 fifty years ago to around 38,000 today, […]
Van Gogh is Bipolar
Van Gogh is Biopolar is a restaurant in Quezon City, in The Philippines that serves natural food that they believe will lighten your mood. Claiming to sell ‘happy-hormone-producing’ foods, the restaurant’s decor is also aimed at making diners happy as well as full. Read more in Springwise.
Eligible Men
Daily Motion has a video of found footage of dating agency videos, which shows a procession of hapless men explaining what they are looking for in love “vivacious, foxy”, “the goddess”, and why they are eligible bachelors (“I’m an executive by day and a wild man at night.” “I’m atonal.”, “I’m interested in most phases […]
Rooms of Japanese Teenagers
DamnCoolPics has a set of photos that give a glimpse into the bedrooms (and lives) of Japanese teenagers. Some of the rooms look like video stores, others somewhere between an edit suite and an amusement arcade. And there’s a lot of pink. Peek here.
The Brixton Pound
Brixton in south London has just launched a new currency B£ – the Brixton pound – to encourage local people and businesses to spend their money locally. 70 local cafes, pubs and shops have signed up and the scheme is backed by Lambeth Council. Brixton is the fourth community in Britian to adopt a local […]
Creatives’ House Swapping
Creative Caravan is a free house swap / subletting site for people working in the advertising/media/fashion/art and design industries, the idea being that you are more likely to have something in common with your landlord / renter and so are less likely to run into incompatibility/expectation issues. Ideal for short term lets for vacation or […]
David Byrne’s Perfect City
David Byrne has written an article in the Wall Street Journal imagining his perfect city. For him it’s a mix of a big city like NYC, the sensibilities of Glasgow, the safety of Tokyo, the sensuality of New Orleans, the the chaos of Naples, and the boulevards of Buenos Aires. Read more.
London Design Guide 2010
The London Design Guide 2010 is the first book of the press from new publisher Spotlight Press. If you are a design lover, it lists all the hotels, restaurants, galleries that are worthy of a visit, handily organised by neighbourhood. Find out more. Hat tip: Coolhunting
Greenlit: Dominick Dunne: After the Party, More4
Dominick Dunne: After the Party – feature-length doc paints a fascinating portrait of the late Dominick Dunne the Hollywood social commentator, and Vanity Fair columnist, who was drawn to covering celebrity trials after the murder of his daughter. Channel: More4 Dir: Kirsty de Garis / Timothy Jolley TX: 18th September 2009 Source: C21
Art & Copy
Doug Pray’s feature documentary Art and Copy is a film about the advertising greats you’ve never heard of, but who have changed our lives and culture with their creativity. It features interviews with people such as George Lois, Hal Riney, Mary Wells and others who came up with “Got Milk”, “Just Do It” and “I […]
One a Minute Street Fashion
Bijin-tokei is a Japanese website that updates every minute with photographs of fashionable Japanese girls and their vital statistics – birthday, occupation, blood group and favourite website, as well as the obvious – and is also available as an iPhone app. Hat tip to PSFK
Naked Girls Reading
Naked Girls Reading is a new(-ish) event in Chicago in which burlesque dancers drop the feathers, settle down on a sofa and read passages of their choice to an audience, who sip wine and eat cookies as they listen to literary texts ranging from Lolita to Sylvia Plath and The Declaration of Independence. The girls […]
Advice From a Personal Assistant
Karen Goldstein is an executive assistant who has worked for Silicon Valley execs and actors, gaining a lot of handy know how along the way. She’s started her own blog Advice from a Personal Assistant to share her information with other personal assistants and people who might find her information on technology (she’s a geek), […]
Stay on a Farm USA
PSFK notes that farm holidays are coming back in vogue in the USA, as families look for vacations that are local and sustainable, with the opportunity to contribute to a working farm. For example, on Feather Down Farms properties you get to stay in a rustic tent complete with flushing toilet and wood-burning stove and […]
Chinese Ikea -Try Before You Buy
The LA Times has picked up on a new IKEA trend: in Beijing IKEA is a destination for a day out (with many people driving for hours to get there), but few visitors actually buy anything, instead preferring to hop into one of the beds with a good book, have a nap on a sofa, […]
America’s Got Talent: Kaitlyn Maher, 4-yrs-old
After all the hand-wringing at Edinburgh International TV Festival about the pressures on children such as 10-yr-old Hollie Steel on Britain’s Got Talent, it might be time to revisit Kaitlyn Maher who was the 4yr-old top ten finalist in America’s Got Talent 2008. A year on, she’s got a debut album, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and […]
Moped Gangs
Mopeds are enjoying a renaissance in the USA, and they’ve spawned moped ‘gangs’ in almost every city in the States. The phenomenon caught the attention of Wired who sent Bryan Derbella to spend three weeks hanging out with the Orphans in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and produced a photo-essay about his adventures. Wired have helpfully provided a […]
From Grid to Green
Mike Johnson is a 32-yr-old Florida-based mailman, music producer and tech geek, who has just decided to try to take his house and family off the grid. He’s going to be blogging about his experience on From Grid to Green, which he’s just started. His first task is to create an automatic zonal watering system […]
LAX Caravan Park
The Los Angeles Times carried an article about “one of America’s most unusual communities in the United States”, which is made up of airline workers, including pilots and mechanics who have made a parking lot their home. A cluster of 100 RVs sit close to the edge of the runway and the inhabitants live with […]
Bling Bejing
The China Daily has an article on China’s rich list, which reveals Beijing as the bling capital of China with 143,000 multimillionaires and 8,800 billionaires, who according to the Hurun Report, spend their money on property, piano classes, Bulgari, Cartier and enjoy taking trips to Tokyo. Read more.
Do Lectures
Do Lectures – If you feel like you need some inspiration to get off your arras and do something head down to Cardigan Bay in West Wales on 3rd September for five days of inspirational talks in a woodland setting. Well, actually you can’t because you have to apply in advance and go into a […]
40 Farmers Under40
Mother Nature Network has published a list of 40 [American] Farmers Under 40: from sheep farmers, to a herb farmer and a truck farmer (yes, you read right). They all look very wholesome and smiley, and wear a lot of hats. Hat tip to PSFK
Thinking Space
The Economist has got a cool interactive site that allows you to explore the ‘thinking spaces’ of a variety of creative people, including musician Jamie Lidell, the fabulously named Mercedes Bunz (founder of De-bug magazine), and fashion designer Andrea Llosa. You can also upload photos of your own creative space. Explore the site here
Baseball Wives
The Washington Post has an article about the wives of players of the Washington Nationals, a team sitting at the bottom of their league. For the wives, it’s not as glamorous a life as people assume: most of them are small town girls forced to move away from their friends and families, and have to […]
Credit Crunch Hotel Dining
British comedian George Egg takes in-room hotel dining to a new (unique?) level cooks tortellini in a kettle and English muffins on an iron. He says the equivalent meal would cost £15+ in the hotel restaurant and claims his version uses £2 of ingredients, ideal for the cash-strapped traveller – I’d like to know where […]
Pyjama Girls Documentary
Director Maya Derrington noticed that there was a propensity for the people of Dublin to walk around the city in their pyjamas. This observation inspired her to make Pyjama Girls, an observational documentary that focuses on a group of teenage girls who live in the Basin Street Flats in Dublin’s Inner City. The film is […]
Coco Perez
Perez Hilton has launched a new website Coco Perez which mixes his brand of celebrity gossip with fashion.
