The Sunday Struggle #9

Right then, today's Sunday Struggle is bound to have a minimal target audience, what with the lovely weather out, but here it goes nonetheless. I've amassed the following links/gimmicks/curiosities for you for today:

1. Design your own tie: Girl-ties are all the rage again, and I quite fancy some for the dressed-up days at work. Unfortunately, the only website that seems to sell ties specifically designed for women is a rather crap one. So until someone can point me in the right direction, maybe designing my own tie might be the best alternative.

2. Floor & Wall-stickers: I spotted these and thought they were a good idea in terms of decorating, if you don't fancy going for the regular wall and floor arrangements. Tango-steps explained on your floor or a cheeky plug-socket. They come in at around 50 euros each and I think that's a tad overpriced for something you could quite easily do yourself in the space of a few lost hours on an overcast Sunday...

3. Publish Yourself: (Thx to Ine for pointing this one out). It's one of the several "print yourself" sites out there, but it gives itself a bit of a leading edge by providing an easy downloadable tool with lots of templates that guides you through the process of publishing your poems, your photos, or even your entire blog... in a neatly bound book that would fit well on your lounge-table. I am currently publishing Ubiquitous 2005, Ubiquitous 2006 and a photo-album of my round-the-world trip.

4. Livingstones Lounge: I won't have enough space in my new flat, but if I had, I would most definitely splash out on creating a wee corner like this. It looks fab for kids, or for a lazy comfi Sunday-afternoons, leisurely splashed out across some pebles with yer book or sunday paper.

5. And for the most random inventions of the week: The Jonny Glow Toilet Locator and the Hamster Shredder . Designed to help men aim for the toiletbowl in the dark (a problem I am unlikely to encounter in my house-hold what with the absence of men, but I can imagine this would be problematic for some other family arrangements), and an ecological way to shred your paper. I am actually all up for that Hamster thing, and may even suggest it to my boss at our next meeting. Every office needs a mascote. It might as well do something useful too.

6. Photography: Kelli Connell: Look closely at the pictures and you will notice that both people in the image are actually one and the same person. On Connell's website she explains:

"This work represents an autobiographical questioning of sexuality and gender roles that shape the identity of the self in intimate relationships. Polarities of identity such as the masculine and feminine psyche, the irrational and rational self, the exterior and interior self, the motivated and resigned self are portrayed. By combining multiple photographic negatives of the same model in each image, the dualities of the self are defined by body language and clothing worn."

This play with the duality of identity, and sometimes the seemingly contradictory co-existence of both aspects, is very close to my heart. Fits in perfectly with my own Queer identity and daily introspective moments.

7. Organic Fizz: Delish British goodness. With this warm weather, I find it hard to stay away from the Diet Coke. But in terms of rehydration, these fizzy drinks are by far the better choice. May have to import those when I go out to York in a fortnight.

8. Word of the Day: My girlfriend has a thing for words. She knows a plethora of them and they get me hooked on her story-telling. She's introduced me to Dictionary.com, a site that sends you a new word of the day every morning. Today's word was rather appropriate, so I decided to include the link ;-)

prolix
\pro-LIKS; PRO-liks\,
adjective:
1. Extending to a great length; unnecessarily long; wordy.
2. Tending to speak or write at excessive length.

The Sunday Struggle #7

1. Not a Look-Alike

Photographer Francois Brunelle decided to hunt down and document people that are not genetically related, but do look alike. Some of the images and their stories are downright eerie. The two women below are no relation to each other, but were born on the same day, one hour apart. Both studied dance, moved to Montreal and got tattoos from the same shop. After they met, they realised they also lived in the same building... You couldn't make it up if you tried. For more non-genetic "twins", see here.


2. Jo Whiley's Live Lounge

Following a conversation last weekend, I decided to hunt down some of the Jo Whiley Live Lounge sessions (BBC Radio 1). The Live Lounge used to be my favorite item on her show, for the sole reason that artists were always asked to perform a their own take on someone else's song. I decided to upload my favorite one to the widget box below. If you fancy a wee listen, simply click the song-title. I doubt that anyone will ever be able to top KT Tunstall's take on Missy Elliot's Get Your Freak On, it's potentially the best cover I've ever heard. Other brilliant tracks include: Keane - With or Without You (U2 Cover) and The Kooks - Crazy (Gnarls Barkley Cover). Easily hunted down for free on Limewire.






3. Typorganism and Diggs Lab

A web-based project on kinetic typography (cool to play around with) and an alternative way to visually represent what people are Digging in terms of news.


4. Global Rich List

Want to feel good about your salary? And reconfirm just how privileged you are? Try this site. It tells you just how rich you are compared to the rest of the world.


5. Buddha Bowl

I think I may actually splash out on a few of these, they look so perfect for that delightful Sunday Cuppa. Not too keen on the color but they seem to come in a few other shades as well.


6. Air Guitar Nation

Me thinks one would have to be SERIOUSLY bored before one would actually even consider slipping this into the DVD player, but erm... it takes all sorts I guess.

The Sunday Struggle #5

Bored today? You could...

- Go outside (keep reading ;)

- Jot down any weird questions that pop up in your head during the long workweek and submit them to the Mad Scientist's Network (preferably no questions in the Biophysics field or they may ask me to answer them and I'm on holidays next week ;). Here's a good example to get your creative juices going: How could/would you burp in Zero Gravity?

- Take a moment to appreciate some homegrown architecture & design with a high drool-factor: Glenn Sestig Architects. I would however, NOT recommend a visit to the Glenn Sestig Restaurant (Kortedagsteeg, Ghent) as the food's disproportionately overpriced in terms of its quality. Or to quote a Dutch proverb: "Schoenmaker blijf bij je leest". Especially when one does the latter so exceedingly well.

- Or for the PhD Students who've not collected enough data of their own yet: Play with other people's data and create your own weird conclusions.

- Roll your eyes at a bit of excellent geek humor ;)

- You could bookmark 3191 : Two female photographers, living 3191 miles apart, share 1 photo blog.

- Plan your next underground party

- Or help me track down the parameters of The Awesome Floating Bed: I have searched everywhere for more specifics. As a PhD in Magnetism (well... kind of) I would really like to know the weight of the bed and the actual magnetic material (I suspect it's a composite)... so I could spend my own Sunday struggling through calculations of the magnetic field strengths needed to repel the bed from the base-magnet. I seriously doubt it's safe to have credit cards, pacemakers or mobile phones nearby, but man does it look impressive!! *grin*

- Or, to round it all off, we could indulge in a bit of Civil Engineer-bashing (an all-time favorite amongst us "cool" physicists;) .... The Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster

-Cartoons courtesy of XkCd (thanks Oirish!)-

Defection

After much debate, I've finally decided to defect. As of today, I am no longer a Nokia user, but the proud owner of a Sony Ericsson. It takes some getting used to, but I like the slimness and texture of the new device. Moreover, it has an excellent little camera, which is very easily hidden and used from a vest-sleeve. It's almost sad just how excited I am.

I've also paid a wee visit to the City Kingz graphic art shop in town and have expanded my wishlist by about 10 art books. I intend to get downright mucky next week by putting all my graffitti plans into action. It's time to get down to the nitty gritty bit of decorating my new flat. *grin*


Oh, and I caught this stencil today. The graphic is a tad on the flou side, but it did look nice on those materials.



And to finish this entirely contentless post, has anyone else noticed how the clubscene music has shifted the last couple of months from a style attuned to alcohol to one attuned to pills? It came up in a discussion last night, and I have to admit my friends were bang on with this remark. Not complaining though, even to a sober & responsible individual the beats are fab ;-)

Sunday Struggle #3

It appears to have been a very productive Sunday so, continuing on from this morning's Sunday Struggle:

1. Living Tomorrow: open for visits from the weekend after next onwards. I'd like to go, but I don't like going to Brussels on me tod (what with it being so big & foreign and all *grin*), so drop me a line if you fancy coming.

2. Now this link will considerably alleviate my daily frustrations with trying to remember a song-title or artist. No more googling lyrics, simply plug in your mic, sing/hum the tune you're trying to find, et voila. Disclaimer: Not to be used by tonedeaf individuals ;-)