Trader Joe's

The closest food purveyor I've had for the past few years has been Trader Joe's. If you've been there, you know they're usually small locations with a lot of store-brand products (they are actually good products, not those bunny-cereal generic ones at Safeway), these products tend to be slightly off the regular path and change fairly often (which is my theory of why they give out samples all day, every day).

I usually walk in the store and, unless I'm extremely pressed for time (read: I have three minutes to purchase something), I go straight to the samples counter. They usually give out fun stuff, sometimes really weird stuff, but usually they'll get you to try something new and buy it. Once, they even offered to open a package of mango mochi ice cream just so I could try it (it worked, I love them). They have coffee every day, and sometimes english or irish breakfast tea (tasty!). That's why this video made me laugh:



A list of associated By The Ways:
- The sugar that won't pour is the Turbinado sugar, it's wetter than regular sugar, more like wet coarse sand. It's a bad idea to put it in diner sugar containers.
- I've been to their store for days straight at a time, usually just an excuse to get a tiny cup of tasty (free) coffee and a cookie (ooooh peppermint joe-joes). And yes, they do have the same sample five days in a row.
- The song is a version of a duet that Maria Creuza sang. It's a childhood song, it makes me think of people visiting the house and dressing up and sitting with the adults having serious conversations and then being told to go play something. :).

I really like this video.

Here's Johnny!

The wonders of editing and purpose:

The Shining:


Shining:

Star Wars Retold by a Non Believer

I couldn't stop laughing when I first watched this, more because I know someone whose story of Star Wars is similar to this one.


Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

(The original site has a bigger video size)

Attack of the 80's Videos (sorry)

omg I love this video, I'm not sure if I already put it up but if I did then you know I really like it:

Men at Work - Land Down Under


Taking advantage of that, let's go to some related videos:
Toto - Africa


Dead or Alive - You Spin me Round


Men without Hats - Safety Dance (omg)


This one's for ale lela lila!

Youtube Channels

There's a few Youtube channels I've found recently, one of them is whitehouse, it has existed since 2006 apparently, kind of adorable. Another one is failblog, of course, they keep a tab on fail videos and sometimes epic wins. Finally, there's liamkylesullivan, it's mostly NSFW and there's an odd video on his main page right now. He has a character called Kelly, and they write dance-type songs and she sings them and stuff. The best are:

Shoes


Let me borrow that top


Text Message Breakup


No booty calls


let me borrow that top
let me borrow that top
let me borrow that top
I wanna borrow that top, betch

:) hi mom!

Video Time

So I found a new bunch of videos that I really like, since I really like them I keep them on one of my three semi-permanent Firefox sessions, and then my computer yells at me. It's doing it right now, it keeps navigating back to the blanket page. All right, so my computer won't go insane here they are, now you can see them and I can not misplace them during a crash session.

The beginnings of the Internet


OMG I want to be one of these kids


Kitties on a Roomba


Four hours of baby play in 2 minutes


I was thinking the same thing when I first watched this informercial on TV


Awesome Stop Motion animation


P.S. A sausage is an indigestible balloon of decayed beef riddled with tuberculosis. Eat it and die.

Super Video Clicky Time!

There's a bunch of places with this posted up. I had to put it up, I couldn't resist mate! I'm a HUGE Beatles fan by genetics, and I'd never seen this video, a rooftop concert which turned out to be their last time playing together for an audience. (I got the links from Beatles Brasil, it seems to have a lot of info if you're inclined to read it in brazilian portuguese)

This one's for me mum.

*sigh*

hola gente!

ok, here I am, staring at a blank post, trying to figure out what to write, or even if I have any interesting stuff left to post about. I guess that now that I changed my job I don't have this need to remind myself and people around me of what makes me happy (Isn't that depressing?). It's very sad, because now that I'm ok with what I'm working on (even when the work culture becomes very frustrating), I don't feel that telling you what I'm doing is that cool.

Before, it used to be pretty awesome to say "hey, my job stinks, but I'm making this really cool scarf I got from a kid's instructional kit!", now I'm not so convinced. It might also be that I have to choose what to make now, and it's not as easy as having a box inform me of my next project (I was working on a very detailed crocheted scarf, which consists of a bunch of triangles put together, and I worked on it so long that now I feel that I'm overexposed to that project, so I had to stop. Cool side of it: I'm working on a baby dragon that's coming along very quickly and he's totally adorable :) ).

Also, they have a bunch of distribution lists at work where they post random videos and pictures, and I'm like "that would be great for my blog!" but then I'm like "but I didn't come up with that, that's plagiarism!", so even though I have a number of interesting items to tell you about, I can't really tell you about them because they came to me without me doing any effort (so it doesn't feel like it's mine).

I think everything took a turn for the worse right around the time I did the Fairly Oddparents post...

Well, thanks to you who read on until now, I'm glad you did, because writing out loud helps me think and makes me not think that it's so bad. So here are my two top favorite things to post right now:

This is my favorite contestant ever from Animal Planet's Pet Star:

And this is a dog they sent out at work:

Next project: Change the look of the blog!

HORRENDOUSLY EVIL!!!

I'm sooooooo sorry

soooooooo sorry

I'm not ignoring you

Really!!

I know it looks like I totally forgot, and I'm totally not getting my extra points for not posting in like 3 weeks, but I have an excuse. I quit my job and started a new one! WOOT! I'd say that beats writing in my blog, but it's still pretty bad that I leave you, my demi-constant reader, without any new crafty news or awesome links. Since we're on that subject, I'll leave you with the following:



If you don't understand spanish and Venezuelan slang, I'll try to translate for ya, because it's pretty funny (although you have to catch the rhymes, which kind of gives it the kick).

This video was a mock of the following pretty decent Salserin* song (the video is bad):


*Salserin: Venezuelan Salsa group consisting of a bunch of little kids and teens.

"The Ssiny Guy Always Worries"

Ack!

Dexter

This is the opening for Dexter, a Showtime series I recently started watching.

Ale, Ma - If you can rent the first DVD of the season, it's worth watching it on High Def, it completely tells the inner story of the main character, and the design is gorgeous.



The first season is based on book one of the Dexter series, Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay, which follows the life of a serial killer who kills serial killers. I just started season one which follows the first book very closely, so I'll leave it up to you to choose which you'd want to get the ending from; this is one of those rare cases where the book itself is an awesome read, and the series based on it is addictive and very well told.

From what I've read, the second season and second book (Dearly Devoted Dexter) are different stories, more Dexter fun for all of us! I "read" (on audiobook) this one too, I liked the first story better but in this one Dexter evolves as a character, and his relationships are explored more. It even gets to a point where you begin to make decisions like Dexter, because of "Harry's Code."

And in the middle of researching for this post, I found out a third book on the series came out last year! wooo! I have to go and see what Dex is up to in Dexter in the Dark. Happy murderous joy (of course, not for real :D ).


P.S. If you're interested in the inner workings of a sociopath, get a copy of The Sociopath Next Door, by Martha Stout. It's a surprisingly easy read, and it gives you perspective on how your boss' bosses might qualify as sociopaths... Even a soccer mom could be a sociopath.

WTF Post for Friday, February 8th

These dudes are all about the classic edge, they're taking string quartets in an interesting direction.



helicopters!

Good Music for Work

I was working on a process flow for my presentation today, this song helped me through it:



It helps me concentrate and think.