« November 2007 | Main | June 2008 »
February 25, 2008
Movie Nite
I'm biased, but this NYTimes.com feature is lots of fun to play with. It shows how movies have done at the box office for the past two decades with an interactive graphic (with search capability, no less). D pointed out that movies in the 80s that were successful had more "legs" -- that is, the runs lasted a lot longer -- than they do today. It's a bit of a trip down memory lane to look at the 80s and 90s movies -- click on a blob for the title, then click on the movie overview link and you can watch old trailers. I'm disappointed that one of my favorite movies, The English Patient, didn't do so well at the box office.
Posted by csageday at 01:11 AM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2008
KnitML & Ravelry
Web technology and knitting have finally come together in a very cool way with KnitML, which is simply brilliant. My technical skills aren't advanced enough to allow me to contribute to the effort, but I can appreciate the uber-coolness of it and Derek can contribute the occasional purl/perl joke.
These two worlds have also been joined with the fabulous knitting social networking platform that is Ravelry. Right now, I'm making Fetching mitts with Malabrigo yarn, and I've just browsed through pages created by knitters making the same pattern with the same yarn to see whether they used the same needle size, etc. Hurrah for organized, community-improved, online knitting data (with pictures!)! Adding all of my completed projects has also helped me realize that I've made nine (9!) baby hats recently and not much else. Time to branch out...
Posted by csageday at 11:35 PM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2008
Adventures in Montclair, NJ
We explored Montclair, New Jersey this weekend while pretending to be suburbanites in my family's house in West Orange (we were also busy overfeeding the family dog while his usual housemates were away).
Montclair is the next town over, and it's mecca for yuppie urbanites who decide they can't take the city and opt for a car and yard. In some ways, it's like a Vegas/Disney version of Park Slope. There's a better analogy out there, but basically, it has many city-worthy amenities while still being, at heart, very Jersey. There are walkable downtown areas. There are roving packs of hoodie'd teens. There are independent bookstores and coffee shops that remind us of the Tea Lounge. There are chic-looking clothing boutiques. There are TONS of restaurants. Some have names like "Soho (something)" or "Uptown" and are just flat out trying too hard. The decor in some is so ridiculous that we started laughing (think armchairs with floor-length slipcovers, mood lighting, elaborate arrangements of branches). Others look worth a try. There is far less pedestrian traffic than you'd see in the Slope, but the stores don't lack for visitors (people just arrive in cars).
Discoveries
- A Jamaican/Guyanese restaurant on Bloomfield Ave. with great Roti (D's discovery). I think I've tried sorrel drinks before, but the one here was really good. The doubles we had before roti were amazing -- fresh, with a touch of something sweet (mango puree?).
- THREE yarn stores. One was old-style (acrylic, pastel colors, closing soon), one was new, molded in the Yarn-Harlot tradition of the LYS (familiar with Knitty patterns, seller of snarky tee-shirts about knitting, with a web site and blog), and a third was somewhere in between.
- A British food import store packed to the brim with things like Marmite and digestive biscuits and Cadbury chocolate. We made a wonderful discovery -- tubes of Rowntree blackcurrant fruit pastilles and ONLY blackcurrant fruit pastilles. Normally you have to suffer through green and yellow pieces before you get the occasional purple one. In Heathrow last year we found bags of just blackcurrant and strawberry fruit pastilles and thought we'd lucked out. This store also sells pies of the savory variety (shepard's, steak & ale).
- A nice antique shop on Church St. that I prefer over Atlantic avenue versions, simply because of the reasonable prices and great collection of jewelry.
- A blight of luxury condos (well, at least one). See The Siena. With your order of an overpriced condo, you get a side of Starbucks, a gym, and absurd name and marketing campaign. Not that I didn't have a little inkling of a desire to see what it would be like to live there...but still.
- A great blog called Baristanet, which chronicles local happenings.
While it's fun to walk around the various downtown areas and shop and eat, my childhood as the kid at the bottom of the social order in the fancy private school there will always follow me around. I went to Montclair Kimberly Academy, where I wore all the wrong clothes and had a bird's nest for a hairdo. I participated in the same popularity contests that I imagine the well-to-do parents of my classmates did. I got a great education (including that exchange program in 7th grade), but a cockeyed lesson in social politics.
As much as I like the revitalized downtown areas on Montclair, I'm wary of people who are going to these silly restaurants to show off their cash -- there's something small-town about that behavior.
Posted by csageday at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)
February 05, 2008
Sick
I am a sweaty, disgusting mess. I have some sort of stomach bug, which hit at exactly the wrong time. I knew something was wrong when I wasn't starving by noon today, after eating through my entire lunch at 11:30 (as usual), but hoped that if I ignored it, it would go away. Not so. I am marveling at the restorative effects of Ginger Ale, though. Not that the mass market version actually does anything. Why am I blogging about this? Because I am sick and not thinking properly.
Posted by csageday at 12:03 AM | Comments (0)
February 03, 2008
About the New Image Up Top
Sony Wonder Technology Lab, where D works, is undergoing a major redesign. Old exhibits are, sadly, part of the current demolition phase. The above photo is from the partly dismantled "Log In" area, and shows how the fiber optic star panels are put together. Long, thin strands of fiber optic cable are bundled to a light source at one end, and the individual strands poke through black fabric to create a "star field effect."
Update: If you're not seeing a new image and a black, white, and gray design instead of a green one, hit Shift+Refresh.
Posted by csageday at 11:29 PM | Comments (0)
Google Maps vs. Friday Night Indecision
I've been meaning for a long time to play around with the Google Maps API. For non-technical folks, the API lets you use Google's lovely map technology to create and manipulate maps of your own. It's relatively easy, and quite flexible.
The other day, I thought of a practical -- and food-related! -- application. Every few weeks or so, D and I (and occasionally some unlucky friend) decide that we're hungry and want to go out in Manhattan, but can't think of a place to go. We're usually at work, and the indecision can sometimes drag on for over an hour while we browse Chowhound or get sidetracked by food-related videos or whatever. I KNOW there are restaurants we should try -- places I've read about and tried to remember, but for some reason they never come to mind late on a Friday, when this frustrating phenomenon usually occurs. If they do, I can't remember where they are or what they're called. Sometimes we leave work and meet at some neutral place to kick-start the process, but still can't think of anything, and so wander around aimlessly. It's pathetic.
Enter Google maps. If we had all of the restaurants stored in a list and mapped, we could use D's Blackberry to visit it and pick something from the list. This probably exists on a restaurant site somewhere, but it's fun to create your own. At the moment, I've implemented a pretty hack-y version. The places aren't in a database or even in XML (though I have a version of this that does pull from XML, but which is not ready for prime-time yet). Also, the places are all expensive, so when last Friday rolled around and we couldn't think of anything, it didn't help AT ALL. Still, we'll get there. If the novelty doesn't wear off, I'll add a little "Add a restaurant" section which will update my XML or DB or whatever.
Take a look and let me know what you think.
Posted by csageday at 12:24 PM | Comments (2)
February 02, 2008
Dad
Sorry for the long period of nonblogging. I had written something on 11/11 or so, but my crappy hosting service didn't let me post it. Then, in a series of events that still seem incomprehensible to me, I lost my Dad suddenly, and since then my world has been a little different, and a lot more sad. Impossibly sad. He had a heart attack the Saturday before Thanksgiving. At the hospital, doctors discovered a small hole in his heart. The subsequent surgery wasn't successful, and we lost him on Thanksgiving Day. I've posted a bunch of photos on Flickr of Dad from the collection we displayed for the memorial service. I'm not really equipped or ready to write about it here. I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around it. Still, life goes on (as Dad would say), and I have some things to say, so I'm hoping to start posting again.
Posted by csageday at 04:16 PM | Comments (2)