Christopher Walken. Is. Awesome.

So I found this a long time ago, but was reminded of it the other day and thought it was worth sharing. Christopher Walken performs Lady Gaga’s Pokerface. I may have laughed for 5 minutes straight.

Baffling.

Well, I can’t quite figure it out, but my post about my injuries (Ground Beef and an Anatomy Lesson) is now, and has been since I wrote it, my most popular and searched post.  I wonder what gives.

Corporate Christmas Card

I got to make my first Christmas Card this year.  I’m behind the game on posting this, but better late than never…. It was exhilarating. Here’s what I came up with….

...front of GCS Christmas card...

...inside of card...

...on the envelope for the Christmas Card...

Astronomy Posters

I think these are super cool.  I misplaced my original source, but you can see them all here.  Posters by Simon Page…go buy them on his site!

Some Design Posters I like.

I came across a post on Web Urbanist a while back with some great design posters.  I’ll share a few with you here.

Music.

I’m a music NUT. So I’m always looking for places to find new music. So ignoring any posts about the holidays, I’m going to jump into the new year with a post on some of my favorite music resources! (disclaimer: this is not intended to be an exhaustive or all inclusive list… if you know of something else i should check out…by all means, shoot me a message.)

1. streaming music

• lala.com
  • lala is pretty unique in my opinion.  it allows you to listen to a song the entire way through without having to purchase it first.  try before you buy kind of deal.  also, i find the music more reasonably priced than, let’s say, itunes.  most songs are 89 cents for an mp3, not to mention that you can pay 10 cents to add it to your library and listen to it as much as you want from your lala.com account.
• indiestreetcred
  • isc is run by a friend. there’s a new song each day, streaming music, great way to find new music, but it’s not really customizable, and you must go somewhere external to buy songs.  i ususally go to lala.
• the burning ear
  • the burning ear is a site i just found, similar to isc, posts are irregular for all i can tell, but you can get streaming music.  there’s a neat player on the site, links are posted to outside sources to purchase songs. one of the major pitfalls i’ve found is access to older music.  you can look up older posts, but i’m not quite sure how to search around the actual archive of music.
• off the radar
  • off the radar is relatively new to me, so i don’t have much to say about it.  it does have full length streaming music, but it doesn’t seem to have a player that will play the music in any sort of order.  there is a player from MixPod (which i’ve only just started looking into) which teams kind of neat, but i can’t decide anything yet as i haven’t used it much. worth a look, lots of great music.
• npr’s all songs considered
  • npr has a pretty solid media player associated with its site. all songs considered is a great place to find new music. they also have free full length concerts! pretty sweet. i also follow them on twitter and get the most up to the second music news.
• hypem
  • i also follow hypem on twitter. i don’t use hypem too much but it is a great way to see what people are talking about and listening to.  there is full length streaming, which we all love….

2. dreaded samples

• emusic
  • by dreaded samples i mean that you can only listen to about 30 seconds of a song… but i put emusic up here for those really intense music lovers.  you can get a bunch of free songs when you sign up, and it’s a subscription type deal, where you get X number of songs downloaded per month for X number of dollars.  some of the larger subscriptions can get you songs as low as 40 cents (if i remember correctly).  as for selection…pretty decent.  there were only a hand full of things they didn’t have. probably about the same rate of missing songs as lala.com.
• amazon
  • amazon.com also only allows you to listen to 30 seconds of a song or so, but they often have sweet deals, like a free song of the day. check it out.

3. streaming radio

• pandora
  • i only briefly played around with pandora.  it’s worth mentioning for sure. great way to find new music based on genres.
• wknc
  • wknc is a radio station based in raleigh, NC. it’s run by North Carolina State University, and it is awesome.  plain old streaming radio. no links to buy, no customization. you just hear what the radio listeners hear.  highly recommend it.

4. music news

• pitchfork
  • pitchfork, more than anything is a great source of news for the indie crowd.

Gingerbread Houses

I’ve never made a gingerbread house before. I didn’t feel deprived by this (except for maybe a couple years as a youngster that I really wanted to make one when I saw those kits in the grocery store) until I was reminded once again of my lack of experience by being invited to a gingerbread house making party. So I started getting really excited about the party. Here are some of the results.

Our Candy

Hot Cider & Rum

Gingerbread House

27. who knew.

Well tomorrow I turn 27. And I’m just going to take a moment to be happy to have made it here. Just over 6 months ago my life could have been altered so dramatically that I might not have made it to this birthday, or not made it all in one piece. For all intents and purposes I am in one piece. I have no more CT scans scheduled and although I’m still not 100% internally, I can run and swim and bike….and I am happy to be here.

Caroline

Abandoned Greenhouse & More Pictures from my road.

Well it took me long enough, but this past weekend I wandered back over to the abandoned greenhouse. Walking down the road I became quite sorry I didn’t go a month ago before all the leaves fell to the ground. All the pictures are great though. You can see the whole album here.

anxiety and the never ending to do list (here we go again).

I found these comics and thought they were kind of funny. I’m really quite baffled that I’ve gotten back to a point in my life where my list of things to do is so robust I’m actually paralyzed by inaction. This post was the first thing I started doing. Alright, this wasn’t really on my list of things to do, but sometimes you have to deviate. Right? Aside from the million projects I have going on at work (don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled to have such a wide range of projects to be working on…everything from graphic design to web development) TYUL had it’s first board meeting last night. I was kind of dreading it because of the impending amount of action items that were going to come out of it, but sure enough (as I predicted) I was excited enough about youth ultimate that I just kept wracking up the items on my list. Perhaps I actually have to start delegating some work?