5Q2

Say you: What the....
Say me: It's a purse!  That used to be a license plate!  How cool is that???  


The thing weighs a ton, and sue me for saying this, but this baby is fabulous.  It belongs to my little bag buddy at work (I featured another one of her bags early on, although the shot is really not that great) and I told her I wanted to snap a picture of it before I left.  Two hours later as I was walking out, she reminded me.  


For that, she wins another entry (it was after midnight).  


And so my project is coming to a close.  I have one more picture left, and I already know the subject matter.  But since the day just turned, I've yet to take it.  


I have my new project mapped out in my head, so please stay tuned for details!  The only teaser I will give you now is that for the next year, I will be offering a photo a week instead of a photo a day. The photos will once again follow a theme.  I'm going to take a small break after tomorrow, and start up again Labor Day Weekend. 


If you want to see a mosaic of all the pictures I took this past year, you can go here.  They look pretty cool and each one is numbered, dated and links back to my entry for the picture on the blog.  I'll also be using a lot of them for this project, due in January. ->

Circo

Back to school shopping is much more tedious these days now that Little Missy actually has the nerve to express opinions about what clothes we buy.  What's that all about?  -> 

Cube

I cannot tell a lie.  I've been intrigued, more than once, with the concept of these bags.  But something tells me they work much better on the infomercials than they do in real life and I've yet to pull the trigger.  


I could embed the commercial for them.  But I won't.  Have you tried them?  What do you think? -> 

Angry Birds

 

Now available on your pajama pants.  ->

Collect

I don't like Mountain Dew. At all. And 7-11 had the nerve to serve Mountain Dew Icee's for a while. What the...?

Delta Upside-Down L

As you know, I live in a university town that has, I don't know, fifty-six? sororities and not one, but two Wal-Fart Super Centers.  


I can't believe it took this long for the two to meet.  ->  

Lockey

"What" you ask "is that?" Allow me to enlighten you.

This is what's called a "slap bracelet" which is all the rage right now for the target market age group of five to eleven-year-old girls. I guess they're kinda cool. It's easier for a visual than for me to try and explain them so I think you'll find this Youtube video quite educational.

At any rate, the animal on top of said bracelet has been dubbed The Loch Ness Monster. This gem was a treat from the dentist's office. And while I appreciate them not handing out Smarties like they doctor's office does, I can't say I appreciate more worthless junk crossing my threshold and destined to be hanging with the dust bunnies under the bed inside of a week.

Little Missy named her "Lockey".

Maybe with that personal touch, it will be ten days before she's residing with the dust bunnies. ->



-Posted using (enter requisite phrase which brags about your cool gadgets and applications for said gadget here)

FILA

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Say you: That picture looks vaguely familiar.
Say me: Guilty.
Say you: You really like that quilt.
Say me: It is 19 kinds of awesome. Sixteen square feet of tacky, 70's polyester goodness bought at an estate sale. Perfect for nights at the park. Take a gander:






And that's just part of the blanket. Seriously. How can you possibly not love that? ->


-Posted using (enter requisite phrase which brags about your cool gadgets and applications for said gadget here. And let me just say said gadget highly irritates me because once you post an entry to one blog--say, your family blog instead of your other blog, then there's no posting again. Even though you've told it to post to the other blog FOUR TIMES, it gives you a "server" error. Thus you're forced to re-type the entry which is a PITA, because there is simply no way to easily cut and paste using this application. Oh, I did. Cut-n-paste, I mean. But you have to save the original entry, and then start the new entry and then save the new entry and open up the original entry again....Like I said: PITA.

Say you: You digress
Say me: I did. Sue me. )

WSOP

For those of you who aren't poker widows wives of geeks who play poker as a serious hobby, WSOP = World Series of Poker. Yes. There is such a thing. The Geek went to Vegas last week to play in the Big Event. He didn't win the $600,000 purse (he came in third in a smaller tournament, though) but he's all set to go next year. 

Me? I'm still grasping what "backraise" means in poker jargon.


-Posted using (enter requisite phrase which brags about your cool gadgets and applications for said gadget here)

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I'm not a huge flip-flop girl, but these babies make my feet feel like they're the only pair of feet on the planet.  ->

Sparkles!

Cheap Sunglasses

-Posted using (enter requisite phrase which brags about your cool gadgets and applications for said gadget here)

Location:Βαρθολομαίου Γκύζη,Μύκονος,Greece

Greek Frocks

Guess what the 9-year-old is getting from Mom's big trip? ->

-Posted using (enter requisite phrase which brags about your cool gadgets and applications for said gadget here)

Location:91,Athens,Greece

Istanbul, Last Day

Turkish Delight

On display not far from the hotel. It will be a miracle if I get out of this city without buying some kind of jewelry. ->

Alden

Kinda abstract, I know, but I love it. It's the sign hanging in front of a cleaners close to my house. I've been telling myself since I started the project that I should get a picture of it. Tonight I finally took the time to do so. ->

Shoe Box

 

If there was ever an artist that was brilliant at combining art and commerce it was Andy Warhol.  His bread and butter from the late sixties until his death were his "celebrity portraits".  (No, not Liz Taylor or Elvis, or Marilyn.  He made those for art. Besides, Marilyn's death inspired that series. I saw this one a few years ago. ) 

No, I'm talking about all the others. Screen prints of celebrities and monied people made from a Polaroid picture, he charged $25,000 for the first portrait and $5,000 for each additional one. Which in today's dollars translates to almost 100 grand.  

A bargain, really.  

I can't remember now exactly what started my Warhol binge, but for a couple of years I read every book about him I could get my hands on.  He wasn't a nice man. He was a workaholic that tended to take advantage of those around him--use them and throw them away.  From the very beginning, even before he made his transition from commercial artist to a fine artist, he had people in his posse do work for him for free.  Many of his earlier works were actually completed and signed by his mother, with whom he lived for years. He was a media whore obsessed with money and fame; he had amassed an estate estimated at half a billion dollars at the time of his death.  He didn't strike me as a particularly happy man.  

And yet I've always had an affinity for his art.  I find it fun and whimsical and accessible. Well, accessible on museum walls anyway.  I certainly couldn't afford any of his originals, which ironically makes them not accessible at all as art should be.  So I satisfy my cravings with accessories like this and consolation prizes like these.  I keep telling myself I'm going to jaunt to Pittsburgh and see his museum there, but I've yet to go.  

Because he was a lover of technology and reproduction, I imagine he would have adored the iPhone and in particular the Hipstamatic and photo booth applications. (I made myself use the "random" mode for this particular picture today.)  And hey!  There's a Warhol app!  I would download it, except I'm fairly certain he had no pivotal moments in his life that occurred in Oklahoma. ->

Related articles

• Art: The Best And Worst Of Warhol (time.com)
• Andy Warhol Portrait of Elizabeth Taylor to Sell for $30 Million Dollars (femmesdallure.com)
• Art: A Caterer of Repetition and Glut: Andy Warhol: 1928-1987 (time.com)

Cupcake

 

This is what everyone needs.  A package of seven socks, each pair not only a different color but emblazoned with a different day of the week.  

Because there is no way one of them will be lost in the first wash cycle.  None.  And there is no way that within a matter of weeks, the wearer of said socks will be forced to don one green "Wednesday" sock with a purple "Friday" sock just so the sock folder in the home can make the folding-the-socks process come out evenly, thus preventing that Lonely Sock Pile from growing ever so larger.  -> 

Art & Copy

I streamed a movie on Netflix and watched it on my Samsung screen.  I sipped a Diet Coke out of my 7-11 cup and procrastinated sewing the button back on The Boy's Old Navy shorts.  

The movie I watched?  Art & Copy, a 2009 documentary about advertising.  

Here are some stats from the film:  

1. 75% of American homes have 3 or more televisions. 
2. Food companies spent $32 billion on advertising in 2008
3. A 30 second ad on American Idol costs $750,000 
4. A 30 second ad during the Super Bowl costs $2.7 million
5. Each year the average child sees 20,00 television commercials
6. 80% of all advertising is produced by 4 global holding companies

And some words of wisdom from advertising gurus (whose names I didn't record. Because I was being lazy and didn't feel like picking through the film and finding them again):  

"I hope people understand that brands can be dangerous.  They're like a TV channel that you get locked in to." 

"Fear is a very powerful depressant" 

"Great advertising makes food taste better".  (from the dude who designed the "I Want My MTV campaign")

This project of mine has been an exploration of consumerism and I've never pretended to lead or plan on leading a consumer-free existence.  It's an impossible task.  So in that spirit and I'm taking the complete opposite approach to day and listing my favorite ads.  

Say you: WHAT? 

Say me:  Stop.  We all have them, so don't try and shy away from it.  

Favorite ads of yore:  The touchy-feely Coca-Cola commercials.  


From my teens: The MTV commercials.  Once upon a time, MTV actually played music videos. Did you know that?   "Where's the Beef" was quite entertaining.  And Are you old enough to remember Nancy Reagan's Just Say No campaign?  That egg is forever imprinted. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing. 

Recent years: The Budweiser Frogs.  Hello?  Brilliant.  Coke's polar bear?  I hate to admit it, but their marketing is oh, so effective. 

Contemporary ads: The iPod spreads are beautiful.  Plus the spoofs are always fantastic.  I also love the Absolut vodka print spreads (scroll down.  The hangman one is spectacular).  Eye candy, every one of them.  Christmas time always offers some great ads, and Target, damn them, last year combined humor with my all-time favorite Christmas carol. 

Then there's the best ad to EVER hit the airwaves:  ->

Bradley

So.  I've told my little tale about hospital gift shops before.  What I haven't done is taken pics from the highfalutin gift shop at one the hospitals where I work.  Brighton accessories.  Vera Bradley bags. Other stuff that I would like to name but frankly can't because I'm always distracted by the Brighton accessories and Vera Bradley bags.  Which, I must admit, are kind of fun*. Not that I've ever bought one.  I'm sort of a leather girl.  But still.   

At any rate, today was BUSY and I only had to time to run in there and get a quick shot before heading to the ER.  I've been planning on posting a shot of this particular wall for months.  Funny how something gets in your head and you just can't let it go. I was determined to get it today because I never know when I'm going to be on that side of the hospital. ->

*The Vera bags. Not the Brighton stuff.  Someone please shoot me if I ever spend $80 on a pair of sunglasses.