Christmas Alternative

I stumbled upon this fantastic collection of indie/alternative Christmas music on Indie Rock Cafe. Some of it's awful, some so bad it's good and some is amazing:
The Friendly Beasts—Sufjan Stevens
Holiday—The Hopefuls
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas—Daphne Loves Derby
The 12 Days of Christmas—Belle & Sebastian

One I haven't seen on the list but I think qualifies is Vampire Weekend's Holiday too.
There's a player on the Web site you can use so you don't have to deal with a separate Windows Media Player opening up in a separate window.
Enjoy!

Thin Spaghetti Sauce, Pricey Mustard, and Milky Weak Coffee

Malcolm Gladwell is a stud. I have a minor crush on his brilliant mind, ability uncomplicate concepts, and his amazing hair. I read Blink when I was living in San Diego and eagerly embraced Malcolm Gladwell's easily understandable theories on how we, individually and collectively, make our decisions. Also the author of The Tipping Point and Outliers, he revels in explaining why we behave the way we do. If you don't have time to read one of his books right now, at least you can enjoy a short TED Talks presentation he did on the nature of choice and happiness. Enjoy!

By the way, if you don't know about TED Talks, wake up and smell the dark, rich, hearty roast. It's a small non-profit perpetuating ideas worth spreading, most popularly, via short presentations by great minds like Gladwell's. TED stands for technology, entertainment, and design.

Gone Writing

(this photo is entitled Meg Pontificates)

Hello Dahlings,
To all my faithful (and tolerant) readers, thank you very much for visiting my blog. I wanted you to know that until further notice, my posts will be more sparse than usual as I am working on writing an actual story. I am collaborating with my mother to develop a story she made up for Michael and I when we were little. She'd started this wonderful story and never concluded it so it's time these characters and plot were put to paper. Wish us luck and I offer the following recommendations for much better reading than you'll find here:

The Tao of Pooh is my most recent read, it's a well-thought-out argument that Winnie the Pooh is the West's version of a taoist. It's an academic argument with none of the pompousness and lofty reasonings. Though I, myself don't subscribe to the teachings of taoism, I thorougly enjoyed this short, fun read.

Bleak House, I'm not reading it; I'm watching it. This is a FANTASTIC BBC production of Dicken's book and I haven't finished it yet but I've seen enough to recommend it. I'm hopelessly hooked and thrilled by the film and the language found therein. Rent it from your library, they'll probably have it or order it for you if you ask.

For fantastic tips on everything (and even better recipes), visit the RealSimple Web site by Martha Stewart.

Go to BBC's news site for the very best of the best journalism, in my opinion.

As a former employee of and a current fan, I must tell you that for me, every Autumn's sweater shopping begins and ends with a visit to the GAP, you'll have these sweaters forever.

If you haven't igoogled yet, you must. It's basically a personalized homepage for you to add whatever you'd like (sort of like Mac's widgets, for my fellow Apple mates). I have a banner across the top featuring art by Jeff Koons, a crossword that renews itself every day, places one must travel to, BBC headlines, How-to tips, and more. Now go make your own.

Finally, to the right of my blog you'll see a list of other bloggers. Feel free to peruse their prose and enjoy their thoughts. Mama Mullen is, truly, queen of the kitchen so go there for some yummo recipes, Tiffany is brilliant and sees the world through an imperfect-Christian lens we all need a prescription for, Heather loves life more than most, and Gina is a modern-day Diana goddess of the hunt/fish/climb/camp, just to detail a few.

I'm off to write, cheers!