The editors at the Blogged: Find Better Blogs site have reviewed "Michelle's Mental Clutter" and given it a rating of 8.6 out of 10, making it officially - in their words, not mine - "great"!
Thanks for the compliment!!!!
Thanks for the Review, Blogged!
The editors at the Blogged: Find Better Blogs site have reviewed "Michelle's Mental Clutter" and given it a rating of 8.6 out of 10, making it officially - in their words, not mine - "great"!
Thanks for the compliment!!!!
My Metafilter Post on the Real-Life Crystal Skulls
There've been a number of posts recently on the crystal skulls which inspired the latest Indy movie, and one of my perennially fave blogs Boing Boing's done quite a few (like here and here!) As you can see in the sidebar at the left, though, another post's been added to the blogosphere... Mine!
I hoped to add a bit more science to the mix with my Metafilter post, Indiana Jones & the Quest for the Truth behind the Crystal Skulls. I hope you enjoy it!
I hoped to add a bit more science to the mix with my Metafilter post, Indiana Jones & the Quest for the Truth behind the Crystal Skulls. I hope you enjoy it!
Twitterpants
A little known use for Twitter via Linkfilter... Global pants status!
(Just click on the title of this post.)
(Just click on the title of this post.)
Venice, City of Shadows
When I clicked on city of shadows | MetaFilter, I expected to see some lovely photos by Alexey Titarenko... (My fave at left!)
... but I didn't expect to see equally evocative photos of Venice!
More on a showing of Titarenko's Venetian series at Alexey Titarenko's Venetian Style - April 24, 2008 - The New York Sun
Newsflash: "Pigeon lovers defy Venice feed ban in early morning raid"
Because nasty disease-ridden pigeons deserve to be overfed beyond all measure of natural selection! More at Pigeon lovers defy Venice feed ban | Italy Magazine
Sharing only the best from over 500 webposts read daily so you don't have to!
Next, I'd like to introduce you to Google Reader!Google's "Reader" feature is what's called a "newsfeed aggregator," which is just a fancy name for a website that lets me boil down all the websites I like to follow into a friendly, portable text format that I can skim far more easily than if I tried to browse all-day-long all 66 websites I'm currently following! Sure, it's not nearly as pretty as the original webpages, but it is infinitely quicker to read, and is totally portable on ye olde new iPhone!
In the process, I even can point out the rare needles of particular interest from among those massive haystacks of information, and share them with you in the left sidebar on "Michelle's Mental Clutter." I hope you'll find this a great way not just to avoid information overclocking (since out of the over 4000 items I've eye-scanned over last week, I've only shared a total of NINE!) but also to discover for yourself the eclectic little nuggets o' fun 'n' knowledge that I've been only too glad to mine for you!
To give you an idea of the kinds of myriad things you'll be finding there, here's a review of what's resident in the sidebar RIGHT NOW at 2:53 pm on Wednesday, June 11:
- Gorgeous Images of the Sky, From 200+ Miles Above it: The clouds alone are AMAZING!
- The Suitcase Wont Close Day-saver!: A handy how-to from Instructables.
- The RiffTrax Blog: Do you miss "Mystery Science Theater 3000"? Well, miss no more!! Some of the usual suspects from the Satellite of Love are still, as they say, not making movies, but making them funny! Golden oldies but badies and new releases get the MST3K treatment through Rifftrax... "Meet the Spartans" should have just released their commentary of "300" instead! It makes the Battle of Thermopylae the knee-slapping romp it was always meant to be!! ("THIS... IS... SPART-... ... ... of a balanced breakfast!")
- No glove boning for me: If you're like me and read cookbooks as brain candy, what's your own personal "deal breaker" for trying a recipe? NY Times asks the question, and Lifehacker and Metafilter respond!
- Classic photographs done in LEGOs: Just what it says, but gorgeous! Clearly a labor of lego love!! (Pictured at left)
- Patching Old, Crumbling Walls with LEGO: Not only is it pretty (as you can see above right), but I love the idea of a modern, plastic simulacrum literally bolstering its ancestral reality!
More to come from the road all this summer! Enjoy!!
Twitter and Twinkle
Ah, summertime... and the bloggin' is easy!
Yes, another year, another gadget... And right now we're tweaking "Michelle's Mental Clutter" to get the most out of our new iPhone mobile blogging!
To wit, at left in the sidebar you'll see a couple of new additions...
First, there's Twitter! If you're familiar with the status updates on Facebook, then you already have an idea what Twitter is all about. If not, well... as the website says, "Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?"
According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, many prominent people and organizations have embraced this technology, "including the Los Angeles Fire Department who put it to use in situations such as the October 2007 California wildfires." (Not to mention that the great and august The Onion is, too!)
I first really experienced Twitter through what turned out to be a couple of its greatest uses ever... The incredibly plugged-in and insightful "microblogging" of Rex Sorgatz on Fimoculous and the raising of the legendary digital truisms (pictured at left) of contemporary artist Jenny Holzer to its logical, ubiquitious, and glorious Twittery conclusion!
Now, all this incoming informational minutia might seem a bit overwhelming. But there are a couple of fun ways to narrow it down...
Yes, another year, another gadget... And right now we're tweaking "Michelle's Mental Clutter" to get the most out of our new iPhone mobile blogging!
To wit, at left in the sidebar you'll see a couple of new additions...
First, there's Twitter! If you're familiar with the status updates on Facebook, then you already have an idea what Twitter is all about. If not, well... as the website says, "Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?"
According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, many prominent people and organizations have embraced this technology, "including the Los Angeles Fire Department who put it to use in situations such as the October 2007 California wildfires." (Not to mention that the great and august The Onion is, too!)I first really experienced Twitter through what turned out to be a couple of its greatest uses ever... The incredibly plugged-in and insightful "microblogging" of Rex Sorgatz on Fimoculous and the raising of the legendary digital truisms (pictured at left) of contemporary artist Jenny Holzer to its logical, ubiquitious, and glorious Twittery conclusion!
Now, all this incoming informational minutia might seem a bit overwhelming. But there are a couple of fun ways to narrow it down...
- Favrd collects the best of Twitter.
- Twitstori is both a digital art project and "the first step in an ongoing social experiment based on twitter"... What does the world say that it loves, hates, believes, feels or wishes?
- Ever overhear something surreal, stupid, wise, etc. and want to share it with the world? Overheard.it is a fun site that pulls in all the fun things which people twittered, saying that they've overheard.
- The ultimate in citizen journalism is TweetWire.com, which tries to build a newspaper out of Twitter posts.
Gearing Up for Summer... (Literally!)
Ah, summer... Where the days are longer, the nights are stronger than moonshine!It's nearly time for my annual transhumance from Maine to Venice! That can only mean one thing... that "Michelle's Mental Clutter" is about to leap out of its usual 9 month-long semi-hibernation into vibrant blogurial life, and I will again be pontificating on the adventures, life, the universe and everything of an American abroad in Italy.
To celebrate, we're adding some zippy features to MMC before the event! I'll be introducing them to you one-by-one over the course of the day...
The first of course is Michelle's swank new iPhone (unlocked, jailbroken, first gen!) Finally, I hope to bring true (laptop-less, so to speak!) mobile blogging to MMC... The trial in the last post was a great success, and I'm looking forward to bringing you field updates from your woman on the scene in Venice. Hopefully, you'll find them more pithy and original than the ironic and oft-copied telegram sent by absurdist humorist and journalist Robert Benchley over half a century ago, that is, "Streets flooded. Please advise."
Apparently the pigeons aren't the only things dirty in San Marco...
Apparently this guy has been following women around the square and furtively videoing over 3000 butts over the last two years! More at BBC NEWS World Europe Furtive Venice snapper arrested
Food Blogging Stateside: The Ethereal Jams of Maine's "Appledore Cove"
As I've mentioned before, I don't often have reason to food-blog when I'm in the States. But every now and then I discover something locally that I have to tell the world about!
That is, until I discovered this week Appledore Cove's "Strawberry Honey Lavender Jam" made right here in N. Berwick, Maine... What a revelation! Elegant in its simplicity... You can taste each of the main ingredients, but it's the beautiful marriage of these flavors which outdoes Stonewall, in my opinion!
Yes, it's also a bit pricey... but as long as you don't indiscriminately slather it on PB & J, it's totally worth it! We had ours on toasted butter croissants this morning, and it was out of this world... So good that it need not stop at breakfast. According to Applecove, the jam is also excellent "as a topping for ice cream or as a filling between cake or pastry layers." I don't doubt it!! Trust me... try it and you'll love it!
This time, it's Appledore Cove... By now, many folks already know about Stonewall Kitchen, yummy jams and condiments sold from their Martha-Stewartesque company store in York, Maine. Don't get me wrong... I love their stuff, and I had never tasted jellies and jams so good before. (I'm particularly partial to the Raspberry Peach Champagne Jam myself!)
That is, until I discovered this week Appledore Cove's "Strawberry Honey Lavender Jam" made right here in N. Berwick, Maine... What a revelation! Elegant in its simplicity... You can taste each of the main ingredients, but it's the beautiful marriage of these flavors which outdoes Stonewall, in my opinion!Yes, it's also a bit pricey... but as long as you don't indiscriminately slather it on PB & J, it's totally worth it! We had ours on toasted butter croissants this morning, and it was out of this world... So good that it need not stop at breakfast. According to Applecove, the jam is also excellent "as a topping for ice cream or as a filling between cake or pastry layers." I don't doubt it!! Trust me... try it and you'll love it!
Venice on Ice
Venice on ice is a rare sight. This anonymous painting shows Venetians skating between the north shore (le Fondamente Nove) in Venice and the tiny island of San Michele (now the city's cemetary island) in January 1709.
I've known Venice for almost 15 years now, and I've never seen such a thing! The closest we've ever come was when we were trying once in January to take the Alilaguna shuttleboat from Venice to the airport like we had a million times before, but this time the boat's engine started to overheat because the water injectors were getting clogged with ice... So, they were force to detour to the car park at Piazzale Roma, where we had to get an automobile taxi to take us the rest of the way! I thought we'd never make it...
But now you can see this rare and strange event from the comfort of your own computer without ever getting your feet cold (or risk missing a plane!) From the "Serenissima" discussion group, a beautiful video of when the Venetian lagoon and canals froze over in 1929... Enjoy!
Venice to give up mineral water for Lent?
"The diocese of Venice is encouraging people to give up mineral water for Lent and start drinking tap water in a campaign to raise funds for charity..." (more at Rome general News: Venice gives up mineral water for Lent.)
What's more, Italians are already "locavores" when it comes to their (natural, not tap-filtered!) mineral water... Take that, Dasani!
What's more, Italians are already "locavores" when it comes to their (natural, not tap-filtered!) mineral water... Take that, Dasani!
Venice, the City of Love (Lost?)
According to a survey by Teletext Holidays, "Venice is one of the worst cities in the world for romantic bust-ups"! (from The Press Association: Holiday bust-up hotspots revealed)
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