Inilex, a leading provider of aftermarket telemetry solutions for vehicles, is extending its state-of-the-art vehicle theft recovery solution to the booming powersports market. The company today released SkyLINK PowerSport, an advanced vehicle recovery system that uses a combination of GPS, wireless and satellite technologies to track and recover stolen motorcycles, ATVs, watercraft, scooters, snowmobiles and other motorsport vehicles in real time.
SkyLINK PowerSport is a compact device that is discretely installed by a dealer on nearly any motorsport vehicle. The durable unit is water resistant, vibration resistant and dustproof to withstand even the toughest riding or storage conditions. Also, since it draws a negligible 4 microamps of power, it will not drain the battery.
As soon as a vehicle is reported stolen, SkyLINK’s 24/7 agents use cutting-edge GPS and cellular technologies to track it and provide its exact location to the police department. SkyLINK PowerSport works with all law enforcement agencies and, because it tracks powersports in real-time, the theft is reported to police as a high-priority crime. As a result, most SkyLINK-equipped vehicles are recovered within 24 hours, and many within minutes.
“Powersport vehicles have two strikes against them when it comes to theft – they’re easier to steal than cars because they can be placed in a truck bed, and they’re more difficult to recover because they can be easily hidden and their parts can be quickly altered,” said Michael Maledon, CEO of Inilex. “SkyLINK PowerSport tackles both of these issues by tracking its location whether it’s running or not, and ensuring the theft is reported as a crime in progress, triggering police to take immediate action.”
To help thwart theft, SkyLINK PowerSport automatically sets a Quick Fence early-theft detection perimeter around powersport vehicles when the ignition is shut off. If it moves without the owner’s knowledge, they are immediately notified by an email or text alert. The Quick Fence is disabled when the ignition is turned on. Additionally, SkyLINK Powersport offers an online dashboard called SkyLINK PROTECT that promotes safety by enabling owners to track their powersport vehicle’s location, speed and battery levels when others are using it. Using SkyLINK PROTECT, vehicle owners can set geographic and speed thresholds and receive text or email alerts when either is exceeded.
Dealers can also take advantage of SkyLINK PowerSport to track vehicles that are being test driven or used by employees, as well as to locate vehicles stolen from their lots. They can keep their inventory in check and account for every vehicle’s location at all times. Dealers using the SkyLINK monitoring service may also secure better terms from their bank lenders and insurance carriers because of the inventory management function.
SkyLINK PowerSport is now available through motorcycle, motorsports and car dealerships across the country at the time of vehicle purchase, and is good for the lifetime of the vehicle. The first year of the SkyLINK PROTECT subscription service is free of charge and it can be renewed for a low cost following that.
2012年4月9日星期一
2012年4月5日星期四
Top 5 Nostalgic Nights
What does midnight look like in the Paris of South America? For those of us cursed with a golden-age mentality, Buenos Aires can be a reprieve from all the baggage that comes with modern reality.
This city is captivated by nostalgia, and even if a venue wasn’t born decades ago, many owners pay close attention to details in the hope of capturing a little of the magic of bygone eras. The bar at the Sofitel hotel transports customers to Montmarte with themed evenings every Thursday, whilst Sunday strolls in San Telmo’s markets act as a gateway to the past.
But once all of yesteryear’s magic gets into your system, where does one go when the lights go down? And just where, prey tell, do you plan to wear that poodle skirt?
From the city’s shadowy jazz bars to sultry milonga halls to lively penas folkloricas, this week’s Top 5 brings you our pick of places to live out your dream era.
Legend has it that the 80s stunted the growth of Club 74. Born in 1958, the club progressed with the ages until deciding to remain in a disco time capsule a few decades ago. The white stucco walls match the white stucco couches, giving the whole place an igloo-like feel.
The Saturday night fever is still burning every weekend, with a DJ who pretends he’s never heard of Lady Gaga. A surprisingly mixed crowd boogies on the dance floor – some dancing to remember, and some channeling moves they’ve surely only seen on TV.
The club has a celebratory atmosphere – there are usually several birthday parties going on – and it’s a refreshing escape from the moody indie-rock scene of today.
Saturday is definitely the night to go, as it’s the only night of the week when the dance-floor lights up, in true retro fashion like a flashing Rubix cube. And really, what good are revolving mirror balls without the neon lights?
There’s more than one way to swing in Buenos Aires, and if you choose the kind on offer at San Nicolas’s quirky Teatro Mandril, cameras are even allowed.
A little alcohol helps to loosen up limbs as the crowd make eyes at each other around a dimly-lit, college fundraiser-style bar. Every brand of hipster seems to be gathered there on a Friday night; the retro hipster, the punk hipster, the popular girl-turned hipster, even the odd Dad hipster.
Around midnight everyone starts to gather in the back room, near the stage and dance floor. Drinks are abandoned and tables shuffled against walls to allow for the gyrations of 200 or so guests.
Guys and girls are split and line up facing each other as a male and female instructor teach the sexes their corresponding steps. After a few minutes of learning basic steps the couples grab a partner and the room transforms into a fire inspector’s nightmare. Patrons spill into every spare corner and the dance floor becomes a mere suggestion of where you should be. After about 10 minutes of practice, the sea of men and women splits again to learn more complex moves.
This city is captivated by nostalgia, and even if a venue wasn’t born decades ago, many owners pay close attention to details in the hope of capturing a little of the magic of bygone eras. The bar at the Sofitel hotel transports customers to Montmarte with themed evenings every Thursday, whilst Sunday strolls in San Telmo’s markets act as a gateway to the past.
But once all of yesteryear’s magic gets into your system, where does one go when the lights go down? And just where, prey tell, do you plan to wear that poodle skirt?
From the city’s shadowy jazz bars to sultry milonga halls to lively penas folkloricas, this week’s Top 5 brings you our pick of places to live out your dream era.
Legend has it that the 80s stunted the growth of Club 74. Born in 1958, the club progressed with the ages until deciding to remain in a disco time capsule a few decades ago. The white stucco walls match the white stucco couches, giving the whole place an igloo-like feel.
The Saturday night fever is still burning every weekend, with a DJ who pretends he’s never heard of Lady Gaga. A surprisingly mixed crowd boogies on the dance floor – some dancing to remember, and some channeling moves they’ve surely only seen on TV.
The club has a celebratory atmosphere – there are usually several birthday parties going on – and it’s a refreshing escape from the moody indie-rock scene of today.
Saturday is definitely the night to go, as it’s the only night of the week when the dance-floor lights up, in true retro fashion like a flashing Rubix cube. And really, what good are revolving mirror balls without the neon lights?
There’s more than one way to swing in Buenos Aires, and if you choose the kind on offer at San Nicolas’s quirky Teatro Mandril, cameras are even allowed.
A little alcohol helps to loosen up limbs as the crowd make eyes at each other around a dimly-lit, college fundraiser-style bar. Every brand of hipster seems to be gathered there on a Friday night; the retro hipster, the punk hipster, the popular girl-turned hipster, even the odd Dad hipster.
Around midnight everyone starts to gather in the back room, near the stage and dance floor. Drinks are abandoned and tables shuffled against walls to allow for the gyrations of 200 or so guests.
Guys and girls are split and line up facing each other as a male and female instructor teach the sexes their corresponding steps. After a few minutes of learning basic steps the couples grab a partner and the room transforms into a fire inspector’s nightmare. Patrons spill into every spare corner and the dance floor becomes a mere suggestion of where you should be. After about 10 minutes of practice, the sea of men and women splits again to learn more complex moves.
2012年3月26日星期一
Romney campaign has monopoly on gaffes
It is typical of Mitt Romney's luck that, on the morning after he all but secured the Republican presidential nomination, his campaign became embroiled in a controversy over a 1950s plastic toy.
On Wednesday, hours after Romney's 12-point victory over Rick Santorum in the Illinois primary silenced most of the remaining doubters, senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom went on CNN and gave new meaning to the term "game change."
"I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign," he said, explaining why the fight for conservative primary voters has not pushed Romney too far to the right. "Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again."
Actually, it appeared more like Romney was playing Chutes and Ladders: He just landed on Space 87 and slid all the way back to 24. Suddenly, Romney's event at an American Legion hall here in the Baltimore suburbs was transformed from a gab session about gas prices into an Etch a Sketch fest.
Alice Stewart, a Santorum aide, brought a bagful of pocket-size Etch a Sketches and handed them out in the parking lot. "Conservative principles should be written in stone, not on Etch a Sketch," the Santorum aide declared righteously.
Thirty feet away, Romney was shaking hands. Reporters inquired: Would he address the toy story? "We think gas prices are more important," spokesman Rick Gorka replied, examining the reporters' Etch a Sketches.
Santorum, who has taken Romney apart as if playing Operation, posed in his car Wednesday with the rectangular device. His campaign tweeted out the photo with the caption "Rick Santorum studying up on Mitt Romney policy positions."
"You take whatever he said and you can shake it up and it will be gone, and he's going to draw a whole new picture for the general election," Santorum crowed at a campaign stop in Louisiana.
Also campaigning in Louisiana, Newt Gingrich, who has turned the trail into a round of Twister, gave an Etch a Sketch to a young girl in the audience and told her, "You could now be a presidential candidate."
Will Romney ever end his string of debilitating gaffes? As the Magic 8 Ball says: Outlook not so good.
After the New Hampshire primary, Romney appeared to have it made in Candy Land. But Santorum and Gingrich felled his inevitability like dominoes, and — Sorry! — Romney finds himself in a coast-to-coast game of Connect Four with competitors who were not supposed to have been in his league but who are benefiting from voters' disenchantment with him.
There is some enthusiasm for the Republican front-runner. Outside the Romney event here, retiree Jim Wilson sat in his GMC truck decorated bumper to bumper with Romney paraphernalia and American flags. Wilson, who lives outside Charlottesville, Va., has been on the road since August, to each primary state except Colorado — and that's only because he wanted to make it to Kansas in time. "That's a bunch of horse apples," he said when asked about Romney's enthusiasm gap. "Look at this crowd," he said, between puffs on his pipe.
True enough. Two hundred supporters filled the hall, with at least that many outside. "This is really something," the candidate exulted to the overflow crowd in the parking lot.
But holding that enthusiasm has been, for Romney, quite a Rubik's Cube. Inside, the candidate talked about health care, education, Iran, the economy — anything but children's toys.
Although it was not particularly warm in the hall, Romney ended by saying that the temperature had "reached 140 in here" — and retreated while glaring at reporters shouting Etch a Sketch questions.
Realizing that he could not shake the queries, Romney returned a few minutes later for a "short Q&A," known in the jargon as a "press avail." It lasted 90 seconds.
"The issues I'm running on will be exactly the same," he declared in response to an Etch a Sketch question. "I'm running as a conservative Republican. I was a conservative Republican governor."
So he was a conservative when he enacted Romneycare?
"Can you guarantee to Republican voters that you won't take more moderate positions?" CNN's Jim Acosta asked.
"I answered the question," Romney replied.
"An avail is more than one question, governor, if you don't mind my saying so," Acosta told him.
Romney grinned. "This wasn't an avail. It was a chance to respond to a question I didn't get a chance to respond to."
On Wednesday, hours after Romney's 12-point victory over Rick Santorum in the Illinois primary silenced most of the remaining doubters, senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom went on CNN and gave new meaning to the term "game change."
"I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign," he said, explaining why the fight for conservative primary voters has not pushed Romney too far to the right. "Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again."
Actually, it appeared more like Romney was playing Chutes and Ladders: He just landed on Space 87 and slid all the way back to 24. Suddenly, Romney's event at an American Legion hall here in the Baltimore suburbs was transformed from a gab session about gas prices into an Etch a Sketch fest.
Alice Stewart, a Santorum aide, brought a bagful of pocket-size Etch a Sketches and handed them out in the parking lot. "Conservative principles should be written in stone, not on Etch a Sketch," the Santorum aide declared righteously.
Thirty feet away, Romney was shaking hands. Reporters inquired: Would he address the toy story? "We think gas prices are more important," spokesman Rick Gorka replied, examining the reporters' Etch a Sketches.
Santorum, who has taken Romney apart as if playing Operation, posed in his car Wednesday with the rectangular device. His campaign tweeted out the photo with the caption "Rick Santorum studying up on Mitt Romney policy positions."
"You take whatever he said and you can shake it up and it will be gone, and he's going to draw a whole new picture for the general election," Santorum crowed at a campaign stop in Louisiana.
Also campaigning in Louisiana, Newt Gingrich, who has turned the trail into a round of Twister, gave an Etch a Sketch to a young girl in the audience and told her, "You could now be a presidential candidate."
Will Romney ever end his string of debilitating gaffes? As the Magic 8 Ball says: Outlook not so good.
After the New Hampshire primary, Romney appeared to have it made in Candy Land. But Santorum and Gingrich felled his inevitability like dominoes, and — Sorry! — Romney finds himself in a coast-to-coast game of Connect Four with competitors who were not supposed to have been in his league but who are benefiting from voters' disenchantment with him.
There is some enthusiasm for the Republican front-runner. Outside the Romney event here, retiree Jim Wilson sat in his GMC truck decorated bumper to bumper with Romney paraphernalia and American flags. Wilson, who lives outside Charlottesville, Va., has been on the road since August, to each primary state except Colorado — and that's only because he wanted to make it to Kansas in time. "That's a bunch of horse apples," he said when asked about Romney's enthusiasm gap. "Look at this crowd," he said, between puffs on his pipe.
True enough. Two hundred supporters filled the hall, with at least that many outside. "This is really something," the candidate exulted to the overflow crowd in the parking lot.
But holding that enthusiasm has been, for Romney, quite a Rubik's Cube. Inside, the candidate talked about health care, education, Iran, the economy — anything but children's toys.
Although it was not particularly warm in the hall, Romney ended by saying that the temperature had "reached 140 in here" — and retreated while glaring at reporters shouting Etch a Sketch questions.
Realizing that he could not shake the queries, Romney returned a few minutes later for a "short Q&A," known in the jargon as a "press avail." It lasted 90 seconds.
"The issues I'm running on will be exactly the same," he declared in response to an Etch a Sketch question. "I'm running as a conservative Republican. I was a conservative Republican governor."
So he was a conservative when he enacted Romneycare?
"Can you guarantee to Republican voters that you won't take more moderate positions?" CNN's Jim Acosta asked.
"I answered the question," Romney replied.
"An avail is more than one question, governor, if you don't mind my saying so," Acosta told him.
Romney grinned. "This wasn't an avail. It was a chance to respond to a question I didn't get a chance to respond to."
2012年3月21日星期三
Filling the Gaps
If you've been playing Magic for some time, you've almost certainly experienced a temporary waning of the general fervor for the game. Don't be alarmed, this is perfectly normal. Do not attempt to cash out and sell your collection, you'll regret it when you want to start playing again, and even more so when you look up the would-be value of your cards in the future. Instead, take a breath, take a step back, and let's take a quick jaunt through some of my typical meanderings while I wait for my playgroup's interest to be rekindled by a new expansion or a shiny new deck.
If you're interested in some fairly in-depth Solitaire versions of Magic, you should check out this article, Playing Your Pet. I've been playing goldfish since I picked up a Magic deck, unbeknownst to myself until recently. It's just such an intuitive way to test a deck's ability to drop an opponent from 20 to 0, that in my mind it never needed a name and it was only the past couple of years that I discovered that it was called something after all. The long and short of goldfish is that your opponent does nothing, much like a goldfish swimming in its bowl. There is no real interaction. It simply looks on with awe as you deal 20 damage as fast as possible. Without any resistance, it should be fairly straightforward to win in short order, but it should be noted that just because it works against a goldfish, doesn't mean it works. Take an extreme case of a deck with 40 Goblins of the Flarg and 20 Mountains. Sure, you can beat a goldfish in 6 turns, but a single Grizzly Bears will basically shut you down. It takes a bit of refinement to see to it that your deck can deal 20 damage in only a few turns, while also being sure you are capable of powering through some defenses. Enter the dog. This solitaire opponent is much more of a challenge, since it actually does stuff during the game, and can even garner card advantage in a longer game (one land plus one spell per turn means that 7+ turns gives card advantage to the dog.) This is a more complex approach, but actually attempts to simulate playing an opponent, which can easily outclass a lesser deck, since the mana base is artificially perfect and the player will always be casting the most powerful possible spell on a given turn. Of course, if I'm involved enough to be playing against the dog, I typically just pit two of my decks against each other, playing both sides and vying for neither deck in particular.
When I get tired of dueling myself in solitaire Magic, there's always my fallback digital facsimile, Duels of the Planeswalkers. I played the original and the more recent version(Duels 2012) to completion, and still I go back for more. They make a very sound investment for any Magic player that's used to spending $4 on a single Booster Pack, since you get access to several decks for only a few dollars. While the deck choices are pretty solid, the game will leave you wanting for more customization. You are not able to build custom decks in Duels, though you do unlock upgrades for most decks as you play, giving some element of optimization, if not construction, the longer you play. In Duels 2012 they even included Archenemy Mode which, if you're not familiar, pits up to three players against a single enemy. You can play as or against the Archenemy, and the casual format brings something new to the table with the Scheme Cards that give powerful effects to benefit the common enemy. If you're new to Magic or even just interested in learning, Duels is a great place to start. You'll learn all you need to know about the turn structure, as well as the basics of the Stack and Priority from playing a few games against the computer, which should prepare you well for a real game against a friend.
Finally, there is MTGO, the actual online counterpart to the paper-based game. This is a whole different beast than Duels of the Planeswalkers, since you'll need to have some idea of what you're doing to really get started here. If you're avoiding Duels because of the lack of customization, however, this is a great place to look. Not only can you get access to the Duels decks in the Planeswalker format, but you can even create custom decks from scratch without the heavy monetary investment required to get a Standard collection started. I started my own account a few years ago, but I never kept up with it, since I so favor paper Magic. As a result, my entire collection sports a paltry 26 Standard legal cards, making the barrier to entry into Standard a bit high for me. Though I am recently considering working on my drafting in MTGO, I'm currently relegated to the Planeswalker format and building out new decks from the pre-constructed card pool, at least until the new Cube format debuts at PAX East.
If you're interested in some fairly in-depth Solitaire versions of Magic, you should check out this article, Playing Your Pet. I've been playing goldfish since I picked up a Magic deck, unbeknownst to myself until recently. It's just such an intuitive way to test a deck's ability to drop an opponent from 20 to 0, that in my mind it never needed a name and it was only the past couple of years that I discovered that it was called something after all. The long and short of goldfish is that your opponent does nothing, much like a goldfish swimming in its bowl. There is no real interaction. It simply looks on with awe as you deal 20 damage as fast as possible. Without any resistance, it should be fairly straightforward to win in short order, but it should be noted that just because it works against a goldfish, doesn't mean it works. Take an extreme case of a deck with 40 Goblins of the Flarg and 20 Mountains. Sure, you can beat a goldfish in 6 turns, but a single Grizzly Bears will basically shut you down. It takes a bit of refinement to see to it that your deck can deal 20 damage in only a few turns, while also being sure you are capable of powering through some defenses. Enter the dog. This solitaire opponent is much more of a challenge, since it actually does stuff during the game, and can even garner card advantage in a longer game (one land plus one spell per turn means that 7+ turns gives card advantage to the dog.) This is a more complex approach, but actually attempts to simulate playing an opponent, which can easily outclass a lesser deck, since the mana base is artificially perfect and the player will always be casting the most powerful possible spell on a given turn. Of course, if I'm involved enough to be playing against the dog, I typically just pit two of my decks against each other, playing both sides and vying for neither deck in particular.
When I get tired of dueling myself in solitaire Magic, there's always my fallback digital facsimile, Duels of the Planeswalkers. I played the original and the more recent version(Duels 2012) to completion, and still I go back for more. They make a very sound investment for any Magic player that's used to spending $4 on a single Booster Pack, since you get access to several decks for only a few dollars. While the deck choices are pretty solid, the game will leave you wanting for more customization. You are not able to build custom decks in Duels, though you do unlock upgrades for most decks as you play, giving some element of optimization, if not construction, the longer you play. In Duels 2012 they even included Archenemy Mode which, if you're not familiar, pits up to three players against a single enemy. You can play as or against the Archenemy, and the casual format brings something new to the table with the Scheme Cards that give powerful effects to benefit the common enemy. If you're new to Magic or even just interested in learning, Duels is a great place to start. You'll learn all you need to know about the turn structure, as well as the basics of the Stack and Priority from playing a few games against the computer, which should prepare you well for a real game against a friend.
Finally, there is MTGO, the actual online counterpart to the paper-based game. This is a whole different beast than Duels of the Planeswalkers, since you'll need to have some idea of what you're doing to really get started here. If you're avoiding Duels because of the lack of customization, however, this is a great place to look. Not only can you get access to the Duels decks in the Planeswalker format, but you can even create custom decks from scratch without the heavy monetary investment required to get a Standard collection started. I started my own account a few years ago, but I never kept up with it, since I so favor paper Magic. As a result, my entire collection sports a paltry 26 Standard legal cards, making the barrier to entry into Standard a bit high for me. Though I am recently considering working on my drafting in MTGO, I'm currently relegated to the Planeswalker format and building out new decks from the pre-constructed card pool, at least until the new Cube format debuts at PAX East.
2012年2月26日星期日
Hunterdon stores with games and toys to take you back
Childhood memories stay with us throughout our lives. Everyone recalls those carefree days when the world was just beginning to take shape inside our heads.
As we grow up, things that interested us as children are cast aside. Puzzles and games and toys end up in attics, basements and garages.
Youngsters have no inhibitions when it comes to play. Fooling around with whatever’s at hand is as natural as eating and sleeping. It is also a vital part of getting young brains acquainted with the world.
Mara Tippett opened her Sunbeam Toys last Halloween. The place is 650 square feet at 24 Bridge Street in Frenchtown, and it is full of toys.
“There’s something for everyone,” Tippett said. She concentrates on “toys that cultivate the imagination.”
There are science toys, toys for pre-schoolers, some classic tin toys, gags and magic, puppets, kites, balloons, weaving looms, jump ropes and microscopes. And so much more.
“We have a lot of retro toys as well as some modern takes on old favorites,” she said.
Tippet brings together quality and unusual things. She was a biologist before she launched this career, and her former interests peep out from the shelves here.
Customers tell her “this brings me back to my childhood…it’s magical.”
“I tossed the idea around for years,” she told me. “And I’m still learning.”
When children grow up, they leave behind the kids’ games that intrigued them when they were young. But the attraction of games remains. In adults, games mature into the strategies of chess, the pleasures of trivia, the challenges of puzzles.
“I’ve just completed the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle,” Heather Caroline told me. “It’s 32,000 pieces and it took me about eight months to complete.”
She plans to hang it soon. “It goes on the wall in my home. It’s called Double Retrospect.”
Caroline operates Lambertville’s The Missing Peace, an emporium of quality board games, puzzles, and related pursuits. She will be celebrating her fifth anniversary in May of this year.
“I always had it in the back of my head to own my own business,” Caroline told me. “I was a microbiologist originally, and I did lots of research before opening.”
This shop is stocked with a multitude of jigsaw puzzles, varying in size and shape. In addition to the familiar two-dimensional puzzles, there are three-dimensional puzzles as well. Try your hand at the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, the Empire State Building and other world attractions.
But puzzles are only the beginning. The Missing Peace has chess sets, dominoes, dice games, cards and card games, and Rubik’s cube in many of its iterations. Plus party games, trivia, scrabble and others for both indoor and outdoor pursuits.
Attics, basements and garages get cluttered with all sorts of discarded stuff. When we no longer use things, they tend to accumulate around the house. Sooner or later, furniture, toys and games, decorations and other things can overwhelm the best of intentions.
It might be time to call Jennifer’s Found It!
“We are not a consignment store, but we do removal services when people are downsizing or moving,” Jennifer told me. Realtors regularly call her to remove items from homes, and she maintains wish lists for items when people are looking for special things, including decorators.
Found It! is more than removal services, however. It is a store in Flemington’s Turntable Junction. It opened in October 2011.
Here, shoppers find all sorts of wood furniture, dating from antiques to present day. Appliances are on the floor—from refrigerators to stereos from the 1960s.
But it’s a lot more than furniture and appliances. Jewelry, china, kitchen collectibles, decorations, signs, tools, toys and games round out the selections. There are GI Joes and Barbies here.
As we grow up, things that interested us as children are cast aside. Puzzles and games and toys end up in attics, basements and garages.
Youngsters have no inhibitions when it comes to play. Fooling around with whatever’s at hand is as natural as eating and sleeping. It is also a vital part of getting young brains acquainted with the world.
Mara Tippett opened her Sunbeam Toys last Halloween. The place is 650 square feet at 24 Bridge Street in Frenchtown, and it is full of toys.
“There’s something for everyone,” Tippett said. She concentrates on “toys that cultivate the imagination.”
There are science toys, toys for pre-schoolers, some classic tin toys, gags and magic, puppets, kites, balloons, weaving looms, jump ropes and microscopes. And so much more.
“We have a lot of retro toys as well as some modern takes on old favorites,” she said.
Tippet brings together quality and unusual things. She was a biologist before she launched this career, and her former interests peep out from the shelves here.
Customers tell her “this brings me back to my childhood…it’s magical.”
“I tossed the idea around for years,” she told me. “And I’m still learning.”
When children grow up, they leave behind the kids’ games that intrigued them when they were young. But the attraction of games remains. In adults, games mature into the strategies of chess, the pleasures of trivia, the challenges of puzzles.
“I’ve just completed the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle,” Heather Caroline told me. “It’s 32,000 pieces and it took me about eight months to complete.”
She plans to hang it soon. “It goes on the wall in my home. It’s called Double Retrospect.”
Caroline operates Lambertville’s The Missing Peace, an emporium of quality board games, puzzles, and related pursuits. She will be celebrating her fifth anniversary in May of this year.
“I always had it in the back of my head to own my own business,” Caroline told me. “I was a microbiologist originally, and I did lots of research before opening.”
This shop is stocked with a multitude of jigsaw puzzles, varying in size and shape. In addition to the familiar two-dimensional puzzles, there are three-dimensional puzzles as well. Try your hand at the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, the Empire State Building and other world attractions.
But puzzles are only the beginning. The Missing Peace has chess sets, dominoes, dice games, cards and card games, and Rubik’s cube in many of its iterations. Plus party games, trivia, scrabble and others for both indoor and outdoor pursuits.
Attics, basements and garages get cluttered with all sorts of discarded stuff. When we no longer use things, they tend to accumulate around the house. Sooner or later, furniture, toys and games, decorations and other things can overwhelm the best of intentions.
It might be time to call Jennifer’s Found It!
“We are not a consignment store, but we do removal services when people are downsizing or moving,” Jennifer told me. Realtors regularly call her to remove items from homes, and she maintains wish lists for items when people are looking for special things, including decorators.
Found It! is more than removal services, however. It is a store in Flemington’s Turntable Junction. It opened in October 2011.
Here, shoppers find all sorts of wood furniture, dating from antiques to present day. Appliances are on the floor—from refrigerators to stereos from the 1960s.
But it’s a lot more than furniture and appliances. Jewelry, china, kitchen collectibles, decorations, signs, tools, toys and games round out the selections. There are GI Joes and Barbies here.
2012年2月22日星期三
Studio Ghibli’s 'The Secret World of Arrietty' Reminds Us
Despite the odds, two-dimensional drawings of cute little critters scampering across a movie screen are not a dead art form. They’re just not a very American one anymore.
Back in 1995, there was a lot of hand-wringing over the future of cel animation—Pixar’s Toy Story had brought computer animation to feature-length cartoons so suddenly and so perfectly that most everyone feared for traditional hand-drawn art. And, sure enough, with the scent of new fortunes to be made, every Hollywood studio jumped onto the computer-animation bandwagon. The result was DreamWorks’ Antz and then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner firing his company’s longtime animation crew in favor of hiring CGI programmers. Despite those ignoble acts, is it really any wonder that computer animation overtook hand-drawn animation? It reinvigorated the entire industry.
After Disney’s apex of success with The Lion King in 1994, the studio churned out mediocre efforts like Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Hercules, and then deservedly forgotten epics like The Emperor’s New Groove and Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Other studios couldn’t even muster that much creativity. Frankly, the future of animated features as a whole was in far more danger from its own lack of inspired storytelling and artwork than from impertinent computer jockeys. Pixar reminded everyone, even its own corporate benefactor Disney, that stories matter first and foremost. Since that tide turned, we haven’t seen many hand-drawn features from Hollywood, but we haven’t missed them much, either.
In Japan, however, cel animation is still a thriving art form—principally because its industry happens to be led by a genius animator named Hayao Miyazaki whose company, Studio Ghibli, creates cinematic magic. Its latest effort to be released in the U.S., The Secret World of Arrietty, may not benefit from Miyazaki’s personal direction, but it stands as yet more proof that good old-fashioned, hand-drawn “2D” animation is still every bit as viable a technique as computer graphics. Just as long as you have great artists behind it.
Arrietty is an adaptation of Mary Norton’s The Borrowers, and as such it’s more of a familiar tale than Ghibli’s typically unpredictable fantasies. Although the setting’s been moved to western Tokyo, the 60-year-old novel’s storyline is for the most part unchanged: A family of tiny people—Pod, his wife Homily, and their daughter Arrietty—live under the floorboards of a house owned by an elderly woman who is caring for her great nephew, who isn’t well. The boy accidentally sees Arrietty, and they form a friendship, but one that endangers the small family of “Borrowers.”
First-time director Hiromasa Yonebayashi imbues Arrietty with much of the painterly style that the studio is known for, using lush backgrounds of verdant countryside and allowing for quiet moments of natural beauty. Whereas American animated features are usually in a hurry to inundate their presumed young audiences with images of nonstop action lest they get bored, Arrietty and other Ghibli films go in nearly the opposite direction: They take their time to create characters and settings. Conflict—the raison d’être of any Hollywood production—wafts onto the scene only after we’ve been totally immersed into a fantastic new world. Likewise, Arrietty does not intend to wow us with an incredible battle between two worlds, big vs. small, as a more typical adaptation might have attempted; instead, it simply wants us to see our world from a different viewpoint.
The pleasures of Arrietty arrive in the precise observations made by its expert animators: the way a single drop of rain hits a dry piece of concrete, how a cat expresses disdainful acceptance with its eyes, the shimmer of sunlight over a meadow . But those are only the familiar sights that we may already have in our memories, beautifully brought to life onscreen. The true immersion here lies in how the animators conceived of the ordinary world as seen by 2-inch-tall people. Like mice, they live in the spaces between walls and floors that we never see. To get by, the Borrowers do just that—taking small bits of things from the “human beans’” household, like fibers from a piece of tissue or sugar from a cube. Outside the house is a vast jungle, its thick vegetation hiding places unknown.
While those used to Western movie standards of fast action may find Arrietty lacking in high stakes, fans of Hayao Miyazaki may miss his unique vision. In watching films like Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, or My Neighbor Totoro, you feel as if you have truly entered a different world, one that hasn’t already been thoroughly explored in other stories or other movies. These are places where unpredictable things can happen. The Secret World of Arrietty does not quite attain that sense of adventure, but it is nevertheless a lovely place to visit—one that may offer Hollywood executives a few reminders of a lost art.
Back in 1995, there was a lot of hand-wringing over the future of cel animation—Pixar’s Toy Story had brought computer animation to feature-length cartoons so suddenly and so perfectly that most everyone feared for traditional hand-drawn art. And, sure enough, with the scent of new fortunes to be made, every Hollywood studio jumped onto the computer-animation bandwagon. The result was DreamWorks’ Antz and then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner firing his company’s longtime animation crew in favor of hiring CGI programmers. Despite those ignoble acts, is it really any wonder that computer animation overtook hand-drawn animation? It reinvigorated the entire industry.
After Disney’s apex of success with The Lion King in 1994, the studio churned out mediocre efforts like Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Hercules, and then deservedly forgotten epics like The Emperor’s New Groove and Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Other studios couldn’t even muster that much creativity. Frankly, the future of animated features as a whole was in far more danger from its own lack of inspired storytelling and artwork than from impertinent computer jockeys. Pixar reminded everyone, even its own corporate benefactor Disney, that stories matter first and foremost. Since that tide turned, we haven’t seen many hand-drawn features from Hollywood, but we haven’t missed them much, either.
In Japan, however, cel animation is still a thriving art form—principally because its industry happens to be led by a genius animator named Hayao Miyazaki whose company, Studio Ghibli, creates cinematic magic. Its latest effort to be released in the U.S., The Secret World of Arrietty, may not benefit from Miyazaki’s personal direction, but it stands as yet more proof that good old-fashioned, hand-drawn “2D” animation is still every bit as viable a technique as computer graphics. Just as long as you have great artists behind it.
Arrietty is an adaptation of Mary Norton’s The Borrowers, and as such it’s more of a familiar tale than Ghibli’s typically unpredictable fantasies. Although the setting’s been moved to western Tokyo, the 60-year-old novel’s storyline is for the most part unchanged: A family of tiny people—Pod, his wife Homily, and their daughter Arrietty—live under the floorboards of a house owned by an elderly woman who is caring for her great nephew, who isn’t well. The boy accidentally sees Arrietty, and they form a friendship, but one that endangers the small family of “Borrowers.”
First-time director Hiromasa Yonebayashi imbues Arrietty with much of the painterly style that the studio is known for, using lush backgrounds of verdant countryside and allowing for quiet moments of natural beauty. Whereas American animated features are usually in a hurry to inundate their presumed young audiences with images of nonstop action lest they get bored, Arrietty and other Ghibli films go in nearly the opposite direction: They take their time to create characters and settings. Conflict—the raison d’être of any Hollywood production—wafts onto the scene only after we’ve been totally immersed into a fantastic new world. Likewise, Arrietty does not intend to wow us with an incredible battle between two worlds, big vs. small, as a more typical adaptation might have attempted; instead, it simply wants us to see our world from a different viewpoint.
The pleasures of Arrietty arrive in the precise observations made by its expert animators: the way a single drop of rain hits a dry piece of concrete, how a cat expresses disdainful acceptance with its eyes, the shimmer of sunlight over a meadow . But those are only the familiar sights that we may already have in our memories, beautifully brought to life onscreen. The true immersion here lies in how the animators conceived of the ordinary world as seen by 2-inch-tall people. Like mice, they live in the spaces between walls and floors that we never see. To get by, the Borrowers do just that—taking small bits of things from the “human beans’” household, like fibers from a piece of tissue or sugar from a cube. Outside the house is a vast jungle, its thick vegetation hiding places unknown.
While those used to Western movie standards of fast action may find Arrietty lacking in high stakes, fans of Hayao Miyazaki may miss his unique vision. In watching films like Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, or My Neighbor Totoro, you feel as if you have truly entered a different world, one that hasn’t already been thoroughly explored in other stories or other movies. These are places where unpredictable things can happen. The Secret World of Arrietty does not quite attain that sense of adventure, but it is nevertheless a lovely place to visit—one that may offer Hollywood executives a few reminders of a lost art.
2012年2月12日星期日
Telling stories, touching lives
Blackberry shayar or Pied Piper of radio… .call him by whatever name, Neelesh Misra remains the man who understands the pulse of India. The master story teller, who has enthralled millions with his unique radio programme Yaad Shehr, has earned for himself a permanent place in the memoryscape of his listeners that cut across all age groups. Yet the man who has reinvented the whole tradition of story telling credits the stupendous success of his programme to his listeners, the social media and above all to what it does to people.
In Chandigarh for the Festival of Letters organised by Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi, he says, “When I started out I had no idea how the concept would go as we had no reference points.” Yet the programme that touched a nerve people didn’t even know existed, got 5.5 million responses on the Facebook itself within three months that too mainly from listeners aged between 13 to 24 years. He quips, “There goes the presumptuous assumption that the youth of today are only interested in the frivolous.” As he has been travelling the length and breadth of India, he has realised the youth of today see the world through a different prism. And it’s this modern India that is changing fast, where seven out of 10 Indians have left home, where many of them feel the pinch of loneliness that is his subject. Indeed, most of what he tells he has experienced, heard or observed. “To be a good writer you need to be a good listener and observer,” he believes.
Being a journalist has helped too, more so to think and write visually. Besides he deems, “As journalists we are privy to a world which others don’t have access to.” So what prompted him to take a hiatus from active journalism? He replies, “For over a decade I was an outsider in Bollywood, writing songs from my Blackberry from distant destinations. Today I am one in journalism.” Looking “in” at the world, he asserts, is a far better vantage point. And right now sharing his perspective are budding writers who meet at his home in Mumbai every Monday. He felt the need for this Monday Mandali for, “In India there is no mentoring in creative arts.” And the first and the foremost rule he expects the young aspiring writers he is training to follow is, “We are socially conscious commentators. We will not ridicule anyone nor discriminate on the basis of caste, creed or religion. Our stories must have a message.”
So how does he reconcile the meaningful purpose of his role as a raconteur with his foray in Bollywood? And the lyricist of over 30 films who has just penned a Mujra song, is ready to write for Jism 2 and has written scripts too. He explains his presence in Bollywood thus, “In the commerce driven world of cinema I try to write concept based songs.” So even in a Mujra song for Agent Vinod there is a thought not just inane tukbandi. Is writing songs, as he has often proclaimed, his first love? He says, “I always wanted to do many things. But be it journalism, song writing or turning dead research into books I am compelled to tell stories.” Even when he goes to deliver a talk on his book The Absent State he turns it around into a story telling session. His biggest grudge against journalism today is, “The moment the narrative begins to tell stories, we relegate it to the category of features.”
No wonder, he feels that as journalists we fail to touch people’s lives. How he affects people is evident from not only the way fans swarm him but also how in a small town in India an old woman on her death bed has begin to include him as part of the family in her morning prayers. Misty eyed he questions, “What can be more humbling than this?” So as he is all set for the new season of his radio show, it’s this love that scares him. Perhaps like Bajrang Bali, he needs a Jamwan to remind him of his strengths. Or may be not.
For the millions that tune into his programme, whom he understands better than they know themselves, are his biggest strength. As he lends voice to their aspirations, dreams and dilemmas, he becomes them and they his USP.
In Chandigarh for the Festival of Letters organised by Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi, he says, “When I started out I had no idea how the concept would go as we had no reference points.” Yet the programme that touched a nerve people didn’t even know existed, got 5.5 million responses on the Facebook itself within three months that too mainly from listeners aged between 13 to 24 years. He quips, “There goes the presumptuous assumption that the youth of today are only interested in the frivolous.” As he has been travelling the length and breadth of India, he has realised the youth of today see the world through a different prism. And it’s this modern India that is changing fast, where seven out of 10 Indians have left home, where many of them feel the pinch of loneliness that is his subject. Indeed, most of what he tells he has experienced, heard or observed. “To be a good writer you need to be a good listener and observer,” he believes.
Being a journalist has helped too, more so to think and write visually. Besides he deems, “As journalists we are privy to a world which others don’t have access to.” So what prompted him to take a hiatus from active journalism? He replies, “For over a decade I was an outsider in Bollywood, writing songs from my Blackberry from distant destinations. Today I am one in journalism.” Looking “in” at the world, he asserts, is a far better vantage point. And right now sharing his perspective are budding writers who meet at his home in Mumbai every Monday. He felt the need for this Monday Mandali for, “In India there is no mentoring in creative arts.” And the first and the foremost rule he expects the young aspiring writers he is training to follow is, “We are socially conscious commentators. We will not ridicule anyone nor discriminate on the basis of caste, creed or religion. Our stories must have a message.”
So how does he reconcile the meaningful purpose of his role as a raconteur with his foray in Bollywood? And the lyricist of over 30 films who has just penned a Mujra song, is ready to write for Jism 2 and has written scripts too. He explains his presence in Bollywood thus, “In the commerce driven world of cinema I try to write concept based songs.” So even in a Mujra song for Agent Vinod there is a thought not just inane tukbandi. Is writing songs, as he has often proclaimed, his first love? He says, “I always wanted to do many things. But be it journalism, song writing or turning dead research into books I am compelled to tell stories.” Even when he goes to deliver a talk on his book The Absent State he turns it around into a story telling session. His biggest grudge against journalism today is, “The moment the narrative begins to tell stories, we relegate it to the category of features.”
No wonder, he feels that as journalists we fail to touch people’s lives. How he affects people is evident from not only the way fans swarm him but also how in a small town in India an old woman on her death bed has begin to include him as part of the family in her morning prayers. Misty eyed he questions, “What can be more humbling than this?” So as he is all set for the new season of his radio show, it’s this love that scares him. Perhaps like Bajrang Bali, he needs a Jamwan to remind him of his strengths. Or may be not.
For the millions that tune into his programme, whom he understands better than they know themselves, are his biggest strength. As he lends voice to their aspirations, dreams and dilemmas, he becomes them and they his USP.
2012年2月7日星期二
Inside Next El Bulli | The Drinks
With the first official Next El Bulli dinner service merely days away, sommelier Joe Catterson is looking at the full menu on paper, tilting his head from one side to the other while his eyes dart up and down over the wine pairings. “This is just the first stab,” he says. “Almost everything here will change.”
Catterson has that freedom. And not only does he have the power to change the pairings as he sees fit, but he also has the power to walk back into the kitchen and tell chefs Grant Achatz and Dave Beran that their menu needs to be changed. “He came to us and said instead of doing it in the order we originally had it, he wanted us to drop the gorgonzola globe down later in the meal and move some stuff up,” says Beran. “He basically did his Joe Catterson magic.”
“Which he does often,” Achatz chimes in. “We’re trying to craft the best possible experience and if he says ‘look, this clashes with this wine so if we move it down it’ll be more fluid’ then I just go ‘okay.’ I think I’ve only told him no, like, twice…but Joe knows his stuff.”
While the chefs are in the kitchen executing the very precise El Bulli path, Catterson is working in an open field, with the option to go in nearly any direction that feels right. That's because El Bulli does not do wine pairings. Instead, meals start with cava, the bottle often left on the table to take diners through a few courses. When sherry arrives, guests have the option of sipping it through a few more courses, the glass refilled as it gets low. Ditto for white or red or whatever the diner feels like drinking that night. “I’ve never had a chance to talk to anybody from there and I’m curious, because I’ve never gotten to go there myself,” Catterson says. “But from what I’ve been able to read it’s not that pairings isn’t something they specifically didn’t want to do but it was more ‘let’s pick something that’s refreshing and diverting and you drink something you like.’ One of the quotes from Juli Soler [El Bulli’s maitre d’] was ‘Well, we’re dictating what you eat so you might as well just pick something that you like to drink.’"
That doesn’t work so well for Catterson. His job is to give you what you’ll like to drink, even if you don’t know it yet. So for Next El Bulli he took a similar approach to Next Thailand by creating a pairing menu that mixes things up with wine, beer, sake and two different sherries, not to mention a shapeshifting cava cocktail. For the beer, Catterson collaborated with Half Acre to brew an ale accented with beets and oranges dubbed Sanguine and intended to pair with either a rabbit course or a concoction of bone marrow, smoked eel and nasturtium. “It should go well with those,” Catterson says. “But we’ll see.”
Characteristically casual about getting down to the wire for the first night of service, Catterson is still playing around with many of the pairings, making most of his changes after sitting down for the full meal at Saturday’s friends-and-family night. “Last night I tasted through a half-dozen sakes with that cuttlefish ravioli and found the one that’s just right, a junmai gingo from Kaetsu,” he says. “But what I’m really excited about is the cava cocktail.”
For that, diners are given an unaltered glass of cava just after the frozen caipirinha (the very first thing presented), the cava intended for sipping throughout the opening salvo of snacks: a tempura pocket of trout roe, the famous olive sphere, toast topped simply with avocado and anchovy, crackery bread ensconced in silky jamon Iberico. As the cava in the glass gets low, servers refill to just about two-thirds full while presenting a small vial of Pineau des Charentes (French fortified wine served as an aperitif) with a little bit of farigoule (Provencal thyme liqueur), which they instruct the diners to dump into the glass. After guests have slipped themselves the mickey, the golden egg course arrives, ideal with this new DIY cava cocktail. Then, as the cava gets low once again, servers return to refill. This time they present another vial of the same mix but also an eyedropper of Molaga muscatel (Spanish fortified wine) and Regan’s orange bitters. A few drops later and the resulting cocktail is the perfect pair for both the smoked foam and carrot air hot on its heels.
Non-drinkers get to play too, their cava cocktail replaced by a sparkling lychee-coconut soda that later is doctored with saffron and celery to rev up complexity. Server Bobby Murphy has taken ownership of the non-alcoholic pairings, intent on giving them equal attention so that passing on booze doesn’t mean feeling left out of the experience. For this menu, he’s come up with a roasted-golden-beet-and-apple-juice infused with carrot and black mustard seed, as well as a combination of rose tea, rosemary honey and peach juice, a drink derived from an El Bulli recipe. While Murphy works in the beverage station tweaking and tasting, John Schafer is intently trying to perfect tiny jelled booze cubes of Pedro Ximenez and aejo tequila, an idea of Catterson’s intended to mimic a sugar cube, to arrive with the meal-ending cortado with instructions to drop and drink. “We have some perfecting to do but we’ll see if we can’t get it right before Wednesday,” Catterson says. “And if we don’t, we do something else. It’s different in the kitchen but as far as beverage pairings, we can chuck anything at any moment, and then? Well, then we start all over again.”
Catterson has that freedom. And not only does he have the power to change the pairings as he sees fit, but he also has the power to walk back into the kitchen and tell chefs Grant Achatz and Dave Beran that their menu needs to be changed. “He came to us and said instead of doing it in the order we originally had it, he wanted us to drop the gorgonzola globe down later in the meal and move some stuff up,” says Beran. “He basically did his Joe Catterson magic.”
“Which he does often,” Achatz chimes in. “We’re trying to craft the best possible experience and if he says ‘look, this clashes with this wine so if we move it down it’ll be more fluid’ then I just go ‘okay.’ I think I’ve only told him no, like, twice…but Joe knows his stuff.”
While the chefs are in the kitchen executing the very precise El Bulli path, Catterson is working in an open field, with the option to go in nearly any direction that feels right. That's because El Bulli does not do wine pairings. Instead, meals start with cava, the bottle often left on the table to take diners through a few courses. When sherry arrives, guests have the option of sipping it through a few more courses, the glass refilled as it gets low. Ditto for white or red or whatever the diner feels like drinking that night. “I’ve never had a chance to talk to anybody from there and I’m curious, because I’ve never gotten to go there myself,” Catterson says. “But from what I’ve been able to read it’s not that pairings isn’t something they specifically didn’t want to do but it was more ‘let’s pick something that’s refreshing and diverting and you drink something you like.’ One of the quotes from Juli Soler [El Bulli’s maitre d’] was ‘Well, we’re dictating what you eat so you might as well just pick something that you like to drink.’"
That doesn’t work so well for Catterson. His job is to give you what you’ll like to drink, even if you don’t know it yet. So for Next El Bulli he took a similar approach to Next Thailand by creating a pairing menu that mixes things up with wine, beer, sake and two different sherries, not to mention a shapeshifting cava cocktail. For the beer, Catterson collaborated with Half Acre to brew an ale accented with beets and oranges dubbed Sanguine and intended to pair with either a rabbit course or a concoction of bone marrow, smoked eel and nasturtium. “It should go well with those,” Catterson says. “But we’ll see.”
Characteristically casual about getting down to the wire for the first night of service, Catterson is still playing around with many of the pairings, making most of his changes after sitting down for the full meal at Saturday’s friends-and-family night. “Last night I tasted through a half-dozen sakes with that cuttlefish ravioli and found the one that’s just right, a junmai gingo from Kaetsu,” he says. “But what I’m really excited about is the cava cocktail.”
For that, diners are given an unaltered glass of cava just after the frozen caipirinha (the very first thing presented), the cava intended for sipping throughout the opening salvo of snacks: a tempura pocket of trout roe, the famous olive sphere, toast topped simply with avocado and anchovy, crackery bread ensconced in silky jamon Iberico. As the cava in the glass gets low, servers refill to just about two-thirds full while presenting a small vial of Pineau des Charentes (French fortified wine served as an aperitif) with a little bit of farigoule (Provencal thyme liqueur), which they instruct the diners to dump into the glass. After guests have slipped themselves the mickey, the golden egg course arrives, ideal with this new DIY cava cocktail. Then, as the cava gets low once again, servers return to refill. This time they present another vial of the same mix but also an eyedropper of Molaga muscatel (Spanish fortified wine) and Regan’s orange bitters. A few drops later and the resulting cocktail is the perfect pair for both the smoked foam and carrot air hot on its heels.
Non-drinkers get to play too, their cava cocktail replaced by a sparkling lychee-coconut soda that later is doctored with saffron and celery to rev up complexity. Server Bobby Murphy has taken ownership of the non-alcoholic pairings, intent on giving them equal attention so that passing on booze doesn’t mean feeling left out of the experience. For this menu, he’s come up with a roasted-golden-beet-and-apple-juice infused with carrot and black mustard seed, as well as a combination of rose tea, rosemary honey and peach juice, a drink derived from an El Bulli recipe. While Murphy works in the beverage station tweaking and tasting, John Schafer is intently trying to perfect tiny jelled booze cubes of Pedro Ximenez and aejo tequila, an idea of Catterson’s intended to mimic a sugar cube, to arrive with the meal-ending cortado with instructions to drop and drink. “We have some perfecting to do but we’ll see if we can’t get it right before Wednesday,” Catterson says. “And if we don’t, we do something else. It’s different in the kitchen but as far as beverage pairings, we can chuck anything at any moment, and then? Well, then we start all over again.”
2012年2月6日星期一
A missing sense of direction, or do I just lack confidence?
I passed my driving test in 2006 with just one minor. That’s not a boast; it’s the start of a confession.
The thing is while I love motoring about, and the freedom that comes with it – I have never been that confident at it.
In fact few things fill me with more dread than having to hit the road to somewhere I haven’t been before, especially if I am travelling alone.
I think a lot of this fear is down to my complete lack of geographical awareness.
And when I say complete lack, I mean it – just last week I got lost in Chichester. Yes, I know the city is designed around a compass. Yes, I have worked here for nearly two years and yes, I did have a map.
My lack of simple skills has reached such a degree I almost see it as a skill in itself.
I do have excuses however.
Like the fact I left for university almost straight away after getting my licence.
Meaning that for three years I replaced my own transport for public transport – and that old-fashioned means of getting around known as walking.
Despite this I have always shunned sat-navs, preferring to struggle. Or relying instead on directions scribbled, by a parent, on a post-it note.
So this week when a visit to a land far, far away (Worthing) was sprung on me, I have to admit I was worried.
Especially when I found my usual back-up, national rail, weren’t going to come to my rescue. Figuring events had conspired to push me outside my comfort zone, I took a deep breath and got behind the wheel.
As it turns out, it wasn’t so bad. And it struck me that road signs and signposts in particular are very useful inventions.
The fact I managed to do something I would normally have considered as outside my abilities has got me thinking – perhaps it is confidence I am lacking rather than a sense of direction.
I have found something to add to my list of 30 things to do before I am 30.
Leaning how to solve a Rubik’s Cube which has bewildered generations.
My desire to crack them was inspired by seeing one being solved in under two minutes at a party the other night.
The only thing I am worried about is...once the mystery has gone will it have lost the magic?
The thing is while I love motoring about, and the freedom that comes with it – I have never been that confident at it.
In fact few things fill me with more dread than having to hit the road to somewhere I haven’t been before, especially if I am travelling alone.
I think a lot of this fear is down to my complete lack of geographical awareness.
And when I say complete lack, I mean it – just last week I got lost in Chichester. Yes, I know the city is designed around a compass. Yes, I have worked here for nearly two years and yes, I did have a map.
My lack of simple skills has reached such a degree I almost see it as a skill in itself.
I do have excuses however.
Like the fact I left for university almost straight away after getting my licence.
Meaning that for three years I replaced my own transport for public transport – and that old-fashioned means of getting around known as walking.
Despite this I have always shunned sat-navs, preferring to struggle. Or relying instead on directions scribbled, by a parent, on a post-it note.
So this week when a visit to a land far, far away (Worthing) was sprung on me, I have to admit I was worried.
Especially when I found my usual back-up, national rail, weren’t going to come to my rescue. Figuring events had conspired to push me outside my comfort zone, I took a deep breath and got behind the wheel.
As it turns out, it wasn’t so bad. And it struck me that road signs and signposts in particular are very useful inventions.
The fact I managed to do something I would normally have considered as outside my abilities has got me thinking – perhaps it is confidence I am lacking rather than a sense of direction.
I have found something to add to my list of 30 things to do before I am 30.
Leaning how to solve a Rubik’s Cube which has bewildered generations.
My desire to crack them was inspired by seeing one being solved in under two minutes at a party the other night.
The only thing I am worried about is...once the mystery has gone will it have lost the magic?
2012年2月1日星期三
Past Ellerslie winners design gardens for the future
Four past gold medal winners at the Ellerslie International Flower Show return to this year's show to create an inner city courtyard or rooftop garden for Christchurch of the future.
Aucklanders Xanthe White and Tim Feather, Wellington's Ben Hoyle and the Canterbury Horticultural Society will each design a City in a Garden, a new look for the city as it rebuilds following the devastating earthquakes.
Xanthe, who has won two sliver gilt awards at the world's prestigious Chelsea Flower Show and several medals at Ellerslie, says her 2012 garden has two sides. "The garden has duality, embracing Christchurch's heritage through stone work and classicism, while looking to the future with a contemporary courtyard where diversity in planting gives the garden complexity."
She says the garden retains the most beautiful aspects of the city's heritage in a lush planted green garden, complete with water feature, transitioning into a dry, arid garden featuring a marble Tim Royall sculpture.
Xanthe's garden, sponsored by Daltons, will also aim for sustainability through its design, bringing heating and cooling elements into the garden, the plant material being a mix of native plants and flowers.
"The garden will be about aspiration with a balance of architecture and the magic of plants. It will be beautiful with a fresh city edge for the future."
Ben Hoyle's She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not garden is "a little bit out there" and captures Cantabrians love/hate relationship with their ever changing environment as a result of what has happened in the city.
In essence, his courtyard will be a giant water lily, about seven meters wide and two metres tall, floating in the middle of a still pond. Giant petals will spread out across the water, with two or three broken and floating in the pond.
"What I am creating is a garden in the water. Normally, it is the other way round - you punctuate a landscape with a water element. This provides an opportunity to mentally and physically float away from the ground as the garden is insulated by water which acts as something of a shock absorber. Demolition material such as bricks and broken concrete from the city will be used to form gabion walls around the garden in a symbolic process of the historic past providing the core of a solid foundation for the future.
Ben was only 21 when he took part in his first Ellerslie Show - that was in 1998 when he won silver. Fourteen years on, he has now competed at eight Ellerslie shows and has a fistful of gold medals to his credit, including more recently taking out Gold and the Supreme Peace Award in 2010 while representing New Zealand at the Gardening World Cup in Japan.
Christchurch's Tony Milne is designing the garden on behalf of the Canterbury Horticultural Garden, which won gold at the 2009 Show with its A Taste of Tomorrow garden designed by Rob Watson.
Tony says Love (in) Your Garden is a play on the Society's new slogan designed to inspire a new generation of gardeners.
His garden is a sculptural rooftop garden that tells a love story combining aspects of romance, fertility and resilience. The story is told through a sculptural display of abstracted flower anatomy, drawing inspiration from the older love gods.
"A grove of 12 stamens dance around the pistil in a display of affection that will ultimately regenerate new life, reminding us of the resilience of the flowering plant life cycle to survive even in the most damaged environment."
Tony says the top of the stamens, the anther will be filled with a number of items that we need to survive in the event of a disaster, symbolic of the sustenance required to be self-sustaining and resilient.
The garden will also allude to alternative energy sources, feature drifts of wildflowers blooming among crushed rubble and the garden walls will feature William Morris prints, peppered with an abstraction of words from Shakespeare and love stories.
Tim Feather's A Moveable Feast garden is a selection of four whimsical pop-up and portable courtyard gardens inspired by the recent earthquakes in Christchurch, creating to help meet the challenges the city faces in designing the gardens of the future.
He says the garden, sponsored by Bay Audiology, allows the homeowner to select a courtyard that reflects their mood and to change or reconfigure elements to enhance their enjoyment. "There is a lot of humour is the garden which I think visitors to the Show will enjoy; everyone should have a bit of a chuckle."
Frayed nerves can be soothed in the Easy Listening Courtyard where you sit on cube seats around a water feature listening to background sounds and enjoy the visual feast of a pop-up planter. The Disco Courtyard turns the back lawn into disco heaven where the homeowner can boogie on down; while in the Seismic Shuffle Courtyard you are able to rearrange the decking segments to create a different look every day. The Liquefaction Blues Courtyard is a place to sit, relax and kick sand in the face of life. It has a pool, deck chairs and beach balls leading through to an overgrown garden with vegetables and fruit trees.
Aucklanders Xanthe White and Tim Feather, Wellington's Ben Hoyle and the Canterbury Horticultural Society will each design a City in a Garden, a new look for the city as it rebuilds following the devastating earthquakes.
Xanthe, who has won two sliver gilt awards at the world's prestigious Chelsea Flower Show and several medals at Ellerslie, says her 2012 garden has two sides. "The garden has duality, embracing Christchurch's heritage through stone work and classicism, while looking to the future with a contemporary courtyard where diversity in planting gives the garden complexity."
She says the garden retains the most beautiful aspects of the city's heritage in a lush planted green garden, complete with water feature, transitioning into a dry, arid garden featuring a marble Tim Royall sculpture.
Xanthe's garden, sponsored by Daltons, will also aim for sustainability through its design, bringing heating and cooling elements into the garden, the plant material being a mix of native plants and flowers.
"The garden will be about aspiration with a balance of architecture and the magic of plants. It will be beautiful with a fresh city edge for the future."
Ben Hoyle's She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not garden is "a little bit out there" and captures Cantabrians love/hate relationship with their ever changing environment as a result of what has happened in the city.
In essence, his courtyard will be a giant water lily, about seven meters wide and two metres tall, floating in the middle of a still pond. Giant petals will spread out across the water, with two or three broken and floating in the pond.
"What I am creating is a garden in the water. Normally, it is the other way round - you punctuate a landscape with a water element. This provides an opportunity to mentally and physically float away from the ground as the garden is insulated by water which acts as something of a shock absorber. Demolition material such as bricks and broken concrete from the city will be used to form gabion walls around the garden in a symbolic process of the historic past providing the core of a solid foundation for the future.
Ben was only 21 when he took part in his first Ellerslie Show - that was in 1998 when he won silver. Fourteen years on, he has now competed at eight Ellerslie shows and has a fistful of gold medals to his credit, including more recently taking out Gold and the Supreme Peace Award in 2010 while representing New Zealand at the Gardening World Cup in Japan.
Christchurch's Tony Milne is designing the garden on behalf of the Canterbury Horticultural Garden, which won gold at the 2009 Show with its A Taste of Tomorrow garden designed by Rob Watson.
Tony says Love (in) Your Garden is a play on the Society's new slogan designed to inspire a new generation of gardeners.
His garden is a sculptural rooftop garden that tells a love story combining aspects of romance, fertility and resilience. The story is told through a sculptural display of abstracted flower anatomy, drawing inspiration from the older love gods.
"A grove of 12 stamens dance around the pistil in a display of affection that will ultimately regenerate new life, reminding us of the resilience of the flowering plant life cycle to survive even in the most damaged environment."
Tony says the top of the stamens, the anther will be filled with a number of items that we need to survive in the event of a disaster, symbolic of the sustenance required to be self-sustaining and resilient.
The garden will also allude to alternative energy sources, feature drifts of wildflowers blooming among crushed rubble and the garden walls will feature William Morris prints, peppered with an abstraction of words from Shakespeare and love stories.
Tim Feather's A Moveable Feast garden is a selection of four whimsical pop-up and portable courtyard gardens inspired by the recent earthquakes in Christchurch, creating to help meet the challenges the city faces in designing the gardens of the future.
He says the garden, sponsored by Bay Audiology, allows the homeowner to select a courtyard that reflects their mood and to change or reconfigure elements to enhance their enjoyment. "There is a lot of humour is the garden which I think visitors to the Show will enjoy; everyone should have a bit of a chuckle."
Frayed nerves can be soothed in the Easy Listening Courtyard where you sit on cube seats around a water feature listening to background sounds and enjoy the visual feast of a pop-up planter. The Disco Courtyard turns the back lawn into disco heaven where the homeowner can boogie on down; while in the Seismic Shuffle Courtyard you are able to rearrange the decking segments to create a different look every day. The Liquefaction Blues Courtyard is a place to sit, relax and kick sand in the face of life. It has a pool, deck chairs and beach balls leading through to an overgrown garden with vegetables and fruit trees.
2012年1月5日星期四
Diet and exercise are important
It seems like no matter what I do, my dog continues to gain weight. I have tried cutting down on the amount of food I feed her, and she still looks heavy. She acts like we are starving her to death. I want us both to lose some weight as a New Year's resolution. Do you have any suggestions on how to get some pounds off my dog without me feeling like I'm mistreating her?
The majority of dogs that enter my practice have at least a little bit of extra weight on them. According to a very popular food company's study, 80 percent of American pets are overweight.
There is no magic potion or pill that will fix your pet. Just like in humans, diet and exercise are going to be your best bet.
The first step is to really evaluate what your dog is eating every day. A good way to get honest with yourself is to write down everything you feed your pet. Also, have all the other people living around or interacting with your pet write down what they are feeding her, too. You might think she is only getting two treats a day, but that is just from you. What about your spouse or children? Are they all giving treats, too?
Picking a diet or low calorie food is your next step. Look at the back of your dog food bag. Feed for the weight you want your dog to be, not the weight your dog currently is. If you feed treats throughout the day, take away some of the regular food you feed to make up for the calories she is getting in her treats.
Eliminating fatty human foods is a must. A cube of cheese might not seem like a lot of extra calories to you, but for your pet it will really add up quickly. A couple of potato chips or the last bite of your hamburger makes a big difference in your pet's diet. You have to remember that 100 extra calories for your 2,000 calorie diet isn't much, but 100 extra calories in a dog that has a 600 calorie diet is a lot. If you must feed human foods, unsalted green beans make great treats. Canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix) makes a great additive to the food that increases fiber and makes your pet feel fuller.
Finally, remember that your pet needs to burn off the calories it is consuming. Regular exercise is very important.
If you are just starting an exercise program, start slowly. A couple of trips around the block or up and down the stairs might be all your pet can handle when you start out. You can increase the amount or time spent exercising as you go along. The same food company has found that regular exercise can extend your pet's life span by a couple of years, not to mention the benefits they get for bone and joint health.
The majority of dogs that enter my practice have at least a little bit of extra weight on them. According to a very popular food company's study, 80 percent of American pets are overweight.
There is no magic potion or pill that will fix your pet. Just like in humans, diet and exercise are going to be your best bet.
The first step is to really evaluate what your dog is eating every day. A good way to get honest with yourself is to write down everything you feed your pet. Also, have all the other people living around or interacting with your pet write down what they are feeding her, too. You might think she is only getting two treats a day, but that is just from you. What about your spouse or children? Are they all giving treats, too?
Picking a diet or low calorie food is your next step. Look at the back of your dog food bag. Feed for the weight you want your dog to be, not the weight your dog currently is. If you feed treats throughout the day, take away some of the regular food you feed to make up for the calories she is getting in her treats.
Eliminating fatty human foods is a must. A cube of cheese might not seem like a lot of extra calories to you, but for your pet it will really add up quickly. A couple of potato chips or the last bite of your hamburger makes a big difference in your pet's diet. You have to remember that 100 extra calories for your 2,000 calorie diet isn't much, but 100 extra calories in a dog that has a 600 calorie diet is a lot. If you must feed human foods, unsalted green beans make great treats. Canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix) makes a great additive to the food that increases fiber and makes your pet feel fuller.
Finally, remember that your pet needs to burn off the calories it is consuming. Regular exercise is very important.
If you are just starting an exercise program, start slowly. A couple of trips around the block or up and down the stairs might be all your pet can handle when you start out. You can increase the amount or time spent exercising as you go along. The same food company has found that regular exercise can extend your pet's life span by a couple of years, not to mention the benefits they get for bone and joint health.
2012年1月3日星期二
Cubitek Magic Cube im Gehusetest
Bei dem Cubitek Magic Cube handelt es sich um ein modulares Alu-Gehuse, das Festplattenkfig und den Schacht fr optische Laufwerke in separate Cubes auslagert. Garniert mit einer hochwertigen Aluminium-Konstruktion bei makelloser Verarbeitung, macht Cubitek dem Aluminium-Pionier Lian Li Konkurrenz. Ob Cubitek dem Konkurrenten mit dem PC-Gehuse aus Alu Paroli bieten kann, analysiert unser heutiger Test.
Nachdem wir uns bereits vor einigen Monaten einen taiwanischen Edelwrfel aus dem Hause Lian Li genauer angesehen haben, folgt mit dem heutigen Test die Fortsetzung in Form des Tests zum Alu-Gehuse Cubitek Magic Cube. Dabei teilen sich die edlen PC-Gehuse einige Gemeinsamkeiten – beide bestehen aus Aluminium, beide kommen aus Taiwan und beide sind fr das hochpreisige Gehuse-Segment angedacht. Whrend Lian Li mit dem PC-V353 die HTPC-Herzen zu gewinnen versucht, handelt es sich beim Cubitek Magic Cube um ein modulares Aluminium-Gehuse, bestehend aus zwei kleineren "Cubes" (Module) und einem Hauptgehuse.
Cubitek verspricht dadurch mehr Flexibilitt, eine bessere Khlung und eine angenehme Geruschkulisse. Der Hersteller ist dabei mit der Zeit gegangen und verpasst dem Magic Cube moderne Schnittstellen und hochwertige Lfter. Mit gengend Platz fr High-End-Hardware, einem edlen Finish und dem Einsatz von hochpreisigen Materialien sollen vor allem die besser gestellte Interessenten endgltig neugierig gemacht werden. Aber auch Hauptkonkurrent Lian Li soll mit Cubiteks Gehuseoffensive unter Druck geraten. Das Know-How hierzu ist zumindest vorhanden, hat doch Cubiteks CEO lange beim genannten Konkurrenten Erfahrungen sammeln knnen. Ob dies im Falle des Magic Cubes gelingt und ob das ungewhnliche Konzept aufgeht, werden wir auf den nachfolgenden Seiten untersuchen.
Nachdem wir uns bereits vor einigen Monaten einen taiwanischen Edelwrfel aus dem Hause Lian Li genauer angesehen haben, folgt mit dem heutigen Test die Fortsetzung in Form des Tests zum Alu-Gehuse Cubitek Magic Cube. Dabei teilen sich die edlen PC-Gehuse einige Gemeinsamkeiten – beide bestehen aus Aluminium, beide kommen aus Taiwan und beide sind fr das hochpreisige Gehuse-Segment angedacht. Whrend Lian Li mit dem PC-V353 die HTPC-Herzen zu gewinnen versucht, handelt es sich beim Cubitek Magic Cube um ein modulares Aluminium-Gehuse, bestehend aus zwei kleineren "Cubes" (Module) und einem Hauptgehuse.
Cubitek verspricht dadurch mehr Flexibilitt, eine bessere Khlung und eine angenehme Geruschkulisse. Der Hersteller ist dabei mit der Zeit gegangen und verpasst dem Magic Cube moderne Schnittstellen und hochwertige Lfter. Mit gengend Platz fr High-End-Hardware, einem edlen Finish und dem Einsatz von hochpreisigen Materialien sollen vor allem die besser gestellte Interessenten endgltig neugierig gemacht werden. Aber auch Hauptkonkurrent Lian Li soll mit Cubiteks Gehuseoffensive unter Druck geraten. Das Know-How hierzu ist zumindest vorhanden, hat doch Cubiteks CEO lange beim genannten Konkurrenten Erfahrungen sammeln knnen. Ob dies im Falle des Magic Cubes gelingt und ob das ungewhnliche Konzept aufgeht, werden wir auf den nachfolgenden Seiten untersuchen.
2011年12月7日星期三
Dudes and chicks for fun
I would not be blogging about the various and amusing differences between dudes and chicks for fun and profit if it were not for a boss who dressed like she was ready to hit a late-’90s girl power soft rock music festival at a moment’s notice.
When I moved to New York 15 years ago, I was lucky to find any work. I had no connections, no money, and no marketable skills. I had a degree in playwriting which qualified me to brood. I was too sweaty to wait tables, too goofy to work in sales, and when the temp agency put me in front of a computer, I looked like a monkey with a Rubik’s cube. I tied my only tie with all of the grace of a hangman. That tie was baboon ass red.
Those are what I call my “Dickensian” years. My daily budget was a series of stacked quarters on the desk of the room I was renting in a hotel where I shared a bathroom with an entire floor of junkies, shut-ins, and frail old women who managed to cram their lives into one small room. Cell phones were extravagances in 1996, and I would spend half my quarters cold calling temp agencies and setting up appointments that felt like tribunals where my value as a human being was accessed. My other quarters went to hot dogs. After weeks of fruitless hustling, my funds were fumes. I was forced to consider the inconsiderable, a fate worse than failure. A move back to Texas.
The temp jobs I went to were thoroughly unimpressed with me. The fashion designer showroom didn’t like my clothes folding skills. I operated a freight elevator clumsily. I was a terrible telemarketer. First of all, the scripts they provided when I would cold call people I picked from a random page ripped from the phone book lacked a little pizazz. Pizazz is not an asset in telemarketing. Also: when the annoyed person whose dinner I was interrupting would say “No thank you,” I was too quick to apologize over and over again.
Money, connections, and skills are valuable. But it’s not like I didn’t have any talents. Other 23-year-olds I would meet in those years had trust funds, or Ivy League pedigree, or degrees in finance or marketing. I had faith. The kind of faith reserved for drunks and children and sailors in tiny boats lost in violent seas. I meet kids who’ve just moved to this ridiculous concrete carousel all the time. Many of them are smarter than I ever was, and they are so tightly wound that their inevitable unspooling will be some therapist’s profit. Some people get all the breaks, and the rest just get broke. I also meet plenty of men and women 10 or more years my junior who are all fear and hunger and faith. A few will bail after toiling for months or years. But then there are the sweet and savage knuckleheads who head-butt doors until they crash open. I root for you.
I root for you because I know, from years of playing video games, all you really have to do is keep pressing buttons, keep shooting laser bursts and punching stuff, until the tips of your fingers hurt, and eventually you’ll unlock a hidden door or discover a bag of magic. You’ll get lucky. If I can get lucky, you can get lucky. Slog forth, brothers and sisters.
I caught a break first because a very nice woman at a temp agency briefly treated me like a human being and suggested that I might make an excellent receptionist. She made this suggestion because a recent employer had complained to her that I was “talkative.” Being a receptionist fit my skillsets: I could answer phones. I could smile. I could answer phones. She tried me out as a receptionist at a couple of companies. Granted, those employers were a little shocked to see Oliver Twist answering phone calls, but eventually, my mix of desperate-to-please charm and ability to arrive at work on time won over. She sent me to work at a small publishing company that produced magazines about the brave new world of laptop computing and “networks.”
Seeing as I wanted to be a writer, I figured that being close to writing, any writing, was a pretty good gig. I hate to brag, but I was an amazing receptionist. My fingers were fast. I was a Southerner born and bred, so I had manners beaten into me. I was friendly, and since I was making hundreds of dollars a week, my stomach wasn’t constantly trying to eat itself. I had one tie, sure. My two dress shirts were always wrinkled, I admit this. I was a reception prodigy, but I still looked like a corporate hobo.
Karen was just a few years older than me. She was the office manager. Her hair was short, she wore flowery hippie dresses, and her breasts were perfect. I was terrified to even glance at them, though. It would have been inappropriate. She was my superior. My first boss in the big city. A real live making it in New York person who offered me, free of charge, her respect and I returned it as often as I could.
Karen was bright and chirpy. She joked with me, taught me some computer programs, and had the nicest way of telling me I was screwing up. Her training mantra was “this isn’t really hard.” After a while, I believed her. Her easy confidence and mellow demeanor was a revelation. Everything had been hard since I had arrived in New York on a fall day when 1,000 other ne’er-do-wells probably showed up with post-college delusions of grandeur. Karen talked to me like a peer, while at the same time, wearing her authority the way she wore her assortment of skirts with little bells on them.
When I moved to New York 15 years ago, I was lucky to find any work. I had no connections, no money, and no marketable skills. I had a degree in playwriting which qualified me to brood. I was too sweaty to wait tables, too goofy to work in sales, and when the temp agency put me in front of a computer, I looked like a monkey with a Rubik’s cube. I tied my only tie with all of the grace of a hangman. That tie was baboon ass red.
Those are what I call my “Dickensian” years. My daily budget was a series of stacked quarters on the desk of the room I was renting in a hotel where I shared a bathroom with an entire floor of junkies, shut-ins, and frail old women who managed to cram their lives into one small room. Cell phones were extravagances in 1996, and I would spend half my quarters cold calling temp agencies and setting up appointments that felt like tribunals where my value as a human being was accessed. My other quarters went to hot dogs. After weeks of fruitless hustling, my funds were fumes. I was forced to consider the inconsiderable, a fate worse than failure. A move back to Texas.
The temp jobs I went to were thoroughly unimpressed with me. The fashion designer showroom didn’t like my clothes folding skills. I operated a freight elevator clumsily. I was a terrible telemarketer. First of all, the scripts they provided when I would cold call people I picked from a random page ripped from the phone book lacked a little pizazz. Pizazz is not an asset in telemarketing. Also: when the annoyed person whose dinner I was interrupting would say “No thank you,” I was too quick to apologize over and over again.
Money, connections, and skills are valuable. But it’s not like I didn’t have any talents. Other 23-year-olds I would meet in those years had trust funds, or Ivy League pedigree, or degrees in finance or marketing. I had faith. The kind of faith reserved for drunks and children and sailors in tiny boats lost in violent seas. I meet kids who’ve just moved to this ridiculous concrete carousel all the time. Many of them are smarter than I ever was, and they are so tightly wound that their inevitable unspooling will be some therapist’s profit. Some people get all the breaks, and the rest just get broke. I also meet plenty of men and women 10 or more years my junior who are all fear and hunger and faith. A few will bail after toiling for months or years. But then there are the sweet and savage knuckleheads who head-butt doors until they crash open. I root for you.
I root for you because I know, from years of playing video games, all you really have to do is keep pressing buttons, keep shooting laser bursts and punching stuff, until the tips of your fingers hurt, and eventually you’ll unlock a hidden door or discover a bag of magic. You’ll get lucky. If I can get lucky, you can get lucky. Slog forth, brothers and sisters.
I caught a break first because a very nice woman at a temp agency briefly treated me like a human being and suggested that I might make an excellent receptionist. She made this suggestion because a recent employer had complained to her that I was “talkative.” Being a receptionist fit my skillsets: I could answer phones. I could smile. I could answer phones. She tried me out as a receptionist at a couple of companies. Granted, those employers were a little shocked to see Oliver Twist answering phone calls, but eventually, my mix of desperate-to-please charm and ability to arrive at work on time won over. She sent me to work at a small publishing company that produced magazines about the brave new world of laptop computing and “networks.”
Seeing as I wanted to be a writer, I figured that being close to writing, any writing, was a pretty good gig. I hate to brag, but I was an amazing receptionist. My fingers were fast. I was a Southerner born and bred, so I had manners beaten into me. I was friendly, and since I was making hundreds of dollars a week, my stomach wasn’t constantly trying to eat itself. I had one tie, sure. My two dress shirts were always wrinkled, I admit this. I was a reception prodigy, but I still looked like a corporate hobo.
Karen was just a few years older than me. She was the office manager. Her hair was short, she wore flowery hippie dresses, and her breasts were perfect. I was terrified to even glance at them, though. It would have been inappropriate. She was my superior. My first boss in the big city. A real live making it in New York person who offered me, free of charge, her respect and I returned it as often as I could.
Karen was bright and chirpy. She joked with me, taught me some computer programs, and had the nicest way of telling me I was screwing up. Her training mantra was “this isn’t really hard.” After a while, I believed her. Her easy confidence and mellow demeanor was a revelation. Everything had been hard since I had arrived in New York on a fall day when 1,000 other ne’er-do-wells probably showed up with post-college delusions of grandeur. Karen talked to me like a peer, while at the same time, wearing her authority the way she wore her assortment of skirts with little bells on them.
2011年12月6日星期二
Eat Like No One’s Watching
Even though we are having an Indian summer of sorts here in Manhattan, the lure of December inevitably brings uncontrollable desires to indulge. Tis the season, after all. Don't you get those cravings for sinful meals you want to dive right into without the pressure of anyone watching?
Sometimes it's good to be bad, really bad. Skip the health and exercise regimens and start exploring these spots that are sure to warm your belly, and then some. For those who are trekking to tropical destinations over winter break, my apologies, and for the rest of you, don't worry, swimsuit season is plenty of months away.
The Ace Hotel has become quite the swanky watering hole for glitterati and hipsters alike, but the real gem of the compound is The Breslin. Helmed by the killer female chef (yes, a rarity!), April Bloomfield delivers fierce animal-centric cuisine. This is not for the faint of heart. Putting a gourmet and playful spin on pub grub coupled with an inventive and potent cocktail program, it's easy to devour yourself into losing all sense of space and time. There is no better way to begin a meal than with "snacks" of caramel popcorn, chicken liver parfait, and boiled peanuts in pork fat. The big guns arrive with Bloomfield's famous terrine board (don't bother worrying about the details), succulent pig's foot and dry aged ribeye for two.
Topping it off with thrice cooked chips (the secret is the duck fat frying finale for the potatoes), I dare you to conquer dessert before you fall into a blissful food coma. For those really looking to live on the wild side, the whole suckling pig and whole lamb dinners are worth the adventure, though you will have to share with about ten of your closest friends you wouldn't mind taking down a true head-to-tail meal with. And consider yourself warned, those that do opt in for these family meals must endure a spotlighted "chef's table" in the middle of the establishment, exposing your dirty little secret to a bevy of diners.
Harlem may now be trendy with the opening of Red Rooster, but the original foodie magnet is famed Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. This roadie shack of heaven that evokes a middle-of-the-country highway motorcycle joint will certainly rev your engine, and it's no wonder with its founders being former Harley-Davidson diehards. The roots of the dishes are Southern, but the barbecued goods take liberty with global influences delivering the perfect fusion of flavors that has built its legacy.
The options are endless, and to make the decision process even harder there is truly nothing they can't do. In particular, the bbq chicken wings are insane (embarrassingly I ordered two full plates for myself!) as are the fried green tomatoes, and don't miss the opportunity to experiment with their many signature sauces. Be ready to dig in with your hands and dump yourself in a trough after all the mess is said and done.
If you aren't familiar with David Chang, you have been living under a rock in New York. Now with four critically-acclaimed restaurants (Ko even has two Michelin stars), there is still something irresistibly nostalgic about his first venture, Momofuku Noodle Bar.
Chang was artfully on the cutting edge of the wave of low-key, subtly designed casual restaurants where it's all about the food, which is anything but ordinary. In the vein of this democratic ethos, where anyone should be able to enjoy modern creativity and elevated flavors of fine dining, you may have to bear a substantial wait to get a chance to taste Chang's creations.
If you can be patient, though, Korean-inspired magic awaits, choreographed to a funky pop music soundtrack that will have you bopping uncontrollably on your barren wooden stool. The famous hoisin pork buns are not to be missed and the various ramen bowls are bountiful, hearty and always packing a punch.
Sometimes it's good to be bad, really bad. Skip the health and exercise regimens and start exploring these spots that are sure to warm your belly, and then some. For those who are trekking to tropical destinations over winter break, my apologies, and for the rest of you, don't worry, swimsuit season is plenty of months away.
The Ace Hotel has become quite the swanky watering hole for glitterati and hipsters alike, but the real gem of the compound is The Breslin. Helmed by the killer female chef (yes, a rarity!), April Bloomfield delivers fierce animal-centric cuisine. This is not for the faint of heart. Putting a gourmet and playful spin on pub grub coupled with an inventive and potent cocktail program, it's easy to devour yourself into losing all sense of space and time. There is no better way to begin a meal than with "snacks" of caramel popcorn, chicken liver parfait, and boiled peanuts in pork fat. The big guns arrive with Bloomfield's famous terrine board (don't bother worrying about the details), succulent pig's foot and dry aged ribeye for two.
Topping it off with thrice cooked chips (the secret is the duck fat frying finale for the potatoes), I dare you to conquer dessert before you fall into a blissful food coma. For those really looking to live on the wild side, the whole suckling pig and whole lamb dinners are worth the adventure, though you will have to share with about ten of your closest friends you wouldn't mind taking down a true head-to-tail meal with. And consider yourself warned, those that do opt in for these family meals must endure a spotlighted "chef's table" in the middle of the establishment, exposing your dirty little secret to a bevy of diners.
Harlem may now be trendy with the opening of Red Rooster, but the original foodie magnet is famed Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. This roadie shack of heaven that evokes a middle-of-the-country highway motorcycle joint will certainly rev your engine, and it's no wonder with its founders being former Harley-Davidson diehards. The roots of the dishes are Southern, but the barbecued goods take liberty with global influences delivering the perfect fusion of flavors that has built its legacy.
The options are endless, and to make the decision process even harder there is truly nothing they can't do. In particular, the bbq chicken wings are insane (embarrassingly I ordered two full plates for myself!) as are the fried green tomatoes, and don't miss the opportunity to experiment with their many signature sauces. Be ready to dig in with your hands and dump yourself in a trough after all the mess is said and done.
If you aren't familiar with David Chang, you have been living under a rock in New York. Now with four critically-acclaimed restaurants (Ko even has two Michelin stars), there is still something irresistibly nostalgic about his first venture, Momofuku Noodle Bar.
Chang was artfully on the cutting edge of the wave of low-key, subtly designed casual restaurants where it's all about the food, which is anything but ordinary. In the vein of this democratic ethos, where anyone should be able to enjoy modern creativity and elevated flavors of fine dining, you may have to bear a substantial wait to get a chance to taste Chang's creations.
If you can be patient, though, Korean-inspired magic awaits, choreographed to a funky pop music soundtrack that will have you bopping uncontrollably on your barren wooden stool. The famous hoisin pork buns are not to be missed and the various ramen bowls are bountiful, hearty and always packing a punch.
2011年6月20日星期一
Around Allen, June 16-21
The Allen Public Library will screen "The Pursuit of Happyness," starring Will Smith, from 2 to 4 p.m. on Thursday, June 16, in the library auditorium.
In this inspirational true story, Chris Gardner follows his dream to make a better life for himself and his 5-year-old. This film is free for teens ages 13-18 and is rated PG-13.
The Allen Public Library is at 300 N. Allen Drive.
beTween at the Allen Public Library
The Allen Public Library will host beTween, a program for tweens ages 8-11, from 3 to 4 p.m. on Thursday, June 16, in the children's program room. Attendees will learn new skills and hang out with other tweens at this weekly program. Crafts, trivia and robotics will be among the featured activities.
The Read to Rover program will return to the Allen Public Library from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. on Saturday, June 18, in the children's program room. Readers in kindergarten through sixth grade are encouraged to grab their favorite book and buddy up with a Heart of Texas therapy dog to share a story.
Sign-up starts at 10:15 a.m. There will be no pre-registration for this event. The Allen Public Library is at 300 N. Allen Drive.
The Allen Public Library invites teens ages 12-18 to watch "Despicable Me," rated PG, and enjoy an afternoon of crafts from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 18. This week's craft will be the Rubik's Cube.
This program is free. The Allen Public Library is at 300 N. Allen Drive.
Lucky Duck Kids Club June event announced
The Lucky Duck Kids Club, a free family-friendly activity series at Watters Creek, returns from 4 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, June 18. Enjoy hands-on activities specially designed for children ages 3 to 12 years old.
In celebration of Father's Day, little ones will color a baseball cap and give Dad a personalized gift he's sure to remember. The fun continues with face painting, hayrides, a visit from Boocoos the Clown, a balloon artist and free Paciugo gelato. Activities take place in the breezeway across from The Green from 4 to 6 p.m., with hayrides continuing until 7 p.m.
In this inspirational true story, Chris Gardner follows his dream to make a better life for himself and his 5-year-old. This film is free for teens ages 13-18 and is rated PG-13.
The Allen Public Library is at 300 N. Allen Drive.
beTween at the Allen Public Library
The Allen Public Library will host beTween, a program for tweens ages 8-11, from 3 to 4 p.m. on Thursday, June 16, in the children's program room. Attendees will learn new skills and hang out with other tweens at this weekly program. Crafts, trivia and robotics will be among the featured activities.
The Read to Rover program will return to the Allen Public Library from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. on Saturday, June 18, in the children's program room. Readers in kindergarten through sixth grade are encouraged to grab their favorite book and buddy up with a Heart of Texas therapy dog to share a story.
Sign-up starts at 10:15 a.m. There will be no pre-registration for this event. The Allen Public Library is at 300 N. Allen Drive.
The Allen Public Library invites teens ages 12-18 to watch "Despicable Me," rated PG, and enjoy an afternoon of crafts from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 18. This week's craft will be the Rubik's Cube.
This program is free. The Allen Public Library is at 300 N. Allen Drive.
Lucky Duck Kids Club June event announced
The Lucky Duck Kids Club, a free family-friendly activity series at Watters Creek, returns from 4 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, June 18. Enjoy hands-on activities specially designed for children ages 3 to 12 years old.
In celebration of Father's Day, little ones will color a baseball cap and give Dad a personalized gift he's sure to remember. The fun continues with face painting, hayrides, a visit from Boocoos the Clown, a balloon artist and free Paciugo gelato. Activities take place in the breezeway across from The Green from 4 to 6 p.m., with hayrides continuing until 7 p.m.
2011年4月11日星期一
YouTube videos a profitable sideline for Temple student
Charming in a goofy way, Rob Homayoon, a 25-year-old dental student at Temple, has found a way to make money for himself by creating origami paper cranes and solving Rubik's Cube on YouTube.
"Hey, hey, what's going on," Homayoon begins, making a silly face in one of his most recent videos on YouTube, the Google-owned website that collects videos posted by individuals and companies.
"I made it a little bit easier for those of you who think you're funny and post your little comments below saying, 'Oh My God, pause at zero colon zero three, his face is sooo funny.'
"Just remember, you can't pause real life," he said.
But we can pause right here to let you know how Homayoon is making his money ($70,000 since 2008) and why.
YouTube's publicists are touting Homayoon as a success story in their partnership program, which could also be titled "Feeding the Beast," although YouTube doesn't call it that.
Kate Rose, a YouTube spokeswoman, explains: YouTube gets two billion video views a day, or 14 billion a week. Meanwhile, it has managed to monetize three billion video views a week and would love to monetize more.
Monetize is the magic word, meaning YouTube has been able to attract companies to pay to place their advertisements on various videos. Advertisers like good content, especially when it comes with a reliable and large audience.
The bigger and more reliable the audience, the more they are willing to pay in a process that works like an auction, as advertisers bid up for the best spots.
That's where Homayoon comes in.
His early videos on solving Rubik's Cube attracted enough of a following that he set up his own channel, "Rob's World."
As his audience grew, he applied to become a YouTube partner. He qualified because he had built an audience by producing his own top-quality videos using his own material. YouTube doesn't get much more specific about its partner threshold.
As of Friday morning, Rob's World had 24.9 million uploads and 64,525 subscribers wanting to be notified every time Homayoon posts a new video. That's quantity and reliability.
"Millions of viewers translates to thousands of dollars" for the video's creators, said Annie Baxter, another YouTube spokeswoman. "That's a rough guide."
The more the advertisers pay, the more both Homayoon and YouTube earn. YouTube wouldn't discuss the arrangement, but Homayoon said it was an 80-20 revenue split, with Homayoon getting the 80 percent share.
The money works as an incentive to keep creative people such as Homayoon producing quality videos "and to actually treat it like a job," Baxter said.
"The more people who treat it like a job and produce quality videos, the more people who will come back to YouTube," she said. "That's going to grow more quality programming to run advertising against."
Homayoon works to build views. His most successful video, now a year old, was an eight-minute, 37-second tutorial on making origami paper cranes. Now he's back with a new video that promotes making paper cranes as a way to raise money for tsunami victims in Japan.
Everything on his channel links to everything else, so every click around the channel adds to his statistics, making him more valuable. He constantly invites comments and responds to them, building his community - and his viewership.
The videos are shot in his apartment, nothing very elegant - a few bookshelves in the background. "I'm showing that I'm in my apartment and that I'm doing it all by myself," said Homayoon, who lives in Germantown.
"It is really hard to balance my life, school, and YouTube," he said. "This could be a full-time job, if I really wanted it to be."
His subscribers, he said, hound him if he doesn't produce. They comment, "When is your next video? Are you dead?"
"They get pretty funny on the comments," Homayoon said. "They want to know there is a person behind the video."
At first, he kept it simple, just posting whatever he could create in a few hours. But now, he said, it takes him days to produce a video and he has invested in a better camera. (Just the type of behavior YouTube wants.)
"When I first started, I got $100," he said, "and I thought, 'I can pay for my gas with this. I can go out to dinner.' Then it went up to $400 or $600 and eventually, I started into $1,000, then $2,000.
"Hey, hey, what's going on," Homayoon begins, making a silly face in one of his most recent videos on YouTube, the Google-owned website that collects videos posted by individuals and companies.
"I made it a little bit easier for those of you who think you're funny and post your little comments below saying, 'Oh My God, pause at zero colon zero three, his face is sooo funny.'
"Just remember, you can't pause real life," he said.
But we can pause right here to let you know how Homayoon is making his money ($70,000 since 2008) and why.
YouTube's publicists are touting Homayoon as a success story in their partnership program, which could also be titled "Feeding the Beast," although YouTube doesn't call it that.
Kate Rose, a YouTube spokeswoman, explains: YouTube gets two billion video views a day, or 14 billion a week. Meanwhile, it has managed to monetize three billion video views a week and would love to monetize more.
Monetize is the magic word, meaning YouTube has been able to attract companies to pay to place their advertisements on various videos. Advertisers like good content, especially when it comes with a reliable and large audience.
The bigger and more reliable the audience, the more they are willing to pay in a process that works like an auction, as advertisers bid up for the best spots.
That's where Homayoon comes in.
His early videos on solving Rubik's Cube attracted enough of a following that he set up his own channel, "Rob's World."
As his audience grew, he applied to become a YouTube partner. He qualified because he had built an audience by producing his own top-quality videos using his own material. YouTube doesn't get much more specific about its partner threshold.
As of Friday morning, Rob's World had 24.9 million uploads and 64,525 subscribers wanting to be notified every time Homayoon posts a new video. That's quantity and reliability.
"Millions of viewers translates to thousands of dollars" for the video's creators, said Annie Baxter, another YouTube spokeswoman. "That's a rough guide."
The more the advertisers pay, the more both Homayoon and YouTube earn. YouTube wouldn't discuss the arrangement, but Homayoon said it was an 80-20 revenue split, with Homayoon getting the 80 percent share.
The money works as an incentive to keep creative people such as Homayoon producing quality videos "and to actually treat it like a job," Baxter said.
"The more people who treat it like a job and produce quality videos, the more people who will come back to YouTube," she said. "That's going to grow more quality programming to run advertising against."
Homayoon works to build views. His most successful video, now a year old, was an eight-minute, 37-second tutorial on making origami paper cranes. Now he's back with a new video that promotes making paper cranes as a way to raise money for tsunami victims in Japan.
Everything on his channel links to everything else, so every click around the channel adds to his statistics, making him more valuable. He constantly invites comments and responds to them, building his community - and his viewership.
The videos are shot in his apartment, nothing very elegant - a few bookshelves in the background. "I'm showing that I'm in my apartment and that I'm doing it all by myself," said Homayoon, who lives in Germantown.
"It is really hard to balance my life, school, and YouTube," he said. "This could be a full-time job, if I really wanted it to be."
His subscribers, he said, hound him if he doesn't produce. They comment, "When is your next video? Are you dead?"
"They get pretty funny on the comments," Homayoon said. "They want to know there is a person behind the video."
At first, he kept it simple, just posting whatever he could create in a few hours. But now, he said, it takes him days to produce a video and he has invested in a better camera. (Just the type of behavior YouTube wants.)
"When I first started, I got $100," he said, "and I thought, 'I can pay for my gas with this. I can go out to dinner.' Then it went up to $400 or $600 and eventually, I started into $1,000, then $2,000.
YouTube videos a profitable sideline for Temple student
Charming in a goofy way, Rob Homayoon, a 25-year-old dental student at Temple, has found a way to make money for himself by creating origami paper cranes and solving Rubik's Cube on YouTube.
"Hey, hey, what's going on," Homayoon begins, making a silly face in one of his most recent videos on YouTube, the Google-owned website that collects videos posted by individuals and companies.
"I made it a little bit easier for those of you who think you're funny and post your little comments below saying, 'Oh My God, pause at zero colon zero three, his face is sooo funny.'
"Just remember, you can't pause real life," he said.
But we can pause right here to let you know how Homayoon is making his money ($70,000 since 2008) and why.
YouTube's publicists are touting Homayoon as a success story in their partnership program, which could also be titled "Feeding the Beast," although YouTube doesn't call it that.
Kate Rose, a YouTube spokeswoman, explains: YouTube gets two billion video views a day, or 14 billion a week. Meanwhile, it has managed to monetize three billion video views a week and would love to monetize more.
Monetize is the magic word, meaning YouTube has been able to attract companies to pay to place their advertisements on various videos. Advertisers like good content, especially when it comes with a reliable and large audience.
The bigger and more reliable the audience, the more they are willing to pay in a process that works like an auction, as advertisers bid up for the best spots.
That's where Homayoon comes in.
His early videos on solving Rubik's Cube attracted enough of a following that he set up his own channel, "Rob's World."
As his audience grew, he applied to become a YouTube partner. He qualified because he had built an audience by producing his own top-quality videos using his own material. YouTube doesn't get much more specific about its partner threshold.
As of Friday morning, Rob's World had 24.9 million uploads and 64,525 subscribers wanting to be notified every time Homayoon posts a new video. That's quantity and reliability.
"Millions of viewers translates to thousands of dollars" for the video's creators, said Annie Baxter, another YouTube spokeswoman. "That's a rough guide."
The more the advertisers pay, the more both Homayoon and YouTube earn. YouTube wouldn't discuss the arrangement, but Homayoon said it was an 80-20 revenue split, with Homayoon getting the 80 percent share.
The money works as an incentive to keep creative people such as Homayoon producing quality videos "and to actually treat it like a job," Baxter said.
"The more people who treat it like a job and produce quality videos, the more people who will come back to YouTube," she said. "That's going to grow more quality programming to run advertising against."
Homayoon works to build views. His most successful video, now a year old, was an eight-minute, 37-second tutorial on making origami paper cranes. Now he's back with a new video that promotes making paper cranes as a way to raise money for tsunami victims in Japan.
Everything on his channel links to everything else, so every click around the channel adds to his statistics, making him more valuable. He constantly invites comments and responds to them, building his community - and his viewership.
The videos are shot in his apartment, nothing very elegant - a few bookshelves in the background. "I'm showing that I'm in my apartment and that I'm doing it all by myself," said Homayoon, who lives in Germantown.
"It is really hard to balance my life, school, and YouTube," he said. "This could be a full-time job, if I really wanted it to be."
His subscribers, he said, hound him if he doesn't produce. They comment, "When is your next video? Are you dead?"
"They get pretty funny on the comments," Homayoon said. "They want to know there is a person behind the video."
At first, he kept it simple, just posting whatever he could create in a few hours. But now, he said, it takes him days to produce a video and he has invested in a better camera. (Just the type of behavior YouTube wants.)
"Hey, hey, what's going on," Homayoon begins, making a silly face in one of his most recent videos on YouTube, the Google-owned website that collects videos posted by individuals and companies.
"I made it a little bit easier for those of you who think you're funny and post your little comments below saying, 'Oh My God, pause at zero colon zero three, his face is sooo funny.'
"Just remember, you can't pause real life," he said.
But we can pause right here to let you know how Homayoon is making his money ($70,000 since 2008) and why.
YouTube's publicists are touting Homayoon as a success story in their partnership program, which could also be titled "Feeding the Beast," although YouTube doesn't call it that.
Kate Rose, a YouTube spokeswoman, explains: YouTube gets two billion video views a day, or 14 billion a week. Meanwhile, it has managed to monetize three billion video views a week and would love to monetize more.
Monetize is the magic word, meaning YouTube has been able to attract companies to pay to place their advertisements on various videos. Advertisers like good content, especially when it comes with a reliable and large audience.
The bigger and more reliable the audience, the more they are willing to pay in a process that works like an auction, as advertisers bid up for the best spots.
That's where Homayoon comes in.
His early videos on solving Rubik's Cube attracted enough of a following that he set up his own channel, "Rob's World."
As his audience grew, he applied to become a YouTube partner. He qualified because he had built an audience by producing his own top-quality videos using his own material. YouTube doesn't get much more specific about its partner threshold.
As of Friday morning, Rob's World had 24.9 million uploads and 64,525 subscribers wanting to be notified every time Homayoon posts a new video. That's quantity and reliability.
"Millions of viewers translates to thousands of dollars" for the video's creators, said Annie Baxter, another YouTube spokeswoman. "That's a rough guide."
The more the advertisers pay, the more both Homayoon and YouTube earn. YouTube wouldn't discuss the arrangement, but Homayoon said it was an 80-20 revenue split, with Homayoon getting the 80 percent share.
The money works as an incentive to keep creative people such as Homayoon producing quality videos "and to actually treat it like a job," Baxter said.
"The more people who treat it like a job and produce quality videos, the more people who will come back to YouTube," she said. "That's going to grow more quality programming to run advertising against."
Homayoon works to build views. His most successful video, now a year old, was an eight-minute, 37-second tutorial on making origami paper cranes. Now he's back with a new video that promotes making paper cranes as a way to raise money for tsunami victims in Japan.
Everything on his channel links to everything else, so every click around the channel adds to his statistics, making him more valuable. He constantly invites comments and responds to them, building his community - and his viewership.
The videos are shot in his apartment, nothing very elegant - a few bookshelves in the background. "I'm showing that I'm in my apartment and that I'm doing it all by myself," said Homayoon, who lives in Germantown.
"It is really hard to balance my life, school, and YouTube," he said. "This could be a full-time job, if I really wanted it to be."
His subscribers, he said, hound him if he doesn't produce. They comment, "When is your next video? Are you dead?"
"They get pretty funny on the comments," Homayoon said. "They want to know there is a person behind the video."
At first, he kept it simple, just posting whatever he could create in a few hours. But now, he said, it takes him days to produce a video and he has invested in a better camera. (Just the type of behavior YouTube wants.)
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