My Favorite 35 Links from 2010

So I’ve been posting a ton lately, I just got really behind over the holidays so I’m getting it all up now.  I thought I’d put up a list of my favorite links from 2010.  Most of them are from last year, some of them are older but I discovered them this year and are too cool not to include 🙂  Also with the crap weather, this should keep you occupied for at least one snowy Saturday.

1. Immortal Jellyfish

2. This guy turns his computers into AMAZING steampunk machines

3. The Scale of the Universe

4. A Brothel Menu from 1912

5. The Art of Choosing on ted.com

6. Deep Fried Beer is Invented

7.  Hyperbole and a Half: Why I’ll Never Be an Adult

8. MIT Offers Free Course Material Online

9. The Laws of Physics Don’t Work Everywhere

10. Vertical Vegetable Gardens are Awesome

11. Korean Guy Marries a Pillow

12. The European Energy Supergrid

13. The Foreigner’s Guide to Finland

14. Two Gentlemen of Lebowski (it’s now a book!)

15. The World Beard and Moustache Championship

16. Chinese Archaeologists Find 2,400 Year Old Soup

17. Nasa’s Mad Home Repair Skillz

18. The Butterfly Circus

19. Symphony of Science.  You can find tons more videos at http://www.symphonyofscience.com

20. The Dragon Age Origins Soundtrack is Incredible

21. Mark Steel Lectures.  Make sure you watch all 4 parts, it gets better as it progresses.  Oh, and watch all the other ones while you’re at it!

22. Vader the Barbarian.  Epic.

23. The Reconstruction of an Ancient Athenian Girl

24. Never Say No to Panda!

25.  Words defy this video.

26. Drunk History.  The Most Brilliant Idea Ever.  You can find more of them on their Youtube page.

27.  This guy is so bizarre I kind of love him.

28. The most stunning advertisement I’ve ever seen.

29. The Jane Austen Fight Club

30.  A Dancing Dog.  I know, I hate animals doing people things too, but this dog is really good.

31. Unbelievable animation, I can’t watch this enough times.

32. The coolest history teachers in the world.  They’ve got a youtube page chock full of videos like these.  Respect!

33.  This video brings tears to my eyes every single time.  So beautiful!

34.  A Very Zombie Holiday

35.  Geeks Rule! It’s ArcAttack!

enjoy!

Berlin and a new addiction

I’ve been spending the week preparing for a three day seminar in Berlin, which, after 3 such weekends, will certify me as an intercultural trainer.  I’m excited, but I’m going to miss having a weekend!

Also, I’ve just discovered deviantart.com , and am completely addicted.  I’ve also started learning how to use photoshop-type programs and I’m having a hard time stopping 🙂  My username is combray over there if you feel like mozying on over and having a look at my artwork!

I’ll post more after Berlin, with pictures!

Not much going on

…but I thought this was awesome!

Cherry Cornbread and ArcAttack

First of all, I’d like to give a geeky squee over ArcAttack! I’ve loved these guys for a while, and they just auditioned on America’s Got Talent.  They play singing Tesla coils, and they rule.  I posted a different performance earlier, but here it is again. Dr. Who on Tesla coils. It doesn’t get any more geektastic.  If you live in the States, vote for them!

Secondly,  I’ve finally managed to put together the perfect cornbread recipe, and thought I’d share it 🙂

150 grams of butter

200 grams sugar

3 eggs

4 tsp. baking powder

300 ml vanilla oat milk

1 tsp. vanilla extract

300 grams corn flour

100 grams wheat flour

1 tsp. salt

fresh cherries or fresh peaches (as many as you like)

Mix the dry ingredients.  In another bowl, beat the eggs, then add the oat milk.  Cut the butter into the flour, then add the egg/milk mix and stir well.  Chop up the cherries or peaches and mix into the batter.  Bake until a toothpick or knife comes out clean.

And now the sun is calling me!

A quick note…

Just to let you all know that the glove article is now up on Queens of Vintage . If you haven’t already found this site, go check them out now! They’re fabulous.

Sunday update

Just a few things today

First off, here are my three favorite cooking blogs.  I love to sit around on a Sunday afternoon and look through them with a cup of coffee! In no particular order, they are:

One Hungry Chef

Retro Housewife

Cooking in Stilettos

Second, another of my cups arrived!  It isn’t art deco, but I just couldn’t help myself. It’s a Biedermeier era cup and I scored it for under 5 Euro, which is incredible!  My number one rule to vintage shopping (and one that took alot of trial and error to realize) is that for vintage clothing, shop on American ebay every time, and for vintage and antique books, always go to British ebay; but for vintage kitchen things and furniture, it’s ebay Germany all the way.  The cup is in amazing condition, except for a bit of wear on the gold  band around the inside.

I’ve also been spending quite a bit of time trying to find vintage patterns to use for a 40s or 50s style Hawaiian dress.  My brother is having a luau party before his wedding in August, and I’ve decided to make something I’ll wear more than once, rather than buy a lame shirt at the airport that will sit at the bottom of my closet for all eternity.  Any suggestions?

And finally, this month Bioware is putting out DLC for Mass Effect 2 (a firewalker!) AND an expansion pack for Dragon Age Origins. It feels like Christmas!

Still here, some cookies and a blog

It’s been crazy lately, which is why I haven’t posted, or worked on my new bolero, or cleaned my apartment, for that matter.  Between consulate visits in Frankfurt and avoiding carnival I haven’t done much worth reporting. Also, for any Americans in Rheinland or Hessen, the consulate really does mean no electronics. They don’t have lockers anymore where you can keep your things!

I do want to write a bit about carnival here, which would be a much more exciting party if I didn’t live directly in the middle of it, but I’ll do that tomorrow. Today I’ll leave you with a recipe and an interesting blog I’ve just stumbled across.

The recipe:  Kourambiedes (thanks Kathy!), which are Greek sugar cookies, basically, and which I ate by the kilo when I lived in Greece.

1000 grams of Butter

2 packages of confectioners sugar

2 egg yolks

6 cups of cake flour

1 tsp of baking powder

1 cup of chopped almonds

1 shot of brandy or whiskey

Soften the butter till very soft.  Add 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar and beat until fluffy and light-colored.  Add the egg yolks and beat.  Sift the cake flour and baking powder into the butter mix.

Toast the almonds for 2-3 minutes and add to the mix, then sprinkle the dough with brandy/whiskey and knead thoroughly.  The dough should not be sticky, but not dry either! Make cookies into half-moon or round shapes and bake on a cookie sheet  until light golden brown.  Take out of oven and cool, then sift the rest of the confectioner’s sugar over them (or put sugar and cookies into a ziploc and shake till they’re coated).  When you’re done, they should look like this:

image from http://www.dianasdesserts.com/news/news2005-12/Greek-Kourambiedes-Cookies-Image.jpg

And the blog: http://hasidic-feminist.blogspot.com/ , which she has just moved to http://exhasid.blogspot.com

I stumbled across it today totally on accident, and have been slowly working my way through ever since. I love teh internets!

Hope you all are having a great weekend!

Randomness

For those of you who know me, it won’t surprise you to hear I have a seriously low threshold for boredom.  But, for every problem there is a solution, so I present to you my favorite time-killing websites of all time:

Funny:

1. People of Walmart

2. Passive Aggressive Notes

3. Ugliest Tattoos

4. Emails From Crazy People

5. Engrish.com

And my top Vintage sites:

1. Super Kawaii Mama

2. Queens of Vintage

3.  Beauty is a Thing of the Past

4. Glamour Daze

and some more photos of  what I’m working on (while watching classic Dr. Who). They’re all parts of a larger picture that is nowhere near finished! I’m actually considering using one of the figures as a tattoo.