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Elizabeth Gilbert: A different way to think about creative genius
I stumbled upon this video, given by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of “Eat, Pray, Love.” Not so interested in the book she wrote, but as someone who has done creative work for projects on the job and extracurricular projects, I found her talk insightful and very refreshing.
happy singles awareness day
i just wanna say that valentine’s day is the worst day in the year. i feel like this regardless of whether i’m in a relationship or not. but if you are in a relationship, valentine’s day should really be everyday, where you express your love and appreciation for each other on a daily basis. there shouldn’t be a need to “celebrate” it on only one day.
so on that note, happy chinese new years instead.
Dear Jenna Lyons
Dear Jenna Lyons,
I have been in search of the *perfect* business bag, something that combines my tote and my Kate Spade Gramercy Park Calista laptop bag (see pic below) into one fashionable solution.
I love this bag, and it’s great for my everday commute to and from work. It safely carries my 15″ MacBook Pro, and ONLY my MacBook Pro. I can usually throw in a folder and some papers along with my laptop, but now that I’m traveling for business, I’d like to consolidate everything into one stylish bag. Sure, there’s some from Tumi, Franklin Covey, Coach and even Samsonite, but each seems to be lacking one feature that another has. I’ve even looked at the men’s bags and cringe at carrying something so boxy and masculine. Can’t I just have the best of everything and stick it into one product?
Here are some design thoughts:
- neoprene computer sleeve
- adjustable cross-body shoulder strap
- interior zip, cell phone, and multi-function pockets
- additional pockets to hold computer accessories (charger, ethernet cord, adapters, etc.)
- key ring would be nice
The bag should be large enough to fit up to 17″ laptops, or you can have various sizes to fit various laptops. I would also like to be able to throw my notebook in there, files and folders in addition to my everyday necessities (wallet, keys, sunglasses, eye glasses, who knows what else). Maybe an exterior sleeve for the notebooks and an interior divider to separate the computer stuff from the regular stuff. Maybe a zip-top closure to hold everything in, just in case. Oh, and I would love to have metal feet on the bottom to protect my bag when I set it on the ground in the office, airport, conference room, etc.
The finer details: I’m not sure what material would be appropriate, but something that provides structure to the bag (I don’t want the bag flopping around while I’m trying to pull out my laptop in the security check line at the airport). A black and brown version of the bag would be business-appropriate, but I think another neutral color (and maybe with subdued pattern, or croc-embossed) would update the look to say, I’m a professional, but not a stuffy professional.
Is this feasible? I’m looking to you, Jenna Lyons, because over the years you’ve transformed J.Crew from preppy nerdy to preppy cool. I think this bag would fit in perfectly with the business casual cool of the J.Crew line. You’ve already sold me on the work clothes (99% of my suits and work attire are from J.Crew), so why don’t you sell me a bag to go with the outfits? I would love you forever. Not that I already don’t.
Please help!
Sincerely,
Cheryl
The Conductor Program
The third song that I learned since pickup up piano lessons is a piece by Brahms, Capriccio, Op. 76 No. 2. I usually look up the song on youtube for renditions of the piece by my favorite performers (name Vladimir Horowitz). Well, when I stumbled upon this rendition, I decided that I had to play the piece exactly like this:
I’m about a month into learning the song (ok, maybe longer because I don’t practice) and while I can play the song from memory, it’s still far from perfect. I decided to go back to youtube to figure out who played the song…and to my dismay, it’s played by a computer program, specifically the Conductor Program. It’s a program where you can input the notes and by pressing just one (or two) keys on the piano, it will play the freaking song for you (no joke, see the demo on the web site).
While the technology is pretty cool, I realized I was trying to perfectly replicate the music and undertones, rhythms and dynamics that was played by a machine. I could only think, “That’s cheating!!” I feel swindled.
Here’s a HUMAN version of Brahm’s Capriccio. Ivo Pgorelich is good, but plays the song a little too fast for my liking.
#1 back dat pass up
We had our championship game tonight against another undefeated team in the league (guess we didn’t play them during regular season). We had pretty much whooped everyone’s ass during regular season, usually by a lot to a little. But this team, ACDC, had no idea what was going to hit them. They were the kind of team that had their full gear uniforms (we had white tees), dressed in all black (ok, they look intimidating), a coach, and a pre-game cheer. What are they in high school?
First half, 5-ACDC, 0-Back Dat Pass Up. Yeah, right? We were down by five points and couldn’t get our shit together. With a little pep talk from captain Tony, we knew we were better than them. We just needed to get one goal to put us back in the game.
Second half, we score five goals within four minutes and we are on fire. Before you know it, we’ve pulled ahead and control the rest of the half winning the game 9-7. Pretty outrageous, and the other team has to feel like the biggest suckers ever.
(Oh yeah, the goalie tried to talk shit to me after he elbowed me in the gut and knocked the wind out of me. I almost gave him a kidney punch, but told him to go fuck himself instead.)
I just wanna say that I saw this coming from a mile away. I didn’t want to get into my current relationship because I didn’t want to be disappointed and I didn’t the emotional highs and lows that come with a relationship. I’m not saying that I regret my decision, but I’ve learned to go with my gut instinct.
vmware fusion 3 and windows 7
Well! I have to say, my installation experience with Windows 7 has been the best yet. Literally, after finding some seeders for fusion3, I created a new virtual machine for Windows 7, started installation, and went to bed (it was after midnight and I *really* needed sleep). Woke up this morning and checked my computer, with apprehension, and there she was, all up and running by herself.
This will probably be the first and last time I say this, but GOOD JOB MICROSOFT.
Overlapping Crescents
I am either getting better at Illustrator, or this tutorial was really easy.
Firefox skips drop-down fields in Mac
Problem: When I use the TAB key to navigate web page forms in which there is a drop-down field (address “state” is the most common drop-down field I come across), it skips to the next free-form field instead.
Solution:
- In the url bar, type:
about:configand press the Enter key. That will open a page that shows the Firefox preferences. - Find the pref
accessibility.tabfocus(you can use the Filter bar) and change the value to 7.
If you don’t have that pref, you’ll have to create a new one.
- Right click and choose: New > Integer.
- Name: accessibility.tabfocus
- Value: 7
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