Weekend Flings

ANTM Cycle 7.5 or The Epitome of Gimage *

• You Google ANTM & See What You Find (seen above)
• Necessities for Your Next Mexican-Themed "Beer Company Holiday"
• I Have the Biggest Crush on Dave Parks
• Patio Cute
• Cherries Instead of Raisins = Yes, Please!
• A Nearly-New Kitchen (for Under $100)
• Awww, Catties...
• The Droog Strap is an Excellent Name for a Band
• "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on LSD"

If you're new around here and have no idea what this list means, click HERE for a brief and witty explanation.

* Gimage = Image found when stated phrase searched in Google

Gimage: No Pants!

"No Pants!" *

May 2nd (this Friday) is No Pants Day!

A reminder for this festive day popped up in my work (!?) calendar. According to the website, No Pants Day is simply defined as a day without pants (American) or trousers (British). Please understand that this holiday is not a full frontal celebration. All your special bits should remain covered up with "appropriately modest boxer shorts, bloomers, slips, briefs, or boxer-briefs."

Porcelain and I are lucky that we don't have to go to work on Friday (whew!). However, Porcelain just agreed to meet with a craigslist buyer (ha ha!) and Bamboo and I were planning on dropping off the recycling (um, ewww).

If you plan on taking part, get ready by washing out your best knickers now. **See** you on Friday!

* Gimage = Image found when stated phrase searched in Google

Gimage: Syncopation

"Syncopation" *

Porcelain & I just had the final class of our new recent obsession: latin/ballroom dancing. Our mentor, Tina Mangos, opened up a whole new rhythmic world for us. One of the tactics we learned was syncopation - the ability to break step, throw in your own "shine" moves, and then jump right back in time with your partner. We are so in love with this hobby/skill/life change. Thanks, Ms. Mangos!

Yet the class we took was brand-new and in a relatively experimental location so we want to spread the word. The next session starts in early April but Porcelain & I are afraid that it might be the last (if we don't get more dancers up on that dance floor). Tina straight-up told us that we need more people, especially those types of people who wear wide-legged pants and their hair slicked back (ie: dudes).

So, to spin this plea in the direction of interior design, please check out our gimage (above) for FLOR's "Syncopation." But if you less about carpet and more about looking foxy like this...

"Syncopation" *

...shoot us an email and we'll give you the scoop on the most entertaining dance class in town.

* Gimage = Image found when a stated phrase searched in Google

Gimage: So Sick, So Sad

"So Sick, So Sad"*

Porcelain is really sick with some kind of stomach virusy thing. Doesn't sound like she's having much fun at all.

Let's all send her thoughts of (un)chicken soup and vitamins.

* Gimage = Image found when stated phrase searched in Google

Gimage: Damn You, Laundry!

"Damn You, Laundry!"*

Funny and appropriate. Sitting here and trying my best to avoid the mountain of laundry in my closet, I decided to "gimage" my dilemma and see what happens. Like I said, funny and appropriate.

Sometimes having a home just gets to be too much. I don't think it matters if you live in a castle or a shack, at certain moments, you'll find yourself buried under stacks of junk mail, misplaced furniture, and (cue enlightening ding!) piles of laundry.

The trick, I'm finding, is to just move on something. Prioritizing is great but, when you're overwhelmed, you have to start somewhere. That's why, right now, I'll be thinking about my laundry but I'm going to do the dishes.

* Gimage = Image found when stated phrase searched in Google

Gimage: Urinal

"Urinal"*

Tee hee...

Please don't ask why I was gimaging the word "urinal." Some things are better left unexplained. What I do want you to do, however, is help me find this bathroom!

It's obviously a public restroom (due to the fact that there are multiple urinals) and it looks quite clean and polished so I'm going to guess that it's not in a public library. The lone user is dressed all in black so it could be in some kind of nightclub but I've been to a few discotheques in my day and their bathrooms tend to make porto-potties seem sanitary. I'm leaning in the direction of restaurant...

* Gimage = Image found when stated phrase searched in Google

Gimage: Welcome Back, Porcelain!

"Welcome back, Porcelain!"

I hope you are entirely well-rested and fully caught up on all your trashy beach reading. I expect you're now an expert on contemporary Caribbean design and I bet you have the photos to prove it. I hope you brought back some sand, a tan, and somethin' sparkly for yourself. Most of all, I hope your return yielded some good Hardwood snuggles and that you are now ready to jump right back into DB.

I missed you, buddy. Welcome home.

Design Debate: Narrow-Slat Bench

Porcelain & I usually agree on matters of design. In the very least, we understand each other and validate the other's point. Yet we are Porcelain & Cardboard, two extremely different entities, and areas of contention are to be expected. Sometimes we just don't see eye to eye. We tussle via email, we tend to get snarky, and we never back down. Welcome to the quick, dirty, and grammatically incorrect world of...

Design Debate: Round 1

[ding!]

Porcelain:
i'm liking this bench...

Narrow-Slat Bench, at West Elm

Cardboard:
yeah? i'm having an issue (or issues?) with this bench. it's okay and all but the first thing i think about when i see this bench is that time when Formica spilled red wine through the similarly-slatted coffeetable at TMK's wedding shower. granted, this is a bench (not a coffeetable) and you probably won't be drinking red wine when you're putting on your wellies but you might and then i fear you'd be in for some trouble. also, the sharp angle of the legs is freaking me out...

Porcelain:
yeah i would not use this as a coffee table. something to put in a hallway by the front door or at the end of a bed.

Cardboard:
those crazy chrome legs definitely do NOT whisper "boudoir" to me.

Porcelain:
it would fit in with a very sleek, minimalist bedroom. not some fancy rococo boudoir.

Cardboard:
but if you sleep in a "sleek, minimalist bedroom," your bed is most likely only about 19cm off the ground. so that would make this bench way too high to sit at the foot. i know - you could use it for your headboard and have a nice built-in shelf!

Porcelain:
dude, 19cm is only about 7.5in. and most modern mattresses are way thicker than that. and let's not forget about pillowtops. my mattress doesn't even have a pillowtop and is 15in deep. i'd say even if they get the plushest of pillowtop mattresses and have the lowest of low platform beds, the bench will be about even with the bed.

Cardboard:
my 19cm platform bed was an exaggeration (but an interesting concept...). so let's say you have no frame of any kind - that you're one of those artsy sleep-only-on-a-mattress-because-i'm-so-grounded-and-fantastic, then what? but wait...now that i think about it, we're back to square one because bedrooms, be they boudoiry or be they modern, they will all see their fair share of red wine and -oop- there you go, spilling it through the slats.

Porcelain:
what you do in your bedroom is not the same with what others do in theirs! tipsy red wine drinker!

Cardboard:
i'm just sayin'

(gimage: tipsy red wine drinker) *

WINNER: Porcelain.
Between the time when we actually had this debate (last week) and posted it (just now), West Elm has sold out of this item. Cardboard has been over-ruled. This item is hot.

* Gimage = Image found when stated phrase searched in Google

Gimage: 4:49am

"4:49 am"

That about sums up how I feel right now. I woke up in the wee hours just now to see if I could get on a flight to Denver today. Hilariously, I'm waitlisted on the exact same flight I was supposed to be on yesterday.

I am also trying to get a train ticket but those are sold out so I've been calling every hour or so to see if there have been any cancellations.

Nothing yet.

Yesterday, I drove to Union Station to try for a last minute train ticket. I even bought a bus ticket online and showed up at the Greyhound Station, braced for the 22 hr bus ride ahead of me, only to find out that they've canceled all their buses to Denver and simply neglected to say anything about that online. As it stands now, I'm booked on a flight for Christmas Eve - leaves Chicago around 10am, lengthy layover in Cincinnati, lengthy layover in Atlanta, arrives in Denver at 9:30pm.

I'm tired and don't have much fight left in me, hence, the cheese.

Gimage: Bon Voyage!

"Bon Voyage"

I'm off to England y'all! Cardboard will be holding down the fort while I'm away. Have a good Thanksgiving and I'll be back with some fun goodies and photos from across the pond.

xoxo, Porcelain.

Gimage: Shout Out!

"Shout out"

You know how when you were little and your big sister (or brother or pal) seemed annoyed at you all the time and always yelled at you for bothering her friends.* And you just sucked it up because your older sister was actually cool (while you were loud and dorky and kept making penis jokes). She ignoring you was how it was supposed to be.

And then there was that one day that you did something completely random or said something totally off-the-wall and, instead of rolling her eyes, your big sister just laughed and looked at you and said, "You're, like, kinda cool, I guess." Do you remember how big your heart swelled up that day?

We do.

Heather from Apartment Therapy - Chicago gave us a shout out in a short but sweet interview with Centerstage last week. Thanks a million!

* Apartment Therapy has never yelled at us or told us that we bother their friends.
This was just for drama. But we do admit to sometimes feeling like their unguided, obnoxious, sweaty, ADD-havin' little blogsister.

Gimage: Can't go wrong with tiny

I've gotten some very cute suggestions for cream & sugar containers. My favorite (so far) is M. Patrizio's recommendation from Art Star.

Neutrino Designs, design #1

But then Mama Cardboard emailed me and said that she has a set that used to belong to Grandmother Cardboard. She described it as glass (blue & milky white) and tiny. Although I really, really like this set with its orange (red?) atoms & neutrons, I think I'm going to try the turquoise set first.

Porcelain illustrates my reasoning AND inspires the following gimage; "...you can never go wrong with something tiny." Well put.

"Can't go wrong with tiny"

Gimage: Civic Duty

Does this mean that purple is our design "civic duty?"
I hope not because, if it is, I'm an anarchist.

Porcelain is all tied up today. She's doing her civic duty and sitting in for jury duty. Hopefully, she won't be selected for the next OJ trial and have to miss three months of her life.

Since she's gone, I played a fun trick and added in the Teletubbies link to her previous post. I've only seen one Teletubbies episode and it was about "Dirty Knees." They had a song about dirty knees and everything. From that moment on, it's all I can think about when I see/hear the phrase.

Gimage: Happy Camera

"Happy Camera"

You'll all be pleased to hear that we've figured out our camera woes. Turns out that all I needed to do was remove some old, duplicated photos from my Easyshare storage. After I freed up that space, the new photos sped right into the computer. As for Porcelain, she only needed to change her batteries. I suppose I should have probably gimaged "stupid girls" instead of "stupid camera."

To our #1 fan (paper lily), and our regular readers (Janel and my mom), thanks for your support. We're back and comin' at you with mad, craZy photos!

Gimage: Stupid Camera

Gimage = Image I found when I searched "stupid camera" in Google

Posting (at least with photos) might be a bit tricky for awhile. Porcelain's camera pooped out on her (no pun intended) a few weeks ago. Ask her about it and she'll mumble something about "...standby mode."

Now the digital camera I use is having a hard time transferring images to the computer. Oh, crap (pun intended)!

The camera docks directly onto one of Kodak Easyshare photo docks, which can either print easily or transfer. The print option seems to work okay but that does nothing to help me when I want to upload images of the sweet artwork I bought at Art vs. Craft this past weekend! I'd have to print the photo, scan the photo, save, locate, upload...enough!

In summary, if anyone out there has experience with squirrel trapping or camera/computer connections, please email Cardboard. Please.

Gimage: Design Boner

Porcelain & I like to chat. We send each other emails throughout the entire day. Our responses grow long and twist around everything from Britney's eye shadow to train schedules. Often times we'll pull odd phrases out of our transcripts and search the words in Google Images. The searcher will peruse the images that flood across the screen, looking hard for the perfect, the most ridiculous, example of our search term. We like to call this pastime "gimage" (pronounced 'j&-midge).

To introduce this activity into our blog, I scanned the room behind me, closed my eyes, and typed in "Design Boner." The reason I was nervous should be so obvious! But my fears were completely unfounded as I found myself face-to-screen with this delightful representation of our online journal...

I would credit this photo but the website no longer exists.