Scarfy Blue Goes Shopping

by Hubert

Scarfy Blue Penguin wanted to buy some stamps in Seattle. He found the following:

2010-01-26

by Colleen

Madeleines, the sequel.

DINO-MIGHT!!! (2010-01-24)

by Colleen

Frozen since the Cretaceous Period, they've been resuscitated by the toaster oven in the name of science. It's eat or be eaten! RAWR!!!!

Bring lotsa ketchup!

2010-01-21

by Colleen

Tha - tha - Tharsday in the Loop. In case you don't venture into downtown Chicago that often, or in case you do but you're blind, let me just say that these Puma billboards are plastered all over the elevated stops to advertise the opening of the newest Puma store in the Block 37 building.

They....drive....me......mad.  Am I on board with selling the idea that some scrawny, tool of a guy can pick up his own entourage just because he wears Puma? or works for Puma? or both?! No. How about the mentality behind his stupid sign - I'm a player, give me a woman, but only one that looks good, cause, you know, I'm a player? No. The fact that he expects to receive a woman plopped down before him just like he would an ipod? Oh inner Gloria Steinem, be still.

So I'm a firm believer of "voting with your dollar", but being a boycott of one of the Puma brand, doesn't erase the fact that I still have to see these boards every time I travel around the loop. Until, this beautiful day when I noticed someone decided to make a little addition to every single board at the Randolph&Wabash stop. Spot it yet?

Oh sweet, sweet grammatically correct graffitist, how I love you so. You just made my evening, times a million. xoxo - Colleen

----

"Umm, clearly I'm interrupting. I feel badly. Let me... What are you drinking?"

"Bad."

"Bad? Sorry... feel...? "
"You feel bad."

"Bad??"

"Badly is an adverb. So to say you feel badly would be saying that the mechanism which allows you to feel is broken." 

"Go. Sleep badly. Any questions, hesitate to call."

"Bad."

"Excuse me?"

"Sleep bad. Otherwise it makes it seem like the mechanism that allows you to sleep..." 

"Who taught you grammar? Badly's an adverb. Get out. Vanish."
-kkbb

Take That, Other Website

by Hubert

Twelve days ago, I wrote this post, with a link to a delightful penguin picture.

Look who decided to take notice.

Read this blog, find out random stuff two weeks earlier than other people!

Dancing Scarfy Blue in Seattle!

by Hubert

Scarfy Blue traveled with me to Seattle to see a bunch of my friends. This is who greeted him at the airport...

2010-01-20

by Colleen

That's me, bee-tee-dubs. I don't normally wear this hat (sadly) because in order for the hat to look right on my surprisingly large head, I always need to mess up my hair, and then I can't take the hat off for the rest of the day. Kind of a problem when you work in a corporate office 5 out of 7 days every week.

2010-01-18

by Colleen

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaave you seen my fridge?

Well now you have.

Funny post on craiglist

by Hubert

Why isn't this on best of craiglist yet?

For better or worse I've never been in this type of situation before, because I don't live in the city. There is a bar a mile down the street though...

2010-01-17

by Colleen

Madeleines. When making them, I highly recommend following the advice of others. For example, greasing the Madeleine tray, even if the Madeleine tray looks like it's non-stick. Even if you're sure it's non-stick...because those little Madeleines, well, they're sticky. Oh, and tapping the bottom of the tray to release the batter's air bubbles (to be fair, I meant to do that, I just forgot). And when they say only fill half of the mold with batter, they mean a quarter, if even. As little as possible. Those suckers start expanding before you can even get them in the oven. Just things to take into account for next time.

Good thing they taste delicious no matter what you do. Hello Madeleine, you had me at NOM.

2010-01-16

by Colleen

zOMGZZzzz!!!111!1!!1 I went on my annual buy-a-calendar-as-late-as-I-can-possibly-stand-for-the-discounts trek today and found the cutest calendar at Borders Books and ZOMGZ, I just realized as I was uploading the first picture why it was only 50% off and not 75% off - because it's NOT MARTIN LUTHER KING JR'S DAY YET!!!! Wow, it's sad, but yes today felt like Monday to me. (For the record, this is probably the earliest I've ever bought a calendar, I usually average around the first week of Feb. Once I tried to buy 2009 planner in October of 2009 thinking it would be like 10 cents - but they don't stock them that late into the year. Apparently they just throw them out by the end of summer. Who knew?!)

Anyway, Disney is not really my style, but this 60th Anniversary calender of Cinderella was so wonderfully vintage; it was impossible to pass up. After the jump are some of the monthly pictures. The colors are so soft and the detailing so sparkly that the whole thing reminds me of a sprinkled donut or a sprinkles....cupcake!

 

2010-01-15

by Colleen

Hark! A rabbit!

Little brown bunny sighting at IIT. After I took this picture, I tried to get closer, but he went all 'why the paparazzi all up in my biznez' on me, threw a baby carrot and scurried off.

Two Fat Animals

by Hubert



I will keep the manatee inside from now on.

2010-01-14

by Colleen

underexposed = artistic, yes?

Okay dear Reader(s), frankly taking 1 picture a day for 365 days kind of blows, and we're gonna be grasping at straws here in terms of photography subjects until the sun starts setting later in the day, and it becomes warm enough for me to even consider venturing outside for any length of time after work. So be prepared for a lot of still lifes for the next 90 pictures, or so, is what I'm saying, mmmkay?

2010-01-13

by Colleen

No pictures today. That would be unlucky. natch

2010-01-uhh 12?

by Colleen

blurry = artistic, yes?

I Did Not Take This Picture

by Hubert

Quick picture here, can you believe Sony is doing Spiderman 4 without Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire, and Kirsten Dunst?

2010-01-11

by Colleen

1 John gets the spotlight tonight. The continuity between "1 John 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched - this we proclaim concerning the Word of life; John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; and Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created..." is gorgeous, and a very poetic way to frame God, eternity, Jesus, and God's creation throughout the course of the Bible.

2010-01-10

by Colleen

I love this mosaic at the remodeled Fullerton El station. I always see it at night when the station is generally deserted and it just conveys the starkness of the station and winter in general. Maybe I'll like it less in the summer.

2010-01-08 & 2010-01-09

by Colleen

Didn't take any pictures on Friday or Saturday. Schwoops.

2010-01-07

by Colleen

View from Upper Wacker (hehe, wacker).

There's snow in the foreground! My camera picked up the snow flakes.

2010-01-06

by Colleen

Decorative lights on North Broadway Ave. Too bad the focus is on the sign, but it was really freakin cold to be standing out there taking a picture, plus people were starting to gather at the stop light and I get self conscious of taking picture after picture of seemingly the same thing, while people pretend not to watch; so this one was a quick shoot and run.

Update on The Last Olympian: The first three-quarters of the book were great, but the ending was a let down. It was fairly anti-climatic - but maybe I just set my Greek mythology novel expectations too high. I just started the Iliad. If the ending to that book is also a let down, then it's probably just me. 

Gymnastics + Ball = Below

by Hubert

I will post more videos of animals doing stupid things, but in the meantime, enjoy the video below:

2010-01-05

by Colleen

I love the cover of this book. It's a very elegant illustration for the series finale and I feel like it hints at hubris (maybe because the cover vaguely brings to mind the stories of Icarus and Phaeton, Apollo's son) which is one of the themes of the book - I think. I'm only about a quarter of the way through, so maybe not.

The Last Olympian is a reference to Hestia, the goddess of the Hearth, who appears to the characters in the form of an 8 year old girl, so that was kind of anti-climactic. However, the title may reference more than one person, so we'll see how it all shakes out. Or rather, I'll see, you won't unless you get your own copy.

2010-01-04

by Colleen

Make-shift hot pot off my kitchen stove!

One thing this photo exercise has taught me already is that I really need to work on things like focus and exposure while taking pictures. This is sad because I'm using a digital camera that auto-focuses for the most part. I think I get too excited when I take the photo and jiggle the camera a bit, creating those blurry edges.

Something to improve over the course of the next three hundred and sixty one photos. Wow, this is gonna be a long year, methinks.

2010-01-03

by Colleen

Maracyn, Jubilee's antibiotic treatment. I hope I didn't compromise the sterility of the medicine by taking this picture, but it probably wasn't that sterile to begin with. After all, it is fish medicine. Jubilee is doing much better, thankfully...and yes, I have been praying for him :) - Philippians 4:6-7.

2010-01-02

by Colleen

Sometimes you see or feel something and you just know you have to capture it on camera. This was one of those times. I had just come up the stairs at the Addison red-line stop and was waiting on the platform for the southbound el. It was clear, sunny, and insanely cold. The kind of cold that makes the air shimmer, gives concrete that ashy white glaze, brings out the color of each color, and makes everything look more real. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you haven't experienced it. Anyway, Chicago's city government has just been through a year and a half's worth of meetings and hearings about our local sales tax, property tax and income taxes. Tax sales at 10.5%. Raise it to 11%! Lower it 0.25% - vetoed! Reconvene, this time with 2/3rds approval. Lowered! Raise income taxes to 4.5%. And up and down and up and down. Behind the initial legislation to increase the sales tax to 11% was Todd Stroger, and throughout the financial crisis, general local government chaos, and his declining approval rating, he has un-apologetically backed this increase. Something about this clear morning, waiting for the el, the bricks and the light, just all came together to set off this election sign in a way that seemed fitting for this to be the 1/2/2010 picture.

2010-01-01

by Colleen

This was not the best start of the new year for Jubilee, my betta fish. I snapped this photo completely sober, around 2 am, after getting home from a party and making the horrifying discovery that my fish's eye had grown to twice its size. Not only that, but the entire right side of his face was swollen, white, and fuzzy. I thought I cared for this fish, but honestly, my first reaction was repulsion and the urge to throw him away. That urge passed fairly quickly and turned to sympathy, but while processing the poor guy's transformation, I pulled out my camera and got this shot. Luckily, not much of what I've described is visible. Although you can see some eye protrusion in his profile, it's actually gotten worse since then. Ugh. This is the first picture I've ever taken of his bowl from a bird's eye view and I was surprisingly pleased with the result. It may have been the best outcome of the whole evening. Hopefully, there will be more pictures of Jubilee yet to take - he's currently on a series of antibiotics for treatment.