Yellow Pages Go Green

If you love trees and know how to use the Internet, please do this. Register your address with the Yellow Pages to STOP receiving that beast of burden Yellow Pages book. If you need a way to find a phone number, let me introduce you to Google.

December Cliffnotes

So while I’ve been peppering my holiday season with dinner parties, ugly sweaters, midwest-winter-proof boots, and Michigan Ave Christmas shopping terror, my RSS feed has been racking up the posts. And of course I can’t skim the 800+ list of pop culture newsflashes so I have too many posts itching to be shared and not enough time to write-up the thorough overview that they each deserve. I’m going to try a quick list and cut my commentary down to a sentence or two (ha). Now, if your conscience can handle it, you can skim the headlines.

- Since working at my study abroad internship, I’ve developed an itch to travel (naturally). This translator strips down all the fuss of learning unnecessary terms like “Hi” and” Where are the restrooms” to the only phrase one really needs while abroad: “One beer, please!”

- I want to see Sherlock Holmes mostly for the love of Robert Downey Jr kicking ass in a top hat. But I read enough Sherlock Holmes in middle school to know that most true Holmes fans would not respect this new side of Holmes. Robert Davis at Paste breaks it down.

- And now I have found my excuse to travel Europe next summer. Eddie Vedder. I want to go to there.

- I read this blip five times and still don’t understand it. But I like it. Tom from Parks and Rec teaming up with TV on the Radio’s Dave for a mixtape? My thoughts exactly.

- My feminist heart flutters when I see what awesome things silent storm Mindy Kaling is doing in the comedy ring. Can’t wait for more info on the movie she’s writing. I have high hopes that a female-written RomCom could actually give the female leads a stronger role.

- It is about time Arcade Fire created a new gives-me-chills album!

- As promised, the remixes on Norah Jones’ The Fall are slowly leaking onto the net. You have to track them down. Chordstrike can be your guide.

- JayeL Audio gives us an early Christmas present with a two part mixtape for the holidays. Also, he wouldn’t be a good music blogger if he didn’t give us his rundown of the top albums of the decade.

- It’s getting hard to open myself up to new comedy shows seeing as I am very close-minded to the idea that there could be anything better on TV than the Thursday night comedy lineup (Community, Parks & Rec, The Office, 30 Rock, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). But somehow Drama Queen ABC premiered a wholesome yet smart sitcom for the new American Dream, Modern Family. Austin Ray at Paste explains.

- Apple breaks into the streaming audio industry after buying LaLa. I hope some excellent streaming playlists come out of this (ahead-of-their-time engineers and emerging markets aside)

- If you are dedicated to Megabus like I am and sing its praises for cheap and non-sketchy rides to and from Chicago and Detroit like so many of my Second City transplants are, check out this deal: 100,000 free rides from January to March!

- I missed this ABC Family special of TWENTY Pixar shorts, which I usually think are more hilarious than the full-length movies (which is really saying something). Lucky for us, its airing again Dec 18th. Setting the DVR right now.

- It makes me crazy that cell phones are only built to last the duration of your 2 year plan. Perhaps this Japanese self-repairing paint that makes scratches disappear is the key to a longer life. But that would just throw off the whole scheme that cell phones companies have perfected now wouldn’t it?

- Imagine the trouble Hansel and Gretel would get into at this Godiva Tokyo building.

- For reasons that I cannot explain (but probably have a lot to do with social media-pushing in my classes) I’m really trying to get more involved in Twitter. I see it more as another news outlet and less of a way to connect with my friends, of which none are on Twitter. I’ve said before that I think corporations got to Twitter before the people did. The media convinced us everyone was on Twitter, when really none of us were. But maybe this Mashable list of Top 10 funniest twitterers (tweeters? twitts?) will help me getting into the spirit of the 140 character phenom. And Bill Cosby tweets!

- I’m not one of those English geeks who love talking about punctuation but I do love listening to English geeks who love talking about punctuation. especially the obscure one. Such as the interrobang.

- So maybe there are some cool things on Twitter. Like this guy, Neil Gaiman, who is working on a crowd-sourced written novel via Twitter (too many New Media terms for one Christmas-break-enjoying grad student to comprehend!)

- I have a second-rate-Liz-Lemon relationship with Nellie McKay since I’ve discovered her. Adorable, funny, doesn’t take herself seriously, and she can sing! Check out her new album, which is a tribute to Doris Day, Normal as Blueberry Pie.

- This one is for Andrew. Artwork in sidewalk cracks goes hand-in-hand with castles in bricks.

- In Regina Spektor news: Jay-Z is sampling her on a new track and she’s working on the score for a new Broadway Musical. I think my head is going to explode with female-singer-song-writer love. Now if only Neko Case could guest star on 30 Rock and make my fantasy world come true…

And I will leave you with this:

- Ben Folds and Nick Hornby write a song for Levi Johnston. There’s really nothing more I can say about that. Just listen.

Happy Holidays to all and to all a good night!

Podcast 101

Everyone dancing around! Dancing around! Another quarter of grad school. Survived. So you can see what I’ve been consumed with for the past 3 months, check out the blog I put together for my New Media Studies Theory class. I’m also posting my final project, a group project on Podcasting. I was fortunate enough to have access to some really podcasting equipment. I was surprised though that the editing software we used is free and available to all! We used Audacity to edit the clips and GarageBand (free on Macs) to piece together the different layers and sound effects. Now that I know how easy it is to put together a rough podcast, who knows what I might post! Better yet, imagine what JayeL could come up with! (hint, hint)

So this project was a little technical and some parts may be dull unless you heard our class discussions throughout the quarter, but enjoy! There are three episodes.

Podcast1a by jencwaters

Podcast2 by jencwaters

Podcast3 by jencwaters

A Story of Found Grocery Lists

This is a hilarious and genius website that has turned grocery lists that the author found into a story of love and life.

Milk Eggs Vodka

Voice of an Angel: Norah Jones

After too many years since her last album release, Norah Jones has come out blazing with her new album, The Fall. While still maintaining her award-winning raspy whispy  vocals and piano-playing, she brings more pop and beat to her songs, more production, and (dare I say it?) a little more fun. I love Norah’s romantic persona, but it is exciting to hear her breathing some fresh air into her work.

NPR has the album streaming on their website before the album is released on Nov 17th.

In a new direction from her classic jazzy sound, there will be some remixing of tracks for Norah. Beastie Boys, Beck, and Santigold (who rocks my socks since seeing her at Lolla this summer) will be remixing songs from the new album. Is it wrong for me to be more excited about these releases than the original album?

Coming up for Air

I’m back! I should have warned you back in September that I was going to be starting school again as well as an internship doing some web marketing for an awesome non-profit study abroad organization. So needless to say, I’ve been working and studying like crazy the past two months. As much as  I want to be a dedicated blogger and say that in my (very limited) free time I continued to blog, but my free time was instead dedicated to my bed and my book (currently reading I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolf – finally). I still have a few weeks left of class until I can really breath again but things are finally winding down.

In exciting TV news news, The Onion is getting it’s own show on Comedy Central.I am also pleasantly surprised to see that The Onion show will be sports news, based on a series of online webisodes on “Onion Sports Network”. I’m not a huge sports buff (limited viewing to Big Ten football and Red Wings playoff hockey) so there is a good chance I won’t watch this show, but the list of sports maniacs and satire junkies in my facebook news feed is long enough to make this a perfect addition to Comedy Central. It’s a natural place for this show, in line with The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. But I wonder if there is a line between the perfect amount of news satire and too much. I would hope that they will at least put The Onion on a different night.

Defying Gravity

Artist Jan von Holleben turn the 3rd dimension in on itself and at the same time brings fantasy of flight to life. Quite an achievement, I agree. In his photograph series “Dreams of Flying” he brings to life our childhood stories to life with, well, children, of course. 

This awesome display reminds me of the Adele video for her single “Chasing Pavements”, where she takes this idea to a new level…with motion.

The Art of Missed Connections

I love that artist Sophie Blackall has turned those slightly-sad-but-you-cant-help-read-32-of-them missed connections ads on Craigslist into poetic, romantic watercolors of art.

Those Darlins

I love my chick rock. I love Neko Case and Rilo Kiley. I love Zooey Deschanel and Feist. There are some long days at work when these ladies keep me company for hours upon hours. But I will be the first to admit that there are times when their sounds blend. I usually love this because I can put my playlist on shuffle and flow from one song to the next. But everyone needs to switch things up once and a while. So when Whitney added Those Darlins to her podcast in July.

Anyone that knows me knows that I avoid country music like the plague. But if my country-loving friends are looking for a sly way to get me to enjoy the twang, all they need to do is put in some of Those Darlin. Theyre whiskey-drinkin-geetar-strummin-cowboy-boots-wearin-southern hipsters. I never would have thought I would like a band like this, but with lyrics like “I got drunk and I ate a chicken/I ate a chicken I found in my kitchen” and “Snaggle tooth mama ain’t got no shoes” just make you want to grab a fifth of Bean and head down to the reservoir to throw bottle caps at ducks with these girls!

Revolt against receipts

There are some inconveniences in life that we don’t even realize. Like receipts. When I first got a checking account, my parents always stressed keeping all your receipts and doing something called “balancing your checkbook”. You could never risk throw away a receipt for the risk that someone would get ahold of your credit card number and buy a Sebring convertible with it. But now, account numbers aren’t printed in full on receipts and people can log onto their banking website and check their account balance 10 times a day if they want. So why do we still get foot-long receipts with our foot-long subs? Not long after I read this GOOD article about the not-so-green annoyance of receipts, I was in the Apple store picking up Snow Leopard. When I checked out, the salesperson asked me if I wanted my receipt emailed to me. Eureka!