Saturday, March 31, 2012

Risky Business...

Mikhael Paskalev - I spy from André Chocron on Vimeo.

Friday, March 30, 2012

My New Hero

This guy is AMAZING!

I found myself singing along. He's so into it! I must do this next time I'm arrested and thrown into a cop car.

Drunk

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

On April 26th I hope to see a new favorite person in my life. I think this person will bring so much joy to my world and to my excitement of the upcoming Fall. I'm excited for this journey I am on of emotions and "what if's". I'm excited for the amount of happiness I will feel when this person becomes apart of prayers and thoughts.

RG3, I have a lot of hope in you.

How many of you totally thought I was going to be talking about something else. Suckers.

NEED!

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

I took a moment of my day today to scour the web and read some blogs i haven't read in a long time. Well, it appears that there is a massive trend of "what i wore" posts going on. I should do this. I should join in on this craze! Why? Because what I wear is honestly awesome and half the time when I finally look in a mirror at around noon for my pee break, even I am astonished. I put together some WHACK outfits for work. Why? Because I don't really care. Yes, I realize I live in one of the worlds more fashionable cities, but, lets face it... in NYC you can say anything you wear is a trend. I could dress like a thrift store hippy and be "in". I could dress like a librarian and it would be "ironic in". Carrie Bradshaw or Queen Latifah, nothing is "out" here.

Today I showed up for work with four different color blacks on and the buttons to my cardigan mis-matched. I was totally going for a effortless business woman look. Yeah right... I was going for a "i have 2 more min to sit and watch the Today show before I have to run to the subway. this works".

Perhaps I should pay attention more to my work outfits. But, a segment of my blog being dedicated to "what I wore" will not happen anytime soon. Maybe I'll go shopping this weekend? 50/50 chance of that happening. Too much to see and do.

Monday, March 26, 2012

I really liked The Hunger Games Movie. Books are always better, but, I think the movie did a really good job of telling some of the story. I would have liked them to have introduced a lot more of the arena characters, but the movie would then be around 10 hours long. I think Jennifer Lawrence was perfectly cast. I think that Rue was everything I pictured in my head from the book. Even Fox Face, though she didn't have much of a part in the movie. Haymitch, Effie, Cinna, Snow = Perfection. 

Who didn't I think we cast well? Peeta. Its just not him who I picture and I just don't see it.

I was also very impressed with the costumes from The Capital. It was amazing to see all the hair colors and fashion... I think that was the most fun finally seeing come to life from the books. I kinda now want to be Effie Trinket for Halloween. :)

 Oh, and here's the only picture of have from the weekend. It was spent in a beer garden.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Random Thoughts By Carrie

1. I'm REALLY excited to see Hungar Games. Like, REALLLLLLLLLLY excited. Good thing I have tickets for SUNDAY! WEEEEEEEEE!

2. Summer is going to be really really hot this year.

3. In DC I felt normal sized. In LA I felt tall but in NYC I feel so damn short! I was standing next to a dude today on the subway and his head was literally less than one inch from the top of the train. This isn't a one time occurrence though. I see tall people... EVERYWHERE!

4. I can't wait for weekends at my parents lake house to begin. It's perfect down there.

5. Am very much over the Zooey Dachenel look. If you're not Zooey Deschanel... don't wear it. You look like a moron.

6. Here's a picture of me 5 years ago this same weekend driving to my college roommates wedding in Palm Springs, CA with crazy Amy. What was supposed to be a 4 day trip, turned into a 2 week crazy train to Palm Spring, LA, Coachella Valley, Temecula, Rosarita Mexico and San Diego.Not sure how i kept my job.
7. I hope everyone has an awesome weekend and in the excitement of Hunger Games... LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

iPhone Pics

Retna in East Village
Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso and Chagall
close up of Retna's art
me
breakfast over looking Ground Zero
sculpture garden in the MOMA
Kirbo and Papa Kirbo on the subway.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

3.14



Head over to Smitten Kitchen for what looks like a delicious Strawberry Rhubarb Pie recipe.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

I will admit when I am wrong.

I learned a lesson.

a pretty big one and one that I feel like a moron for having to learn, but, I learned it. It was such a juvenile lesson to learn too. One that I even feel that I've learned before. I learned to research a cause before jumping on a bandwagon. Oh, I jumped. I jumped, landed and took off running thinking that this KONY2012 was a legit non-profit helping the children of Africa. Instead, I learned exactly what Tom wrote below... they are a business.

Read: http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/

I do appreciate the awareness they brought about the war in Africa. I appreciate how they got the world to listen and to WANT to take action. What I don't appreciate is that they also TOOK our money that they plan to really do no action with. I feel like I stuffed that man's pockets full of money. That is disheartening. I feel taken advantage of and I apologize to those that saw the video and also gave them money.  They pulled our heartstrings and made us feel like we could make a difference. Good job in that, IC. You're terrific film makers and money takers.

legit charities highly rated on Charity Navigator:
http://www.charitywatch.org/hottopics/africa_crises.html

scammed,
Carrie

Monday, March 12, 2012

“mujō (無常)”

Another reason (not that you needed one) to read more Murakami.

"I think that being Japanese means living with natural disasters. From summer to autumn, typhoons pass through much of Japan. Every year they cause extensive damage, and many lives are lost. There are many active volcanoes in every region. And of course, there are many earthquakes. Japan sits precariously on the four tectonic plates at the eastern extremity of the Asian continent. It is as if we are living on a very nest of earthquakes.

We can predict the timing and route of typhoons to a greater or lesser extent, but we can’t predict when and where an earthquake will occur. All that we do know is that this was not the last great earthquake, and that another will surely happen in the near future. Many specialists predict that a magnitude 8 earthquake will strike the Tokyo area within the next twenty or thirty years. It may happen in ten years time, or it may strike tomorrow afternoon. No one can predict with any certitude the extent of the damage that would follow if an inland earthquake were to strike such a densely populated city as Tokyo.

Despite this fact, there are 13 million people living “ordinary” lives in the Tokyo area alone. They take crowded commuter trains to go to their offices, and they work in skyscrapers. Even after this earthquake, I haven’t heard that the population of Tokyo is on the decline.

Why? You might ask. How can so many people go about their daily lives in such a terrible place? Don’t they go out of their minds with fear?

In Japanese, we have the word “mujō (無常)”. It means that everything is ephemeral. Everything born into this world changes, and will ultimately disappear. There is nothing that can be considered eternal or immutable. This view of the world was derived from Buddhism, but the idea of “mujo” was burned into the spirit of Japanese people beyond the strictly religious context, taking root in the common ethnic consciousness from ancient times.

The idea that all things are transient is an expression of resignation. We believe that it serves no purpose to go against nature. On the contrary, Japanese people have found positive expressions of beauty in this resignation."

Excerpt of Haruki Murakami’s Catalunya International Prize acceptance speech from June 2011. Read the full speech on Senrinomichi.com

(via)
(HT Kateoplis)

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Hate To Be a Drag

Via The Daily What

On Kony 2012: I honestly wanted to stay as far away as possible from KONY 2012, the latest fauxtivist fad sweeping the web (remember “change your Facebook profile pic to stop child abuse”?), but you clearly won’t stop sending me that damn video until I say something about it, so here goes:

Stop sending me that video.

The organization behind Kony 2012 — Invisible Children Inc. — is an extremely shady nonprofit that has been called ”misleading,” “naive,” and “dangerous” by a Yale political science professor, and has been accused by Foreign Affairs of “manipulat[ing] facts for strategic purposes.” They have also been criticized by the Better Business Bureau for refusing to provide information necessary to determine if IC meets the Bureau’s standards.

Additionally, IC has a low two-star rating in accountability from Charity Navigator because they won’t let their financials be independently audited. That’s not a good thing. In fact, it’s a very bad thing, and should make you immediately pause and reflect on where the money you’re sending them is going.

By IC’s own admission, only 31% of all the funds they receive go toward actually helping anyone [pdf]. The rest go to line the pockets of the three people in charge of the organization, to pay for their travel expenses (over $1 million in the last year alone) and to fund their filmmaking business (also over a million) — which is quite an effective way to make more money, as clearly illustrated by the fact that so many can’t seem to stop forwarding their well-engineered emotional blackmail to everyone they’ve ever known.

And as far as what they do with that money:

The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending.

Let’s not get our lines crossed: The Lord’s Resistance Army is bad news. And Joseph Kony is a very bad man, and needs to be stopped. But propping up Uganda’s decades-old dictatorship and its military arm, which has been accused by the UN of committing unspeakable atrocities and itself facilitated the recruitment of child soldiers, is not the way to go about it.

The United States is already plenty involved in helping rout Kony and his band of psycho sycophants. Kony is on the run, having been pushed out of Uganda, and it’s likely he will soon be caught, if he isn’t already dead. But killing Kony won’t fix anything, just as killing Osama bin Laden didn’t end terrorism. The LRA might collapse, but, as Foreign Affairs points out, it is “a relatively small player in all of this — as much a symptom as a cause of the endemic violence.”

Myopically placing the blame for all of central Africa’s woes on Kony — even as a starting point — will only imperil many more people than are already in danger.

Sending money to a nonprofit that wants to muck things up by dousing the flames with fuel is not helping. Want to help? Really want to help? Send your money to nonprofits that are putting more than 31% toward rebuilding the region’s medical and educational infrastructure, so that former child soldiers have something worth coming home to.

Here are just a few of those charities. They all have a sparkling four-star rating from Charity Navigator, and, more importantly, no interest in airdropping American troops armed to the teeth into the middle of a multi-nation tribal war to help one madman catch another.

The bottom line is, research your causes thoroughly. Don’t just forward a random video to a stranger because a mass murderer makes a five-year-old “sad.” Learn a little bit about the complexities of the region’s ongoing strife before advocating for direct military intervention.

There is no black and white in the world. And going about solving important problems like there is just serves to make all those equally troubling shades of gray invisible.

[kony2012.]

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Bacon Brownies?!?

We walked passed a cupcake shop this past weekend and I had to buy a bacon one for Scottie to try. No hesitation, he ate and loved. :) I guess it would be the perfect blend of salty and sweet.
oooh, there was bourbon in this too!? So mad at Scott for not offering me even a little bite!
big bite!
i think he loved it.
sissies with cupcakes.
jill was very excited about her cupcake. I didn't even eat mine... Scott did! hahahah!

Join the Fight!


We can ALL make a difference. 
We need to do what's right! 

Ive ordered my kit. Have you?

Kony2012

As the director of the video, Jason Russell said, "KONY 2012 is a film and campaign by Invisible Children that aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice." 

Monday, March 5, 2012

New Digs

Life has begun in our new 615sqft space! After downsizing about 2000sqft from our last place in Philly, we are learning to absolutely love our tiny little home. I think we've done a good job of decorating and putting up only our most favorite pieces of art. Our furniture is a little large for our new small space, but, we'll eventually work on that but the forefront of our minds is and has always been... COMFORT.

We are LOVING our new neighborhood in Brooklyn. Lots and lots to do and see. Now that we are fully moved in, set up and decorated, we're set to explore and conquer.

I really really do LOVE NYC!

living area. we're still waiting for our couch to arrive. For now... I reside on the bean bag.
balcony
bedroom
tiny but efficient kitchen.
view
bathroom
Kirbo doing some work. We really need a carpet.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Oh Philly, I Will Miss You

... Not ONE BIT!

So, we're officially New Yorkers! We're out of Philly and living the American dream of super crowded cities, smelly subways and teeny tiny apartments. I'll love every second of it!

I really do think that NYC is our spot to make home. 

Some pics of our move.