Winning Your Love with Puppy Pictures

Filed under just pictures, super furry animals

Since Kamran spends all day sending me photos from the Aww subsection of Reddit, I decided to take some of my own puppy pictures while we were out walking this weekend.

Bulldogs (especially French bulldogs) are my absolute favourites, so we followed this waddling little fella for a few blocks before he stopped for a rest and I had a chance to ask him to pose. I swear his owners said he was named Rudy, but when I repeated that, they said, “No, Fruity.” But Kamran says they actually said Ruby. So maybe he is a she. I’m calling him or her a combination of all three names: Fruby.

Baby Bulldog

We met Kodak outside of our grocery store on the way home, and though he looks adorable, Kodak was viciously barking at my camera like crazy, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to his owners much. He’s a Japanese dog, right? Maybe a Japanese Spitz?

Spitz, Japanese Dog

Now go Like my Ettible Photography Facebook Page for many, many more!

j/k, there aren’t any more. I’m sorry I tricked you. But please go Like it anyway, thx.

My Weekend in Not-Pictures

Filed under living in new york is neat

On Friday night, Kamran and I went to a restaurant that I spent all day maligning and all night half-maligning and half wanting-to-exclaim-openly-and-not-quietly-about. Only everyone around us was actually doing just that, and it seemed so ungainly to me. It’s funny to see your own awful qualities reflected in other people, right? A few years ago, I would’ve been the one calling out to the chef about how good the food was to earn his favor. I would’ve been trying to crack jokes to make all of the other diners like me like I used to in all of my college classes. I wouldn’t have loudly mistaken the green onion for bok choy, though.

Since the restaurant is across the street from my apartment, Kamran was practically forced to spend the night at my apartment for the first time since I moved in last January. We ate Cadbury Creme Eggs and one of my 1000-calorie Reese’s eggs while watching Boogie Nights, since my roommate had ordered HBO that day, and Kamran finally stopped mentioning the possibility of taking a cab back to his place around 2 a.m. The next morning, we ate banh mi and drank bubble tea and watched The Breakfast Club and played Call of Duty and had the kind of day that people all across Brooklyn were probably having at that exact moment.

That night, we met our friends Nik and Marko and my roommate, Jack, at Yuka for all-you-can-eat sushi on the Upper East Side and ate all we could. Including hand rolls with shiso and plum and fermented soybeans. We walked past the giant building-high white structures the MTA is constructing over 2nd Avenue as they complete the new 2nd Avenue subway line on our way to Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins, where I got a scoop of ice cream called Icing on the Cake that had sprinkles and the consistency and flavor of vanilla frosting. AMAZING. I also got a cream-filled, not custard-filled donut. Those things are hard to find, you know. Which is ridiculous, because cream is obviously superior. We took our treats to a platform over the East River and watched boats drive by without their lights on and then went home to do laundry, because we are responsible.

On Sunday, we went clothes shopping for Kamran and bought matching hoodies even though it’s now regularly 70 degrees or more. We brought Milky Ways and wasabi peas to our park to stare at the haunted house and the puppies and the homeless guy who was very conspicuously hiding a backpack under the stairs to the street overpass. But we didn’t call the cops. We bought French bread and a creamy Reblochon and covered them with honey and watched X-Files and Celebrity Apprentice and couldn’t fall asleep until after midnight.

Cadbury Twisted Creme Egg candy bar
non-Instagrammed photo by Jack

And then Kim came over last night for Game of Thrones and brought a Cadbury Twisted candy bar for me from the British candy store that of course exists in Manhattan. I found out about this bar when British Mel left me a comment about them but warned that she and all her SPOILED, ROTTEN, UNAPPRECIATIVE (j/k, j/k) friends agree that the creme-to-chocolate ratio is wrong. I can see what they’re saying, because yeah, there’s a LOT more chocolate in the bar than in a Cadbury Creme Egg, and unlike the thin shell on the Egg, the shell of the bar is really thick. And amazing. And I need more. But I could never replace the Eggs with the bar completely.

And if I didn’t have a BlackBerry, I would have Instagrammed all of this.

Fotodump Friday

Filed under just pictures, living in new york is neat

Sriracha Wall at Rickshaw Dumpling Bar
the wall of Sriracha at Rickshaw Dumpling Bar

Mural in SoHo
a mural in SoHo

CCTV Sign
outside the subway during my college friend Sarah’s visit in January

Rockefeller Christmas Tree
the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree during my NYC-turned-SanFran-friend Beth’s visit in December

The Best of Barbie Jewelry and Mixed Media

Filed under stuff i like

I was reading an article in New York magazine this morning about the biggest scandals in New York history and a particular crime called “The Preppie Murder”. In 1986, they said, “handsome, blue-eyed, and six-foot-four” Robert Chambers strangled a woman in Central Park and while out on bail, “had the bad judgment” to be videotaped “twisting the head of a Barbie doll and saying, in a falsetto voice, ‘Oops! I think I killed it,’ while looking into the camera with leering, satanic delight.”

Awesome, right?! Well, I couldn’t find the video online, but I did find this super-awesome, super-creepy Barbie art by Etsy seller G. Jarvis Jewelry, etc..

Here are some of my favourite pieces from the shop:

1) Ken and Ken Knuckle Ring
2) Barbie and Ken Embrace
3) Leg Man
4) Barbie Face Necklace
5) You Can Have It All (I noticed that this link is no longer working, so I instead offer you these babies in a bottlecap.)
6) Barbie Arm Earrings

I feel like it’s pretty ridiculous that I don’t already own that Ken-on-Ken ring, right?

So. Weird. -Ly awesome!

Stuff I Like: Favourites of the Moment

Filed under stuff i like

I’ve been switching between Burt’s Bees Baby Bee Shampoo & Wash and my regular non-natural shampoos for a while now, but I read recently that the sulfates in most shampoos are really bad for letting curly hair be curly. So I’m going all Burt’s Bees now. It’s sulfate-, paraben-, phthalate-, and petrochemical-free, and it leaves my hair soft and shiny.

It’s thinner than other shampoos, so I usually start out with a tiny amount so I make sure not to lose any, rinse that, and then wash again with another tiny amount. I tried Johnson’s Kids Natural 3-in-1 Shampoo, Conditioner and Body Wash because it’s a little cheaper and found that while I also like the way it leaves my hair, the fact that it’s naturally non-foaming just doesn’t work for me; I like to be able to feel my shampoo doing its job. Plus, I think “Baby Bee” is about the cutest name ever for a product.

Burt’s Bees Baby Bee Shampoo at Amazon.com

Burt’s Bees Baby Bee Shampoo at drugstore.com

I already sang the praises of the super-soft EcoTools kabuki brush with its own lid, so when I started feeling like my BareMinerals brushes were a little too scratchy, I immediately looked for a suitable EcoTools alternative.

This brushes are so soft you’ll wanna wipe your butt with them. The kabuki is dense enough for full-coverage, the foundation brush will take care of your everyday powder needs, and the eye shading brush is perfect for undereye makeup. The concealer brush is just like the BareMinerals concealer brush if the BareMinerals one was made with hair plucked from a kitten’s head, and the pouch (mine is zippered) makes it so I can leave a set of these in my desk drawer at work without the brushes coming out caked in pencil shavings and tequila.

I’ve read reviews where people actually said the EcoTools brushes are too soft for them, but I guess not everyone has the skin of a newborn baby seal. (Is that a good metaphor? I have no idea what baby seal skin is like.) The point is that these brushes are perfect, and I continue to LOVE EcoTools.

EcoTools 5-piece brush set at Amazon.com

EcoTools 5-piece brush set at drugstore.com

(The brush set is ridiculously cheap at Amazon right now, but shipping is faster through drugstore.com, and Ebates will give you 6% cash back through drugstore.com, so take your pick.)