Half-Price, King of Books

I was Half-Price the other day perusing, where one real dollar means two dollars in Half-Price's world. For the value, why would I go anywhere else to browse and snoop? Sometimes there is a selection shortage (at smaller Half-Prices) but you're going to find something. That's the snare. I walked in not needing anything but I was there with my friend who needed a certain book. But walking around, I thought, why not? Once I picked up one book, I was on the buying train. So i picked up some things for creative inspiration, some sources of ideas and encouragements.

So I went and found this wonderful children's book by a guy named Colin Thompson. When I was young, I used to read this book by him about Atlantis, and I mean, I would check that book out weekly if my friends hadn't got to it first. I would pore over his illustrations and finds all these little detailed worlds he'd draw in the tiniest parts of his illustrations! (Like Michelangelo, you know?) They are so detailed and imaginative and even as a (young) adult I enjoyed looking at them and enjoying their detailed whimsy. Here's the book I bought (I haven't been able to find my Atlantis book yet). $5.58

I am also inspired by photography, particularly candid and environmental photography. So I found this wonderful book of still life photography by Charles Traub. It's filled with these snapshot moments of people in mid-conversation, mid-chewing, mid-sleeping, what have you. Walking, jumping, swimming, too. They're filled with so much candid action, such vitality and energy, and they are very fun to look at. You just have to wonder what was going on in these moments of life. It's a very nice part of my growing collection of the arts. $7.00

Finally, I bought one more thing that does in fact inspire me. I don't generally have time for games but when I'm at Half-Price and I find an amazingly priced interesting and mentally-challenging game, I'm usually a sucker. So I found this really intriguing strategy game and I bought it. It's called the Rise of Legends, and what most impressed me were the races and technologies available for play in the game. One aspect are these humans who live in armed city-states with names like Vinci, Petruzzo, etc-just like historical, feudal Italy! And the technologies of their worlds are these mechanical behemoths of gears and pipes and gadgets, all based on real sketches by Leo di Vinci! It's really quite fantastic and imaginative to see! There is merit in the creativity it took to create such a unique and original game, and it does in fact inspire me in its own way. $10.00

So get to Half-Price and find yourself some of your own inspiration. I found mine-and it was cheap.

Sweet Leaf Tea, Please!

Man this stuff is good. Reallll good.

So Sweet Leaf Tea is a tiny (not-so-tiny now) tea brewer from Austin, Texas. They started a while back, brewing tea in pillowcases, as their bottles will attest. Now they've moved onward and upward but still have kept the original flair for tea.

I love the Mint & Honey green tea flavor myself, but for several reasons do I really enjoy and respect the brand. First of all, in the world of teas, you have to understand the rest of the playing field. You've got tea everywhere else (especially the ever-trendy green tea brands) brewing cheap and filling their bottles with high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors. Or, if it's an organic, natural tea, they've gone totally snob and upped the price for a fancy bottle and a rather tastless liquid inside it. Sweet Leaf will have none of it. Their ingredients are water, tea, sugar, and natural flavors (like spearmint) and the cost is very reasonable-and the taste, just get out of town, it's good tea. Very refreshing and very tasty. They have a really nice offering, too-there's a hibiscus-brewed tea with pomegranate, good old sweet tea, tea and lemonade, black tea and peach, black tea and raspberry, and more! This tea rocks and you need to go out now and get yourself a bottle.

Beauty is a fine-feathered thing

This is a picture I found on my news website, BBC news. Check out the caption:
"A rooster stands proud as it is judged in a birds' beauty contest in Saudi Arabia's eastern city of Qatif."

What this inspires in me is the global idea of beauty, I think. Not just all beauty as a whole, because I mean, we can't compare and woman or man who is beautiful with a chicken. (or can we?). But this chicken, to some people, is beautiful. Like pigs or chihuahuas, which some people think are just wonderful to look at. Everywhere else has their meanings of beauty instilled in that culture, in those people. The things I'll find beautiful in my life will be a certain way because of my socialization and I don't see this ever changing. I can't help what I find beautiful, I just do.

But as global humans, we should learn to appreciate the beauty others find in things, appreciate their sense of what is lovely, what is good, what is estimable. Our sense of these things is not the only sense of things. I guess I think about this because of the difficulty of conveying the same degree of beauty to everyone-you just can't! It's a challenge and responsibility of advertisers, then, to be careful when they portray something that is meant to be the paragon of beauty. It must be carefully carefully considered and maybe not conveyed as absolute. Just one more way to be socially responsible, I'd say.

Starbucks Being Risky

So this is old news to any truly trendy folk who get drinks at Starbucks, but recently they completely changed the staple of their business-the daily coffee. Instead of offering two or three of their custom blends from day to day they switched to a standard blend for every day, the Pike's Place roast, both regular and decaf. So if you go in to Starbucks for coffee (what a thought!), you have one choice-unless you come before noon when they brew one special blend. They also increased the sizes of coffee you can buy (two smaller sizes, actually) and they offer a caffe aulait option of their Pike's Place served with steamed milk (not a latte, mind you).

I'm not decrying the new coffee choice. It's not as strong and tasty as most of their other blends but I really can't complain. There's just no other coffee shops around that even compare, so I'm still a Starbucks man. What I think it interesting is the choice that Starbucks made to make this change! It seems risky to me to almost 180 their coffee offerings and really shake up the regulars' sense of continuity. What it says to me is that Starbucks is pretty confident in their place in the world of coffee. They have just a little fiscal security to make a risk like this and see if it's popular. And the great things is Starbuck's determination to keep all of their stores the same, so the Pike's Place wouldn't great in New York but really wonky in Alabama. They can make huge changes like this and because of their monopoly status they can just say tough cookies to anyone who doesn't like it. I like that, though. I like seeing some changes and risks happening. It shows creativity, growth, rethinking and money-saving for the company, ultimately.

And luckily, I like the coffee.

Lock-Ins are for teenagers

The other night the executive board of a Meadows recruitment organization I belong to got together for a lock-in! Yeah-one of those lock-ins kids have where they stay up all night eating Oreas and playing Jenga or something. But we stayed up (most of the night) brainstorming and learning about recruitment, being on a mock student panel, and honing our question-response skills for prospective students (and parents). We also threw in some food and gaming and a movie, but us all being old college people, we had to go to bed at 4. We got up at 6 and went to Ihop where we held our final work session and made some really good plans for our next year. And that was that.

I was impressed with the idea, I guess. It was a creative thing to bring us all to a lock-in sort of like a work-reward thing. The lock-in is fun but in the fun work is also required. But the work is rewarded by more of the lock-in. I guess the incentive value makes it work, because we generated some really good ideas. There was synergy just shooting all around and the structure of our evening was very conducive to creative thought and teamwork. The whole event was a creative rethink of the old model for 14-year-olds, I'd say.

Billboards? Hate'em

I hate billboards. I'm just going to be blunt and come right out and say it. Hate'em!

They're ugly to me, just stickin' up all over the road, marring the sky and any sort of landscaping along the road, or just being plain distracting. This feeling stems from idea that they're also quite useless. Maybe I'm just ill-informed, but I don't think they do a thing for a company. Maybe for food, only. I mean, honestly, who in the world is going to be cruising down the highway at 70 mph and then see a billboard for a lawyer or night classes and then be all about getting a pen and paper to write down the phonenumber, website, and name of the service? Or just the website? Or just grabbing the pen? I know, I know-what about gridlock traffic, you ask? Same story. Who cares? Maybe one person a day. But food-that's the only useful thing. If I'm driving (and I'm hungry...or I could be hungry) and I see a tasty looking billboard for some food I can get wantin' to eat that thing I saw on the billboard. Chik-fil-et, Taco Bueno, what have you. But still I don't appreciate billboards. I think they're ugly and just a bother. Imagine driving without them! How nice and undistracting they would be. I mean, they aren't everywhere on every freeway, but they're on enough of them to bug me. Let's tear em' down.

Bracelets, Anyone?

It's amazing how inspiring a small project can be for us-like a small craft project, I mean.

A while back I found this scrap of teal blue jacket fabric from someone's trenchcoat. I saw it and immediately thought of it as a bracelet! Over the next few days when I had free time I'd run to the costume shop for maybe 10 minutes and stitch what I could. I did some basic embroidery all up the fabric, made it functional with snaps. The embroidery starts at a deep orange and ends at white, sort of like a sunset, and the scale is flanked on both sides by a nice cobalt blue.

I really enjoyed making this project, actually. It was almost a special favor to myself or something, getting to do it. Of course I'm grateful to the costume shop, but for my own edifiaction, I suppose, I really enjoyed the project. It keeps me fresh and thinking to have a small creative challenge like that one.

Two-Steppin' Out Tonight

I'm a Texan and I always have been and always will be, and well, I'm rather proud of that fact. I really am. I won't go in to the reasons (there's just so many) I'm so proud of my state but let's all just concede that Texas is a great place. Okay? Done.

So I went to Billy Bob's Texas tonight-the first time I've ever been! For all you Texans out there reading and who've been to Billy Bob's, give me a break. For the rest of you, git yer boots on and git yer self to Billy Bob's. It's just a good old time way out in Fort Worth, right by the Stockyards. It's just a huge place! Just massive: not only are there several eating areas and bars and the great stage for the band and dance floor, but there's a large billiards area, a casino, two large gift stores, a rodeo, and a huge concert venue that stretched out into blackness from where I could see. Not to mention the scores of autographed hand/feet/face prints by all of country and folk music's finest covering almost every naked wall and the great and wonderful Texan regalia hanging around on ceilings and walls. This place is what it says it is to me: it's a mini-Texas!

It's a little microcosm of Texan culture, I think. There's a melding of young and old people, there's the Texan beer, the good old southern music, there's the casual cowboys mingling with Texas' finest and reknowned beautiful women, the flags and the open sense of belonging and welcome that (I think) pervades most of the state of Texas. I felt taken in, at least. I've never been two-stepping but had a blast learning. I'm not big on the whole boots thing but I do have a nice pair so I had to hit those up. I was just blown away. Everything was as I could expect it, it was quite a lot of ecgaging, reallly-and involving! I was taken in and everything I'd heard and seen and assumed about the place was positivily true! Word of mouth sells a place like that, I think, and it sesems to be working for Billy Bob's. Yee-haw.