Those Germans!

Ever practical, they even have a use for hay bales - you know, before they are used!

From TBWA Dusseldorf

Seen on Copyranter

The Benefits Of

Reading the farmers weekly... Tractor cake recipes!

Oh, Tuesdays

They make you think of Wednesdays, glorious, half-way-there Wednesdays!

But don't do too much daydreaming and weekend planning! It is a Tuesday, afterall...

Pooh Bear from here

This Makes It Worth It

No, not the cop car silly, the sunset in my rearview mirror. It makes getting home from work at this time worth it.
Goodbye Monday!

For South Africans Everywhere

From the creators of the Braaiday song comes...
The Car Guard Song



Thanks for sharing 2oceansvibe!

Sunday Inspiration

to get us all ready for Monday...


Thanks Blogilvy!
Rethink Scholarship at Langara 2010 Call for Entries from Rory O'Sullivan on Vimeo.

Where Are You Going Steve?

A Steve Madden vehicle making what looks like a weekend escape to the Vaal. Any shoes in there?

Food Porn - the Design Version

Do I need to say anything else?
Seen here, originally from here

Money at the Market

Have you been to the Market Theatre lately?

There are a few shows on at the moment but the one that caught my eye is Money’s Too Tight To Mention. Have you seen it?

Directed by Heinrich Reisenhofer, UCT Drama School graduate, Jazzart Dance Theatre dancer and choreographer and co-writer and directer of the runaway success Suip!, Money's Too Tight To Mention stars the infectious stand up comedian and magician Stuart Taylor – we know him as the presenter of the SABC 3 travel show, 'Going Nowhere Slowly'

Stuart Taylor

The show explores the way the current financial crisis is affecting us as South Africans, and delves into the pressure we place onto ourselves to keep up with "the new Joneses" - the Khumalos - all while giving tips on how to get through the penny pinching , post holiday patches.

Taylor says, "If you've ever thought, 'I can't believe how broke I am,' this show is for you...If lately you've had to give up luxuries like naked sushi and replace it with a can of pilchards on your wife's tummy, this show is certainly for you!"

Tickets range from R66 - R120 (it is for us penniless folk, you know) and are available here.

p.s. it’s only on until the 1^st April so book soon... see you there!

A Very Full Cup

I've blogged about Hugh MacLeod before. He's the guy that draws and shares those awesome cartoons and talks a lot about social objects. His daily cartoons have a lot great advice too... if you can get past the cool images, like this one:

He sent out that picture yesterday, but I only saw the underneath this morning:

Energy, passion, enthusiasm… these are the things that often drive one's creativity.  
They are also the things we can share to help inspire and drive the creativity in others. 

When we share an idea we yearn for it to be met with one or all of the above.  We want our audience of one or many to respond to our work with energy… with passion… with enthusiasm.  When they don't, we take it as commentary, or worse, as criticism.  But sometimes their less than amazing reaction has nothing to do with us, or our stuff.  Sometimes your audience is just too tired, or just too distracted by their own stuff to give you what you want.  They're not being mean, or trying to cut you down with their silence.  Their cup is just too full at the moment to make room for you. 

What's in your cup?

Makes sense to me... how about you?

p.s. sign up for Hugh's daily cartoon here

Joburg Cupcakes

As much as my inner Durbanite is kicking me for saying this, I am really enjoying Joburg. It's a good place for me right now.

So what better way to celebrate this good place than with a cupcake? A Joburg-cupcake-wrapper cupcake.. even better!

Pic from here originally. Thanks Katarzyna for sharing!

Never Ever Ever Ever Ever EVER

Give up on your dreams

Pic from here

What Keeps You Doing

Yes, I know, I talk about it a lot. 

I am drastic sometimes and am overwhelmed by the need for it. 

No... not tea...

Change 

But apart from a a very different hair cut, I haven't really gone out of my way to implement any of the changes I envisioned. 

I'm still only joining the gym 'next month' and I still haven't started running / walking like I said I would. 

Well, I walk... sporadically. 

The truth is, I think I get bored easily. Mountain biking, hiking, those are the activities I can get excited about, but a run? Bleugh.

Which means I need other people to motivate the activities I know I need to do, for later on.

So for once, I am not going to tell you what I am going to do.

I wont even hint. 

But I will ask what keeps you motivated. 

What drives you to keep putting on your goggles or running shoes when you don't wanna?

and who knows... maybe I'll see you on the road sometime. :) 

Have You Met Cakes?

Cakes is my beautiful cousin who ran away to Cape Town to follow her culinary dreams of being a pastry chef (no, I didn't complain either).

So, naturally, I enforced the Blogging During A Year of Adventure rule. Ok, I may have been a little forceful- is setting up her blog and sending her a password forceful? Depends which end of the wine glass you're on I guess...

But she obliged and boy, can the woman throw a sentence together!

Every now and then I get these little snippets of foodie fabulosity but this morning's treat really takes the Cake... So to speak.

My clever cousin made... Petit Fours! Seriously? Yup!
They're only the second best tea snack ever created- next to a miniature red velvet cupcake with italian meringue icing, of course!

You can follow Cakes' adventures at www.rosiecake.blogspot.com

For Teapots Everywhere

Wall Art

No, not the prettypretty, vinyl-that-you-stick-in-your-home type. And not the spraypaint type either. No, no, this is the gritty and highly cool type that happens when you throw an already decaying/ deconstructed wall together with Alexandre Farto.

"The development of this line of work has essentially two bases: one is graffiti in its most destructive side, which I have been connected to for many years; the second is the stencil technique that I discovered while I was looking for new paths that allowed me to express a new way of communication. From the first one I picked up the concept of destruction as creative strength - based on this idea I developed a way of work that uses the removal, decomposition or destruction. The concept is the idea that we are made by a series of influences that shape us throughout historical layers, etc, that come from the environment where we grew up. In a very symbolic way I believe that if we remove some of these layers, showing other ones, we can bring to surface some of the stuff we left behind, forgotten things that are still part of what we are today.
Technology is changing things so quickly that we don't have enough time to think about what is changing (new layers), what is affecting us. I try to underline this process in general, my work can be seen as a kind of archeology that tries to understand what is hidden behind things. These ideas found expression when I started to experiment with the stencil technique and understood that I could revert the process to have more impact: instead of creating while adding layers, I explored the idea of creating by removing layers. I experimented with this process using several methods - cutting clusters of posters, corroding silkscreen ink with acid, etc. - and naturally things started to gain a brutal and raw shape.
When I passed the idea to walls it was natural to work with this removal concept, this negative field. The process itself can be brutal and violent, but the result in my opinion, is expressive and poetic. The result was visibly interesting and allowed to start to incorporate the wall as one of the physical components to the intervention, unlike what happened to the painting, where the wall was a base. From there, the usage of explosives was another step that evolved after a lot of research and tests. These testing stages are something really nice to do, it's actually a pleasure, and it usually results as a main part of my work." -Alexandre Farto 

Seen this morning on Because I'm Addicted 
See more of  Alexandre's work here.  

Green Grass Design

Have you taken a meander down 4th Avenue in Parkhurst lately?
There is a shop there, opposite Nice, called Green Grass Design where you can get amazing laser cut, mostly perspex bits and pieces.

Here are just a few from my Wish List

Ok, this one is more for the million weddings I have this year than for my wish list!

I know what you're thinking, I though the same! Wine rack under your 'work' table! Win!

I like the description: "Scribbling on a piece of paper that flies away isn't."
If you have magical disappearing paper like I do, you'll like these boards!

View more here!

Saturdays

Are for sleeping in, reading all day and LOTS of tea. So are sundays but today, this is it for me. A return to the tales of Mr Jobs and tea out of a beautiful cup.

Then it's dress up time for a rio carnival celebration at Rodizio while we nibble of Brazilian food. Here's hoping it is nothing like the Brazilian place in Bridesmaids.

What are you doing?

Kony 2012

Coffee

Anyone that has every experienced the wonder that is my Morning Face, will know that I only open my eyes properly after a shower and my brain only starts to wake up after at least one cup of coffee in the morning.

Yes, I know, coffee. I still love tea though, promise!

So, since it is Wednesday and most people are starting to slump, I thought I'd share this with you.
Pick your poison and get productive people!

Found on indieberries, originally from here

Sponsorship

I stumbled across this site this morning on Coelho Culture.

It's called Paperchase and it's dedicated entirely to stationary. Seriously? AMAZING!

So if anyone would like to sponsor a trip for Distings and I to go washi tape shopping, I think we would be ok with that! :)

How To

Cure a cold in one weekend.

1. Sleep. A lot of it.
2. Go for change. As drastic as is possible in one weekend.
3. Nutrition is important. The less effort the better so a ridiculous amount of ribs from Mike's Kitchen could work. As could a Sunday curry from those nice people downstairs :)
4. Get out the house! A trip to the Barnyard might aggravate any symptoms of a sore throat but the fun you'll have will do wonders.
5. Lots of couch time!
6. A bubble bath will aid in sweating out the germs.
7. Soup, tea, horlicks. Like I said, nutrition is important, and liquids are key.
8. And the final, most important thing to aid in the removal of a cold- a weekend!

Hope yours was relaxing!