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CreativeTechs, a mac support company in Seattle, is offering a 10 week course in Photoshop absolutely free! I have taken a few courses with this group and they do a great job. If you are just learning photoshop or just brushing up on your skills, there is something for you. They are also offering a bonus InDesign class also for free, so you can see what you are getting yourself into. If this 10 week course goes well they will potentially offer classes in InDesign, Illustrator and Dreamweaver. You can stay up to date with classes and get a few interesting tips by checking out there tip blog.

Today M&I were in midtown. We received tickets as a Christmas present to see In The Heights (which was very good) and then decided that since we were out and about we would roam around and grab something for dinner. With the help of his trusty iPhone, M found a reasonably priced place called The Burger Joint in Le Parker Meridien hotel. As we entered the lobby, we wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. This is a fairly swanky hotel and we were looking for something low key… and where was it anyway? We walked through a fancy bar, saw the reception desk and the other set of exit doors, where was this place… then the delicious smell of burger wafted towards us from behind a velvet curtain. A few steps further and to find a little neon burger pointing the way. The place is a a total surprise. It feels more like a dive bar in a hip part of Brooklyn than a place to get food in a fancy hotel. You go up to the counter, order your burger (we got the works) and head to your table. Beers come in a plastic cups, fries come in a bag and with all that I have to say that this is definitely one of the top 5 burgers in NY. We had passed Magnolia on the way to get our burgers so we even got cupcakes for dessert. Not a bad meal.

We all know that adding bacon to any recipe will make it better (right, B?) but did you know that bacon also can help make your website better? via

Airlines are not known for their culinary masterpieces. Frankly these days you are lucky if you get a bag of peanuts. While many of us have been served things that barely passed for food, we may not have taken to the time to get it down on paper and send it. Thanks to the Internet, we can all enjoy this letter to Richard Branson from a very disgruntled passenger on a Virgin flight from Mumbai to Heathrow detailing his “culinary journey of hell”. My favorite part is his description of the cookie, “It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast.” Apparently Sir Richard took the time to call this gentleman and offer him the opportunity to select the food and wine on future Virgin flights, but no form of monetary compensation has been offered.

This weekend, while trying to make hot chocolate, I accidentally made cheese. How does one accidentally make cheese, you ask? Well, when I started to heat the milk something funny happened. I noticed a separation that I don’t normally see… I dumped the milk, cleaned the pot and tried again with the last of the milk. Same result! Well I figured there is nothing lost if I experiment so I will see if I can turn this into something. I continued to heat this crazy separated milk, and then at some point I added a slash of vinegar and heated some more. I just happened to have some cheese cloth so I set that up in a strainer over a glass bowl, then once my little lump of curd was not too wet anymore, I pressed it between two cutting boards with a teapot on top for weight. I think what I have now is paneer. I haven’t used it yet, but I was hoping to make saag paneer later this week. There are lots of recipies on the web for making cheese properly if you are interested in trying your own experiment. I did finally get my hot chocolate with new milk and a different pot.

This was the screen that greeted me at the end of an Apple survey regarding my recent repair visit and I thought it was so simple and clean and nice that I wanted to share it.

David Trubridge has done it again. First making beautiful lampshades out of wood laminate and now making shade kits that the rest of us can afford. These lovely lamps are made from recyclable polypropylene and include the parts to make any of the above designs. I am partial to the round design. I love that you can combine kits to make a larger lamp if you are feeling especially creative. And if you send in your configuration it could be featured on the David Trubridge website. Unfortunately, it seems that you can only get them from this online shop in NZ for now and the shipping is $30, but $116 still beats over $500 for his coral lamp. via

Today while waiting to cross the street for whatever reason I had a flashback to our trip to Beijing in October 2006. I had been reading guidebooks to get myself somewhat acquainted with the city and happened upon a small side note about how to cross the street. Huh? Don’t you just wait for the light and then cross. Apparently it is common practice for cars to ignore lights and go anyway and you just have to go or you won’t get across. When I read this, I was shocked, if you ever tried that in NY, you would be crushed by a cab or a bus. No way I am doing that! When I got there it was a different story, you don’t have a choice and everyone is doing it. Have you ever played Frogger? You know how you start across and then wait and then go and then wait and then go? It was pretty much like that. Although somehow the cars got out of your way the slightest bit, while in NY they would aim for you. My strategy was to cross at the same time as someone with a bike, even better if it was a bike with a cart attached. There was one harrowing time where M&I were in the middle of a street with no median, and two buses passed each other. So scary.

It still very clearly winter here in New York, I can’t help but think ahead to warmer weather and what we are going to do with our little 10×10 living space up north. Right now it is a blank slate. We haven’t even put in the flooring. Once it is warm enough to do that, it is warm enough to start laying out the space. With such a small footprint, everything will have to do double duty and if we can loft the bed, all the more floor space for when we aren’t sleeping. I saw this great post today on Little Diggs about bunk… I mean loft beds for adults. I love how the beds are tucked under a platform floor in this option. I do have to wonder why they aren’t on casters though…

When I am inclined to read, Neil Gaiman is an author I look to for entertainment. I have read many of his books and figured I would give his “children’s story” Coraline a chance. I really enjoyed it, although to be honest, it seemed a little scary for the a children’s story. Maybe I am just a scardy cat. All the graphics I have seen for the upcoming movie are wonderful. In my mind great graphics + great story = great movie, right? Hopefully. Today on NotCot, I saw that on the movie website you can create your own flower, among other things. I highly recommend giving it a look. You can choose up to three layers of the 24 petals, you can change their color, number and size and when you remove petals to try something new the petals fall away. It is wonderful! If you are so inclined you can also button up your eyes. That was a little too scary for me.