I've probably got far too many "things to do" but if I leave it to manyana some of those things go away of their own accord. The rest I do when and if I feel like it, or if there's a particular urgency to pay the electric to not get it cut off.
Je can rarely be arsed to make a teux deux list but when je deux je find pencil and paper adequate to the task.
You don't need a china cup; stoneware is perfectly good.
But you do need to drink it within a minute of it being made.
Carrying it around in a paper cup with a lid is just stupid (and makes you look like you are delivering a sample of your bodily fluids).
Haha!!
Have you made it to Abraco since you have been back, ursus? It is significantly out of your way (7th St and 1st ave) but he serves a mean cortado in nice glassware. It is a great place with good (snack) food cooked in there. The whole place used to be a falafel store, to give an idea of the size.
That, I would suggest, is the gourmet coffee WoM was getting at.
He also insists on serving his take away coffees in the Greek paper cups, which is kind of great.
Okay, back from the dentist so I can drool my answer: yes, gourmet being a notch or two above Starbucks.
The one is my (work) hood is Spice Safar. It's horrible. You walk in and everyone turns to see if you're worth looking at, and then they turn away in silent disappointment. They make the milk/cream/sugar hard to find, since they don't think you should 'insult the bean' by using them. They also sell overpriced books and overpriced rubber radios to complement their overpriced coffee and sandwiches.
Don't know if Gramsci's ever been, but his mileage may vary. He seems to know his coffee.
I love those greek takeout paper cups. So much so that I have the ceramic version for my morning joe.
I did, however get a spicy lamb sandwich at Xian Fine Foods, which was worth a heck of a lot more than the 3 bucks I paid for it.
Was the Tompkins Square Co-ed Street Hockey thing going when you lived over there?
Yes, the Co-ed was going on at weekends, I remember it well. That and a poisoned rat wandering on to the field of play once.
We both really miss that part of town, but it is really difficult to live in and to also, you know, have a job. It is just a bit too far out of the way. Plus the dog doesn't help with the lack of elevator buildings.
I thought I recognised some of those names in the original article. Fictive Kin and swissmiss are behind a fairly nice little to-do list app called TeuxDeux. (Pretentious, of course, but simple, straightforward and usable.)
Jason Santa Maria used to work for Jeffrey Zeldman's Happy Cog operation.
And I would love to be working for myself in a little Brooklyn studio. Unfortunately, I don't have the money and it looks like you'd have to share your office with a load of twats.
Online discussion boards for parents are filled with can-you-believe-it tales of American Girl dolls, V.I.P. baseball tickets and cooking kits for all guests. “Once the birthday present I bought for the b-day child was the same exact thing as the goody bag! awkward!” read one post on urbanbaby.com (the gift, the poster said, cost $35).
But the cheap stuff (scented erasers, candy, nail polish, stickers and temporary tattoos) can be equally offensive to parents trying to teach ecological consciousness or simply cutting down on clutter. Ms. Roles spoke disdainfully of what she called “garbage directly from Oriental Trading,” referring to a Web site that specializes in goody-bag fillers.
“I don’t want to give bags full of plastic from China and teach kids to be little consumers,” she said.
When Sarah Swain’s children lug home loot from parties, “I throw it out and then I feel guilty — there goes another giant piece of plastic in the trash — but it’s not like you can give it away,” said Ms. Swain, 33, a mother of two and a nursing student who lives near San Francisco. “It’s not useful.”
Even if the content is appreciated, such presents at a young age reinforce the message that “an event is only fun if you get a material award for it,” said Susan Linn, a psychiatry instructor at the Harvard Medical School and the director of the nonprofit Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.
“The rise of the goody bag is part of a larger escalation of the commercialization of children’s birthday parties,” Ms. Linn said. “That’s both in terms of brands, but also in terms of competition around the lavishness of parties.”
Indeed, businesses like Gymboree, Apple Seeds, BounceU and Kidville, where prices for parties can reach four figures, routinely offer teeming goody bags as part of the deal. The bag is usually full of plastic items with logos and advertisements, though parents can opt out.
“I cringe when I have to take one of those home,” Ms. Swain said.
One children's party we went to when ours were little, the adults got going-away bags with a little bottle of cold lager in. That struck me at the time, and still does, as the last word in class.
We've come home with goodie bags worth twice the gift we gave. It's insane.
But last month, my son came home with no goodie bag. My wife's response was 'thank fucking god' and my son didn't even notice. And if he did, he didn't comment.
I don't really understand the need to have favors for wedding guests, either, but then I don't get a lot of the whole wedding industrial complex anyway.
As usual, the problem here is with the parents. As your example shows, I don't think kids care all that much what they get. I know my daughter would be happy with a few stickers and a fun size candy bar. We haven't been to a party where parents have gone overboard with the goody bags, but those who do seem to do so out of their own insecurities or some internalized pressure that they have to outdo their friends.
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