As much as I love my house I have to admit that I was not so excited when I saw all the light fixtures. There not much beauty in the cheapest lights ever ( and I mean like $4 at the Home Depot kind of cheap) that a bank-owned foreclosed house has. I love lighting shops, but the prices there are a bit out of my reach. So I did the next best thing… an Ikea hack! Here is before and after:
This is a closeup of before (so glad this is gone!):
Here is my new beauty. I took a rice paper lamp shade from a table lamp, made it a bit shorter and cut out a diffuser made out of a piece of scrapbooking paper.
Oh, a thing of beauty:
I have more of Ikea hacks up my sleeves so stay tuned!
Posted 3 months ago. 1 comment
This morning I saw the terrible news from Japan (earthquake + tsunami if this is your only news source). While most people are trying to figure out how to rescue victims, I figured out how to help the country recover: exploitation of snow monkeys.
They were featured recently in a GE commercial adjusting the temperature of their hot spring. When I was there, I didn’t see any temperature gauge so that commercial was obviously staged. GE, an American leader, showed us a working model of how to exploit the snow monkeys.
Other possible exploitation:
1. Create a game about getting to the monkeys
It’s not as simple as hail a taxi outside your Tokyo hotel and you’re there in twenty minutes. My experience was more like descend through the 7 levels of the Tokyo subway, ride 3 bullet trains (the first 2 were the wrong ones), ask for directions from the old lady with no teeth (bonus points if she understands you and you her), ride the rickety bus, guess where along the 30 km route is the best stop (minus 1 point per km you were wrong), and hike through the enchanted forest (bonus points if you successfully dodge the rival dung throwing monkeys).
2. Snow Monkeys can provide personal services
Their specialties include:
Dietitian – They’ll keep you on your diet by stealing any food you try to put in mouth and realizing you’ve fallen off the wagon, they’ll rummage through your backpack and “confiscate” anything you may have hidden there.
Photography Assistant – it always seems to be snowing near the snow monkeys (duh right?), so your camera lens needs to be wiped continually. The monkeys already “clean” your $6000 lens with their bare hands. They should change for prompt on site service like that.
3. Make a Boot Camp for Bullies
Drop your wayward child there and the first thing he’ll do is look one in the eye and maybe give it a little shove. In no time your child will learn his lesson since it confrontational to look monkeys in the eye and they are super territorial. With about 100 monkeys to one wayward child there is no way he will be the “big ape” and will learn humility on the bottom of the totem pole during poop clean up duty.
In all, I wish Japan a speedy recovery and hope you all can go be financially exploited by the exploited snow monkeys. Maybe one day, they’ll overthrow “Hello Kitty!” as the symbol of Japanese cuteness.
“Happy moment”
“Angry birds or facebook”
“Someone is comfortable”
“Not my baby”
Posted 11 months ago. 1 comment
[flagallery gid=3 name="Gallery"]
Posted 2 years, 1 month ago. Add a comment
In the beginning of December I was fortunate enough to visit Japan on a business/tourist trip. I am fascinated by this country; by how different the culture is from the Western world; and by how enchanting and stunning simple everyday objects can become.
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Posted 2 years, 1 month ago. 2 comments
I don’t consider myself a car fanatic, i.e. I skip car commercials on my Tivo, don’t know what a good mileage is and don’t plan on buying a car just based on looks (unless it’s a Smart or IQ car and I get it for free.) However, there is something magical about beautifully restored old cars. Maybe it’s the perfect reflection of the blue sky above.
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Posted 2 years, 1 month ago. Add a comment
It’s easy to fall in love with New Zealand; after all, the travel magazines and blogs, movies and other media portrait it as a wonderful lush piece of heaven on Earth where anyone can find an adventure of their lifetime.
If I was a men I would say New Zealand is a “girl next door” who can easily be a supermodel… If I was a wine enthusiast, I would say that New Zealand is like a well aged wine that doesn’t need a flashy label and a celebrity advertising it. I am neither of those, so I will say that for me New Zealand is a mixture of all the good things from any place I have lived in, a place that makes you consider buying a vacation timeshare or opening a bed and breakfast and herding sheep.
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Posted 2 years, 3 months ago. Add a comment
There is a Russian proverb that says “It’s better to have a hundred friends then a $100.” Even though it seems like there is always a new photography gadget that I could spend a $100 on, I tend to agree with this saying.
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Posted 2 years, 3 months ago. Add a comment
My dear friend D. had asked me to write a few basic photography tutorials about things that might be useful for a beginner to know. This is the first installment in the series “I wish I knew this 5 years ago” when I first got a decent digital camera and started to demand perfect pictures every time.
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Posted 2 years, 3 months ago. 2 comments
