Friday, August 29, 2008

davies yard sale


Fancy yourself the biggest Robertson Davies fan out there? Well this is your lucky day. StyleNorth is promoting the Robertson Davies estate sale happening September 16-18th where you can buy any number of Robertson's goodies, including one of his lovely cushy wingback chairs.
Biggest ticket items are expected to be a pair of polychromed carvings of King Melelaus of Sparta and Paris of Troy expected to fetch $2000-$3000. Personally, not my taste at all. I'd be much happier with his Chippendale mahogany writing desk.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

breathe in, breathe out

Seriously, when is it going to stop? The new JCrew fall line is almost too much for me to take - and these are just the jackets!!






5 more sleeps!!!!


Damn ladies!! You look HHHHOTTTT......

new york i love you

Here's another movie I'm really excited for. From the genius behind Paris je t'aime comes the next in line of their city movies, New York I Love You. Stellar cast, amazing scenery, if it's anywhere near as good as Paris je t'aime I'll be so happy. New York, I do love you!!!

Monday, August 25, 2008

weekend round-up

Hello weekend!! It was so lovely to see you and so sad to see you go. Friday I was the tiredest girl in the whole world and even skipped a party to stay home and wallow in my exhaustion. Thank god for the Olympics.

Saturday, up bright and early for a haircut and chat with Paula and onwards for an amazing breakfast at the Parker House. I haven't eaten there in a dog's age and shame on me! It was mega-delicious and I'm happy to see they've expanded their lunch menu to include about a 100 different kinds of sammiches! Including........wait for it......a pulled pork sammich!!!! Wha???? Pulled pork only blocks from my office and I'm only just now finding out about it???? I'll have none of that!!

Saturday night, evening nap leads to a great (but yawny) night at the Townehouse to see Kaili's friends Reverb Syndicate! Finally! What fun was had, complete with dancing go-go girls and toe-tapping surf music. Excellent, excellent....except for the after 1am start time. But I made it to exactly 1:50am before I had to admit defeat and run home to bed.

Sunday, the Garlic Festival! One of my favourite events of the summer. Not for the awful, awful street entertainment or the 15 vendors selling nothing but garlic but for the endless stands of folks selling anything and everything made of garlic. It's. So. Good. Filled with garlicky goodness we headed for coffee with my parents, trip to the Farmer's Market and over to their place for snacks and chat. Homeward bound for some slow-cooker chicken wings (sooooo good.....) and you guessed it, borderline napping on the couch until it's time for bed.

The Olympics are over. Now I'll have to go back to reading my book to entertain myself. Whatever.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

adolph harper

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've likely heard about the Conservative government's recent cuts to arts and culture in Canada to the tune of $45 million. Yes, as a cultural worker, I'm pissed. Everyone's pissed. Everyone's worried and pissed. But, if you can't laugh at your government trying to slowly dismantle this country's heart and soul, what can you laugh at? Stephen Harper as Hitler? Pretty uncanny and pretty F-ing hilarious.


Friday, August 22, 2008

olympic booty call


So I've got Olympic fever in a big way, along with the rest of the world. And while I'm happy to be sucked into the easily accesible Olympic world of interviews, statistics, re-caps and pseudo-comic news bits on the "fun" side of Beijing, I'm also hugely curious about the stuff you don't get to see. I want to see photos of the rooms the atheletes stay in at the Olympic village, what restaurants are they all eating at and most importantly, I absolutely want to know about the 24/7 sweet, sweet lovin' that goes on between all the athletes. I'm not making that up. It's a fact that any past or present Olympic athelete will say when asked by the right person at the right time. And why not? Get all those elite, sweaty, rippling-muscled atheletes in one building during the most tense time of their lives and you're bound to get some galactic action happening when all's said and done.


Worlds of thanks to Lainey for finally giving us access to this most important Olympic info! She posted a link to an article in the U.K Times written by Matthew Syed, a repeat Olympic athlete now working as a commentator (who claims to have had more sex while at the Olympics than he had up until that point in his life). Now you're talking!! First hand reports of the sex-fest that is the Athletes Village. Here are some of my favourite parts:


"Barcelona was, for many of us Olympic virgins, as much about sex as it was about sport. There were the gorgeous hostesses - there to assist the athletes - in their bright yellow shirts and black skirts; there were the indigenous lovelies who came to watch the competitions. And then there were the female athletes - literally thousands of them - strutting, shimmying, sashaying and jogging around the village, clad in Lycra and exposing yard upon yard of shiny, toned, rippling and unimaginably exotic flesh. Women from all the countries of the world: muscular, virile, athletic and oozing oestrogen. I spent so much time in a state of lust that I could have passed out. Indeed, for all I knew I did pass out - in a place like that how was one to tell the difference between dreamland and reality? "

"It was not just the guys. The women, too, seemed in thrall to their hormones, throwing around daring glances and dynamite smiles like confetti. No meal or coffee break was complete without a breathless conversation with a lithe long jumper from Cuba or an Amazonian badminton player from Sweden, the mutual longing so evident it was almost comical. It was an effort of will to keep everything in check until competition had finished. But, once we were eliminated from our respective competitions, we lunged at each other like suicidal fencers. There may have been a fair amount of gay sex going on, too - but given the notorious homophobia in sport it was rather more covert."

"I spoke to an Aussie table tennis player this week to check out the village vibe and he launched into the breathless patter common to any Olympic debutant: “It is unbelievable in there; everyone is totally crazy once they are out of their competitions. God knows what it is going to be like this weekend. It is like a world within a world.” A British runner (anonymous again: athletes are not supposed to talk to journalists unaccompanied by a PR type, least of all about sex) said: “The swimmers finished earlier in the week and it was like there was an eruption.”

"But let us get back to all the sex going down in the village. One possible explanation centres on the fact that Olympic athletes have to display an unnatural (and, it has to be said, wholly unhealthy) level of self-discipline in the build-up to big competitions. How else is this going to manifest itself than with a volcanic release of pent-up hedonism? It is a common sight to see recently knocked-out athletes gorging on Magnums and McDonald's, swilling alcohol and, of course, shagging like crazy. Sometimes all three at the same time."
A little poking around the world-wide web found these stats from Men's Health. At the Olympics in Athens, Durex happily provided the info on their donation consisting of 130,000 condoms and 30,000 tubes of lubricant. In Sydney, each athlete was doled out 51 condoms each. As it turns out, that was not enough. Especially for the Cuban atheletes, who ran out well before any of the others. And of course condoms were emblazoned with the Olympic rings logo as well as being offered in three colours. You guessed it. Gold, silver and bronze.
Sad news for any woman cursed with an Olympic gold medal though. Apparently they are not as desired as the women who got knocked out early in the competition. I guess the men feel threatened by their success and see their drive to succeed to be intimidating. I guess they feel the need to console the poor beach volleyball player who finished 43rd. I bet the comforting line "Ohhh you poor thing, all that sand in your tiny swimsuit must make it hard to focus I bet huh?" gets used a fair bit.
This is my kind of Olympic coverage -- more smut please!


well would you look at that...

If this just isn't the neatest thing well I don't know what is. This Nuevo Outdoor Stacking Chair and Stool Set is the answer to all your space-saving needs! No more trying to jam all your outdoor furniture into your garage come winter. They're perhaps a bit too pricey for us Northerners and our 3 months of summer but if you could use them all year I think they'd be well worth it.




pillow lust


I'm just mad over this vintage ladies swimming pillow over at Anna's blog. It was the featured item on Tuesday from her gorgeous store Black & Spiro. I think if I had this pillow I might never stop looking at it.

outside on the inside


I don't think I'd ever trade in all my coveted Northern outdoor space but I still love the idea of the outdoor room. Apartment Therapy has a great series of shots featuring some beautiful spaces from Washington Spaces magazine. This one is probably my favourite.
It reminds me of that amazing apartment greenhouse in that awful movie Green Card. Does anyone remember that one? Andie MacDowell's character sets up a fake marraige so she can get this incredible New York apartment with this indoor greenhouse. It's all old-fashioned iron and marble with the indoor sprinkler system complete with tiny birds in cages and a stone fishpond. It's postively dripping with greenery and moss. It's just stunning and I would have lied to get it too. I could only find one picture on the whole internet but you can kind of see it in the background. Can you imagine living in the city and being able to open your doors to that everyday? Bliss.

i wanna be kate

Kate Spade in the fall. Love it, love it, love it. Love the colours, love the fabrics, love the shapes, love everything about it.

lushpad

Oooohhhhh this is fun news. Over at Style North they announced a pretty cool thing for all you fans of all things mid-century modern. Lushpad, the new Canadian online destination based in Vancouver, is an MCM trading post and resource centre. It's pricey but hey, if you love something you just love it and that's that. According to SN, Lushpad is "essentially a specialized classified ad site offering goods, both new and vintage, from retailers and regular folks like you and me. Ads for items under $250 are free; sellers of items priced between $250 and $800 pay $8 per listing, and ads for items over $800 are $12 each." Add to the fun, owner Lushpad is giving away a licensed Eames molded plywood chair worth $750 to one lucky new member who registers on the site between now and mid-November.

I took a quick look to scope the deals and found these:


This Eames Walnut Plywood table for $250














This George Nelson bench for $180 (which is unfortunately 5 inches longer than I can have in my entryway -- the search continues!).




















This Argyle Shelving Unit for $400

Thursday, August 21, 2008

posts in the key of kelly: killer shoes

Like any respectable woman, Kelly also loves great shoes. Here is some sweet shoe action just for Kelly, handpicked to look cute on her feet.

These Bass Minstreal Marians from Fluevog.



This Lex pump from Nine West.


This Courbet flat also from Nine West in adorable orange.
These Lulu leather flats from J Crew in dark cloud.

These Martine 2 colour ballet flats from J Crew.

These Spectator Mary Jane pumps.
These Casi Casi's from Camper. These Camper Twins.





And these Camper Twins.





















posts in the key of kelly: band merch

Nobody can clean out a band merch table quite like Kelly. It's a sight to behold. In honour of her insatiable love of merch, here are some great finds from great bands.

Social Distortion Pin-Up Girl Tee

A Ween onesie for your wee one

The Magic Numbers I See You, You See Me tee




posts in the key of kelly: hoodies

Kelly also loves a great hoodie. Who doesn't? Here are some great hoodie options.


This anchor hoodie from Toronto based Pretty Raccoon (owned by a friend of a friend of mine)


This Retro Roadbike hoodie from Red Boots Design.



This pretty grey one from Victorian Bird.


Birds of a Feather Hoodie from Deadworry.


And of course the Sherpa Fleece hoodie from J Crew -- possibly the best hoodie ever invented.

posts in the key of kelly: shark week

What's something else Kelly loves? That would be Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. I love it too. Not as much as Kelly though. I don't think anyone loves Shark Week as much as Kelly. In honour of her shark love here are some cool images from Shark Week.






If you also love Shark Week that much, you can click here to buy the Shark Week 20th Anniversary DVD. And before you wonder -- of course Kelly already owns it.



In case the shark thing spreads into other facets of her life here are some other options for her;


This dress from Reincarnated Threads called "Stripes Good, Sharks Bad" so she can watch Shark Week in comfort;


Or this dress from Aorta so she can watch Shark Week and feel saucy;


This Great White shark print from Berkely Illustrations she can look at when Shark Week is over for another year;

This t-shirt of a shark wearing a jean jacket from Partybots that she can get for her husband Steve to wear during Shark Week;






This shark onesie from LilCubby so that future Baby Kelly's can be well prepared to watch Shark Week in style.


posts in the key of kelly: amoeba music

One of Kelly's favourite places ever is Amoeba Music in San Francisco, the world's largest independently owned record store, where she once spent more money than we best mention. Here are some videos of some amazing Kelly approved in-stores that took place there.

Neko Case


The Bird and The Bee


John Doe
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The Black Keys

posts in the key of kelly: mike ness

There are few things in life Kelly loves more than Mike Ness. Except for maybe looking at pictures of Mike Ness. Here is a sampling of some of the dreamiest pics I could find of our beloved and painfully fine Mr. Ness.










Damn!! Now that's a guy you want alone in a room with a bottle of whiskey, a flat surface and not much else. He doesn't even have to hold me afterwards.