Friday, April 8, 2011

Best of the Week #15

Yesterday after a lunchtime 5-miler I spent some quality work time decorating cupcakes at the office for a co-worker’s goodbye/good luck/best wishes on your engagement party. 



They were vanilla with vanilla-almond frosting. Love me a late afternoon sugar high!


 
The most popular post on Eat Run Read this week was my Cherry Cupcakes with Cherry Frosting. They made it onto Tastespotting!



And now for my Best of the Week roundup:

If I had a little boy, I would totally crochet him a beard. Adorableness! (source)


This post on Famous Last Words: Our 20 Favorite Final Lines in Literature. For example, from 1984 by George Orwell, most chilling return to the status quo: "He loved Big Brother."

It looks like the government is going to shut down...at least The Onion will keep us amused!
"...by eliminating funds for NPR, the deficit has been slashed by 0.000004 percent and a newly thriving middle class once again has cause to believe in the American dream...Republicans announced Thursday they will now turn their attention to cutting the National Park Service, a move that should ensure Social Security's solvency for the next 350 years."


These wave pictures by Matthew Cusick are pretty awesome - they're created entirely out of maps!



The Economist had a very interesting article on the role if jihadis in Libya...it's not what you think! 
But something is out of kilter with Muammar Qaddafi’s claims that Libya’s revolution is an al-Qaeda plot. These jihadis enthusiastically back the NATO-led bombing campaign...Not since Western governments first armed the anti-Soviet mujahideen in the 1980s have Western and jihadi groups seemed so aligned....“It’s changed the way we look at the West. They saved our people and we have to say thanks.”
Big news! One of my housemates is getting married in June!!! She had engagement pictures taken when she went home to Florida for Spring Break...don't you love them? 








I love the library theme. This is the best dressed couple I've ever met - they could be right out of a JCrew catalog! (See all the pictures here.)

Toms sponsored “A Day Without Shoes” this week to raise awareness. In response, Good Intentions Are Not Enough countered with “A Day Without Dignity.” I’m mildly embarrassed to say that my feet are comfortable in a pair of gray Toms right now, but I have to agree with Good Intentions’ points: 
  • Every year millions of shoes are donated to places where shoes are not needed, as they are available locally. 
  • Handing out free goods out-competes local markets. 
  • Used-clothing imports to Africa caused 50% of the increase in unemployment between 1981-2000. 
  • A day with handouts is a day without dignity.

Watch the Toms video here. Watch the Good Intentions video here (or below). What do you think?


Check out these pictures of Famous Authors and Their Typewriters. Earnest Hemingway looks like quite the bad-ass, am I right?


Wait, wait, wait.
Let me get this straight. Giant hunks of metal weighing half a million pounds soar in the air way above the clouds over deep dark oceans to deliver people to distant lands thousands of miles away?
AWESOME!

And with that, I hope you have a wonderful weekend!