#28 Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah!

Yay, holiday season! I’m on a three week break from school, and Christmas is soon approaching. I’ve made cute little mugs of candy as gifts for my friends. They’re easy to make. You just need to arrange the following:

• A Christmas Mug
• Peppermint Patties (in the bottom)
• Giant Christmas Kit Kat Bar
• Skittles or M&M Tins, containing their respective candies
• 2 Sweet Tart Candy Canes

And you’ve got yourself an affordable and enjoyable gift for many people. I think this also sort of counts for one thing my list of 101 Things to do in 1001 Days; #28. Make Christmas presents. This counts, right? Sure….

It is my hope that everyone enjoys this holiday season. (And really… who can’t have a nice time with all the pretty snow, music, lights, and happy friends and family about them? If you can’t, you are a grinch. And I’ll call you out on it!)

A note to Santa: I would like my own Santa Hat this season so I don’t have to Photoshop one onto my head each year. (P.S. I’ve been a very good girl.)

Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah!

~Ellen

Favorite RSS Feeds

Really Simple Syndication or RSS Feeds! Do you use them? I certainly do. And though, I don’t always keep up with them since I have over 60 total feeds, they do provide a great procrastination tool when I do decide to read them all. Some are just for fun, others are to keep up on the world, and some are just to admire. Either way, here are my favorite feeds out of each of my category folders.

(By the way, I use Google Reader to get my feeds. If you have a gmail account or use Google Calendars, Google Docs, etc. you can set up Google Reader as well. I reccommend it if you don’t already have a feed reader.)

Friends

ErrorInSyntax.com – Blog site of my good friend, Nick. A little outdated right now, but if/when he updates it, the design is mine.

MikeRapin.com – Another friend of mine who is all over the internet. Seriously, just insert “mikerapin” into any social networking URL and you’ll find this dude.

Robrogan.com – This guy is in Barcelona right now, so if you’re taking Spanish or interested in culture or travel, watch this blog. And he’s also a friend of mine from college as the above two are.

WilChow.com – The power of the internet, more specifically Twitter, where I met this cool guy. We like to geek around about photography and webdesign n’ stuff. Both interests show in his website, so check it out!

Comics

Kawaii Not – Ultra cute, buu not so innocent comics.

Post Secret – Who doesn’t want to read someone else’s dirty secrets?

Questionable Content – This is a very popular webcomic. Needless to say, it’s popular for very good reasons. I only started reading it less than a year ago, but the few panels I read made me like it enough to go read the first 3 years of content in two weeks. There’s even a store that sells t-shirts that the characters have worn. Go read it!

The Bunny Comic – A hilariously random comic out of the UK sometimes with some sneaky social commentary. I’ve been reading this comic since 2004 if that says anything.

Art & Design

Brand New – Brand redesigns. If you’re into logo design, definitely follow this one. They give the before and after for many large corporate logo redesigns and the plus and minus on each.

Packagings of the World – Exactly what it says, package designs! Great practical use of graphic design as seem on the actual products. Some are so juicy, it really makes me want it until I realize it’s shampoo from Denmark.

Yanko Design – Really awesome and futuristic designs for practical products. Unfortunately, they are only concepts, but these are so awesome you wish some were real.

Photography

Amy Carroll Photography – A great wedding photographer that I admire, right out of Grand Rapids! She also does engagement and family portraits, and gets great wide eyed and sparkly shots out of kids that are just fantastic.

James Rubio Photography – Holy shit. Talk about gorgeous wedding photography. The sheer talent of this guy’s photos and the lighting has me drooling. Not to mention they’re all in Hawaii. Really makes me wanna get hitched in Hawaii and hire this guy. Anyone wanna elope for lulz? (Just kidding, seriously.)

The Big Picture – Amazing and gorgeous photographs of current worldwide events. Often time shocking things they don’t show in mainstream news.

Tech/Other

The Next Web – Really cool relevant articles on everything new on today’s web.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog – To catch up on all your Apple product needs, updates, and rumors.

WebUrbanist – I can’t really describe this too well other than it’s collections of really cool stuff.

The Internet Is Real

Every once in a while I run across one of those anti-internet/anti-social media people. You know the ones, they get a facebook or a Twitter but then delete it because it’s “fake” and you can’t keep in touch with “real people,” or have a “real relationship” with people. They just dismiss the internet like it’s an inferior form of communication. Well, that really irks me, because I’ve met some of the best people online. And sure, some forms of the communication are missing, like facial expressions, body gestures, tone of voice, etc. And admittedly, some people probably would ever be friends “in real life”  because of prejudices thinking, “they’re too ugly,” or, “they sound stupid,” that we usually use to sort people.

But on the internet, the words and the ideas are still there… that’s what matters. People who have just met, say in a chat room, can just dive into deeper conversations getting to the core of our person faster and know who we really are. Because, honestly, it’s easier to open up when you don’t see someone’s facial expression. We can pretend we didn’t cringe when someone types that they’re 41 and when you thought they were 28, and you can keep talking. Point here being, we can set aside any visual prejudice and just have open, raw conversations with anyone. And I’ve found that the internet is the place where I have some of my richest conversations, that last the longest. Not in one sitting, but in talking over months and years.

And now for a hilarious quote from an acquaintance I saw leaving facebook… his reasons were, “Because the internet is the most fake and illegitimate form of meeting people and maintaining communications, I’ve ever encountered. I could just be doing better things with my time.” Sir, if you ever happen to read this, I have met a countless number of worthwhile people on the internet, and it has been my strongest tool of maintaining communications. Especially with my friends across the country from summer programs. One friend in particular I e-mailed daily for a year and a half, and we still e-mail each other now at least twice weekly. Another I’ve been in contact with for nearly four years now.

Saying that, I want to ask those people, who dismiss the internet as a “real” form of communication then,  if they don’t read books, or have never been effected by a poem, because that’s the same thing. It’s the use of words for communication. As my friend Wil (@javajunky) said in our online conversation about this, “Text can convey a lot. Literature would be nowhere if it weren’t true.”

I fell that dismissing online communication is pointless for that reason. And if these people only want a “full relationship,” face to face with “real people,” then they better stop using phones, reading the news, and watching TV too, because those all dilute the full on experience you get face to face with another person. So, good luck, hypocrites. I’d like to keep all of my online friends right here. And who knows, someday I may get to meet them “IRL” as well.

Home

My definition of home has changed now. I now have two literal homes. One, at my parent’s house, where I’ve spent my entire childhood growing up. The other, was my dorm room at college. I found it funny how quickly we all started saying, “I’m going home,” in reference to our dorm rooms at college. But to me it really was home. I felt safe, it belonged to me, I could be alone, I could call it my own.  (Hah! That kind of rhymed….)

My home at college was so exciting. I lived in the same building as many of my friends, I didn’t have to ask my parents if I could go out or have my friends come up for a movie. We just did it. And I loved the freedom. Now that I’m back in my parent’s house, it’s a little restricting again. Even though I do have more freedoms than I did while going to grade school here (read: car), I still have all those memories of being trapped here because I wasn’t allowed to go out. It makes it pretty suffocating here still. So my goal, as I leave my little dorm room an come home here, is to try to make it more exciting again. Basically, stay active and creative so I don’t feel so suffocated at home.

So guess what I did?! First thing I did when I came home Thursday, was jump in my car (I missed it) and drive down to the beach and take pictures of the sunset. I had about three minutes before it was gone when I got there, so I snapped until my battery died. Then I just sat in the car for a while and watched the sky get dark. It was nice. As much as I hate the clichéd pictures of my town’s lighthouse (there are only so many angles one can cover), I don’t think I can ever get sick of the sunsets over Lake Michigan.

I went out again last night. This time in an attempt to chase some lightning. I didn’t get any good lightning pictures, but I got some cool rainy night shots  of the bridge and the river downtown. I also have found some good locations for shooting lighting on the lake for when the weather is better. It’s still a bit chilly out here. Some summer rains will be more comfortable I think. See the results from both nights of shooting on my Flickr.