Author: MASadmin
365 #156: Easter Bonnet
Quick Hits for April 16, 2009
Personalized cookies
If I had a million dollars, all my food would be personalized. I like these heart shaped macaroons. I’d have fancy desserts like that at my wedding. And I’d order the homemade marshmallows from Jean George, chocolates from Jacque Torres, and enough desserts so that every person could have ten each. But then they’d only eat one. And I’d have to eat the rest. Watch out love! I’m letting myself go after the wedding! WOOHOO!
New York summer weddings
I probably should buy this; New York‘s summer wedding issue is out. But I’m broke so maybe I’ll just go to Barnes and Noble’s and just stare at it. I’ll get a stack of magazines, go find some window sill, sit down, and start looking at the pictures. I won’t read it, of course, but I’ll admire the photography work on the models, the macros of the plate settings, and wonder if I’ll ever be able to afford the camera equipment that I want. Wait? What’s that? I’m suppose to look at the dresses and get decoration ideas for my own wedding? Please. Wedding magazines are like fashion magazines – pr0n for the camera inclined and nothing else. Okay, that’s a lie but that is what I tend to notice first when I open wedding magazines up first. It takes effort on my part to notice what is actually being advertised.
365 #155: Love Fern
Quick Hits for Tax Day, April 15 2009
Bird Cage Veil
Bird Cage Veils are huge right now. It seems that every DIY Wedding blog right now loves talking about Bird Cage Veils and the “vintage” look for weddings. I don’t know if DIY means your wedding has to look vintage or if brides who are into the DIY social economic spectrum just love the vintage look. My fiancee bought one in Florida at an antiques store for $10 (she bought another, larger, non-bird cage veil for our wedding which she received last week and she wears around her apartment). When she brought it home to show her family, her grandparents told her that those veils were worn by women a half a century ago when they were attending bible studies and they wanted a fashionable way to have their “hair covered” (according to St Paul). I don’t think the current trend of women wanting these veils have that same reasoning in mind.
Bridal Spring 2010
Project Rungay does Spring 2010 bridal fashions and sleeves might be in next year. This is me hoping that’s true. And why, as a guy, am I fixated on bridal dresses? Did you not realize that 95% of all ads for wedding stuff are just about dresses? Dresses and weddings are one and the same. You can’t look at weddings and not get smacked upside the head with a dress. It’s the rolled up newspaper of the Wedding Industry and I’m the dog who jumped on the couch with muddy feet.
E-vites for Men
E-vites for men. I’ve said it once and I will say it 1000 times; when it comes to weddings, social gatherings, and anything that consists of taste and culture, we men tend to sell ourselves short. In fact, we encourage ourselves to sell ourselves short. When being well dressed is a crime against manliness, there’s something wrong with how we carry ourselves and these manvites are in that vein. Let’s not focus on e-vites to tell our friends to come over and play videogames or look at boobs. We don’t need those. Let’s focus on the important things which is humor, plain text mailing lists, and calling each other on the phone and leaving voice mails on each other’s phone. If you can’t say it with some e cards, you probably shouldn’t be saying it in the first place.
365 #154: coffee cup construction
The end of the bridezilla era? Yeah, no.
AM New York (one of the free daily subway papers here in New York), reported about couples trying to get around the standard cake cutting fee while the New York Post countered with a report that Manhattan ladies are no longer getting diamonds to wear at their weddings. It seems that the Wedding Industry is now struggling and the main stream media is beginning to take notice!
A high end jeweler claims that budgets for diamonds use to be $65,000 dollars but now is around $10,000 and brides are not happy about it. Of course they aren’t. Over the last five years, as Americans turned to their homes to fake an economic recovery from the dot com era (our income as dropped during this period but our spending skyrocketed), weddings, like the 7th car, the 3rd house, and the McMansions, just got bigger and better. If you watch old episodes of Bridezilla, you’ll notice that the budgets were huge for incredibly boring and tacky and cheesy weddings. Now, when you turn on the show, the budgets are only high in respect to the fact that the women on the show are usually lower income and/or white trash. But they still want a wedding that feels expensive and that matches the extravagance they saw in the past five years. Weddings are not only about fulfilling your fantasies but also about keeping up with your friend who forced you to buy that godawful lemon and lime bridesmaid dress four years ago.
I wonder if someone in the Wedding Industry is hoping that someone in Washington DC will notice their plight and they’ll get a bailout.
I don’t agree that the Bridezilla era is over. I’m just hoping that the era of refinancing your house/maxing your credit cards part of weddings are over. It’s not but that’s what I hope. My fiancee and I approached our wedding with that goal in mind. We simply are paying for the best wedding that we can afford. Will it be showcased on Platinum Weddings? No. But will it be as spectacular extravaganza that will be talked about for years to come? Oh I hope so. But there’s only so many DIY hanging decorations I can make by hand before I want to give up and instead use the tissue paper to make a hat for my cat so we shall see. We shall see.
365 #153: fuzzy chili baked potato
Amazon.com is removing sales ranking from certain gay and lesbian books?
A repost from my gossip blog babyrunaround.com
Update [8:53pm] : seattle pi’s take, la times
What the hell is amazon.com doing?
Right now, sales rankings for dozens of gay and lesbian books have had their sales rankings removed which means they don’t show up in lists. Jezebel.com is keeping a list and major news papers are starting to pick it up. It started a few weeks ago but is only being reported mostly now. #amazonfail on twitter has been the current big reporter on this scandal and there is no other word to describe it. Right now, when you search for homosexuality on Amazon.com, A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality IS THE FIRST RESULT. The first! And the whole first page of results is all about stupid bigoted religious nonsense about homosexuality. The books are utter bullshit, a perversion of my brand of faith, and promoting hate and intolerance instead of God’s love. It’s appalling to see this. Appalling to see that amazon.com is pulling stupid bullshit like this to appease….no one. They claim that the books that have lost their sales results are “adult” while vibrators, anal beads, and sex toys have their sales rankings still there. Did a religious group write enough complaints in? Did they take control over the sales department there? Or is this company now owned by Wal-mart? And why, in this time of economic recession, would you alienate an extremely affluent part of society? This make no economic sense, no rational sense, and no religious sense either.
I just received a $50 dollar gift certificate from amazon.com today. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it now. Bah.