I Love You, Tube!

I don't know about you, but I've kind of fallen in love again with watching dumb videos online. If you haven't seen these yet, you really need to:

Josh Groban Sings Kanye West Tweets

Bad News

AutoTune the News Episode 5

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hey, John!

... so much.

________________________________________________________

When John saw this he looked worried.

John: "Oh...I love it."
Claire: "Why did you hesistate like that."
John: "Well...it looks like you're saying you like sheep butts."
Claire: "It's a ewe!!"

Stupid Valentine's Day.

H is for Happy!

What better way to start gearing up for Valentine's Day than with a bridal shower. Especially when it's for someone I and everyone else adores so much.

My dear, dear friend H is getting married to a wonderful guy. And since H's closet is a rainbow of the most unique and fantastic pieces of clothing and she weilds them with awe-stricking prefection mixed with reckless abandon, we decided to go with lots of color.

Starting with the invitations:

(John, through some diligent YouTube searching and a few phone calls, figured out how to make our own letter-press plates. A post on that coming soon.)

Then with some watercolored flags (we used canvas paper to keep them from wrinkling when they were saturated with watercolor):

Then we made this sign by repuposing the frame from the necklace organizer and adding some words formed in 12-guadge wire (John explained that it's the same wire people use when forming things with concrete; so next time you're making your concrete slabs, just squirel some of that wire away for crafts), which we wrapped in yarn/crepe paper streamers.

And H's roommate M did the most incredible job with the loveliest fruit pizza's and other colorful fare  I've ever seen:

Including a vegetable portrait of the bride:

Looks just like her, right?

You're lovely, H. So happy for you.

If Music Be the Food of Love

I'm not used to being in a relationship over Valentine's Day, let alone being married. I'm kind of stressed out about this and not really sure what to do.

But thinking about it has reminded me of the party my roommates, John, and I threw for Valentine's last year under the theme "If music be the food of love, play on." (W. Shakespeare) It was maybe the greatest thing to ever happen to me.

I made big paper flowers out of old sheet music from the thrift store and plain red tissue paper (sorry all the photos are dark; candlelight kind of killed the photo opt):

And we strung Christmas lights around the banister and ran them along the wall, then covered the whole thing with pages we ripped out of a book of Shakespearean love sonnets:

But the best part was our crazy talented friends who played their musical instruments for us.

The ever-fabulous B played her cello. (Find her ever-fabulous blog here.)

When I lived in this house before I got married, we kept a guitar on hand just to hear T play when he came over. (He's single, ladies.)

J played that ukulele like a rock star that night. Who plays the ukulele?

And we finished with a sing-a-long to "I'm the one who wants to be with you." 

Way to get into the music, Steph.

John and our friend Melanie found these fantastic champagne flutes for $0.25 each at Ikea!

And I knew I wanted to marry John when he engineered a way to get heart shapes made out of sugar onto the cupcakes.

This is going to be a weak Tuesday post. It's been a crazy day. Sorry about the lack of decorations. Most crafty time has been going into getting ready for a bridal shower this Saturday, so once that has happened, there will be lots of post-party how-tos. Until then, here is one of my favorite things of all time: 

We’re Going to Party Like It’s 1929

By ALEX WILLIAMS

Published: November 30, 2008

An event planner delivers a "winter wonderland" from the 99-cent store.

Sports Muckraking, Vol. 1

In a 1955 interview with Walter Cronkite, Sam Huff, a New York Giants linebacker summed up the strategy behind the sport: "We try to hurt everybody."

It's not a big surprise. We know it's about injuries as well as NFL insiders, and everyone just accepts it. Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights, wrote in his column "The Daily Beast" that "violence is not only embedded in football; it is the very celebration of it. It is why we like it. Take it away, continue efforts to curtail the savagery, and the game will be nothing, regardless of age or skill." But if we look at the NFL's history of attempts at making the game more civilized, fans will quickly realize they have nothing to worry about. As players' face protection has gone up, they've also learned to tackle with their heads instead of their arms. In 1970, the average weight of an offensive tackle was 260 lbs; in 2006 that number was 314. Last year James Harrison, linebacker for the Steelers stated his understanding of the game: "I try to hurt people." In more than 50 years, nothing has changed.

I hesitated before writing on this for Conversation Topic Tuesday for a while. But it's something that affects the safety of citizens of every age and in almost every town in the nation.

So here are a few talking points:

• A 2009 study conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research reported that former NFL players are 19 times more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease or similar memory-related diseases than a normal man between the ages of 30 and 49.
• Alan Schwarz of The New York Times reports that the only helmet standard to have been written was put together by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment--a volunteer consortium that receives a large part of its financial backing from the helmet manufacturers. This standard has not changed since 1973, even as concussion rates in youth football have risen.
• Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition experts believe results from both large collisions and the accumulation of small collisions (such as those sustained in football practice but not large enough to be recognized as dangerous) has been known to develop as young as 21 years old. Since CTE can only be diagnosed through autopsy, it is unclear how many football players suffer from the disease. However, Christopher Nowinski, a concussion expert, told The New Yorker that a prediction of 20 percent of NFL players having CTE seemed conservative.
• According to the National Center for Catastrophic Injury research, between 1982 and 2009, 295 fatalities resulted either directly or indirectly from high school football.
• The New York Times reports that "more than 100,000 children are wearing helmets too old to provide adequate protection — and perhaps half a million more are wearing potentially unsafe helmets that require critical examination, according to interviews with experts and industry data."

Perhaps more easy to digest are the human stories:

• The first diagnosis of CTE was made on the brain of Mike Webster, former center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, who died homeless living out of a truck.
• The second diagnosis of CTE was made on ex-Steeler offensive lineman Terry Long, who killed himself drinking antifreeze.
• CTE was also diagnosed in Justin Strzelczyk, who died when his car hit a tanker truck after he drove the wrong way down the New York Thruway. 
• Ted Johnson, a retired New England Patriots linebacker, was 34 years old when he began locking himself in his apartment with the blinds drawn for days at a time. His neurologist told him he was already showing early signs of Alzheimer's disease.
• Markus Koch, retired defensive lineman for the Washington Redskins, can't stand for too long or his legs go numb. He suffers from depression and is sometimes unable to leave his bed for long periods of time.

The evidence goes on and on and on. The more I've thought about it, the more the differences between football and the Roman spectacle begin to disappear. Except in the American version, by the time the athlete is defeated, all the crowds have left him to suffer alone.

(Sources: The New Yorker, The New York Times)

DIY Necklace Organizer

Home made birthday presents are quickly becoming my favorite thing.

At Christmas, when I mentioned to John that I'd like to take up a musical instrument, he designed and built the world's greatest music stand:

So awesome.












So for Birthday Week, John devoted a day to helping me build a jewelry organizer. The idea came from here, which is another one of my favorite place on the Internet. (Also just found out that she's related to Jordan of Oh Happy Day. Aesthetic perfection in the genes. Must be nice.) But I didn't have a cool vintage frame like she did, and since it's currently -20 degrees in the District of Columbia, chances of me finding a fabulous yard sale any time soon are not good. So we had to build our own.

We started with raw moulding board from a home improvement store:

John took it to a wood shop to cut it, but I think you could do the same thing at home with a hand saw and some careful measuring to make sure all the inside and outside lengths matched up.

Then we stapled it together on the back to make a frame:

(Sorry about the bad lighting. I got lazy and took all these pictures with an iPhone.)

Then we stained it blue with some easy rub-on wood stain. Then took a piece of pegboard and covered it with printed paper:

Then stuck some Anthro knobs through the paper:

And then cut said Anthro knobs short with a pair of bolt cutters.

We stapled it together and that was it!

(Note: The necklace on the far left was made for my wedding by the ever-fabulous Sola Biu: her site and blog. Everything she makes is beautiful and 15 percent goes to Invisible Children.)

So I know that doesn't have anything to do with dinner parties, but I thought a DIY project would be good at a time when so many people are snowed in. New dinner decorations coming soon.