I’ve been teaching myself how to arrange flowers so that I will be ready to do-it-myself on our wedding day. Here are pictures of some of my attempts through beautiful Instagram filters. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that arranging flowers is hard; luckily it’s also fun. #diy #weddings #florals #EdwinaBerry

hipster-animals:

if you like the site, reblog this.

When hipster animals breaks 10K followers, I promise something amazing.

Music has always been a part of my life. My father can play a few different instruments: the guitar, harmonica, violin, and even a bit of the accordion. Some of my earliest memories are of him playing his guitar and singing ‘this land is my land.’ Both of my parents share a passion for The Kinks, The Beatles, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, etc. and their music collection was seriously stacked. I remember discovering the cabinet that held my dad’s records and CDs and learning how to use the record player (put the pin down ever so softly), CD player (don’t force the drawer closed), and speaker system (my dad is a firm believer in sound quality and so the sub woofer, amps, and balance were vital to his sweet set up). Honestly, I have to give my folks credit for letting me and my grubby kid hands have full access to their music and not flipping out when I listened to their Graceland CD so many times that it stopped working.

I loved the well worn records that smelled like old books but I was a glutton for the shiny CD jewel cases with their glossy inserts. The inserts were my holy grail because more often than not THE LYRICS WERE IN THERE! In order for me to feel fully connected to a song I have to be able to sing along. So naturally I employed a heavy combination of reading along and playing songs or entire albums on repeat ad nauseum. The notion that a song I love (or any media really) could get “played out” just has never really resonated with me. Sometimes I’m just in the mood for one song all day long. I recently listened to The Only Living Boy in New York on repeat for an entire days worth of commuting/time spent in transit and it felt so right. I can’t help it, I know what I like and I REALLY LIKE WHAT I LIKE! It goes for movies (try to guess how many times I’ve seen Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince), books (its almost embarrassing how often I re-read Confessions of a Shopaholic), clothing (why wouldn’t you want a shirt that fits perfectly in every color available in your size?!), food (my longest phase in recent months lasted from November to March when I ate the roasted chicken wrap from dirty bird for lunch at least 3 times a week), and even people (if I like you, I love you and I REALLY LOVE YOU). It’s not that I am afraid of trying new things, I just like the things I like so hard that I can’t give them a rest until I’m good and ready.

As a kid I would just spend hours listening and singing along to my parents music in the living room. I choreographed dances in the foyer to the show tunes (It’s A Hard Knock Life was my best work for sure) and sat calmly and introspectively on our big green couch during the sad songs on The Big Chill soundtrack. But as puberty and middle school appeared on the horizon it became clear to me that I needed to be able to listen to music in the privacy of my own room and alas, for my 11th birthday I got a 3-disc CD player. It was a sick radio, tape, and cd playing combo. I probably made a hundred mix tapes on that thing maybe more I don’t know, I have never been good at quantifying things.

Middle school was weird and hard for me emotionally, my family life took a turn for the shits, I grew all tall and awkward (4 inches in one summer!), lit our house on fire, got hit by a car, and was still being forced against my will to attend Hebrew school. All in all, it was a big mess. I listened to a lot of different music then but the biggest, most important music to me during that time was by far They Might Be Giants. I could not get enough of them. I even made mix tapes of Flood and John Henry that had the same songs as the actual albums but in the order I preferred to listen to them in so that I didn’t have to dilly about fast forwarding and rewinding with my dope yellow Walkman. My version of John Henry started with I Should Be Allowed to Think and ended with Thermostat; Flood kicked off with Minimum Wage and ended with the Theme from Flood.

I recently started listening to They Might Be Giants again after a long, long hiatus. I’m not sure why I stopped but because I did all of the songs transport me back to that time in a way that feels truly profound. Listening to them (non-stop as I have been for the past month) has brought back memories of even the smallest details from that time. I swear I can smell the peach perfume oil from The Body Shop that I wore and see the Doc Marten Mary Janes on my feet when Your Racist Friend starts playing. If that isn’t traveling through time then I don’t know what is.

I just remembered this nearly out of the blue on the F train to Asssscat.

When I was in 2nd grade we had this creative writing assignment to facilitate our learning of alliterations. The assignment was to create a character using the first letter from either your first or last name and write a paragraph about them. The teacher passed out big cardboard letters with eyes that we were to color to look like a character as well. The name of your character had to be an alliteration, the example Mrs. Arnold used was Artistic Abigail (this teacher had particularly well crafted example projects and I found it intimidating, how was I supposed to duplicate perfection? How?!).

I wish I could climb back into my 7 year old psyche and remember my creative process on this assignment but all I know is that the character I created was Worrying Wick, a worried capital W with curly hair and freckles.

I guess we are always who we are, you know?

mattfisher:

Please read the case information. (thanks Jon!)

My Sister Paid Progressive To Defend Her Killer In Court.

My response to Progressive’s statement.

Unbelievable.

(via gavinspeiller)

mattfisher:

Today, in response to my blog post entitled “My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court,” Progressive released a statement saying that  ”Progressive did not serve as the attorney for the defendant” in my sister’s case. I am not a lawyer, but this is what I observed in the courtroom during my sister’s trial:

At the beginning of the trial on Monday, August 6th, an attorney identified himself as Jeffrey R. Moffat and stated that he worked for Progressive Advanced Insurance Company. He then sat next to the defendant. During the trial, both in and out of the courtroom, he conferred with the defendant. He gave an opening statement to the jury, in which he proposed the idea that the defendant should not be found negligent in the case. He cross-examined all of the plaintiff’s witnesses. On direct examination, he questioned all of the defense’s witnesses. He made objections on behalf of the defendant, and he was a party to the argument of all of the objections heard in the case. After all of the witnesses had been called, he stood before the jury and gave a closing argument, in which he argued that my sister was responsible for the accident that killed her, and that the jury should not decide that the defendant was negligent. 

I am comfortable characterizing this as a legal defense. 

I wrote about this case on my blog because I felt that, in the wake of my sister’s death, Progressive had sought out ways to meet their strict legal obligation while still disrespecting my sister’s memory and causing my family a world of hurt. Their statement disavowing their role in this case, a case in which their attorney stood before my sister’s jury and argued on behalf of her killer, is simply infuriating.

(via gavinspeiller)

natedern:

Don’t buy Progressive Insurance. Read on for my friend’s terrible experience with this evil company:

mattfisher:

My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court

I’ve been sending out some impertinent tweets about Progressive Insurance lately, but I haven’t explained how they pissed me off. So I will do that here as succinctly as possible. There’s a general understanding that says, “insurance companies— oh they’re awful,” but since Progressive turned their shit hose on my late sister and my parents, I’ve learned some things that really surprised me.

I’ll try to cleave to the facts. On June 19, 2010, my sister was driving in Baltimore when her car was struck by another car and she was killed. The other driver had run a red light and hit my sister as she crossed the intersection on the green light.

Read More

(via cathrynmudon)

gilmoregurlz:

davebluvband:

Harold Night 8/7/12 (Creature, The Pox, Surfing)

My new camera arrived in the mail yesterday, so I went to Harold Night and took some snap shots of the first half. Here are my favorites that I was able to get.

these are awesome!! great snaps Dave!

i look super in love with my teammates (because i am!)

I love these!

Clearly, Steve and I were separated at birth.

gavinspeiller:

Here’s a video I wrote for UCBComedy about the Chick-Fil-A situation. Starring the fantastic Will Hines. Thanks to Todd Beiber, Julie Gomez and Zach Goldbaum.

Hilarious.

wrongcharlie:

Have an ok Thursday, Tumblr. Enjoy…these things.

(via allcreatures:dailymail)

Game over.