garden update

Its been a while since I posted any kind of garden related content...and Jeff is sick of seeing Air Bart, so here are a couple of pix from the veggie patch. Here's where things stand at the end of May:



In the left hand row, from front to back, there are brussel sprouts, zucchini, arugula and lettuce. The next row in also has some growth, although its harder to pick out...a few beets, acorn squash and spinach have come up and a strong showing from the radishes. The beans haven't done so well...I replanted a bunch today (cucumbers too), but there are also a couple of varieties of carrots that i'm holding out hope for. the other prominent feature to the left of the planks are the peas...i've got some trellises at the ready to help them go vertical.

To the right of the planks, there are onions, peppers, eggplants, a couple of dead or comatose artichokes (RIP), all kinds of herbs, several varieties of heirloom tomatoes and a half dozen rutgers tomatoes, so that I can get a little Jersey in Westchester! There are also some broccoli rabe, broccoli regulars, and romanesco cauliflour seedlings that are coming up...and the last round of seeds are germinating for the summer garden: okra and more peppers.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to start sampling some of the lettuce in the next few weeks...there won't be any proper vegetables for at least a month, but I'm anxious to start eating something before the groundhogs discover the patch...

new brunswick 1989

something like THIS

the web meets the kitchen

this is pretty genius. link from www.mashable.com



definitely worth a try one of these days!

For old time's sake

Waking up this morning and making my habitual rounds of the interweb, I came upon this picture, one of the most memorable moments of my childhood. It was definitely the first great sporting memory for me, the genesis of way too much time following the Arsenal!

I must have watched the replays of the 1979 FA cup final almost as many times as I watched Star Wars on one of the super clunker VHS machines that were in circulation back then (big ups to dad, always an "early adopter", even before the phrase was coined!



Anyway, I'll always remember Liam Brady as the best player on the pitch, and his cross to the gloriously afro'd/bubble perm'd Alan Sunderland to slide into the net just before the final whistle. Its a shame that Arsenal fans won't enjoy anything like this in 2009, but this goal will always live on!

higher ground

For any of you looking for some good tunes (albeit tres tres retro), check this album (and blog) out! CTI records are pretty tough to find, and it took me more than 15 years to upgrade my original copy of this album: a blank tape copy of a blank tape copy...talk about lo-fi! Anyway, I found this dude who has put a MAJOR collection of music together... on his blog. Check it out, in particular, this album, and dig the Big Sur Suite! If it was good enough for DJ Premier, you know you're gonna like it!

2 recent themes collide

Combining two recent themes of the blog... gardening and out of home (OOH) advertising, comes an entry from a very unlikely corporate source: Mickey D's:



A nice find by the "Ad Mouse"! http://ad-mouse.blogspot.com/2008/06/green-mcds-billboard.html

I have to say that I admire ads and stunts like this, even if its unlikely to send me to the golden arches anytime soon! bravo, and hopefully, i'll be planting lettuce tomorrow!

while i'm on the subject of OOH advertising

Clyde on the job shared this...


see more pwn and owned pictures

BMW going Bobby Fischer on their Teutonic competitors. How do you say Touche' in Deutsch?

the demise of fashion advertising

If you're reading this blog, you probably know that I'm no expert on fashion. Not even fashion advertising. And certainly not jewelery. For that, I must defer to my man Stu the Jew. But now that my commute exposes me to full station outdoor media buys at Grand Central Terminal, its hard to avoid the ads targeted at the Metro North crew.

During the month of April, Saks Fifth Avenue ran a pretty extensive campaign featuring watches/necklaces/broaches, etc. While their ads didn't quite capture the spirit of the time, you know busted up economy and all, they featured some very upscale photography of fairly creative pieces, along with playful copywriting that might actually get your attention. And while that's not quite enough to send me to the store to buy wifey some jewelery, at least I know its there in the event that I win the lottery.

Fast forward to May, and now Tiffany's has the floor. Their pitch? A bunch of over- made-up models wearing keys?! Apparently, they're iconic or something. Whatever.

But a funny thing happened while I was typing out this post. I tried to find the images of the Saks advertising online to post here. And it was nowhere to be found. Not on their website, not in the Google results, not in the ad blogs, no PR...nowheresville. Just a bunch of Soviet style images that looked like Stoli ads. And Tiffany, to their credit, feature the collection on their website, and run Google ads to support it.

I'm willing to bet which company gets a better return on its ad budget... I wonder if they see higher conversion from Metro North zip codes?

almost famous

LoHud.com, the online version of the Journal News, the local newspaper is hip to the Almar Garden and CityCountryCity! The ran a feature story on local gardeners today, with a teaser on the front page and a huge photo of me holding seeds on the front page of the life & style section. The neighbors hipped us to this in the AM...told us to watch out for the Katonah paparazzi. When they're finished with Martha, maybe they'll swing by...



This was all much more excting than the reality of today's task: working in a bunch of compost and shrimp based fertilizers...literally shovelling shit and seafood. Somehow, I can't quite capture that smell in a blog!