Look At This

We are currently discussing the shape and direction of this blog, and this has turned out to be a great excuse for my inborn laziness. I feel no compunction to write posts that may be contrary to the eventual blogging strategy we develop, and therefore, I have resorted to silence during the planning process. Fortunately, the “Look at This” section seems likely to be an ongoing feature so you will not have to do without the benefit of my wanderings and wittisisms during our time of blog meditation. So while we argue the various blog focus options look at this . . .

• While my collection of plastic milk crate and cinder block furniture may or may not qualify, there are definitely some stylish recycled/reused products out there.
• You have no doubt heard the common warning about comparing apples to oranges unless of course you are the average real estate appraiser.
• Sub-Arctic Ice Volcanoes is not just the name of my new indy rock band, it is also the central arguement of yet another attempt to debunk global warming.
• Flip flops - You’ve put your feet in them. Now, put your feet on them.
• While researching that second link I left my apples and oranges out on the counter a little too long. Sure enough, the fruit flies showed up. Fortunately, I now have a solution for those pesky invaders.
• There has been a lot of talk around the office about getting some postgreen bikes. Could this be the answer?

Today marks my first day as an employee of postgreen, and Chad has made an effort to keep me too busy to write this post. Even now he is distracting me with ideas about the 100k House line. Dammit Chad, I’m trying to tell people about all the cool stuff I found on the Internet this week! Jeez.

Try to ignore him and look at this . . .

• Now I dislike a wet newspaper as much as the next guy, but what is one to do with all that pesky plastic protecting our informative black and white from the summer storms. Well, now you can have your unsmeared ink and a gift for the special person in your life.
• Yes these ideas are crazy . . . crazy like a fox . . . if that fox were keen on saving the world from an impending climate disaster.
• George Carlin is dead, but his thoughts on meat leave on. Thanks interweb.
• And my fiancee said those pizza boxes I was saving in the basement wouldn’t be good for anything. Hello pepperoni scented recliner. That’ll teach her to question my absurd hoarding.

A little brief today, but what can I say. I need a post work beverage and a little down time.

Searching for valuables in the flotsam and jetsam that washes ashore can be a tedious and potentially unrewarding task. It is much better to find an experienced beachcomber, follow them at a discreet distance and wait until they discover a treasure amidst the trash. When that happens a little blunt trauma to the back of said beachcomber’s head can make his treasure yours.

Well, consider me your beachcomber but instead of clubbing me with a conch shell, just look at this . . .

• Some people carry important papers in their briefcases, some carry small unmarked bills, but you could be the person transporting pure power in your sporty attache’.
• Alright, technically this isn’t “green” except in the way that it glorifies nature, but if you have ever seen cooler pictures of birds, I demand you explain why you have kept them from me. Well?
• For decades the citizens of Chicago believed their heritage was one of chilly discomfort, but it turns out they were merely overwhelmed with natural resources. One, big, blustery resource.
• The representatives of the South American Defense Council sit around a vast wooden table in the secret command bunker deep in the Amazon Basin. Despite the rules, a visibly shake Argentinean general lights a hand rolled cigarette. Nobody complains. A hopeless silence has decended on the proceedings. Despite days of debate and discussion, no one knows how to counter the devestating invasion of the mighty Chinook Salmon.
• There are good protest ideas and bad protest ideas. There are also activities that enhance ones enjoyment of the human form and ones that don’t. I’ll let you decide where naked biking falls in both those categories. Depending on where you work this might be one to save for the home computer.
• Well, we’ve broken the whole nudity barrier, so we might as well run with it. At least this commercial will probably be all right for work.
• Oh, and for those that may have missed it, look at me take it a bit over the top for the 100k House on the stage at Ignite Philly.

Wow, so many exciting green links have been ignored in favor of focusing on and recovering from Ignite Philly. Rather than the normal hump-day (that’s Wednesday and shame on anyone who thought otherwise), Look at This has been pushed all the way back until Friday. An embarrassing lack of consistency? Maybe, but we had a hell of a presentation on the 100k house instead, so you’ll have to forgive us. Don’t worry, I will definitely post somelinks to the video of the event when it becomes available, and you can judge. For now though, look at this:

• I’ve been a big fan of beverages in bags ever since I ripped open my first box of wine and enjoyed the novelty and increased portability of the silver sack inside. Now, apparently, I can get milk in a bag as well. Convenient, greenish and somewhat pleasantly udder-like . . . too much?
• As a kid I remember using bamboo for lots of things like swords, clubs and lightsabers. Admittedly, there is a sort of theme here, but still the stuff is pretty versitile. I just never realized how versitile.
• I enjoy cooking, and I hate plastic cutting boards. Turns out that for once my hate is properly directed.
• One of my greatest downfalls as an artist is my inability to draw a true circle. My stick figures lack the same expressive power when their heads are shaped like kidney beans. Well, apparently art doesn’t always require excellent drawing skills, and the world occasionally provides the circles for you. Tin cans, for instance, have a very pleasing circular shape, and tin can art is much more attractive than it sounds.
• This is about painting dead squirrels. Having once done an art film involving roadkill, I couldn’t resist pointing this one out.

That’s it for now, but I promise some more original thought fodder in the next couple of days.

It is Wednesday, or 4th day if the pagan references to Woden (Woden’s Day) offend your Quaker-esque sensibilities, and in celebration, we have yet another collection of interesting web findings to share with you. So sit back, relax and look at this . . .

• Just when I thought there were no more new things to do with my urine, something like this comes along. Boy is my fiancee going to be relieved.
• Some people say you can’t learn anything from a banana. Well, have I got a lesson for them.
• Now, I’m not one for drinking Heineken, at least not in The States. Skunky lager just isn’t my cup of tea. But, if I had some Sly Fox cans lying around the house I might be up for trying this beer friendly reuse project. I’m told it also works with soda cans, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
• What’s a Wednesday without dire portents of doom and destruction?
• The sea is full of terrible dangers. If you watched the Planet Earth series with the great whites leaping 6 feet out of the water, you would know this. Here’s a little visual of some of the most dangerous creatures in the Mediterranean.

If you have something else we should look at this week, put it in the comments.

I can’t believe it. Wednesday came and went, and I forgot to point to cool stuff for you to enjoy. I feel terrible. I can just picture you all wandering the vast expanse of the Internet, destinationless, confused, unable to decide what to look at. I am deeply sorry. Please accept this late edition of Look at This as an apology for my terrible failure.

• If you absolutely have to drive at least have the ecological courtesy to use some high tech Korean parking.
• For the record, I am against blowing people up. It just seems like a heavy-handed way of getting your point across, and I don’t like it. However, if you are a country, militia or other military force that can’t be dissuaded from your self-destructive, homicidal tendencies, at least consider using an environmentally friendly munition.
• I love coffee, and I love elaborate chandeliers. If only there were a way to bring this two loves together . . .
• The first person to bring me an egg roll in one of these gets their picture on my wall. I will point the picture out to every guest I have and say, “this is the person who changed the way I eat food brought to me by strangers.”
• This is probably the most pressing issue of the day. I was so worried about it that I immediately forwarded it to my fiancee. I hope she will have the same sense of urgency.
• This is a little something for those of us who are too lazy or uncoordinated to bike everywhere. I definitely need one of these.

Well, I hope that did something to make up for my neglect. If you have any interesting finds I missed, be sure to let me know.

Well, I lost my computer this week. The hard drive burned out after 3+ years of reliable service, and I will admit . . . I shed a tear or two. Now, you would think that such a loss would limit my Internet appetite for the week, but it seems to have had just the opposite effect. Maybe this is just my way of dealing with grief, or maybe it stems from the fact that I absolutely love my new machine. Either way, I have plenty of fodder for this weeks Look at This segment. So, before I get bogged down in sad nostalgia and the joys of new love . . . look at this:

• Let the litigation begin. Some bold lawyers are attempting to bring suits against Big Oil that model themselves on those that hurt Big Tobacco. I have a great idea for a film tie-in . . . Thank You for Driving.
• Mmmmmm . . . glowing glass donuts. Let there be light. Delicious donutty light.
• I always thought that the solution to most of my problems involved less flying rodents. Turns out I was wrong. Hmmm, if bats can bring back our forests, what could snakes, spiders and clowns do? It might turn out that only our nightmares can truly fulfill our dreams.
• The Walrus and the Carpenter Were walking close at hand; They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand . . . sorry about the poetry (by Lewis Carrol for the illiterati out there), but it is true in a way. If you were a walrus, you would be pretty upset about a lot of sand too. Why? Because it probably means the ice is gone which doesn’t bode well for a blubbery fella like yourself.
• Greenvertising done well.
• I’ve never been a big proponent of garden art. If it isn’t growing, edible and or a talking scarecrow, I don’t want it in my garden. But, there was something about these recycled metal sculptures that changed my mind. Could it be the flying monkey and a chance to make two Wizard of Oz references in the same paragraph. Perhaps my pretties . . . perhaps.
• My worst nightmare is coming true. The sturgeon are gathering. It is only a matter of time before they rise up to take their rightful place as rulers of the Earth. Excuse me as I retire to my sturgeon-proof fortress. You can build your own sturgeon-proof fortress by constructing any structure that is 25 feet or further from the nearest water. Mine is a tent in the desert . . . impenetrable.

It is Wednesday again and with it comes the desire to point out all the interesting stuff I’ve come across during another week’s web indulgence. Fortunately for all of you, I was able to struggle through my debilitating sinus issues and make it to the chair in front of my computer every single day. As a result I have a nice handful of links to point at and say look at this . . .

• I guarantee that no one in this village runs the dishwasher, microwave, 42 inch flat screen and Dolby surround sound stereo at the same time. Is it possible to live when I can’t charge my phone, surf the internet, blend a smoothie and take a scalding hot bath at the same time?
• I believe I said something recently about the unexpected benefits of higher gas prices. Could this be yet another? I think it might.
• As some of you might be aware, I do not own a TV. This lack of television is not really a statement of any kind. I am as quick as the next person to stare at the flickering box if there is one in my vicinity. I simply don’t have one in my house, but I might make room for a pile of them if they were assembled like this.
• There is rocket fuel in our water, and apparently, this is not as freaking cool as some of us super-hero hopefuls would like to believe.
• Save the planet - entomb a tree.

Nic Darling is a writer, marketer and fiddle admirer. He can’t play the fiddle, but he sure can admire the hell out of it.

Well, it’s Wednesday again and I’m sitting in a Las Vegas hotel feeling as ungreen as possible. There is nothing environmentally sustainable about a casino oasis in the middle of the desert. That said, it has been an important trip for my business, and hopefully success will allow me to devote a few more minutes to reading and writing green. After all, I have a lot to learn.

Speaking of having a lot to learn, here’s some of what I’ve seen this week. Look at this:

• I’m not a big fan of umbrellas. They seem particularly annoying in the city when the sidewalks become a gauntlant of oversized, personal people covers, but if you’re going to use one, at least make sure its biodegradeable.
• For an anti-umbrella fan I have come across quite a bit of umbrella related material this week. Besides, I have always wanted to see how many times I can mention umbrella in a single post. Anyway, check out this use for umbrella water runoff.
• I currently don’t own a TV, but I’m getting a little tired of watching movies on my 12 inch laptop screen. Maybe this is the solution. Of course, I also need some money. Anyone?

I have more, but I’m out of time. Expect a few really good posts to make up for my negligence later this week.

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It’s Wednesday, and we’re all recovering from our post Earth Day hangovers, caused by the delicious, green, organic beer we drank out of a sense of duty to our planet. Oh, if only we didn’t have such a strong sense of duty. So, in light of our condition, we thought it would be a good idea to start our new weekly feature where, instead of researching, crafting and editing a meticulous post, we simply point to cool stuff we’ve found on the Internet and say “look at this.” You can probably expect this every Wednesday, unless the Internet stops producing cool stuff or if we’re extra tired.

Anyway, without further ado . . . Look At This:

• Nothing says soothing, post Earth Day happiness like pictures of trees. Yep . . . just pictures of trees, but they are really, really nice pictures of trees.
• Now, I know some of you out there have been wondering what to do with all that pig urine you have sitting around. It smells bad and takes up a lot of space in your basement, but somehow you can’t bring yourself to throw it out. Well, do we have a solution for you. Turn that cumbersome porcine micturition into useful, environmentally conscious plastic. Any friends you have left will thank you.
• This fridge may not hold the plethora of items we are used to seeing in Sunny Delight commercials (it’s behind the purple stuff), but it sure uses less electricity. While it may be a less-than-noble application, I see a new back yard beer cooler in my future.
• I never thought I would enjoy a site devoted to light bulbs. I mean, I’m into some pretty weird stuff, but light bulbs? At least the site name is cool enough to allow me to salvage some of my dignity. Careful, this thing can devour large portions of your life. (Thanks to John Barrie for pointing this out)
  

Well, that’s all for this week. There was plenty of other great stuff out there, but your gonna have to find it yourself (and share it with me in the comments).

Nic Darling is a writer and marketing guy who thinks postgreen is super neat. Of course, he also liked the movie Starship Troopers, so his judgement might be somewhat questionable.