“Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.”
– Bill Watterson

It’s Friday afternoon and I’m ready for the weekend!  I had a bad time of it yesterday because short work weeks always throw me off and I spent all of Wednesday evening convinced it was Thursday night and saying to myself, “One more day, C., one more day.”  Reality reasserted itself around 9pm and poisoned all of Thursday for me.  But it’s alright!  This weekend I’m going on a small adventure and Sunday evening we get to pull up a seat, drink a cup of tea, and ferociously judge pretty dresses together – one of my favorite activities with you, well-beloved minions.

So, until then, let’s see what’s been going on around the world and cherry pick a few things for you, eh?

Russian scientists have apparently taken an Ice Age seed and brought it fully to flower!  Next up, reviving that mammoth they found in the tundra a couple years ago.  Wasn’t there a bad 80’s movie along these lines except with Neanderthals?  Science!

Apparently facial recognition technology has taken the inevitable leap – advertising (coupled with social activism).  Wasn’t there a bad Nought’s movie along these lines except with clones?  More science!

This explains my neighbors’ mid-night, ah, activities.

6 Reasons to Carry a Handkerchief, from The Art of Manliness.  I should really buy J. some at some point, I remember stealing my dad’s all the time as a girl.

Hands down the fanciest thing I make for semi-regular consumption.  Between this and my gourmet mac-and-cheese recipe, I can fool people into thinking I’m some sort of culinary genius.

And that, as they say, is all, folks.  Again, you are all required to report for Snarky Fashion Commentary Duties, this Sunday night.  Wear your comfiest pajamas and we’ll see you there!

“The internet is a great way to get on the net.”
– Bob Dole

Seriously.  I am baffled by how much snot the human body can produce – surely I should be comatose from dehydration by now.

Too much information?  Ah, well, we’re close.  Here: ignore my overly loud nose blowing and look at some interesting things I found for you.  (I apologize for treating you like toddlers, easily amused by shiny, noisy objects, but a week-long cold is a terrible thing.  Indulge Aunty C. and smile at the jangling keys, alright?)

Italian artist Anna Utopia Giordano has a fantastic venture, the Venus Project, wherein she ruthlessly photoshops iconic images of the goddess to make them more in keeping with current beauty industry standards.  Botticelli’s Birth of Venus is one of my favorite works of all time, once while in Florence I bought a reproduction of it from a seedy street vendor and displayed it in my college flat (to the discomfort of an unbelievably prudish flatmate and her even more puritanical boyfriend – keeping them off-balance became a sport).  Seeing her reshaped really threw me.

Yo dawg, history is the shiz!  (I apologize for even attempting that…I can’t pull it off, even on the anonymous internet…  But history is.  The shiz, I mean.)

London tube humor.

You guys!  Downton Abbey stars out of costume!  The illusion is shattered.  Although seeing Ethel thus doesn’t really shock me in the slightest – that tart!  Perhaps now would be the time to brag/admit that when living in London, I got to see Michelle Dockery perform in her breakout role in Pygmalion at the Old Vic.  Believe it or not, I didn’t love her in it…  We all make mistakes, my dears, don’t hold it against me.

French parenting: superior to American or not?  Having had an overabundance of opportunity to witness American tourists growing up, I can admit that you can always pick them out in a crowd: they usually are the loud, misbehaving ones.  But my family may just be snobbish.  Weigh in and let me know which side you fall on.

Pintrest find of the week: this soup.  Ohmybleedingheavenstryitatonce.

Marie inspires me to decorate my Someday House with a gossip table.  I need a more elegant place to spend my hours long weekend calls to my girls than the corner of the couch J. and I bought on Craigslist.  This is a classy establishment.