the best present, EVER.

ann is THE WORST when it comes to surprises, especially when she plans to do the surprising. (she also hates being surprised, as in birthday parties, but that's a story for another day.) mostly it's because she just can't contain her excitement.

so, for the last two weeks, ann has been telling dabney she would receive something in the mail. and that she would love it. no, she would LOVE it. and that is was a book. a great book that she would love. but that's all, that's ALL she was going to say.

every day ann would run down the street after the ups girl in her little brown shorts, and after she caught her (and mentally made out with her) she would ask after her package from amazon.com.

needless to say, dabney's expectations usually are - and in this case were - through the roof. but then, after she closed her eyes and put out her hands for ann to give her the book...

she fell in love.

a year in japan is kate williamson's journal of drawings based on her time in kyoto. really sweet illustrations accompany handwritten notes describing snippets of japanese culture- things like mochi, rock gardens, electric rugs, and the prominence of socks. the precision and whimsy with which things are depicted seem to really capture the spirit of japan.



both ann and dabney loved seeing the same kinds of things that made them giggle while there.

poker antics

last night was poker night at superette. carrrrrrrrrrmen won the game, but ann undoubtedly got the real prize of the evening.

happy blogiversary!

ann and dabney couldn't let march go by without at least acknowledging superette's 1st anniversary. to commemorate, a visual year in review:

brooklyn bound again

ann and dabney are happy to report that mogo will once again be a participant in the renegade craft fair this coming june.

last year's RCF marked ann and dabney's launch as professional DIYers. and what a debut it was. not only did they sell a good deal of their wares, they fell in craft love with many of their fellow vendors.

speaking of crafts, the aformentioned "cord organizer cases" have finally made it onto the website. ann and dabney are really happy with the results. you can check them out here.

stay tuned for several more designs, coming real soon.

special dog

today's post goes out to superette's good friend lauren (a.k.a. "short & angry") whose lovable corgi-huahua, chelsea, went to the big dog park in the sky yesterday.


chelsea and mom in NH, aug 2005

chelsea really was special (special ed, as her mom would say).

a short list of ann and dabney's favorite things about chelsea:

1) if, while walking across the living room floor, she encountered a paper bag, she would stop - stymied - until someone moved it for her;
2) she had a small stroke several years ago and, as a result, always leaned a little bit to the right;
3) she could wander in small circles around the yard for hours; and
4) it's clear that she and lauren were meant for one another and brought out the best in each other.

hockney collages

seeking a little inspiration and a break from their workroom, ann and dabney made their way to the museum of fine arts to view the new david hockney exhibition.

as intimate, colorful, and masterful as hockney's oil, pen, and colored pencil portraits are, ann and dabney were particularly intrigued by his amazing photo collages.

here are some samples:


the scrabble game


the artist's mother (not in exhibit)


the portrait above, made out of poloroids, made ann's head spin in excitement. so just as they exited the museum, she snapped this:

loving the new format...

for another couple of great ones, click here.

really great mogo news!

mogo can now be found at otsu in san francisco! while you are there, check out the rest of otsu's really cute stuff. ann and dabney particularly love the jill bliss calendars and astrosatchel bags, not to mention all the great otsu print products and tshirts by various artists.

on friday, dabney also finally got her act together and posted all the links to handmade goods that she's been gathering over the past year. she did it through the modern marvel that is del.icio.us, which saved ann umpteen hours of creating links directly on the website. you can access them here, or here, if you are in the market for some great gifts. ann and dabney will continue to add links, so feel free to revisit often.

luck o' the filipina to ya!

between the crowds and the drunken revelry, it had been years since ann had gotten her nerve up to go out in boston on st. patrick's day. luckily, a quick craft project put her immediately in the spirit.

sticker made with the help of of a xyron 510

screw march 20th!

spring signals the height of dabney's obsession with cherry blossoms. last year's trip to dc was a bust, and - sadly - there are no plans to be anywhere near cherry blossoms this march or april. it only being march 16th, it hit her a little bit early this year (must of been all those 60 degree days last week) so, this morning, dabney visited all the hanami viewing websites in japan and shed a couple of tears of grief. then she settled for drawing her own on illustrator. they made her happy for a few minutes, but it was very short-lived.

media literacy 101

caterina.net recently wrote about a great exercise testing the power of branding. a group of people were asked to draw well-known logos, completely from memory.

of course, ann and dabney wanted to find out how they'd do. they each came up with a list of companies, and both jotted down their immediate impressions. ann's are on the left; dabney's show up on the right-hand column.


this was an easy one. it took ann a minute to visualize it, but it was easy after that.


again, pretty straightforward. although, ann's does look like a peacock.


this logo was easy to remember, but a little hard for dab to get just right.


ann had a good sense of this to begin with, although she might have conflated two car logos. obviously, dab had no clue.


dabney had a vague idea of what it should look like. this time, ann had no clue.


this is quite pathetic.


here are the results from the original exercise. the peugeot ones are pretty funny.

CAMERAphone

it's amazing what all a little device can do. take for example ann's samsung sch-a970 mobile phone, equipped with a 2mp camera. ann got this back in the fall with the notion that perhaps she could leave her camera behind every once in a while and still satiate her shutterbug tendencies. in fact, the 2mp phone is equal to ann and dabney's trusty canon powershot s200, purchased in 2001, that she and dabney toted around the world with them a few years later.

while the phone does indeed struggle in low light settings, it ain't bad. in ideal light, this phone, mind you, can do this:



and this:



and just recently, ann discovered this fun feature... a digital actionsampler, if you will...

to recap: rum. food. rum.

on saturday night, superette played host to a reunion of sorts, featuring six of annie's college friends (plus dabney and "april," the only non-swells in the bunch). the theme for the meal stemmed from dabney's recent travel souvenirs from the virgin islands - four bottles of coconut rum and 2 bottles of vanilla rum - that she hand-carried home on the plane. they had been burning a hole in the superette cabinet for months now, and jm's arrival provided the perfect reason to throw a "caribbean-style" dinner party.



and friends, there is a time to be humble, but this is not one of them. while ann spent most of the day doing some much-needed housework, dabney toiled in the kitchen. and the feast that followed was fish topped with coconut chutney and steamed in banana leaves, mango slaw, coconut rice cakes with spicy carrot sauce, and black-eyed peas with tempeh. dessert was vanilla ice cream with a balsamic reduction.

even the rum drinks that followed couldn't erase the memory of this meal.

perhaps even better was being able to eat on the back porch for the first time this year. ann and dabney couldn't have been happier if they were sitting on a beach somewhere under the sun with a drink in hand. absolutely everything about it was delicious.

photoshop babysteps pt. 2

now that the world of photoshop is opening to them, ann and dabney have figured out some fun things to do for family presents this year. here, the american boy models superette’s limited-edition “mustache annie” t-shirt.

photoshop babysteps pt. 1

ann has been laboriously pouring over the photoshop book she borrowed from the library in an effort to learn the program beyond resizing, lightening, darkening, sharpening, and cutting and pasting the occasional mustache.

here, ann demonstrates her new found ability to use the polygram select tool, drop shadow, and lossy and dither her way to a transparent gif from a plain old jpeg.

before:


after:

oscar pool results

thanks to all of you for your participation in the oscar pool. we have been anxiously awaiting the tabulation of the results by the accounting firm of pricewaterhousecoopers. without further ado, here are the results:

THE WINNER OF THIS YEAR'S OSCAR POOL WITH THE HIGH SCORE OF 680 WHOPPING POINTS... dabney. despite what you may be thinking, there was absolutely no favoritism here. seriously.


SECOND PLACE WITH A SCORE OF 665 goes out to absolutely audrey in sunny CA.


perhaps two heads works better than one because THIRD PLACE WITH A SCORE OF 605 goes to rana and briana in steamy VAg-jay-jay.


congratulations to all the winners and to everyone else - better luck next year.

oscar X & X files

stealing inspiration from movieline's regular endpage feature, the x & y files, ann and dabney watched the oscars and couldn't help but notice a few things. for instance:

this nominee, terrance howard...


... looks like a little like this guy...


... with this guy sprinkled in.


this nominee, writer-director-actor, noah baumbach (by the way, superette *hearts* him)...


... looks a great deal like this dude...


... and this guy.


still tabulating scores from the last night's pool. if any of you out there have scores, let us know by then of the end of the day to be included.