'cause geeks need furniture, too...

The top is poured concrete which comes in at about 18 pounds a foot, so this one weighs about, oh, a gazillion pounds, give or take.  The base is reclaimed lumber.

Can someone help me load it onto the truck please?

Anyone?

A.  A term for a hair pulling fight that occurs predominately in females.  Similar to mano a mano in males.

B.  A slang phrase used in the plastic surgery circles for breast implants.

A small, curved sofa on which two people can face each other.

ANSWER:  C

Etymology

French tête-à-tête (“‘head-to-head’”)

[edit] Noun

tête-à-tête (plural tête-à-têtes)

1. A face-to-face meeting, or private conversation between two people, usually in an intimate setting; a head-to-head.
2. A bench or sofa that allows two people to talk face-to-face
   
3. 

What is Negative Space?

Negative space in action: do you see a vase or two faces?

Image: ©2006 Marion Boddy-Evans. Licensed to About.com, Inc.

Negative space isn’t the place your mind retreats to when a painting isn’t going well. Negative space is the space between objects or parts of an object, or around it. Studying this can have a surprisingly positive effect on a painting.

In her book Drawing on the Right Hand Side of the Brain Betty Edwards uses a great Bugs Bunny analogy to explain negative space. Imagine Bugs Bunny speeding along and running through a door. What you’ll see in the cartoon is a door with a bunny-shaped hole in it. What’s left of the door is the negative space, that is the space around the object, in this case Bugs Bunny.

Is It a Vase or Two Faces?

The classic example of negative space or shapes is the brain-teaser where depending on how you look you see either a vase or two faces (as shown in the image above). It becomes very evident when the image is reversed.

courtesy of http://painting.about.com/

I bolted the front end of this motorcycle to the wall, Nancy made it fly!

I have been working in reality television for five and half years.  My first show was Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on ABC.  It was one of the highlights of my professional life.  The workload and deadlines were brutal but I expected and loved it. I had not anticipated the incredible friendships I would make while working on the road.  A typical schedule for work would go as follows.  Get up at 4am, shower, eat breakfast, lift two little girls out of bed and take them to the car, coax one larger 8 year old boy into the car and wake my husband.  With a car-load of very sleepy people I would drive to the John Wayne airport.  My husband would pull out my enormous suitcase, hand me my backpack and kiss me goodbye.  With the kids it was a little more emotional. There were many many hugs and tears and I would have to peal off little hands to start my journey. At the check out counter the attendants recognized me.  They would always ask where the house was going to be this time.   I had the security check down to a science that is until liquids were not allowed.  Computer out of bag – check, shoes off – check, jacket off – check, boarding pass and id in hand – check, avoid line with strollers – check, make joke about athletes foot risk – check, walk thru and pack it all back in my bag.  In the terminal I would frequent a snack stand that sold muffins but as I did not drink coffee, I ordered it with hot chocolate.  Next I would find my way to the gate and search for a seat till my boarding letter was called.  Just one year prior to my travel for the show I was an extremely nervous flier.  I would pace while waiting to board and roll airplane disaster stories through my head before surrendering to the fact that the plane was just going to crash. I would count seats to the nearest exit and take a baby census because maybe they could save us.  Always astounded to land safely I would exit thankful to be alive.

Don't make me show you my mad Mario skills on the WII...

But that does’t mean the awesomeness of this isn’t unparalleled….

Dear Daniel and Maite,

I have a question. I live in a downstair condo unit. It’s new building and we recently moved in. I was brushing my teeth at the bathroom sink when I heard someone, um “relieving themselves” in the bathroom above. It was as audible as if they were in the room with me. Is there anything I can do for more privacy? More insulation? Anything?

thank you,
Patience B.
Jacksonville Beach, FL

Dear Patience,

Daniel:  An excellent question, and one that I think all first floor apartment dwellers have experienced.  My first apartment in New York was beneath a rollar derby team and I used to drift off to sleep to the dulcet tones of their wheels grinding across their floor (my ceiling.)

Maite: Didn’t you date one of them?

Daniel: One?

These are the sweetest girls that my past has to offer...

Maite: Hence, your pathological fear of ball bearings…. If you owned the apartment, then you could soundproof the ceiling, but even still you wouldn’t be able to get rid of the sound because it travels down through the plumbing.  I think a schedule is in order.

Daniel: Right.  Like he can only pee between the hours of 9am to high noon, and 7pm to 10.  I think that’s perfectly reasonable.

Maite: A better idea is to create some ambiant sound in your bathroom to cover the sound of your neighbour’s um, what’s a good euphamism for “pee?”

As the sound soothes you to complacency, the gnomes will steal your soul!

Daniel: Yeah, you could just have a little table top fountain that sounds like pee anyway.  That way, he would just be contributing to the atmosphere.  Or a fan, or an ambiant sound machine.

Maite: Or a new pet parakeet!  I think that would be lovely.

Maite's grammer school photo

Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!

Daniel: Really, your upstairs neighbor is giving you sound effects for free!

Maite:  Exactly.  It’s all in the mind.  Just visualize that you are under a babbling brook or cascading forest stream.  Or, as the case may be, a thunder storm.  Better yet, move.  There isn’t much you can do.

Daniel:  And for Pete’s sake, don’t get the bottom unit!

Santa and Friends!

I generally don’t get that warm holiday spirit until I’m in the deep desert and can see the lights of the Strip sparkling up at me as I rocket across the 15.   Not ironically, Christmas to me is a cacophony of intoxicating neon, showgirls in red velvet, gaudy casino carpets, and hicks in monster trucks.

Maite’s Christmas is mobs of relatives, Cuban delicacies (yum yum yucca!), and big fuzzy scarves.

Ultimately, of course, we dig in with our respective families, open presents (fewer this year than last) and generally revel in the gratitude we each share at how lucky we are.  But the only snow we’ll see is when we gaze at the mountaintops way out on the horizon; the only jingle bells are the ringing of the slots.

But I gotta tell ya and trust me when I say it; those sights and sounds make us warm and smiley and grateful and full of the holiday spirit.  I could be knee deep in pine trees and woolen mittens and mistletoe and holly wreaths and it wouldn’t make me feel even remotely festive.  I need the desert and the stuccoed houses and the cactus and the blackjack.

I guess the idea of a “traditional American holiday” is based more on what each of us brings to it than the images foisted upon us, either by the advertisers or our own misconceptions.

So Maite’ and I wish you all of that, whatever it is, whatever it is that makes you feel all yummy and good and hopeful and grateful.

And just because I’m writing this, here is a completely gratuitous picture of a hot showgirl in red velvet.

There's no way Maite' will let me post this...

This is the third in a series about the reality of reality TV.  -Daniel

By the end of the first episode of any season of Big Brother, even the casual viewer can readily identify the cast of characters.   By the first reward challenge on a new round of Survivor, we can look at the tribes and easily pick out the racist, the bitch, the flamboyantly gay guy, the crotchety old guy, the hottie , the gross “don’t let him hug you” guy.

And, not surprisingly, just like you can look at the Bible thumping Mom from Iowa and the pre-op transsexual from West Hollywood and see a train wreck in the making, so can the folks responsible for delivering 44 minutes of great TV to your living room every week.

Kennedy, JD Roberto, Elvira. (All five of them in one great pic!)

The casting department of a reality TV show has a unique and demanding job to do.   Not only do they have to cull through thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of submissions, but they have to do so with an eye toward more than appearance and resume.   Unlike a traditional casting session in which producers are looking for “hunky doctor #2” for three lines on Grey’s Anatomy, reality casting directors are trying to assemble an ensemble of possible storylines.

It’s a kind of chemistry lab in which the staff tries to guess what Contestant A will be like when combined with Contestant B and the later arrival of Constant C.

Yes, they want a certain demographic spread and  it doesn’t hurt to have people that look good wearing very little – but it’s the chemistry and interaction that make the drama.  Without a cast of characters in whom casting directors see possible fireworks, alliances, friendships, affairs and fights – they know they have no show.

Moreover, casting directors (hand in hand with producers) are trying to do this job while following a story outline set down before the season even starts.

Wait,  what!? A story outline on reality TV!?!

You bet.  (on an unrelated side note, there’s no Santa Clause. Bah, hum bug).

But despair not.  This isn’t the ‘all reality TV is fake’ bombshell you might like to think.  It’s a necessary part of creating an entertaining season of reality TV and it actually creates an environment that encourages the unexpected, authentic and unscripted.

A.  carnivorous insect similar to a Slug, which attaches itself to the genitals of small male dogs on hiking trails.

endangered slubacious greenadipod

B.    A faux finish on Veneers to reproduce the graining patterns of exotic woods such as Zebra Wood or Paduk.

C.     A small lump or nub in a yarn, which gives a rough texture to fabric.

click here to see the definition answers (no cheating!)

definitions courtesy of merrium webster

I remember many a picture from my youth, sitting on Ye Olde Santa @ various malls–the screaming baby, the mezmerized kindergardener, and the awkward toothless, bad-haired eight-to-ten stage (Daniel claims to have never gone through this stage; I know better, people, I know better…).   Looking back at those photos now with my eagle designer eye, I see those Santa thrones weren’t really quite as majestic as the mini Maite saw through those dewy, young, still-believin’-in-Santa eyes.

No, what I see now are thrones that were already probably decades old, with worn velvet arm rests where the poor Santa rubbed his hands hour after hour from anxiety, heat, and boredom.  Little flecks of gildiness are missing from the grand carved legs where bullies may have kicked or where giddy  little girls with those patent leather (plastic?) shoes swung their nervous heels back and forth, chip,chip, chip.  Maybe even a few candy-cane-colored stains from little hands, dripping in Christmas candy and spittle.

DOESN’T SANTA DESERVE BETTER THIS YEAR?

He deserves something he can look sophisticated and wise in, something that gives a little back support, with a firm cushion to support all our, um, robust American Youth these days.  Santa deserves something that makes all those divorcees stop and look at the poor guy in a new light.

Send us your sexiest santa chair selections, or your worst Santa pic (I’m still negotiating with my mother to send me one.)  Send in your votes, and the winner gets a prize!!

Here’s my chair entry:

Maite's Santa Chair entry. Santas can get one at Mortise & Tenon!

P.S. If you don’t play along, there will be coal in your stocking this year!

Maite