“We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.”
— Cesare Pavese

Social Giving

I have an idea about a socially-conscious social network. Here’s the elevator pitch:

It costs >$0 to join the network. However, once you’re in, the money is entirely yours to spend. You can “friend” any charitable institution. By “friending” that institution, you are automatically connected to all the other people who are friends of that institution. This, however, should not be intrusive. It simply means you have visibility and could ostensibly send one of them a note saying, hey you like the American Red Cross, so do i! or something. It’s meant to work exactly like going to a fundraiser - same networking value. The only way to become a friend of one of these orgs, however, is to donate some amount of money to that org.

Basically it takes the social component of the charity circuit and makes it accessible. In addition to raising money, there should probably be opportunities to organize, get out there, and actually do something too…

Anyway, just a thought.

Dishwashable iPad Case w/ Magnet

I’ve noticed a recent flurry of anticipatory iPad products. I was thinking of weighing in on Quirky with an iPad case of my own. I feel like one of the key places to use an iPad is in the kitchen. Currently, I often sit my laptop on my kitchen counter so I can browse recipes and techniques while I cook. It’s dangerous though, and I’ve had several near-misses (shouldn’t they be called near-hits?) with all manner of liquid. So, here’s the idea:

1. The iPad case should keep the iPad safe from all liquids.

2. It would be great if the case were heat and cold proof. Perhaps you could make it out of the same stuff they make the Ove Glove out of.

3. The case should be dishwasher safe. You’re already in the kitchen, you have a filthy case, shove it in the dishwasher. It would be absolutely sick if you could put it in the dishwasher with the iPad in it although this is not necessary.

4. It could be useful to have a magnet in the back of the case so you could mount the iPad to your fridge.

That’s the idea. I hope someone makes it. Until then I’ll keep using my food journal, books, and laptop in various unwieldy combinations.

User-Generated Trivia

What is the best way to design a user-generated trivia game? Some thoughts:

You could create one massive wiki-style database of questions and answers that anyone could edit and revise. Using this model, any developer or game-player could use the database any way they saw fit. The problem with this - besides the assumption that the questions and answers are properly researched - is that there would be no consistency or style standard. One of the things that makes questions in Trivial Pursuit, Jeopardy, etc. good is that they have a particular style and they stick to it. Perhaps there would be a way to filter unpopular questions/answers. If there is giant scale, I suppose you could do just about anything.

Anyway, a second way to do this - and I’m just spitballing here, i haven’t thought this all the way through - is what I’ll call the Apples to Apples model. If you haven’t played Apples to Apples do so in a group with a good sense of humor. The game is all about the people who play it. You play by drawing a number (5, it think) of noun cards. These cards might say “Elizabeth Taylor” “My Closet” “Snakes” and so on. Once everyone has drawn their noun cards the dealer draws an adjective card and reads it aloud. It might say something like “Horrendous.” Now, the trick is for everyone to select the card in their hand that they think the dealer will think most closely matches the adjective. If you’re a sophisticated Apples to Apples player your strategy will depend on who the dealer is - while you might say “snakes” are “horrendous,” I might pick “my closet.” The deal passes clockwise from person to person throughout the game. The goal is to collect seven adjective cards, which you get as your noun is picked above the others.

User-generated trivia could ostensibly work the same way. If an obstacle to creating a large-scale reliable database of questions is the veracity of the person who wrote the questions, perhaps there’s a way to literally bring that person into question. Jeff Beil from Brooklyn New York asks… Then you have to imagine what I think is the correct answer to the question I asked…

As I said, it’s not a fully-hatched idea but I think there’s something there.

Ease Back, The Meters. For reasons that date back to playing frisbee in the quad, I always have a hankering for The Meters when unseasonal winter temps spike through the frost.

Instructameals

I was just reading about a pop-up restaurant in Amsterdam called Instructables Restaurant. All the furniture is DIY and you leave at the end of your meal with recipes for not only all the food you’ve eaten but for the furniture as well. Theoretically, you can recreate the entire experience when you get home. A quick glance on Networksolutions shows that the domain instructameals.com is available. I love this concept:

http://instructablesrestaurant.com/

If You Feel Like Bringing Booze

Listen, I don’t need anyone to bring anything to my house for my birthday. You coming is the best thing. However, I’ve noticed that some people like to bring bottles of booze no matter what. For those people (you know who you are) I’m going to suggest that you team up. Why not have a few bottles of extremely good stuff rather than lots of bottles of pretty good stuff? If you want recommendations, call me.

ReciPeeps

Here’s an idea I had yesterday about a recipe website. I call it Recipeeps. Here’s how it works:

When you sign up on Recipeeps you either join an existing group or you can invite your peeps and start your own group. Each month there is a new topic and a related prize provided by a sponsor (for example, comfort food/le creuset pots). Once the topic is set, Recipeeps will e-mail all your peeps. It’s up to your peeps to send a topic-related recipe to the group. Recipeeps will collect and store all the group’s recipes. The group can then vote to elect one of their recipes the winner from their circle of peeps.

Recipeeps will then select one recipe as the overall winner and videotape a chef’s demonstration of the recipe. The person whose recipe is selected will win the sponsor-provided prize.

Twenty Ten, The Party Music Edition

This year on New Year’s Eve Meg and I threw a party at our home in Brooklyn Heights. We’d like to thank everyone who showed up and helped us celebrate the new year. We had a great time. I just wanted to quickly post our midnight playlist.

We had three mixes in rotation. Casey H (Deltarok) cooked up an excellent four-part series. Part hits, part hip hop, with a little dub mixed in - we kept going back to his stuff all night. I made a mix that tracked the major hits and indie faves of the past decade in reverse order from 2009-2000 punctuated by Michael Jackson tunes and songs from John Hughes movies (RIP, both).

DJ C showed up with a mix he cooked up on the Acela, which he had taken to New York from Boston the previous day. That this was a mix made on a high speed train is largely astonishing and appropriate - it’s professional and FAST. Similar to my mix, his pays homage to the last decade. The difference is that his is really really good. Somehow he managed to jam 68 songs into a 50-minute set. The mega-medley starts with Glenn Miller’s big band version of Auld Lang Syne and ends with song of the decade, “Hey Ya!” Here’s a link to the track and the setlist:

http://mashit.com/audio/Party-Like-Its-19-Naughty-9.mp3

Glen Miller; Auld Lang Syne
Britney Spears; Toxic
Chingy, Ludacris, & Snoop; Holiday Inn
Tweet; Oops (Oh My)
Beyonce; Diva
Radiohead; No Suprises
Jay-Z; Dirt Off Shoulders
Baby Cham; Ghetto Story
Outcast; So Fresh So Clean
50 Cent; PIMP (Bombist, Post&Bim Rmx)
Jay-Z; Run This Town (ft. Rihanna)
Shaggy; Angel
Timbaland & Magoo; Indian Flute
Rihanna; Umbrella ft. Jay-Z
Red Hot Chilli Peppers; Scar Tissue
Blu Cantrell; Hit “Em Up Style (Oops!)
Jumpin’, Jumpin’; Destiny’s Child
Eve; Let Me Blow Your Mind
Fabolous; Can’t Deny It
Fat Joe & Terror Squad; Lean Back
Jay-Z & Beyonce; Me and My Girlfriend
P Diddy; Bad Boys For Life
Snoop Dogg; Drop It Like It’s Hot
Shaggy ft. RikRok; Wansn’t Me (Soundwasta’s Let It Be Me Mix)
50 Cent; In Da Club
50 Cent; I Get Money
Brandy; What About Us
J-Kwon; Tipsy
Kanye West; Golddigger
Tiger Ranks; Party With Me
Lil’ Mama; Lip Gloss
Beyonce; Single Ladies
M.I.A; Galang (Diplo Remix ft. Lil Vicious)
Busta Rhymes; Pass the Courvoisier (Ft. Pherell)
Mark Ronson; Just Ft. Alex Greenwald (Radiohead)
Rihanna; Pon Da Replay
50 Cent; Candy Shop (Instrumental)
Cham & Beyonce; Crazy In Love Remix
M.I.A.; Pull Up The People (Carrasco! Amerie Remix)
Jay-Z; I Just Wanna Love You (Give It To Me)
Remy Ma; Conceited (Instrumental)
Snoop Dogg; Beautiful (Ft. Pharell)
Busta Rhymes; Touch It (DJ Tameil Mix)
Missy Elliott; Work It
112; Peaches and Cream
Lady Sovereign; Random (A Brucker & Sinden Mix)
Kelis; Trick Me Twice (Heatwave Remix ft. TOK)
Gwen Stefani; Hollaback Girl
Gnarles Barkley; Crazy
Gorillaz; Dare
Justin Timberlake; Sexy Back
Gwen Stefani; Wind It Up
Missy Elliott; Gossip Folks
The White Stripes; Seven Nation Army
Enur Ft. Natasja; Calabria
Gorillaz; Clint Eastwood (2-Step Mix)
Sean Kingston; Beautiful Girls (Suicidal)
Ludacris; Roll Out
Dr. Dre; Forgot About Dre (Ft. Eminem)
Jay-Z; Big Pimpin
Usher; Love In This Club
Chamillionaire; Ridin’
Amy Winehouse; Rehab
Rick Ross; Every Day I’m Hustling
Lil Wayne; A Milli (Hollertronix Remix)
Hurricane Chris; A Bay Bay
Damien Marley; Welcome to Jamrock
Outkast; Hey Ya