Wed 27 Jan 2010 – 15.31
Scott is joined by Craig Ward and Lisa Edwards, English graphic designer/typographers in who are now living in New York. Together they eat ice cream, drink tea, complain about customer service, and discuss life as an expat on both sides of the Atlantic.
Sorry, this episode is unedited, and includes no theme music, bookmarks and, you know, editing. I may add that stuff in time, if there is demand for such (hint hint)
Grey New York
Shakespeare Cafe
PG Tips
Ghostbusters Tour
Hook and Ladder 8, TriBeCa
Friends and Seinfeld, filmed on a soundstage in Burbank
Häagen-Dazs
Keith McNally’s show(s), XO and Ham Radio
Campfire Noises
Early episodes of twentyhood
How the UPS website should look
layoffs with UPS, bad experiences at the UPS Store
Chinatown(s) and the death of Little Italy
The Lower East side’s rich history
Studio Culture by Adrian Shaughnessey and Tony Brook
This Ain’t No Disco, website to see design studios
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posted by Scott in life, podcasts, relationships.
Thu 08 Oct 2009 – 9.19
Speaking of the Walk of Shame, now there’s a convenient kit you can keep in your bag or under your desk to accommodate such a situation.
Clever, this, but it makes me think of the obvious point — if you’re prepared enough to have a Walk of Shame kit, chances are you’re not the type that ends up doing the Walk of Shame in the first place. Half the shame is being wrapped in the same soggy clothes with head throbbing, etc.
Hell, what do I know, I’ve never done it.
via Eric Hollings »
posted by Scott in health & fitness, relationships.
Wed 23 Sep 2009 – 11.04
Many twentysomethings will try their hand at online dating. Whether an alternative to the bar scene, or the result of a super-busy schedule, most of us have at least filled out a profile for an online dating site. But the site OKCupid.com has enlightened the Internet community by highlighting, through data analysis, what terms and trends lead to success in first-contact emails through their dating site.
What’s striking is how certain words and phrases are overwhelmingly repelling, while others seem to invite. Some of these results would seem counterintuitive, but hey, you can’t argue with statistics, right?
Have a look at the results over on OKTrends
The puzzling part of this all is to what degree we should try to socially engineer ourselves the chance at dating. Isn’t there more alchemy involved? More gut instincts and first impressions? Is it “fair” that only the most careful copywriters and persuasive debaters will land even a response?
I, for one, would be interested to see statistics relating to photography. Should we include a full-body photo? A bathing suit/shirtless photo? Colour of black-and-white for the main headshot? Professional studio shots? And how many is too many? Personally, I can testify that I get so fucking annoyed when a girl will place a photo of her dog, or the Eiffel Tower, in her online dating profile. Cmon, what are you trying to hide!
posted by Scott in relationships.
Thu 18 Jun 2009 – 11.54
When it rains, it pours. The old cliché has nothing to do with weather, although this June finds that metaphor especially apt. Things are busy lately.
After many months, if not years, of suffering through the various gradients of employment, I find myself once again working a regular schedule. I hadn’t worked a 40-hour week between mid-January and early June. Add to that two commutes and the general exhaustion that comes from starting a new routine and it’s become predictably exhausting.
In addition, and with timing most strange, I’m getting a lot of clients calling to do some work with me outside of my daytime gig. So I’m doing what designers do from time to time, and going home for a night shift in an effort to fill the creative, if not financial, holes in their day-to-day.
So yes, I’m busy. And while busy-ness is generally a good thing, it has obvious drawbacks.
posted by Scott in careers, coffee, health & fitness, life, relationships.
Wed 17 Jun 2009 – 11.48
Would you believe that teenagers these days send an average of 2,772 text messages a month?! That’s an average of 80 per day! This shocking statistic comes from Nielson, via a New York Times article. I caught wind of it via Spark.
I read that and feel thoroughly old. This statistic in and of itself is bizarre, but it raises a more profound question about what are the most effective methods of communication with friends, relatives, colleagues, lovers, and anyone else.
Email is old-fashioned, they say. Ok, that’s going overboard, methinks, especially when our work days revolve around sending email. Facebook messages? That’s the same thing as email, just tied into a closed platform a la Prodigy and Compuserve back in 1993. While we may check our iPhones and Blackberries on the go, email is still a non-instant form of communication — etiquette dictates you give 24 hours before a follow-up message.
There are a number of quasi-instant forms of communication, such as Twitter, which allow us to keep in touch, but aren’t predictable enough to use for urgent correspondences. For that a good old phone call may suffice.
And of course there’s instant messenger, which is supposed to be instant. But if the party on the other end doesn’t answer, or if they are away from the keyboard, the whole endeavor is moot.
What happens when you run into those folks who simply “don’t answer calls and don’t check voicemail?” Yes, I’m serious, I know people like that. I call them, and if they don’t pick up, I email. Or text. It’s annoying.
We as twentysomethings have the dubious honour of being in-between the generations as far as communication goes. We are masters of email, texting, twitter, IM, and yes, even phone conversations. (not so much with the snail mail.) But the trouble really starts when we have to manage different people, older, younger, and similarly-aged, who communicate in all sorts of ways and can’t comprehend other methods of keeping in touch.
Wasn’t it all just easier when we would knock on your neighbor’s door?
So, how do you keep in touch. Which tools do you use, or not use?
Here’s another question to make you feel old — for how many of your close friends/family do you have their phone number memorised? Probably not many.
posted by Scott in careers, life, relationships.
For Girls, Binge Drinking Not Sexy
Wed 11 Mar 2009 – 17.26
Finally, other men are coming around to what I’ve been saying since age 16: girls who drink aren’t attractive at all. (trust me, that’s an understatement compared to the colourful rants of my teen years.)
A recent study from two American universities concludes that women have in their heads the wrong ideas about drinking to impress a fella. Truth is we prefer you sober.
It turns out 71% of these female co-eds were vastly overestimating the amount males wanted them to drink. On average, they overestimated by one-and-a-half drinks. Over a quarter of the women thought men were more likely to buddy up with a women who drinks five or more drinks. The true answer? Men expect women to consume around 2.5 drinks. 16 percent of women thought men would be most sexually attracted to women who downed the 5+ servings of their choice poison. In actuality? Men prefer nearly half that amount.
I think that whether we admit it or not, men want a women who is graceful and elegant, even when being “one of the guys.” Where a taste of male-like bonding may be playful, too much is not a good thing. For example, we never want to carry you home — women are tough to carry because their weight is distributed different. Plus you look like a creep carrying off some helpless woman. When a women drinks too much, she becomes louder, less funny, less witty, and more of a burden than anything else. No thanks.
Head over to PopSci for the full article »
posted by Scott in health & fitness, relationships.
Look Out, New York! Herpes on the Rise.
Tue 10 Jun 2008 – 22.35
Shocking and horrid statistics about sexually transmitted diseases have emerged via the NY Dept. of Health. Apparently, the rates of young people with Herpes is higher than anyone would like:
“more than a fourth of adult New Yorkers are infected with Herpes Simplex Virus-2, the virus that causes genital herpes.” For contrast, the national average for genital herpes infection is 19%.
Wait, 25%! Are you serious?! So one out of every four people I spy on the street has Herpes? One of the four ladies from Sex and the City? One out of four of my rugby teammates? Or maybe it’s as low as one out of five, like the national average. Jeez! Makes you scared to go outside. By the way, if you weren’t paying attention in 7th Grade Health class: “The [Herpes] virus has no cure, lasts forever, and those infected are more susceptible to the HIV virus.”
That comes from a short article on Gothamist. For more statistics, and general a general gross-out, check out the full article here. »
Why are STDs on the rise in New York? Could it be because of general lack of education and the increasing apathy of middle and high school age kids who start fucking at seriously young ages? Or is it the twentysomethings who flock here from all over the globe in search of love and a chance to “make it”? Maybe those tiny, tiny apartments mean that roommates are inadvertently spreading it. Or could it be that folks are taking their cues from the former Governor.
Don’t ask me. You know why.
Just be safe, sluts.
posted by Scott in health & fitness, relationships.
Fri 06 Jun 2008 – 15.10
Ok, picture how bizarre, stressful, frustrating, and demanding the modern workplace can be. Think of how much commuting sucks, how you can’t get any work done with distractions of co-workers, and how people are generally nuts. Now imagine all that with a baby in-hand!
There is a new trend emerging: babies in the office. More specifically, new parents aren’t taking months upon months of parental leave, but rather returning to the office for a normal workday … with baby. The move comes as a workaround for the lack of maternity leave in the US and Australia. (apparently, the US and Australia are the only two industrialised nations who don’t mandate paid maternity leave of any kind for new mothers. In Australia, at least you get 12 months to return to your old job, but in the US, the minimum is only 12 weeks before your position is up for grabs. I agree that it’s awesome for places like Sweden to send paychecks (if not tax refunds and actual sptiends) to new families, but at the same time, don’t have a bloody kid if you can’t bloody afford it.)
The reason I’m posting about it is because twentyhood is the time when many of us start a family. And while most New Yorkers will wait until their 30s, the planning phases begin a few years earlier. Bringing a baby into the office (especially if there are some actual facilities to take care of the baby) may be an attractive prospect for a young woman who isn’t quite ready to give up her career cold-turkey at age 26, or something. But how bizarre!
At any age, a baby can be a distraction. If you’ve ever been stuck on an airplace or bus next to a crying baby, the cuteness wears off awfully quick. Would you be able get work done with a baby in the midst? And what about the potential to infect that baby with one of the many common colds. And considering how much co-workers faff around talking about which salad they had for lunch, I can imagine a severe drop in productivity every time the baby does something noteworthy.
The article I found follows a new mother, as well as a set of parents, who are trying to figure it all out. It’s actually worth a read because this new trends is so very new and drastic. If you’re thinking about starting a family [and maintaining a career at the same time] then check it out.
posted by Scott in careers, health & fitness, life, relationships.
Office Flings Help Productivity
Fri 08 Feb 2008 – 13.08
Oh, that old golden bear-trap of the office romance.
Bro, she’s way out of your league.
Nowadays, we spend more and more time at work, so it seems only natural that we begin to develop romantic relationships with co-workers. Of course, this is usually discouraged, if not banned outright. Why? Potential drama, I suppose.
However, research shows that it might actually be useful. An article from the Sun tells how “the thrill of a fling ‘raised energy levels and led to better professional capacity’.”
Makes sense. I know if I could see my sweetie during the day I’d generally be in a better mood. The trouble is in arranging the romance in the first place — if you try-but-fail to court a co-worker, it could set off a serious chain of events disrupting the delicate social ecosystem of your workplace (i.e., if you ‘choose’ one of the girls, you’ve automatically blown it with the remainders. It’s called the Law of Exclusion).
You could always just wait for the christmas party, get drunk, and then if things don’t go well, blame the alcohol. No chance that could ever backfire.
posted by Scott in careers, relationships.
5 Stupid Things You Said (and what you should say instead)
Mon 26 Nov 2007 – 22.34
Man, these fellas need help. Even I would never dish the truth so forcefully as in the case of this article from the Official Dating Resource.
“Are you on the rag?”
Wow, not subtle.
posted by Scott in relationships.