Art for AIDS

Art for AIDS is a great cause. The annual posh fundraiser supports the University of California at San Francisco's efforts with the AIDS Health Project, providing assistance to many who live with HIV and AIDS. This year marks the 25th anniversary of Art for AIDS, to be celebrated with lots of posh pomp and lavish festivities at Bonhams & Butterfields beautiful auction hall in San Francisco. The highlight of the event is the art auction, which is held as both a live and silent activity. Artists, collectors and galleries, mostly from the San Francisco Bay Area, generously donate their artwork and support this thoughtful and necessary cause. Please follow Art for AIDS on Twitter, on Facebook, and donate!

Tiny URL

This is one of my favorite sites! The website, tinyURL, allows one (okay, you, me, your favorite grandma, hippest friend) to take a gargantuan (that means unbelievably big) url string into its site in exchange for a tiny (and much more manageable) little thing. It's something like Aladdin's new lamp for old, but it doesn't spring you with a funny genie!

Filet Mignon or Stew Beef?

I like to shop online. A lot, and Safeway delivers, the delivery guy puts it away for me, and sometimes I'll get a coupon so I won't have to pay for the delivery. But I don't like to shop for fresh produce or meat online (euwww), that's when we actually go to the real deal, an honest-to-God store. Today, feeling a little iron deficient (don't ask), John did the honors and came home from shopping for tonight's dinner (I know ...) leaping into the house, pulled out a plastic-wrapped package of meat, and said, "Look! What is this?!"

You have to understand ... he's a snarky old beach boy, known for sweet blue eyes, a wicked cackle and trick questions ... but I grew up in France, and I know a filet mignon, plastic wrap or no. So, what? The Safeway label said it was 'Stew Beef' at $3.99 a pound, not filet mignon at $15.99 a pound...! Guess what we're having for dinner tonight ... yummm! Yeah! Go Safeway!

Wikipedia writes that Filet mignon (French for "dainty fillet") is a steak cut of beef taken from the tenderloin, blah, blah, blah ... If it's cut into portions before cooking, that portion is known as filet mignon, etc... and is considered to be the most tender cut of beef, and the most expensive.

It's also incredibly tender, and when cooked right, the flavor is non pareil, sine qua non, or for a simple carnivore like me - you just can't beat it!!!

Wired

I am not a geek! I swear to God, no! Not geek - occasionally hip - yes, cool - absolutely. Geek, buried in tech? No. Which is what I thought Wired magazine was about. They feature all kinds of stories about tech things, but today's blog article on the Obama's dog pick is what made me open the article ... and not disappointed, I read their choice was 'solidly scientific' but the real headline was how pimps are using the 'net to lure kids into prostitution (I'm a parent, that headline disturbs me), on to a question on the ethics of cultivating baby dinos from poultry (why would we want to do this???), and Ryan Air's slam of the evil blogger ... cool stuff ... right up my reading alley.

I like it. Wired.com is your essential daily guide to what's next, delivering the most original and complete take you'll find anywhere on innovation's impact on technology, science, business and culture. Wired.com is a smart site for smart people. Like me.

Tiny Living

Yes ... I admit it ... I was surfin' the web looking for something to buy, and found this. No, no one sent it to me with a raving email to check it out, or that it's cool cool cool. This one is on my own.

Created in response to New York City’s cramped living conditions, tiny living is a store that aims to provide solutions for small spaces. The founders, a husband and wife team, spent many years living in cramped NYC apartments (one, a studio that measured a mere 200 sq. ft.!), and created tiny living to offer their smart findings of cleverly designed, affordable items that are small in scale, multi-purpose, flexible and/or organizational. Since opening in July 2005, tiny living received an overwhelming response, not only from NYC dwellers but from across the globe. It turns out their goods are suitable for anyone who wants to maximize their living space!

If I live in New York, this is probably where I'd do my online shopping. Beautiful little site = beautiful little home? One hopes, I'd think only gazillionaire ex-pals of Madoff or the fat cats of corporate America probably don't have to worry about a tiny little NYC home. But I would. So here's the scoop on this site. It's a shopping site. You browse it, and hopefully find cool things to make your small (they would even work in a not-so-small) home comfortable. Go see.

Love your small space.

p.s. - I'm looking for a magazine holder - the kind that folds up, looks like an X, stays on the floor. Let me know if you come across anything interesting!

Wolfgang's Vault

Sounds a little creepy, huh ... yup, I thought so too, especially when one of my chain-letter addicted friends sent it to me ... so, with an entry begging to be made, I sucked in my belly (it wasn't difficult), held my breath (part of the belly-sucking thing), clenched my teeth, and opened the link.

Cool link. Veddy veddy cool. Wolfgang’s Vault is where live music lives, that's the spiel, and so, I checked it out for truth, and yes, Jimi's 1968 live concert at Winterland is up for the listenin'. I guess it's where all the Bill Graham Archives, the King Biscuit Flower Hour, and the Record Plant (among a dozen other archives) are stored, and the good soul that Wolfgang is, allows you to relive all your cherished (and some that never were) rock moments again. Within the Concert Vault are thousands of carefully restored, legendary concert recordings of the past and the present, yours to stream for free, with hundreds available for download. Concert Vault is also available as a free app on iPhone. Taking the musical fandom experience even further, you can read record reviews and in-depth articles about the greatest performers of yesterday and today in the almighty Crawdaddy!, in its second year as an online webzine. Concert tour info for your favorite performeris available on the site's very own comprehensive show listings site, Mojam.

Since when did rockers become philanthropists? They're not here, and it's okay. The $$ aspect comes with the encouragement to peruse Wolfgang’s Vault to consider and purchase the greatest collection of concert posters, rock photography, vintage t-shirts, retro t-shirts, and treasure trove of extraordinary concert related memorabilia. Okay, NP (no problem).

Caring Places

You know, there's nothing like a gift, right? Especially when in need and times are tough (like these times), the news is all about people losing their homes and jobs, and things are awful, just awful. It really gets to me. So, when Elin, (yet another Facebook friend) posted a note that a young Montana mother, friend of a friend, needs all the prayers she can get now, and added this website link, I had to add this link here.

A Caring Bridge offers a group of free, personalized websites that support and connect loved ones during critical illness, treatment and recovery. It's generous, well intentioned, and free service providing easy-to-create websites that include a journal, guestbook message board and photo gallery. A CaringBridge website provides patient and caregiver support, and encouragement for anyone facing cancer or chronic illness.

Nice. Really. Very nice.