quote o’ the year
26 Saturday Jan 2008
Posted in culture, humour, miscellany, weird
Category Archives: culture
free rice
14 Monday Jan 2008
Posted in culture, fun stuff, health & happiness, life stuff
FreeRice has two goals:
1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.This is made possible by the sponsors who advertise on this site.
Whether you are CEO of a large corporation or a street child in a poor country, improving your vocabulary can improve your life. It is a great investment in yourself.
Perhaps even greater is the investment your donated rice makes in hungry human beings, enabling them to function and be productive. Somewhere in the world, a person is eating rice that you helped provide. Thank you.
Over on this post it was suggested by the lovely alejna that I check out FreeRice, but I thought it was just another vocabulary quiz site that would make me feel stupid, so I was putting it off until I felt more like a bit of a challenge. Then yesterday I was reminded about this by bob’s yer uncle, a new visitor to casa az, and afterwards Nog and I spent quite an enjoyable half hour or so playing it together … and got up to about 2000 grains of rice.
So why not try it out?
It’s refreshingly addictive! And you also get to help feed the world.
back to the market …
03 Thursday Jan 2008
. . . for some last minute prezzies
This weekend (January 5th) is Los Reyes Magos, which is traditionally the day that gifts are exchanged in Spain. As I still had a couple of people to get a little something for I popped back to the Christmas Market this afternoon and bought two very pretty wooden boxes with mosaic lids (blue with yellow stars – similar to the pic above but without the black outlining and ‘face’).
And so I’ve updated the Christmas market post, adding a photo of Fernando wrapping up one of my boxes and posting his website link. There are also a couple of new pics there showing the other side of the Belén and the big tree in front of city hall at night. Check them out . . .
christmas market
22 Saturday Dec 2007
Went to the Christmas market this afternoon.
We were quite lucky because it was supposed to be raining today (and also for the next 3-4 days) but it turned out to be quite a pleasant day, just a bit cloudy and even sometimes sunny.
I was very pleased to see our friend Norberto there. We met him one magical night when our friend zoomer was visiting and later I got some nice pics of Norberto in his workshop with the façade nicely redone.
To be honest, most of the stalls at the market had a lot of the same-old rather useless hippy-dippy ‘artesan’ stuff, but there were a few I rather liked. I am presently coveting one of Norberto’s serigraphs, especially one with the new matte silver frames he has started using. And I would also love to have one of the carved wooden book lamps. But I know where to find both of these guys should I ever have some extra cashola and feel like treating myself.
Anyhow, here are some photos taken during today’s visit to the Christmas market. It really was a pleasant way to spend the early afternoon. On the way home we stopped off at Fnac and bought a dvd of The Jungle Book … so now off to make a snack, open some wine and curl up on the sofa with Nog to watch it. I’m now ‘on holiday’ until next Thursday and plan on enjoying every minute of it. 🙂
[update: returned to the market here]
Click below to check out the photos . . .
sid in the city
16 Sunday Dec 2007
Blog buddy John Pangia has just been interviewed by the Star Ledger, the largest newspaper printed in the state of New Jersey.
I’ve been hooked on Sid in the City ever since I came across one of John’s fab graphics while I was looking for a good image for my ‘poison popcorn!’ post.
Do read the Star Ledger interview and then stop over and check out what Sid has been up to . . . it’s quite fun and funny stuff. 
