Celebrating Another Year in TO

A beautiful tribute to our town. Thanks James Balutan

Damn, She's Fine!

Planet Toronto from Ryan Emond on Vimeo.

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The Goddess Known as Nan

WWD has done a fun little piece today on the illustrious Nan Kempner.

If you don't know her, she is the ultimate lady who lunches.  (She was painted by Warhol for goodness sake.) And was an impeccable party gal until her death. Here she is with Yves St. Laurent. 

When asked by NY Mag in 2004, how she fills out customs forms she said, “I’m not rich enough to be a real philanthropist. And I loathe being called a socialite. So I write ‘housewife.’” Get it gurl!

 

Originally from San Francisco, Nan was a dedicated patron of the arts, loved fashion and was generally considered to be perfection, by me. 

Check out the article of great quotes by Nan. And in her own immortal words don't forget, “... when you accept an invitation, you’re taking on a commitment. You've got to be just as attractive as you know how to be — because you’re not just another face or pair of legs. You’re there to help the gang get cracking.”— The Observer, 2001

Hey Ladies

I like your style!

Hey Bitch

God I love this Bitch.  

"If you dress smart your mind will surely follow."

the New Haven Math Club from Tenue de Nîmes on Vimeo.

Thanks Mud

Pretty Awesome

MUNDAKA 24H from aritzaranburu.com on Vimeo.

"Check please!"

"'moke breaks... brah"

gotta love Fridays

Mason loves Fridays

Jammin'

"nice tan, brah."

Saturday with the sistas. By Sunday I was completely wiped out. But I did see the 49ers run all over Seattle.

This Bitch

Martha's Skylands property in Maine.


This is pre-renovation. There are not a lot of other exterior property shots, but check out the video Martha did for Oprah.

Thank God for Martha

"Skylands," is a 35,000 square-foot (yup) mansion that was built by Edsel Ford. Son of Henry.

From the man himself

Hope you had a good one!

Smart girls have more fun

I really appreciated Aaron Sorkin's comments during his acceptance speech at last nights Golden Globes

Giants, World Series Champions 2010 - FACT

The New York Times article says it all about the celebrations in San Francisco...

As the occasional whiff of marijuana wafted through the air on a surprisingly warm, sunny day, the ecstatic crowd welcomed Hall of Famers like Mays and Willie McCovey, and politicians like Gov.Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mayor Gavin Newsom, before the players were introduced.

Wish I were there.

Maybe i should write for the Times

I have been writing a lot lately about my boyfriend Brian Wilson. (The Giants closer, not the singer, or amazing song by The Barenaked Ladies.) And apparently the Times has been reading the blog cause they're all over it. The article even goes so far as to suggest the Wilson's interviews boarder on the performance art. Hello, that's why we're dating. We might not share religious sentiments but to prove that we couldn't be anymore perfect together here is the article's closing quote from Brian himself.

“I’d like to be a crossword clue one day,” he said. “I want to be in The New York Times’s Sunday edition. Right now, the clue ‘Giants great’ is always Mel Ott. I want my clue to be down, not across. The down ones are usually harder. And when I’m the clue, I’ll fill it in — just that one — and frame it.

“How sweet would that be?”

And by the way

"All the best guys play for the Giants. FACT!"

I know it's a lot...

but they are going to the WORLD SERIES!!!!!!!

This is what dreams are made of

Brian Wilson is a babe

Paul, hurry and get your halloween costume!

Run and Tell THAT!

I'd still do him

James Franco on the cover of Candy magazine. Amazing

Star Mile - Joshua Radin

... And how you left her alone

Where all my Kiwis at?

Like all good bloggers I use Google Analytics to track my viewership. Don't worry I can't see you. But I almost can. Google Analytics has totally altered the way I think about my audience online. By far my favourite features are the maps. It is always fun to go through the maps and see where people around the world, who check out the property spot, are from. Oddly, where ever I happen to be tends to have the highest rate of viewership, interesting eh? Maybe it is just me. Actually, that is not true. The US and Canada tend to dominate in the overall countries race, no matter where I am. But I did notice a larger viewership in Asia when I was there. Another interesting feature, which provides me with minutes of entertainment daily, is the google keyword searches. With keyword searches I can tell what, people, who have visited the blog from search engines, were searching for. I am always amazed at how many people search "Beth Chapman's nails," that is consistently among the highest keyword searches. I mean they are good but they aren't THAT good. Anyway, I love using Google Analytics even if I don't always know what everything means. Hello bounce rate, whatever you are. In fact I am sure that I probably only use a third of the analytics features. So if there is anyone out there who has there own personal analytics faves and wants to share how they snoop on their blog viewers please feel free to share them in the comments below. Trust me you information will not go to waste.

O yea and hi to all my readers in New Zealand. It makes me sad when you guys don't read the blog, so I figured I would dedicate this post to you in a cheap ploy to up my viewership among Kiwis. Love you!

"Excuse me, do you know how far we are from the tubing place?"

When the 17 year old Brit asked Justin the above question about how far we were from Vang Vieng it finally dawned on me exactly what we were getting ourselves into. I had heard rumours and seen the infamous "tubing videos" but like most things nothing really prepares you like experience. And what an experience it was. I can't remember all of it and most of it is NSFB (not safe for blogging,) but Vang Vieng definitely ranks up there on the fun-o-meter. We got into town in the late afternoon, and after getting ourselves set up at the guesthouse the boys from my trek recommended we went to explore. Vang Vieng the town is not very pretty. But the surroundings are gorgeous. Set in a lush river valley, surrounded by densely covered green cliffs, Laos is stunning. But VV itself seems to be in a prolonged state of haphazard development. Development which I would guess is going to be underway for at least the next ten years. In the meantime there are plenty of bars and restaurants endlessly playing Friends and making french fries to satiate even the drunkest Brit. Since apparently they "love Friends."

While wandering around we wandered across the bamboo bridge to the shanty town with the most important landmark in town - the Bucket Bar. It was early so nobody was there except some employees and some hardcore drinkers but one of the bartenders gave us all the important details about Vang Vieng - mainly when and where to get free buckets of whiskey. It turns out that if you time it right you never have to spend a penny on drinks in VV. And when you get your free bucket at the Bucket Bar, you can pour the liquor yourself. It seems they don't mind making stiff drinks because the mix is more expensive than the whiskey. So that pretty much sums up the whole VV experience except for the tubing, and the sandwiches, which was about the only things we did or ate for three days.

Tubing, which we only really did once was unbelievable. You show up at the top of the river with your tube and right away you get a free shot, or six. In fact most people don't even make it past the first three bars because they just ply you with free shots, rope swings, diving platforms and zip lines. Oh yea and one place has free french fries. But we did actually manage to release our hold on our shot glasses and tube down river. After our fist night in town Justin and I had met and made friends with Mike and Mark of Scotland and Wales respectively. And so we were tubing with them. Over the course of the day we managed to also pick up, Luke, Tom, Luke (Tubes,) Ciaran, Jaylene, Travis and a whole other whack of tubers. We stopped at the mud bar and played mud volleyball and had mud tug-of-war. We went to the massive slide, which I later found out is deadly. I did manage to make it down the slide OK, although Jaylene (not brown haired,) landed hard on her back and still has a bruise. I also successfully did the rope swing once. The second time was not so successful. But at least I wasn't seriously injured like some. We were all actually pretty good about avoiding the acrobatics while completely inebriated.

There isn't much after the slide bar, but actually that was the really beautiful part. No bars or loud drunks just you in your tube with all that scenery around. If only the river had been higher we would have really enjoyed it and not have been constantly scrapping the rocks and getting stuck. We decided to get out early because of the late hour and shallow water and take a tuk tuk back into town. The six of us became a bit of a posse, well except J and Travis because they hightailed it out of VV the next day. But the guys and Lize had quite a party over the next two days.

I got propositioned to have sex with a guy from each of the Celtic nations in one go. That's Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales, in case you were in doubt. It was quite difficult to turn that one down, but I managed. My inner slut hated me though. But don't feel too bad for me I managed to have plenty of fun in VV. Thankfully though Justin and I had discussed not getting stuck there and so after three days we were definitely ready to go. And so we bid adieu to the delicious street sandwiches, which we had be living on, and the Tiger Whiskey and made for the capital. From here we are heading down to Siem Reap in Cambodia early tomorrow. But we have enjoyed Vientiane and particularly loved the COPE exhibit about the USA's covert bombings in Laos which have left the country horrifically scarred, literally.