Friday Five: June 3

Hello diligent followers! Today is Friday (yes, Rebecca Black will be burned in your brain for roughly six hours henceforth). I’ve decided this week to kick-start my “Friday Five”—a list of five things that I’ve happened upon over the course of the week that tickled my fancy. Many will be from the glorious world of the internets. Others will be pulled from the tangible workings of my life. I hope you enjoy.

1. Pinterest

Although my free time certainly needs no additional social bookmarking or networking programs to monopolize it, I happened upon this one through other blogs that I read. Pinterest is a social sharing tool that allows you to divide up your posts (or “Pins”) into different themes through boards—for example, some of mine include food, beautiful people, animals, obsessions, things I want, and funny things I’ve come across. The concept is quite simple, but it is elegant and incredibly photo-intensive. I’m pretty enamoured.

2. Hair long enough to put in a ponytail.

I have over the last two years really come to appreciate the beauty of being able to put my hair in a ponytail—particularly on blistering hot days, such as the few we received here in NEO this week. For those of you who only met me recently, my hair has undertaken some serious evolution since 2008. As you can see in the photo below, it used to be incredibly long. Then it quickly became incredibly short before shipping out to basic training. I have, since those days of incredibly short, been trying to get back to just “kind of long.” I’m thrilled to have hit ponytail length.

[Roughly 3 years of Hair-volution.]

3. Eatin’ Critters

So apparently Mark Zuckerberg’s new personal challenge for the year is to eat only animals he’s killed. Now, Mark and I are “tight” for a number of reasons (really only because I spend more time than any person ever should on Facebook), but I can really appreciate this rather gruesome but salient value. I’m not a vegetarian. I once was, but it was a health choice and not so much a moral one. I like to eat me some pig, cow, chicken, duck… admittedly, lamb is one of my favorite dishes. I do, however, take issue with many of the practices of the meat industry, and while I try to take time to appreciate the animals that so graciously (and unwillingly) gave their lives to supply me with a delicious meal, there really is no way to drive the point home better than to have to kill it yourself. You can actually see the life for what it is and not mindlessly pick up a package at the grocery store filled with abstract, nondescript proof of a living being. I say good job, Mr. Zuckerberg. I will not of course be gallivanting around Lakewood slaying chipmunks and groundhogs (which seem to run rampant in this neighborhood) for my daily sustenance, but I will think of his efforts and take a moment or two to appreciate where my food actually comes from. Read the CNN article about Mark’s Challenge here.

4. Florence + The Machine

I know my entire last post was about music, but this one snuck in after I had posted it and ohmygoodness, is it fantastic stuff. I would file this one on Pinterest under “Ob.session.”

5. Happy Endings.

What if we lived in a world where Tupac and Biggie were still alive? What if they had made amends and were living together… in New Zealand?? An article showing on the front page of the PBS website claimed such storybook closure had actually taken place—but it turns out that it was the handiwork of hacking group LulzSec. A friend on (you guessed it) Facebook posted a link to this article and it certainly gave me a laugh or two. You can read it here.