Pairing

Today was techie Wednesday, the day when, after six long years of living in the Incorporated Village with no cell phone service, we finally found a partial solution to our out-of-touch problem: Bluetooth. From today I can make and receive cell calls via new VTech cordless handsets that we have on a VoIP system. We still won't be able to use the home handset and the cell simultaneously but we can put one or the other on hold while we answer a call and conference between the two. And we can pair two cell phones with the base station and import the address books too.


Secondly we upgraded the home network to stream music, videos and photos from my computer to the den. I waited a long time for AppleTV to get to a price point that I felt comfotable with - and enough applications to become available - so I could play music from my iTunes on the flatscreen in the den. Now that Airplay for iPad is here I get all that, as well as a bunch of radio stations, photos from Flickr, youtube videos and a few other apps that never worked smoothly as widgets via the awkward Samsung dongle. AppleTV also proved much easier to set up than the previous wifi system. I had all my accounts, flickr, itunes, youtube, programmed in less than 10 minutes. If the iHome Airplay wifi speakers ever become available we'll have a whole house music system again but this time it will be fully integrated. I can't wait!


I also signed up for Netflix, a feature that wasn't offered on the Samsung 7000 LED last year (although video downloads from Amazon and Blockbuster were) so we now have instant movies on demand showing on the iMac, iPad and the TV! This should be a big help when the entire family descends for the Holidays.

Sneak Peek: Cabinet Hardware*

Atlas Centinel 3" pulls on the bathroom vanity. I had no idea the carpenter had put thses on Friday afternoon because when I went upstairs to check on him he was helping The Guy put the big-ass but slimline TV on its stand. The Guy is in love with his TV while I want to LICK these handles they are so damn good-looking. Looks like we both got what we wanted...

* Yes, I know these weren't on the list when I asked for your opinion interwebs, but when I wanted to look at those in real life one was too shiny, one was too dark and one was unavailable. This pull fitted in the budget and in my hand and looks even better on these vanities than on the board in the store.

Three Words I Can Never Utter Again

1:20 minute: "...now I want to be mid-century modern girl".

Dammit, I loved MCM furniture when the only place you could find it was a dumpster, at the time it was considered worthless junk. Then it became mainstream. It's been over-exposed for a while, this Noguchi coffee table is styled into TV shows and advertisements and you can spot a Saarinen Womb Chair in practically every issue of surviving decor magazines, but from this moment mid-century modern is officially over. Whatever shall I do?

Saturday morning:The laughter continues

I have a meeting and a few errands to run but I can't leave you without something to mull over.
It occurred to me while watching my guilty pleasure The Real Housewives of New York that The Countess, who has written a book on manners to help the proles conduct themselves in polite society, reminded me of someone but I couldn't think whom it was. In the middle of the night I sat up and yelled Fanny Cradock, which frightened everyone and me most of all. Fanny was British and liked to pretend she was a lady. In her early days she cooked in a ballgown, with her husband Johnny, who I believe wore a monocle (though I could have imagined this bit). Think Julia Childs crossed with Margaret Thatcher. Terrified yet?
See for yourself...


Oh, you wanted to see her cook too? See what she does to this poor bird. Enjoy!

American Idle

How young can you be to have lived a life worthy of a memoir? And new memoir? Does that mean he's written one already? Seriously, Sanjaya? Isn't he like twelve?

File it under Humor

In The Today Show's "What Were They Thinking?" segment "fashion icon" and "style guru" Isaac Mizrahi channels his inner Benny Hill to give advice to women on undergarments.


The segment is actually called Plastic Surgery without the Plastic Surgery, which must account for the bandana and stethoscope in his pocket.
Isn't it a little early in the morning for post-modern humor?

A modern house makeover

A bout of fluey colds forced us to forgo our usual Friday evening cocktail and dinner and instead stay in to watch mindless TV. We didn't hold out much hope for entertainment but sometimes there are gems out there in Friday night TV land. Clinton Kelly the host of the US version of "What Not To Wear" was making over his house in the Connecticut hills.
A makeover show, decorating a house, critiquing someone else's taste - what's not to like? But wait it gets better - it's a modern house, better still a 1969 house with odd shaped rooms, wood ceilings and distinctive windows. It's like my house (although nowhere near as gorgeous of course).
The really great thing for me was that he used the elements that I've been toying with for the master bath: wood paneling around the tub; 24x17" tiles on the walls (that look remarkably like the Porcelanosa Ferroker tiles we used on the boys' bath floor) and mosaic on the shower floor, giving me an idea of the final look for our space without spending any money.
And we got to see someone else gagging in disbelief at the price of home renovation. Priceless. Watch the repaeat if you can, otherwise the Hartford Courant has photos and a Q&A session with Clinton.