Popular Sentiment

This Website Is My Avatar.

One of the fun things about being me is that I am the only person named Marissa Flaxbart in the world. It's true. Weird, right? Life is short, so I've decided to embrace it. That's why there is marissaflaxbart.com and it is this and you are here, looking at it. It is me. Only, abbreviated. And digitized. Electronic me.

Look around and enjoy, leave comments, contact me if you'd like to have something made or written or baked or planned. Or just look. Looking is nice. It can be transitive or intransitive. Really, it can.

But I digress.

Website. Me. You. The Internet. It's all pretty amazing.

Memorable Jingles for Forgettable Products

One minute, in suggesting "pizza party" as a birthday idea for a friend. The next minute, I'm singing. I had to look up this commercial for the '80s board game, "Pizza Party," to jog said friend's memory and tickle my nostalgia bone. But the truly amazing part? I'd been singing it in the right key.

 

From the Mind of Don Flaxbart: AAPLtini (with recipe)

I thought about calling this post "Marissa's Tips for Living the Dream: Celebrate Any Damn Thing," but that just didn't seem informational enought.

Today, as some of you are sure to be aware, Apple stock (aka AAPL) passed 600 and Apple announced they'd begin paying out quarterly dividends. This is kind of bittersweet news for me (I had a tiny bit of the stock once, but had to sell it to survive my year of joblessness), but my dad was pretty psyched. In fact, he decided he had to celebrate by creating a cocktail. 

And it's good.

Here's the recipe

AAPLtini

2 oz vodka

1 oz Goldschlager

3-4 oz Martinelli's, chilled

Combine vodka and Goldschlager in a shaker (ice optional). Strain into a martini glass and top with Martinelli's. Sit back and think about how you bought Apple stock in the 1980s when people thought the company was going down the tubes. Alternately, stare blankly into the glass, enjoying the pretty gold color and the bubbles.

Says Don, "We'll enjoy it for today. The stock's been going up so fast, something's gotta...[trails off]."

Genius, master chef, goofball, pessimist. That's my dad. 

 

Fun with Percolator

I recently found out about this fascinating, albeit somewhat pointless, iPhone app called Percolator. Basically, it's an adjustable filter for photos that turns them into beautiful dots of color. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I'm guessing it has something to do with pixels.

I made a few Percolator images that I'm using as iPhone wallpaper, and I thought I'd share them here; I think they're pretty neat. See if you can guess what the original picture was!

 

 

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Etta James = The Tops

Pretty much every song on "Her Best" has been one of my favorites ever since I first started listening to in high school. Thanks, Ella James, for being awesome.

http://youtu.be/IHqr4PhiaWo

Song Twins: Sam Cooke and Journey

How's this for a random observation:

I just noticed that, at times (like, um, the chorus and the verse), Sam Cooke's "Nothing Can Change This Love" and Journey's "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" are more or less the same song. They're even in the same key. I am probably not the first person to make this observation but, as I came to it independently, I'm pretty pleased with myself.

Journey should be awarded bonus points for thinking up "NA na na NA na na, na na na NA na na" and adding that in there.

See what you think: