What’s Going on @ Sillydog Media

Yep, I’m takin’ about me.  You can check out all the bottles over at the New Deal Distillery site.
I tried it out, doing a gig for Lisa of Loft Liqueurs, who I’m also helping to make said liqueurs in commercial quantities. Turns out, I do pretty good work, just as Matt had suggested. I’ve had several photography avenues open up lately, so I’ll keep you posted. However, I might just have to put my shingle out as a product photographer.

These images were actually taken outside, with natural light. Cool, eh?

Loft Organic Liqueurs have agave syrup in them instead of sugar or corn syrup, and they’re flavoured with real organic ingredents instead of essential oils or toxic chemicals. The whole product line, which includes ginger, lemongrass, tangerine, blueberry and lavender (I swear, it’s good) for sale in Oregon as of 1 July. They’ve been on sale at quite a few different stores and bars in California and New York for some time. The rest of the world can buy them online.

Everyone LOVES the tangerine, though we’ve not sampled the blueberry yet. Matt’s chompin’ at the bit, and had even put the model bottle in the freezer at one point. I’ll let you know.

See how great my new tangerine bottles looks compared with the previous bottles. Oh, I’m so pleased with how it turned out.

While I was travelling back in the Twin Cities, I had a chance to visit some old haunts. Why not give them a review. I know some good secret spots, especially out in the burbs, but I dedided to start w/ that Uptown staple, the ol’ Leaning Tower of Pizza. You can see the review on wCities.
I can’t tell you how many dorm rooms I’ve seen their boxes. Good place for drinks, too.

Portland has always been very pancake friendly.  Take the Hotcake House, for instance.  This is serious business that we are not content to leave up to a national chain, even one with such a fancy name as the International House of Pancakes.

Enter the waffle.  Crepes are soooo 2005.  Hard times call for more flour and less egg.  Hard times call for plenty of syrup.  But, you might be surprised at the number of stuffed and savory waffles that are making an appearance.

One of the more curious and very Portlandesque (if that’s a word — it should be) Jáce Gáce, over on Belmont, combines booze, coffee, waffles and art.  I just reviewed them for wCities and am a big fan of the atmosphere of this place.  Sure, you can get a cheaper waffle elsewhere.  And yes, mine are better, but I can’t feed all of you!  Moreover, my house isn’t nearly as spiffy, and we don’t have nearly the beer and wine selection.

Having been forced into health-nut behaviour, I usually go for some juice or tea and a bit of the fruit covered sweet action.  The grilled cheeze is but a dream, but you’d better really like your cheese to properly enjoy one.

Add to this the Waffle Window on Hawthrone and the Waffle Cart over in Northwest, and Portland, already a breakfast Mecca, is Waffle Ascendant.

Well, the very best is the kind I make at home on top of the oven, overnight. It’s just right because I take it off the stove when I want to, and better yet, no waste.However, sometimes you want to have some for dessert. I’m not the sort of yuppie that owns a gellato machine (though I’d love a kickable ice-cream freezer), but I do like the taste of real yoghurt. I especially love cinnmon ice cream, and apparently the rest of the world isn’t hip, because it’s impossible to get unless you go to one of those annoying mall joints.

Well, enter Bleuet over in Northwest. I just reviewed them for wCities. They make their own tangy, not-too-sweet, non-fat, frozen yoghurt. It comes in plain, honey (Matt’s fave, being a sugarfiend) and my fave, cinnamon. I am in heaven. It’s all organic and this is one of the “greenest” businesses you’ll find. Heck, even the spoons are compostable.
Take the streetcar into NW, since parking is useless here, and get your yoghurt on. It’s a bit spendy, but cheaper than going to Cold Stone Creamery, and you’ll feel much better about yourself when you’re done.

One of my favourite photos ever has been used in another publicaiton, this time, a blog called Coroflot’s Creative Seeds on networking. In short, the point of the article is that if you make a great first impression, you can kill it later by not keeping up with your contacts.

It is interesting to note that I took this picture and made these comments about 18 months before the first widely circulated reports of colony collapse disorder (CCD) having appeared in North America. Well, I hate to be a fortune teller, but this disaster has been a long time coming. (Read on …)

After a bit of a health-related hiatus, I’ve put several reviews up on wCities. I’ll try to catch up here.

For starters, I finally made it down to the Brooklyn Park Pub a few months ago, to watch a Vikings game. I cannot tell you what a friendly neighbourhood place this was. I spent the whole game talking to a fellow Vikings fan and had a great time. They had the New Deal Hot Monkey Vodka behind the bar and, get this: Whiskey Around the World Club. The neighbours down the street are well on their way to getting $1 off all their whiskies for LIFE. Moreover, the bartenders were soooo friendly, I asked them if I could just have a plate of mushrooms, and they gave ‘em to me for free. Heck, she even bummed me a smoke, not knowing me from Eve. Please, if you like a neighbourhood sports joint now and then or whiskey, give these folks your money.

(Read on …)

An interesting article came to my attention that sparked a bit of a debate over on the Pirates’ list. I thought you might be interested in what I came up with. This is the sort of story that could turn into a book. Are you listening LA Times SF Gate? Or is this doomed to be on indymedia forever?l

(Read on …)

It’s now officially a big issue. A reporter for Marketplace, the most excellent show (with their very own sustainability desk) on NPR that explains business news as it pertains to real people (as it most sincerely does) contacted me about a story: how has the drastic increase in the price of food affected people’s actions and attitudes towards urban agriculture?

Oh, is there a topic nearer or dearer to my heart? You know there isn’t! (Read on …)

So, in trade for building a website, I got a chance to setup a studio session with lighting tech help. That’s what her husband, Randy, does (in addition to doing cool things like filming the Dali Lama in Washington, DC.) for a living.

Matt and I had our session last Spring. I remember it was nice and warm, sunny and unseasonably warm. Matt had mimosas to calm his nerves before going to his session. I’m afraid he was still nervous, or at least self-conscious, and I didn’t do a very good job of directing him into “the zone.” See, that’s why a girl needs to practice.

I made a little executable slide-show of the raw photos from the session. (Read on …)

Well, pretty much finished — there are a few touches I could make, but I started building this website early this summer in my “spare” time and just now, finally got enough black tea in me to just stay up all night and get it done.

It’s for my friend and “employer” Kristin Zabawa, a gifted photographer who I occasionally assist with headshot photography.  It’s a lot of fun and educational for me.  Also, she’s a great gal.  I recommend her to any of my actor acquainances.

I think it looks pretty spiffy, it is is my first foray into flashy-ness.  So, the moral of the story is that I can make a functional website, but it takes a little while.