Build Your Own Bike with Republic

I know this is very hipster, but I'm pretty in love with the idea of building your own Republic bike.

All I need is $400 and a basket, and I'm good to go.

I fancy this casting.

Ok. OK, ED WESTWICK, YOU WIN.

In the first season of Gossip Girl, I was repulsed by you(r character).  In season 2, I felt.. indifferent.  But now - well, you warranted an IMDB search as I watched the season 3 premiere.
Which is where I read about your upcoming role as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Ed.  You're doing this for me, right?  Like.. you know that Wuthering Heights is one of my favourite books. And you know that I love nothing more than spot-on casting.
Well whatever.
I still think you squint your eyes too much.

Face

Word Clouds for your walls! (or wherevs)

So - fair warning: this is nerdy. Nerdy but so snappy, says I!  Wordle is an easy-to-use website where you can transform text into lovely word clouds (word clouds are where words from a text are re-arranged into a "cloud" shape and words that appear more often in the text are larger, and less frequently used words are smaller).  I just think that the possibilities are endless here, and they would make lovely prints for an office or nursery.  Check out the ones below - I was going to tell you what texts I used to create them, but maybe I'll just let you guess.

Summer Heights High

Look - I know that this is old news to many, but many people (i.e., Canadians without satellite) have not heard of Summer Heights High.  And it's a crime.

When I first started in education in Australia, one of my lecturers prescribed Summer Heights High to all the foreign students, because it was the single best representation of Australian schools.  It is.  But it's also hysterical.  Chris Lilley plays three characters in the series; J'Mie the private school bitch, Jonah the troubled Polynesian student, and Mr G the drama teacher.  Here's a taste; hunt down the full 8 episodes.

1930s and 1940s in Colour!

I'm fairly obsessed with the image below:

The Library of Congress has posted some (and by some, I mean over 1500) amazing scanned colour transparencies of the depression/WWII eras in the USA. I mean, this is the real deal! IN COLOUR! Do yourself a favour and head over to the ginormous collection on Flickr.

Maggy Scraggle Loves the Beautiful Ice-Cream Man

Today I was perusing the Curriculum Collection in my campus library and I came across Maggy Scraggle Loves the Beautiful Ice-Cream Man by Jill McDonald.

This was one of my favourite books as a kid, and I've never seen it for sale anywhere (my copy is possibly lost, or at the very least, tattered.) In addition to the characters having fabulous names that are delicious to say like "Prince Sintypuppa" and "King Jinko", the illustrations are fantastic.

McDonald, Jill. (1978) Maggy Scraggle Loves the Beautiful Ice-Cream Man, England: Penguin Books Ltd.