Do you like stuff? So do we! Stuff for the mind, for passing time, for sharing, for yourself, for fun.
Mariva's Guide brings you interesting, innovative, beautiful, entertaining and useful products, web sites,
articles and images -- in other words, this, that and the other thing.
Sometimes animal lovers are in the mood to see kittens — lots and lots of kittens. Still photos of kittens may offer only partial satisfaction for your desire for cuteness. Fortunately, there’s plenty of video footage available, showing all the wobbling, bouncing, chasing, batting, squealing, head-tilting, cat-napping silliness you can stand.
wobbly, vulnerable first steps and mewing of early kittenhood
kittens playing with toys, boxes, a roll of toilet paper, and each other
white kittens (I’m partial to white cats, especially fluffy ones)
drinking milk, mostly from bottles — but, in one video, from a dog!
nodding off and falling asleep
If you find a kitten video that you think belongs in this YouTube playlist, please let me know. You can also find myriad kitten videos and slideshows on Kyte TV, and chat (text, audio, or video) live about them.
VH1 used to be the second-rate music video channel, targeting an audience about a decade older than MTV’s. But now VH1’s programming generally comprises time-wasting, guilty-pleasure filler shows, like I Love Toys. The show’s pointless exercise in conjuring nostalgia inspired me to dredge up my own memories of the not-too-distant past.
This is driving me nuts. What do you do with the hat once the snowman melts and his face mysteriously appears on the spinning thingamabob at the top that used to be the timer? (You have to play the game for that to make sense.) Or, without realizing it, did I actually win?
Gee, if I can’t even tear myself away from this thing, can you imagine me with Katamari?
Ever feel nostalgic for products or supplies that you remember from childhood, but haven’t been able to find in years? Your search may be over. The Vermont Country Store offers a wide variety of products that your parents or grandparents used — all brand-new and recently manufactured. How is this possible? The proprietors get permission to re-create vintage products as close to the originals as possible — including design and packaging — and bring them to market for another generation of consumers. If you’re not in the neighborhood of one of the stores in Weston or Rockingham, Vermont, you can order vintage games, classic New England apparel (warning: not for the fashion-conscious), long-lost fragrances and even food and beverages online. If you can’t find what you want, let them know, and they’ll consider re-creating it for you.
Googlism: Find out what Google "thinks" of you — or of anyone or anything else.
The Dialectizer: Turn the verbal content of a web page into any of a variety of funny dialects, including "Jive," "Cockney," "Elmer Fudd," "Swedish Chef," "Moron," "Pig Latin" or "Hacker." I sound quite cornpone when Mariva’s Guide has been Redneck Dialectized.
Does it fly? Can it cry? Can you eat it? Is it blue? Can you throw it? The Mind-Reading Electronic Question Game is a cool-looking device that can guess an object that you’re thinking of (although I can’t imagine that it could come up with obscure band names and scientific terms). Good for long trips, waiting rooms, bored kids and party ice-breakers.
Or you could just play 20 Questions online for free.
When I was in the eighth grade, my English teacher assigned the class a unique exercise in vocabulary building: an empty table with general categories (cities, vegetables, animals, etc.) across the top, and single letters down the left-hand side. Our task was to complete the table with category-specific words that began with each of the letters. I was under the impression that I had to fill in every cell of the table — or fail the assignment.
Feeling creatively blocked? Try a pack of IDEO Method Cards, a tool that helps designers, innovators, entrepreneurs and others come up with new ideas, approaches and strategies for business and creative endeavors. Each card features a photograph, diagram, drawing or other image on the front and a suggested approach on the back. You don’t have to be a professional designer to appreciate how these cards can help you think about things differently or conduct thought experiments in the everyday world. IDEO provides four examples online; if you’re intrigued by these, you’ll hunger for the whole deck.
