Everywhere I go I see T-Shirts, some tasteful, some less.
Today the New York Times features Free City Supershop in 800 Very Unsquare Feet. They sell bicycles with character and T-Shirts that speak to you.
At least they have a personality, not another bland store.
Many creative people now use T Shirts as their Canvas.
Will we start collecting them?

French based 'La Fraise'  is a T Shirt success story, both creatively and commercially. Right now, their home page sports a 'I have a Dream' design.
I mentioned Guy Trebay's Opus on Limited Edition T Shirts in July 2005.

Browsing through my bookshelves I rediscovered Elements of Etiquette ' A guide to table manners in an imperfect world' as its author Craig Claiborne calls it.
The book was originally published in 1992, might sound a little old fashioned to you but contains a lot of valuable advice.

It covers such topics as how to set a party, who to invite. How to accept an invitation or call it off?

If the party is in a restaurant, he suggests that bringing the topic of splitting the check during dinner or using a calculator to verify the check is very bad manners. Regarding tipping, in the US a minimum of 15% should apply even if there were issues with the meal. they might not be all the server's fault.

A more recent take (2004) on Manners comes from Jill Bremer in Dining Etiquette for the Fast Food Generation.

In any case, be sure to make a gracious exit and thank your hosts unlike the stragglers I mentioned in Music as a weapon to deal with lingering guests in October.

Maybe you heard of Fotolia. Now comes along Lucky Oliver, the brainchild of Bryan Zmijewski and his team in California.
Want to share with the world some of your best shots, submit them. Looking for illustrations for your website, blog, holiday cards or calendars purchase them for as low as $1.00 a piece. You can start as low as 10 tokens for $10.00.

Being able to find pictures of Menhirs (shown here) in Carnac (Brittany), the French equivalent of Stonehenge could be what converted me.

Do not forget to pay frequent visits to Paris Daily Photo and similar sites in City Daily Photo.

See my previous post  Around the World in a Few Clicks on this topic.

We all have a Novel inside us. Most of us fail to give birth to it.

I picked a working title for mine ('9 Years in the Valley'), jotted down a few ideas, thought of actors who could play some of the characters in the movie adaptation, have some ideas for the soundtrack. I even registered the corresponding domain name. All that said, I have only a few lines to speak of...

I will definitely not be able to complete a 175 pages novel by tomorrow night, midnight and enter it in the 'National Novel Writing Month' contest which consists of writing a Novel in a Month (November).

Last year about 10.000 people completed the challenge of a 50.000 words opus.

Maybe I should use the domain name I registered and start writing live, one page at a time. It would take me a minimum of 175 days or about 6 months to complete.

Did you enter 'National Novel Writing Month' ? If you did let us know how you fared.

On my daily walk, not my daily bike ride like Byron at BikeHugger, I realized that one thing that I should have suggested in Wedding Proposal #1 was a Dejeuner sur l'herbe (a Picnic in the Park would do).
Announce it in French which shows your worldliness with a hint of a reference to the painting of the same name by Edouard Manet.

Get a picnic basket ready with a small bottle of bubbly and 2 champagne flutes.
The simple setting might make for a bigger surprise.

You could even ride one of these new yet classic looking bikes to your picnic place such as those brought to us by Jorg & Olif from Vancouver whose 'postcard' graces this piece.

Their offering follows the same path as Cykelmageren which I covered in Handmade Bikes recently.

I found out about Jorg & Olif on Cool Hunting.

Yesterday I got one of these phone calls that got me thinking anew about my business. A reporter was asking me if in the range of concierge and errands services I provided, I ever happened to help set up a wedding proposal.
I had to admit I never did. As I told her, it does not mean I will not as every new job opportunity as a concierge has the potential to be unexpected.
So let me think of a few things I would focus on to make the proposal a success.
Let us start with not being ordinary.
Most people think of finding a 'romantic' restaurant but maybe it is overdone.
Would a jazz club or a cabaret or small play work if you can trick the singer or one of the actors to insert your wedding proposal in the script?
An hot air balloon ride would do unless the person is afraid of heights or plain scared of either marriage or their potential  partner (or all of the above).
Most important, forget about dropping the ring in your (soon to be) better half cocktail or in the middle of a puff pastry. The drama might come from a trip to the emergency room, not the most auspicious start.

As for the flowers, Roses by Design suggests scattering rose petals or even better to order roses bearing your message and deliver them throughout the day.

According to Our One Heart, a man used Halloween and Jack O' Lanterns for his proposal.

Back in June, I wrote in Up in the Air about Hot Air Balloon Rides over the Castles of the Loire Valley, could be an idea.

In any case if you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to share them with your comments.

Well who would have thought not so long ago of having Lunch or Dinner at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City.
It used to be a place you would go through only out of need (to board a bus).
Its face lift continues with the arrival of Metro Marche a Parisian Style brasserie graced by a zinc bar imported from Paris.
The restaurant serves Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Prepared food for commuters and travelers alike is also available.
This is the creation of Simon Oren and Steve Tenedios.
Gael Greene reviewed Metro Marche in New York Magazine.

Based on recent experience, I will avoid as much as possible taking the Bus from my Montclair outpost to the City. The train runs on time, is more comfortable and therefore less stressful.

Maybe it is my European background but I feel that on special occasions, a dinner table nicely set adds to the evening's mood.
I recently discovered Chiasso. They offer contemporary design for the house. Some of them did not strike me. One that appealed to me was their Atomic Fruit Bowl (pictured here).

I like their 'Trees' and 'Ding Dong' Doormats as well.

Maybe they could cut down on the use of the word 'modern' though.

Besides their Online presence they also have a store in Chicago (Lincoln Park).

Could be a good place for the Jet Girls to shop.

In our time pressed era, one can combine taking a shower and working on their SAT thanks to the Intuitive Learning Company series of 6 SAT based shower curtains including the one pictured here.

The company's goal is to offer stress free learning tools.

I first read about them in the 'Trendspotter' column of the Financial Times.

The Intuitive Learning Company is based in Minneapolis as was Wize my previous topic.

When shopping for such products as a new digital camera, a flat screen TV, or even more mundane things like a vacuum cleaner, office or computer products the sheer number of options might make it hard to choose. For my digital camera purchase back in July, I used CNET Reviews . For a wider range of products, Minneapolis based WIZE offers product rankings based on a combination of experts and users reviews. Besides the products I mentioned above it also looks at strollers, car seats, shavers, humidifiers, blenders and more.
I read about them earlier on Techcrunch but failed to mention them.
A short piece on their service on Lifehacker prompted me to correct my omission.
Check Wise and let me know what you think of it.

It could be used in combination with Frucall, a price comparison tool that I mentioned in '4 Digital Life services worth trying' back in October.