Since it was the first Weekend of Spring we we're doing our best to find and feel the zeitgeist of Spring, where else of course but in Brooklyn. While the calendar was definitely in the spring zone, the temperatures …well not so much. After some successful thrift store shopping, check the monk strap shoes below, for cheap we ended up at party where the music was of the bad rap variety, but the other party goers, sure were of the friendly type. One girl came and danced around and surprisingly enough invited us to go to church for Easter.

This was a bit unexpected for a few reasons. Well, 1) usually church is not part of our party convo repertoire and 2) she didn't appear to be the church lady evangelist type in the least with beer in hand gyrating to some Young Jezzy song. So we played along, talked about music, and life stuff and she convinced us to go to Easter services. Easter services this year were a bit different. They were at Pete's Candy Store, a bar in Williamsburg and the pastor had enough tattoos and piercings to make even alterna-teens kinda apprehensive. Not that GOFG is trying to convince its readers to attend church or give their lives over to the Lord, but it was NICE to go to church on a Sunday and not worry about all the pretenses and conventions usually associated with "praising the Lord". More»

If you have yet to hear about ultra-sonic child deterrent, read up, because it’s fresh off the boat in New York.  The genius of this idea (called the mosquito), is its ability to scatter annoying teenagers using nothing but a high-pitched, eardrum grating sound only audible to those under the age of 20.  In addition to teenagers, it would presumably keep away other annoying varieties of children, like the four-year-old that won’t stop screaming and flailing, as well as the 9-year-old who thinks she’s cooler than the hottest It Girl and insists on being verbal about it.  Anyway, if you were thinking, “Well, what about the good teenagers and children?” you wouldn’t be the first.  Across the pond, this device is drumming civil liberties groups and children’s rights advocates into action.  I can’t believe that it will take very long before we see the same debates surface here.  So, before those pansies ruin a good thing, here’s my idea:

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[Photo via SWPL]
Stuff White People Like is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. In the words of Larry David, it is "pretty, pretty, pretty" hilarious...mainly because white people make it so easy to make fun of them (Note: I am a Caucasian from the middle of America). Here are some of my favorite things that white people like: "Public radio" (where all of their opinions are developed from), "expensive sandwiches", "kitchen gadgets", "Asian fusion food", "studying abroad", "microbreweries", "marathons", "yoga", "80s night", "Barack Obama" (for fear of being racist), "being the only white person around", "renovations", "sushi", "Sunday Times", "bottles of water", "making you feel bad about not going outside", "not having a tv" (the only reason they don't have a tv is so that they can inform people that they don't have a tv and to tell us how much they love public radio), "mos def" (the ultimate white man's rapper), and "assists" (because "In basketball, it’s kind of a must so that white guys can carve out a niche and guarantee acceptance on a team.")

I can think of about 100 other things to add, Pellegrino water anyone? But for now, this list is at least a start as a pretty good online time waster, yet another thing white people (including this one) are known to do.

[Mos Def and Old White Rolling Stone Man]

Wanna know what we found (with the help of thecoolhunter) that's even cooler than the new toy everyone has been talking about? (Macbook Air) It's the iPod Conerto Table by Lovegrove & Repucci.

Ever want to act like you could dine in your own place with the most beautiful piece by Mozart being played in the background each night, on your very own grand piano? This table is for you. With a mounted base and speaker system for you iPod, just one open of the lid reveals two surface mounted speakers. For only $1400 USD, you can choose between the black or white model, and wow your future dinner guests as you will, no doubt, have the coolest new apartment accessory around. Would also serve as a great desk in any office....we want, we want!

This lovely photo is from asimko.com

Grub Street has high carb, calorie loaded treats on their minds today.  If you are looking for the perfect excuse to break your New Year's Resolutions, look no further.  We have two delictable choices for you.  The first, pictured above is the "Cookie Crunch Puff" created by the famous Beard Papa's (the world's best cream puffs) which is reopening at 5 Carmine Street.  The second (shown below) can be find in Chinatown on Grand St. near Bowery.  It is the "Cream-Cake Machine" created by genius Patrick Chu.  Making two dozen cakes every five minutes you can buy 8 for $2 or 24 for only $5.  Send your thank you's to Josh and Daniel over at Grub Street.

Bottlerocket is quickly becoming our favorite wine store.  "At Bottlerocket, shopping for wine is made intuitive. And fun!" So claims their website, which is like an "idiots guide to wine selection" in itself.  With a selection of 365 wines, all organized by theme such as seafood, poultry, meat, gifts, and even "take-out" where they have wines chosen for their compatibility with local take-out menus (whose menus are also available).  They will deliver to you, the owners and employees are always friendly, there is even a play area for kids, complete with a real-life friendly dog that seems to belong as much as the bottles.  It feels like a small town shop, with free wine tastings every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and various other events and classes throughout the year all advertised on a little blackboard outside.  Besides all of these things they are doing right, besides the several gift options to meet all of our holiday gift-giving needs, we found yet another reason to love BottleRocket...they are one of the few places in the city to sell Sofia Mini's.

These cute little boxes hold 4 cans of Socia blanc de blancs sparkling wine, complete with a little straw attached to each one.  It is the creation of the Niebaum-Coppola Winery, owned by film director Francis Ford Coppola who named the sparkling wine for daughter and fellow director Sofia Coppola.  We think that this is the perfect little gift.  It would also be fun to have at your holiday party and would definitely be the conversation starter.  Stop by Bottlerocket on 19th street off of 5th avenue to pick up some Sofia Minis or to create you own personalized holiday gift tub.  CHEERS!

The LWALA benefit was last night at the Battery Park Gardens and we hear it was a success. The acroym stands for "Living With A Lifelong Ambition" and is a foundation that has been getting a lot of notice, especially after Natalie Portman started supporting. In this weeks' issue of NY magazine, the lovely Ms. Portman was interviewed along with Dustin Hoffman to promote their new film "Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium". Here's what she said:

What are you going to give this year? "One of my friends got his twin sister cooking classes, and she got him D.J. lessons. I thought that was pretty cool. Some friends of friends started this medical clinic in a village in Kenya, Lwala. They make beautiful jewelry that they sell at Lwala.org, and all of the proceeds go back to this medical clinic."

The jewelry she is talking about is that of sisters Danielle and Jodi Synder (pictured above). Their company Dannijo jewels features semi-precious stone, handmade jewelry and accesories (though they claim "Confidence" as the "accessory of the season"). You can purchase off their website for unique holiday gifts that also support a good cause.

Two really cool things we came across and wanted to share

The first has to do with our favorite toy, LEGO. The Storefront for Art and Architecture at Kenmare and Lafayatte is currently showcasing conceptual urban housing designs and one is an amazing version of New York City created out of Legos. We haven't seen it yet, but apparently the details are intense and include New Yorkers doing various things including street graffitti, working, going to Dean & Deluca, and even going at it. Gothamist does a good job reporting on the exhibit as well as a link to a fantastic flickr site with tons of photos to check out. Oh and get there before November 24th.

Second, brings us to the amazing work they are doing at Sony BRAVIA. They released their "play-doh" commercial October 4th but we just saw it today and thought it was pretty f-ing cool. It is the most ambitious piece of stop-motion animation ever undertaken. Created by ad agency Fallon London, the commercial took a team of 40 animators three weeks choreographing the models to create the 100,000 still images required to produce the 60-second ad.

"Technically this is the most difficult thing I have ever done," said the ad's director, Frank Budgen. "It is an incredibly difficult situation to control. You have New Yorkers wandering through frames and you have no say over it because we're doing it for real." Previous ads by BRAVIA have included releasing 250,000 bouncing balls on San Francisco and creating pyrotechnical paint display in Glasgow, though the latest one in the Financial District of NYC tops them all. Watch the video below which, besides the bunnies includes effects such as a 200 square foot purple plasticine wave and a whale "swimming" through the streets of Manhattan - all while locals go about their daily lives.

At around 3am PST today (6am EST), the Burning Man figure caught fire.  He is supposed to be burned on the 6th day (Saturday) of this 8 day festival....sources suspect arson.  The 35,000+ person experimental community festival  is held annually in Black Rock City, Nevada.  The figure is still standing, but damage has yet to be assessed as to whether figure needs to be rebuilt...

Could it be the business men disguised as business hippie douchebags trying to sabotage the anticorporate hippie douchebag lifestyle?  On second thought these guys are most definitely too high on designer weed to pull off something like this.  Its probably the green hippie douchebags from Coolingman, peeved about the festival's carbon footprint...developing...

As the weather starts heat up and we head into the Dog Days of Summer, its always nice to cool off with a bottle of Jones Soda.  For those of you who aren't yet in "the know", Jones is a fast growing soda company that started out on a grassroots level in Seattle about a decade ago.  They are the only soda company that makes pop with pure cane sugar (instead of the less healthy High Fructose Corn Syrup found in Coke and Pepsi).  In addition, they have a large offering of 0 calorie flavors that actually don't taste like crap! 

 One of the neat touches they do is put pictures that customers send in on their bottles, and you can order your own sixpack with whatever picture you want.  In addition, they have a lots of cool limited addition flavors including some pretty wacky ones like Gravy...weird huh?  We highly recommend the FuFu Berry, our favorite flavor.