Something about this cup inspires simplicity and austerity, of the best sort. Imagine living in a one room house in the middle of the woods, with this as your one drinking vessel.

I’ve been following the European debt crisis with some bit of fascination, fear, horror and disgust. How the F*ck did we get here? Although their debt crisis is different from our own in some ways, it’s also borne out of the same greed, speculation, mismanagement, ideological differences, growing divisions of wealth and the list goes on…and on. I posited the question some time ago to someone way more expert than I in the field of economics as to whether they thought the euro was at risk. As often happens with so-called experts, they dismissed my query as ridiculous. And amateurish. Well, fast forward a few months. While the likelihood of the euro-zone being disbanded is unlikely, it’s still a possibility. A previously unthinkable one. Anyway, all this talk of euros made me feel incredibly nostalgic for the former currencies of Europe: Those individual bills printed with beautiful illustrations and likenesses of famous people. I have favorites (see the 10 Francs note with Voltaire’s face) for sure. This little collection comes courtesy of Jacob Lewis Bourjaily. He has a site where he documents all the currencies of Europe bearing depictions of either scientists or mathematicians. I like his parameters.

Believe it or not, there are very few things that I actually covet. This blanket is one of them. Although, truly, we don’t need another. Well, maybe… Available at Ancient Industries. Check out their blog while you’re there.

The other day Swissmiss posted an item about Pantone Christmas ornaments. Someone commented that they thought the ornaments were fishing bobbers. I saw the rationale there, and then clicked on the wiki link provided by the commenter. This took me into the rabbit hole that is the internet. Within minutes, I knew considerably more about fishing lures than I ever thought necessary…although, I’ve always been interested in hand tied flies. Anyway, I found a  nice image of some old lures and one photograph which details the different stages of the making of a lure. Always a sucker for process. Photos courtesy of Fishing for History, Wikimedia (via commenter on Swissmiss), Learning How to Fish, Pehl Trading and Artist At Exit 0.

I was reading the actual paper version of the NYT this morning and was basically assaulted by the scent of perfume as I paged through one of the sections. Couldn’t figure out where the odor was coming from until I bent my head down to sniff an advertisement for…perfume. Blech. And then I was reminded of some razors I bought over the summer. They emitted a very pungent strawberry scent as soon as I removed them from the packaging. Again, I couldn’t initially figure out from where the aroma originated. And how had I missed the two little berries on the label? Something about this seems to have crossed a line. I’m still mulling over why it offends me. I did a little homework and found a story in the Times offering up various explanations (most of them pretty obvious, but still weird) as to why the last unscented bastion in our bathrooms has now succumbed to the forces of marketing.