project 1: shopping for a hot tub

starting cart-about-horse: there is a design in mind for the summer pavilion which will make its way here but first, any good secluded escape needs some kind of entertainment that doesn't need electricity or a data connection. i really want to put in a wood-fired hot-tub. it'll hopefully end up being something that works. the fuel supply is easy but the water needs some work if it's not going to come out of a tap, I haven't given that enough though.

However here are some of the off-the-shelf options:

The Dutchtub:





This is from the newly discovered (by me) weltervree by designer

FLORIS SCHOONDERBEEK -

Then the snorkel stove powered more traditional cedar hot tub:

ignore the interviewy bit, that's a bit cringe.

should still be studying

should be studying

finals of the masters next week so what better time to post about a band my lovely friend C.T. introduced me to, The Be Good Tanyas. Probably best described as bluegrass with a big dose of old timey blues and really distinctive haunting vocals from Frazey Ford they might just be the coolest thing to come out of Canada, ever.

what is it to be a man?

I've been asking this question a lot recently, particularly since a really important friend of mine C.T. challenged me on a few ideas I had on feminism/gender. Having done a bit of reading around that as an undergraduate I thought myself at least better read and certainly more open to those ideas than many 26 year old men. My slightly regretful feeling is in part feminism ate itself by playing semantics and perhaps more significantly was swiftly marginalised alongside other non-conservative and therefore non-plausible politics. The fact is we probably need it more now than ever in the "west" and outside of that - take one look at a little girl's prospects in Afghanistan and tell me it's all OK.

Anyway, that's not the point of this. If I find it weird and slightly ghastly that a woman would take her boyfriend to a lap-dancing club "because that's cool nowadays" and get a dance herself "for banter" is there not also a problem with the guy?

I started reading Akerlof's Men without Children which, though slightly antiquated reaffirms something I've been thinking a while. Men need to harden the f* up. There is nothing in Nuts magazine be it football, women or photos of various victims of accidents/chainsaws/genetics that has anything to do with being a man. The straight-down-the-line balls to do something, and then stand up for what it is you've done is increasingly rare. I also increasingly see it more in the women I know. We're going to become redundant.

stair porn

i just found this blog - i hope work's it don't hunt me down... it is loosely work related.