The Friday Menagerie: Collection #4

The â€œFriday Menagerieâ€ is a handful of links & tweets & other goodnesses from around the web that I gather throughout the week and then corral into a post. Stuff I loved, found fascinating, got a kick out of, etc. Please to enjoy!

Welcome back, Spring. I missed you.

Links Like These

I loved Naomi Dunford’s perspective on the difference between hungry and starving for several reasons, not the least of which is that she points out that super spiffy elevator speeches come off sounding a lot like “I spend more time thinking about how to tell people what I do than I do actually doing it.” Seriously.
I laughed–actually out loud–many times through the course of reading The Bloggess’ recap of the Zombie Apocalypse as captured on Twitter. Examples: “Have resorted to electric bread knife/bleach combo. Now they’re dismembered AND disinfected” and “Alright. Gonna go play Shamble Shamble Revolution now.” and “Haven’t been eaten by zombies yet. I feel weirdly dejected. Doubting my deliciousness.”
Colleen Wainwright writes about the power of tiny pieces. She observes the nonsense we tell ourselves when we’re facing down a big project, and the truth of how effectively we can approach it by working in consistent increments. She also mentions creating (and using) a system–something I enthusiastically advocate.
Y’know what bites more than not getting the blog traffic, comments, attention or success you want? Feeling entitled to any of it. Sonia Simone correctly explains that the attitude of entitlement is the law of anti-attraction, which repels attention, connection and success.
John Styn shared one of his family’s traditions, and I think it’s a fantastic one. My family plans to adopt this tradition in coming years: the Easter Beer Hunt. (I love the six-pack boxes with green and pink fake grass in them. Brilliant.)
One fascination I’ve had since I was little is with math tricks. People who can do large and complicated calculations in their heads wow me. So this Lifehacker article on how to square large numbers in your head quickly caught my eye. I’ve been practicing it, and I’m excited every time I can do it. New party trick! (Because what’s more fun at parties than math?!)
A favorite post from last year caught my eye when I was perusing my Google Bookmarks: one of Mark Silver’s (many) excellent articles, this one discussing selling your product or service for more than what you yourself would pay for it. That the amount you would pay for your own service or product is a terrible gauge of what others would pay is not necessarily intuitive, though Mark makes it simple & logical.

Life Is Tweetiful

Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious. –Brendan Gill via @desireeadaway
Instead of telling the world how stressed you are today, tell it how scared you are. It’s the same thing. @TimBrownson
OH [at WalMart]: “I’m just here for the glory and the pain.” Here at Walmart or here on Earth? @WhirledKatie
The older I get, the more I think that the roots of all trouble are too much fear and not enough love. @communicatrix
In down dog today the instructor asked, “nature loves to fill a void – what space will you create?” @gwenbell
Spring (n.): The time of year when our obsession with central heating transforms into an addiction to neon baby chicken-shaped marshmallows. @katefeetie
I thought I was sad this morning, then I made french toast and it turns out I was just really hungry. Whew. @ladawn
I really like the kind of person I am, right now. Can I please hold onto this feeling forever? @kateohkatie

The Friday Menagerie Jukebox

You can visit the Friday Menagerie Jukebox playlist anytime, all week long!
If you’re viewing this in a feed reader, you may need to click through to see the videos.
1. Times Like These by Foo Fighters