strawberry milk

my favourite things

hello!

A bit ago, a friend asked me to list my "five favourite things, ever". I responded with a short list that I'd compiled over sometime.

I was then reminded of a book that I had read many years ago, 14,000 Things to Be Happy About by Barbara Ann Kipfer. It lists, as the title advertises, 14,000 small and menials things that "makes life worth living". The sister site things to be happy about contains a growing list alongside the original 14,000. At the time of writing, it sits at exactly 202,492. My first refresh brought me things like:

Amazing. Interestingly half were both cat-related, even more interesting as I've visited a local cat cafe-shelter just yesterday. Anyway.

Finding out about this made me want to share that aforementioned list that I had, before I inevitably start adding ones from the site after my dozens or so of refreshes. Hopefully these don't overlap.

Though I think the existence of this book and site deserves an honorary mention.

As the first entry, this is obviously the one that inspired the list. This one is awesome! I read before about the city Chongqing, and how the architecture makes it almost impossible to know which floor you're on. But otherwise, I love when places like hotels have the first floor as ground floor, or G. Like many others on the list, there's no innate reason to like it, but I thought that it was just real neat.

vehicles with driver not in first row

I think I wrote this on a two-floored bus, where the driver is on the first (ground) floor, and the second floor has a front row that has a full view of the front. I think a better example is like those boats, where the captain is at the back with the helm. These are real cool to be in, especially at the front. I would never be in a self-driven car front row, though. There needs to be someone driving, just not at the front.

Oh man, I've had these when I was younger, but can't seem to find any anymore, or at least without paying lethal shipping fees. Very simply, these were straws that you would drink milk from one end, and would exit the other flavoured. My favourite was strawberry, of course. These were real neat idea. The scented water bottles that "flavour" the water is similar, but still doesn't feel as awesome as the straws. I wish there were more of these.

In electronic circuitry, a breadboard is the base for all the wires and whatnot. I don't know almost anything else, but Ithought it was an incredibly apt name for something like this.

This has, both fortunately and not, become a more common experience. Nowadays, the museums I go to are majority empty, or at least easy to find a massive exhibited room that is. Very relaxing.

I'm a huge fan of menial things having even the smallest of interesting designs, one example being salt (and pepper) shakers. Small designs like this makes the room just a bit more colourful.

Always.

This feeling is much harder to explain, but being part of the Linux hellhole means I essentially doomscroll various githubs and aur means that I'll come across small programs does its little own thing. Finding that one repo from a decade ago that still does exactly what you need it to is just such an amazing euphoria.

I've tried to stop watching short form content all together, but the only exception is ones of small, empty family owned businesses being breathed new life from social media. This really is the coolest and only reason that social media could still be cool. There's just something special about being in a local, genuine business that is just so cool. Really do go and visit your local businesses, artists, restaurants, farmers market, anything. Go out of your way to do it. I don't think I've ever regretted doing so.

And of course, raindrops on roses and whisker on kittens.

love, jo