Gingerbread Competition results are in

(Cross-posted from the SketchUp blog)

Having spent some time perusing the entries for the SketchUp Gingerbread House Design Competition, we've reached a verdict – but it wasn't easy. Your models are (as expected) beautiful. For what it's worth, I accidentally ate part of my computer screen while we were judging. Drum roll please...

First Prize
Gingerbread House by Skeat


An absolutely beautiful use of the base model, in combination with some of the supplied dynamic candy components, to create an entirely believable construction. This is a gingerbread house that aficionados – analog and digital alike – can admire. It's also a skillful use of SketchUp.

Second Prize
Temple of Gingerbread by t


With this model, it's all about the details. The pediment (the triangular part of the roof) contains a scene of gingerbread people. The entablature (sits between the columns and the roof) is heavily ornamented and altogether believable. When you go inside, there's an altar to a gingerbread deity. This entry is complete both in concept and execution. Gingerbread Vitruvius would be proud.

Third Prize
Gingerbread2009 Disaster by kiwijbob


This one made us laugh. The house itself is intricate and skillfully modeled, but the best parts reveal themselves upon closer inspection. Someone's taken a giant bite out of the roof, and a giant gingerbread stormcloud (complete with gingerbread lightning bolt) threatens overhead. It's nice to see someone using a digital tool to do something that physical materials can't: ignore gravity.

Sprinkles Prize (for the best additions to the base model)
Gingerbread Hall by Toy Maker


A classic example of a thought carried through to its logical (and very appetizing) conclusion. The house, the men, the reindeer and the sleigh are consistent in that they are made of gingerbread. This house is constructable, and a lot of work went into making it that way.

Swirl Prize (for the best use of Dynamic Components in the model)
Gingerbread House by diweiman


A close contender for best model overall, we decided to award the Swirl Prize to this entry because it's interactive. Aside from being a stunning example of SketchUp mastery, the strings of flags are Dynamic Components that lengthen and re-color as you scale them. Clicking with the 'Interact' tool causes a rainbow to appear. You really need to download the model and open it in SketchUp to experience the full effect.

Sweet Tooth Prize (for the most creative use of a single candy ingredient)
Candy Cane Log House by Jan Melin


Candy canes for the walls. Candy canes for the roof. Candy canes for everything. Nice.

Take a look at all of the entries in this 3D Warehouse collection. Also peek at this Picasa album slideshow of some of our favorites:



Congratulations to everyone, and thanks for participating. We hope you had as much fun building them as we did looking them over.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Product Evangelist

On the Bookshelves: A Few More at Borders

On Tuesday, I stopped by the nearby Borders and ran into Jill, who referred to this post, about the books on the shelves that are tattoo-related.

She showed me the photography section, where I found three more titles of interest.

The first was this title, Suicide Girls: Beauty Redefined:


For those unfamiliar with Suicide Girls, click the link on the sidebar to get a preview. It's basically a pin-up site, and most of the models are copiously inked. They're a lovely lot.

~

Jill also pointed out this book, Heroines by Bettina Rheims:

Although not specifically tattoo-related, some of the models in this high-end photography book sport ink.

~

And the third book I spotted was Celebrity Tattoos: An A-Z of A-List Body Art: 16 Temporary Tattoos to Wear by Chris Martin.

It's been extremely cold this week in New York City, so the inkspotting has been minimal. Bear with us. Pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training in less than a month, which means warmer weather is just around the corner!

Blog Sekumpulan Informasi

Salam bahagia untuk anda semua, blog ini adalah blog informasi yang berisi kontent-kontent informasi dari dunia internet dg berbagai sumber dan alakadarnya saya. semoga anda betah disini :).

Blog Sekumpulan Informasi

Salam bahagia untuk anda semua, blog ini adalah blog informasi yang berisi kontent-kontent informasi dari dunia internet dg berbagai sumber dan alakadarnya saya. semoga anda betah disini :).

Cat's Ink Pays Homage to Her Experience on the Ocean

Over the last few months, I have reconnected with old friends through Facebook, many of whom I haven't seen in years. In so doing, many have discovered my burgeoning interest in tattoos, and the manifestation of that in Tattoosday. Many of these old friends are inked and I've posted their work here (i.e. this one form Michael).

Today's post comes to us from Catherine, the only person with whom I went to high school and college.

After college, Cat returned to Hawai'i, where she re-connected with the ocean, paddling and, among other things, taking a voyage on the Hōkūle‘a, traversing the sea in the style of the ancient Polynesians who settled on the Hawaiian Islands. That's an oversimplification but, rest assured, the journey is quite different from booking a ticket on a cruise ship.

So, it made perfect sense to me when Cat sent me an e-mail with the subject line "Cat's Tat," accompanied by the photo of her ink:


This amazing tribal piece on her lower back pays homage to her love of the ocean and Polynesian culture. I'll let her explain the rest, in her own words:

I had this done for my birthday a few years ago by Tricia Allen, who is well recognized for her knowledge of Polynesian tattooing. She's pretty much in demand for work, and is often on the BIG big island for jobs and conferences. I had known her a little bit while I was taking classes at UH, and met her again on Rapa Nui - we had a mutual friend there. Anyway, she did it in her living room in Palolo. I was sitting on a stool, bent over, with my face in a pillow. I was beginning to feel somewhat like Pavlov's dog, because ever time the buzz started, I'd get tense. She also seemed to enjoy pointing out where nerve clusters were located (owww).

Here's the story/reasoning/rationale: I had gotten a small one after our canoe club won the state championship in 1993 - my crew won the "blue ribbon" race for women, having been second all season. Anyway, once I really got into sailing, I wanted to design a new one that represented what I had seen and done in terms of canoes (both sailing and paddling). Canoes and canoe related activities have taken me all over the Pacific: The Society Islands (including Tahiti), The Marquesas, Mangareva, Rapa Nui, New Zealand, Australia, Fiji. It took 7 years of my trying out different designs before I found the concept I liked. I went for a consultation with Tricia, who gave me the idea; the Marquesans often use the idea of the human face, where each feature is a symbol in it's own right. Tricia had given me a diamond-shaped example, and from that I immediately saw what I would do.

So - the Marquesan concept, the shape of the hihimanu - ray - represents the twin-peaked mountain of Mangareva. As we approached it from the sea, it looked like a ray emerging from the sea. The eyes are Hawaiian honu - sea turtle, the wings are New Zealand Māori-style naia - dolphins, on the sides of the eyes are Rapa Nui makohe - frigate birds (separate story here - not getting into it), the mouth and nose are a double-hulled canoe and sail, with waves on either side, and the tail is supposed to be moons (for navigation and tides) and fishhooks done in a Tahitian style. Kinda ran out of room at the tail end, though! The whole represents Tangaroa/Kanaloa, who is the Polynesia-wide god of the sea. Not that I've been out there a LOT, but I have been out there...you see the myriad incarnations of Kanaloa: the good, the bad and the truly frightening. I guess the design is in homage of what's out there...

Now I'm contemplating the next one. I have some Cook Island Māori ideas, but I want to go there first. Have also had a few people ask me to design things for them. I have also met maybe three or four others with hihimanu on their lower backs...you see LOTS of tattoos at canoe regattas!

Mahaloa nui loa to Cat for sharing this awesome piece with us here on Tattoosday, and for providing such an in-depth explanation. Truly fascinating and inspiring! We're loking forward to seeing the next one!

Powering a Google search

Not long ago, answering a query meant traveling to the reference desk of your local library. Today, search engines enable us to access immense quantities of useful information in an instant, without leaving home. Tools like email, online books and photos, and video chat all increase productivity while decreasing our reliance on car trips, pulp and paper.

But as computers become a bigger part of more people's lives, information technology consumes an increasing amount of energy, and Google takes this impact seriously. That's why we have designed and built the most energy efficient data centers in the world, which means the energy used per Google search is minimal. In fact, in the time it takes to do a Google search, your own personal computer will use more energy than Google uses to answer your query.

Recently, though, others have used much higher estimates, claiming that a typical search uses "half the energy as boiling a kettle of water" and produces 7 grams of CO2. We thought it would be helpful to explain why this number is *many* times too high. Google is fast — a typical search returns results in less than 0.2 seconds. Queries vary in degree of difficulty, but for the average query, the servers it touches each work on it for just a few thousandths of a second. Together with other work performed before your search even starts (such as building the search index) this amounts to 0.0003 kWh of energy per search, or 1 kJ. For comparison, the average adult needs about 8000 kJ a day of energy from food, so a Google search uses just about the same amount of energy that your body burns in ten seconds.

In terms of greenhouse gases, one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2. The current EU standard for tailpipe emissions calls for 140 grams of CO2 per kilometer driven, but most cars don't reach that level yet. Thus, the average car driven for one kilometer (0.6 miles for those in the U.S.) produces as many greenhouse gases as a thousand Google searches.

We've made great strides to reduce the energy used by our data centers, but we still want clean and affordable sources of electricity for the power that we do use. In 2008 our philanthropic arm, Google.org, invested $45 million in breakthrough clean energy technologies. And last summer, as part of our Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative (RE<C), we created an internal engineering group dedicated to exploring clean energy.

We're also working with other members of the IT community to improve efficiency on a broader scale. In 2007 we co-founded the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a group which champions more efficient computing. This non-profit consortium is committed to cutting the energy consumed by computers in half by 2010 — reducing global CO2 emissions by 54 million tons per year. That's a lot of kettles of tea.

Update on 1/12 @ 4 PM: Harvard professor Alex Wissner-Gross provided new details on his energy research, in a TechNewsWorld article.

Update on 1/16 @ 1 PM: The Sunday Times clarified its article on the energy consumed by a Google search, accepting our calculation that a single search accounts for about 0.2g of carbon. That means a typical individual's Google use for an entire year would produce about the same amount of CO2 as just a single load of washing.

Posted by Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations

Tattoos and Poetry: A Call

I received an e-mail today from Claire Askew, across the pond, who runs a publishing house over in the U.K.

Among her many projects (Read the Miagazine and One Night Stanzas), she is working on an anthology of poems about tattoos and tattooing. They're seeking submissions from poets all over the world, and I encourage people to contribute.

Check here for more information.

Just Added to the Blogroll.....

Check out A Tattooed Blog by Noel Boyd and a site for Free Tattoo Designs called Tattoos and Art.

Google's new favicon

Back in June, we rolled out a new favicon — the small icon that greets you when you access Google on your URL bar or your bookmarks list — and we encouraged our users to submit their ideas for this important piece of Google branding. We were impressed by the volume of submissions we received, and today we are happy to introduce a new Google favicon inspired by those submissions by our users. While the final icon is a reinterpretation of one contest submission, it draws on design elements and ideas from many of them.

Google's new favicon

André Resende, a computer science undergraduate student at the University of Campinas in Brazil, submitted the design that inspired our new favicon. His placement of a white 'g' on a color-blocked background was highly recognizable and attractive, while seeming to capture the essence of Google.

by André Resende

Although we changed the color layout slightly and moved the 'g' off center, his submission formed the basis for our new design.

Incorporating all four of Google's colors (red, yellow, green, and blue) into the four corners of the favicon was a theme we liked in many submissions. We also saw this idea in the designs submitted by Hadi Onur Demirsoy, Lucian E. Marin, and Yusuf Sevgen (pictured below).

by Hadi Onur Demirsoy

by Lucian E. Marin

by Yusuf Sevgen

We hope you like the new favicon, which nicely integrates all of our original criteria: distinctive in shape, noticeable, colorful, timeless, and scalable to other sizes.

While I'm sure we will update it again, we also hope our new favicon inspired by Andre is a warm, colorful beacon to Google on your browser tabs and bookmarks. A big thank you to Andre, Hadi, Lucian, and Yusuf, as well as all of the other people who helped us define our new look in a uniquely user-driven way!

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience, and Micheal Lopez, Web Design Lead

Michael Has an Ear for Music

Coming out of Penn Station, I spotted a guy on the escalator with an inked hand. Of course, I stopped him to talk tattoo, and he was more than happy to oblige.

Michael has eleven tattoos in all. Only four were visible, and he offered up this one:


He had this musical symbol (the treble, or G Clef) tattooed in his left ear,

because it made sense to him. He loves music, even music he doesn't understand. Michael has seen many people with musical notes inked on their bodies, but he thought it was significant to tattoo a symbol for something he loves on the part of the body where the music is received.

I asked him, on a scale of one to ten, ten being highest, how he had would rank the pain from having his ear tattooed. He said "6". And the most painful tattoo spot for him? "My thighs," he responded.

This note was tattooed at by a shop in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn by an artist named Steven. I am trying to confirm the name before linking it here.

I mentioned that Michael had three other visible tattoos. You can see them over here at Knuckle Tattoos.

Thanks again to Michael for sharing his musical ink with us here on Tattoosday!

Cardboard creativity

A few months ago, the Google Open Source team had an offsite in our Chicago office, and we were looking for something fun, social, and geeky for the teams to do during informal discussions. Before that, my colleague Aza had shown me a cool new thing that he was making called Bloxes -- interlocking cardboard boxes that were something like giant legos that connected on all six sides. They were actually invented by Aza's father, Jef Raskin (who started the Macintosh project at Apple), and were originally intended to be used to build flexible workspaces (like easily morphable cubicles). Having seen some samples of what you could build with them, I thought it would be fun to order a bunch of Bloxes for the team to build things out of while sitting around chatting and brainstorming.

We built a number of interesting things out of the Bloxes that week, but the real fun started after the offsite was over. Several of the Chicago engineers really took to the Bloxes; every week new, fun new sculptures would show up in the lounge. And every week, they would get knocked down (often by the same people who built them up). We decided to match the brown Bloxes with an equal number of white Bloxes, bringing our total to 360. Creativity took it from there -- from a conference room and a giant archway to living room furniture, a pair of giant dice, an office, and much, much more.


Frequently, engineers wind up building something while discussing a bug or a feature, and it's a great conversation starter when other Googlers walk by and see a work in progress. So, what started as a somewhat quiet lounge with a whiteboard quickly became a must-see stop on the office tour for visiting dignitaries, and even better, an ever-changing public space that's fun to construct, and even more fun to knock down.


Posted by Brian Fitzpatrick, Engineering Manager, Chicago

On the Bookshelves

Lacking new ink photos, I'd rather post something tattoo-related than nothing at all. So, here's a new feature on Tattoosday. An inventory of tattoo books currently on the shelves of a local New York City bookstore. Today's snapshot: my lunchtime haunt at the Borders in 2 Penn Plaza.


The Tattoo Encyclopedia – A Guide to Choosing Your Tattoo by Terisa Green.

Read a review here.

~~~

Tattoo: From Idea to Ink by Joy Surles

Read a review here.

~~~

Permanence: Tattoo Portraits by Kip Fulbeck


I've actually read this one before. Great photos with accompanying mini-capsules about the tattoo or the model's experience with ink, in their own handwriting. Highly recommended.

~~~

500 Tattoo Designs by Henry Ferguson

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Great Book of Tattoo Designs: More than 500 Body Art Designs by Lora S. Irish

~~~

Advanced Tattoo Art (How-To Secrets from the Masters) by Doug Mitchel

~~~

The Tattoo Sourcebook by Andy Sloss & Zynab Mirza

Hope you find this feature useful.

Casey's Name Transcends Generations

I met Casey while passing through Penn Station. He was waiting for the Amtrak to his home in Rhode Island. I spotted his neck tattoo and asked him about it because it was not your typical neck piece. He was very enthusiastic about sharing it with Tattoosday,

Simply, the ink, which begins on the left side of his neck and curves in a semi-circle to the right side of his neck, is his name (first, middle, and last) in Armenian.


I normally don't spout opinions about people's choice of ink, but I have never understood why people tattoo their own names on their bodies. I work with many people who possess cursive renditions of their names in ink, and these tattoos don't appeal to my artistic sensibility.

However, after speaking with Casey about his tattoo, I fully appreciate the design and meaning of the piece.

One remarkable thing about the tattoo, in my opinion, is that it is inked in a language that is not commonly seen on skin, in this country at least. I have featured kanji, Hebrew, and Arabic, but never Armenian. The name inscribed in another language, especially when it honors one's family
heritage, elevates the art and carves deeper meaning into the flesh.

What makes this piece even more phenomenal is that the handwriting of Casey's name belongs to his grandfather. He went to him and asked for him to write the name out in the language of the Old Country, with the express desire to have it tattooed. And his grandfather not only gave his blessing, but loves the finished product.

In this way, Casey has created a tribute to his heritage, as well to as his grandfather, and is able to convey that respect for the past. It will also be a constant reminder for him to remember his grandfather and the roots from whence he came.

The piece was inked by his friend Jesus, who was not affiliated with a shop at the time he got the tattoo 2 1/2 years ago, but is now working at Wicked Ink Tattoo in Riverside, Rhode Island.

As a bonus, on two-for-Tattoosday, Casey showed me his other tattoo that is inked on his right bicep:


"So you're a Yankees fan?" I asked, smiling.

Casey corrected me, "It's a memorial piece for my cousin J.J. who was a devoted fan".

J.J. died at the too-young age of 26 and the tattoo was supposed to include the text "J.J. - Rest in Peace," but he didn't have time to finish it. There are plans to complete the memorial in the next month, and I hope to post the final version here in the future.

I must say that I have seen tattoos of the "NY" logo for the Yankees, but this piece is one of the best I've seen, just based on its size and sheer brightness of color. The deeper meaning as a memorial for a close relative makes the tattoo even better, in my opinion.

Thanks again to Casey for sharing both tattoos with us here at Tattoosday!

Google at Macworld

After months of anticipation, Macworld 2009 is finally here. Throughout the four days of the expo (from now until Jan. 9), more than 100 Googlers from several product teams will be available to demonstrate Google software for the Mac and the iPhone.


Picasa for Mac made its debut yesterday, and you can follow along on the Google Mac Blog for more details on what we have in store for the rest of the week.

If you're going to Macworld, we invite you to stop by. And for those of you who can't make it, many of the demos are available via video at google.com/macworld.

Posted by Jason Toff, Associate Product Marketing Manager

The Literary Tattoo

I didn't spot a shred of ink today, so let's look elsewhere for a moment.

A great site that I love to visit regularly is Contrariwise, an awesome blog devoted to literary tattoos.

On a related matter, a friend sent me the link to the following article about literary tattoos that I thought I'd share with everyone here at Tattoosday.

In 2003, the author Shelley Jackson announced that she would publish a 2,095-word short story called “Skin” on participants who agree to be tattooed with randomly assigned words from her text. The tattooees alone will read the story, which will be complete when the last commissioned word is inscribed on its bearer, sometime in the next few years. It will not be published on paper. Jackson asks applicants (she has many more than she can use) to read her novel, The Melancholy of Anatomy, to ensure that they like her writing before committing to a word, because “Skin” is what she calls a “hidden track” (in the pop-music sense) of the book; both explore the relationship between words and the body.

Read the rest of the article here.

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Introducing Picasa for Mac (at Macworld!)

Sometimes I find it hard to describe Picasa without sounding like a late-night infomercial for a multi-bladed thingamabob: "It's a photo organizer! A photo editor! A web-savvy photo sharing and management system in just one tiny package!"

We try hard to avoid hyperbole around here, but it's true that Picasa software, working together with Picasa Web Albums, can help with nearly every aspect of owning and operating a digital camera. And because many of us take pictures in order to share them, we try to make sure Picasa does a great job of getting your favorite photos online, where friends and family can enjoy them too. In Picasa 3, that means powerful new features like automatically syncing changes between the photos on your computer and what you're sharing online, useful privacy controls integrated into the software on your PC, easier notifications, and more.

And today, we're releasing Picasa for Mac. While we've previously offered both a standalone Picasa Web Albums uploader and an iPhoto plugin for Mac users, Picasa for Mac finally brings all of the advanced sharing and sync features of Picasa to the millions of Mac OS X users who use Picasa Web Albums. Not to mention the "it-slices-and-dices" feature list that covers everything from color balance to collages.


Picasa for Mac looks and works much like Picasa on other platforms, and offers trademark Picasa features — such as non-destructive editing, and the ability to keep track of photos anywhere on your hard drive, then automatically account for new images as you add them.

Right now, Picasa for Mac is still in Google Labs, but we very much wanted to get an early version out to folks attending Macworld (you can learn more about this beta release at the Google Photos blog). To run Picasa, you'll need an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.4 and above. We hope you'll give it a spin, and give us your feedback in person — members of the Picasa engineering team will be conducting demos at Google's Macworld booth all week (you can also check out the video tour below).



Posted by Susanna Leng, Software Engineer

Choose a Good Email Marketing

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Jerry's Sparrows Represent an Ocean Crossed

I met Jerry just outside of our local grocery store in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

He was kind enough to let me photograph one of the sparrows flying on each side of his neck:


Jerry estimates that 50% of his body is inked. Today being January 4, a lot of that was covered against the elements, so the sparrow it was.

He has been getting tattoos since he was 17 years old.

He went with the sparrow tattoos to represent the traditional aspect of the art, and the fact that he had crossed an ocean (The Atlantic). This is one of the meanings that sparrows possess when represented in ink.

This piece, and most of his recent tattoos, was created by Alex Franklin at Brooklyn Ink.

Work by Alex and other Brooklyn Ink artists has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Jerry also has knuckle tattoos, which I also snapped pictures of his hands for KnuckleTattoos.com, but a shadow (mine) interfered with a clean shot:


The knuckles read "Ride Hard" because Jerry is a biker and he says it's best to "ride hard or not at all". If I get the opportunity to get a better shot of his knuckles, I'll send them over to KnuckleTattoos.com.

Thanks again to Jerry for sharing his tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Cegah Kanker Dengan Buah Delima

Buah delima (Punica granatum L.) sangat kaya akan vitamin, mineral dan fitonutrien. Di setiap 100 g buah delima terkandung energi 74 kkal, potasium 238 mg zat besi 500 mcg dan vitamin C 7 mg. Buah juga mengandung asam sitrat, asam malat, glukosa, fruktosa dan maltosa.

Buah delima bermanfaat sebagai obat diare, penurun demam, antikanker, meningkatkan kekebalan tubuh dan meredakan demam. Manfaat lainya adalah antitoksik, melumas paru, dan meredakan batuk. Kulit buah menghambat pertumbuhan basil typhoid, mengendalikan penyebaran infeksi virus polio, virus herpes simpleks, clan virus HIV. Serat yang tinggi di dalam buah delima membantu melancarkan buang air besar dan mencegah kanker kolon. Teks & Foto: Budi Sutomo.

The Tattoosday That Wasn't

A trip to New Jersey included a stop at the very-crowded Garden State Plaza on the way to see relatives.

Near a food court, I spotted an inked biker dude, and was going to approach him, but I balk at bothering people when they're eating or about to eat. And I used his SS belt buckle as an excuse to leave him alone.

Moments later, I stopped a mall employee with an interesting horseshoe tattoo on his right forearm. He was on break and seemed uninterested. He said he was in a hurry and I left him with a flier.

Moments later, in Hot Topic, an employee with numerous tattoos, including a piece based on the art of Angelique Houtkamp, took a look at a flier, but handed it back to me and said he'd remember the name Tattoosday and check it out.

So the mall was a bust (not that I went there for the sole purpose of inkspotting), but I was optimistic that I would get pictures from Beth, my wife's cousin, who we would be seeing at the family function to which we were heading. We had chatted the night before, and she was totally cool about sharing her butterfly, dancing bear, and New York Yankees tattoos.

Alas, Beth was not up for it this evening, and I came away photo-less. There was another guest at the house (one of the host's neighbors) who had a cool black cat with arched back tattooed on her chest.

I wanted to speak to her about it, but it didn't seem appropriate under the circumstances.

So this is what I meant the other day when I mentioned my blogging about the misses, in the absence of successes. What do you think? Was this remotely interesting? Let me know in the comments section.

Currently Reading: The Tattoo Artist by Jill Ciment

Winter is not conducive to good inkspotting in the big city, so I've got nothing for you today.

Nothing, at least, in terms of tattoo photos.

I will report, however, that I am reading the book The Tattoo Artist by Jill Ciment.

A work of literary fiction, The Tattoo Artist tells the story of Sara Ehrenreich, who was born in the early part of the 20th Century, became an artist, went to the fictional island of Ta'un'uu, where the art of tattoo is celebrated as a cultural and spiritual form of expression.

I have only completed a brief section of the novel, but am enjoying the narrative immensely. The protagonist's tattoos are described by her briefly as the tale progresses. I have yet to reach the point where she becomes a tattoo artist. However, she describes early on, as an old woman looking back on her life, how she is covered fully by ink.

Here's how she describes one of her tattoos:

His portrait graces my left breast. It is the first tattoo I engraved on myself. The portrait, however, in no way resembles the face I kissed that night; an unlined, untested face of cavalier certitude that the future would be as easy to read as a palm. The face on my left breast is desecrated, pillaged of all illusions, and though it breaks my heart to admit it, it is also the weakest part of my design--the point on my flesh where my emotions exceeded my skill--and no amount of virtuosity can disguise that weakness. The face on my left breast is a living death mask, as far removed from the young Philip as I am from the girl I was.

I haven't finished the book, but would certainly recommend it to anyone who enjoys literary fiction and has even a cursory interest in the art of tattoo.

Thanks to Cynthia, my mother-in-law, for yet another inspired holiday gift!

Here's a link to a review of the book in The New York Times.

Read a preview/excerpt in Google Books here.

100 BLOG PALING POPULER 2008

Setiap akhir tahun Blog Indonesia merilis 100 blog paling populer selama tahun 2008. Jadi penasaran, siapa saja ya yang masuk? Mmm....kira-kira BudiBoga masuk ngga ya? Silahkan klik disini untuk melihat daftar selengkapnya.

salam

Turning the Page on a New Year, a New Month

One of my holiday gifts in 2008 was a cool tattoo calendar from my mother-in-law.

I've decided that, on the first of each month in 2009, I'll post the photo that accompanies each month.

The photo fpr January is credited to photographer Uli Niedersteiner at Mauritius Images.

Happy New Year to all!

Makanan Balita - Nasi Tim Kakap

Setelah melewati masa ASI eklusif selama 6 bulan, kebutuhan gizi bayi semakin meningkat dan diperlukan nutrisi tambahan agar bayi dapat berkembang optimal. Resep Nasi Tim Kakap mengandung nutrisi lengkap, cocok diberikan untuk balita usia di atas satu tahun. Resep/Dapur Uji/Foto/Food Stylist: Budi Sutomo.

Bahan:

200 g beras, cuci, tiriskan

100 g kakap, cincang halus

600 ml kaldu ayam/air

50 g tomat, potong dadu

60 g brokoli, potong-potong

2 sdm saus tomat

1 sdm keju parut

¼ sdt garam halus

¼ sdt lada halus

2 siung bawang putih, cincang kasar

Cara Membuat:

1. Didihkan kaldu/air, masukan beras, aduk rata. Masak hingga seluruh cairan terserap habis dan berass agak lunak. Angkat.

2. Campur aron beras dengan daging kakap cincang, tomat, brokoli, keju parut, saus tomat, bawang putih, lada dan garam. Aduk rata.

3. Masukkan aron beras ke dalam pinggan tahan panas. Tim hingga beras lembut. Angkat, hidangkan hangat.

Untuk 3 Porsi

Fillet Ikan Kakap:

Filet ikan kakap bisa diganti dengan ikan tuna, salmon, gurami, gindara atau ikan lain berdaging tebal namun tidak banyak durinya. Setiap 100 g ikan kakap mengandung energi 86 kkal, protein 20 g, lemak 0.7 g, mineral 2.3 g, kalsium 20 mg dan fosfor 200 mg.

Ulas Bahan - Manfaat Umbi Bit

Bit (Beta vulgaris) merupakan akar tunggang yang berubah bentuk dan berfungsi sebagai umbi. Umbi bit yang berwarna merah ternyata mengandung unsur antikarsinogenik yang menangkal kanker. Di dalaam 100 g umbi bit terkandung zat gizi berupa energi 47 kkal, protein 1.6 g, lemak 0.2 g, karbohidrat 9.6 g, mieral 1.1 g, kalsium 27 mg, fosfor 43 mg, besi 1.0 g, retinol 6 mcg, thiamine 0.02 mg dan asam askorbat 10 mg.

Karena kandungan zat besinya yang tinggi menjadikan jus bit bisa menjadi tambah darah sekaligus membuang deposit lemak. Bit yang berwarna merah kaya vitamin A. Umbi ini juga mengandung karotenoid, asam folat dan kalium. Dengan begitu, bit berkhasiat sebagai antioksidan. Kaliumnya berperan menjaga kenormalan tekanan darah, mengendalikan kadar kolesterol darah dan menjaga kesehatan mata. Teks & Foto: Budi Sutomo

Makanan Sehat - Sup Oyong

Oyong atau gambas adalah sayuran dari tanaman merambat yang memiliki tekstur lembut. Cita rasa oyong segar dan netral, cocok dipadu padankan dengan beragam bahan. Seperti sup ini, lezatnya bakso, terasa pas dengan lembutnya oyong dan jamur kuping. Selamat Mencoba. Resep/Dapur Uji/Foto/Food Stylist: Budi Sutomo.

Bahan:

1700 ml kaldu daging/ayam/air

150 g oyong, potong-potong

60 g jamur kuping, rendam air, potong-potong

100 g bakso ayam/daging, potong-potong

60 g bunga sedap malam, simpulkan

1 batang daun bawang, potong serong

1 sdm sledri cincang

1 sdm minyak goreng

Bumbu:

4 siung bawang putih, cincang kasar

4 siung bawang merah, iris halus

1 sdm kecap asin

1 sdm air jeruk nipis/lemon

1 sdt lada halus

1 sdt gula pasir

1 sdt garam halus

Cara Membuat:

1. Panaskan minyak, tumis bawang merah dan bawang putih hingga harum. Tuang kaldu/air, garam, gula pasir, lada dan kecap asin. Masak hingga mendidih.
2. Masukkan bakso, jamur kuping, oyong dan bunga sedap malam. Masak hingga semua bahan matang. Sesaat sebelum diangkat, masukkan air jeruk nipis, sledri cincang dan daun bawang, aduk rata. Angkat.
3. Tuang sup ke dalam mangkuk saji. Hidangkan segera.

Untuk 4-5 Porsi

Tip: Bakso daging/ayam bisa diganti dengan bakso ikan/udang. Sayuran bisa diganti sesuai selera.

2008 Wrap-Up, Looking Ahead to 2009

For those of you following Tattoosday, I am going to take a different approach to the blog in 2009.

The concept will be the same, but I am going to enhance it a little bit. All posts will be dated and time-stamped around the time that they happened. So, if I don't get around to posting the ink for a few days, it will be back-dated for chronological effect.

I also want to blog above and beyond the successes (i.e. the people who said "No") and expand to other tattoo-related topics, when they arise.

For example, if I stop in Borders and look at a tattoo book, I'd like to link it here. I am hoping to turn all the "no thank yous" into items of interest.

I also have a couple of new features in the works that I hope to unveil in the new year that will continue to make Tattoosday the interesting experience that I believe it is.

In an effort to start out with a clean slate, I am cleaning out my drafts and posting all the remaining drafts I have in house, including several pieces by Jessica, who I met back in June.

Once again I want to thank everyone who regularly reads Tattoosday, and those who visit once in a while. 2008 was a banner year, registering over 100,000 hits this year alone. I'm looking forward to seeing what 2009 will bring. Happy New Year!

Google blogging in 2008

Every year right about now we round up our blogging activity across Google. Ready? Here goes.

This is our 368th post of the year on the main Google blog, which is 23% more than in 2007. In addition to more posts, we are thrilled to know that we have many more readers now — 78% more, to be exact. The number of unique visitors jumped from 6,738,830 last year to more than 12 million (12,000,723) in 2008. And readers are coming from all over: the UK, Canada, India, Australia, Germany, France, Spain, Japan and beyond. The top non-Google referrers are Yahoo, Digg, Reddit, Lifehacker and Slashdot.

We posted quite a bit about new products (10) and new product features (56), but nothing caused as much excitement as our earlier-than-planned unveiling of Google Chrome. This post alone had 1,735,093 unique visitors and generated 12% of our total-year pageviews on the blog! There was also the much-anticipated announcement of the first Android-powered phone. And people enjoyed reading about our design philosophies. Who knew a little change to a favicon would generate such interest?

But it wasn't all just product news; there was much else to cover in 2008. To mark Google's 10th birthday, we took a moment to reflect on the enormous impact the Internet has had on people's lives since our founding. Some of our in-house experts shared their thoughts on how various technologies will evolve in the next 10 years.

Like many of you, we were on the edge of seats watching all of the U.S. election action. We posted 27 times about political subjects, providing information about voting tools, how the political process works, and what was top of mind on Election Day. It's clear that technology will be playing an even bigger role in politics in years to come.

Of course, we had some fun too: We kept our long-standing April Fools' Day tradition going with the announcement of Project Virgle; we covered new ways to get around the Googleplex and the masterminding of a giant Ferris wheel; and we raised our glass to a couple who got married with Google.

And the Google blog network keeps on growing: 44 new blogs launched this year, for a total of 127 active company blogs. A few highlights: eight new developer blogs (the Open Source blog is shining star, with 370,000 unique visitors since its start in February), and 22 new ads-related blogs, nearly half of which are in languages other than English (there are AdSense blogs in Traditional Chinese and Russian; and AdWords blogs in Danish, German, Turkish, French, Russian, Korean, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Spanish). There's even an Analytics blog in French. And we also welcomed three new regional blogs, for India, Africa, and the Ukraine. Sharing information with people wherever they are in whatever language they speak is a priority for us, and each of these new blogs helps us get a little bit closer to this goal. If the total number of Google blogs makes your head spin, don't worry. We've developed a new blog directory and gadget to help you more easily track news and updates from us.

We're looking forward to another robust year of keeping you informed of all the goings-on at Google. In the meantime, we wish you and yours a very happy New Year.

Posted by Susan Straccia, Google Blog Team