The Great Courses
This is a collection of classical education courses you can download, stream, or have sent to you on DVD for a fraction of the cost of taking them at a university. They’re all taught by professors considered the best in their area. So if there’s anything you ever wanted to learn more about, such as in history, philosophy, literature, music, math, and others, you can do that here! This is for those who don’t have the time or extra money to take classes at a school and just want to learn from home at their own pace.
The Welsh Baker
My friend enlightened me to The Welsh Baker. I’d never heard of Welsh cakes before she posted about them. Turns out they can be made in lots of different flavors. I tried the pumpkin and the blueberry. Both were so yummy–especially heated in the microwave for about 12 seconds with butter on top!
With the discount I got from their Facebook page, they were super affordable, and shipping is free anywhere! They sent me another discount code in my order, so I’ll definitely be trying several other flavors soon.
Universal Yums
Speaking of international snacks, did you know there’s a subscription service that sends you snacks from a different country every month? Universal Yums has a few different annual subscriptions tiers, or you can try month-to-month orders. I love trying items from the foreign food aisle, so this would be perfect for me. Plus, it’ll be fun to have something unique to share if there’s occasionally something that’s not to my taste!
Frome.co
This is super cool just to look at. Frome takes every single scene from a film (and they have tons of films in their collection) and averages the color for that scene, then creates an image that displays one bar for each scene chronologically. I thought it was amazing how you could really “feel” each different movie. It shows how important the use of color really is in a movie, and how memorable it is, even if it’s only subconscious. As I scrolled through these, there were many where I nodded and thought, ‘Yep, that’s that movie, all right’. I even knew I was looking at Aladdin before reading the title.
Think of a movie. Can you imagine what sorts of colors might appear on one of these? When you look it up, how close are you? That’s been kind of fun for me.
I don’t actually want to buy one. I have no idea how I would even choose one particular film. But they sure are fun to look at.
Rhodesian Ridgebacks
For the dog lovers. Technically I didn’t stumble across this online, but I promised my dog-loving boyfriend I’d mention it. He discovered this fascinating dog on the beach and was enamored of it. They have a line of fur running down their spines that grows in backwards, and he kept talking about the tactile experience he missed out on by not taking the opportunity to pet it. Perhaps he will run across it on another walk. (Side note: They’re also named after the same guy whose scholarship pays people’s way through Oxford, pictured at the top of this post.)
Dreamlist
This online wish list is pretty cool. Not only can you link straight to items from anywhere on the internet, but you can also create funds (for example, I created one for traveling) that people can donate to. Then you just send the link for your list to anyone who asks for it.
The site is still in beta, but a cool feature that’s coming soon is the ability to add friends’ and family members’ links straight to your dashboard. So when you know a birthday or holiday is coming up and you have no idea what to get for someone, you can just go to your dashboard, click on their list, and see exactly what they want without having to ask. No more awkwardness of never knowing what to buy for someone or what they could possibly want that they don’t have.
Influence
If you’ve heard of influencers but aren’t sure exactly what they are or do, I found this article from Vogue to be a great explanation. To sum up, it’s kind of like instead of choosing entire stores to follow on social media, you choose your own personal shoppers–people who generally have the same taste and style as you and can therefore more frequently recommend things you’ll love, from any number of different retailers. An interesting read, even if you already are familiar with the concept.
What interesting things have you come across lately? Shopping? Subscriptions? Articles? I’m curious!
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