Web Time Wasters

Note from Sarah: for six weeks, I'm Cajun-ing it up in Louisiana and skiing in Crested Butte, Colorado.  While I'm out and about, a few friends have offered to curate our weekly round up of internet awesome.  How nice of them!

Hi! I’m Tarryn, hailing all the way from sunny South Africa (although I will be adventuring across the Atlantic in just 2 weeks – eep!). You can find me over on twitter as @tarrynosaurus, or on An Improbable Fiction, where I blog about design, food, travel, and the epicness of everyday existence. Come visit!

And the links, you say? Here you are:
The sweet painting above is of my hometown’s famous Table Mountain, and was done by South African artist Jaco Haasbroek. I especially love his smart and funny “I heart” series of illustrations.

Ever wondered how people do fancy-schmancy things like change the messages in fortune cookies? Bake heart centres in cupcakes? Wonder no further!

On the topic of food, have you all experienced the joy that is Tasteologie? Because you should. I’m looking forward to making this delicious looking Kung Pao Chicken.

I am a great lover of Kate Spade’s designs and video promos, so I was over the moon when I found the Kate Spade Pinterest boards. They are silly and quirky and fun, and filled with glitter and macaroons… Magical!

The Composites is the best blog I have ever come across: a marriage of awesome and epic proportions. This blogger takes descriptions of literary characters and renders their likenesses using police composite technology. Want to know what Daisy Buchanan really looks like? How about Tess of the d’Urbervilles? Or Jane Eyre’s Edward Rochester?

Another amazing thing to look at is this picture of a falling slinky. Did you know that “No matter how long the slinky is, the bottom of the slinky will stay still (hover) until the top reaches it?” Neither did I.

This glorious article on How To Find Your Purpose and Do What You Love is well worth a read. It draws on the ideas and suggestions of many fantastic people including Paul Graham, Alain de Botton, and Steve Jobs.

Unexpected shots taken by Google Street View cars never fail to surprise me, but these gorgeous shots of desolate places found and captured through Google earth imaging truly takes my breath away.

Have you ever mused over the differences in books (or movies) written for men to those written for women? Margaret Atwood has too, and you can find her musings here.

Are you bored of the desktop wallpaper you stare at day in and day out? Why not change it up, and visit The Desktop Wallpaper Project? Here designers provide free downloads to awesome desktop wallpapers. This one and this one are two of my favourites.

I love the way that The Selby photographs and interviews people in their homes, this is by far my favourite one of their shoots – I just adore the loft style bedroom and the bright white light streaming in through windows. The combination of wooden textures makes my heart melt, and to top it all off they have the cutest dog!

I’m going to leave you with this amazing video by Andrew Stanton, the filmmaker behind WALL-E and Toy Story, who talks about re-imagining storytelling.