Pick One

When it comes to little Internet thingies that get tweeted or blogged like crazy, I usually get bored in about 10 seconds. Here's one that held me for quite a while though: Pick One. There is nothing to explain, really: Two words show up on your screen, and you click on one of them. And repeat. As much as you want.



This is probably not unique to me at all, but when faced with either-or choices, my initial gut reflex is to frame the two options as being on opposite ends of a continuum. So you can imagine how amusing these were:









Here were the toughest ones for me:








(I'm not a socialist creep, I just have issues in the mornings)



And the easiest:





The more I clicked on choices, the more I started framing my decisions in different ways. If it was a tough decision, I framed the two as, "Which one would I miss the most if it went away?" and "What would be a comforting alternative if I lost X?" Images of flying to Tokyo to save music and switching to the Wall Street Journal to keep eating cheeseburgers came to mind. Then I started thinking about what an interesting personality test this website would make. What do you think?

EDIT | Prominent blogger Eric Tabone just informed me that this site is something like 3 years old. Good, I was starting to think that I was actually up on things for once!

Coffee shop chalkboard signs

In the past several months, I have been taking photos of chalkboard signs outside of coffee shops. Very specifically: Sweet Farm and El Beit in Williamsburg. These two shops started out being next to each other, and I wasn't sure how each one would do, competition-wise.

After a while, each shop ended up claiming a firm position in my mind because of the stuff on the ever-changing chalkboard signs outside each store. El Beit tended to focus a lot on dreamy imagery like tiled teddy bears, coffee mugs with wings, clouds, etc. Endearingly cute but not in a cloying way. Sweet Farm liked to use puns and a little bit of absurdity that made me laugh. I for some reason can't find any of the El Beit photos and I can't imagine why, but here are some from Sweet Farm:




Much to my dismay, I noticed a few months ago that Sweet Farm was gone and had been converted into something called Penny Licks. I don't know if they have really figured out who they are yet, but for now they tend to focus on pretty writing that makes me want dessert. I guess that's a good strategy for a place that has sweets.


Yesterday, I wondered if maybe El Beit decided to take some of the silliness that Sweet Farm used to use. This is what I saw over the weekend:


I assure you that I am making this whole thing out to be more than it really is (the personality of coffee shops and such). I bet it's just the same guy who does the board each day and he has a fun personality. Ditto the other shops. Oh well, nice to daydream.