Too Distracted to Watch the Movie...

Are you one of those people who go to a movie and find yourself completely caught up in something other than the actors or the plot or the dialogue... but rather, the set design? I am. To a fault. I recently saw Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince, and I know I've missed some key scenes in the movie because of three sets that made my jaw drop, my eyes bug and my brain buzz with thoughts of how I could recreate what I was seeing.

I have been tweeting about this and posting some comments on facebook, as we've discussed Harry Potter and it's release in the recent week or so. A long time friend, Patricia Shackelford... aka: Mrs. Blandings, recently posted about the same kind of musings on her site, about Nora Ephron's upcoming movie, Julie & Julia and their fabulous kitchen set designs. I was relieved to see I wasn't alone.

The movie Vanity Fair, had some of the most beautiful colors I've seen in a long time on film... Beautiful flocks in velvet plum colors... yellow toiles... pinks and light blues... it was fabulous! Another favorite is Pride & Prejudice... with the milk paint dark blue walls in the dining room of the Bennett household. In Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince , there is a new professor of potions with his own room. I adore his room... with it's dusty viles and large apothecary jars. The room is dark with greys and browns and the jars make me sooooo curious as to what is in them. (see photo) Another room in the Hogwarts school, appears to be an attic or storage room. It had a large pile of old Smith & Corona and Blickensderfer typewriters discarded in a corner. I have a Blickensderfer #5 (made in 1892) on my mantel now so imagine my surprise at seeing these! I type messages (on my computer of course, because God forbid I break my typewriter) for different holidays. I put messages like "I told you I was sick" in the roller for Halloween and "Dear Santa" letters in it for Christmas. You get the idea. Back to the movie... There is a large gold gilded cabinet with hundreds of tiny viles containing swirling blue-ish misty "memories". What a lovely idea and the cabinet, glowing from the gold, makes them even more special. Another area of this attic, had tarnished silver, as in pitchers and candleabras, on old tables and dusty crystal chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings... all it needed to be a dream room for me, would be shells. LOL! Much of this type of style I am drawn to, can be found locally, in Prairie Village, KS, at The Curious Sofa, an amazing store bragging "Less than serious surroundings". Owner, Debbie Dusenberry, pulled from her photo stylist background with photographers and film makers, to create some of the most amazing, interesting and inviting displays I've ever seen. Her clientele come from all over the nation. It's easy to love the store.

Next time you find yourself at the cinema... and something delightful catches your eye on the set... take note. Send me a message... I'd love to know I'm not alone in my wandering eye search for all that is beautiful.

Measuring You on Twitter ... It's Easy!

I attended a really great workshop today called "Extreme Social Media". It was hosted and conducted by Giovanni Gallucci. http://www.gallucci.net/ His Twitter name @giovanni He is a "thought leader in social media and online buzz marketing." He didn't look as nearly as Italian as his name would imply. LOL!

He was very charming, witty, smarter than sh*t and an excellent story teller. He knows all the in's and out's of how to make a business or brand succeed on the web. It was mind numbing and exciting at the same time. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to spend the day with him.

We hit on several tools within the social networks to help you measure your success (or failure) to increase your presence on the web and increase your web ecosystem. Here are a few:

http://www.twhirl.com/ for to manage your open tools for several accounts

http://www.tweetdeck/ to tie into Facebook and any other social networks you're on, at the same time! One update and the all update. Cool.

http://www.brightkite.com/ for uploading phone pics.

http://www.huitter.com/ for mutuality and so you can automatically unfollow anyone who is not following you on twitter, with the click of a button. Brilliant. Because you really do want to follow everyone who is following you... even steven. It sends the right message.

http://www.tweetstats.com/ You can gather your twitter stats here! How many tweets per hour, per month, get a timeline and reply statistics and so much more. Great for a work from home business to help you measure your progress and hitting of your goals or if you have someone else doing your tweets on behalf of your company. This is how you check what they are doing and when.

http://www.twitalyzer.com/ This is another tool for measuring on Twitter, your Influence, Signal, Generosity, Velocity and Clout. It's interesting.

http://www.twitterholic.com/ Show the 100 top Twitterers. Right now, Ashton Kutcher is number 1, with the most followers. Then CNN, The Ellen Degeneres Show... you get the idea. You can also type in their name and get a graph of their trend.

http://www.tweetgrid.com/ allows you to SEARCH multiple search words on several screens at the same time! Any business would love this... looking at REAL TIME tweets about key words they are searching for. You can even send a message to a tweeter as you see the message and not have to get out of the screen. Brilliant.

Giovanni focused on search engine optimization as well as blogging so the most people can see it. I'll post more about that shortly. I'm trying out the other sites tonight so I can post more soon. Stay tuned!

Happy Twittering and searching for cool ways to measure your awesomeness! LOL!

For some fun... go to http://www.faceinhole.com/ and put your face on the cover of a magazine like this one! Hilarious fun!