The Best Blog in the World :

BeStuff New Update

team@bestuff.com (Finn Haverkamp) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:08:00 -0400

The BeStuff Team has been hard at work on a slew of new features for BeStuff.com. And all of them are ready for use right now. We boosted the security to give you more privacy, allow you to add images via URL, and a host of other features. Read the full list below.

Menu Drop-Down
A global menu that allows access to different areas within your profile.

Enhanced Text Editor
A new text editor, courtesy of TinyMCE, makes writing descriptions and comments better than ever. You now have more stylization options, can create hyperlinks, and easily link to other stuff.

Timed Comment Editing
Now you can edit those embarrassing spelling mistakes.

Additional Information
Hover over images and categories to see who added them.

Comment Notification
You can now adjust your settings to receive an e-mail notification when you get any new profile comments.

Comment Ordering
A new setting that allows for new comment ordering options.

Best + Stuff = Bestuff

team@bestuff.com (Luke) — Sun, 27 May 2007 14:43:00 -0400

You may have noticed something interesting happening to our URL address? Yep, you’ve guessed it, we’re changing our name to Bestuff.com

“But why the change to Bestuff?”

We’ve been thinking about shortening our name for a while now. Having a URL name that’s 22 letters long may not have been the smartest move on our behalf. Initially we thought that sometimes the most obvious name is the best and it’s kind of cute in a simple down-to-earth way, however there’s a few drawbacks:

It’s a damn long name. Real long. I get cramped fingers typing it out, although maybe that’s just me just getting old.
If we use a regular sized subdomain ( i.e. movies.thebeststuffintheworld.com ) then that starts becoming an even sillier length of characters.
~~We want to have a wanky Web 2.0 name!~~
Typing out our acronym TBSITW is just as annoying as writing out our full name.
Look, it’s just a really long name, ok?

“Ok, ok, we get it. But what does Bestuff mean?”

When Adrian and I first built the site, we had no idea how it would actually be used. Initially, we thought it might become a consumer-driven product review website where people shared their favourite things and advised others about consumer stuff. Like an online ‘customer choice’ magazine. How wrong were we?! Among the first stuff to be added to the site was:

All in the category The Best Things in Life!

As the site evolved we realized that by adding ‘best stuff’ we were creating an inventory of all the things that made us individuals. Looking at member profiles became like peeking in someone’s shopping trolley at Safeway, or looking through the books on their shelf. The Best Stuff in the World had developed a social dimension that we could never have anticipated.

Taking this into account, we thought about the name change long and hard as we didn’t want to move away too far from “the Best Stuff in the World”, but we wanted something short and sweet. Since our central focus is “Best Stuff”, we just combined the two words together to form bestuff. Also as the site became a personal list of favorite stuff, ‘bestuff’ can also be taken as ‘be stuff’, as in “you are what you like”.

The change from thebeststuffintheworld.com to bestuff.com is not only URL expedient, it captures (we hope) the way the site has mutated into a place where people truly do discover and share the best things in life, and how that process defines them as an individual.

We think that the name change is a good thing, we hope you do too!

TBSITW is nominated for a 2007 Webby Award

team@bestuff.com (Luke) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 06:18:00 -0400

The team at TBSITW are normally a humble bunch, but what the hell:

We’ve been nominated for the 2007 Webby Award for Best Navigation/Structure!

We’ve also been selected as an Official Honoree for Best Visual Design – Function category and that’s just as cool too.

If you’re wondering what on earth is a Webby, think of it as the “Online Oscars” for the web industry. TBSITW is up for two awards, The Webby Award (chosen by our peers) and The Webby People’s Voice Award (chosen by you).

The lil’ crew here at TBSITW feel honoured to be selected for such an award, but really it’s all of our members that make our site so great. Seriously, here’s a really big, fat, massive thank you to all of you guys and gals!

So in the spirit of ~~shameless self promotion~~ our website, if you think The Best Stuff in the World is, err…, well the best, then vote for us using the steps below.

How to vote for us:

1. Register to vote and follow the steps listed.

2. Once you have registered and logged into the Webbys site, you can vote for us here.

What's happenin' man

team@bestuff.com (Adrian) — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 05:07:00 -0400

What an exhausting month. Yours truly moved back down to Melbourne, and finally settled in. Luke did it the month previous, and has been running the ship since then. We have some exciting news, but we’ll get to that later, in another blog post.

So we’ve had a good/bad situation with the site. The good thing is that we are even getting more traffic. The bad thing is that our shiny new server has not been able to handle it. It was so bad earlier that I had to sit down and work out what was bottlenecking. A few hours later, we have something that I think is an improvement. We’ll see tomorrow how we go when the American guys and gals go to work and start pounding the server again.

LunarPages Coupon Code

team@bestuff.com (Adrian) — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 09:13:00 -0500

You may have noticed the Lunarpages sponsorship at the bottom of each page. As we’ve mentioned we are pretty impressed with them. If you already host with them go and vote for them. If you are not, and are looking for some hosting, Lunarpages have some coupon codes to save you money on their annual hosting plans. The Lunarpages Coupon Code is BestStuff27 which you put in the coupon field when you sign up.

Blackout!

team@bestuff.com (Adrian) — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:11:00 -0500

I was just about to move servers yesterday, and just as I was about to pull the proverbial switch, we had a blackout! If the adsl modem was on battery power like the laptop, I could have done it. So we sat down and watched the latest episode of Heroes. A few hours later the power came back on. I pretty much missed the low traffic window.

Oh well, we’ll try again in a few hours time.

Moving to a new server

team@bestuff.com (Adrian) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 12:40:00 -0500

It didn’t take long, but we have again out grown our current server with the rapid growth of TBSITW.

Thankfully Lunarpages have come to our rescue and will be sponsoring us. This week I have been setting up the new server at Lunarpages, and have been thoroughly impressed with the support staff. I was curious to see how they would treat the average customer, so I never mentioned to the support staff that their company was sponsoring us. I have never before experienced support that’s fast and thorough. It’s a relief. I’m in Australia, and usually when we send a support query to a service provider, at the minimum they would get back to us in an hour, usually the following day, and in the case of Dreamhost, when they could be bothered (and usually with an useless answer, so you have to send another email and wait). One day I should write an article about the different hosts out there, and what you can expect.

Anyway the guys at Lunarpages get a big thumbs up from me.

Now the point I was making – we will be down on ~~Sunday~~ Monday as we move all the data over to the new servers. This year will be pretty exciting as we bring you guys a whole bunch of exciting new features.

Valentines Day inspirations

team@bestuff.com (Adrian) — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 12:30:00 -0500

For some reason this year, I’m coming up short of ideas for Valentines day. Fortunately the ol’ search on TBSITW comes in handy. I typed in ‘Romantic’ and you get some handy Romantic categories. I also tried Valentine and Love. The results are mixed.

If you have any great Romantic Moments, share with the rest of the ‘Best Stuffers’!

10 Top Valentine Days Films for the Romantic Couch Potato

team@bestuff.com (Adrian) — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 11:44:00 -0500

“Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. Let’s do it, let’s fall in love!”—Cole Porter

Hollywood does it better

Yes, there is something about the formulaic Rom Com plot line that draws us in and makes us wish our lives were as predictable as a Meg Ryan (in her better days) film. Yet with so many variations of basically the same ending, which journey down the path of ‘happily ever after’ is the best?

1. Love Actually

Hardly a surprise really. Great story, great cast. Has the power to restore your faith in love, actually (sorry, couldn’t help it).

2. 10 Things I Hate About You

How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways…

This modern day teen movie spin of a Shakespeare’s ‘Taming of the Shrew’ is a 10 out of 10 for cast, (who, male or female, can resist Heath Ledger in leather boots?), plot, and Shakespearian references. See below for Kat’s (Julia Stiles) own version of a Shakespearean sonnet in iambic pentameter:

I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair.
I hate the way you drive my car.
I hate it when you stare.
I hate your big dumb combat boots, and the way you read my mind.
I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme.
I hate the way you’re always right.
I hate it when you lie.
I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry.
I hate it when you’re not around, and the fact that you didn’t call.
But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

3. When Harry Met Sally

Love comes in many shapes and forms, but in the case of Harry and Sally, we learn that pear shaped encounters can indeed transform into friendship, & even eventually into romantic love. Clever dialogue, brilliant characters, and relevant questions of love and friendship make this film the much loved classic it still is.

Realist or cynical? Here’s Harry Burns’ take on relationships: Harry: Right now everything is great, everyone is happy, everyone is in love and that’s wonderful. But you gotta know that sooner or later you’re gonna be screaming at each other about who’s gonna get this dish. This eight dollar dish will cost you a thousand dollars in phone calls to the legal firm of That’s Mine, This Is Yours. Marie: Harry. Harry: Please, Jess, Marie. Do me a favor, for your own good, put your name in your books right now before they get mixed up and you won’t know whose is whose. Because someday, believe it or not, you’ll go 15 rounds over who’s gonna get this coffee table. This stupid, wagon wheel, Roy Rogers, garage sale coffee table. Jess: I thought you liked it? Harry: I was being nice!

4. High Fidelity

Rob’s (John Cusack) current girlfriend Laura (Iben Hjejle) has left him for Ian (a pony-tailed Tim Robbins), their spiritual neighbour who specializes in conflict resolution. Rob wallows in self-pity and insecurity and analyses the top five major breakups of his life to glean some pattern on why his relationships are doomed to end in failure.

Why we love it:

We can relate to it: Simply put, Rob is an insecure self-centered jerk who, because of his insecurity, ends up hurting those around him.

From cult pop favourite from bands like The Velvet Underground to mainstream bands like Green Day, there is plenty to keep the music enthusiasts in check and thoroughly satisfied.

The acting is superb: Cusack is incredibly charismatic and pulls off the first-person narrative without being boring. Jack Black and Todd Louiso provide a lot of comic relief when it’s needed.

And finally, it’s probably one of the few romantic comedies a man will actually enjoy watching with you.

5. Punch Drunk Love

Could it really be possible: Adam Sandler in an art film? The movie ends up being genuinely romantic while deviating completely from the very stale paradigm for romantic comedies of the last decade. An absolute must see.

6. My Sassy Girl

A sweet Midwestern guy (Bradford) with his life planned out for himself is wooed, groomed, and ultimately dumped by a complicated, elusive girl (Cuthbert). My Sassy Girl is a South Korean, successful to the proportions of Titanic across Asia. It is partially based on the true story told in a series of love letters written by Kim Ho-sik, a man who posted them online.

Like the best Korean films, "My Sassy Girl" is a genre-bending exercise that throws in elements of the teen comedy, the traditional melodramatic romance, and even some genre parody and mixes them into a unique cinematic experience that defies categorization. The film’s original Korean title, Yeopgi, which means ‘novelty-seeking’, is in reference to the youth craze that was started by Kim Ho-sik’s original Internet postings about his eccentric girlfriend. Though the English title for this film doesn’t mean quite the same thing, it certainly does tell you what to expect.

7. Some Like It Hot

For those who haven’t seen it, "Some Like It Hot" (1959) is one of the greatest comedies ever! In a story of increasingly wild absurdity, it follows the antics of two idiot musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) who, after witnessing the St Valentine’s Day Massacre, struggle to escape the gangsters (including a severely unsmiling George Raft) by dressing up in drag and joining an all-girl band. Comic complications aplenty ensue when Tony Curtis – now a pouting girlie – strives to express his lust for Marilyn, while Jack Lemmon – equally high-voiced and simpering – is being pursued by an amorous Joe E Brown, who has one of the funniest – and most radical – final punch-lines in screen comedy.

8. Pretty Woman

Even prostitutes do it…

If you think about it, this film is about as far removed from reality as a glossy Vogue magazine. And judging by the films success, that’s exactly what we want to see. Any dark hues of harsh reality were bleached out, synthesized and made sleek, much like Vivian’s blonde wig in the beginning of the film. The illusion is flimsy, but we just don’t care. We want to see the transformation, at whatever cost (pardon the pun). At one point, Julia Robert’s character Vivian, speaks for Disney (and audiences) when she tells Edward: "I want the fairy tale." So do we Julia, so do we…

9. The Wedding Singer

A sentimental and sweet crowd-pleaser that captures the magic and warmth of falling in love. Though it may be predictable and retreads some familiar territory, there are enough hooks in the story to make it something we can’t help but laugh at. And although there is absolutely no reason for the film to be set in the 1980’s, why not squeeze in a few more cheap laughs (if only to distract us from the relatively boring plotline) with some Culture Club and mullets?

10. 50 First Dates

“Imagine having to win over the girl of your dreams… every friggin’ day”.

Okay, so "50 First Dates" is mostly silly, but they do a good job with it. Honolulu veterinarian Henry Roth (Adam Sandler) falls for Lucy Whitmore (Drew Barrymore), only to find out that, due to an accident, her memory only lasts one day, so she won’t remember him the next day! How will Henry cope with this? The movie gravitates between goofy and sensitive, but never gets mind-numbing; Adam Sandler always has something up his sleeve, and he and Barrymore have a great time with the material. As is often the case in Adam Sandler’s movies, one of the characters is an embarrassment to everyone else (in this case, it’s Rob Schneider as Henry’s whacked-out friend Ula). Great fun.

Perhaps the only thing left to be said here is the surprising popularity of Adam Sandler, appearing three times in the top 10 list with ‘Punch Drunk Love’, ‘The Wedding Singer’ and ‘50 First Dates’. Have fun with these Romantic Comedies on Valentines Day, and if you would like to vote on your favorite film, try the Romantic Comedy section.

Boobs!

team@bestuff.com (Adrian) — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 03:42:00 -0500

Vote for Boobs

What is it with boobs? The other day I was checking out our stats, and I noticed that for all the search queries that people use to find our site, around a 1000 people a day find our site by searching for ‘boobs’. Last time I checked I found we are on the second page of google. Looking at other popular search queries, it is generally broken down to porn stars, certain best body parts and other weird likes. Thanks google! ;)