back from ny

While I was there I (of course) stopped at the MoMA design store. And, well, I found some things I just couldn't not buy. My favorite by far is this sign by Richard Tipping. I love signage to my very soul and a bit of paranoia is good for everyone.



Sadly, the artist's website is under construction but there's still enough there to get a flavor of his work. Hopefully the online store will be back soon...I need to decorate my new apartment.

meat flaps

I love this short story! Possibly you will too. Make sure you stick around for the credits, they're v nice.

phear of fones

I've probably mentioned this before, but I hate phones. I hate calling people I don't know. I calling people I do know. I hate answering calls. I'm not sure if I'm afraid of the connection cutting out or of misunderstanding someone/being misunderstood, but phones just freak me out. This is probably why I like texting so much. They also, apparently, make me sound like an idiot. And I'm pretty sure I'm not an idiot.

I applied for my first credit card yesterday. (Hurrah for more debt! I feel so American.) And, stupid me, I tried to use fancy settings on my new phone like mute and speaker while I was looking for paperwork. My call may have been recorded. So perhaps it will give people a laugh for years to come. I'm also apartment hunting, which means calling people and explaining who I am, what I do, and why any sane person would want to live with me. Not an easy task. And it's made more difficult (or so I'd like to think) by the fact that my job is terribly obscure and nearly impossible to explain without visual aids to anyone outside the design field. I must simply learn to deal.

Your musical reward for reading my complaints this time is Radiohead covering Bjork. Wow. I've got to write that again. Radiohead covering Bjork. Magic.

the hits just keep on coming...

Following close on the heels of the raging success of my latest instructable, my lovely paper folding applets have been linked to by the Fitful Flog. This is, of course, awesome. But my MIT webspace runs out in January and my website will go poof. I think it's time to get serious about choosing a new host.

I've been doing a lot of holiday shopping of late and it got me thinking about an old (possibly true) story that my 10th grade history (during our local history section) and science (during our topography section) teachers told my class. My city used to have a lot of mob money running through it. Among other things, it supposedly funded the design and construction of our local mall. If you look at a map, the mall looks suspiciously like a handgun pointed pretty directly at city hall. Thanks to the wonder that is Google Maps, the story seems to be true. Take a look for yourselves:

View Larger Map

delicious

I finally got to upgrade my old phone.  I hate phones, so I didn't really expect to be excited by this (I assumed anything short of an iPhone would leave me frustrated at best) until I saw the Chocolate's scroll wheel.  It lights up.  It follows your movement.  It's shiny.  And the other keys make the phone vibrate ever so slightly.  Yummy haptic feedback.  And I found a Psapp's Hi as a ringtone.  I still don't know if I'll like actually calling people anymore than previously.  But I do enjoy scrolling through my contact list.  I just hope I don't ruin the slide mechanism.

I've also found a really excellent lamp.  I sincerely hope whatever apartment I find is in need of a light fixture.  Design shopping websites are dangerous things.

I can add another notch to my baking-bedpost.  I made banana bread all by my lonesome yesterday.  Must get all this cooking out of my system before moving to Manhattan.

Here's your reward for reading this post - my ringtone.

consonants & vowels

I have a new favorite song, and you should all listen to it. Regina Spektor's amazing.

This song isn't actually from Soviet Kitsch, it's from Songs. But you should go get Soviet Kitsch too anyway.

That is all.

:D

My new instructable got featured!  I'm much too proud of this.  Hehe.

we apologize for the delay

I've been busy, although that doesn't really excuse a nearly month long absence. So I'll try to catch all you wonderful people up on what I've been doing.

In the past month I've put up Christmas lights, flown to London, baked crescent rolls three times, cookies twice, folded things from the Fitful Flog, started Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, found a Wii for my sister's Christmas present, found many amazing design shopping websites (which you can visit for yourself by checking my del.icio.us) and taken a job in NY, thus ending my search for employment.

Also, check out this pic of a snowman ornament falling to its death.


And, drum roll please, I have a new Instructable. Check it out here.

Now to find an apartment.

the trouble with timing and travel

And, no, it's not the same problem.  Really, they each have several.  Anyway.  That really is a terrible entry title.  And a poor Star Trek reference to boot.  I should come up with something better.  Damn my brain.

My watch looks even awesome-er thanks to Photo Booth's comic book effect.

What was this post supposed to be about?  Oh right, watches.  So.  My lovely metal digital Swatch lost its faceplate a couple months ago.  Ever since I've lived in fear of accidently forgetting to take it off before stepping into the shower.  I love this watch.  It's silver.  It's thin.  It's digital.  I refuse to read normal clock faces.  There's no need for that anymore.  Numbers, people, numbers.  My watch still looks great (possibly even better than when it had a faceplate as it's no longer scratched and you can see some of its guts), but it gets slow after a couple weeks and I just know I'm going to drown it someday soon.

Then, a miracle happened.  Or so I thought.  I was walking around Times Square on my way to dinner with a friend a couple weeks ago and I pass the Swatch store.  They should be able to fix Swatches, don't yo think?  And tiny plastic disks shouldn't cost very much.  But, oh no.  Not only can't my watch be fixed at the store, Swatch doesn't even make replacement faceplates!

So now I have no choice.  My current watch's days are numbered.  I'll need to buy a new one.  I did a great deal of internet-scouring and found this super amazing company.  Now, I know what I wrote just a couple paragraphs ago about demanding readability of my time telling devices.  But.....just look at the amazing hotness of this watch.  It may make me a complete watch hypocrite but, as soon as my Swatch dies, I'm buying it in clear.  Yum.

And now for carry-ons.  I'm going to London on Sunday for a few days to hopefully further my quest for employment.  This time I am not going to deal with baggage claim.  It's frustrating and customs at Heathrow takes long enough by itself.  But I always check because, well, I need my shampoo and eye cream.  I was at Linens'n Things the other day and I saw this cute carry-on kit filled with tiny clear bottles and containers.  I'm a sucker for containers in general, but miniaturize them and I'm almost certainly in love.  Now I have an excuse, er I mean reason, to buy them.  I spent a good hour today slowly pour body wash & co into them.  Hopefully I get through security! 

hair adventures, part iv

I've been busy the past couple weeks. I went to NYC (and may soon be moving there, hurrah!). I finally realized my dream of touching an iPhone and bought the coolest expanding file I have ever seen. It's from Target but I can't seem to find it online. So here's a pic instead:


I also finally cut and dyed my hair like I've been threatening to do for several weeks. I chickened out about getting bangs but I did cut off over a foot of hair and donated it to Locks of Love, the organization that makes wigs for cancer patients. And then my mother dyed it purple for me. She's a very nice mother.

front

and side

Let me know what you think of it.

crafty

I've been making a lot of things lately. Cookies, for example. Other things too. Like a website to showcase some of the really incredible quilts my mother has made over the years. And I'm very nearly done with a new 3d purse inspired by a Hobo International bag I saw last month.


I went beach glass hunting on Presque Isle (the same place I went canoing not so long ago) yesterday and, while I didn't find much, I did manage to put together a necklace from a tiny piece of driftwood and a white piece of glass. I sealed and strengthened the wood with clear nail polish.

music, and not much else

I haven't had all the much to report in awhile. I'm working on a purse based on a HOBO International bag I saw in State College about a month ago, but it's still not finished. Of course, I spent the 10th repeatedly listening to In Rainbows. Delicious.

The film Across the Universe finally went onto wide release yesterday so my sister and I went to see it. To my surprise, my favorite comedian, Eddie Izzard, was in it doing Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite

Amazing. Just truly amazing. Too bad the YouTube isn't high res. Go see the movie for that.

I've also been working on a website for my mother which I hope to have finished and approved by her soon, so look for a link possibly next week. Sadly, no progress on the job hunt front. I think it's time for a new wave of applications.

radiohead! woohoo!

Ok, so this post was going to be titled something vaguely witty about my laptop case or Sherlock Holmes or possibly the intersection of the two. However, Radiohead's new album comes out (at least the downloaded version) on 10 October and you can pre-order on their website now! And, apparently, you can name your own price for the download. Fascinating what can be done without record labels.

I went to a tiny town called Mayville yesterday and picked up a complete set Sherlock Holmes stories (about 1300 pages). I've apparently missed both the first two serialized novels and everything after the Hound of the Baskervilles. But that will soon be remedied.


And, drum roll please, I finally finished the laptop case I've been working on forever and ever. This thing took so long because I not only hand sewed the the handle bits but I also had to do all the trim by hand and made an extra small bag for my external hard drive and power supply. All told, I spent about $19 on it and I think it turned out pretty well. The photo album is here.

merrily, merrily, merrily

I finally went canoing yesterday! After months of it raining and things like grocery shopping coming up my mother and I made it to Presque Isle and rented a canoe. It's a good thing we didn't go any earlier in the year. We were only out for two hours and my incredibly white skin turned pink, ruining my nearly eight years of continuous chalky paleness.

We went in search of eagles we never found, but we did take a bunch of pictures of a blue heron. You can see them and pics of various flowers and weeds here.

I took some videos too. Some of them were even artsy. Here are the best.

Paranoia

I've become obsessed with a scary combination of Google Analytics, my e-mail, and the hit count on my instructable. Sadly, only the last one is in anything like good shape. I finally understand all the people I know who are obsessed with checking facebook. I now *have* to check to see how many hits my website gets at least three times a day. And if the hit happens to be from NY or the UK I get all worried over time on site. This is not healthy. I managed somehow to get myself off meaningful quantities of food, I ought to be able to get myself off of this. Oh firms, please just e-mail me rejections and put me out of my misery! I've only gotten responses (sadly negatives) from two out of thirteen (well, fourteen if you count the Apple one that still isn't done). This is what I get for applying to so many.

For extra fun, and to distract myself from my job search, I put a tracker on this page so that means, yes, I know you are reading. I may not know who you are but I know where you live!

In moderately healthier behavior today, I started this instructable. I adapted it a bit and ended up adding a bunch of sewing. I stopped when I got to the hand sewing the handle seams together. Hopefully I'll finish tomorrow. How do I manage to make even my fun activities tedious and time-consuming? I could've written more cover letters.

Wow, this post is super depressing. I should leave you with something happy. Hmmmmm. I guess I'm updating my blog regularly. Aren't you proud?

Instructable!

I did it! Woo hoo. Check out my brand-spanking-new instructable. I totally rock for doing what I said I was going to. I've also decided, in addition to my million and one computer-y architecture firms, I'm also going to apply to Apple. I even found three whole jobs I at least sort of qualify for. So perhaps my enduring love for my macbook pro will turn into something more. Now if only I could find that hypercard presentation I made in 4th grade....

I also cleaned my room. Like, picked up all the garbage in it and everything. Aren't you amazed? I also made my bed. Although, admittedly, it was mostly for this picture. I really don't get why we, as humans, make beds. We're just going to sleep in them again in 18hrs. I think it's really a lot of wasted effort. If no one made his/her bed maybe we could use all that extra energy to cure AIDS or light a lightbulb for a year or something.


I need to find out how to make an accelerometer for my sister's science project. Oh the days of PJAS. When the world was simple and all I wanted was to get spiders high on herbal supplements.

trying yet again

Sooooo.......the whole iWeb blog thing didn't so much work out as fail miserably. It's not entirely the fault of my laziness either. The iWeb publish-to-folder export stopped working for my blog so I had to keep it up by hand and lost my rss feed, leaving me annoyed and cranky. Hence the lack of posts for, um, a month.

Stuff has happened to me in the past month. Perhaps not a great deal of stuff but, still, some happenings did occur. I went, for example, to Panama Rocks and climbed about on a bunch of glacial rock formations like I did when I was a kid. I took loads of pictures, discovered the panorama feature on my digital camera, and made a webalbum of them all.

I also, at long last, finished, printed, and actually *gasp* sent out my portfolio. This happened just this weekend so hopefully I'll start hearing from places soon. Pretty please.

My little sister got her license on Saturday and she's now driving all her friends around town and even planning on getting a job to be able to afford the insurance and gas for my mother's van when she gets a new vehicle next year.

As always, I've been scouring the internet in search of cool/time wasting websites. You can check out my latest finds on my links page. In super exciting internet news, Rhino is finally being developed for OSX!!!! If you're as obsessed with it as I am (and a mac user) you can apply to be a beta tester. They let me in, so obviously their standards aren't that high ;)

I'm sure I've done other things in the past month but I can't seem to think of them right now. For now I'm off to fulfill my next goal, making an instructable.

trying yet again

Sooooo.......the whole iWeb blog thing didn't so much work out as fail miserably. It's not entirely the fault of my laziness either. The iWeb publish-to-folder export stopped working for my blog so I had to keep it up by hand and lost my rss feed, leaving me annoyed and cranky. Hence the lack of posts for, um, a month.

Stuff has happened to me in the past month. Perhaps not a great deal of stuff but, still, some happenings did occur. I went, for example, to Panama Rocks and climbed about on a bunch of glacial rock formations like I did when I was a kid. I took loads of pictures, discovered the panorama feature on my digital camera, and made a webalbum of them all.

I also, at long last, finished, printed, and actually *gasp* sent out my portfolio. This happened just this weekend so hopefully I'll start hearing from places soon. Pretty please.

My little sister got her license on Saturday and she's now driving all her friends around town and even planning on getting a job to be able to afford the insurance and gas for my mother's van when she gets a new vehicle next year.

As always, I've been scouring the internet in search of cool/time wasting websites. You can check out my latest finds on my links page. In super exciting internet news, Rhino is finally being developed for OSX!!!! If you're as obsessed with it as I am (and a mac user) you can apply to be a beta tester. They let me in, so obviously their standards aren't that high ;)

I'm sure I've done other things in the past month but I can't seem to think of them right now. For now I'm off to fulfill my next goal, making an instructable.