Thursday, March 30, 2006

that was jeopardy!

i just finished the online test for "jeopardy!" and i don't really know how well i did. the site gives you no clue either. only this "handy" little image...



so now i wait. and wonder how i managed to remember chemistry and math answers when i completely blanked on the shakespere question.

*sigh*

intellivision cake

ok, so here's the mostly finished intellivision cake for the festival on sat. i ran out of time. promise finished cake photo later.

intellivision cake!  (not completely finished)

somehow i'll be incorporating this microsurgeon gingerbread word balloon into the cake

microsurgeon gingerbread word balloon

but i'm not sure how at the moment.

and, like i said, i ran out of time. mainly because jeopardy tryouts for the west coast are tonight. in, like, three and half hours. and i have to cram. so, yeah, i'm gonna' go do that now.

Monday, March 27, 2006

humming the seven dwarves "work song" might add something to this entry. try it and see.

i'm taking a quick break before i dive headfirst back into work.

i got behind on my cake for the festival this weekend. but now it's carved and crumb coated.

crumb coated

and i baked the gingerbread pieces that will accompany/become a part of it.

gingerbread pieces

the reason i fell so far behind schedule is because of a change in plans. i hadn't liked any of the sketches i had made until the one i made last night. (this happens quite frequently.) but now things are moving along at a nice clip.

i might also add that the marzipan part has been canned. some days, you just can't get marzipan to do what you want. it's like working with play-doh.

making good progress on the 8bit entry.

a sneak preview of another thing to come

yes, this is a crop from a bad cameraphone image. my regular camera is being a pain because it's dying. so i had to use my phone. please deal with this fact accordingly.

and this will have to suffice for an entry because i'm off to work again.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

i am busy like the bee

today i have...

* baked a lemon cake

* made lemon buttercream icing (both for the seattle edible book festival)

* registered to take the "jeopardy!" online test (i failed the prelim test when i took it in 2003. i missed ONE QUESTION TOO MANY! AAAAARGH#@$#!@#!@)

* sketched out one idea for i am 8bit. (warning: music. cool music but still. warning.)

* did prep work on a large canvas

and i still have to...

* make gingerbread dough

* make a marzipan figure (again, both for edible book festival)

* prime the human pixel project tiles. (i'm really behind on that)

* carve some eggs

* work

and somehow i need to fit in a shower. maybe it would help if i stopped fucking blogging.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

wishing wells would dry up

i don't think i've mentioned this but i HATE it when fictional characters get stuck in wells. it's a thing that i have. kind of like hating plots based on mistaken identities and/or most sci-fi. (i feel that it's too obvious of a metaphor, but i digress from the hatred.)

back to the wells, i haven't finished the wind up bird chronicle because the main character climbs into a well. also, in the original rescuers i despised the part when penny was lowered into the well to search for treasure.

additionally and real life-ily, i hated it when ronald reagan would say "well...". and i was quite relieved when baby jessica was rescued from the well but i wish to hell she hadn't fallen into it in the first place.

"what caused this to well up?" you might wittily ask. (oh, you're witty!) i've been reading wicked and the wicked witch's son ends up in, you guessed it, a well.

AAAARGH!#@#!@!@#!#@

stupid fucking wells.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

it's sunday and what follows are words.

just a few quick notes--

saw one of the seattle idiotarod teams biking down market street with their shopping cart in tow yesterday. this is notable in that no one, including myself, really cared that they were biking down market street with their shopping cart in tow.

japan will be playing cuba in the world baseball classic!

who will win?!?

the photo above is from an early inning in the last semifinal korea vs. japan game. *such* a good game!

leff and i bought a brick of american cheese loaf. the hilarty has ensued!

best way to hack netflix to get a movie you know there will be a long wait for: keep one of your previously rented discs ("someday's dreamers") for a week or so then mail it in two days before the long wait movie ("harry potter and the goblet of fire") is due to be released. do this and you shall recieve in your mailbox "harry potter and the goblet of fire" with no waiting. mwah-haaa-haaa!

it's magical i tells ya! magical!

and that's that. i've got to make finished plans for my edible book festival submission and start reading the book that d wants to base our joint entry upon.

but i do have a question--does anyone know what tools are used to carve eggs?

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

this week in stuff

so this week brought about two different things: 1) a new job 2) the aforementioned trip to the dentist.

the dentist was MUCH more pleasant than i could have ever imagined! (i never thought that i'd use the words "pleasant" and "dentist" in the same sentence.) all of the hygenists and the good doctor himself went out of their way to help me to not be nervous and vomit all over the place.

the good news is that for not having been to a dentist in 15 years, my teeth were really pretty clean. so flossing and hydrogen peroxide really ARE your friends!

the bad news: in addition to a crown, i'll need to have eight cavities filled and one wisdom tooth pulled. yikes! expensive! but still a lot less than i had anticipated. (although i may end up working at a starbucks part time. because starbucks has dental insurance for their employees. (i'd leave after getting my teeth fixed, of course.))

but enough about my teeth!

shadow the hedgehog (warning!! music on that site!) arrived and has already been sent back. it might play better in an arcade setting but at home it reeeeeeally got on my last nerve. particularly shadow's repetition of "damn! not here!" every stupid time he died.

ugh. how 90's.

i blew most of my tax return on a new bag, "my neighbor totoro", the "street fighter" pinky street figures and other assorted crap.

oh no, totoro!

it wasn't a very big tax return. i'm sure you've deduced that.

also ate many fruits in ms pac man.

ms pac man

(i had to hand the game over to leff. my stupid busted finger started tingling too much to continue playing. *sigh*)

and i guess that's it. i'm even more exhausted than normal so don't expect too much here for the next little bit. well, at least until around april 1st when i'll probably post about the edible book show.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

HOORAY!

YIPPEE!!! i got my tax return today! i'm going to spend some of it right after i finish posting this. (that means be on the look out for packages if i owe you one!)

in other good news, mario recieved mention on both kotaku and cupcakes take the cake! so thank you to both of those sites!

one last thing, yesterday there was a THUNDERSTORM! well, seattle's version of a thunderstorm. you know, like two bolts of lightning and three big thunderbooms. no use in overdoing things, you know.

i've missed thunderstorms. so much so that i've been listening to a prerecorded one lately. (i found a copy of an "enviornments" lp at a thrift store a long time ago. that 75 cent investment has served me well!)

ok, i'm off to revitalize the economy with my purchase of pink bunny peeps!

Friday, March 10, 2006

it's-ah mario!

happy mario day!

and here's the cupcake surprise! it's a marzipan mario and two mushroom cupcakes!

it was the first time i'd ever worked with marzipan before. that was a LOT of fun! everything else, not quite so much because fujiko was being a royal pain in the ass. ah well, so it is with fujiko...

i'm going to go eat the green cupcake now so i can 1up!

d'oh! looks like mario beat me to it!

1up!

happy mario day!

pip brought mario day to my attention. geddit, mar 10, mar10? mario? haha haaa.

i'll have a mario related surprise posted here and at flickr later on today. until then check out this mario speed race to help get you in the mood. (via kotaku.)

Thursday, March 09, 2006

cupcakes take the cake!

the cupcake queens from cupcakes take the cake were kind enough to interview me for their site! head on over if you want to read me babbling on and on about my favorite confection.

mocha cupcakes with chocolate buttercream icing

this may require me to pop by cupcake royale in celebration.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

more on the game that wouldn't die

believe it or not there's new katamari damacy news. me and my katamari is being released for the psp on the 23rd of this month.




even though i'm about to suffer kd overload, i've tracked down a psp to borrow and put the game in my gamefly queue. i'll let you know how it goes. the reviews seem to be pretty good so far.

human pixel project

today i found out about the human pixel project. (thank you, craig's list.)

it's a neat idea. basically, it's a collaborative project. you are sent 10 hardboard tiles to do with as you will so long as you stay within the same color of the tile. these tiles are then sent back (a prepaid mailer is included for their return) and then used to create a larger image. kind of humanizing the pixel, as it were.

if you're interested in participating, click here and follow the directions.

i can't wait to get my tiles!

two other things: today daniel cook learned how to break dance and the new disney version of totoro is released! eeeep!

IT'S TOTORO DAY!!

i can't wait to go to tower tonight!

Monday, March 06, 2006

cooking the books

d just told me yesterday that seattle participates in the edible book festival.

you know how all over that i'm going to be, right?

i've got until shortly before april 1st to come up with my idea(s). honestly, i can't wait! i'm still in the scattered state of things at the moment (uh, the part where my brain buzzes and hums and i try to distract it by watching shows about the loch ness monster so it can sort itself out.) but things should be clearer by tomorrow.

as always, updates when necessary/available. if you have any particular book or related lit topic that you might like to see rendered in edible form, please feel free to leave a comment.

tiny fox teeth

today i'm trying to do fun things to sort of work out the jams/bring in the love (to paraphrase a simpson's character whose name escapes me at the moment.) this includes watching walt disney's 1973 version of "robin hood".

i heart this movie because it was born in the same year as me. also because of robin's tiny little fox teeth.



do you see his little teeth? aren't they, like, the best?! (i fully understand that you may not be as excited about animated fox teeth from the 70's as i am, and that's ok. i've never been able to explain my love of them very well. (photo snagged from google images, btw.))

other good things that are slated for this week: the release of FOUR, count 'em FOUR dvds that i've been waiting for! "howl's moving castle", "my neighbor totoro", "whisper of the heart" and "harry potter and the goblet of fire" are all coming out tomorrow! EEEP!

also, wed flogging molly is playing at easy street. and then there's the season finale of "project runway". santino better not win.

thursday and friday can just leave a message because there's snow in the forecast for those days. and you know how i feel about snow, right? (i'll give you a clue. starts with an "h", four letters, rhymes with "late".)

anyway, time for me to get back to "robin hood" and his amazing teeth. ciao and all that.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

oscar sunday, sunday, sunday

happy oscar sunday, babycakes!

normally, the awards show isn't my thing ('cept for when i watched lotr sweep them a few years back! g33k pr1d3!! g33k p0w3r!! w00tw00t!) but this year i'm watching. because of jon stewart.

i heart jon stewart. i would, conceivably, ditch leff should jon stewart heart me back. (ed note: this would never happen.)

anyway, in honor of oscar sunday and ms burnt tortilla, i have taken the "who's your daddy, er, who's your perfect oscar date" quiz.

my result:



clive owen. well, at least he looks good when he's scruffy.

my other result:



angelina jolie. that makes MUCH more sense.

and now i must leave you. i have to figure out which bus i need to take in order to arrive at plastic passion. that could take a while. i'm crap at figuring out bus routes sometimes.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

i forgot to mention

i also got a really kick ass painting from bunchofpants in the large package!

A PAINTING FROM BUNCHOFPANTS!!!

it's so awesemo!!

march 4th!

ok, so moving on! (i have to. today is march 4th! march forth! it is imperative that i do something in more than one sense!)

yesterday saw a deer laden package from auntnanny and bunchofpants arrive at me casa!

A PACKAGE FROM BUNCHOFPANTS AND AUNTNANNY!!

A DEER PLAQUE!!!

NANNY SENT DEER STICKERS AND A GIANT LUCKY PENNY!!

(those are stickers from auntnanny! EEEEEEP!)

nothing cheers me up more than deer and little debbie snack cakes. specifically nutty bars.

OH, LITTLE DEBBIE, LITTLE DEBBIE!

i cannot look at a nutty bar without eating it.

also in the package was the honey brochure that pants put together with some of her flickr photos! (it looks fab/rad! fabrad!) AND a mt olive scratch 'n' sniff pickle sticker!

HONEY BROCHURE AND STICKERS!!!

i scratched. i sniffed. now i want to eat pickles.

anyways, i've got to get started on cleaning the kitchen and such. after leff finished working on one of his side projects, we may take the ferry again. because i think we both need to get out of town for a while.

Friday, March 03, 2006

boo hoo for me

this has been one of the crappiest weeks of my entire life. i won't go into details because, honestly, i don't really want to recount them. (i.e. the sooner i can forget about things, the better.) let's just say that i'm glad today is friday and leave it at that.

not everything has been crappy though. (i try *so* hard to be an optimist. i really do.) i secured a job to help defray the costs of my tooth. so that's pretty good. and i've got the second disc of mahô tsukai ni taisetsu na koto arriving today which is nice and girlie. so hooray for that.

but mainly, i'm absolutely exhausted. the house is a terrible mess with dishes piled up all over the kitchen and i'm having a hard time even making myself care. and i don't think i've eaten anything but an apple and a peanut butter sandwich in two days.

so i think i'm going to pull a clouseau (pictured below) and go take a nap. maybe i'll sleep for the next five years. ah, that sounds fantastic!

silly old clouseau!