a picture of a lamp

i know, how much more boring can i get lately? (the dreaded parental visit is next week and then i promise i'll be back to slightly less boring form.)

anyway, since there's not much time for me to write this morning, here is the new lamp that arrived yesterday.



wow.

to top it off it's badly photographed. i mean, wow.

ok, i gotta split. i'll try to obtain more interesting snapshots by the end of the day but i'm not promising anything.

museum day, walking

these past few days i've been doing a lot of walking because it is *nice* outside. in a moment, i'll post some photos because that's what i do but first i should tell you that saturday is smithsonian museum day here in the states. (via girl hacker)

what does that mean? it means that if you print out this card, you and one other person will gain free admission to the participating museum of your choice on sept 30th. for a list of those participating museums, click here and enter either the state and/or the zip code.

i think that leff and i will be visiting the nordic heritage museum since we'll be in ballard for the sustainable festival that day anyway. (stay tuned! lots of photos of biodiesel production and local organic food samples coming your way.)

ok, so walking. you will not believe how blue the sky has been lately! seriously, check this out:



i didn't color correct that photo. that is the sky. and possibly marlene deitrich but i'm not positive.

i took another walk with leff that night. he had the good camera so these photos are his (except where noted.)

the big knitta by emp.



that sucker is captial HUGE! here's a photo of leff taking a photo of the knitta for, you know, metaknitta action.



an obligatory p-i photo.



and, since it's almost october, the devil rat is out on denny ave!



this morning's solitary walk (leff was still sleeping) included a pavement monster,



a right turn,



the color orange,



and some shots around the fun forest. bumper cars all in a row, (except for that stupid one at the end which is just driving me nuts because i'm ocd.)



some vaguely transformerish action



and some cloud cover.



i love that cloud. i'm sure that i've posted a photo of it here before but not a photo of it in the morning. please deal with that information appropriately.

today i'll be washing rugs and waiting on a new lamp to arrive. i am seriously the most exciting person on the planet! (*snort of derision*)

project runway cops out, more books

at the risk of being unpopular with "project runway" fans, let me just say that last night's show was, to me, the biggest cop out of the season. all four of the remaining contestants are allowed to continue in the contest?! come on!! what a waste of a show! couldn't you have aufed the damn neck?!? i mean, he should've gotten the cut during the black and white challenge when he made the hooker dress anyway!

i'll be so glad when this season is over, michael has won and i can wash pr out of my hair for good.

other than crashing at the end of the day from exhaustion (you can almost eat off of every surface in my apt at this point i've cleaned so vigilantly.) not much is new. i got another stack of books which consists primarily of kiddie lit and genre fic from the library.



(i'm reading earthsea because the new ghibli movie is based on the series. i have no excuse for reading mysteries at the rate that i do. let's just call it a bad habit and move on, shall we?)

there is one big thing that i'm working on but i can't discuss it yet. you'll just have to wait to see how things pan out. *fingers crossed that i can pull it off*

the squid, she is finished

and just a tiny bit messy instead of a big hunka' slop.



now if you'll excuse me, it's too early to be writing. don't let my timestamp fool you, it's set to central time. (which means that i'm always writing two hours earlier than it says i do. yes, it's 5:30 am in seattle. no, i don't sleep.)

rolling my own

people say change is good. not really. not when you have a huge pile of it just sitting around and all of the coinstars in your neighborhood are either dead or broken. because then? then you have to roll your own. this:



has to become this:



before you can get your $28 in cold, hard 'merican greenbacks. and then the teller at your bank will hit on you but he will not give you a lollipop. jerk.

groc told me that in merry, olde england, coin rolling is not done. uh-uh. when they don't use coinstar (because there are coinstars in the uk (they don't let you convert cash into amazon cards and such, however.)) they just put their cash into plastic bags and let the bank handle the rest. see? bags!



how freakin' civilized! (photo courtesy of groc)

pants and jrhyley informed me that their respective banks have coinstarish machines in house that don't charge the fee. i mean, wtf?

seattle, why do you suck so much when it comes to coin exchange? (i should probably be directly addressing my bank instead but, eh, it's more fun to call out seattle.)

the squid still isn't finished. (wow, that sounds like a code, doesn't it?) i promise, pinky swear and all that junk, that i'll have it done before next monday at the very latest.

drawing a blank

i have nothing to write about today. no, really, i don't.

all of sunday was consumed by work on the apt and finalization of plans with leff's dad about his visit next week. since the upcoming visit alternately depresses the hell out of me and makes me burn with rage, i won't elaborate. in fact, forget that i mentioned it.

here's a picture for you. leff got a new mp3 player on saturday.



it's pretty swank. i would like one. i mean, i like my hello kitty cd player a lot but, come on, 6gb! in that tiny little player! whoo!

i think i'll start working on the squid in a few minutes. if i manage to finish it during daylight hours, i'll post it today.

impromptu dinner party

not much to write about the rest of saturday. except maybe to mention that leff an i threw an impromptu dinner party. j brought s over (hello, s! good to see you again!) and we had curried butternut squash and apple soup.



(you know, the soup that i've been talking about making forever because, while it's fantastic, it's also a bit labor intensive.)

also, salad and chocolate chip banana bread were eaten. but not at the same time. yuck.

lotsa booze was consumed. wine, g&t, but mainly beer.



we have enough beer to either 1) throw another dinner party 2) get us through until tuesday. *ba doom ching!*

we also watched how to draw a bunny, a documentary about ray johnson. fantastic. you should absolutely catch this film. i don't care if you think art is dogs playing poker, see this movie.

while you're at it, maybe you'd like to see the big ass american masters on andy warhol. it's goood. it won't tell you anything new if you worship at the throne of warhol like i do but it's a nice refresher. (er, check your local pbs channel for times.)

time to clean up from said party which won't take too long. i've noticed that one great thing about getting older is that your friends don't trash your things when they've been drinking. in fact, they offer to clean up. hooray!

high speed chase, early morning ballard, giant squid

last night there was a high speed chase in ballard on nw market street. strangely, i can't find a link to a news story, so you'll just have to rely on what i saw reported on the news and an eye witness account from k. (yes, another k. seattle is crawling with k's.)

so this high speed chase. somehow there was a police car that spun backwards and ended up crashing into matt's gourmet hot dogs. thankfully, no one was hurt. here is a photo of the clean up this morning.



(i didn't want to get closer because i was intruding enough from where i was.)

k said that last night, as you can imagine, stuff was all over the sidewalk. she also alluded to metal being bent at an odd angle? but i didn't really understand what she was talking about.

and so ends our "citizen journalism" episode for the day. here are some shots from around the bus stop on market just, you know, to cleanse your pallet. (pallet. it's a word that i'm never sure if i'm spelling correctly. ah, well....)

i love stickers of clouds in seattle.



and someone had to take a time out while they were at the matador last night.



bad someone. go to your room.

i'm working on a giant squid shower curtain. why? because i can. i started by making a freezer paper stencil.



i've found that it's important to let the paint dry a little so it doesn't bleed quite so much when you pull up the paper. here it is waiting to dry



and with the stencils removed.



i didn't have time to start on the detail work yet. here's hoping that i have time to finish it this weekend. end result posted soon!

i channel the happy homemaker, you are there

i am *so* sue ann nivens right now. (well, except for the man crazy aspect. i kinda' had to give that up when i went monogamous.)

anyway, sue ann. yes, she's invading my life and making me think "we really need to make this shelving unit that's in the new issue of readymade!"



i can also hear her voice saying "we should make jam out of all of the plums in the fridge. you can make jam can't you?"

god damn you, sue ann! i need to work on my portfolio! shut up! shut up! shut up!

er, sorry.

yesterday was macrocity in my apt. here are a few toy photos for you to peruse, you know, if you're bored. i'm warning you, they're supersaturated.







and a filmstrip for good measure.

another day in ballard

why don't i just move to ballard and get it over with? seriously, both leff and i already work there. i'm always there in my spare time (i mean, hello! cupcake royale!) and it's where my primary library is located. also i've developed a love of lutefisk.

i'm kidding about the lutefisk.

so it should come as no surprise that yesterday i was looking for furniture in ballard. at restore to be precise. a lot of area high schools have been gutted for renovation lately so there were LOTS of home ec cabinets, trophy cases and library card catalogs in stock.



i was *drooling* over a science table and a faculty lounge mailbox that still had the teachers' names on it. (we have to buy that!) there were also blackboards in the yard area (honest to god blackboards!) and channel letters. (i want to buy the "f".) there was also this "vomitorium"



that is actually a sink from an embalming room. creepy, no?

yes, restore makes me drunk with happiness!



even though we, sadly, didn't purchase anything yesterday.

space oddity, however, is not making me happy. their hours are ridiculous and i'm always there when they're closed. i mean, is it wrong to assume that a store would be open at 1:45 in the afternoon? apparently so since they're open 2-6 tues-sat.

look. here it is being closed again.



argh!!

don't fret. i took a photo of some cupcakes while i was waiting on my coffee



to cheer myself up.

it worked. (no, i didn't go back to space oddity. i didn't have enough time.)

so what have we learned? i love restore, space oddity is never open, cupcakes look pretty and leff and i still haven't solved the problem of the gaping area of crap that is our "entertainment area". also, we're about to learn that i hate the words "entertainment" and "area" placed next to each other. ick.

a visual pun that will make you cry in pain

since i spent too much of last night brainstorming, i don't have anything to talk about today. i do have a really lame visual pun though.



curds and weigh. har har! geddit?? curds and...oh, never mind.

today is looking like it will consist of furniture shopping, cleaning, the library and race for your life, charlie brown. i'll try to do something "write worthy" by this afternoon.

ahoy there, matey!

happy talk like a pirate day!

american idol comes to seattle

a disclaimer: i do not watch "american idol". i do, however, love a good spectacle esp if it's taking place in my backyard.

sunday morning while getting coffee at uptown, leff overheard someone say that seattle's "american idol" tryouts were happening that day at the key. turns out that this information was a bit off, registration was on sunday. but the tryouts are today! and, oh honey, the line started last night! (i'll get around to footage of that in a second.)

this photo, obviously, isn't of the line. it's of the line to be.


the press camped out early.



because, you know, human interest stories are humanely interesting. some of the time.

anyway, here are some of the early birds.



they would occasionally warble and applaud each other.

this morning, however, there was no warbling in line. i don't know if it was because the grey has returned,



an outbreak of sars had occured



or just general floating anxiety about primary elections



but the crowd was very subdued. seriously, not a warble to be heard.

it's not that there wasn't a whiff of excitement in the air because the atmosphere did have a bit of a charge albeit a rather soggy, exhausted one. i still couldn't help feeling that most of these poor hopefuls were lined up just like little lambs being sent to slaughter.



poor soggy, little lambs.

still, maybe one of them will make it on the show. so to all of you idol hopefuls, i wish you a hearty "good luck"! also, i hope that you're able to dry off before your audition.

a special scan for nyx who is sick

once upon a time, ok go opened for the donnas. in between sets, i got damian kulash to sign my wrist. because, sweeties, he's more than a bundle of hotness. i won't go into the wrist thing.

*cough*



here's hoping that this stupid scan (we didn't have a digital camera at the time) cheers you up, nyx dear. get well soon!

art, food and a big red dog

sometimes i think that i save all of the fun stuff for sundays. like, a whole week's worth of fun stuff. crammed into one little day.

leff and i decided to do two of the things on our previously mentioned list. after a nice turkey sammich (for me) at mecca, we bussed it to blue bottle where we picked up two prints, stafanus aldo santoso's "broccoli"



and ken taya's dual print set "denshin poles".



there are at least three other pieces at blue bottle that we need to buy but, well, we aren't millionaires so it'll have to wait until next month. or maybe the month after.

since we were in the neighborhood, leff wanted to stop by the flagship rei. it was oddly depressing for the both of us. (leff (to no one in particular): "$400 biking gloves will not solve all of your problems." me: "aw, nuts. they only have the clog style crocs.") but i did enjoy looking at the model tents simply because, er, i like tiny tents. i'm getting one for the cats because, omg!, how much fun would it be to own a tiny tent? (yeah, i know how crazy that sounds, believe me.)

we decided to walk back from capitol hill so we could stop by 7-11 for slurpees.



we saw this monster tag



which i'm almost positive is done by the same person that makes these.



does anyone happen to know who's making those? because i LOVE them!

anyway, slurpees. we bought one for clifford too since i knew another mascot when i was in college and i'm aware of how hot it gets inside of those costumes.

i'll be nice and protect "clifford's" identity. here he is getting ready to be pummeled by children.



note the floppy ear. aaaaw! another shot of clifford, this time being all business casual.



oh clifford! maybe we'll visit you again next weekend at work!

later that day, j called and wanted to get some food at bamboo garden which was an awesome idea! i only got a photo of the sauces for the spring rolls



because i spent the rest of the time eating. mmmmmm, eating. mmmmmmm, kung pao chicken...*drooling*.

we *finally* got around to buying some of j's photos. (we've been meaning to for about a year now.) we got one, two, three photos! ah-haa-haa-haaa! (please read that last part as if the count were saying it.)

isn't j the most awesome photographer?!?! (i have a feeling that he's going to be an art star soon. and i'm not saying that because i'm biased.)

speaking of stars, there was one in his storage area.



and a reminder in his apt to not do drugs



lest you end up like googly eyed joan of arc.



seriously, kids, don't do drugs. stay in school. only winners, uh, win. etc.

and what would make a day of art purchasing complete? why coffee, of course.




this time at the new vivace. just remember to bus your table or you'll be eaten by a t-rex.



ok, i've got to start hanging all of our new art and, once again, the kitchen will not clean itself. have a lovely monday, bun buns.