My costume is finished!

I’m Bjork when she wore that dead swan dress to the Oscars a few years ago. Now all I need is a baby to carry around with me and I’ll punch anyone who tries to take a picture of me.

I stumbled upon this Toy-A-Day blog when I google image searched Clockwork Orange due to someone claiming they wore top hats and I could have sworn they were bowler hats. Anyway… this blog publishes an downloadable paper toy a day in a high res pdf, much like the readymech ones I posted about here awhile back.

This search tool is amazing. It automatically pulls images from Flickr with the exact color palette of your choice!

Dang. I need to check Nasa’s Image of the Day Gallery more often…

Sorry that I’ve been apathetic about updates here. This past Saturday, there was a big soapbox derby at Dolores Park. It was a surreal dorkfest of epic proportions. 75,000 people came out to my neighborhood for this - that’s almost two ballparks worth of people. I’m lucky we got there early enough to secure a nice place on the grass to sit and watch the big screen. I’m amazed something like this was pulled off successfully. So much fun, comedy and action in one place, not to mention a beautiful day out. I really am in love with this city.

There were over 30 crafts that participated and each team did a little skit to music prior to pushing their craft down the top of the hill on Dolores Street. Gerardo Sandoval was the first one to go down Dolores as sort of a sacrificial lamb. It’s not too often you see a City Hall supervisor wearing a speed racer helmet going down in tiny box with wheels. I love that politicians in my city can embrace their inner dork. There was Bond’s 756th homerun ball with orange smoke trailing it, a rubiks cube (that solved itself in real time while on its run!), a giant boom box, hammerhead shark, giant squid, deathstar, a donut, Gene Simmons’s tongue, taco truck, and many more I can’t remember. Sheila E was one of the judges and she either gave everyone a 1 or a 10. She’s crazy.

random word-within-word nerdery with my cellphone camera. <3 neon

young forwarded me these “landscape” beef propaganda ads

they are fun and a little gross. i kinda want a steak so it’s not that gross, but still. the cliff one reminds me of the Point Reyes Seashore.

i just ordered this cake for my coworker’s birthday and am super pumped to eat it. on a related note, i don’t know how i stumbled upon these but they are rule bigtime:

i caught the all star homerun derby on TV last night and now officially admire the hell out of rangers outfielder josh hamilton. how this guy can come back from a hardcore addiction to alcohol, heroin and crack to completely dominate the home run derby by mashing 28 home runs in the first round (3 of them past 500 feet) is beyond me. this guy is for real. not to mention he is leading the major-league in RBIs with a ridiculous 95 before the all star break. WTF? his comeback story is like a real life awesome baseball movie. or as hamilton puts it, proof that hope is never lost.

video of hamilton’s hr derby performance

i need to have a cute baby javelina like this boy. odd that they aren’t members of the pig family.

I also need a garden so I can put this zombie garden sculpture in it and scare people

the ramones, cheap champagne and digital pictures of my friends and fam is what is standing between me and super sulker mode this neglected bingo night. folks who criticize the ramones for being idiot savants (who only talked about hamburgers and male prostitution) end up underestimating their power to make anyone, even Debbie Downer, stupid pumped for retarded behavior. Stupid pumped like you were a toddler who just ate a box of donuts. I love The Clash but they couldn’t make me escape quite like the Ramones. Ay Romeo! I don’t wanna go down to the basement

today your love, tomorrow the world

havana affair

right arrow to advance

young and mike both randomly sent me a link to this guy’s loteria style illustrations this week. they are fun and funny

Scientists threw a coming-home party Wednesday for 20 African penguins at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park and I’m offended that I was not invited. They were on the news the other night and looked like they wanted to get snuggled by me. I’m not a penguin stalker or anything. the news also showed some images of the reconstructed Cal Academy of Sciences building and it’s incredible, I get giddy just thinking about it. I think the 2nd grade field trip here was a universal experience for many who grew up in the Bay Area so I am really happy that it’s been rebuilt and modernized. this is what it looks like:

all that green on top is a living roof, 2.5 acres of native plants will thrive there. 99 days til the grand re-opening! i feel like i’ve been waiting forever.

remember when i posted about being addicted to making these readymech paper dolls a while back? now they are back with a bunch of downloadable pdfs for making your own functional pinhole camera! pick em up picklehead, they look nice.

so i got this portable karaoke adapter for my video ipod. i don’t know why, because it would require me getting really drunk to use it. thought it would be good to have for house parties or as an alternative to paying Do Re Mi in japantown for a private karaoke room.

anyway, you plug it into your tv from your ipod and it comes with a microphone and a reverb knob to disguise your horrible vocals. i was kinda sad when i realized that it didn’t come with a full library and i had to pay for each song like the itunes store, but then i found out that there are a mess of karaoke ready song files out there on the interweb for enjoying (read: stealing). and i mean surprising ones, not that typical benatarsherylcountingcrows crud. exhibit a & b:

sometimes when i am suffering at the gym i ask myself why i am doing this. i think most people want to get in shape or drop a few pounds so they can wear swimwear in public without shame or look good in a cocktail dress or something. me, i realized i am exercising so i can fit into my robot blouse again which i put together 4 years ago.

i think sometimes sentimentality is my only motivation for making a concerted effort. sometimes. i know i can just pull the buttons off and put em on a new shirt, but i am too lazy to thread a needle. not too lazy i guess to feel the burn. no secret really, i’m a fickle one.

my drum lessons lately have been really constructive. i look forward to them every week, although there has been a few hiatuses recently with my teacher going to SXSW and just gigging a lot in general. lately our lessons have just been both of us on drum sets at the same time playing the same rhythm with him doing some fancy variation or drum fill intermittently and giving me a measure of time to mimic the exact thing. it’s very loose, i’m not always perfect but i am appreciating this kind of method because most of the drummers i admire show dexterity and can improvise off the pulse. i think it helps me learn creatively and intuitively instead of focusing too much on numbers and technical details. anyway, this weekend i upgraded to a better paiste high-hat and went into guitar center and got a used sabian crash and that made a world of difference. i love the way my drum kit sounds now and i spent most of sunday afternoon playing to the first sabbath album which probably made the neighboring restaurant hate me. i don’t care, i’ve heard them blast trance music really loud when i was trying to get some sleep one time. oh going into guitar center bummed me out a little though because there were 10 year olds being badasses on the drums and not only was it intimidating, but i felt at my age i was past the learning curve. i need more variety in my arsenal to son these brats. just kidding, i love kids that rock and that one jack black movie with the kids and the rock. dude my nephew shreds on Proud Mary, makes me a proud auntie. (Queue Whitney Houston) I believe the children are the future…

guess i’m really disconnected from my catholic heritage because it’s been at least a decade & 1/2 since my moms last badgered me about mass attendance and/or important catholic-related holidays that i must celebrate to avoid eternal damnation. so, i forgot how fun easter can be! i didn’t know until today, but the washington post has a peeps diorama contest. pretty fun me thinks. the birds one is killer - i loved that they used the boat scene. hitchcock & bodega bay forever. seriously, this scene looks like a scene i would enjoy eating.

i picked up a some pins of legendary railways the last time i was at the san jose train station because i liked the logo/typography and i think i inadvertently started a collection. and possibly reached new levels of nerd.

i’d like to take a scenic cross-country trip on a luxury train one of these days.

and/or live in a 5×5′ studio in new york. it’s a stairs bookcase!

Here’s a great idea for anyone who loves books and doesn’t have enough apartment space or a Kindle: a “secret staircase” made of English oak, lined with books left, right and center, leading to a loft bedroom in a Victorian 1898 apartments block.