Monday, February 26, 2007

monday

marcel and i decided to each document a day last week. i did monday.
the photos of me were taken by people i interacted with who i wasn't comfortable asking to photograph...i consider their portrait of me to be, in some ways, a portrait of them.











Monday, February 19, 2007

Sunday, February 18, 2007

my worst nightmare

this girl has been hiccuping 50 times a minute for over three weeks.

Friday, February 16, 2007


for those of you in the design/build fields (or anyone who's interested and can take 3 hours off in the middle of the day) architecture 2030 is hosting a global teach-in on tuesday, february 20th.

considering the role the built environment plays in climate change (buildings consume 68% of all electricity in the U.S., and emit 36% of all carbon dioxide), the program aims for complete ecological literacy in the design/build fields by 2010.

i'm not sure what the teach-in itself will consist of (i'm hoping for more informational than inspirational), but people are gathering all over the world to attend. at UCLA we'll be in ackerman ballroom.

if you're interested, check out the website.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

the best laid plans

i'm in hour 5 of a special 6 hour econ class.

i love economics, and i love this professor, but i'm about to lose it.

i'm so tired.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

once you see it


it's everywhere...

happy valentines day

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

the woman who lives two doors down from me

the woman who lives two doors down from me is either crazy, or an actress.

at least once a day i hear screeching monologues or fights coming from the open door of her apartment. at first i assumed a tumultuous love affair, but on the occasions that i've stopped to listen to what she's actually saying, i hear tirades about "the curse of abstinence" or the "the dust of the thousands dead beneath our feet."

as best i can figure, she's either an actress rehearsing for a part, or totally off her rocker.

i hope for the former, but suspect the latter.

Monday, February 12, 2007

bureau two ways pt 2

after reexamination, i realized that the scanned two photos in yesterday's post do not capture the delicate details of the original photographs.

at all.

they come across kind of pale and washed out and boring. absent a much better scanner, we fiddled with photoshop and did our best to restore their original colors. it's better, but now i think they look "photoshopped" i.e. have colors/shading that do not occur without digital aid.

what do you all think? would you have suspected photoshop if i hadn't mentioned it? or am i just being crazy?


Sunday, February 11, 2007

Thursday, February 08, 2007

chilling

the homicide report: an latimes blog accounting for every homicide in LA, every day.

that patterns are painfully clear.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

i am not a football person

but some of them (including my roommate) took over the house on sunday.

they don't fuck around, these football fans.

my piddling low-def TV just wasn't cutting it, so they projected the superbowl 8 feet high on the living room wall.


the main interest of the day (at least for me) was the culinary battle that erupted between chicago and indiana.

representing chicago:
7 deep dish pizzas, flown in from ginos and giardanos in chicago
3 flavors of cheesecake, also flown in from chi-town
14 cumulative layers of dip
1 ridiculously large gift basket of frango's chocolate
untold sausages

and from indiana:
rotelle (salsa and velveeta mixed together, for the uninitiated)
corn chips
popcorn
bud light
8 boxes of dove bars, which no one touched and are still occupying my freezer

although the colts took the super bowl, i'd have to say that chicago won the culinary wars.

anyone want a dove bar?

Friday, February 02, 2007

tulip mania!

i bought some tulips today.

seeing as punxsutawney phil didn't see his shadow, i figured i'd better prepare for spring.

on an unrelated (but totally nerdy) note - the title of today's post is actually an economic term.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

new bookmark

foundtrack posts a new mixtape (mixzip?) every month.

plus you can still download their archives - i'm liking november at the moment.

scarf season



Tuesday, January 30, 2007

beautiful evidence

i attended a seminar today given by edward tufte. i had lunch with my friend ashish, and ended up describing the course as "how to make really good charts," which doesn't quite do it justice. the course was about the effective visualization of data, something i think we all deal with in one way or another. i should probably make up a graphic or something to demonstrate how cool this seminar was, but instead i'll just rely on my usual text and scans (have i learned nothing?!)

one concept that tufte pioneered is that of sparklines - tiny, work-sized graphics that fit neatly into text and convey more information than a word, in less space than a traditional graphic. tufte is all about high information resolution, and these little "datawords" can increase the informational content of text significantly. or, they can be used in sets of small multiples, to convey large amounts of information in small spaces.

some examples

apparently the sparklines were inspired by galileo's original text describing saturn's rings. galileo incorporated drawings right into the text.

(very) rough translation: saturn looks like this XXXXXX; when saturn is blurry, it looks like this XXXXXXX .

brilliant!


news year's day



Sunday, January 28, 2007

Friday, January 26, 2007

Thursday, January 25, 2007

but before i go...

why did the


cause i finally got my lazy ass to the lab to pick up some film!

gobble.

sacramento bound

and i'm itchin' to get on the road

see ya!

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

i just realized why the sudden war between los angeles and chicago

(other than the presence of julie)


it's the olympics!

given that hosting the olympics would be a zoo, and i probably won't even be here in 2000-a-billion (or whenever the games are), i'm still totally rooting for los angeles.

i should also note that its not just LA and chicago in the ring - there's a bunch of international cities (like prague and tokyo) also in contention.

via curbed LA

and on a totally un-olympics (but chicago and LA) related note, the history channel sponsored a really cool design competition to envision the future LA, NYC and chicago. you can check out the winning designs here.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Thursday, January 18, 2007

the fun never stops in economics

my professor assigned this as part of our homework the other day.

never. stops.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

not bad to hear when i'm 6 months away from graduating

urban planning is one of fast company's 10 'hot jobs' for 2007.

urban planners: the career of the future

via curbed la

right back at ya, viv



vivian and i have webcams. we can show each other clothes, condition our hair, meet each other's friends.

i've finally found my teleportation device.

Monday, January 15, 2007

reconstructing memory

i joked before that the loss of my old computer was like losing a piece of my brain. the thing is, i wasn't really joking. i have a new computer now, and it's simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. it’s like a blank slate. my old computer was teeming with little bits and pieces of my life from the last three years - music, photos, writings, school assignments, emails...some of them were corrupted, some fractured and some hidden. some things didn't work right, some things had viruses and many had fallen into disarray. but it was mine. i knew how it worked and where to find things and what my limits were.

now i have this new computer, and its really up to me to decide how to compose it - what to bring over from my old computer and what to leave behind. this is good because i can pick and choose the music i actually listen (or want to listen) to, i can wade through the photographs and only bring the ones i truly want to keep and i can leave three-year-old finance assignments on my external hard drive. its a chance to organize and reconstruct my brain, without all the useless bits and corrupt files - to streamline. i'll free up memory and everything will run a bit better.

but its sad, too. there were some great things in that computer that i'll surely forget to bring over, or that won't mesh with my pc to mac transition. my physical brain's amnesia will invade my computer brain. and its the consciousness of this reconstruction that i find terrifying. we all do it, i know, but i don't like the idea of reshaping my memory. as imperfect and wonderful and painful as it is, i like it that way: as it is.

Friday, January 12, 2007

the ballad of katie and amanda

one day katie and amanda were sitting on the couch. they were very good friends.



katie was a little gross sometimes, but amanda loved her anyway.



on this particular day, something strange started to happen.
at first they thought it was funny...



but when katie grew two heads



they got scared!



eventually katie's heads grew back together.
although she never looked quite the same again,



they lived happily ever after.



the end

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Tag of Four

via ryan

Four jobs I've had:
1. Sticky bun server
2. Ice cream scooper
3. Speakers Bureau Coordinator
4. Phone bank at a credit card company

Four places I've lived:
1. Wilmington, DE
2. Florence, Italy
3. Claremont, CA
4. Brooklyn, NY

Four favourite foods (at the moment - this is always changing):
1. grilled sandwiches
2. banana bread
4. shrimp
5. seared ahi

Four movies I could watch over and over (actually, I don't tend to watch movies repeatedly, unless lots of time has passed. but if I did):
1. Annie Hall
2. Kicking and Screaming
3. Spirited away
4. One Crazy Summer

Four TV shows I enjoy:
1. Lost
2. Project Runway
3. Heroes
4. Top Chef

Four places I've traveled:
1. Sao Paulo, Brazil
2. Innsbruck, Austria
3. Kiluaea, Kauai
4. Jinotepe, Nicaragua

Four places I'd like to visit:
1. The Sahara Desert
2. Shanghai, China (I guess I've technically been there, but not in the last decade)
3. Buenos Aires, Argentina (in the works!)
4. Reykjavik, Iceland

Four websites I go to daily (not counting blogs/social network sites):
1. Chowhound
2. Epicurious
3. LA Times/New York Times/BBC News
4. Curbed LA

Julie, don't hate me - but this one's all you!

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

he may be a republican, he may be an actor, and he may be kind of preposterous

but at least he has vision.

the nitty-gritty will inevitably have tons of unforeseen problems, but i love the idea of sweeping change. we need it - we need something.

Monday, January 08, 2007

damn

apparently my car is so well designed, that it is actually more fuel efficient to keep the windows closed and the A/C on than to open the windows and mess with the aerodynamics and wind flow.

damn, car.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

5 little-known things about me

tagged for a meme by miss v

1) there exists somewhere in the world a video of my entire family wearing wigs and lip syncing 'groove is in the heart' against a psychedelic green screen background sometimes in the early 90's. it has been lost to the mists of time. it is my holy grail: i must find it. guess who sings lead.

2) i just bought a robot.

3) i recently found out that my dad and i share apocalyptic paranoia fantasies - i've stocked my house with gallons of water, tons of canned foods and a crank radio, and he's planting a subsistence garden in hawaii - 'just in case.'

4) i can only stay awake during scary movies - everything else puts me to sleep.

5) i recently dreamt of being attacked by shapeshifting zombie pillows (i think this may be connected to number 4)

julie, this one is all you!

incommunicado

my computer won't turn on. something happened between hawaii and los angeles and it just won't even talk to me. this is kind of like losing access to part of my brain. i'm not too worried - i think all the memory is still there, i'll probably just need some new hardware. but for now, i'm using an old computer and having a hard time posting regularly on a surrogate digital brain.

never fear, though. i'm still here, all is well and go beav!

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Monday, January 01, 2007

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

best of 2006

best (or perhaps just latest?) new music obsession:

kathy in her bedroom - bedroom walls


best girls to have with you in a pinch




best feeling




best cover of "last christmas"

last christmas - erlend oye


best cause of noise most likely to wake me up at 7am on a Saturday (tied for best source of construction workers likely to see me nekkid)




best imitation of garden gnomes





best use of "la la la"

black flowers - yo la tengo


best use of a flash drive





best constant




best kit for an afternoon on the beach




best song to listen to while driving fast on the freeway at night


stars above us - saint etienne


most flagrant abuse of a pandy





best song to get out of town to

junglebook - esthero


best


Like pedestrians, livestock can get confused crossing the road.

thank you, traffic school.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

i've been feeling a bit skeptical of organized religion lately


so i think
these
are the birthes i'll be celebrating tomorrow.

Friday, December 22, 2006

i am thousands of miles away from any major land masses

if zombies come for the rest of you, i'm staying right here.

Monday, December 18, 2006

sweet, sweet bacon

bacon brittle

bacon baklava

bacon cookies
(have to scroll through entire post for bacon cookie recipe)

Sunday, December 17, 2006

6 months


it's a long time, for me.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

the year in blog

the first line of the first post of every month in 2006 (via ryansenseless, via someone else, and so goes the blogosphere)

January

maybe that's why i feel the dichotomies so deeply.

February
this is my old doorway.

March
mmmm...the truth is, i just like lying in bed anytime.

April
returning feels a little more like coming home.

May
to include mix cds from half-japanese canadians that correspond thematically to new kids on the block albums.

June
i don't remember ever not liking simon and garfunkel.

July
as lenny strolled the left path as the pepoi the bird said he thought a lot about what was wrong with him inside and maybe what he needed to change.

August
or, rather, i sat through it with my head turned and my hands over my eyes.

September
[diptych by m]

October
that i always spell the word 'monthes' with an 'e' in it, and then have to go back and take the 'e' out?

November
last night i dreamt that i was walking down a dark street in a small mountain town.

December
we were the dark horse.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

are you fucking kidding me?

S.D. Democrat hospitalized, did not suffer stroke
By Noam N. Levey, Times Staff Writer
5:39 PM PST, December 13, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., was hospitalized Wednesday, but tests indicated that he did not suffer a stroke, his office said.

Johnson, a centrist who has largely avoided the spotlight since being elected to the Senate 10 years ago, became disoriented during a midday conference call with reporters. He was taken to George Washington University Hospital, where he was evaluated for a "possible stroke," his office said.

A spokeswoman said later that doctors had found no evidence that Johnson, who turns 60 in two weeks, had suffered either a stroke or a heart attack, but he remained in the hospital.

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, who will take over as Senate majority leader next month, issued a statement wishing Johnson "a full recovery."

"Sen. Johnson is a dear friend to me and to all of us here in the Senate," Reid said.

If Johnson is not able to serve when the 110th Congress convenes early next month, the Senate -- which the Democrats narrowly captured in November's elections, 51 to 49 -- could revert to Republican control.

Under South Dakota law, Gov. Mike Rounds, a Republican, would appoint a replacement, presumably from his own party -- giving each party 50 seats. Because a 50-50 tie would give the tiebreaking vote to Vice President Dick Cheney, Republicans would control the chamber if it is evenly divided.

Cultural Foundations of the US Urban Experience

* love of newness
* desire to be near to nature
* freedom to move
* individualism, and its accompanying violence (the fight to win, struggle to succeed)
* melting pot of peoples
* sense of destiny


Source: Muller, Peter O. 2004. "Transportation and Urban Form: Stages in the Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis," in The Geography of Urban Transportation, Third Edition

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Sunday, December 10, 2006

sharing brainpower

right now i'm sitting in a computer lab with about 20 other planners. every workstation is occupied. there's another lab lying empty just a few doors down. the empty lab is invariably quieter and less distraction-prone.

so what are we all doing in here?

Friday, December 08, 2006

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

my new shoes came with instructions!


i highly recommend clicking to enlarge.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

a zombie ate my brains

meeeh!!!!

MEEEEEEEHHHHH!

Sunday, December 03, 2006

christmas!

we have a real, live 10 foot tree in the living room.

pine needles everywhere!

christmas!

cheesycakes defeated in final round of championship playoffs

we were the dark horse. the cinderella team. no one (including us) expected to make it past the first round. and yet somehow, 8 hours of bowling later, there we were: playing for the cup.

but the cakes were tired. i was sick. heidi still hadn't picked out an outfit for the dinner party of intimidation. we'd all had a bit too much to drink. marty (an honorary cake) was concocting game theory strategies to bring home the cup, but alas - even kelly's stellar bowling wasn't enough to carry us.

some say we choked. some say the other team was mean (they were). but i say: the cakes played their little hearts out.

and man, was it fun.

Thursday, November 30, 2006