Archive for January, 2008

Will Smith and then some more Will Smith.

Monday, January 28th, 2008

I’ve been inundated with the Fresh Prince recently. I saw I Am Legend last week, and then I saw The Pursuit of Happyness Saturday night. A lotta Smith, people. First, I Am Legend. It’s a great movie, up until it isn’t anymore, which is about twenty-five minutes from the end. But up until then, awesome. It’s very similiar to Castaway, because it’s just Will talking to his dog (who is named Samantha, but I would have been ecstatic if her name was Wilson. How freakin’ cool would that be?) for two hours. Oh, he also talks to mannequins and the badly-animated vampire-creatures that are animated badly. Also, badly animated. I mean, c’mon people, it’s 2007! They look like they were created around the time The Mummy came out. I’m a total fraidy-cat and I was not afraid. But seeing the shots of Manhattan completely deserted with grass growing everywhere and deer prancing around Times Square* is totally worth the ticket price.

On Saturday I went to a friend’s house. He decided to get a present for himself, and the present was an unreal TV situation. There’s the projector attached to the ceiling that shows movies on the 10′ screen in perfect resolution. And there’s the surround-sound speakers. And the giant comfy couches. It’s like the Sony screening room in his basement. Anyway, we saw The Pursuit of Happyness on the screen and here’s the problem: it’s a depressing movie (uplifting story, my hindquarters), but on the giant screen with the killer sound, it’s just that much more depressing. It was IMAX-sized depressing. I have decided that if I go over to his house, I will only watch chipper movies because I’m still bummed out. If you want to, see The Pursuit of Happyness. But don’t blame me if you walk around with a mopey face for days afterwards. I take no responsibility for that.

* The deer are badly animated as well. But who cares? They’re eating grass in Times Square, their hooves clippity-cloppitying on the asphalt. The coolness of the scenario outways the poopiness of the CGI.

Pat on the back for me.

Monday, January 28th, 2008

I took ever so many photos of my jewelry and purses today. Then I scanned them in as well, so each object gets two pictures, one with natural mid-day sunlight and one with scanner light, which is fluorescent. It gives you a better idea of what the piece looks like.

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See? I accomplished something. I have nine pairs of earrings and six pendants to paint, so we’ll see how those turn out and you’ll see them in the store shortly. Also, wall plates to come soon. Very exciting, people!

Welcome to my new apartment! Wheee!

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

FINALLY. Pics of the apartment. It’s bright, it’s big, it’s nifty. Enjoy the journey.

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You open the front door and, voila! You are greeted by twenty feet of window. Granted, it’s creepy institutional window, but window nonetheless. Do not be fooled by how big the room looks. It’s very big, but if you look carefully, you will notice that the wall at the end behind the light fixture is mirrored. The mirrors will be going. Also, that octagonal thing in the right corner? We’ll get to that in a minute.

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That’s the kitchen. It’s BIG. There’s two ovens and a dishwasher (called the Potscrubber 700, I just love that, so futuristic). And a ginormous fridge with the freezer on the bottom (score!). The previous owners built that little wall there and the octagonal thing was a big Formica table in the middle so someone could sit in the kitchen and someone could sit in the dining area and it was like a breakfast nook. A breakfast nook FROM HELL. That wall will be going. As will the octagon. I will not miss them.

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Different view of the kitchen. See the Potscrubber 700? Also, please appreciate the Formica FESTIVAL going on in here. Countertops, backsplash, cabinets, even the handles on the cabinets. The previous owners must have had stock in Formica, it’s all over the bathrooms as well. I can’t afford both a new countertop and refacing the cabinets, so I may have to get all DIY and do some stuff to the kitchen myself. Luckily I have handy friends who will join me in my quest to end Formica’s reign of terror in my apartment. We may have some casualties, but we will win this war.

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Now let’s head down the hallway with too many closets to…

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…the guest room! Note: more giant windows. I don’t know precisely what to do with this room yet, maybe library/guest room, maybe office, we’ll see. Oh, and all the carpeting in the whole apartment is going. It’s icky and I am prone to allergies, but underneath is parquet which I’m having sanded and refinished and that will be nice. Moving on.

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Across the hall is the guest bathroom. This is the major project in the apartment. I’m ripping this whole sucker out. It be hideous and I no likey. The fixtures will be in the same place, but they’ll be white and modern and nice and the Formica will DIE and I will rejoice over its Formica corpse. I may even dance upon it.

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Another view. The tub is six inches tall so you can only cover your kneecaps in water and the tile makes you feel like you’re bathing in a big quilt.

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Now, my bedroom. Again, windows out the wazoo. Also, it has its own bathroom and a freakin’ awesome closet.

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This is the master bathroom. Now, it’s also kind of unattractive, but you have to pick your battles, and since I’m probably the only person who’s going to see it, I don’t really care if it’s kind of unnatractive. Also, the previous owners were a thousand years old, so there are a delightful collection of bars in the shower stall. And they built a seat into it. Truly. They bashed out a chunk of wall in the closet next to it and built a happy little divot into the shower. Niiiiice.

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And this is the super-killer closet with built-in super-killerness. I don’t need a bureau in my bedroom, I can fit all of my clothing items in this puppy. There’s plenty more I could show you in the apartment, like the millions of closets I’ll never use or the water heaters, but I figure you get the idea.

Bad Blogger Jessica, Batman Begins, and Pigeons.

Friday, January 18th, 2008

I know it’s been eons since I wrote anything, but there are a few reasons for that. One, nothing that interesting has happened recently, if you don’t count the fact that my bathroom redo-ers had to submit draftings to the City of White Plains and they may not approve my bathroom redo for a month or two, which SUCKS. Two, I’ve been working a freelance job in Manhattan at a big ad agency and I don’t get home until 8:30. Then I snork down some food, watch something on TV for fifteen minutes and fall asleep on the couch. Good times, good times. So, between the nothing-of-interest-to-share and the tired-when-I-get-home, I’ve been neglecting the ole bloggybloo. I promised pictures of my new apartment and I shall deliver. I also have some purses that I painted that I will take pictures of as well and then, THEN my friends, there will be cool things to look at.
At work when there is nothing to do I watch illegally uploaded films hosted in China. They’re not very good quality and they have Chinese subtitles at the bottom, but whatever, they’re free and I’m trying to keep myself occupied during the lulls. I’m very excited to see the new Batman movie with Heath Ledger as The Joker (he looks cah-RAZEE in the preview), so I watched the Batman movie from 2005, Batman Begins. Umm, did anyone else think that it was kinda not so good? Like stilted acting and bad plot and whatnot? If you have the opportunity to see it, go ahead and pass. It’s… well, “bad” is a strong term. It’s just not very good. Let’s all pray Crazy Joker Heath will be better. Here’s the preview for the new Batman movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk1Tz5bumhw

See? Cah-RAZEE.

I’m also reading a book called Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird. I like books about things. I’ve read:
Salt: A World History
The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries
Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadaver
A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis
Jewels: A Secret History
The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade

So right now, I’m reading about pigeons. I’ve learned a great deal about pigeons. I now consider myself very knowledgable on the rock dove. One thing that amuses and horrifies me is how, predictably, people decided to take genetics into their own hands and through selective breeding, made some of the weirdest-looking pigeons ever. For example, the fantail. The fantail is a nice bird, except that its chest is so big it can barely see over it. Eating has got to be a problem. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLMaCZ6IlgA&feature=related

Yeah. That’s the Pekinese of the pigeon world. Not good, people. Also, there’s a pigeon out there called a parlor roller. It rolls. Backwards. On the ground. No one knows why. Some people think it’s pigeon OCD. People get together and race their parlor rollers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1gXvYTu0f0

I don’t get it either. Pigeons is a very raw book, because people are very mean to pigeons and it addresses all of that. But if you’re interested in learning about them, I recommend it.

My apartment.

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

I got it! I got an apartment! The one with the floorplan! (quick recap of floorplan):

floorplan-small.jpg

It’s mine, all mine! (Insert maniacal laughter here.) However, as with anything, I am learning that I am an adult and being an adult is unbelievably frustrating. Like, I sure would like a different countertop in my kitchen. I have gray Formica. But I do not, at this time, have $8000 to get a granite/Corian/Silestone countertop, which is how much it would cost. It looks like I will have to learn to love my Formica. And I would like to fix my ceiling in my bathroom. It’s ugly and you can see the screws and the plywood, etc. But I cannot fix it because that is the access to the plumbing for the apartment upstairs and if the apartment upstairs floods, plumbers will come into my apartment and rip out all my tiling or whatever to get at the pipes and fix the leak. So it is best to be able to see the screws for easy access. I feel thwarted in my attempts to make my apartment all pretty-like. But I’ll work it out. And pictures will be forthcoming soon.

I’m “hep” and “with the times”. Oh yes.

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

I like to let technology do its thing, and after ten or so years I decide whether to get on the bandwagon. (Examples: I got a cell phone two years ago. I used a typewriter to type my papers all through high school (1991 – 1994). I started this blog in 2006. You get the idea.) Recently I discovered there is a terrific comedy duo called Flight of the Conchords. Then I found out they have a show on HBO and they’re actually quite popular and I am once again totally out of touch. Anyway, perhaps there are others of you out there that are also in the dark about them and I would like to enlighten you. Here’s some Wikipedia info:

Billing themselves as “Formerly New Zealand’s fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo”, (having been bumped by a tribute band of themselves, Like of the Conchords) the group uses a combination of witty banter, characterisation and acoustic guitars to work the audience. The duo’s comedy and music became first the basis of a BBC radio series and then an American television series, which premiered in 2007, also called Flight of the Conchords.

I think they’re nifty. Here are some videos from YouTube I found of some of their more rockin’ tunes. Some of them are a bit risque, so if you have wee tots in the room and you don’t feel like explaining things to them, I recommend waiting until they’re off playing something on their Nintendo DS before you watch these.

Business Time

Frodo, Don’t Wear the Ring

If You’re Into It

Foux Da Fa Fa

and my personal favorite:

Rhymenoceros and Hiphipapotamus

New Year’s at the Big Apple Circus.

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008

I rang in 2008 at the Big Apple Circus in Lincoln Center. It was super-duper-awesome, one of the best new year’s ever. I highly, highly recommend it. And it’s not just for kids. There were college kids and many many middle-aged people just whooping it up. Now join me on my travels back to last night.

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This is the Christmas tree in Lincoln Center. It’s next to the fountain and it’s very pretty, but I think I liked it better when it was covered with large musical instrument ornaments instead of LED stars. Musical instruments are more Lincoln-Center-y. But still very beautiful.

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This is the sign that greets you as you come into the circus. It’s up because this is the 30th anniversary of the Big Apple Circus, but I pretended it was because of New Year’s.

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This was the only stunt I have really great pictures of. There’s a ladder on the left. Two men are on top of the ladder. In front of them is a teeter-totter. On the left is a man holding a woman on stilts who is holding a chair on a pole. The idea is that a man stands on the end of the teeter-totter, the two guys jump off the ladder, the guy FLIES through the air and lands butt-down on the chair. It’s insane and totally fabulous.

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There he is flying… ohmygodohmygod…

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… and he made it. The whole audience went nuts. We were screaming and stomping our feet.

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Then the show ended at 11:45 (the circus started at 9:30 to facilitate ending near midnight) and they handed out headbands and red noses and noisemakers and champagne glasses. From right to left: my friends Collie, Frog, Feena and me. Oh, and don’t think it was just women sportin’ all this finery. Oh no.

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Yep. That’s Cricket. Doesn’t he look smashing?

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Then you make your way down to the ring and move around anxiously waiting for the countdown…

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Happy New Year! Streamers and confetti went everywhere and the band started playing and everyone started dancing in the ring. There were couples slow-dancing together and people just boogying in place. Someone started a conga line. It was such a good vibe.

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That rather happy fellow you see there started the conga line. He was a jocular fellow. I think if the circus had lampshades, he would have been wearing one on his head.

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Okay, all these Upper West Side people just stood around the edges watching. I think they thought they were too cool to get jiggy with the commoners and I just wanted to yell at them, “You’re wearing clown noses on your ears! That lady has the biggest taffeta full-frontal wedgie I’ve ever seen! Your dignity left hours ago! Just dance already!” My favorite is the guy in the top picture on the left pondering something, like he’s Jane Goodall and we’re gorillas. “They seem to be celebrating something important in their group. If only they could talk so I could figure out what this all means. My research will have to continue until I have a better idea.”

Then we left and everyone went their separate ways home. Cricket and I took Metro-North and luckily I got through the whole evening without seeing anyone throw up, so it was a success all around. If next year you have nothing planned for New Year’s, may I recommend the Big Apple Circus. A good time was had by all.

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Also, Feena climbed up on the fountain and I was able to snap this photo before the guards got to us. Happy New Year.