Sex Addict

I will probably never see Californication or Choke because I haven't heard anything good about either. I am interested in the sex addict phemomenon; I know a few people who profess to being afflicted. Choke, I've heard, is a good novel, however the trailer fails to pique my interest. Californication just seems like it'd be sad given David's real life struggle with sex addiction. There's an interesting article on these sex dramedies, their portrayal of the facts of this particular compulsion, and the similar effects of sex and drugs on the brain. Read it at Slate magazine.

charming

interview with The Wind. german ad.

via what possessed me, a blog I frequent

Someone will probably get stabbed

They don't call it Anacrime for nothin'. Who knows maybe they're going to put in more effort to clean up the city since this whole Garden Walk thing is trying to be fancy.

Case in point: CINEMA FUSION
1. Man on Wire is showing there. (I'm hopeful indie films will continue to be on the marquee.)
2. They're screening classic films like Gone With the Wind and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
3. They're hosting 21+ nights where you can have beer or wine while you watch a movie.
4. Check out the website, makes the whole thing look fancy. I think they even call it "cinema experience."

When I get a minute to breathe I'll take advantage of it. Let's try to see Man on Wire before its run is over. It's so close, unbelievable.

i <3 my mac

My new laptop, er Macbook, came in on Friday. I had to use my left kidney as collateral but eventually I'll get my life back after 6,000 payments of $19.99 or something like that. I'm trying to enjoy it, but this is why nice things are wasted on me. THE GUILT. Credit cards are satanic, I've decided.

I think I will enjoy it once it's all set up and ready to go. See, I've wasted at least 9 hours over the last 2.5 days trying to get all my info off of my old jalopy of a PC laptop and into this one but to no avail. I'm going to have to lug that behemoth over to the Apple store or something. I tried networking, using an ethernet cable, burning to cds, and an external hard drive AND NOTHING! Obviously, I'm being punished.

I finally decided to email my most important and working documents to my new life over here in the Maciverse. Luckily, I've got Firefox and Google up and synced which is comforting, but it's frustrated trying to figure out the little things like -what the H am I supposed to do now that I can't right click? Blogger especially has been a headache because I do a lot of "Copy Image Location" stuff so you can click on the photos and be sent to their source. If you know how to do that on a Mac, will you teach me?

I told this Computer Science/ IT guy at school that I was switching to Mac and that a lot of it had to do with the look and the style of Mac (i.e. in many ways-the marketing). Mark says, "Really? Wow, that's why I won't get one. I hate being told that I'll be smarter or more creative if I buy their product. What a load!" Oh boy, maybe I need to call my therapist.

Today is the first day me and Missy are starting to get along. I'm sure things will improve once we bond over Philosophy of Science papers and all-nighters during final's week.

p.s. Missy the Macbook, yu-huh.

Today in nerd news...

UCLA discovered a new prime number and won a $100,000 prize. In the new UCLA prime, P = 43,112,609 where 2 to the P power, minus one equals the prime number. I'm pretty certain we have no reason to care about these sorts of things, but I can't resist a headline that reads UCLA discovers new 13-million-digit number. WTF.

Matte Stephens

has some whimsical artwork available for purchase on etsy. the prints are $35. he should illustrate children's books. go to his website to see his portfolio. i wonder if his name is really matt and he pulled a mathieu photography and changed it to matte.

You're only young once

So I'm not the new copywriter for that lady's design company in Irvine. The interview went really well, but it turns out she needs someone freelance (not 20 hours a week like she said in the job posting). It sounded too good to be true; it was. Oh well, the interview was good practice.

Her office was right near the Spectrum so I took a stroll through Urban (I was looking for these little wall hooks that one of my roommates got on clearance-they were out. boo.) and found this awesome floppy burgundy hat; you've probably seen them around. An older woman waiting for her daughter was watching me and she says, "Some people are hat people, but not everyone can pull it off. It looks nice on you." I told her about my other hat and how I chicken out and tear it off as I'm going out the door (I didn't tell her that Josh called me "Blossom" repeatedly the one night I dared to wear it out.) She says, "You're only young once." I proceeded to walk around the store with it for 20 minutes and walked to the back of the store to use the mirror to pose in the hat twice. It was only $10. The color was perfect. Me as Ginger Rogers all winter.

I was weighing all this as I circled the store, when I decided that if I keep thinking to myself "You're only young once," I could get myself into a lot of trouble. It's like saying, "Be cute now, it won't last." Or worse, "This is your last chance." That could get a girl to do anything. What a terrible thing to say to someone. (Note to design lady: It would make a great slogan for some frivolous product.)

All this from a hat.

Plus, I couldn't think of a single place to wear it.

starting my Christmas shopping

I don't know if he has this yet, but my dad would have hours of fun with this book. It's a journal for your poo. The rating scale inside (PQI or poo quality index) let's you rate everything from delivery to number of wipes. DISCLAIMER: It's pretty explicit but hilarious for someone like myself who grew up with a father who hung polaroids of his poo on his corkboard (gives new meaning to the notion of a "proud father"). The Matts in my life would enjoy a book like this too. Christmas may be coming early.

you can look inside the book at amazon.com to see the PQI

Duh, we'd all love to be her

I just signed up to receive the newsletter from GOOP, Gwyneth's recent foray into lifestyle advice. Yes, Gwyneth Paltrow is the new Martha Stewart or Oprah or something. (I just saw her as Pepper Potts in Iron Man. Pepper is so cute.) There's nothing on the site yet except a mission statement but you can sign up for the newsletter.

I wish I could watch the pres debates tonight

in a place like this, packed just like it is. Somewhere in SF or NY they probably are.

i have no idea what's going on

in this photo, but it made me laugh when i first saw it. mad scientist? ginormous brain? i love that things like this are floating around on the internet for free, sort of. enjoy.

morons are a good time

THA UNINTELLIGENCER IS AN WEBSITE TAHT HELPS U SOUN DUMB. AS IFS YOU NEEDED ANY HALP. WHAT'S LULZY IS HAO TYHE HAV A "FEEDTARD" OAR DE "RE-RE" -TARD. THAT'S PRITTEH GUD.

-- unintelligencer.com

slip me the tongue

O dear, that's in poor taste isn't it? I once overheard someone say that vocalists who belt out their songs are terrible vocalists. Is that true? Explain. For me it really doesn't matter either way, because I love the way Jenny belts out her songs, all that twang and sadness. Even though there's usually something questionable about her lyrics (sometimes it's like listening to someone who doesn't finish her sentences but hey), I love a good sing-along.

Jenny's EP at amazon.com

helpless in the midst of economic panic (soon to be crisis?)

Bottomline: There's nothing for a person like you or me to do but wait.

Save our money. I live paycheck to paycheck so that's not a viable option. Obviously, it won't look like The Great Depression, but what will it look like? How serious is this going to get for those of us far-removed from the investment world? Are we talkin' limiting our career shifts and Starbucks or are we talking mass unemployment and breadlines? How much of this is media panic?

I imagine this is what it's like to wait for a hurricane. So, Hurricane Wally, will you turn into a serious shitstorm? or just a few dark days? For now, we wait.

go here for a photo essay on The Great Depression by the Univ of Ill.

's a shame about the artists' names, but...

above by Sindios69
above by Cloud T-A


I wouldn't mind graffiti like this in my 'hood. A list of 50 beautiful graffiti artworks was compiled by Smashing Mag of artists and it links to their pages on flickr or deviantart.com.

scarflets

Or, if we were Rockefellers, we could just ditch our scarves and buy some scarflets from etsy. I love the stuff Knittles makes (a lot of it is convertible!) Maybe my winter break project will be to try to convert some of my old scarves into scarflets.

gotta have Faith-ah faith-ah faith-ahhhh

Faith as a puppy. I think she's in the snow...so adorable!


Have you seen this incredible dog? I just saw her in an old People magazine at my mom's, but there was just a little blurb so I googled it. Turns out you've probably seen this pooch on Oprah or Ricki Lake or BBC news. She's also in the U.S. Army and is vying for a spot in the next Harry Potter movie. (I found these details hilarious, a great way to start my day).

visit her website for her details or for kicks.

BBC News for Potter details.

scarf research findings

from this young lady (the site is half ads, it's atrocious, but look how cute these tutorials are!)

p.s. i think a loose rendition of the neck wrap would make a collar, too

Today's special

Pea, here's a video that teaches how to tie a scarf, but I'm not sure it's the tie your looking for because now that I think of it, I do believe I've seen you tie your scarf this way before. The sound no longer works on my computer so I have no idea what these people are saying but if you skip to the middle of the video that's where the tying is. At the end she ties it on her dog!

p.s. judging by the fifteen minutes of google research i've just conducted, it seems that people are tucking the loose ends under and adjusting/fluffing to get the collar look we luhuhuv. here it's called the wrap-tuck.

so tired of singing this song

not literally this song. do you see her face? i know this feeling. and all day long, it wasn't my fault- i swear.

coffee, afternoon bedhead, and the morning paper

I'm done reading my Sunday morning e-paper at 1:30pm. Time to go be a good student. I couldn't decide on which picture. They're all so adorable.

I like philosophers

Which is equivalent to saying, "I like eccentric nerds." I'm occasionally referred to as a philosopher when I'm at school because, well, I am getting an MA in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics. But my philosophy chops are still a bit flabby so I don't deserve the title just yet. I like this philosopher Kelly Jolley. He's a philosophy professor at a small school in Alabama and the NYtimes ran a story on him. He is a philosopher in the vain of Socrates judging by this interview (I haven't read any of this published/academic philosophy). I am inspired.

Hyperarticulate

A.O. Scott for the NYTimes published this piece on David Foster Wallace's death. I think it's done the best so far at articulating what DFW and his writing were to a lot of people, myself among them.

"The moods that Mr. Wallace distilled so vividly on the page — the gradations of sadness and madness embedded in the obsessive, recursive, exhausting prose style that characterized both his journalism and his fiction — crystallized an unhappy collective consciousness. And it came through most vividly in his voice. Hyperarticulate, plaintive, self-mocking, diffident, overbearing, needy, ironical, almost pathologically self-aware (and nearly impossible to quote in increments smaller than a thousand words) — it was something you instantly recognized even hearing it for the first time. It was — is — the voice in your own head...

All this shone through Mr. Wallace’s fiction. He had the intellectual moves and literary tricks diagrammed in advance: the raised-eyebrow, mock-earnest references to old TV shows and comic books; the acknowledgment that truth was a language game. He was smarter than anyone else, but also poignantly aware that being smart didn’t necessarily get you very far, and that the most visible manifestations of smartness — wide erudition, mastery of trivia, rhetorical facility, love of argument for its own sake — could leave you feeling empty, baffled and dumb."

See, it's not exactly the kind of stuff your girlfriends want to sit around and gab about on a Saturday night. These are private conversations we have second-hand through books and university lectures.

click on the photo to visit the original article (I forgot to save the link).

fringe on top

I used to think the whole fringe thing on boots was a bit over the top, too theatrical, but it's growing on me (or I'm getting old and all things tacky strike me as hip). I dig these ankle boot-moccasins by Minnetonka. Caught a glimpse of em reading my Sunday paper. Best part is they're only $32.95.

black hole to swallow Earth: POSTPONED

the particle collider has a few glitches. they'll be working 'em out over the next couple of months. so we'll have to wait to experience The Big Bang, Jr. read more about it in Sunday's NYtimes
or don't, I mean who are we kidding? are we really going to understand the details of why the LHC isn't working?

like a fine wine

Style gets better with age. A blog after my own heart, Advanced Style is The Sartorialist of the 50+ set.

from the high seas

not that great looking but, ya know, it's the thought that counts

I know a few people who need to put these on their Christmas lists. Shwoop em up at the Onion's online store.

thug mug

that's not what it's called but that's how it should be marketed. too bad amie doesn't drink coffee.

mug from thabto design

barf

I liked hypercolor. It's hideous and fantastic. Make more, why not? What makes me want to barf is this pubescent boy with a soft-stache and a come-hither stare. Is this supposed to be sexy? Barf.

Governor's Island Jazz-Age Lawn Party...Oh NY you're killin' me!

Yet another reason to be envious of Jo. Oh well. Any chance we can scrape some pennies together and go to NY for this party next year? I know, who am I kidding? I'll probably just have to live vicariously through these people. Boo. They do look like they're having fun. I better go study.