Christmas listening

For those of you who love Christmas music as much as I do (I'm looking at you sarahelenwatermellon) I highly recommend Kitsune Noir's latest mixcast. You have to put up with Bobby gabbing a bit, but I like hearing who the songs are by, so maybe you will too. Plus it has a nice live cover of Oh Little Town of Bethlehem by Belle and Sebastian, who are one of my all time favorite bands. I also love the Sufjan Stevens song "Get Behind Me, Santa" from Songs for Christmas v5

Baby It's Cold Outside

thanks L

Vanilla Trike

I'm not saying that I would kick down ten grand for my kids trike... but if I planned to, I would get on the waiting list at Vanilla Bikes for this little beauty. Of course I would probably want a Vanilla big boy bike for myself first, but from what I hear they have a 5 year waiting list!

(as seen on Elastika)

Lionel Hampster

For Adam, I offer animal cuteness.

Thanksgiving

For the first time in a couple years I did not play host to a big Thanksgiving, and it was wonderful. Instead, I went down to the Oregon coast with some friends for a couple days of relaxing and eating like royalty.

Because we had limited kitchen space and everyone had dishes to contribute, we decided to spread the courses out over the day.
The first course was Tam and Allison's Chioppino, beyond doubt the best I have ever had. It was a rich tomato base with clams, topped by a piece of grilled salmon and a jumbo prawn.
I had the second course, with the help of sou chef Charlie. I did duck confit over a bed of spicy greens with roasted beets, tart cherries, and spiced pumpkin seeds. I was really happy with the way it turned out.
The next course was Jeremy and Sally's Lamb braised with fresh hay,
accompanied by several sides by Nathan and Amy, including cream braised Brussels sprouts that I will be cooking again soon.
Nate and Amy also took on the dessert course. I never did get around to the apple pie, not being a big pie fan, but I was diggin on the pumpkin triffle with candied ginger.
the best part was that, because we spread the meal out over 8 hours (first course at 2pm) we didn't feel stuffed, or overly inebriated by the 8 or so bottle that gave their lives that evening.

The rest of the weekend was taken up with beach walks, games, and a continuing stream of delicious meals.
Thankfully the rain cleared up and there were patches of blue sky most of the weekend.
All in all it was a lovely way to spend the holiday.

Objectified

I just read about an interesting film airing on PBS:Independent Lens called Objectified. It about contemporary industrial design. Looks interesting.

Check it out here.

There is a quiz to see what object you are here. I'm a Spork!

I've been lax in posting, even though it is the daily post month. Oh well, I warned you it would happen. I've been busy hosting my friend Kara, and planning for the Thanksgiving weekend-long feast on the Oregon Coast.

In the meantime, here is an amazing paper art stop motion video:

Video

Charlotte Gainsbourg "Heaven Can Wait" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

New Charlotte Gainsbourg video, featuring Beck. Pretty trippy video. I haven't heard of her before, but I might need to check out the new album.

archinect shirts

These new shirts from Archinect probably only make sense to all the CAD monkeys out there, but I thought the idea was clever. They are like a secret handshake, if I saw someone wearing them I would instantly know that we were in the same club, albeit a sad, click click click on the screen sort of club.
I love the insulation and the concrete hatch.

Damn, my secret is out.

marriedtothesea.com

Bacon Martini

Add this to the list of things I will be enjoying in vegas, the Bacon Martini from the Double Down Saloon

Mr E-T

ramen snacks

For the record, I would like to state that I have a long history with eating ramen noodles straight from the packet. Sometimes I would sprinkle on the seasoning, but more often than not I would just crunch away on the uncooked brick o ramen. As the college years wore on, I discovered that ramen also had miraculous powers in avoiding (or at least minimizing) raging hangovers. The secret was, rather than collapsing into bed, you grab the biggest glass of water you can get your hands on, a packet or two of uncooked ramen, and you head into the great outdoors for a stroll around the block. My theory is that the water diluted the booze, both of which were then sucked up by the ramen, which slowed the absorption of alcohol into the body.

I'm no doctor, but I think I'm on to something.

What I never understood is that nobody shared my love of raw ramen. Come to find out, I've been in the wrong part of the world.

Thanks to the wonder that is Uwajimaya, I have come to realize that the Japanese have a rich appreciation for ramen based snack products. Sadly I can never remember my favorite brand, so I can't show you a picture. I can show the crazy new product that I tried tonight, the "everyone says GOOD GOOD EAT" ramen disks.
I want to go there

Twitter

So here's the thing...I joined twitter about a month ago. I didn't really join to tweet anything, I figure blogging more than I can keep up with so why feel guilty about slacking on one more thing. I joined so that I can read other people's tweets, particularly some of the design and food aggregating websites I follow.

As a result I keep getting messages telling me that so and so is now following me, and it turns out that so and so is a company. Whats the deal here? Are people selling my info, or are other people watching the twitter accounts of some of these sites and then sending messages to people that join them? Is this a whole new area of marketing that I never knew about?

For those that are interested, I'm listed as aufgefallen. As I said, I don't really tweet things. I don't understand the codes that people use, and it makes me feel like an old man. Maybe I'll have @californiakara give me a lesson or two when she comes to visit.

If you know of any interesting people or sites I should follow let me know.

the bare essentials of chuck

I'm not sure, but I think I love these shoes. They haven't been released yet, but Coolhunting posted about them today. They are a limited release designed by Terence Koh (asianpunkboy) for the Converse 1Hundred(red) line.
They have a striking, paired down simplicity, but I'm not sure if it works. I love the lack of eyelets on the shoelace holes, but why the white eyelets on the sides? I've always assumed that those are for ventilation, but let be honest with ourselves... nobody is going to throw these on to hit the court. These are for strollin, not for ballin. Maybe the vent holes were required, as they are a recognizable design element in all chucks. However, he was able to remove the contrasting stripe that usually runs around the top of the rubber sole, not to mention the diamond pattern in the rubber. I'm not sure why it bothers me so much, possibly its a white on white thing, the fact that white leather and white metal are never going to match, and this shoe is all about simplicity. If you are stripping it down to the bare essentials, why leave the vents?
All that aside, I do love them. The real reason I won't be purchasing a pair is the $150 price tag. I love chucks (I bought a new pair this weekend) and maybe I'm being naive, but I think of chucks as a sort of "people's shoe" the shoe for the masses. I just can't bring myself to pay four times the cost of a normal pair.

Calendars

I wasn't sure what, if anything, I would post about tonight. Then I flipped over to Kitsune Noir (one of my absolute favorite websites) and he had a post about calendars.
He was focusing on one that I thought was pretty cool. Not only that, but all of the proceeds will go to World Relief.
After following the post I saw another by Blanca Cucha that I will probably purchase by the end of the week. There is something about her work that I really love.

I may have to get the first one as well.
Maybe it will be the year of calendar art for me. (Update, I just bought the first, now I have to justify the second)

(as a side note, he also posts a brief review of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go. It is a fantastic book. I highly recommend it.)

The zipper experiment- live blogged

I know, how exciting is this?! Live blogging my first attempt at sewing in a zipper! Can you stand it?! Can you stand all of the exclamation points I intend to use throughout this post?!

Step one, obtain the requisite sewing machine, zipper, and zipper presser foot. It also helps to purloin a pair of pink shears and promise to use them only for cutting fabric as directed by the note written on the case. Really, how can you help yourself when they were at the top of a clear plastic bin full of sewing supplies stored in your basement? How I ask you?!



PART 2

Read instructions from zipper package. read again. read again while miming actions... toss instructions and dive in.

Roughly following the discarded instructions, I stitched the pocket opening closed, then working from the inside basted a loose stitch to hold the zipper in place. At this point I abandoned the instructions and just started sewing.
When I thought it was sewn in enough not to come apart (still my biggest fear about anything I do) I tore out the basting stitches. TA DA!!! A ZIPPER!!!
The end result is a scarf with a pocket, an idea I stole from this website I posted the other day. Next time I will try to sew in some sort of pocket lining. For now the pocket is open to the entire length of the scarf.

Kings of Convenience

Kings of Convenience at Soiree de Poche

Give it time to get throught the warmup. They are one of my favorite bands. They have a new album out, and I think a couple of these songs are from that album. It has a little different sound than the previous albums, possibly as a result of their voices maturing. Maybe its not your cup of tea, well then you're just wrong. Please to enjoy...

Daft Punk iphone video

Stick with it, at least though the game of pong.

Side Note:

gwyeneth paltrow is amazingly beautiful when she steps off the greenline bus to pick up eli at the ship terminal in The Royal Tenenbaums. The hair...the heavy black eyeliner...

how would you use the phrase "she's like wine from a mason jar"
what would you mean?

also, for those of you buying books for little kids this Christmas, the NY Times just released its 10 Best Illustrated Books of the year. the only one I'm familiar with is Tales from Outer Suburbia, by Shaun Tan. I am a big fan of his illustration style and mysterious, sparse tales.

Seattle noticed by MTTS

marriedtothesea.com

Cold November day

For the first time in a while, I have zero commitments/obligations this weekend. Combined with the fact that it was raining like mad this morning, I spent a good portion of the day in bed. I ventured downstairs for breakfast, but spent the rest of the time watching the Lord of the Rings. At least I watched the good parts, and skipped over Frodo and Sam's endless trudge through barren wastelands.

When I finally emerged into the world, it was with the sole intention of obtaining coffee and fabric for my next attempt at sewing. Anyone interested in a scarf?

As for the google/sesame street image- today was oscar the grouch. Still hoping for snuffalufagus.

Enjoy

Inspiration for my future bandsaw

Seen on Coolhunting, an artist and guitar maker in Vermont were collaborating, and her inspiration spread to his bandsaw. Add this to the panel truck for the future furniture studio.

Family Dinner

I have to say, I almost didn't make it to the blogging today. To much food and wine... but I'm here.

Tonight we had a 'family' dinner, and we did it up right. It was a last minute idea Charlie and I decided on last night, but I think we pulled it off in style. Let me lay it out for you: We started with a full on classic cesear salad, made from the ground up including croutons, and dressing (with anchovies to keep it real) then moved on to the garlic bread with, wait for it, fresh butter made mere minutes beforehand. That's right, we make our own butter.

The main course was a duo of lasagna, one with italian sausage and one florentine (spinach) with bechamel. I have to admit that I bought the sausage, but everything else was made from scratch, including the pasta. We were like a bunch of old italian grandmothers slaving away in the kitchen, with the help of a bottle of red wine of course.
Here I am at the beginning, before the kitchen took on the look of a culinary train wreck.
Brendan on butter duty, with the help of modern technology.
The fruit of our labor...family dinner with good friends, tasty food, and plenty of conversation.

After dinner we adjourned to the family room to watch the latest episode of Project Runway. I don't know if anyone else as been watching, so I won't tell you who is in or out. I will say that tonight they went from 5 to the final 3 that will go on to fashion week. I think they made the right decisions for the most part, but the last of the three was a real toss-up.

FYI, today's Sesame Street character on Google was cookie monster. I'm waiting for Grover, and I'm hoping they find a way to do the Snuffaluffagus.

Google

I don't usually go to the Goggle search home page, so I miss out on the various tweaks to the logo that celebrate cultural events. Somehow I came across this, so I thought I'd share in case you search from your toolbar as well.

Google will count down the 7 days leading up to the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street with a new character each day. Appropriately they started with Big Bird. Who will be next? Click over to find out.

Who was your favorite?

I want this

What a great idea, too bad they sold out of the first production run. Maybe if I can figure out how to sew a zipper, I'll try my hand at making my own.

Olsenboye

I don't think Heather has posted her Narcissists of the Week, so maybe I can scoop her on this- the Olson Train Wreck are launching a clothing line... at JC Penny's

NOVEMBER!

Well October has finally left us, thank goodness for that. Now it's time for November to have it's way, and usher in the season of eating...

But November isn't a one trick month, it is also Novembeard and NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month)

I am going to attempt to observe each in my own fashion, which is to say in a half-assed way that involves cheating. For starters I am too lazy to bust out the camera to document my clean shaven face at the beginning of the month, which is good because I'm not clean shaven. Still, I am going to use the month to avoid shaving more than necessary. As for the posting, well here I am. Doubtless I will miss a couple days, and there may be some days that I repost something from somewhere else created by someone else. meh.

Also, I don't plan on joining any official groups for either the beard or the posting, but I plan to monitor all of your blogs to make sure you are also posting. I'm also planning on watching the progress of Ed's beard.

And here's a little something extra.

marriedtothesea.com

From the Bureau of Lessons Learned

Sometimes your friends disappoint you
and sometimes the first party is the party you should stay at

October

I was pretty lax on the posting this month. I did compile some stuff for a couple non-personal posts, but I'm too lazy to get to those. Here is a quick glance at the last couple weeks in my world.

New computer at work, now with two screens. This may not sound that exciting, but it's much faster and the second screen helps a lot when I'm doing graphic work. Sadly work is a bit of a GO-STOP-GO-STOP at the moment. Hopefully we will sign a contract to continue work soon, but for now I'm taking Friday's off. (the desktop image is from the Kitsune Noir Desktop Wallpaper Project)

Corn maze! This one was 12 acres, and shaped like the state of Washington. All of the paths were labeled like the highway/freeway system. That makes it pretty easy to navigate if you know the roads. The challenge came in trying to complete the scavanger hunt that sends you to different cities. The photo is our group crossing the Tacoma Narrows bridge, nicknamed Galloping Gertie because of it' spectacular collapse.

We did a "best of the shitty beers" blind taste test. The contenders were Olympia, PBR, MGD, Coors Banquet, Budweiser, Kokanee, Ranier, and High Life. I know it's an incomplete list, but we could only do so many, and this represents the various backgrounds of the tasters. The winner was Kokanee.

I've been trying my hand at the sewing machine, left in my care when Liz ran off to Japan.

This was my first attempt at a bicycle hat. I like the shape, but it's a little small. Maybe someone might like it. It's brown tweed. Heather?
My second attempt is for Halloween. If I can get it together, I'm going as Sherlock Holmes. This is a bicycle hat version of a Deerstalker.
(a bit of trivia- Sherlock Holmes is never actually described wearing a deerstalker hat. In two or three stories he wears a traveling hat with flaps, but it isn't nessesarily a deerstalker. Most people think of it as part of his daily attire, but he is described as being very fashionable, and no fashionable gentleman would wear a hat like this in the city, only when in the country hunting. The illustrations from the original stories did occasionally depict him in a deerstalker. He was also a cocaine and heroin addict.)

Misc:
There is a tilt-shift app for the iphone now.
I signed up for Twitter. I don't actually tweet stuff, but several of the websites and blogs that I follow do, and there were a couple Seattle food twitterers (what is the plural) that I was interested in. If you know of any random interesting Twitter things, let me know. If you twitter, let me know.

Halloween

Thanks to the Onion, parents no longer have to worry about costumes for their swishy little boys.

"...be very careful not to choose one that's been co-opted by the gay comunity; like a fireman, a cop, a cowboy. Otherwise they'll just end up looking like a stripper."


How To Find A Masculine Halloween Costume For Your Effeminate Son

Unintentional Pledge Drive Humor

On KUOW, they just thanked the volunteers answering the phones during Prairie Home Companion. If you are familiar with the show, you know that Norwegian Lutherans play a big part in the stories.

The volunteer group is the Seattle Atheist Society.

hilarious!

Damned Public Radio

AHHH!!!

How is it that all three public radio stations I listen to (KUOW, KEXP, and KPLU) have their pledge drives on the same week?! You know those bastards plan it that way.

I plan to donate, honestly I do...but they almost lost me this morning. I had been waiting to hear the President's speech about the Nobel Prize, and I was interested to hear the commentary/analysis from the NPR live coverage. Instead, those asshats over at KUOW decide to start blabbering away about how nice it was of them not to talk over the President's speech, and then they ran some lame ass pledge commercial that some local family made... all the while I was cursing them for talking over the stuff I wanted to hear. (not to mention the commercial had loud alarms and horns and crap like that...not something I want to hear before my first cup of coffee) They prattled on for about 8 minutes, then tuned back in for 4 minutes of NPR (during which there was some lame story about the parliment in the Maldives scuba diving for a session or something like that) then they came back on and prattled for another 10 minutes or so. During that time they met the goal for that program, but did they stop yammering? Hell no, they decided to try for another 5 grand or something. In the end, I was able to listen to 4 minutes of news coverage during my commute to work, the rest was filled with those damned chipper hosts blabbering on and on and on and on and pissing me off. I was sorely tempted to fire off some sort of angry email when I got to work.

In the end I decided to complain here instead. Lucky you.

But seriously, do they think that people find there crappy pledge jokes funny? Do they not realize how pissed off pledge week makes people? Or is it just me?

Weekend getaway

This Saturday was supposed to be crappy, so we decided to cancel the Vancouver trip and stay local. After hosting the Michigan game (apparently we have the Big 10 Network) we headed out to stay with Erin in North Bend (as seen in twin peaks.)
After a fancy pizza party at her house, we camped out in the fire lookout tower behind her house.
The next morning we had a great across to Mt Si.
(Sean takes in the view)

After breakfast (not at the pie place from Twin Peaks) we hiked out to Talapus and Olallie lakes.
I can't stop playing with the crazy camera features.

Vegas Baby!

Today is the first post of several to come between now and New Years, when we roll into Vegas.

I'll keep it brief with a link for those that plan to venture away from the poker tables and maybe catch a sight, eat some food, etc.

Design*Sponge has a travel guide for Vegas worth taking a peak at. If you scroll down to the Downtown section it has links to some of the more interesting non-huge-ass-casino-resort-megaplex stuff. "Worlds largest" vintage clothing store?!

I've also been perusing the TimeOut Vegas website, and has anyone else noticed that this seasons Top Chef is located in Vegas? And have you noticed the heavy hitter chefs that have been opening restaurants in Vegas?

Coco Before Chanel

I heard a story on NPR the other day about this movie, it sounds interesting. Beyond the fact that Audrey Tautou is dreamy... Coco Chanel had a fascinating life.

Honestly, I am surprised I didn't hear about it from Monty first... I will eagerly await her review

Combo

COMBO a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (2 times loop) from blu on Vimeo.

A bitchin graffiti/mural animation. I think it repeats itself at the halfway point, but I didn't watch the repeat all the way through.

The Road, she is a Cruel Mistress

If you bicycle long enough, its almost a given that you will learn the pain of road rash. I put some real miles on this summer, and I paid my dues this weekend.

Saturday started nice, with a ride out to the Red Hook Brewery on the other side of Lake Washington. It's a fun, easy ride, about 20 miles each way. We had a beer and split some appetizers, then headed home.
The ironic thing is, I had a crash not long after leaving the brewery that could have easily resulted in injury. The trail led through a park, and a little kid rode directly across the trail and t-boned me right behind my front wheel. I wasn't going very fast, but my feet were clipped in and I had already started turning away to avoid him. When he hit I came to a complete halt, and fell right on top of him. Fortunately neither of us was hurt...it could have been bad. (side note, Katie, seen above, crashed while trying to avoid us. She is scraped and bruised.)

It wasn't until I was almost home, at the bottom of Stone Way (leading up the hill to my house) that I crashed in earnest. Again I wasn't going very fast, and to be honest I'm not sure how it happened. That stretch of road has a lot of dirt and loose gravel, and I was crossing from the trail on the left to the right side of the street. I must have hit some loose gravel and started a slide. All I remember clearly is seeing the curb coming diagonally towards me, and not being able to do anything about it. I think I slid sideways into the curb...I know I did a face-plant into the sidewalk.
My chin took the brunt of the damage. You can't see it very well, but there is a dime sized chunk of skin at the bottom that is torn back. I also have scrapes and bruises on my shoulder, knee, and both hands...but the chin is definitely the beauty. Thankfully this picture doesn't do it justice, because in person it's pretty disgusting.
I went to the doctor this morning to have him check out the wounds. I was also concerned because I almost passed out in the shower Sunday morning. It wasn't because of the pain, nothing really hurts that much. I think I may have had a mild concussion. The doctor checked everything out, but wasn't too concerned. I got a tetanus shot as a precaution, and some antibacterial for the wounds. As for the bike, everything checks out except I need to re-tune the rear derailleur.

Oh well, it's my sacrifice to the road. Hopefully my account will be paid in full for some time to come.