Monthly Archives

September 2006

Spin spin, sugar…

ARoB, General Entertainment by
  • Comments Off on Spin spin, sugar…

I love watching the dried leaves in the fall.

The wind blows them to and fro, all across the pavement of my office terrace, occasionally spinning them in a vortex. The leaves clatter and scuffle, violently lifted, rising up above where they were. They twist and turn and fall back down, not too far from where they started.

But, every once in awhile a leaf catches just the right eddy. It is positioned just so and rides a gust of wind out over the gardened walls and ends up somewhere it’s never been before. It’s free from the chaos of its original pile.

I watch this lucky one drifting slowly, blissfully through the autumn air.

And I want to be this leaf.

*eek*

ARoB, Technology by
  • Comments Off on *eek*

While helping Lauren sort out connecting to PASS space, I just had this very creepy notion that the Finder icon has been watching me from the lower left of my dock for years. :/

New Painting: “Gulf”

ARoB, Art by

I don’t usually name these, so that’s a rarity right there. I think it kinda speaks for itself, though the style is unusual. I’d say most of my inspiration came from a show about Pompei, if that makes any sense.

Review: Match Point

ARoB, Movies, Reviews by

I had very high hopes for Woody Allen’s most recent film, Match Point since it stars two of my favourite actors, Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Rhys-Meyer. However, for the first time ever, I stopped the disc after just an hour and forty minutes. I’ve never NOT finished a movie on purpose (at least in recent memory.) Basically, you’d like this picture if you want a two hour ode to one dimensional, cheating social climbers. Otherwise, prepare to be disgusted thoroughly. The beautiful English settings were a saving feature but there is only so much you can do when you realize you’ve spent your evening watching Chris (Rhys-Meyer) think solely with his genitals.

1 stars

One star for shooting in the Tate Modern as I’m sure this was not easy.

In other news: watch Brick now! If you are Hoover, watch the rest of it now. That is, if you can stay awake. 😛

Experiments with apples…

ARoB, Food/Drink, Recipes by
  • Comments Off on Experiments with apples…

While preparing dinner with my brother tonight (read: preparing dinner while Nate was standing in the room), I decided that I was going to use something ordinary in an unexpected way. Looking around the kitchen, I spotted a basket of green apples waiting for the week’s lunches. “How staid,” he thought, as he chopped one up and added it to an ordinary mix of veg for pasta. The outcome of this kitchen daliance is perhaps one of the best things I’ve created so far. Enjoy!

Tomato Pesto Veg with Chicken – PDF

Closing remarks…

ARoB, Books, Games by
  • Comments Off on Closing remarks…

I just finished the last pages of Shampoo Planet tonight. I feel like my stomach is going to be coughed out of me like a wad of crumpled up paper. In short, like I’m going to cry. Excellent book.

In other news:

Let’s organize this “Strip Jenga!” party. Who’s in? Show of hands…er…comments.

Hawk’d…

ARoB, General Entertainment by

I think hair knows when it’s going in for a cutting. One smart little flyaway catches wind of what’s coming and passes it along the FolicleNet™ to its buddies. In a move of desparation, they all simultaneously choose to be sleek and shiny, smooth and silky…coming together in a last ditch effort to preserve their current arrangement by producing the Best Hair Day Evah.

Sorry, bitches…you’ve curled your last curl in my efforts to make you straight. You’ve been replaced with my first ever mohawk. I wonder how much work will hate it?

I picked Tigg up today. She was so freaking out of it when I brought her back in to the apartment. She fell out of her carrier and dragged herself to the kitchen where she attempted to eat food from a non-existent dish. All very humorous until she started shaking. A few hours of napping later, and she seems to be fine.

PICT0257

Whether he likes her or not, Tigg <3 Nate. Awseseseses brought to you by Pringles. Pringles: Once you pop, you can’t stop! ®

Even if you die in a cloud of fake cheese.

Today’s word is ‘retardulous’…

ARoB, Cars by

I can’t really even begin to explain just how frustrating my commute was this morning. See, I had to take Tigg to her crazy cat home for shots and spaying this evening and I had to do this before work at nine. Also, I had to drop Nate’s ass off for class at the Walker Building. So, I got to experience a longer stretch of 220 than usual (read: more fuckasses blocking the left lane at 60 mph) and all of Atherton (read: the parade of red lights.) To top it off, students have decided that this is it! This is the year that they will no longer be shackled by the inconvenience of looking for cars before they cross the street. They had already thrown off the oppression of crosswalks, so now they can finally take flight and enjoy a life unconstrained by their own safety! I’m glad I got to be at the epicenter of the dawning of their Age of Aquarius, or somesuch.

Finally barreling through to Park Ave. and on my way to the parking lot – which, incidentally, is on the complete opposite side of campus from my office, closer to where I dropped Nate off – I encounter some sort of waste spill on the road. This wouldn’t really be an issue since it was in the parking spaces/loading area by North Halls, but a police barricade with four squad cars was blocking the intersection adjacent to the spill. Now, most normal people would just continue one more block to the next right turn and then circle around…but, ho-ho…not the people in front of me. No sir! They are far too special in their tan, wheat and champagne SUVs. They must all block the entire intersection to ask the police officers if they can “maybe, just this once, make an exception” so they can turn through the impassable barricade. The look of utter contempt on the police officers’ faces when they disappointed the behemoth-piloting motorists with a “No, in fact, you cannot pass through the (potentially) toxic waste” was enough to keep me from running any bitches over.

And now I’m at the bus stop in the rain. And this is where my life starts flashing before my eyes. You see, Penn State decided that the first days of class would be the ideal moment in time to change the bus stops and, therefore, bus routes. So, the bus drivers are now hopelessly lost and horribly confused. The woman driving my particular Blue Loop of Doom had decreed that the best way to deal with HER new route would be to drive as fast as bus-ed-ly possible while taking every corner at full steam. Since she was clearly trying for a land speed record, she hadn’t the time for stopping the bus and thusly missed letting three people off when they pulled the cord. How we didn’t hit any of the cars that we were poised precariously on the edge of slamming into, I do not know, but I definitely thought on at least three occasions “Okay, this is it. I’m going to die on the Loop today and there is nothing I can do to change that.”

I wanted to kiss the floor when I stepped into my office, knowing that the ground was no longer moving under me and that I was safe from any more travel-induced mishaps.

*spent*

A new photo & book quote no. 3…

ARoB, Art, Books, Food/Drink by
  • Comments Off on A new photo & book quote no. 3…

I got bored after my night of being frustrated with freelance yesterday and decided to paint. While Depeche Mode and Feist poured over me – and the rain came down in hurricane fashion outside – I crafted this. I guess my mind was on the way leaves look from below on a sunny day.

This is perhaps the most concise summation of how I feel that I’ve ever found outside of my head:

“Thanks.” She sighs, does a wrinkle-and-freckle check, the way Anna-Louise does, too, right out of the starting gate in the morning. I have this feeling watching Jasmine – that as you grow older, it becomes harder to feel 100 percent happy; you learn all the things that can go wrong; you become superstitious about tempting fate, about bringing disaster upon your life by accidentally feeling too good one day.”

Shampoo Planet, pp. 131

There is probably nothing more luxurious (and decadent?) about reading for an hour in a cast iron bath tub. Just lying there, completely lost in a world of your own imagining, listening to music and watching candles flicker on porcelain and chrome. A great morning.

And now, with my belly full of Hannah’s pineapple & pine nut dessert, I’m going to make my way to a more reclined position.