Meditation2

Serious eye rolling time

Today's Daily Candy starts off with:

Decorating would be so much easier if you had computer powers. Hideous light fixture? Delete. Unassembled furniture? Auto format. Dark room? Open new window.

I'm still not sure if I like Daily Candy or not.

Because sometimes I am a design nerd

I was looking at Craigslist today saw a posting for a job that interested me so I clicked on the link for the design studio and, whoa, they designed the Feyman three volume set in a matching slipcase.

The stars say:

"The fact that the two of you are not on the same page isn't a problem." -- yahoo astrology

I told you

Cool Hunting on Cupcake Carrying

NOPA? No, DOPA

I work in the DOPA (yes, it's I made that up just now). Now, this is not the best neighborhood but it's better for your car than my neighborhood. This evening I was at work with my boss and one of the interns. About 45 minutes before I left the office, I heard an unusual number of sirens of all kinds (police, ambulance, fire) for about 5 minutes. Fifteen or 20 minutes later I heard a helicopter flying above our building. I've become somewhat immune to these kinds of city sounds but even this seemed a bit unusual and my co-workers agreed. At the end of the day I headed out to walk towards my car, which I parked about a block and a half away.

As I was walking, I noticed what appeared to be fog but soon found that it was not fog but smoke! Then, when I turned the corner to get to my car, the intersection was full of police cars, yellow "Do Not Enter" tape, and ambulance, and three fire trucks.

This is where I start thinking that my car has exploded and, oh my god, how will I explain to my father that The Stiletto is no longer standing? I tell the police officer that my car is parked in the taped off section. He authoritatively states that if my car is further away than the fire truck that I just won't be able to get to my car tonight. I say that I'm not sure how far down the block it is so he lifts up the tape for me and lets me find the car. The poor Stiletto was parked right in front of the building where the firefighters were still hosing down the roof! A couple of the firefighters helped me get my car out (one jokingly said, "That's your car? I am gonna have to move it.")

This of course happened mere blocks away from where I saw a moving truck crumple the side of Pirius like tin foil and then just rolled away like he drove over a soda can.

God damn the 60 minute bus ride!!!

Yay! Sweating in the desert for three days straight!

Who wants to go to Coachella???

Not Safe for Lunch Time Reading

I cannot believe that people can continue to eat so much pork.

Excerpts from Rolling's Stone's feature on Smithfield Foods, who killed 27 million pigs last year:

The biggest spill in the history of corporate hog farming happened in 1995. The dike of a 120,000-square-foot lagoon owned by a Smithfield competitor ruptured, releasing 25.8 million gallons of effluvium into the headwaters of the New River in North Carolina. It was the biggest environmental spill in United States history, more than twice as big as the Exxon Valdez oil spill six years earlier. The sludge was so toxic it burned your skin if you touched it, and so dense it took almost two months to make its way sixteen miles downstream to the ocean. From the headwaters to the sea, every creature living in the river was killed. Fish died by the millions.

Studies have shown that lagoons emit hundreds of different volatile gases into the atmosphere, including ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. A single lagoon releases many millions of bacteria into the air per day, some resistant to human antibiotics. Hog farms in North Carolina also emit some 300 tons of nitrogen into the air every day as ammonia gas, much of which falls back to earth and deprives lakes and streams of oxygen, stimulating algal blooms and killing fish.

Related: Cow 'emissions' more damaging to planet than CO2 from cars

Early adopter

I had an MP3 player cell phone in 2000. (In hindsight it looks sooo retro.) I was hunting down bad quality recordings of Interpol before all of you. I signed up on Myspace in the first half of 2004. I was cranking out the reviews on Yelp in Feb. 2005. And now, on ThisNext I am credited with first discovering the Cupcake Courier. Yes it carries three dozen cupcakes and it's ridiculously sized like an SUV. However, it is awesome and I had it before Rachel Ray. Apparently it was invented by Jenna Fischer's friend.

I know, I'm a dork.

For the fastidious

Holy moly. New product from JimmyJane! It's called Form 6 and it has TWO motors. Wow.

Form 6 (no raunchy photos)
Features
* Waterproof & Bath-Friendly – Water resistant to a depth of 1 meter.
* Body-Safe Materials – Phthalate-free medical-grade silicone and stainless steel.
* Cordless Recharging – High capacity Lithium-Ion battery.
* Digital Vibration Modes - From gentle oscillations to exhilarating pulses.
* Quiet – Engineered for sound isolation.
* Travel-Ready – Compact and good to go. Convenient button lock.
* Soft Touch – Continuously enveloped in durable silicone.
* Intuitive Illuminated Controls – Easy to operate in any environment.

Details
* Dimensions – 7” long x 1.75” at widest point.
* Vibration Source – Dual independently controlled motors.
* Power Source – 110/220V cordless recharging Lithium-Ion battery.
* Construction – Water resistant, ultrasonically welded chassis with continuous overmold and sound isolation engineering.

It's a good thing I can drive myself to work now

Work has been ridiculously busy lately. I've been the last one to leave the office everyday for a week (more?), which is actually kinda nice in some ways after going through a long, mostly, non-productive, period. Soon I will even find myself in a semi-managerial position—I get to hire my very own part-time intern.

Perhaps I'm, slowly, becoming an adult.

YAY! A computer that works!!!

I picked up my new, shiny (rather sheen-y actually) in the box laptop this morning.
* 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* 1GB memory
* 120GB hard drive
*** NO CHARGE :)

I know it's not as exciting as an iPhone but to me it is.

DJ Work Clothes

Today I was downtown trying to hunt down jeans that fit (these-- perfect for those of us without much junk in the trunk) and a black button down shirt. I tried Bloomingdale's, I tried Express, I tried Fourth and Towne (blech!), and finally I ended up at Banana Republic and found a very nicely fitting shirt. A totally bizarre thing happened while I was digging through a pile of sweaters-- the overhead speakers started playing Cocteau Twins! Perhaps BR is not always so mainstream.

BTW, it's sale mania downtown. Banana Republic has stretchy tanks for $6 and at Bloomie's I saw 40% off LeSportsac bags. (Tokidoki bags!... but they didn't have the one I'm looking for.)

"Trying to look good limits my life"

Here's a short video on Stefan Sagmeister, probably one of the most well-known living designers.

How lame

The boyfriend gets to spend a week in Puerto Vallarta and I'm stuck in 45 degree San Francisco. I believe on this day last year I was flying into Hawaii... :sigh:

Twenty-five... and two days

People that remembered my birthday this year: 7 (Really good number! Are you guys using Google Calendar now?)

My favorite thing to do is go out for a special dinner on my birthday so I went to Perbacco as suggested by Tablehopper. The patrons were a little too gray haired for the restaurant to be really hip, but I still think it's a hot spot with outstanding service that's usually found at more established restaurants.

Perbacco is focused on northern Italian cuisine which means cheese and butter galore! We chose the a pear endive salad with a honey vinaigrette with generous chunks of excellent gorgonzola. The salad had some interesting flavors going on, not ones that were familiar to me. The pillowy soft nettle gnocchi had just the right amount of the aforementioned butter and gorgonzola-- unspeakably delicious. The semolina encrusted skate was probably the least impressive component of dinner. The hamachi crudo with blood orange juice, fennel, and orange oil was almost a teeny bit sweet. Again, a new sort of flavor experience for me. Finally, for dessert was a poached pear with a creamy, whipped soft cream, sprinkled with pistachios. Boozy, neither too firm nor too soft, and just sweet enough.

I shouldn't forget the Pearlini cocktail I had either: Prosecco (it's already off to a good start!), pear brandy, pear puree, and cinnamon. So good!

Next time I go I want to try more pastas, some grappa, and the cheese plate!

(Thank you, DZ.)

Such a little gossip

Is it bad that I like reading Valleywag more than I like The Superficial? I guess it's because I like seeing what people I know/knew are up to. Like this dude I went to Stanford with. When I was in school with him, I had a feeling I would hear about him later.

Lappy is no longer with us

Apple is finally giving up on my lemon G4 PowerBook laptop, Lappy, and they are REPLACING it with a NEW 15" MacBook. Now, Apple kept telling me that replacements are rare but now we all know that it does happen.

If anyone knows of any wacko blessing rituals I can perform over my new laptop, please do forward that information to me. Maybe some prayers to the patron saint of computers, Saint Isidore?

See, as soon as the holidays are over, I get some good news.

Finally

They holiday season is officially over-- and not soon enough. I called my brother today to let him know that my dad's girlfriend sent him a couple polo shirts over for Christmas.
His response: I thought Dad bought those for me
Me: Nope, his girlfriend.
Brother: sigh So, Dad didn't get us Christmas gifts... again.
Me: Guess what his girlfriend sent me? A box of ginseng powder.

Ginseng powder. Fun.

At least my Jewish, Christmas hating, boyfriend and his younger brother decided that it would be cheer me up on Christmas to make me dinner and decorate holiday cookies. Those cookies were mostly decorated with Jewish things but they were drawn with red and green frostings which is Christmas-y enough for me.

New Year's Eve was spent hunting down mixers at the supermarket and then drinking cava straight from the bottle on the roof of a friend's apartment who was not there because they were invited to a party or something Later, for reasons I no longer remember, I ended up at Beauty Bar and went home with a balloon tied to my wrist.

I guess it wasn't so bad after all.

Now, if I can get through my birthday today without getting depressed I'll confirm that this past holiday season wasn't so horrible.