2.23.2006

Phew, this had been a tough week. One that had left me getting back to my room at nearly midnight and doing homework till 4 almost everyday.

Yes, it's official, I have turned into a mugger toad.

Anyway, I was looking at some cool treehouses and I have a cool idea for one too. Well you know how when you have a full bowl of water and you make a splash in it and the epheremal moment is captured on high speed cameras.. Now imagine this glob enlarged and covered in glass, falling into a net of suspension wires in the midst of a forest. A perfect drop captured in mid air, lit up from within at night and connected to the ground by a zig zag stairway. It can be a meditation space, a voodoo temple, an observation post, a treehouse for kids, poets and treehuggers.

And then I saw that someone had adapted this idea into a sculpture.

2.19.2006

Worst snowboarding day ever. There were strong gusts of wind and the slopes were icy and hard. Each fall is like twice as bad as on a normal day. I still can't do the obstacle course in which you have to go left and right in a path between poles. Yeah I think like it's SOC.. I have a permanent life problem with obstacle courses. My whole head froze and so did my hands and toes. Heck, I can't even type properly now. My lips started bleeding halfway through. One time I didn't manage to turn back to the correct direction and I fell on my head and I heard a loud crack sound (first of a few more to come). I imagined my skull cracked open with my brains spilling out onto the snow. But thankfully that didn't happen. However my nose phlegm did shoot out from the impact and it sprayed onto my glasses and promptly froze. After a few hours of some good, some bad runs I was so traumatized I went to the easiest slope just to regain my confidence and boost my morale.

Yes, you know I'm in a low point when you see me blogging so often. Didn't I once not blog for one month? that must have been a high point...

Oh , one art installation that makes perfect sense.

2.18.2006


***
Tobias: Although, perhaps I should call the "Hot Cops" and tell them to come up with something more nautically themed. Hot Sailors. Better yet, Hot Seam...

Michael: I like Hot Sailors.

Tobias: Hmm. Me, too.
STrEEss.

ok ok I just deleted a whole paragraph of whining. Do i say that a lot-- that I edit my complaints? It's all xinyi's fault by the way, she makes me self conscious about whining. But I still feel like getting it out here, cuz writing a diary always helps in figuring things out right.

I'm super emo again! I think it's my period. It ebbs and flows and now it's coming back in full force! I think I've diagnosed it. The first sign is when I feel like I don't have enough friends. I don't know why I get that feeling. I feel insanely jealous when I see my friends talking to some people I don't know,.. ok so I do that too, but it's not the same. I'm just superficial. I like the idea of saying hi to many people on the street. But then when the emo tide hits I do the opposite instead-- I crawl into my room and when I go out I don't feel like talking. The best thing to do is to ride it out and feel better in a few days time.

Also, there is an obscene amount of work to be done. So much that I decided (perhaps wrongly) not to go rock climbing in the afternoon or to go for yet another frat party just now. So I'm not keeping my new year resolution to have more social life. Bah. My saturday is all spent on PE, sunday there's two meetings, there's next week's homework, project research, a prelim on tuesday, and my study abroad plans are still being fixed. I really hate this part of the semester. It's like the uphill portion of a climb, there's all these obstacles ahead waiting to swallow you whole. BUT as usual, i'm quite sure that everything will turn out fine and I'll have only fond memories.

In any case, if you're stressed like me, here are my top 3 cures:

3. scratch your ipod with sandpaper to achieve the brushed metal look.
2. watch jon stewart's daily show.
1. drool at the most awesome dessert pictures ever (I may have mentioned this before).

2.12.2006

My neck feels twisted.
My back is stiff.
Someone punched me in the chest.
My knees hurt like hell.
My ass aches.
I can't straighten my fingers.

This is the aftermath of snowboarding, which surely must rank among the 3 most fun things to do in any lifetime, along with sitting on a rollercoaster and watching arrested development..

Time to nerd out!

2.09.2006

Noone's showing love for madonna?
Anyway she's drop-drop-dropping in my list too, after watching her uninspired grammy performance. As morris would say, none too impressive.

I've been telling people that at 30 I would go open a club and you are all my potential partners/investors. hah. So here's prototype #1, which I've sketched out and shall attempt to reproduce here in words. I've only figured out the main room.

So you enter into a cacophony of throBBBinglightsandsound; in front, a long bridge that arches to the other end of the room, an avenue for catwalkers, people watchers and dancers who like to touch themselves. To the left, a wall of glass that preferably looks out to some skyline from a few storeys up. The wall is easily covered with large panes of led screens that slide in from the side, broadcasting cutting edge graphics to the tune of the music. A DJ console on an elevated platform in one corner.
To the right, the bar, flanked by private boxes for the beautiful ones. They are shrouded in the shadows, ocassionally illuminated by a wandering spotlight. You push past the crowd to get a drink. The roof, a diasphonous form, with slots that cleverly conceal the speakers, and a lighting system perfectly timed to the beat. At the other end of the bridge, undulating walls and sheer curtains surround the seating area-- it is lined with plush couches and ottomans. Under the bridge lies the dancefloor, accessed by three sets of stairs. There are three concentric circles, each going deeper towards the center stage, which revolves on occasion.

ok can't think of anything good to end it off.

Right now, I'm just frustrated at solidworks, the thing we have to use to make a 3d model. It's screwing me upside down and I can't be bothered to do anymore of it tonight.

I'm so not hardworking, I didn't even do question of the week for econ.

2.03.2006

Sorry in advance for the loading time.

So, two weeks of school have passed and I would like to fulfil my whine quota this month.


But not now,
because I just found out yesterday that franz ferdinand and death cab for cutie are coming to cornell in april!!
YAY YAY..
it's not that often that bands come to such a secluded place. Either they're so unknown that I can't get people to go with me, such as the fiery furnaces, or they're washed up bands that I have no interest in anymore, like third eye blind and collective soul.
So I'm happy for the weekend, until I start doing my homework later.

Also, in other news, madonna will be touring this summer, which means that die die must do summer school (and not summer abroad next year) and save up enough money to go see her.

Here's ten reasons why I intend to go.

She remixes her twenty year old songs and make them sound like they're songs of today. Plus lots of confetti:

Cool stage set stuff like giant video screens and a conveyor belt:

Her two backup singers save her ass all the time:

At her height of obsession with memoirs of a geisha, she had a kimono the length of the stage:

In case anytime thinks it's all about the editing, this is a handshot video:

Noone sits down at her concerts:

She does insane acrobatic things like the exorcist move--bending her body backwards and walking on all fours in reverse.

In the 1990s she had a topless dancer on a very tall pole and she wore a dominatrix outfit:

One hand in her pants, she simulates masturbation:

She's the only singer who can get away with headbanging and playing air guitar: