influenced by thriller

and my all time personal fave:

mj

the above video shows fans remembering the king of pop by engaging in group song. hearing and reading comments, it seems as if everyone around my age fondly remembers growing up with such great mj hits as a youngster. if only i still had my sweatshirt that i lived in as a child:

SCOOPS

Scoops is an ice cream parlor in the so called "Bicycle District" in Los Angeles. For those unfamiliar with the little intersection heavy with bicycle repair shops, we are talking about the corner of Melrose and Heliotrope. Behind LA City College. Now that you know where it is, be sure to go there. Multiple times. You see, Scoops has an ever changing array of unique flavors that I have yet to see anywhere else. The "Brown Bread" came highly recommended. At first, I was apprehensive. Bread as ice cream? I was expecting rye and poppyseeds to be used as sprinkles. Thankfully, that was not the case. The Brown Bread is one of the best ice creams I have had. Sweet. Caramelly. Crunchy. French Toasty. Under further investigation, I learned that the recipe does indeed make use of caramel and also, surprisingly, grape nuts.

I also had tried the Guiness Chocolate. Like a traditional chocolate but add a little bit of bitterness. Kathy couldn't make out the Guiness, but I picked up on something that is not akin to the typical chocolate from the grocers. While the Guiness was just good, the Roasted Rice was AWESOME. There was an element of Lotte Rice Punch to each bite. And with the addition of chocolate sprinkles? HEAVEN. I heard a lot of hullabaloo over the Strawberry Mint, but nay. Only decadent desserts for this girl.

in list format please.......

1) cellular phone trees do exist.
2) palm springs is not that far from L.A. but is nowhere near as cool in climate.
3) california pizza kitchen is just medium.
4) the viceroy is an amazing hotel.
5) sunday and monday are good off days to go out of town.
6) there is no entry fee to joshua tree park if there is no ranger at the booth.
7) there is no ranger at the booth at 5:22 AM.
8) still no ranger at the booth when exiting at 6:15 AM.
9) in joshua tree city there is a shanty of sorts called "el money".
10) pioneertown is an odd, desolate yet interesting place at 7:15 AM.
11) floating on a raft in the pool is an energy draining event.
12) doing homework in a fancy resort is not recommended.
13) the viceroy breakfast is awesome. really.
14) sourdough toast with blackberry jam. enough said.
15) the palm springs starbucks is the slowest one on the planet.

real or not?

who needs oils when you have toothpicks?

it is really cool, but wait until the ping pong balls come into play. it gets even cooler. this guy is pretty fantastic! i am super impressed that he declined to sell the piece to ripley's for 40,000. just validates art being an extension of the self.

the little taco truck that could

in a the shadow of a dimly lit vons parking lot sits a mighty little taco truck called "taco zone." mighty may be an understatement. aside from selling some late night deliciousness that can give kogi a run for its money, the taco zone demonstrated serious resiliency when vandals attempted to set the truck in flame. no down time. the very next night they were back on alvarado bringing tacos to the people.

so after months of bedtime taco tales, i had to go and try the zone for myself. kathy and i headed towards the truck after watching nicki's band at spaceland. i had heard about this specialty called 'suadero' that was validated awesome by both kathy and david and about a million others. (well, maybe like two others, but in order to get my point across, a million just carries more weight.)

a suadero decision is easy. the burrito vs. taco decision......not so much. however, as a proponent of neatly wrapped food, i went the burrito route. i was asked if i wanted everything and yes....everything was had. the tortilla was filled with potato, rice, beans and SUADERO. i haven't quite established exactly what suadero is, but i can tell you it is good. really good. beefy good. i-will-be-going-back-soon-good.

Eating Chicken Nuggets CAN be Sexy

I like this commercial. In particular the part where the chicken nugget box pops open like a jack in the box.

what i do

so in the midst of going to graduate school, interning and maintaining a minor social life, i work a couple of jobs at the university. at the risk of confusing everybody i know, i tend to never really elaborate on, specify or clarify between jobs and/or interning. most of you all just know that for several hours of the day i am either at school or working/interning somewhere. to put it simply, i am busy. i have come to realize that when i try to explain about jobs/interning or the like, my tiny audience is just looking at me oddly trying to piece together the puzzle of jobs that i do. with that reaction, i leave out most of the details. until now.......

one of the jobs that i do as part of one of my graduate assistantships is to work on fridays at a school called westside leadership magnet. westside and lmu have a partnership that involves a service learning program called ARTsmart. with the ARTsmart program, undergraduate "mentors" volunteer their time and expertise in the classroom and facilitate art lessons to a school that under the LAUSD umbrella, lacks an art program. in the year that i have worked, i have had the opportunity to visit a myriad of k-8 classrooms at the school and work with both the mentors and the elementary students.

as a culminating event, a team of lmu students worked for about 5 days and installed a beautiful show of the artwork created by these talented elementary students. the program was fortunate enough to harness a new art space at the lmu campus. the students work was shown in a playful, yet professional manner. to heighten the experience of the show, a field trip was coordinated so that ALL the students could see their art up on display. pretty fantastic. we had other activities like mural painting, gallery talks and campus tours for the kids. the field trip was a blast and really honed in on just how meaningful art can be for kids of all ages.
check out some more pictures taken by the schools magnet coordinator:

http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Westside_Leadership_Magnet/Westside_Leadership_Magnet/Whats_Happening/Pages/LMU_ARTsmart_Exhibition.html#grid

tomorrow for lunch...i choose you, pikachu!

if things in japan weren't cute enough, here is an adorable video montage of bento boxes that i would feel terrible ripping to shreds......well, maybe not. lunch is not a meal to mess with. but i would perhaps adopt a more methodical eating method to avoid an immediate destruction of these little delights.

they just dont make 'em like they use to

I used to watch this show religiously as a child. Cartoons these days don't measure up. With the exception of Family Guy but since that is aimed at adults, I say, it doesn't count.

between tucson and mexico

this little guy was in a biker bar in southern arizona. just found him while uploading some pictures of mine that i had scanned in a while back.

this seems like something i should have seen....

as a sucker for internet videos, i am really curious as to how this one slipped under my radar for so long:



The way that I became savvy to this gem was actually due to an email I received from the cinefamily silent movie theatre. This Sunday is a premiere of "Winnebago Man", a full length documentary about the star of the clip. The film maker created this movie after the long and arduous task of hunting down the Winnebago Man, otherwise known as Jack Rebney. What is interesting to me is that this 4 minute clip of cursing was passed on video hand to hand before the days of You Tube. Word of mouth. The movie apparently raises the question, "What happens to these stars of viral fame?" Find out. Go see the film this Sunday at the Silent Movie Theatre. 8 PM. You may see me there.
http://cinefamily.org/calendar/events.html