diamonds

2010-06-01T22:49:00.000-07:00

what?

2010-02-08T22:22:00.000-08:00

the future of the internet?

http://chatroulette.com/

i'm in the doghouse, darling

2009-06-21T16:53:00.000-07:00

friends! an amazing new creature entered my life recently in the form of a canine. we brought him home from the rough streets of garfield park, a neighborhood known for breeding pitbulls to fight and ditching them when they don't win. we've been calling him charlie.

this is him a couple days after bringing him home. he was a bloody scabby baby and left blood and dandur all over everything.

and this is him about two and a half weeks later! magic! thanks to a delicious diet that includes porkchops and chicken and carrots and eggs and table scraps he has gained over ten pounds and is growing a lot of his hair back already. we recently moved into a giant warehouse with nine other human peoples, whom he gets mass amounts of love and affection from.

he recently learned about cuddling and wants to cuddle and kiss us all the time. he's still not very good at spooning though, i'll wake up in the middle of the night with paws in my face and bony shoulders in my back.

he also is really punk and digs through trash a lot.

this blog is a memo to all my friends, requesting you come visit me and charlie. we would both love it.

bog blog

2009-05-16T23:11:00.000-07:00

let me tell you about my very first visit to a forest in the land of lincoln. it was really boggy, wet, and green - quite different from the forests i know in the golden state.

there are lots of brambles as well.

we hosted a couple of impromptu tea parties with kind folks we met along the way. this gentleman tea-guest kind of smelled like death, but maybe it was just from the bog-nook he has been residing in recently.

these two were far too wiggly and impatient to sit down at our nice tea table.

we found several good logs to dangle our feets from and climb over streams with and lay our bellies on and accidentally drop things off of. logs can be useful for lots of different activities.

digging, poking, meditating - all good things to do on a log.

supposedly these particular woods are among the most haunted in the united states. i don't know if i buy it (and yes, i did experience its' ancient "haunted" graveyard at night, but found it populated with more high-schoolers than ghosts), but we sure did find lots of old relics and pottery and wells and slaughtered cow-bones and foundations from old homesteads. even a bit of a whiskey bottle that is probably a hundred and thirty seven years old! its nice to come back from vacation with souvenirs. oh, vacation.

cats and kittens

2009-05-06T16:12:00.000-07:00

so when you're riding your bike in the rain on a warm afternoon and you get caught in a major downpour (thunder, lightning, the works) and you are still five miles from home and you forgot to bring your hat and rainslicker - well, it starts to feel like you are swimming through space. and your clothes kind of become your wetsuit.

maybe i would even go as far as to say that you become a fish on a bicycle at the bottom of the ocean.

my so called life

2009-05-02T19:05:00.000-07:00

so maybe one or two people are wondering why i have been away from the blago world for so long - or maybe not. in any case, i'll show you what i've been up to lately.

so mostly i've been in chicago a lot. it looks like this for the most part:

we got a quarter pipe in our space, and i tore a ligament in my elbow trying to own it. dustin has been making sweet boards out of rollerskates and scrap wood and gloppy paint for DUSTO Skateboards. let me be the middleman if you are interested in one of these babies.

with the ending of winter and the coming of spring, we planted lots of little herbs and are watching them grow up. seeing this city turn from white to brown to green is pretty miraculous. everyday something new is blooming or struggling to poke its head up from the warm dirt. my first real spring.

we have all been making lots of things, including fat suits.

we try to have fun too.

inbetween being in chicago and not being in the blago realm, i visited the home state of california for a few weeks. it looked a lot like this, only even greener! and fresher! and more mind boggling!

and maybe in a month i will be moving out of my current chicago home-space on the west side and into a bigger space on the south side which has a really intense bathroom with lockers and toilet stalls. i'll keep you posted.

a change in direction

2009-03-15T22:57:00.000-07:00

no more themed posts, friends. too much pressure. not enough commitment. i am resuming regular, haphazard, potentially dull blogging starting now.

here are some photographs of the space i am living in. these pictures were taken in january, at the beginning of the moving and building process.

fortunately, the space has changed a bit since these pictures. we have been sawing and drilling, making it cozy and messy. here is a more recent picture of the space, featuring dustin before his first attempt at a standing backflip.

the grand finale of the sayaka food-themed blog!

2009-02-15T21:48:00.000-08:00

so, after a significant delay (which i do deeply apologize for), i am finally giving you all part five out of five for this sayaka food-themed mini-blog. it was a difficult ordeal, to conceptualize, create, and execute a meal that sayaka would at first be opposed to, but that had the possibility of invigorating and waking up those bland taste buds of hers.

we decided to make a large pile of perogies, some filled with potatoes and the others filled with sauerkraut. the topping would be sour cream. now, please note that sayaka claims to despise all things sour, as well all things white and creamy. so for her the thought of eating sour sauerkraut with sour cream on top is quite a doozy!

doesn't this greasy pile look delicious?

everyone but her thinks so...

chris just couldn't get enough!

dustin would have given them two thumbs up but his other hand was full of perogie.

now for the moment of truth...

she was most definitely repulsed by this combination.

the verdict: she enjoyed the potato perogies, thought the sauerkraut perogies were sour and gross, and that the sour cream was a bad idea.

you can't say i didn't try.

a brief break in the sayaka food theme postings

2009-02-02T14:50:00.000-08:00

so friends, it has been a long time since i have updated on the status of feeding new foods to friend sayaka. it has been a hard and thankless journey. i have promised to make five blog posts about each theme, and i will stick true to this commitment. i want to end this particular theme in a bang, however, and am planning something big. something major. something that will blow your cute little winter socks off.

in the meantime, i am leaving you with a non-sayaka-food-theme photograph. see, i was on the purple line the other day and unknowingly sat next to a gigantic couple who were in the midst of deep embrace. they spent the next forty minutes of the train ride smacking lips and clutching hips and generally expressing way to many PDAs for any normal person in that close of a proximity to feel comfortable. it was kind of tight.

stay tuned for the last post in the sayaka food theme chronicles, coming to a blog close to your heart.

sayaka food-theme blog post no. 4

2009-01-16T10:58:00.000-08:00

so for the fourth post within this theme, i decided to give ourselves a real challenge by testing out chocolate on sayaka. see, she really does not like chocolate. at all. she won't eat it. she finds it too "unappetizing". my only chance of her trying and actually liking a piece of chocolate would, of course, depend upon the quality of the chocolate. i knew i had to go for the gold.

this is linda. she owns the chocolate boutique we went to in search of a chocolate that even sayaka could swoon over. with her expertise, we decided that the most delectable type of chocolate to try would be a rare and divine chocolate truffle from some small town in southern france.

sayaka took a tiny bite of this glorious truffle i bought her. and what do you know? she did not like it. she said later that she didn't want it in her mouth, but only refrained from spitting it out because she was guilty that i spent thirty dollars on the damn thing.

at least i got to eat the rest of it. it was delicious.

sayaka food-theme blog post no. 3

2009-01-14T17:18:00.000-08:00

we are still in the midst of a blizzard. so, after a long day of stealing underpants and hunching our bodies against the windy streets of chicago, a hot bowl of tomato soup sounds just perfect.

sayaka thought it was boring, and likened it to drinking broth. i got her to try a piece of toast with it, but she said it didn't make it any better. she didn't even come close to finishing the tiny bowl i gave her.

maybe next time we'll try grilled cheese with the tomato soup.

sayaka food-theme blog post no. 2

2009-01-13T18:06:00.000-08:00

chicago is in the midst of a blizzard right now. which means wearing blankets and drinking warm things and watching movies all day. it was a good day for sayaka to try some hot buttered rum.

sayaka reported that this toasty buttery alcoholic drink was delicious upon impact but after a while she felt ill and had to lay down.

we'll try again tomorrow.

sayaka food-theme blog post no. 1

2009-01-12T18:38:00.000-08:00

so sayaka has always been a picky eater. today we decided to expand her horizons and, even more importantly, to blog about it!

today she ate an omelet for the first time.

she thought it was kind of spongey. she wasn't very enthused.

a whole new world

2009-01-12T18:24:00.000-08:00

dear friends.

i have been thinking about this blog a lot, and about how it is not very good. i have decided that the only way i can remedy this is by completely renovating the very structure of the blog itself.

what this blog needs is a theme. at the present moment i am not sure what that theme should be, so i will be trying out various themes over the coming weeks, or perhaps months. and i would love your (yes, your!) input.

i will trying out a food-themed blog to start off this experiment. more specifically, the strange eating habits of my dear friend sayaka. i plan on writing five blog entries regarding this theme, and then i shall move on to a new one.

please leave me any comments, suggestions, questions, or concerns.

you have been updated.

team miamie

2009-01-10T14:42:00.000-08:00

have you guys heard that fish are now officially called sea kittens? you can even make your own sea kitten avatar. thanks peta!

2009-01-03T17:44:00.000-08:00

plants don't grow here during january, i've found. sometimes you see some sort-of green looking things growing in a bit of dirt in front of someone's flat, and for a moment you forget about the snow and ice and so you have a bit of hope for them - but no, really, they are just dead and their little green plant cells are frozen in place.

springtime shall be such magic!

fabrications

2008-12-26T20:57:00.000-08:00

we are nothing but fabrications! don't expect anything more, nor less, of me.

trapezoids of the sky

2008-12-25T20:21:00.000-08:00

this year's christmas was pretty good, i'd say. it all started by going to morning mass at my neighborhood church, where they worship both the lord and the automobile.

we spent several hours singing epic anthems, drinking windshield wiper fluid, eating the body of christ, all of the usual. but the best part was hanging out with these hip girls who were sitting in my pew and they invited me to this after-mass-party. and guess who we met?! bill murray! unfortunately my camera died right as i was posing for a pic with him. but, at least you get to see my new friends.

2008-12-23T23:20:00.000-08:00

so my mom and i had a party to celebrate her getting her doctorate and her playing the harp. these two things are mostly unrelated, but somewhat relevant to each other.

people and animals

2008-12-11T20:56:00.000-08:00

i want to give a shout out to a psychedelic friend in the blogosphere who just created the blog of the decade. never stop blogging, comrade! you inspire me, as do all of you reading this.

this is one of the twenty rooms in my future fairy tale squat wonderland. a gang of us will be moving in when the sun starts shining more regularly. please, come join us.

a short one

2008-12-01T08:43:00.000-08:00

today is both the first day of december and the first day the snow has stuck to the ground. this morning i walked out into a winter wonderland, complete with angels caroling and reindeer prancing. i will probably spend my day drinking tea, painting formal portraits of my housemate gunther, and listening to gangsta rap.

this is me and gunther. he chews on stuff all day.

a saint, a virgin

2008-11-29T16:09:00.000-08:00

so i made a brief visit to saint louis, to dine in a rotating restaurant with my mother for her birthday. on the way there, i spotted this foxy fox, searching for his native land. he only paused long enough to make love eyes at me, and then he dashed off on his search again. i do hope he has found his mother and brothers by now. i hope he is happily eating his bloody carcasses and feeling the comforts of home. i can only pray.

on the way back to chi-town, i stopped by friend's house. they are in the midst of remodeling.

i thought you all would like to know who i am living with now. i'll start off by introducing my newest housemate. her name is mary and she has this light and joy around her that is just indescribable... sometimes she forgets to do her dishes, but i'm trying to not be passive aggressive about it because i really like her as a person. she swears she is a virgin, but i've heard her mention a son. i need to investigate this matter further.

nuances vs. innuendos

2008-11-26T22:30:00.001-08:00

i moved to the chicago a few weeks ago and so far have spent the majority of my afternoons gazing at the dinosaurs that live in the jungle behind my house. if you look closely you can see a green tree that lives outside of my window. just north of my house, after a short jaunt through raptor territory, is the meat packing district - which happily fulfills all of my packed meat needs. and to the south is greek town, where spanakopita crowds the streets and leaves a nice oily scent on my collar. sometimes i meditate on my roof, contemplating these sky scrapers and all of the glory they behold. and the basement - well, that is a story for another day.

as you can see, friends, i am living the dream. and this is where i will record that dream.