USA Today

Anyone who really knows me, knows that I love nothing more than reading the newspaper in the morning. I was thinking about the newspaper USA Today the other day. Do you think people that are reporters for USA Today feel good about working there? I don't think anyone really thinks they are a credible news source. I can't think of the last time USA Today broke a great news story. THIS JUST IN! A breaking pictograph from USA Today showing America's unemployment rate! Seriously, the National Enquirer breaks more real news than USA Today and it's not even a legit news source. They report real news by accident sometimes and they still beat out USA Today in the fact category. As an aside, I really like the pictograph above.

Resumes

Is it really necessary to list Microsoft Word as a qualification on your resume anymore? Should I just list West Deptford Middle School under the education header and have the employer assume that I am not an idiot? Come to think of it though ,I don't even think I could list myself as proficient in Word. I think I use Word maybe once a year. In fact, I don't think I even know how to use Word. I don't think I've ever figured out how to make the margins work the way I want them. I don't really know how to insert a picture where I want it, at the size I want it, and have the text work around it the way I want to either. I definitely know I never figured out how to make a list without bullet points, or figured out how to change the list to be numbers instead of letters without it auto-formatting itself back into bullets at indents that I don't like. Create a graph? Forget about it. I think the only thing I DO know how to do in Word is how to make the font change from Times New Roman to Courier New and change the spacing from 2, to 2.25.

closet baller....act 2

A couple of months ago I got a text from my good friend Dan about going to Vegas with him, so naturally I ignored it, as I do with most texts from good friends. I never really had any desire to go to Las Vegas, but I knew eventually my travels would take me there. He made me an offer I couldn't refuse...Free hotel. So I said I would go, and I actually got pretty excited about it. I got the scoop of things to do from trusted friends and made the most of the trip. It was a lot better than I expected and a lot less crazy than I expected. The snaps above are a pretty good synopsis of the trip.

Security

Nobody probably notices this stuff but me, but I am an architect and I am pretty observant. And I am probably partly crazy. Oh and I spend a lot of time in public bathrooms. Ever notice that the only place you see non-reversing security screws are in public restroom stalls? Probably not. But I am guessing people want to be most destructive when they have a few minutes to just sit and relax and tamper with things; and bathroom stalls are their favorite things to tamper with apparently. "Just sitting here with my screwdriver... might as well take apart this stall door."
Check it out next time. I've never seen these anywhere else.

New stuff I am working on at work

This is a project I am working on at work for a developer in the city. It's been a pretty fun project so far. It's an 80 some unit apartment building along South Street and Broad Street. Hopefully it goes through. It's been approved through zoning and should be approved by city council in the next few weeks. It's still in the very early stages and will probably change significantly. Pretty exciting though. Click on the images to enlarge.

first stab at a lobby

lobby

New Sketches

Chinatown YMCA

Zoning Committee Hearing

Locust Bar

Collingswood Theater

Tortilla Press

Rules Committee Hearing City Hall Chambers

Novel idea

I am sure this isn't a new idea and I'm sure someone has thought of it before, but I thought about it again last night and thought it was really funny still. I think it would be a great idea to open up an Irish bar called Shaquille O'Neal's. Like fancy kelly green script lettering outside... all irish gimmickery inside. beads, shamrocks, the works. No allusion to Shaquille O'Neal whatsover. And if it really took off, it would be equally funny to open up another bar right across the street called Donovan McNabb's. Same thing.

bathroom thoughts

Why do people care so much about when/if/or how frequently someone takes a shit? Maybe it's not that they care about it but it seems to be something that everyone has an opinion about. For example: "Oh, you go every morning?" "You go twice a day?" "Some days you don't go?" "Oh, I go as soon as I wake up and right after my morning coffee." "I have a schedule." "I hate vacation, it throws off my whole schedule." "Let's not schedule that meeting for eight o'clock if you know what I mean." "You gotta go again? Jesus!" "Sometimes I go four times a day!"
But no one really seems to care either way about someone's pee schedule. People just pretty much go whenever they feel like it and no one gives them any shit about it.

Cabs

I got into a cab the other day for work and this was in the window. I thought it was pretty harsh. The cab driver was pretty cool, but I wanted to be like.."dude, lighten up. No hugging? Fuggkk." He left out some pretty disgusting things that apparently he deems permissible though. Interesting. I should have gone through a whole list of things that he could add. It could be called the Sit Still cab.

Never fails

I like to think that I have a pretty good and diverse music collection. I have cool friends, what can I say. But I'll hand someone my ipod and say "just play whatever... it's all my music, so I am going to like it." They'll inevitably pick something like Miley Cyrus Party in the USA. I don't really have a problem with that. I mean, I do kinda like that song. Admittedly it was a guilty pleasure of mine. It's not like I am listening to it every few days or anything. Or they'll be like "damn..... you have a lot of Madonna, wtf!?" I mean, it's not like she didn't have a hundred hits. I'm sorry but if you have the Immaculate Collection you automatically have 40 Madonna songs. Just never fails that I'll hand someone my ipod and they pick out the three songs I would like least like to listen to.

Life isn't so easy anymore

I had a friend over recently and I was just doing some last minute things around my house so I told her to make herself at home while I finished up whatever I was doing. I handed her the remote and she politely declined. Luckily, like everyone else she had a smartphone and could easily entertain herself. I realized then that she probably just didn't want to bother with the complicated nature of watching tv these days. I can't watch tv anywhere but my own house honestly. Someone hands me a Comcast remote, forget it. Maybe I know how to work one of their remotes but if it's the other remote that I'm not familiar with, no chance. Do I press "all on" or do I press "TV ON" then "cable on"? Power ON? Cable ON, then TV ON? Do I turn up the volume on the Comcast remote or on the stereo remote or the actual TV remote? You have Dish network? I don't even know what a Dish remote looks like. Fios? Do I press STB? If I press power is it going to F-up your whole set up? Do I change the channel on the Comcast remote or will that mess up everything? Oh you have one of those all inclusive 300 dollar radio remotes. You have the charge it? WTF? Can't we just have a TV that integrates the box into the tv and just have one remote that has six buttons? Power, channel up and down, volume up and down... and netflix. play/pause. fast forward/rewind. What am I forgetting?

ART SHOW...Thursday OCT. 27th

The Philadelphia chapter of the American Institute of Architects has chosen 5 of my drawings to include in their annual exhibition; Art by Architects which will run from Sunday October 23rd til November 19th at 1216 Arch Street. Next Thursday October 27th from 5-7pm is the opening night. Thirty eight architects will have their work displayed in the main gallery. Should be pretty awesome. Hope to see you there next Thursday!

Bachelor Parties

I went to a bachelor party this weekend and God are they exhausting! The best man rented a big 15 person cabin in the Poconos for a weekend of male bonding debauchery. Bachelor parties are more like "Lets' prove that we are MEN!" parties. Or "let's be neanderthals together!" So we spent a weekend of playing golf, smoking, drinking, shooting guns and eating terrible food around a campfire. And of course we went to a strip club. I am pretty sure that is every event to do to be considered a man. The only thing we didn't do was play football together or go fishing. After it was over, some of the guys were saying their goodbyes and said "ah man...too short, it was too short. I wish we had one more day." And I was thinking, God, I wish we had one less day. Don't get me wrong I had fun, I just can't handle all that for too long. I needed to get back in touch with my feminine side.
Speaking of feminine side- about the strip club... I hate going to strip clubs. I think the only time I went to a strip club under my own free will was the first time I ever went to a strip club. Never had a desire to go back to one after that. Strip clubs suck. Anyway, we went... and I gotta admit, sometimes they can be really funny. I am just thinking in my head, I hope one of these poor girls doesn't slide down that pole upside down and paralyze herself. That would just be tragic. And here I am giving this girl a dollar, and I'm being extra careful so that my bare hand doesn't touch her bare body accidentally, and my friends are putting dollar bills in their mouths so they can have their faces pressed up against their bare bodies. I kept thinking, there is no way I am going to risk my recently awarded clean bill of health by putting any kind of money in my mouth or near any stripper. Wasn't about to put my money where my mouth is...

Vomit

This is gross, but I am almost sure that when people get sick from drinking too much, if they had anything to eat beforehand there is a good possibility it was spaghetti. Almost 90% sure about that.

AIDS test

I was walking near my office a week or so ago talking to a guy I work with on the phone when I saw an RV advertising free aids tests and free condoms. For whatever reason I interrupted our conversation and asked him if I should get an AIDS test. My rationalization was that it was free and people are always saying you (collectively) should get tested. Anyway, really my rationalization was that it was free, free condoms, and it said UPenn on the back so it was at least reputable.
I hang up with my friend and head over to the RV. There were two youngish people outside of the RV with clipboards and UPenn polo shirts on taking information from people. When I say people, I really mean they are just standing there about to take information from me. I tell them I am interested in getting tested so they take some basic information; name, address, age etc. The dude is then like, alright lets get into the van and get some more information and get you tested. Opens the door and I step in.

The place is a dump. I almost backed out as soon as I walked in. I was more scared of getting AIDS at that moment than I had ever been in my entire life. It wasn't set up like a clinic or anything. It was literally just a regular RV inside. Brown velor seats, brown carpet, kitchenette, living room, bedroom. It was like an RV you'd see in bad porn. The kind where they pick up the chick off the street somewhere. The guy is like "have a seat." I almost said "that's okay". I was wearing my good work clothes. Didn't want to get dirty. To give you an idea how dirty it was, there were burger king paper bags on top of the oven. I was beginning to think this was a bad idea. Now I was 99.9 percent sure I didn't have AIDS, but now I was second guessing if I was mentally prepared if this was going to be the day I was going to be told I have AIDS. And was this the way I wanted to be told? In a dirty RV by a guy I am pretty sure isn't even close to being a doctor parked on the corner of the gayborhood? Anyway, I told myself that it'd be okay and went through with it.

The guy proceeds to tell me what he is going to be testing me for today. "We're going to draw some blood and test you for AIDS and Chlamydia" (i think he said chlamydia, but he named a bunch of stds and I wasn't really paying attention...all of the ones you have ever heard of) "And we are going to do a urine test that will test you for basically everything else." As he is telling me this, a stoned homeless guy comes in asking for a pee cup. The guy gives him his cup... tells him to walk back there and "just fill it up a little bit" That's when I asked if I could just do the blood test. No way was I going back there where this guy just went.

Anyway, he proceeds to ask me all these questions about my sex life. Or lack of sex life. That's when I realized I live a boring life. He was asking me about things I would have never even thought of doing or even knew people did. Pretty sick stuff. He takes my blood, and drips a little into this little plastic device that looks like a pregnancy test. I say "that's pretty cool that you can get the results in ten minutes... I would have thought you would have to wait a while for lab results." "yeah man, it's crazy right...remember when it used to take three weeks?" "Nah. Like I said, this is my first time getting tested."

Alright, now if you head back over there so and so will give you your results. I started getting a little bit nervous at this point. She asks me more sexually explicit questions and then quizzes me on how much I know about STDS. Turns out I got all but one question right but I intentionally got that answer wrong. (you can ask me about that one personally) She goes through a list of questions: "have you ever paid for sex? No. Have you ever been paid for sex? No. "Have you been drunk or high in the last six months? Yes. Have you had sex in the last six months and been drunk or high? No. (it's been a while geez) Done cocaine? No. Done heroin? No. PCP? No. Syrup? No...wait. Syrup? Syrup is dangerous? Wait, is that like.."No, we ain't talkin bout Aunt Jemima.." I was like oh damn, for a second I thought I could get an STD from syrup. Phew. No.. never even heard of syrup. wow. It was an eye opener.

Make a short story long, I am disease free. But as I was leaving the RV, I took two steps down and caught my shirt on the door latch and ripped my shirt sleeve a little. "Ah! damn it..." "Are you okay?" "Yeah, it's cool, I'm clean." She didn't really appreciate that joke.

a tattoo

I've thought about getting a tattoo. Maybe not that seriously, but I'd definitely consider getting one. I think when it actually came down to it though, I'd chicken out. That shiz is for LIFE! Anyway I'm about to do a 180 here. I have noticed that when I get a zit, the zit only really occurs in the same two places on my face. It's bizarre. So I've had this zit for the past few days on my nose near the bottom of my eye. Kinda like where a tear would fall. So to diffuse the ugly zit that no one could avoid looking at if they talked to me, I made light of it at lunch the other day with the people I usually eat with at work. I asked them if they saw my new tattoo and pointed to the zit. And I said "yeah it's a tear. I killed a guy." And my astute colleague said, "isn't the tear usually on the outside?" I replied, "it is, but I killed a guy on the inside. No, not in prison. I killed him on the inside, Like, you know... I killed him emotionally, Broke his ass down."
I thought that was pretty good.

Counting

Last weekend I was counting with my four year old nephew; Trying to teach him the ins and outs of why counting is important and trying to show him that the actual symbols of numbers mean something. I was noticing that he was counting to twenty pretty well but skipping thirteen, and getting fourteen and fifteen out of order, but if I pointed to 7 out of sequence without him counting he would just guess random numbers. That's when I realized he wasn't making the connection between the symbol and his counting. When he counted to 20 with no problem I'd say now count to thirty...and so on. I think it's funny though that we as a society have concluded that there is a point where counting doesn't really matter. So you know that after a billion is a trillion and after a trillion is a "whatever..I'm not really sure who cares." "Uh, I think that's enough counting... no need to learn anymore." See what I mean? I thought it was a zillion, or a gazillion. Turns out it's neither. It's a quadrillion you dummy.

Not gonna lie...

Not gonna lie... admittedly, two weeks ago I gave my dad a hard time about the popsicles he rescued from the hurricane. But, I ate one of those popsicles my dad rescued last night...and damn were they good! I was about to throw them out because they were taking up a lot of room in my freezer but noticed they weren't all that melted. Gave them the benefit of the doubt and now I see why my dad took desperate measures to bring them over to my house. And after the first one, I had a second one. Then I stopped there.

Mario and Luigi

I thought about a lot of weird things this weekend. I was thinking about Super Mario Bros. and how awesome those video games were. Mario 1 was pretty good minus the first player playing until he or she died. That always sucked for the number 2 player. Mario 2 sort of got a little ahead of itself. It was way too hard and had way too many flying boards. Mario 3 they pretty much nailed. Swimming levels were always the best. But I started to question the whole premise this weekend. Why did the princess want to 2 random plumbers to save her? What made the plumbers the most capable? And neither were all that good looking. But I thought it was kinda messed up that Luigi, Mario's best friend, would be Mario's wing man and help him rescue the princess, but if it happened to be Luigi's turn on level eight and he had the chance to win it, he would just be all shruggin his shoulders like, "sorry Mario.... you tiger now" and toss his plunger to him. Take her back to the castle... and you know. "Hey lou-weege?"

College Football

I'm not a big fan of college football, I just couldn't ever really get into it. I like football, just not really into college football, and I'm definitely not into it when it interferes with baseball season. I guess having a terrible high school football team and a terrible college team has something to do with my dislike. But I was thinking the other day that it would be fun to have an online university football league. I'm not talking about fantasy football. I am talking like real online universities playing each other like University of Phoenix vs Strayer University. And get people who actually virtually attend these schools play each other. Either in real life or Madden style with computer players. 11 dudes on tv with their playstation 2 controllers playing online football.

A funny thing happened on the way to...

Alright, Irene turned out to be nothing more than a little bitch, but apparently my parents lost their power during the hurricane, if you can even call that a hurricane, and the power won't be restored til September 4th. So I get a phone call from my mom around 4 o'clock in the afternoon yesterday asking if she can come over to charge her cellphone. I thought it was a little weird that she felt it was absolutely necessary to have her cellphone charged but no big deal, we planned on making some dinner and hanging out while her phone charged. She left a couple hours later, and half heartedly asked if she could stay over. I said she could, but for whatever reason she felt like she was imposing. So now the funny parts. She wanted to watch some local news since she hadn't seen much of the coverage. I tuned to the local Collingswood station which was broadcasting the local high school sports recap. Basically sports highlights from all the spring sports produced by students and set to music. Now I was busy doing laundry and she was just hanging out, knitting and watching the sports highlights in the background. A song comes on, and my mom is like "This is Taio Cruz ... did you know he is British?" I was like "how the hell do you know who this is, much less know that he is British?"..."oh he was on Good Morning America last week." wtf.
A few songs later she's like "Do you know the name of this Lady Gaga song?" I was like Who are you? and what did you do with my mom? She apparently was on Good Morning America last week too. What was it, clubbing week on GMA?
Anyway, after those antics, my dad called me around 9pm. Now my dad never calls me. Never emails me either. He calls me maybe once or twice a year; Usually to ask me if I stole one of his ties. Anyway, he calls and explains that he doesn't have power and he's got stuff in the fridge yadda yadda yadda. Asks me if he can stay with me. I say sure. Now I'm not really sure why he waited til 9pm to ask me but...I figure at that point you might as well just go to sleep. You don't need power to go to sleep. Anyway he comes over around quarter to ten and brings the dog. The food that he brought to save was....wait for it....popsicles! Can't waste those popsicles. Sits down on the couch, makes some small talk and asks me where he is going to sleep. Now, I only have a two bedroom house, so naturally I told him the back bedroom. He says "where is that?" Seriously? I mean, I know he doesn't come over often but. "What do you mean where is it? It's in the back...at the top of the stairs." I really wanted to tell him it was on the third floor.. top of the stairs make a right, sixth door down on the left, but I know he'd wake me up later and ask where the second flight of stairs is. Wtf. I do love my family though. I just don't understand them sometimes.

JKRNoir: BENCH!

I've never "reblogged" something, so i am not sure if this is going to work. Regardless, this was posted from my company's blog and hopefully it translates to this blog. It's a competition that the graphic designer and I worked on for a bench design for a local neighborhood group sponsored by AIA Philadelphia. We didn't win/place or show but it was still fun nonetheless. Check it out.
JKRNoir: BENCH!:

Haircuts

I got a much needed haircut today and came up with a brilliant solution to make a lot of money and solve an age old problem. The problem, (and some of you may not think this is a big deal, and you would be right)but it would solve the age old problem of having to struggle through small talk with the person cutting your hair. I usually don't have a problem making small talk, but usually the small talk only lasts for 5 minutes. The small talk for someone cutting your hair lasts at least a half hour. A much harder task. Some salons have resorted to gimmicks like having a girl in a bikini cut your hair, which to me would just be really weird. And plus that wouldn't really solve the small talk problem. My idea would be to have a salon/barber that you would pay an extra five dollars just to have the stylist not talk. I am sure the stylist wouldn't mind the extra money and you could just sit there in peace. Mutually beneficial. Call it "Silent Styles" or "quiet cuts". Who wants to open the first branch with me?

Bad Realization

You know it's bad when in a weeks time you realize that the only liquids you've consumed have been beer, wine, whiskey, and coffee. It's been a vicious cycle and it's a wonder I am even alive. I am cutting back. Starting tomorrow.

Smart Phones

As far as phones go, I held out as long as I could. But these days you can either get a Zach Morris flip phone with a dot matrix green screen, or you can get the most souped up device to enter existence since the 1990 Honda Civic. And when you take the smartphone plunge you gotta go all in. I got the Cadillac of smartphones. The new Droid Incredible2. It lives up to its name. It's pretty incredible, not gonna lie. I couldn't keep my hands off it for the first night. Luckily, the novelty has worn off. I pretty much only do typical phone things on it, and haven't really fact checked anyone on it yet. As smart as smartphones are, this one's predicative text is not good at predicting words. It's really annoying. And you have to use two hands to type. My old phone learned words, this one doesn't. But the best part of owning a smartphone is that it forces you to unsubscribe to the 10 different daily emails you subscribe to but never really read.

Writing

Sometimes I stress about how best to write these blogs. I don't really stress out, but I wonder how to craft each post so that they make sense, get the point across, and hopefully are insightful or humorous to some extent. Above all, I hope they are concise in getting to the point. But I definitely notice weird occurrences in my writing that I don't think about when speaking. Weird sentences that have the same word repeated back to back. For example: "he was saying that that was odd" or "You should do this this year" It's really weird to see two of the same words right next to each other. No? Double negatives are a no no. This post was not funny, insightful, well written or concise.

Wedding Registries

I've got two weddings coming up in the next two weekends, and naturally I haven't thought about gifts for either. I am pretty sure that all of my friends that have ever gotten married only ever wanted money. I could be wrong. But I don't really understand registries. I think people feel obligated to register somewhere. Almost everyone these days registers at Bed Bath and Beyond, and I look at the stuff on their wishlist and think to myself "what the hell are thinking?" To me, when I go to Bed Bath and Beyond it's a chore. It's not because I want the things that are at Bed Bath and Beyond. It's because I need a trashcan or a shower curtain. I see that they're registered for a toaster that's 89 bucks or a couple of wash cloths for 4.99. Then I wonder if they would really be happy if I bought them the toaster. "Aw, Mike got us just the DeLonghi toaster that we wanted! That was great!" I have to think it'd be more like askers remorse. Like why did we want someone to buy us those wash cloths or that piece of junk toaster? We could have just gone and bought them on a whim at TJ Maxx. And is it legit to buy them the 89 dollar toaster and that's it? Because I was probably going to give them 100 bucks but if they reaaaaally want the toaster, that's fine by me. Or do I have to get them the toaster annnnnnd the wash cloths to make up the 100 bucks? Also, is 100 bucks cheap these days? One friend a few years back registered for these random decorative wicker balls. I wanted to buy him those and that would be it. When/if I get married I am going to just say buy me anything from Williams And Sonoma and call it a day.

Jay-Z

I used to like Jay-Z but man, he hasn't done anything good in at least the last five years. Like this song for example, it could have been good until he ruined it. Alicia Keys does all the good parts. I remember driving somewhere listening to this when it first came out and I just started saying random sentences over the Jay-Z parts and I am pretty sure my song made more sense than his. Try it. Just play this and say random stuff and just have the tone of your voice go up and down like his. "I went to NEW york, and we was like this is WAY cool, and I went to the HO-tel and they was like, WE ALL BOOKED, and i was like AWWWW schucks, I wanted some PEA-nuts... " WELCOME TO NEWWWW YORKKKKK CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OF!!!!

Vacations

Rioja, gran reserva, cervezas, siesta, sobre mesa, chorizo, jamon, queso, la playa, croquettas, rosquillas, jijas, cafe solo, volcanos, 85 degrees and sunny, family. Perfect vacation.

Birthdays

I don't know why it's taken me this long to realize this, but I am pretty sure that Happy Birthday might be the worst song ever.(tied for me with 500 Miles by the Proclaimers) If you really think about it, no one likes getting Happy Birthday sung to them, and I am pretty positive no one actually enjoys singing Happy Birthday to anyone else. Nobody randomly whistles Happy Birthday while walking to work or doing some chores. And the reason? Because it's terrible.

On a side note, my birthday is coming up.

Wu-Tang clan ain't nothin' to F--- wit

That is true. They will never reveal the secret of the Wu-Tang clan, but I just came a step closer today with my fortune cookie.




If Tang is soup, my guess is Wu is tomato. I could be wrong.

Flying

So I leave for Spain Monday and haven't really started to think about what I'll pack. Not really too worried about it, I mean I figure I'll just wear the same thing pretty much every day. Maybe a few changes of underwear and that's it. I just started thinking about all the stupid regulations for carry on stuff. I was planning on bringing a bottle or two of California wine to my host family there but realized I couldn't do that if I was going to just do a carry-on. Now I have to think about small sized toothpaste and stuff like that which is annoying. But I was thinking how great it would be to get a couple of drinks in me while I'm on the plane. But I don't really want to pay ten bucks for one of those little bottles of Sutter Home you know? You think I could get away with those little shot bottles of whiskey? Like six of em'? Under three ounces? check! In a plastic bag? Check! If not, I think I could just drink them all right on the spot right? And then pass out in the terminal and miss my flight altogether.

Deodorant

I am pretty sure most people are just like me; Once you find a deodorant that keeps your pits dry, you pretty much stick to it forever. I think I have been using the same kind of deodorant for the past 10 years and have no plans on switching. It's way too risky. You don't want to get sweaty pits, you don't want to have that strong baby powder smell from ten feet away, you don't want to smell like a woman etc., you just aren't sure if the roller ball is going to cut it, aren't sure if the white bar is going to get all caught up in your arm pit hairs, and you're pretty sure the gel is just going to make you have wet pits as soon as you put your shirt on. I remember when I was in middle school I was always getting sweaty pits. When life was turning up the heat, Degree was just not doing anything. I was in the computer lab in 8th grade and it was freezing as most computer labs are. Everyone was shivering and I was also freezing my ass off, but I was pittin out in my hypercolor sweatshirt. I had to tell everyone I was hot just because I had sweaty pits.

I guess it could be worse, imagine you are the dude in the picture. Not only do you have sweaty pits, you are the second Google image result for sweaty pits.

Closet Baller.

I haven't been on a real vacation in probably 8 years. My time has come. I'm getting out of the country. This time next week I'll be sitting on a beach in the Canary Islands surrounded by beautiful femininas (hopefully). I'm a God Damned Baller. And judging by the weather, it looks like the rain in Spain does lie mainly on the plain.

Latest sketches

From the shore last week. I got a suggestion from a friend to do some aerial perspectives, so I gave it a shot. Going to start to do more sketches with people in them. Might as well practice drawing people at the same time as buildings. It's like every architect who goes on vacation and then shows their friends their pictures. The friend is surely always disappointed. "It's all buildings... this is boring. Where are the people pictures?"

Skateboards

Along the same lines as yesterday's post, I was thinking about skateboards recently. I saw a guy in the city yesterday; probably about my age riding a skateboard. I think my generation grew up at the height of skateboard popularity. Early nineties everyone had to have a skateboard. And then you finally got one and realized it wasn't really all it was cracked up to be; kinda hard to ride, wasn't easy to do any of the cool tricks, and the ride wasn't as smooth as you would have wanted it to be. Not to mention it tires out each leg individually quickly. But as a kid, you could ride it to your friends house or maybe to the pool which was fine. As an adult, you can't really ride it anywhere. I guess I should rephrase that; You can't ride it anywhere that a respectable adult would go. Can't ride it to work. Can't ride it to a bar. Can't ride it to a store. You gotta lug it around, watch it, make sure no one trips over it. And those long skateboards... no better. The only real cool place to skateboard is in your driveway. Credibility as an adult goes out the window with a skateboard. Let's keep it with the kids.

Wallets

Not sure when this was cool, or if it ever really was cool, but I don't understand people who wear those wallets with a chain attached to it. I have a friend who I deem as a pretty respectable guy but he has his wallet on a chain. Puts him down a peg in my book. Are people really losing or dropping their wallets all that much that they need to chain it to their belt loops? And doesn't that make it easier for someone to steal your wallet? Can't they just grab the chain and rip it off? Didn't anyone ever tell them, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link? Pretty sure your belt loop is the weakest link. I can't see the reasoning with it. I can see it if you want to seem like a 13 year old. If that's what you are going for, I think that's the easiest way to achieve that.

Select a Size

A few months ago I accidentally bought some select-a-size paper towels. Pretty sure the only size I have been selecting is "regular size."

Parties

When a friend tells you he just got an invite to go to a house party at the shore and it's all girls at the house, it's never all girls at the house. It's too good to be true is what it is. Everyone knows that when a friend says there are going to be tons of girls at a party that's never going to be the case. Once that word is out, it's too late. Every one of those girls guy friends already got the word and invited at least three of their guy friends. It makes me wonder if that's how girls work. Do they tell their guy friends that they are having a party with a ton of girls just to get guys to come out and thus kill the vibe of the party? That never works in the opposite way. I could never tell a girl friend that I was having a gigantic sausage party and therefore they should come over and invite all their girl friends. Just doesn't work. It leads me to believe that all parties somehow turn into sausage parties. Unless its a dinner party with couples. Kinda makes me want to have a dinner party with couples and make sausages just for the hell of it.

New Sketches

Did these in the last week.



Academy of Music


Drury street looking toward McGillins old ale house

Collingswood farmers market

someone should buy the whole collection from me ;)
http://www.etsy.com/shop/garlicisgood