Wednesday, December 14, 2011

New Website

Hello the internet,

In case you were wondering what I have been doing with my life since I decided not to move to Hong Kong three months ago (yes, I was thinking about moving to Hong Kong), mostly, I have been sitting around eating salad and doing yoga. When I wasn't partaking in those mesmerizing activities, I was updating and improving my portofolio site. So, I present to you, sweet internet, the new and improved saharbaharloo.com.



When you visit saharbaharloo.com, you'll see amazing masterpieces like this Oregon themed wedding invitation:


And a lizard playing the mandolin. I sliced a sizable chunk of my thumb making it.


Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Trash-ures

I love finding treasures in the trash. Sometimes I find one of those awesome Tibor Kalman MoMA umbrellas and other times, I find an unopened box of aluminum foil! A part of why I like to "shop" in the trash is because I am cheap. Mostly, however, I enjoy found, scrounged, and thrifted objects because I can have cool, unique objects without actually having to pay much (or any) money. There is nothing worse than going to a cafe halfway across the world to find they are using the same Ikea cushions that you have on your couch at home. Okay, actually, there are literally several billion things worse than that, but you get the general idea.

My main inspirations for snatching up things I find in the trash are my parents. My dad, Mort might own several tuxedos and live in Houston's weirdest mansion, but many of his favorite art pieces have been literally pulled out of dumpsters. I am using the term "art piece" very generously here, but when you take a child-sized, filthy Barbie doll with a shaved head from the garbage and then accessorize her with a pith helmet and purse with a baby alligator sewn upon it, you have made a piece of art. Oh, he also found a Barbie a "husband" in the trash in the form of a particle board cutout of a CGI-ed teenager wearing sunglasses.

My mother used to flip houses and would often have to go to the dump. When she would go to the dump, she would often bring stuff back with her. Once she brought back a ceramic sink and installed it into one of her houses, so if you bought a formerly foreclosed house in Sugarland, Texas in the late 1990s, it might have a dump sink in it. She once brought me back a lime green 1970s shag carpet. Then she realized what she had just done and promptly took it back to the dump. I love my mom for that. She can try to find potential in a discarded shag carpet.

When I was 18, I left home to attend Reed College in Portland, Oregon and there, I was exposed to many new things like tempeh,  alternative strippers, and dumpster diving. One evening during my first semester, I was lying belly down on our dorm couch reading Herodotus or something, when my friend Punk Justin threw a loaf of bread at my head. I was like, "Dude!" And he was like, "Hey! I'm trying to share! It's from a dumpster!" He was always trying to shock me because somehow I was the most conservative person he knew at the time. He was the first person (but strangely not the last) to call me a speciesist and he was always running around naked.

I met many colorful characters during my time at Reed. There was an abundance of hippies there always declaring things "commie" or "communal," which was their way of saying, "You have to let me eat that leftover hummus." There is even a whole area of the dining hall at Reed reserved for the Scroungers, called the Scrounge. The Scroungers are a group of students who didn't buy a meal plan and would eat everyone's left overs. The Scrounge even had their own column in Reed's always disappointing newspaper, The Quest. I think that someone even made Scrounger Trading Cards one year. Most of the Scroungers were grateful and polite. They would always get excited when I brought them my half-eaten taco salad shell. Some were bitchy and rude if you brought something not to their liking and you sort of wanted to retort, "Dude. You are literally eating garbage. Shut your mouth." If there was a lot of an item left at the Scrounge uneaten you knew to avoid it because it was gross. Also, the Scrounge were the main cause of the spreading of colds.

Anyway, enough of this preamble, want to see some stuff I have that came from the trash? Yeah you do!

The Trash: The World's Cheapest and Least Exclusive Gallery! 

I like the idea of living in a place decorated with original art work, but at this point in my life my main source for these pieces is the garbage. Luckily, I have lived and continue to live with people who are cool with displaying trash paintings. 



These two paintings were found around our neighborhood in Brooklyn. I found the one on the right walking back from yoga once day. I wasn't sure if I really wanted it when a 50-something man with a ponytail sporting a beret, walked by me with his thumbs up, wisely nodded and said, "Take it!" I took that as a sign. The one on the right, my old roomie Mike found somewhere. We put it up upside down because it looked less stupid that way. 




This painting is actually really well done. Sorry the photo I took of it sucks. It is on top of the closet door and I couldn't reach it. Mike found it on a seat of a bicycle. How nauseatingly twee is that?

This next painting I found in the trash area in our building. Catherine, one of my roommates, said it looked like a girl trying to look like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. I think it looks like an emo kid so into Yokio Mishima or anime or whatever that s/he decided to commit suicide by getting engulfed by a The Great Wave off Kanagawa.



You might notice, as I did, that many of these trash paintings feature the same terrible shade of midnight blue. My theory that that is the blue that just comes out of the tube. Using the blue straight out of the tube is the best way to tell if a painter really knows his or her craft. 


Okay, I want you to prepare yourselves and mentally ready yourselves to be exposed to the world's very best trash painting!


Are you ready????


Here it is!

This lovely damsel was given to me for my 24th birthday when I was still living in Portland. My dear friend Sam found it in a pile of really pathetic landscapes in someone's yard. This is one of my all time favorite gifts I have ever received in my entire life. Look at those demure, yet large nipples! The amorphous blobs for hands! The weird train/tail thingy! And the stars! Oh the stars! We were nervous bringing it into the house initially since the cats were obsessed with it and that is rarely a good sign.
 
The Trash: Sometimes You Find Shoes Your Size in It! 


Sometimes people are weird about thrift-store clothes. My Iranian grandmother used to literally pray to Allah that I wouldn't get some weird disease from my thrift-store clothes. I should probably not tell her about the couple pairs of shoes I swiped from someone's trash while I was drunkenly staggering home from karaoke one night.


Everyone should own red cowboy boots at some part of his or her life. It's one of life's less talked about pleasures. And the following shoes are just so joyful and juvenile and I love them despite never actually having worn them.



Taking shoes from a stoop in Greenpoint, Brooklyn is not as bad as thing my friend Liz does on a regular basis. I once complimented her shirt. She told me that the week prior she was biking home and saw some pink thing in the gutter. She stopped to pick it up, decided it was her size, washed it and now wears it. So, yeah, some of her clothes are literally from the gutter.



The Trash: Your Stop For Affordable Home Furnishings!

Furniture is expensive and there is only so much CB2 you can persuade your parents to buy for you. So why not just start grabbing things from the garbage? I found my super cute night stand getting rained on by someone's recycling. I took it home and now it holds all my unread issues of Harpers and the Believer.





I found this pot in the garbage, where I should put that dying Christmas cactus. Yes. I somehow killed a cactus. Those other cacti look fine, though, right? I should not be allowed to have plants.



The following lamp is one of my prized possessions. When Eric left New York to go "find himself" or "take pictures of lichen" or whatever he was doing in Montana, he gave away most of his belongings. He told me to take this lamp because I like ugly things. It is one of the most lovely ugly things I have ever had the pleasure to look upon.


Friday, October 21, 2011

Tim's Lentil Mix Tape


Apparently, about a year ago, I got drunk and started babbling. One of my favorite topics of conversation, both sober and intoxicated, is lentils. I fucking love lentils. They are by far my favorite legume. They are easy and quick to prepare, and nutrient rich! They also have a nice shape, not all awkward and oblong like, say, navy beans. Anyway, while I was babbling incoherently about lentils, I promised one of my top five friends, Tim, that I would make him a "lentil mix tape." And since Tim is obsessed with beans, I had no choice but to make good on my promise.

Here you go, Tim. Here is your lentil mix tape.


Track One: Lentil Soup 

The best kind of soup is the kind you just make out of whatever. I love making soup because it is more about intuition and less about following a plan. That's my favorite kind of cooking.

The Minimum of What You'll Need:
  • a couple of cups of lentils
  • neutral oil or butter
  • 6-8 cups of water (You could use stock, but the only stock I like (that doesn't feel all, for lack of a better word, plastic-y or like a chicken who is made out of aluminum) is stock I've made myself and that is rarely worth the effort)).
  • some garlic
  • like three carrots
  • some celery
  • a can of chopped tomatoes
  • a bayleaf
  • paprika
  • salt and pepper
Nice Things to Add If You Have It:
  • parsnips, turnips, etc
  • fresh parsley
  • kale
  • spinach
  • turmeric/cumin/etc if you want to make it more Middle Eastern-y
  • basil/oregano/dill if you want to make it more European-y
How To Make It
  1. Chop up the onion and garlic and cook these guys up in the bottom of a large soup pot
  2. When the onion and garlic starts getting aromatic, add chopped celery, carrots, salt and pepper and whatever powered spices you plan on using.
  3. When the celery and carrots start to soften, add the lentils, bay leaf, dried or fresh herbs, and enough water to cover the mixture and more depending on how "brothy" you want it to be.
  4. Now you just wait until until the lentils get soft. You inevitably will get impatient and take about 15 sporadic sips of soup during this period. This is when you will realize you didn't add enough salt in the beginning. So add some more salt.
  5. When the lentils are almost perfectly soft, add the can of tomatoes (with the juice) and the softer veggies, like spinach.
  6. When your spinach wilts, eat your goddammed soup! With a grilled cheese sandwich! 
Track Two: Lentils with Rice and Caramelized Onions

I would like to claim that I made this up, but it is totally from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. I make this so often that one of my roommates starts groaning when she sees me making it.  It is a great dish to make when you are running out of money!

The Ingredients
  • two cups of lentils
  • one cup of long-grain basmati white rice
  • two onions
  • one tablespoon of cumin
  • half a head of garlic
  • salt and pepper
How To Make It
  1. Chop up one of the onions and the garlic and cook them up in a medium sauce pan with a sturdy lid. When the veggies are aromatic, mix in the cumin and salt and pepper.
  2. Mix in the lentils and add enough water to cover the lentils by an inch or so. Cover and let cook for about 45 minutes, until the lentils are soft.
  3. When the lentils are soft, add the rice and pour in enough water to cover the mixture by an inch or so. Cover, reduce the heat to simmer, and wait for the rice to soften (about 20-30 minutes). If the rice is soft, but there is still a lot of liquid, that is okay. Just uncover and increase the heat and let the excess water evaporate.
  4. While the rice and lentils are cooking, it is time to caramelize the onions. Caramelizing onions is magical! You take this harsh, tear inducing vegetable and with a little butter and heat, it becomes sweet like candy, but better! I wish there was onion-flavored candy …  Anyway, put the elegantly sliced onions with butter or oil on medium heat and stir it enough that your fire alarm doesn't go off. When the onions are all brown (but not burned up!), put them on some paper towels to soak up the extra oil. You don't want to get heart disease!
  5. I like to eat this with plain yogurt and the following salad: cucumber, onion, mint, tomatoes, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and olive oil all tossed together. Make this while the rice is cooking, so it has time to marinate. it is the sort of thing that tastes better over time. 
Track Three: Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie 

My mom, who is also obsessed with beans, made up this recipe on one of those Dutch winter days, when there is like three hours of sunlight and your feet are cold and you can't imagine a life where you could go outside while wearing shorts.

What You'll Need
  • a cup or two of lentils
  • butter
  • a handful of shallots
  • garlic
  • a couple of potatoes
  • one or two sweet potatoes
  • milk
  • sour cream
  • Gruyere cheese
  • salt and pepper
How To Make It
  1. Preheat your oven to 350 and start boiling some lentils and the potatoes. You can just stab and microwave the sweet potatoes. It is a strangely satisfying to stab a sweet potato, so I suggest that route.
  2. In a skillet or what-have-you, start cooking those shallots in butter until they are soft.
  3. When the lentils are soft, throw them in with the shallots, stir it around, and salt and pepper it.
  4. When the potatoes and sweet potatoes are cooked, mash them up together with sour cream, milk, salt, pepper and whatever you like to put in mashed potatoes.
  5. Take a casserole dish and layer it with the lentil/shallot mixture at the bottom, the potato mixture in the middle, and top it off with a generous layer of shredded Gruyere.
  6. Bake it until the cheese is golden and crispy and eat it with a green salad or vegetable so you can digest this thing properly.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Appealing Things.

Things that People Seem to Enjoy that I Do Not Understand the Appeal of

Video Games
Sports
Burning Man
Camping
Family Guy
Cormac McCarthy
Tempeh
Paul Thomas Anderson
Grizzly Bear
Channing Tatum

Things That I Used To Not Understand the Appeal of and Then I Came Around Later in Life

Dogs and Cats
Yoga
Poetry
Vegetarianism 
Clogs
New York City

What M Was Doing Instead Of Working

M works for a fancy-ass branding firm and her boss just quit, so you think she'd have more actual work to do. Nope. This is what she's been doing. I don't know what she does on a day-to-day basis (other than talk to me on G-Chat about cute European boys), but I think this is a good use of her time.




Thursday, September 8, 2011

Famous Guys Playing Pop Songs With Guitars

John Darnielle Playing Ace of Base



Because he is singing this song with the same style and vigor as, like, this one, you might mistake lyrics like, "Life is demanding without understanding" as deep and meaningful. You might feel the urge to put it on your record player and wallow, staring at the ceiling, teenager style and writing the words over and over on the outside of your pre-calculus notebook.

Jeff Tweedy Playing the Black-eyed Peas



I love this video for many reasons, one being that he looks like he is going to crack up at any point. He is unpacking the ridiculousness of the song by just stating what the lyrics are.  מזל טוב

Ted Leo Playing Kelly Clarkson 



This is an oldie and I don't know if people care about Ted Leo anymore. You just need at least three things to make a list.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Why Texas Is the Best!

It often surprises new friends and acquaintances to learn that I grew up in Texas. I don't have an accent because I intentionally lost it when I was twelve and my Seattle-based aunt made fun of me for saying "y'all." Despite growing up in Houston the most car heavy place in the entire galaxy, I never got my driver's license because I don't trust myself not to crash into shit and kill myself, or worse, someone else. Now that none of my immediate family lives in Texas anymore, I go down very rarely. I doubt I'll ever live there again and I am okay with that.



But you know what? I still think that Texas is the best fucking state in all of the United States and Canada. I don't care that Alaska and Ontario are bigger or that California has more people or that Oregon is actually the the most lovely and pleasant place I've ever lived, in my deepest lizard brain I believe Texas is the best.

Here are my reasons:
  • Best BBQ
  • Armadillos
  • The shape is the best in the US.
  • Every single person in the world has heard of Texas.
  • It has lots of money and a fantastic economy and an entrepreneurial spirit without being cut throat.
  • It used to be its own country and has so many flags.
  • It has the best flag currently! So good, that Chile copied it poorly.
  • It is very populous and diverse (and obese, so if you do not agree Texas is the best, we will sit on you until you suffocate).
  • When you are in space, you literally address Houston, TX. When you have a problem, you don't say "Pittsburg, we have a problem."
  • It has fire ants, which are the most bad-ass ants and water moccasins and alligators who will eat you because they are Texan and bad-ass.
  • Tex-Mex is a thing. Have you heard of an American regional cuisine that is this famous? No, you have not.
  • You can be deep in the heart of Texas, you can't be deep in the heart of like, Ohio. That would be lame.
  • You could wear cowboy boots there everyday and not look crazy. That is the sort of thing I value.
Yes, I know that nothing in my crazy list makes any sense or provides proof that Texas is the best. But why you love things and people has nothing to do with logic. Your mom is the best mom in the world because she is your mom, your friends are the best friends ever because they belong to you. You can use circular logic when you are talking about things and people you love. It's totally within your rights.

Bonus! Something Embarrassing!

Up until a few months ago, I believed that Texas was the size of the moon. When I mentioned this in a conversation about how Texas is the best state in the United States, my friends pointed out that this made no sense and asked where I got this information. I had and still have no idea. It was just something I believed to be true. Eric tried to find something pertaining to this on the internet and this was the closest thing he could find. He also made this animated gif.



If you are curious, the moon, in terms of surface area, is about the size of Africa. I asked someone who had recently completed her PhD in Geology from Oxford because this is the sort of shit I bring up when I am talking about smart people.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

EXTREME! EXTREME! EXTREME!

Hurricane Irene is scheduled to hit New York City sometime tomorrow. I have been freaking out about it like the anxious dork that I am. I have a flashlight, radio, extra batteries, two gallons of water, rubber boots, a vintage raincoat with whales on it, a bucket, a box of Cheez-Itz and like 10,000 Kashi granola bars. I should be fine. But it got me thinking about extreme weather and that got me thinking of extreme things.

EXTREME BALLADS!!!



I remember hearing this song as a small child and thinking that their name must be ironic.

EXTREME POODLES!!!



Yes, that poodle is supposed to be a peacock. There are so much more EXTREMELY depressing poodle follicle abuse here.

EXTREME EXISTENTIAL CRISIS DEEP IN THE EXTREMES OF THE AMAZON, THE MOST EXTREME PLACE ON EARTH!!! EXTREME!



I love how EXTREMELY German this man is.

EXTREME WEB DESIGN

This is so horrible that it is almost beautiful. I wonder what their site map looks like.

EXTREME CUTENESS


AWK. LOOKING AT THIS MAKES ME WANT TO DIE. In a good way!

MOUNTAIN DEW!!!



Using the qualifier, EXTREME, with Mountain Dew would be EXTREMELY redundant.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

I'm Not a Comedian.



A few months ago after my friends' comedy show, I met some nice comedians who didn't know me very well. They suggested I take a free improv class. I was like, "Yeah, that's never going to happen. Like. Ever."

Let me explain. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with improv. Despite what I might have said in the past, I don't think improv is stupid or that all comedians are on the Autism Spectrum lurching around the UCB theater wearing baggy soiled black sweatpants. Some of my best friends are improvisers! Some of them are upstanding members of society even. But improv is something that I have no interest in for the following reasons:

1. I would be very bad at it.
Improv is hard. Most people aren't very good at it.

I am very shy and I have terrible stage fright. I've never been a performer. I've always been creative, but a I-am-going-to-make-things -in-my-bedroom-that-I-may-not-show-another-person-while-listening-to-the-entire-69-Love-Songs type of creative. In design, if I make something ugly or bad, I don't have to show it to anyone. I can trash it and start over. Improvisers don't have that luxury. Once you make it, it's out in the universe even if it sucks.

2. I have very high self-esteem.
Self-explanatory.

3. If I had the time to do improv, I'd be doing these things:
  • Learning to brew beer
  • painting a picture of a dinosaur (on my list of the goals for a the year)
  • the Sketchbook Project
  • updating this blog that you are reading right now
  • Taking a beginners German class
  • Getting through an entire Godspeed album
  • Trying to get through the first five pages of ffffffffffound.com
  • Figuring out if my printer being electrocuted is covered by its insurance policy
  • Cleaning the bathroom
  • Watching Jane Eyre with Michael Fassbender as Mr. Rodchester over and over while dramatically fanning myself.
  • Updating my portfolio site with better work.
  • Figuring out how to use webfonts
  • Finding a new cool bar/restaurant/cafe/store/desolate alley way in my neighborhood.
  • Washing my sheets/towels (which no one does enough. We are all disgusting).
  • Starting my Pretentious Book Club
  • Experimenting with watermelon in savory salads.
  • Reading anything from this series.
  • Flipping through the 15832 back issues of Harpers/Monocle/Wired that are littered around my bedroom.
  • Sleeping

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Miniaturisations

I love miniature things. I think most people do, even fancy people who have solo exhibitions at the Whitney, like Charles LeDray. I was fortunate enough to get to see that show last winter and I freaked the fuck out. I loved it so. If you are unfamiliar, here are some examples:


Overcoat, 2004

The whole thing is only about two feet high. The next images is a shot of his miniature dry-cleaners:



Enough about LeDray. Last year I shared a post with you guys about my personal collection of miniatures. Since then, the collection has expanded significantly. Catherine, my roomie and owner of the miniature dog Coco, commissioned her handy brother to make us a miniature set of shelves to hold my collection. Here is the collection all together:



An Abacus that Fell Off a Key Chain



Saw Letter Opener


Quite a few things from the current collection were actually purchased and given to my father (Mort) by my sister (Yassi) for Christmas last year. He decided that they'd be better off living with me on my self. This is one of those things.



Para
Lavar Los Dientes Pequeños

Mort brought back for me and my sister teeny oral hygiene kits from his trip to Mexico this month. They included one small tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush, and a sketchy flossing devise. Each kit cost one peso.



A Tiny Violin

This is the instrument that is played when one complains about something that isn't a big deal in the grander scheme of things.



Compact Grater

I think this is actually for nutmeg. Once I used it with fresh ginger.



Petite Pencils

This was also purchased for Mort. I wonder if you could find a sharpener small enough!





Tiny Tabasco

I bought some friend chicken I didn't actually want to eat just for this bottle.



Wee Shoes

These came from my favorite store in New York City (after B&H), Fabulous Fanny's









If you are interested in seeing more teeny-tiny (or great big) stuff, check out my superfriend, Hanae's tumblr: things of unusual size.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

In Defense of the Mediocre, Crass, and Shitty

Last week, I had the fortune to see X-Men: First Class. This is not a good movie. In fact, it was a very bad movie. It didn't make sense, was kind of sexist, and had January Jones in it. But, you know what? I loved every fucking second of it. I would see it again. Shit fuck. I'd see it again in theaters. It was silly, funny, and sexy. Case in point: Michael Fassbender. This gentleman knows how to wear a wetsuit and how to dramatically mime moving, like, a bunch of missiles through grand gesticulations.

Fassbender tangent:


That is not from the movie, but who cares? It is awesome for reasons other than pure handsomeness: single tear, eyeliner, neck tattoo, blouse.

Anyway, my point of my blog post is this: Sometimes things that are stupid and poorly executed can bring you an immense amount of joy. I wanted to explore this idea so, I invited some of my favorite people to share their stupid shit that they love. These are all very attractive, intelligent ladies who excel in their fields of choice, but for whatever reasons have terrible taste when it comes to certain things.

Caitlin: Terrible Taste in Music

There comes a time in your adulthood when you decide to stop trying to be cool. Yeah, you could still mark in your calendar when the Typhoon LP comes out or you can be honest with yourself and be like, I just be like, "Nope. I just want to listen to the same Katy Perry song on repeat." Caitlin ascribes to the latter ideology and I think her life is better because of it.

Caitlin hosts the best karaoke night in all of Brooklyn and I think this might dictate her taste in music. It's more fun to sing TLC than Leonard Cohen. Here are her favorite bad songs right now:

1. Britney Spears "Hold It Against Me"



What Caitlin has to say about this: "This song is SO CLOSE to being BRILLIANT. I'm serious. It's a dancehall trashy pop song about cheesy pick-up lines. Unfortunately she only uses two lines, and I wish the song had like, 47, but whatever." Yeah, it's not even one of Britney's good songs. If you don't believe Britney ever had a good song shut your mouth and stop being such a snob.

2. Shots by LMFAO featuring Lil' Jon



Sigh. This song is the bane of my existence. Ever since it was introduced to my group of friends (as an example of a terribly executed, fucked up non-nonsensical misogynistic song), they sing a version of this song to explain every situation we are in. For example, if say the G train finally shows up, someone will sing "Train train train train train..." It is horrible. This is why Caitlin likes it, "The best part of this song is hearing Lil' John give a shout out to 'Lemon Drops.' Dude, that is not street at all."

Also this clean version is hilarious because instead of "fuck" they say "butts." So if you got no money get the butts out the club. But for some reason saying that if you give a woman some shots her panties will hit the ground is perfectly acceptable to be heard by all ages. Blerg.

3. A Tie Between "Peacock" by Katy Perry and "S&M" by Rihanna



This song is what I call a single entendre. So Katy really wants to see this guys weiner. I put up the lyrics video because the lyrics are really the best part. My favorite line is "I was so unprepared." Caitlin has this to say about this song, "I've never heard anything so stupid. I guess I can't really defend this one."



I'll let Caitlin explain this one: "It is only song where I have ever heard Rihanna sing with any emotion. Also, if the goal of this song is to make you feel dirty, they have accomplished it with Brittney's vocals. 'If I'm bad tie me down/Shut me up gag and bound.... me' Eeewwww." Indeed.

Irina: Terrible Taste in Movies

Irina grew up in Almaty, Kazakhstan and moved to the US as a teenager. Her experience of American pop culture is very different from mine. She says things like, "Every time I watch Catwoman with Halle Berry..." and I respond, "Stop. What? You do that habitually?" and she says, "Yes, of course!" She has also seen every movie with Keanu Reeves in it. Since I have not seen any of these movies (none of them have Michael Fassbender in them), I'll let Irina explain why she likes them in her own words.

1. Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead



This is an excellent terrible movie. The awful babysitter dies and the kids dump her body but it's a comedy, see and Christina Applegate who is 17 has to get a job so she FAKES her resume and become an executive assistant. Because that can happen in real life. And she doesn't get sued for anything just GROUNDED. Ah, this is good stuff. The fugliest male love interest is in it though. As if.

2. Catwoman

YouTube won't let me embed this video, but here is the clip.

Catwoman-This movie was hailed the worst Catwoman rendition ever and the least sexiest that Halle Berry has ever been. Uh, the former is definitely right, the latter come on??? When she orders a white Russian on the rocks sans vodka and the bartender is like "milk, straight up" and it looks the coolest thing ever and you get the urge to go to a bar and do the same but common sense holds you back. She looks fine as fuck. The trouble is that every time I see it I give myself a haircut. Once again the plot is idiotic. A fucking cat breathes into her mouth and she comes back to life. She saves the world from cream that maintains you looking young but is actually fucking killing you. The scene where she escapes out of jail, LIKE A CAT, by just squeezing through the rungs? It's soo bad. Listen I tried that shit okay, not only will neither of my ass checks squeeze through, our skulls are not malleable! Anyways, I love this movie. I love a girl in leather, who drinks milk, has commitment problems and eats tuna. Because at the end Halle Berry leaves Benjamin Bratt all alone. Bam. Like a fucking cat.

3. The Sweetest Thing

This video is NSFW sort of, mostly it is just dumb.



Okay, if you have taste or like cinema there is no reason why you should enjoy this movie unless you are me. This is probably Christina Applegate's and Cameron Diaz's worst movie EVER. The tasteless humor, awful styling, i don't even know what to say it's just god awful but you gotta watch it.

Rebecca: Terrible Taste in Television

Rebecca and I are BFFs, but our friendship is built on a foundation of our mutual interest in dumb things. We became friends in college because we would breaks from the library together to eat a lot of bad candy (Idaho Spud, anyone?) and talk about the holocaust. Anyway, one of the things we both love is really really bad TV. She can stomach worse stuff than me. These are her "favorites."

1. Seventh Heaven



How the crap was this show on for 11 seasons and (I am fully aware of how insufferable I must sound) Firefly got canceled after only 13 episodes? Joss Whedon must cry himself to sleep every night in a huge pile of money, just at the thought of it.

Also, they have like 10 kids, but none of them look alike.

2. Any Show with Shonda Rimes as Producer



Shonda Rimes is the woman responsible for a certain genre of television for women: ethically-questionable doctors who just have sex in supply closets and have terrible things happen to them. She created such tours de force as Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice (Grey's Anatomy in LA), and Off the Map (Grey's Anatomy in South America). It is very obvious that the actors, producers and writers for these shows actively hate these characters, as, I must assume, do most of the viewers. I chose the clip because it was from the not-well-thought-out musical episode that came out this season. They were right to have chosen to sing Snow Patrol because Grey's Anatomy is totally the Snow Patrol of television. Both are insufferable, melodramatic, nonsensical, and appear deep to dumb people.

3. The Mentalist




I have never seen this show. But it is nice to see that Robin Tunney has a job.

Friday, June 17, 2011

I need to update more

I need to update more lest you fine people forget about me. I have some new entry ideas that I will put up when I have a little more time. In the meantime, here is this insane tumblr that Davida (who is responsible for this, this and this) made. Basically, Davida and I are trying to have the most blogs ever.

Speaking of blogs, check out my weekly book blog at ArtAsiaPacific.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Counting Sheep.

My mom is an active member of the Amsterdam chapter of the Hash House Harriers, a world-wide group of drinkers with a running problem. They are putting together a bike race thing in Texel. They are famous for their sheep. So my mom asked me if I would design something for them to put on a t-shirt.

This was my process.



This was a very sophisticated sketch I made of what I wanted the sheep to be doing.

Then I brought into Adobe Illustrator and made this guy:



But I had forgotten to give him ears. Whoops. So I kept working.



I also added type and a windmill. Still he wasn't edgy enough.



He wasn't Dutch enough, so I added some orange clogs.



Then, I showed it to Mort, my dad. And of course he thought he wasn't getting enough attention as usual and requested his own sheep. Mort is not a very outdoorsy guy, so I changed his sheep around to fit his interests. His sheep is enjoying a Campari with soda while lounging on an Eames chair.



Edit: Mort wanted me to show some photos of his belongings to further explain his mid-century modern sheep.



Canes



Campari and other questionable liquors.



Research about sheep.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Must Love (Small) Dogs.

I told myself that I have to stop blogging about puppy dogs, but it has recently come to my attention that not everyone thinks Coco and Squirt are cute. This issue must be addressed. Let me refresh your memory. This is what Coco and Squirt look like:


Coco is lounging inside of a neck pillow.


Can Squirt's tongue be any pinker? Jesus Christ!

OMG! They are soooooo cute! LOOK AT THEM. SQUEEE!

Okay, let me pull myself together.

I really could not fathom it even being a possibility that someone would not love Squirt and Coco the wayI love them. I was naive enough to think that even people who have described Coco as being, "part ferret, part dung beetle" really love them in their deepest hearts. This was until, over a course of an hour or so, my dear friend explained to me in great detail why he does not like Coco. I finally got the message.

Some of his reasons were:

1) She is too small.
2) She has lost most of her hair due to being inbred.
3) She cannot exist in nature.
4) Her eyes protrude from her head.
5) She is usually wearing a sweater.

I thought this was just this guy and that he just had no heart, but sadly, other people have come forward and admitted to me that they don't really think these little guys are that cute, despite all the unconditional love and snuggles they offer. This was further solidified in my mind, when I forward the following picture to a friend.



Instead of saying, "OMG! He is soooooo cute! LOOK AT HIM. SQUEEE!" The response I got was, "ew."

What I want to do now is unpack exactly why Derek — yes, the Chihuahua shown here is named Derek— is cute. Here we go:

1) His name is Derek.
2) His head to body ratio.
3) His ear to head ratio.
4) His leg to body ratio (How does he support himself with such little legs!?)
5) The size of his body in relation to the pavement stones.
6) The "Hey what's up? I am just taking a walk all nonchalantly even though I am an adorable chihuahua" expression on his face.
7) He lives in the Netherlands. It shows strength of character for a chihuahua to live in such a northern climate.

Some people just hate small dogs for ideological reasons. But before you large dog-fascists write my little friends off, ask yourself the following questions:

Can a gigantic dog lie comfortably on your tummy while you read a book?

Can you just grab a gigantic dog and force him to snuggle with you when you are feeling hormonal while watching a documentary on Netflix streaming about adopting Chinese orphans?

Can a gigantic dog fall asleep on your shoulder? And would it be comfortable enough for you to join in and nap yourself?

I get that people have differing tastes, but if you don't think this picture of my friend's pug, Zoey is wondrous, you basically don't have a heart.