Off the grid

I killed my computer last August after returning from Iceland and Amsterdam, when I tried to upload 40 gigs of photos without checking my available disk space. Since then, I've just done without, surviving with my work computer and iPad. Honestly, I don't miss it. At some point ill have to try recovering my data and buying a new computer, but in the meantime I've been enjoying this little sabbatical.

Oops

I haven't been posting, because I've been out enjoying the summer. Get off the internet and go out there! Not today though, I think there's a tornado in Brooklyn. My instagram's all clouds right now.

Antwon - Helicopter

Hipster rap for the summer

Curtains

Because of a certain orange cat's bladder stones, we need to replace our curtains. Our old cheap Ikea curtains were too long, but I liked the look of how they draped on the floor. Unfortunately, our cat thought they looked like a bathroom. We trimmed off the offending bottom part but now our curtains are too short and look awful.

I have a bad habit of getting obsessed with small, unimportant things. Curtains-wise, it's curtain rings. I have to have curtain rings this time – none of that stupid cheap ass grommet or "pole-pocket" caterpillar looking crap. This is mostly because I saw it in someone else's apartment and it looked really rich. I'm also obsessed with my apartment looking rich, although I'm sure actual rich people don't buy half as many fake-gold spray painted knickknacks as I do. The contenders are:

Chevron stripes are always great, but I'm a little concerned at how they look in the photo. They hardly look Chevron at all! They're all over the place.

I love these. I love the graphic print and the color (online at least) but my boyfriend gets one veto and he used it.

It might be hard to see, but these have PEARL TRIM along the borders. What's richer than that?? It's a little bridal though, and I hate wedding stuff. Also, a hard white will turn yellow, because we both smoke.

How cute are these – outline curtains! They're a little dark though, and I don't like to limit our light. There's a white version but it sucks.







Such a tough decision. Also, curtains not from Ikea are really expensive. And why do they sell only one panel at a time?? What kind of adults who are dropping $200 per panel just buy ONE curtain panel for a window? Maybe we'll just go to Ikea after all.

Fiona Apple

I wish my emo teenage self knew that in more than a decade, Fiona would still be around and still be so, so rad.

:(

I thought my girl just had a UTI, but when we took her to the vet, it turns out she has bladder stones. She might need surgery. We've already paid $800, and the projected total is around $3,000.

On our invoice, they listed her as a "senior." Eight years old is apparently a grandma kitty. I was offended for her.

I remember when we found her on the street – she was only a few months old, and we had only been dating about a year. It's weird looking back that we decided to adopt her together after so short a period of time together. She's always been my girl, even after we got Sebastian and Sebastian out-cuted her, because she was independent, not needy, and sharp as a tack. (Like me!) We're luckily in complete agreement about cost not being an issue when it comes to helping her.

She has a week's worth of morphine. I hope she's enjoying it.

MORE SUMMER!

My alternate life boyfriend, Sebastian Pringle from Crystal Fighters.

Summer tunes

I love that both Best Coast + Beach House came out with new albums in time for summer. I die for the Beach House, but Best Coast is kind of bumming me out. They need to evolve their sound, I feel like I've heard it all. But it still works for a barbecue!

New project

Embarrassingly enough, we've lived without a dining table for over a year now. We live like animals, eating in front of the TV, or in front of the computer, or standing up, (or out.) Our apartment has a funny layout, so we do have a little dining area that you walk through to get to the bedroom and the living room, but without a table it's basically a big hallway and we're wasting the space. We do have chairs, and they are stacked on each other, and we're wasting them too. 

But because it's NYC, the space is stupid small, like 8 feet wide and maybe 18 feet long. We already built a shelf along one wall, and if you go too far down you get near the restroom and bedroom. So we need a table that's basically very small, like less than two feet wide and not more than 4 feet long. There are hardly any tables that small, and when there are they are still something like $4-500. Which seems like a lot to spend on what's ultimately a temporary tiny dining table (one day we'll have space, right??)

So next project idea: a hair pin leg table! I know a ton of people who have made them for super cheap so it can't be that hard. If we could make our shelf, I think we'll be OK with this. I've already started the research and I think we can do it for under $150. Will post updates on this. 

(Map project is on hold until I can find glow in the dark string.)

Alabama Shakes

A great voice.

Shaun Kardinal

Shaun Kardinal is a Seattle-based artist who embroiders old postcards, among other things, that I came across in my blog browsing. There's something dreamcatcher-y and folk-artsy about them that makes me feel like I'm in some southwestern desert climate, isolated from the rest of the world and squinting at things from my dusty porch, instead of a perpetually adolescent dissatisfied corporate pawn who finds freedom in looking at things on the internet and drinking.

Project!

Awhile back, I had been inspired by this 2011 International Year of Chemistry poster. Inspired to do what? I didn't know yet.

Sometime later on a project, I was doing infographic research for work and came across Nick Felton's personal annual reports and bookmarked them. Among them was this cool kitty:

And then sometime after that, I had a little light bulb moment. What if I made a travel map? With pins and string, so it was like 3-D wall art? String is so in right now. (Tape is over, I think.)

After a few more weeks, I saw that Schoolhouse Electric sells giant maps for a totally reasonable price. I ordered the global one, and then the issue became how to start pinning. Because we live in the city and have moved every couple of years, I didn't want to just start hammering tacks into the walls – I wanted it to be a solid piece that could be moved easily. So I ended up spending hours and hours googling for a 3 ft by 5 ft frameless cork board. If you know anything about googling, you know that how you google makes a huge difference. Cork board that big is 1) incredibly hard to find, and 2) super expensive. Cork sheets, on the other hand...

So I bought a giant roll of 6mm cork sheet. (It's recommended to use a quarter-inch or thicker if you would like to pin things to it.) Right now, it's flattening with my map under some heavy books in our dining room. Will post photos when it's up!

Racism

Yesterday, I went to the local bar by my workplace that we go to pretty frequently. I went as part of a group, but most of the group was distracted by a certain Waffle truck, so only two of us walked in together. The bar has a strange layout, sort of long and narrow along the bar and hard to get through when it's full. As we squeezed by to find a spot to order at the bar, I passed a guy who looked at me, turned to his friend next to him, and said "I'm so sick of all these fucking asians at this place."

I had been in a good mood, and was pretty blitzed, but I was so taken aback and off guard that I laughed and we kept moving. "I didn't mean you!" he yelled, although it was pretty fucking clear that he did.

I sat there with my friend getting madder and madder at myself for not putting the douche in his place. The rest of our friends showed up, so I told them all, partially to hype myself up. Finally, powered by everyone and all the alcohol, I found him with his friends (they had moved to a table) and proceeded to lecture him on why making a racist "joke" comment to a stranger is super fucking rude and not cool.

He was pretty much a douche the entire time, insisting that he makes racist jokes all the time (??) about all different kinds of people (!!!) and it's not a big deal. And then my awesome colleague Bryan came over and got in his face, and I was worried it was going to get ugly but the guy backed down pretty quickly and admitted he was wrong and apologized.

It was funny in a way, and a great story to tell people, but I still feel a little astonished about the whole thing. It's so easy, especially in a place like NYC, to forget how other people can perceive your racial identity. Maybe it's shitty of me as a Korean, but I honestly forget I'm that Asian, and forget that I'm a minority here. Or that some people don't like "my people," who are basically millions of other people I look like and don't relate to at all. Being aware and sensitive of this difference is a really uncomfortable feeling. I'll always be different because I look different to some people, even if I grew up here, watched the same movies and had the same music, voted in elections and pay a shit ton of taxes. So, thank you, and fuck you, you douchebag. You win.

Things I learned in LA

1. "Classic" rap radio stations are the shit and NYC should have one.
2. Palm trees that have a gray beard-like thing on them are old.
3. Nobody will cross a street with a "Don't Walk" sign, even if there are no cars around.
4. Everyone drunk drives all the time.
5. Outside of NYC, people's friends are the douches they grew up with, and they never make new friends, they just get married and have babies.

Shangri-LA

Dieting.

I have always, always been one of those douchey people who look down on being healthy. I take a secret, kind of sick pride in my lack of willpower, as anyone who knows me in real life has seen when I've drank excessively or bought a new gold thing for my apartment (not real gold.) I once made the mistake of explaining to a dude I didn't know very well how I ate so much of something delicious that I threw up, which pretty much made him think I had an eating disorder, even though it was the opposite and I just have a really bad gag reflex. I don't have a gym membership. The last time I ran was years ago.

But with a wedding coming up, a certain pink dress and photos I need to be wearing it for, I started to feel nervous. Every girl thinks about her weight a lot, we just learn it's not really socially acceptable to talk about it openly. I mean, plenty of girls do, but it kind of sucks for everyone else around. And I started to feel insecure again.

Then this weekend, a friend told me all about how he and his girlfriend had started the Four Hour Body diet, by some guy who apparently writes all kinds of self help books (also famous for the Four Hour Workweek). Normally this is something I'd sneer at, but this friend who's opinion I usually trust insisted that it worked super fast. It was actually getting to the point where they'd both kind of lost too much weight.

Now, I didn't buy the book, but you can find everything about it for free. Basically you eat no sugar, and no carbs at all, not even brown rice or whole grain things. No tofu. Only certain cheeses, and no beer, liquor or white wine (this rule I need to bend). Meat, legumes, and non-starchy vegetables, and that's it. And then one day a week, you eat whatever you want, which supposedly spikes your metabolism so you don't starve to death.

I'm going to try it (as well as I can with no willpower) and see what happens. Hopefully I don't die.

Update: Eating all protein and no carbs destroys your alcohol tolerance. FYI!

The nsfw poker face

This isn't a new song, I just happened to think of the video recently and thought I should share it. It's awesome and one of my favorite videos ever. I don't know why nobody knows it and it's not on spotify but I wanted to share in case some people haven't seen it.

Is everything a remix?

Another question: How close is too close?

And here's one more question: How many more social sharing networks does the world need? All my friends like the same shit that I like. I get it by now!

And, my last and final question: Is anyone else suspicious that Everplaces launched not very long after the Stamped dudes got robbed at SXSW? (Totally kidding, Everplaces, I'm sure you didn't steal anything, please don't sue me. Does "kidding" work for fending off lawsuits? Another question...)

Everplaces

Stamped

Leadership

The first time I tried to watch the Kony2012 video, I x'ed out of the window at the first slow-mo shot of the earth with the melodramatic voiceover. I tried a few more times and eventually watched the entire thing with Andy. His first comment when the thirty minutes were over was "Wow, that was kind of irresponsible."

When this story broke, I'm sorry to say that my first reaction was Well, that's a surprise...but not really. A few months ago, a relative of mine had a massive manic episode that resulted in a court-ordered hospitalization. Up until that point he was the smartest, most successful person I knew in real life. He had come out of a less than ideal family situation into his own great family, until one day the stresses of his work life totally broke something in his mind, and made him go off on a very strange rampage.

I empathize a lot with Jason Russell, even though I don't know the dude and for all I know he could be some money/fame hungry right wing fundamentalist. The world is moved forward by people who are "delusional" enough to believe that they can have an impact, and it's always sad when you see someone walking the line fall on the wrong side of it. I always wish I was more of a leader, with the power to inspire others, but it's a lot easier not to be.

Gotye

Let's fulfill our emo quota together, yes?

Wayne White

Former art director Wayne White's awesome word paintings are some of my favorite things in the world. I have his book on my svpply and will buy it when I have money again.

Backup Plans

In first grade when you had to say what you were going to be when you grew up, and everyone said cool shit like 'astronaut' or 'superman,' I wanted to be an artist. Then I got older, and learned that when you identify yourself as an artist, it's socially acceptable to be mopey, oversensitive and have no willpower at all, and that sealed it. I'm not technically an artist now – but ballpark-ish, I like to think. So while it's a little alarming to even consider abandoning this giant part of my identity, I'm starting to feel more and more like I need a backup plan. I mean, I don't have much in savings, but I have a 401k. I'm going to be thirty soon (if the world doesn't implode,) and the idea of a safety net gets more appealing every year. So far, here are my backup plans:

1. Write a book
This one is kind of an old plan, obviously, since publishing has been tanking. But I do have a lot of really, really good stories from corporate life. Like, realllllllly good. I can't tell anyone in case I need this backup plan.

2. Start a blog (that's monetizable, not like this one.)
Young House Love is one of my favorite blogs, because I enjoy reading about things that I'll never do. It's a lot like my Martha obsession. But I also love how this super young couple created a thing that is totally driven only by themselves and can raise a kid on it. Some flaws with this plan are the self-promotion, which I'm really awful at, and doing something worth blogging about that doesn't have a thousand other blogs already. Hm.

3. Move somewhere outside of the states and open a B&B
This was going to be my number one backup plan, until I stayed in a B&B and talked to the owner who spent $3,000,000 on renovations and was dealing with some incredibly tactical, bureaucratic small town politics. The appeal kind of wore off a little after that.

4. Cat modeling?
If I could only train my cats...but they aren't as funny or active as Maru. Oh well.

Friday Night, Saturday Morning

I love Nouvelle Vague covers.

Really?

Sometimes I wonder like, if I'm just crazy, and I have no taste, and all the crap out there I think is bad is actually great, and all the design I think is great, is terrible. But then I come to my senses again.

Brand New on the Windows redesign

Update: There, I fixed it for you, so-called graphic designers. So, this is actually how much it actually bugged me. And I still hate the stupid window thing but I refuse to spend any more time on it.

The difference:

Aging ( and the mindfuck of glorious consumerism )

I recently had a lapse in self confidence and bought an eyeshadow kit from a mega mall brand, just so I could partake of the free skincare samples. I still get carded when I buy cigarettes, so there are at least a few deli owners in the world who think I look seventeen, which is awesome, but some tiny but permanent lines around my eyes and forehead were enough to make me reconsider my stance on skincare. Now that I've been using it religiously, I can't tell if it's making any difference but I definitely feel a little worse about myself.

There was also recently an epic and unflattering article in NYT magazine on mega brands and how they target consumers. The opener actually had something like a giant chain wondering, can we find out if a customer of ours is pregnant, even if she doesn't want us to know? And the bulk of the rest of the article went on to compare is to mice in a lab who get triggered by positive/negative reinforcement into behaving a certain way (behavior = purchasing things.) There are supposedly a few major life events that create big opportunities for companies to squeeze themselves into our wallets. Which sounds super sinister, but is it really? It's kind of what I do for a living, and we use all kinds of language to rationalize what can seem like an ethical gray area. The noble purpose of a brand, the genuine human benefit that companies at least claim to be driven by, can be stripped of all the insidious financial implications into a beam of light for our most primitive needs. My new anti-aging skincare products make women feel better about themselves, and make them feel like they have some control in a chaotic world. It can stall death, and provide a second chance now that you know more about life.

And we're all the same way, really. In one moment, completely self-sacrificing and benevolent, and in other, selfish and opportunistic. Is that moment of weakness really justifiable to condemn ourselves as bad people? I'm still conflicted. But in the meantime, my skin looks the same, and I'm glad I got those samples for free.

Iceland!

My awesome friends Kat and Steve are going legit this summer in ICELAND! It's actually one of, if not the hardest trip I've had to plan, since a group of us are going together and planning on sharing house rentals and cars and other expenses. Part of the group (including us) is also planning to tack on an extra few days in Amsterdam, thanks to Icelandair's layover deals. We wavered between a bunch of other cities, including Barcelona where another friend hails from, because it's so hard to know you'll be in Europe and a hop away from other amazing destinations. But eventually you have to remember that you A) don't have an unlimited budget, and B) don't have unlimited vacation days off work.

I'm mostly excited because, let's face it, Iceland looks like Mars. I know all cities are different, and I've enjoyed other major metropolitan centers, but there's something so amazing about getting a little reminder of how big the world is, how different things could be, how small your routine is, and how insignificant your mopey daily whine can be in a bigger picture. I  know everyone loves traveling – and probably the biggest part of that is waking up every day wondering how much money you can spend that day doing whatever you feel like – but there's another part of it that can act like a big reset button to help put things in perspective, and I think I need that.

'I FINK U FREEKY' by DIE ANTWOORD (Official)

I fink the world can be divided by those who love Die Antwoord, and those who hate them.

Citizens - True Romance

Citizens - True Romance

Mobb Deep

I was in a bar in Williamsburg tonight that played this song, and now hard core rap has infiltrated everything.

(hypo) critic

One of my favorite hobbies is hating on design. I'm a designer, and I love design, but any human being who spends so much of their lives making, looking at, talking about and agonizing over what's basically an abstract byproduct of our primitively evolved brains, can get a little self-hating.

There aren't really a lot of places to do this online besides Brand New. Total props to Armin of course, for his vision of a global design community, but its asinine comments and windbaggery can fill me with hate like not many other sites can, and I'm including things like youtube comments in my mind. I can ignore stupid shit: racists, other citizens of the seedier side of the internet, dumb videos and bad ads and made up "news" articles. But I guess I take design kind of personally.

I argued with other industry friends today about this corporate redesign of some place I've never heard of that sounds about as windbaggy as its design. Most of my friends liked it. I like the type I guess. As design goes, it's fine. There's certainly worse out there, but worse doesn't bother me as much as something that's "technically" appropriate and "well-done" but just feels heartless and empty and just shy of powerful in any way. I hate the idea. At least they didn't use Gotham. (Although they did use my other least favorite bullshit device in the world, QR codes.) It feels like a giant example of the sameness, the easy way out, and the risk-averse in our industry. Nobody wants anything new anymore, because new things are too scary and risky and not quantifiably profitable. And the last thing I want as a designer is to be expected to do something over, and over, and over again like a facsimile where you can't tell what the original was anymore.

But maybe I'm conflating something personal with the professional. Lately I've come to realize that most of what I expected to get out of work in the past ten years, I can't, or else it happens so rarely as to be hardly worth the pain. I'm really on the fence about if I can be totally justified in being disappointed by something as benign as this, or if I should seek some kind of religion.

Lurpak ad by W+K

Lurpak - Lightest from Blink on Vimeo.

Friends have been circulating this Danish ad for Lurpak. The art direction and editing are just phenomenal, and I know some people will make some snarky critique about food porn, but so what. There's nothing wrong with food porn!

I was super excited to see this and watched it like five times. I feel like lately it's so rare to see such sensitivity to visuals and the power they can have. I actually wanted to eat some vegetables after this.

Fuji Instax

Sonya got a new camera, the Fuji Instax. It's basically an expensive, analog Instagram. But it's real! So, if you'd like to spend a few bucks on each red-eyed shot of your besties, and who doesn't, you should check it out.

Opera

My friend Kat plays the clarinet in the Brooklyn Symphony orchestra, and last Saturday some of us went to go see them play with singers from the NY Opera Exchange at St. Ann and the Holy Trinity church in Brooklyn Heights.

They played a medley of what I guess are some of opera's greatest hits, my favorite by far being Der Hölle Rache Kocht in Meinem Herze (Hell's Vengeance Boils in my Heart, ha), from Die Zauberflöte (the Magic Flute) by Mozart. It's a technically impressive piece to see performed. I cannot imagine how opera singer becomes the career of choice for young people today, but it's kind of amazing that it still does. I hope someone makes a movie about it like Black Swan. I get incredible stage fright, but besides that, the traveling around the world and dressing like you're going to a ball all the time seems pretty cool.

I also have a terrible voice, the kind that nobody can ever hear and has no presence, so in bars or other noisy places I end up yelling till I get hoarse. Sonya keeps trying to get me to do an improv class with her, but I think I'd die from embarrassment. Maybe a singing class? Or at least a class on how to talk properly using your abdomen? I'd probably fail it. I thought I was super smart choosing a career in the visual arts, but now I'm expected to present, so I can't really escape the stage fright anyway.

Gimme by Donnis

Gimme feat. BSBD by DONNIS

via Sonya

One Bicycle

When we moved into our place, neighbors who share our hall space came over and kindly introduced themselves. They were a couple, and super nice and friendly. They had a ton of shit in the hall, which everyone seemed to think was some kind of bad neighbor etiquette, but which neither of us really cared about. I would see the guy once in awhile when we both came home at the same time and we'd say hi, but we never spoke or bonded beyond that.

Then recently, I noticed our hall was a lot emptier. There was only one bicycle now, instead of two. And then the other night, I bumped into him again coming into our apartment, while Andy stopped at the store to get cigarettes.

We talked a little more than usual, comparing apartments and rent and gossiping about our mafia landlord, and he mentioned that his girlfriend and he had broken up. Which I should have realized when the bicycle disappeared, but for some reason never did. There's that weird thing that happens when you meet a person as part of a couple, and you always think of them as a single, indestructible entity.

I feel like everyone I know lately is either getting married or breaking up. Which could possibly be because of the impending apocalypse, but I'm more inclined to feel like it's because we are just getting to that age. Ultimatums, the what-am-I-doing-with-my-life phase where you finally have some money or achievements but feel the same as ever. I like to pretend I'm impervious to influence about things like that, but obviously I'm not. I know we're different from everyone else and shouldn't compare ourselves. But are we really that different? Is there something really strange about feeling happy with someone but not wanting to get married, and not wanting to break up? Sometimes it starts to feel like there is.

Peso by A$AP Rocky

ASAP Rocky - Peso by Artifice Culture

While I'm usually furiously opposed to symbols and/or punctuation stupidly used to replace letters, I can't help but like this song. 

Year One

Last week was my niece's first birthday. I cannot believe it's been a year since I was so traumatized by a hospital room. And, only a year and a half since I cried for the first (and last!) time ever in an office I've worked in.

For a Hlivkova, she had a pretty Korean blowout. There was a bar with awful wine and a delicious full Korean buffet with random, un-Korean things like lasagna. The place was minutely organized to the millimeter, and the workers there had the precision of baby-related Navy SEALS. Although, the woman assigned to feed and care for my niece seemed to make her hysterical by being within ten inches of her, which did made us feel bad.

She did this traditional Korean thing where they put a bunch of objects in front of the baby, who chooses one (babies like to grab things after all), which determines his or her future. She grabbed a bowl of rice, but nobody really understood what it meant because it means something like money – which is confusing when one of the other things is actual money. There's also a pencil and other things I can't remember. Oh actually, they did let her pick a second thing, which was a golf ball. We understood that one even less. 

I think my parents forgot to do this ordeal for me, or else they would have saved up a little more for art school.

A Creepy New Year's 2012

For New Year's, we ended up going up to the Catskills to stay in a friend's relative's hunting house. We like to joke about this being our last New Year's Eve (2012 and all), but for such a beautiful area, it turned out to be pretty creepy.

The area seemed deserted. We hardly saw any other people or cars, although we did hear a lot of random gunshots from hunters. Maybe we watch too much Walking Dead, but it felt like the perfect setting for a zombiepocalypse.

Many of the barns we saw were complete wrecks, which added to the mysteriousness. I have photos of an apparently newly dead deer with its bloody ribcage exposed that I decided against sharing, since it was pretty gruesome. The best part were these trees that were planted in what looked like infinite rows for hundreds of yards. All the branches were cut off except for the very top, which shaded the underneath enough so that if you looked down any of the tree aisles it would fade to black and you couldn't see how far they went. We couldn't get close to some of the coolest spots because of all the giant NO TRESPASSING signs.

All in all it was a good time though. And now we know where to go next year when the inevitable cataclysmic apocalypse comes, to get away from all the future zombies.