Dinner at the Jo-tel

Reid cooked up a storm for the Jo-tel in early January. About 16 people, (and a few not of the Jo-tel, who promptly took off when some people lost their pants after the dinner, after drinks, after cards, and while dancing). It was a lovely night overall.

Thrill crushes garlic.


Mise en place.


Pecan encrusted chicken cutlets


Reid looks oh so pretty in Patsy's grandma's apron.


Enjoying the fruits.




S'mores for dessert.



Patsy cleans, because someone has to.


Cards and drinks.


Mark tells us how to play the game.

New Year's Eve in New York

Columbia campus at night, Reid and entertaning artist friend, Jay.

Reid took me to New York for New Year's, my Hanuka present from him. Much eating, drinking, crowds, sight-seeing, friend-seeing and inherent fun ensued. It was extremely crowded but we still managed to see a lot and get pretty toasted in the process.

Reid at Cuban restaurant in Hoboken, where we stayed at the "Barnum Estate," as my aunt called it; Reid's friend's house who happens to be related to PT Barnum. The apartment was above a morgue but I didn't see any ghosts.


Toasty brunch in Chelsea with crazy boys Jay and Reid



Jay and Reid in (unrelated) Cuban bar.

Vivolo's, Upper East Side restaurant on New Year's Eve. All couples under 60 (who were all in their 20s) were sat against the back wall.


Weird building on St. Mark's Place.


Reid in yet another cab driven by crazy man.


If it seems like I didn't take many photos, you're right. Reid took on the duty of trip chronicler and you can see many more photos here:

Reid's NY Photos

A pink tea room. Jay kept asking to stop for coffee and Reid ended up walking into the tiniest, pinkest, girliest tea shop on St. Mark's Place. Jay said "coffee shops up and down the block and you picked the gayest one on it!"
I had fun.

Christmas in Utah

Mom and the Zip.

Over the holidays I flew to Utah to be with my mom and step-dad on Christmas, ski with my brother and his girlfriend for one day (this did not happen), and then fly from Utah to NY for my hanuka present from Reid: a trip over New Year's.

It snowed almost every day I was in Utah which was fun and scary, because my mom was driving. We took my grandparents to breakfast on Christmas morning, when it had just snowed the night before. We went to IHOP, because it has curbs that are easy to get out on when it's icy, and because my grandparents are both in their mid-90s.

On the way back to their home, my mom spotted a "parking lot that just looks pristine and hasn't been touched yet!" and pulled into it and starting doing donuts (or trying to do donuts, her car wasn't having it even when my grandpa was saying, "Accelerate! Accelerate!"). My grandma and I were sitting in the backseat, my grandma teeheeheeing the whole time. It was a nice morning for a couple of Jewish girls and our Mormon grand/parents.



View from my mom's house Christmas Eve

Zipper gets a present. Mom teases Zipper.

View of mountain range from Mom's house.

Me and Zipper in step-grandma's fancy garden.

I walk every day

Every day I walk to work. I live off Grant and work off Grant so I usually take a straight walk through Chinatown. I see some interesting things and interesting people.

Today I saw this. The guy asked if I wanted the next shot to be me holding the pig and then he would take a picture. I said, no, really, I'm fine! and the Chinese butchers watching all laughed.


This one's for you, Nik.

A disgusting video???

I got this email from my mom this morning. It needs to be said that I have ended up in a very similar job to my mom (by complete accident). We're both interactive producers, and we both work with a lot of guys. My mom happens to work with a lot of Mormon guys.

This was the email:

"All the guys are sharing a disgusting video and they won't tell me what it is about...Do you know?"

Yes, mom, I do know. Let me be the one to explain two girls one cup to you, and to share TubGirl with you so that you might one-up your guy co-workers who won't share.

After I explained it to her she wrote back saying that she'd been imagining worse things. Worse things? and that "Mos LOVE nasty."

heh heh.

:)

A tank of gas, a camera, and a woman on the wide open road

Much delayed, here are some photos from my solo driving trip from Boulder, Colorado, back through San Francisco. Boulder to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Jackson Hole through the Grand Tetons to Yellowstone. Yellowstone through the Devil's Garden, Idaho, to Salt Lake City, Utah and the Timpanogas caves. Salt Lake City through the salt flats and through the endless desert, unknowingly past Burning Man and the early burned man, to Lake Tahoe. And finally, Lake Tahoe to San Francisco and Reid, who gave me bongos.

I had a good time and saw a few other solo women travelers, and though we exchanged understood smiles I didn't speak with them. Trips are always more fun for me with companions but if no one is available and you have the time, it seems better to still make the trip and do it on your own. At least it was for me in this trip. I did want to camp out but that seemed less wise than when Nicole and I went cross-country and slept on the sides of roads together on a plastic tablecloth. I went through a variety of cheap motels, arriving in the evening, having dinner, and leaving each day around 7am to have the road to myself.

Driving through cowboy country in Wyoming. Stunning. I thought I was already in a national park, but I was hours away.


Jackson (Hole), Wyoming. I made a split-second decision to take the road toward Yellowstone instead of going straight to Utah, which was hours out of the way but even though my trip turned out solo I still really wanted to see it. It was a fun cowboy town and I'll definitely go back to go down the river and see more wildlife. I went to a bar and accidentally bought a big drink and then found out it was happy hour and I got another free. Sat by myself in a noisy bar enjoying people-watching the bikers and wildlife guides get rowdy. Later had barbecue. Was tempted after my big drinks to get a fake old-timey photo taken but decided that would be one of those things that was more fun with other people and by myself it might be funny, but a little funny-sad.




The Grand Tetons (north of Jackson)



Yellowstone












A woman waiting for Old Faithful with her dog named Paxil "because he's my little anti-depressant!"




Yellowstone Grand Canyon






Devil's Garden National Monument, Idaho. The most depressing national monument EVER. After driving well out of my way and through 20 miles of permanent duststorms (there was a sign saying dust storms next 20 miles) I arrive at an eerie park full of signage about the destruction of the earth by humans. As if the scenery wasn't depressing enough. (note: the state of Devil's Garden is not due to human destruction but rather lava flows and explosions. The current hotspots that created the garden and the flat landscape of Idaho are currently under Yellowstone, causing the geysers and earthquakes there).











Utah: The Timpanogas Caves

A mile hike nearly straight up leads you to the mouth of these caves. Outside the temperature is in the 80s. Inside you need to wear a coat. You have to take a tour as they're afraid people will touch things. My tour was two couples, the guide, and me. There are tons of formations and a lot of it has to do with the fact that the valley of Salt Lake city was formerly an ancient sea. At one point our guide led us into a cavernous space called the "Crocodile Room" and asked us to try to find the crocodile trapped in the rock. We were all searching the ceiling with our eyes and our guide finally pointed out a rock formation that just kind of looked like a crocodile. A little. I couldn't see it. A guy in the tour said, "You gotta be smoking a lotta weed to see that!!!" The mollified and most likely Mormon guide admonished him by saying she guided a lot of kids who didn't need drugs to have an imagination and see the multitude of animals in the rock of the crocodile room. It was hilarious.





My mom and step-dad (he's carrying a concealed weapon here, as always)


The Great Salt Flats, near the proving grounds.

Loneliest pet area.


Trust me, I was really tempted to take my car out and see what that Camry is made of.




The salt sticks to your shoes until it's like you're walking on platforms.


Back to California through the Sierras: Lake Tahoe.
What a wonderful gateway into California. It was gorgeous. I stayed at the old Travelodge in Tahoe City and giggled to myself at breakfast listening to two old guys reading the paper and laughing about the man who burned the man early at Burning Man and why he was in trouble for burning the man early.


I have no photos of the bongos, but trust me, they're awesome.

Return of the Blog--Music Videos

I'm slacking on posting photos from both my solo trip cross-country and my triumphant return to beautiful San Francisco. I blame it on the fact that my apartment isn't heated and the blood has slowed in my veins to a state of hibernation.

Photos coming soon...

In the meantime, I wanted to share some of the official and consumer-generated videos I've been watching on Youtube. Reid inspired me as he uses Youtube as free background music by navigating to the artist's videos, but I've been intrigued by the visuals themselves.

Music videos have been dying a long and painful death ever since MTV canned them in favor of crap reality shows and then even the spinoff meant just for videos, MTV2, succumbed. The videos are no longer helpful to the companies, which is probably why all of them appear pretty low-budget. But sometimes there's nothing else than a tiny budget that can inspire creativity and reduce the conservativism that can come with a company shelling out a huge wad of cash for something they're banking on to make them money (like Jay-Z's million dollar video for "Big Pimpin'". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plUy7Me_fZQ

Could Youtube be a perfect showcase for music videos that otherwise wouldn't be seen? It's already proven itself as a go-to for popular ads.

Some creative videos... Of Montreal's video for "Gronlandic Edit"



...Architecture in Helsinki's puppet costume video for "Heart it Races"


and Arcade Fire's live video for Neon Bible, shot with the whole band in an elevator (side note--there are two "official" videos for this song, one of which is designed to be web-only and interactive, make sure to click around--http://www.beonlineb.com/click_around.html )


Of course, there are still some awesome songs with terrible videos, like MIA's "Paper Planes" (what is with the damn cash register?)


There are also a lot of user-generated takes on songs on Youtube, and many great ones, like this spaghetti-western take on Arcade Fire's "My Body is a Cage":


or this take on Soulja Boy's "Crank That"... better than the real video which shows Myspace, haha.


What will happen to the music video? I love the idea of an interactive video. Arcade Fire's is not polished, but the idea is so new... it could be taken to much greater lengths and this is a peek. Consumer-generated is also great.

I leave you with this visually disconnected techno remix of Soulja Boy's "Crank That" just cuz I like the remix (thanks, Reid)




* As a side note, I fully admit that my taste in music is heavily influenced by Reid and the Jo-tel (jo-tel.com) :) Without you guys, I'd be stuck with my current iTunes library.

on the road again...

I'm leaving the hated...well, not hated, but semi-disliked...boulder, colorado and am about to embark on yet another cross-country pre-job road trip. I'm rather excited about it.

First I'll be heading to Yellowstone, then we'll see where the road takes me. Maybe Portland, maybe Salt Lake City, maybe straight to San Francisco via Lake Tahoe.

Yay!

(yes this also means I'm moving back to SF. Let's get hyphy!)

Snap trap small