Monday, November 6, 2006

Recent travels, part one




So, a few weeks ago i went out to the east coast to visit Yan and Natasha, who live in Philadelphia. it was a great trip and i was really glad to see them both (it had been way too long.) Here's a bit about what i did while i was there.

I arrived in Philly around 9pm totally beat... flying always makes me feel a little gross. Yan picked me up at the airport, and we went back to the apartment. Once Natasha arrived, we went out for Gelato at Capogiro. OMG, it was AMAZING. I had Lime and Pineapple Mint. AMAZING. i wish they had these on the west coast.

Friday i got to sleep in, but Yan and Natasha had to head off to school. I woke up and watched Grey's Anatomy online... geeky, i know but i just couldn't wait another 5 days. Once that was done, i hit the road and went out walking all over Philadelphia. It was a little rainy in the morning but still bearable, so i walked to Rittenhouse Square, a really nice park surrounded by a pretty upscale neighborhood, the Shops at Liberty Place, which was just a mall, but was a nice place to get out of the wind and rain for a bit. Then I walked a looong way down to the Historic District and Liberty Bell Center, which had a crazy line. So i walked across the street to Independance Hall. Tickets were gone for the day, but i was albe to walk around the back and look around and take some photos.



My next stop was Ben Franklin's Grave, which was dotted with coins, which apparently brings good luck!. Then on to the National Constitution Center. I walked around the shop, but didn't feel like paying 9 bucks to go into the museum itself. Then I walked through the Independence Visitor Center on my way back to the Liberty Bell, which had a way shorter line than before! The exhibit was really well done - I actually stopped to read all the signs and look at all the little artifacts that they had displayed, instead of walking straight through to the bell. They had really cool old souvenier type stuff displayed, including a commemerative plate from the sixties that was awesome.



Of course, the Liberty Bell was amazing. There was a hysterical ranger there who kept encouraging kids to play games with him. it was weird since everyone was very quiet and reverential and he all of a sudden just started talking really loud.

After a long day i was ready to head back to the apartment, but didn't really feel like calling a cab, since walking would let me see a little more of the city. So i sucked it up and walked alllll the way back, with a quick stop at Starbs to refuel. I made it back about 10 minutes before Yan did, and when he got back we had a chance to talk for a little while, which was nice!
Yan and Natasha had made dinner reservations, so around 7 we were off to this AMAZING afghani restaurant called Kabul. The food was great, and we pigged out... but of course we left room for gelato (Chocolate Mint, Mojito, and Rosemary Honey Goat Milk)!

coming up next.... Saturday and Sunday in Philly!



Thursday, March 9, 2006

COLD.

IT IS SO COLD. i just want to know what the hell is going on. it's supposed to be spring soon! and i'm supposed to go to Idaho in 2 weeks, where it will undoubtably be colder than it is here. UGH. this just serves as proof that i could never live any further north than here.

BRR.

on a totally unrelated note, i am now toally obsessed with this cool photoshop trick - Tilt-shift Mini Fakes. all the pics on that link are actually REAL houses/cars/boats, etc. amazing, huh?

i've done a couple of these fakes, and already i've run out of good photos to use - i tend to take shots that point upward rather than down. i guess that's what happens when you're short! but here is my favorite one so far, from Disney's California Adventure.

tilt shift 5

Monday, March 6, 2006

Pimps at the oscars

Did anyone else see the performance of "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp" on the oscars last night??

truly compelling TV there. although i really don't think i've ever seen anyone so happy to win an oscar!
(yeah yeah, halle berry, blah blah blah.)

i'm sortof over the awards show thing though, i used to watch them all the time, but now they're just tired. plus i get mad that they cut people off during their speeches. it's like, HELLO, WE ALL KNOW this show is going to be ridics long, just let these poor sound editors and makeup artists who never get any credit except on this night thank their moms and their spouses and their co-workes.
GEEZ!

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

the dreaded 'sad ipod'

my iPod is broken. last night i sat here staring at my iTunes window as each song slowly, S L O W L Y loaded, and my poor purple iPod whirred and clicked way more than normal.

NOT OK.

this would be my FOURTH ipod. battery problems, hard drive problems, and the dreaded 'sad ipod'. and of course now i am out of warranty, so there will be no new, crappy refurbed ipod. I don't think one of them lasted more than six months.

i paid $400 for this thing!! I take good care of it, i don't drop it... it should last AT LEAST 2 years. and now i am hoping i can get it to load my library and that will be it. becasue it plays music just fine, but it wouldn't load. Then stupid me had to reformat so it might load my few new cd's.

anyway, as it was loading last night, and going fine, my computer randomly rebooted. also NOT OK, but that is a whole different story. Anyway, in the hopes of getting most of my music on the ipod, i've decided to clean house. I started out with almost 11,000 songs (and there are a few that need to be loaded into itunes). That is just too much music!! so i am cleaning house, deleting songs. it's liberating, deleting stuff i've gotten from friends that i jsut don't like! but it's hard - there are a lot of songs on here that are good, but will i really listen to them? can i bring myself to delete them? i'm not sure.

i figure i can back up some stuff i'm not sure about, and 'uncheck' some that i don't want on my ipod, but i'd like to get my library down to a manageable level. whatever that means. ;-)