we'll see...

Homer: (Walks by a GYM sign, but pronounces it gyme)
"Gyme, what's a Gyme?"
(curiously enters gym)
"Oh! A Gyme!"

what i did on a saturday night

i spent the night at home...
making my mom a birthday card.

sure it sounds kinda juvenile; breaking out the crayons and construction paper.
but i'm sure she'll like the card more than any hallmark card i could find.

although i didn't use construction paper or crayons for her card. in retrospect i should have, it would have given it a nice nostalgic touch to it. maybe i'll do that for next year.

so instead i opted for my standard bristol board, water colors, and india ink for line and ink work.

as for the concept i had nothing.
i couldn't figure out what to do for days.
usually the ideas just hit me, but this was a toughie. maybe it was because i knew it for was my mother, and i wanted to make it extra special.

i finally went for a traditional script type and incorporated chinese characters. the animals (cow, rat, and pig) was an after thought and my mom told me they were a group that went well together.

and this is the finished product... with of course the traditional trademarks of handmade michael cards in the back.

oh and i also drank a pint of red stripe. mmmm.

a present from me to me

i decided to buy a mp3 player. i didn't want an ipod... i dunno i guess i'm just trying to fight going apple and the norm. so here it is, the microsoft zune. (yeah i know it's ironic me wanting not be the norm but getting a microsoft product)

80gigs lays in there. it came in a pretty neat package. i guess they're trying to play up the exclusivity. but big ups to the marketing department, they did a pretty good job.

nice touch with the two bi-material but same color box. in normal light it just looks like a white box, but at an angel you can see the word original written on the side.
it's simple with nothing too overbearing. the font looks neat coming down from the left, and the small zune logo on the bottom right isn't screaming at you, but it being the only thing that's visible at first glance, it makes you look at it even though it's the huge.

inside it's lined with a splash of pink with the product and an envelope nicely embedded and plush, waiting for you to pick up.

inside the envelope is just a plan blank and white thank you card. very nice minimalistic design.

the mp3 player comes in a nice drawstring pouch with gold strings.

inside the pouch is a box with a similar design as the initial box.

inside that is finally the mp3 player and two more boxes containing the headphones and usb cord.

it comes with in-ear buds. pretty cool, i hope they last long than the ipod headphones.

overall the packaging really impressed me. the design department for that is really earning their money. sure i'm probably going to toss it all away, and it's far from being green, but i felt like a vip or a secret agent opening an expensive package.

good job guys.

what i've been eating lately.

ramen at a ramen house in j-town when i was at jury duty.
during lunch i had no idea where i was and i started walking aimlessly and found myself in j-town.

it doesn't look like much from the picture but that's curry chicken katsu.
it was good, but it would have been better if the curry sauce was seperate. my katsu was soggy towards the end of the meal.

homemade shrimp and bbq pork fried rice by mom.
nothing like homemade food from your mom.

i pigged-out and tried the 6 dollar jalepeno burger with criss-cut fries.
damn good and spicy.

vietnamese food for dinner for my mom's birthday.
yeah it was as good as it looks.

siu mai

frozen siu mai ready in 2 mins in a microwave.

it's a product of hong kong, no made in china here. (i still don't recognize hk as apart of china)

they remind me of the ones they have in hk 7-11. they have a microwave for you to make and eat them there. sometimes i wish we had that here for late night snacks at 7-11.

they're made by the people of doll dim sum. the brand is doll, and in chinese it's "gong jie". i think it's the same brand as the "gong jie mien." that's what people call in hk generally call instant noodles. there is a word for instant noodles though, and it's called jik sik mien (instantly eat noodles)

i guess it's the same way americans generally call all instant noodles "cup-o-noodle", or call tissue "kleenex".

sugar pixies

i'm gonna start snorting these sooner or later.
these have been giving me the sugar rush i need at work.
i know i'm just gonna crash a couple of minutes later, but whatevs, i do what i want.
i'm just that damn reckless.

the blue ones are nasty, the red ones are tasty, purple tastes like purple, and you could never find much of the green ones. damn that elusive green.

oh and these are nothing compared to the unmarked, unbranded, sugar sticks packaged in plastic instead of paper, that are probably made in a mexican candy sweat shop (think willie wonka, that's right, think about it, poor poor umpa loompas) and can only be found on ice cream trucks that stalk up and down the streets of ghettos.

love me! i'm french

heart/love me! i'm french is a line of dunny from kidrobot that's out. it's a line from french artists. similar to the hk artist for the qees that ber got me from hk.

big thanks to jane for getting me this blind box from metro perk.
i'm not quite sure what this is, but it looks jungle themed dunny.
you can kinda see the banana accessory that comes with the dunny. points for that.

...but this got me started looking at vinyls again... =\