New York « design-newyork.com

Archive for the ‘New York’ Category

Hovawarts, Kooikerhondjes and Stabyhouns – Meet the Breeds 2012.

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

Every year now at the Javits Center in Manhattan, the AKC and the feline equivalent of the AKC has a thing called Meet the Breeds. They have cats and dogs of various shapes and sizes. You can meet them and pet them and learn about them, it’s delightful. Each creature gets a booth and the owners/breeders make it look like a middle-school science fair. There are photos and costumes and fun facts posted everywhere. The first booth my co-worker, Nessa, and I came across was the Siberian cat. The lady was dressed in authentic Russian garb. The cat did not seem to care about this.

And in the front entrance there was a woman walking a Saluki, a breed of dog native to Saudi Arabia. Not only was the lady totally pimped out, but the dog was dressed as what I perceived as a belly dancer.

At the toyger booth the woman had dingle-dongles of tigers on her head. BTW, toygers are gorgeous. I would love to have a couple of those hanging around my abode.

My favorite kitty at this thing was the gray striped Turkish Angora. He wouldn’t really hold still for a photo, but take my word for it, he was exquisite.

There was a Havanese cat who really loved his feathered toy on a stick. Like, really loved it. In this picture, I’m holding over my head. In the second picture it’s off to the right. Look at the intensity in this cat’s eyes. He wants to kill that thing so bad. DEATH TO STICK.

After lovin’ on the kitties, we headed over to the dogs. The dog section is always substantially larger than the cat section, probably because most cats look vaguely like cats and are cat-shaped, but dogs vary so much. I saw this chart and it pretty much sums up how it works for most people.

There were four new breeds that I noticed. One was a French dog that I forgot to take a picture of (it was scruffy and blonde), but the other three I managed to catalog. There was the Kooikerhondje (I’m going to assume that’s a Dutch breed):

The Stabyhoun:

And the Hovawart, which I loved. I asked the lady about them. First of all, how am I expected not to call them a Hogawart? I mean, really? Anyway, they’re from Germany, they’ve been around since the 1200s, and they live to be about sixteen, which is unheard of in a dog as big as that (they’re very big). That’s due to excellent breeding and rigid record-keeping by the Germans. Say what you want about them, but the Germans make a great dog. The dog I petted was a total sweetie and crazy-soft all over, not just his ears like most dogs. I heart Hovawarts.

There were a stellar bunch of big dogs like the Leonberger, the Irish Wolfhound, the Akita and the Borzoi (my favoritest type of dog in the whole world).

As I said it’s extremely common to dress up for people to both decorate their booths and put on costumes to represent their breed’s land or origin or most notable trait or whatever. This man dressed as a monk said he owned five St. Bernards. I can only imagine what his food costs must be every month.

The Newfoundland booth was storm-oriented. Newfies are water dogs, mostly used for rescue. They have webbed paws.

This is the Rhodesian Ridgeback booth. And here is a young Ridgeback giving someone the sideways-eye.

I thought the Chow Chow booth was the dopest. Except for the Brush Script on the front, but that looked like it was done by a little kid, so I’m going to let it slide.

I imagine the dogs get bored after a while. This Tervuren was just chilling out. He’s probably tired from being mistaken for a German Shepherd all day.

And these Scottish Deerhounds gave up.

This Weimeraner is giving a high-five, but you can see in his eyes his thoughts are elsewhere. Perhaps thinking of a love from long ago. Or meaty treats.

The were a ton of wee dogs as well. There was this tiny Chihuahua puppy.

And these Yorkshire Terriers.

Also this Shih Tzu and Pekinese and King Charles Spaniel. All soft and sweet and friendly.

But the cutest (translation: the ones I was most tempted to shove under my shirt and hightail it out of there with) were the Pomeranians. Oh Ancient Crone, how I envy you and your super-adorable doggies.

The Corgi Queen was there again this year. I love that lady.

The Saluki booth was fabu.

The Schipperke, being a boat dog from Holland, was wearing a little sailor hat. The other one was wearing a lei… because it was on vacation, or something.

The whippet dressed as a witch was a total darling. A Witchet, if you will.

The piece de resistance of the experience, in my opinion, was the following:

– An ancient Chinese Crested
– With no teeth
– Whose tongue is too big for its mouth
– Wearing a green sweater
– Falling asleep.

Chinese Crested dogs look… intriguing to begin with.

I learned that the hairless dogs are more prone to tooth loss because whatever gene creates the lack of hair also affects the tooth strength. You learn new things every day.

So it was awesome and I’m totally going next year. I’m going to take Snorth with me whether she says okay or not. Snorth, we’re gonna go pet things next year! Put it on your calendar! We goin’!

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, New York, Stuff | 1 Comment »

A new purse, finally. And other things.

Tuesday, October 9th, 2012

The last time I painted a purse was over a year ago and since I was working on many other projects I never got around to making a new one and the jelly one was decomposing like a mummy in a horror film. This one:

The metal tab things had ripped off and I had spilled all kinds of delicious foods on it and the strap was totally frayed, etc. The time had come, and gone, and circled back around again, and I couldn’t keep carrying it because my lip gloss kept falling out of the holes. They discontinued this particular style purse, but before they did I bought the last fifty the factory had. Alas, about ten are gray, but the rest are this appalling Pepto pink. So now I have a stack of revolting pink purses in my closet. I took one and dyed it so it was a grayish lavender. Then I drew a horned beetle on it and used Pantone markers to give the impression of a shadow in rich blues. It looks adorbs.

Two other things: there’s this thing in fashion in the last few years where you rip t-shirts in intricate patterns and then you tie up the shreds with complex knots. It looks a bit like the lanyard bracelets you made at summer camp. I was pretty meh about the whole thing until I was walking through Times Square the other day and this chick had this neat skull ripped in the back of her shirt. That was pretty cool.

The third thing: Publicis New York merged with another agency, Kaplan Thaler Group and now it’s Publicis Kaplan Thaler. In 2013 we will be joining up in a building on Broadway and 52nd, and recently I went there. It’s a nice enough office building, but something in the elevator bay is going to bother me each and every day when I work there.

Uuuugh all the letters are mashed together and then there’s that giant gap why why??? It’s so crappy. One late night I may snap and go out there with an X-acto knife and handle my business (and get fired, but at least the letter spacing will be corrected).

Posted in Advertising, Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, My Art/Design/Business, Nature, New York, Random Art Bloggery, Stuff | No Comments »

Who’s got two thumbs and a birthday today? J.K. Rowling! (And me.)

Tuesday, July 31st, 2012

Howdy! I’m thirty-five today! Thirty-five. It feels like only yesterday I was thirty-four. My co-workers and I are going to go out tonight and, since we work in Koreatown, yell classic songs into microphones. I anticipate Olympic-quality loudness. If you notice that the seagulls in Atlantic City are missing, it is probably because they are being called like the sailors in The Odyssey to the siren-like sounds of our voices. I will try to take pictures.

In the meantime, a war has been going on at my office. It has been tense and filled with drama. It is… The Post-It War.

Here’s how it started. The people one floor below us put this up in their window.

And then this appeared on the windows directly beneath us.

My co-worker was like, “You think you’re better than us? Well, check this out.” So now our window looks like this.

The others weakly retaliated with this, but they knew who had won.

The Great Post-It War of 2012 has cooled for now, but at any time Donkey Kong or Q-Bert or one of the cool pipe Venus Flytrap thingies might make an appearance, and then it’s right back on again. Blood again shall be spilled! (In the form of papercuts)

Finally, it occurred to me that this month is also the fifth anniversary of this blog. I want to say thank you to whoever comes here and I look forward to another five years. It’s been delightful. I never knew I liked writing, but I really do. I hope you like reading it.

Addendum: Also happening at work this week, the prop closet was cleaned out. That’s where stuff goes after photo shoots and commercial shoots. Wigs and mustaches were found. Therefore, several women on the 11th floor rocked this look all day:

Posted in Advertising, New York, Teh Intarwebz | 3 Comments »

Activitays with Cricket!

Friday, July 13th, 2012

I found two deals on LivingSocial that Cricket was okay with doing, and since they were both in the city we did them on the same day. One was a nice experience, but the other one… that was an interesting experience. First, we went on a boat. Like, a real boat, with sails and stuff. Me, Cricket and 150 20- and 30-somethings piled onto this boat which took us up and down the East River and gave us beer tastings. I do not like beer, so Cricket got all my beer tasting samples. He was happy, and once I took sea-sickness meds, I was happy too. Here is a picture of the boat called Clipper City.

After about two hours of boating, we hopped off the boat and went to The Russian and Turkish Bathhouse (opened in 1892). Now, the only bathhouse I have ever been to was in Budapest, and it looked like this:

So I (unwisely) assumed that this bathhouse would be similar in style and layout. And I was WRONG. Right outside is a flight of stairs and a sign.

The first thing I noticed when I went in was it was dark and tight. Very dark. Very tight. There’s a series of chairs and tables on the left with a TV mounted to the wall, identical to what would be in a senior citizen’s home located in a rundown area of a major metropolitan city. Then there’s a tiny deli booth with a variety of shmears in a case. On the right is a series of wall lockers where they keep your wallet, keys, iPod, etc. Everything is dim, except where there is harsh fluorescent lighting. Oh, and because it’s so small, everyone is gently shimmying past each other to get around. And many of these people are just wearing towels. It is an inevitability that you will be brushed by a man-boob. My immediate reaction was fear. I was like, “Fantastic. I will go inside, where they will take my kidney and leave me in a tub of ice. I probably won’t even get the massage included on the coupon.” As we handed over our valuables and got our key, our path was blocked by a large, strong, shaved man wearing only shorts and flip-flops. He said in a heavy Eastern-European accent, “You came with voucher?” I nodded yes. He said, “Good. I am Gene. You go to locker room to change, I meet you here. ” Now, I had no idea who this man was. He never gave me any inclination that he worked there. But I didn’t want to be a noobie, so I went to the locker room (small, hot, grim) where I changed into my bathing suit and met Cricket outside the door. Gene then said, “Follow me,” and we went down a tight flight of stairs into the actual bathhouse.

Oh dear God.

Hot. Dim. Tiled walls. Exposed pipes. Giant drains in the middle of the floor. Water on every surface. Very rape-y. Very organ-steal-y. Gene gestured towards shower-stall-sized room completely filled with steam. “You go sit there. I come and get you in five minutes.” I followed Cricket into the steam room where I realized a very important thing: I am not a fish. I cannot inhale water, specifically hot water, when it’s mixed in with my air. I turned to Cricket, gasping. “I… can’t… breathe.” I threw the towel over my head in an attempt to filter the water out of my air and discovered that the towel smelled exactly like fried wontons. I suppose wherever they do their laundry is near a vent for a Chinese restaurant, so all their towels smelled exactly like fried wontons. Finally, after a million years, Gene came back. “You want massage?” I nodded. He took me into a tiny dark room off to the side and put Cricket in the one next to me. Good, I thought. At least I can be near the one I love when I die. He gestured to a massage table covered with towels. Gene looked at me. “You wearing anything under that?” he said, pointing to my bathing suit. I said no, and he told me to strip to my waist and lay face-down on the table. I lay down and he brought in a cup of mud. At least, I assumed it was mud. It wasn’t marked or anything. It could have been camel poop mixed with apple juice for all I knew. I tried desperately to relax and buried my face in the fried-wonton-infused-towel my head was resting on. He then rubbed me all over with this mud, covered me with towels and told me to relax and let it bake onto me. He then did the same to Cricket. When Gene came back, he had me flip over. Now, I’m not shy about my boobage, but I was interested to see how he would attempt to protect my modesty. I rolled over, where Gene looked at my boobs quietly, as if pondering their purpose, then gently covered them with a towel. He rubbed the mud into all my exposed front-parts, covered me with towels and left me to bake. When he came back, he had me sit up, took all the towels off of me, and hosed me down exactly how someone would wash a car. With my breasts pretty much in his face. So weird. And, as it always happens when you mix me and mud and gravity, all the mud on my torso washed into my butt and collected there, packing itself so I resembled a one-year-old with a full diaper. I pulled the top part of my bathing suit up, thanked Gene for his lovely job (he really did do a nice job) and he said, “Thank you. Now go to sauna.” I toddled off to the sauna which was HAWT. I found out later it was 190 degrees in there. Hooah. I quickly popped out, jumped into a shower, washed out the sediment from my rump, and soaked a towel in cold water. Holding it over my face, I went back into the sauna where there was a man, no joke, doing 150 pushups in the corner of the room, I assumed because his mother didn’t love him or something. In the middle of the sauna is constantly flowing ice water, and at any time you can pick up a bucket and dump it over your head, which I saw people do quite often. I lasted as long as I could in there and then I came out, took another quick shower and headed up to the locker rooms to change back into my regular clothes. On my way up I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I looked exactly like a shiny pink pig. It was really cute. Here’s a photo I found of the actual bathhouse area.

And here’s an article I found on it. Notice how even the sexy models in the picture cannot temper the terrifying horror-movie-vibe of the place.

http://globomaestro.com/latestScoop/entry/158/russian–turkish-baths-new-yorks-craziest-spa-experience-since-1892/

Here’s the best part: I accidentally clicked “2” when I bought the coupon, so I have to go back. Now that I know what to expect I’m not nearly as scared, but I don’t think I’ll become a regular by any means. I think I’ll take Neenernator if she’s interested. Every time she goes back to Germany (where she’s from) she goes to a spa and tells me stories with sentences in them like, “…After they covered us with hot soapy foam, they blasted us with ice water!” I think this will be right up her alley. Apparently they have an aromatherapy room with lavender and eucalyptus oils. I will try that one out next time.

Posted in Activitays, New York, Teh Intarwebz | 3 Comments »

Burning Man Costume, Part 8.

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

I for the life of me cannot make my damned camera take a sparkly picture. I think maybe my camera has some weird sparkle reduction built in and while that’s super-great if you’re taking someone’s photograph and they have a shiny top on, it is not even remotely helpful when I am taking shots of my twinkle-magic costume. For example, I made two… well, they look like boob pasties. They’re just additional sea-foliage. They are made with rocaille beads which have mirrored insides (sparkly!) and iridescent brown/green sequins (sparkly!) and plastic breads infused with glitter (sparkly!) and would you look at this picture? So very drab. I haz a forlorn.

I realized that my bottom hoop was sagging on my hoop skirt and was visible below the edge of my painted skirt, so when God gives you lemons (saggy hoops) you make lemonade (attach additional kelp fringe). There’s a place near my job called Trims de Carnival and it has some crazy bright snazzy trims and sequins and whatnot. I picked up some yellow and brick-colored hairy ribbon trim, dyed them so they had green tones in them, and sewed them along the bottom. Problem solved. No more visible hoop. Booyah.

I also sewed that lace beaded kelp on the back of the jacket and sequined both the back of the jacket and the base of the skirt. WHICH YOU COULD APPRECIATE IF MY CAMERA UNDERSTOOD SPARKLY MATERIALS… oh, I just give up.

And I finished the hat! If you remember, the last time you saw the hat the bottoms of the tube worms were visible and you could see all the stitching and glue. Now it is all covered with frilly ribbon and more of that lace kelp (tying the whole costume together, very important) and some gold beaded thingies that were on sale at one of the fabric stores. It looks like I’m wearing a demented doily on my head when I put this on. It’s kind of fantastic.

Even though I have seastars and a big ole crab and barnacles and anemones and some other things to attach to the costume, I still have a great deal of surface area to cover. To assist with that, I made some felt cup shapes that can fit in anywhere and add dimension.

And in my travels around the trim-n-bead shops of Midtown I discovered a few stores selling these acrylic gems with crinkled tinsel in them. They add a lot of visual interest to my costume, so I’m going to sew them in a few areas to make it more exciting.

Now I’m working on my lobster face-mask which at this point looks like head-gear from a parallel universe. I need to find ways to make it more lobster-y. I went to three pet stores before I found a specific kind of cat toy that totally resembles antennae. Once I attach that, I’m hoping it will be more crustacean-like. We’ll see.

Posted in Burning Man, My Art/Design/Business, Nature, New York | No Comments »

Facing my fears. (That was a dumb idea.) And spiders!

Monday, July 2nd, 2012

I lived in Rye for the first eighteen years of my life, a mere mile or so from Playland Amusement Park. I haaaaaaaate amusement park rides because I feel no need, really, none whatsoever, to be exhilarated by speed, jarring movements, or the perception of imminent death. I was thinking the other day how amazing it was to come home to an air-conditioned room, strip down to your nethergarments, plop down on cool, clean sheets and watch something on cable. I felt like that was truly bliss. What is NOT truly bliss is to drive to a giant parking lot on a crazy-hot day, pay a bucketload of money, stand in long lines, and have a ride smack you around like you’re a battered wife. However, Playland has an iconic ride called the Dragon Coaster that has been there since 1929 and since I grew up in its large skeletal wooden shadow I felt I was somewhat obligated to ride it. Once. So this past Saturday Cricket and I went on down to Playland at noon, right when it opened for the day so the lines were short, bought a few individual rides, and got in line for the Dragon Coaster. We watched the people in front of us go on the ride while my heart pounded. Did I forget to mention that I did this without the assistance of any (doctor-prescribed or otherwise) anxiety-inhibiting drugs? I did it Civil-War-surgery-style, just bite down on this stick, rrrrrrrr. Then it was our turn. We got the last seats in the last car where Cricket gave me the comforting comment, “You can puke all you want, it’ll just go behind us!” And we were off. Here’s a video someone took so you too can live the dream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLGlbD8OcSg

Here’s my feelings on it: The first big fall, I was fine. The first sharp turn, I was fine. Wheee! And then the ride actively tried to make me sick (up, down, up, down – at the :37 mark) which, frankly, hurt my feelings. Why, Dragon Coaster? We were having a nice time together, why did you have to try and make me barf? That was mean. Right after we exited the dark inside-the-dragon part and the ride tried to make me quease again, I turned to Cricket and said OKAY, I’M DONE NOW. DONE NOW. I’M DONE. Cricket realized we were on the threshold of me freakin’ the eff out, so he tried to be all soothing and whatnot and he said something akin to, “Great job honey, I’m very proud of you – but the ride isn’t over yet. See? More ride.” I continued with my loud, emphatic BUT I’M DONE. DONE NOW. I suppose I thought that if I kept repeating that phrase the ride would stop, grinding to a halt from the sheer power of my intense, bone-crushing desire to get off. Cricket kept having to say things like, “Look how low we are! We’re almost finished, honey! So very proud of you! etc.” The second we pulled into the disembarkation bay I changed my mantra to GET OUT RIGHT NOW. OUT. GET OUT. Cricket had to pull me out and, no exaggeration, my whole body was violently shaking so bad I could barely stand. We left the ride area with me looking like a newborn foal and I promptly draped myself over a fence to die. Cricket took pictures.

Please note I am wearing one of the only white t-shirts I own because I knew it would be in the 90s that day. There it is, like seeing the Loch Ness Monster. Jess in a white t-shirt. Enjoy.

So I faced one of my fears. I’m thinking I don’t have to go on another amusement park ride for another 34-and-three-quarters years. Everyone okay with that?

You know what I am not afraid of? Spiders! I was out of the country for the Super Bowl this year, so I missed all the commercials. When I returned, Snorth sent me this one which I adore and watch periodically just for funsies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe1cJPD_ZbA

Fantastic. Snorth pointed out to me that her favorite bug was the jumping spider that says, “Hello, lunch.” I informed her that I was unfamiliar with jumping spiders. And then the deluge began. Long story short: it has been four months since the Super Bowl, I now have a jumping spider as my background image on my phone, I belong to the Spider Fan Page on Facebook, and I’m already thinking about drawings I’m going to make incorporating jumping spiders in them. I also have a favorite group of jumping spider called the salticids. I like them bestest for a variety of reasons. One is that their heads are square-shaped and they appear to have eyeballs in all four corners. Another reason is the feather-duster-arms they use to clean all these eyeballs. But the primary reason I love them is because the males have big ole fangy-fangs that are iridescent and that totally resemble enormous buck teeth. Whenever I see one I automatically say “MIRFF!” with my front teeth pushed all the way forward because that’s what I think they would sound like. Here’s the picture on my phone.

Here’s one of my favorite animated gifs.

And here’s a sexay leggy mating dance.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7qmpz_saitis_animals?start=38

I highly recommend that you go to Google, type “jumping spider” in and hit Images. It’s like a treasure trove of tiny adorable little spiderypoo goodnesss.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, My Art/Design/Business, Nature, New York, Stuff, Teh Intarwebz | No Comments »

The Orchid Show at the Botanical Gardens.

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012

Cricket and I decided to check out the orchid show on its last weekend at the Botanical Gardens in the Bronx last weekend, and it was the bomb diggety. I was expecting a smattering of orchids here and there but they had actual walls full of orchids growing. I looked up the definition of orchid but I got a long convoluted description that talked about types of pods and seeds and had many science-y terms, so I will give you my definition. It’s a tropical plant that doesn’t grow in soil, has leathery leaves and flowers that either resemble dragon faces or ladies’ genitals. There ya go.

First, here’s a picture of the Botanical Gardens:

It was built in the late 1800s and both the building and the surrounding grounds are beautifully organized and maintained. The orchid show was predominantly in two major halls, but there were touches of orchid-ness throughout the whole building. When you first came in, there was a giant orchid wall. Remember, orchids don’t grow in the dirt, they use little “fingers” to attach to the bark of trees, so they can be vertical with no problem.

Near the end there was an gorgeous orchid corridor that you could walk down. I was blown away.

And then there were orchids all over the place hiding in pre-existing floral situations. I said hello to all of them.

There was a case of teeny-tiny orchids being all wee and precious.

And there was an orchid tower.

It was amazing. I’m going to go again next year. And I got to walk through all these non-orchid exhibition halls that had great plants in them as well. My favorite, as always, was the cactii room.

One of the coolest plants we saw was the wax rose. It was a large, exceptionally spiky plant with things that looked like triangular pieces of cheddar cheese on top. I was very intrigued.

There were also carnivorous plants, which I find charming for some reason. It’s a plant! That eats meat! Wacky! What will they think of next?

The water pond section was stunning, with the overhanging arches of some kind of creeper.

And there were various other awesome plants doing their plant thing.

After we had done a full circuit of the inside of the buildings, we went outside and saw the outdoor exhibits. The azalea and rhododendron field was just starting to bloom…

… and the crabapple trees was in the middle of its blooming season and were fluffy and fairy-like.

There were different varieties of pansies in pots scattered around, which delighted me because I love pansies.

It was a lovely experience, very scenic and zen. I’m already looking forward to next year.

Posted in Activitays, Nature, New York | 1 Comment »

I’m crabby. Let’s talk about it.

Friday, April 6th, 2012

Several reasons:

1. I have a bacterial infection in my head. Specifically in my sinuses and my left ear. The post-nasal drip is causing my throat to feel like it’s ON FIRE all the time for the last four days and my sinuses are filled with cement. Sometimes, when I blow my nose, horrible things come out, things that make me make this face.

Except imagine this cat has hands, and in his hands is a tissue filled with atrocities. It’s all not okay. The worst part is the ear thing. Because my ear parts are all swole up and twisted, sounds aren’t boppin’ around in there like they should. In my left ear I hear everything in stereo, like everyone has a back-up singer who’s saying the exact same thing at the same time they’re saying it, but (and I am not making this up in the least) the back-up voice is tinny-sounding and slightly out of key, like a poorly-tuned jangly piano in a saloon in the Wild West. You might think this is awesome, but you would be wrong. One grows weary of everything sounding terrible. I stopped listening to music after everything started sounding like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpFQLw5_N2o

However, I bit the bullet and hauled my disgusting self to the doctor where he gave me a prescription for ten days of antibiotics. They’re working (music sounds like music again and my throat is not quite as on fire as it was) but I still sound like one of Marge Simpson’s sisters.

2. I went with Snorth and her husband Speeb to the Museum of Natural History to see the “Creatures of Light” exhibition. It’s supposed to be an awesome exhibition about animals/rocks/plants with bioluminescence. So I, like a fool, assumed there would be all kinds of jellies and mushrooms and fireflies and whatnot, and you know what I saw? Helpful diagrams. Little models. At the end there were, like, ten fish hanging out in a tank with wee glowy spots on their cheekbones that you could barely see. I was furious because I have been through this before. A few years ago, there was an exhibition on poisonous dart frogs at AMNH and I was so excited because I was gonna see a million killer frogs, oh boy! Guess what? Helpful diagrams. Little models. Four frogs at the end. You would think I would have learned from my previous experience, but clearly I did not. Seriously, AMNH, how much money does it cost to grow a couple of glow-y shrooms in some mulch? THEY SELL BAGS OF GLOW-IN-THE-DARK MUSHROOM MIX IN THE GIFT SHOP, FOR EFF’S SAKE. Come on. I have friends who have fish tanks, they would lend you one and you could put wee jellies in them with a black light on top. It would cost $1,000 tops. Stop having weak exhibitions.

3. I went to the Macy’s Flower Show across the street. I’ve blogged about it here and here. This year due to repairs being done in the bag/makeup/accessories department the flower show was in an enormous tent on Broadway right in front. So I lined up and went in the text and it was lamey-lame-lame. The theme was “Brasil!”, but it pretty much resembled a very nice garden center with Brazilian music playing in the background. They had a couple cool plants, like mini-pineapples, but I felt it was yet another opportunity missed for awesomeness.

4. Enough with the Adele already. Enough.

One of the only things making me happy right now is this:

http://iheartmomonga.tumblr.com/

Posted in Nature, New York, Stuff | No Comments »

Two animal-related things.

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

Quick deviation from the Costa Rica recap:

1. I went to Madison Square Garden yesterday for my Annual Pilgrimage To See The Doggies (also known as 136th Annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show). It was not so good. I mean, the dogs were amazing, but I think they’re redoing parts of Madison Square Garden so the show was all jacked up. How it normally works is there are seven rings in the arena, and then in the backstage area there is something called the benching area where you can meet the dogs and pet them, etc. If you are a dog owner you may be interested on these hemp dog treats that you can use to train your pets and also cure them, but get the best CBD treats for dogs! Alleviate their pain, reduce their anxiety and stress.

There are rows which have hanging signs like a supermarket, with the names of the breeds in that row. Yesterday there were only five rings in the arena and if you wanted to see the toy breeds you had to walk aaaaaaaaalll the way to the other side of Madison Square Garden to the theater. And the benching area was not organized at all. All the handlers/groomers were set up all over the place and there were traffic jams everywhere, so bad that the people competing had to carry their dogs over their heads and beg to pass through. ave them the best cbd oil for dogs to calm them down. But next year I hear they’re holding Westminster in a pier in Chelsea, which hopefully will be big enough. I took some pics this year, check ’em out:

Sometimes, if you’re a particularly awesome Cardigan Welsh Corgi, you sit up on your butt and wait patiently for snacks after competing.

A Grunewald, also known as the Belgian Sheepdog. This is a favorite of mine. It’s terrifying-looking in person, like someone ripped a piece out of the night sky and wrapped it around a wolf. I’m always psyched to see them.

A Pembroke Welsh Corgi getting brushed before entering the ring.

A poodle gettin’ its hair did.

It can be hard work.

And I bumped into Martha while I was there.

At no point did I call her out for her BS “simple ‘n’ easy” gravy recipe because I didn’t want to make a scene in front of the doggies, but if I ever get her alone in an alley it’s on.

2. What the hell?!?? Look at what visited the Buzzfeed office today:

We never get to hang out with mini-horses at work! I went all Veruca Salt on the HR department as soon as I saw these (“I want a pony, Mummy! I want a pony now!” *foot stomp*) and they promised to rectify this atrocious oversight by next Valentine’s Day. I recommended a basket of puppies. We’ll see how it goes.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, New York, The Telly | No Comments »

A typical day for me.

Monday, December 12th, 2011

Someone recently asked me what my typical work day was like. I thought that was an interesting question and I would go about answering it the best I could. I have some days (very few) when there’s little to do, and some days (way too many) when I just slog though piles of work for thirteen hours straight. I’m giving an example where I have some work to do, but it’s not consuming my every waking moment. Enjoy.

9:52 a.m. – Show up at work. Make enormous vessel of herb tea. Meet up with co-workers (there are five of them) to discuss previous evening’s activities. Consider laying down on disgusting never-washed carpet and going back to sleep.

10:07 a.m. – Read emails. Answer work emails. Divvy up work between me and my co-workers. Børkke walks in to office to have meeting about daily work tasks. She has composed a new song about cheese.

10:07 a.m. -10:11 a.m. – Listen to horrible Michael McDonald-style song about cheese.

10:12 a.m. – Discuss what everyone’s going to have for lunch.

10:14 a.m. – 1:43 p.m. – Design a Keynote presentation, or a brochure, or an email signature, or a headsheet for a meeting, or a letterhead, or photoshop some images. Listen to unch-unch-unch dance music the whole time while wearing big floofy earphones. Refill giant tea mug twice. Go tinkle forty-seven thousand times because of it.

1:44 p.m.-2:03 p.m. – Actually eat some real-person food. During that time, check myriad of websites like Buzzfeed. Snort-laugh repeatedly at videos while wearing earphones so no one knows why you’re laughing. Reinforce pre-conceived notions that you’re mentally unbalanced.

2:04 p.m. – Have important office meeting. End up coming up with dance moves for The Cheese Song.

2:05 p.m. – Figure out with co-workers how we’re going to deal with the enormous soul-crushing project happening the next week. Make mental note to see friends and do laundry this week, because next week I will be so strapped for time that I will be unable to find time to shower. Consider laying down on too-small uncomfortable couch and going back to sleep.

2:09 p.m.-6:04 p.m. – Continue working on the Keynotes or brochure or email signature, etc. More tea. More bathroom. At some point inflict a video of a bunny/kitty/owl on co-workers. Co-workers feign interest while you make squeaky noises and threaten to pet subject of video to death a la Lenny from Of Mice And Men. BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT SO MUCH.

6:30ish p.m.-7:15ish p.m. – Put on coat and head out for hour-and-a-half commute home.

Peppered throughout the day: “Your mom” as responses to almost all questions, and “That’s what she/he/your mom said” as responses to all other statements. Also, cram as many racist/religious/sexist comments into your day as possible. Compete with co-workers to see who can say the most offensive thing. Hope HR never visits.

Photo of Børkke and me working late one night:

Addendum: Picture of my whole department at the Holiday Party.

Posted in Advertising, New York, Stuff | 1 Comment »

design-newyork.com