Show & Tell

Well I just thought I would give you an update on my progress in my MA study. So far I've gained a lot of respect for paper architects and had a lot of fun making interesting things.

Here is the front cover of my pop-up book structure...pretty in pink.

I decided to fill it with these coils for fun.

This little baby took me a very long time, and made my poor tiny brain very tired.

A box!

Turn the wheel and the little arm moves from here...

To here.

My New 100% Hybrid Lifestyle

Today I started my 100% hybrid lifestyle. What is that you ask? Well it's what happens when you purchase a pair of orange shoes that look like these:

They come in a box like this:

And they apparently keep my toes safe from the unexpected, keep my foot cradled in a metatomical footbed, the quindensity midsole allows free flex during "toe-off", they are made of all natural sustainable materials (and are recyclable) where you take shoes to be recycled I have no idea, and they are waterproof yet breathable.

I gotta say of all those awesome features my favorite is the use of the phrase "toe-off", not sure what it means but I fully intend on incorporating that word into my everyday life. Example 1: when leaving a party "ok guys, I'm gonna toe-off" Example 2: Used when angry "TOE-OFF!" Example 3: when describing your wicked dance moves "so I was gettin my toe-off, when...." see endless uses. Lets hope I enjoy my new kicks as much as the word toe-off.

The Anti-shoe....

Have you heard of these things? They're called MBT which stands for Masai Barefoot Technology. So they are these strange looking shoes which have a curved sole so you can rock back and forth on them or side to side. They are supposed to distribute the pressure of walking on your entire foot rather than the heel and ball of the foot. They also help your posture, tone your butt, thighs and calves as well as strengthen your lower back. All this for the low low price of $245! So I tried on a pair this weekend mainly because they have all these ads for them in the magazines I've been purchasing lately and they all say MBT "the anti-shoe" so that got me wondering what that meant not to mention that the magazine was mentioning them in several articles and I had no idea what they were which made reading the article a bit annoying.....put things in context for those of us not up to date on what I would consider to be mainstream orthopedic shoes. While I consider them to be one small step below the Crocs on the scale of ugly shoes, they were very comfortable and made walking little more fun, kind of like bobbing up and down and little bit. That said, if I'm gonna spend that kind of money on a pair of shoes they are gonna be prettier, higher and most likely look like these.

Two things I've been thinking about lately

I know that Annalise already wrote a post about the security efforts of Blogger, but everytime I see that little message box all I can see is the handicapped symbol. Does it mean that this is to help the handicapped? Are they implying that you would have to be handicapped to not be able to fill in the box?....and if that is the case how insulting to the handicapped and the non-handicapped. Does anyone know why it's there?

Second, I love Raisin Bran....and Raisin Bran Crunch....yummmmmmm! Anyway, here they have "Sultana Bran" and Raisin Bran, but they look and taste pretty much exactly the same. So my other question is what is a Sultana? I have surveyed many people and received a different answer from every person. I finally remembered to look it up on Wikipedia (a very reputable source) and found out that a sultana is, you will be happy to know that it is a white seedless grape from Turkey or Iran that is made into what I would call a raisin. So there you have it, just wanted to get those things out there so you would have a greater understanding of the ridiculous spiral of information swirling around inside my peas-sized brain.

Blast from the past

This weekend I visited Bodium Castle with Catherine and was taken back to the days of study abroad. In my mind this was the first day trip we took...whether that is correct or not I am not sure, but I do remember not being good friends with the usual crew yet so it must have been early on. It has changed a little since my last visit, there is now a tea room and a shop which I don't remember at all. There were also lots and lots of English people basking in the sun and having yummy looking picnics....I recall this place being completely dead when we arrived. Either way both visits were educational as well as entertaining. As far as castles go it's quite small and the inside is almost totally ruined, but you can climb a tall spiral staircase and see beautiful country views from the tops of the towers. Not too shabby for a Sunday afternoon.

Deadly

krizzle says:deadly

krizzle says:so i'm trying to integrate the word deadly into my vocabulary

Annalise says:indeed

krizzle says:(i know i'm a nerd)

Annalise says:haha, I thought it was an odd placement

krizzle says:when i was in dublin all of catherine's friends used the word deadly where i would say awesome

krizzle says:i was totally getting a buzz off it

Annalise says:okay you start the trend over there and I'll start it on this continent

Annalise says:that's awesome

Annalise says:er, I mean DEADLY

krizzle says:haha

krizzle says:nice

Annalise says:I bet it's funny

krizzle says:maybe you should try it out

Annalise says:I think I'm gonna

krizzle says:deadly

krizzle says:do it

krizzle says:this is a good blog topic

Annalise says:haha, yes it is, do it

Annalise says:I need to blog

krizzle says:me too

krizzle says:i am not deadly at blogging

krizzle says:haha

krizzle says:does not get old

More Pictures

Well I know I've been posting a lot of picture and refraining from writing as of late, but I was just looking through my pictures from my trip to see Jackie in Philly and realized that I never posted those, although maybe I did send an email with them in a gallery....not really sure honestly. Anyway, there are some fun ones so I thought I would post a few.

I decided to bring Jackie an awesome carmel apple from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory...i think she liked it.

Here's Jackie with her hero....the metal version of Rocky...nice.

I decided to go the other direction and live strong....sans wrist band.

Here we are with old liberty herself.

And finally with a classic city view before entering a museum...can't remember which, but it was good.

Isn't that one person me?

HowManyOfMe.com

There is 1 person with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Picture Time!

Well it's been a while since my last post, but I can't really think of anything to say....so rather than wrack my brain attempting to entertain you I decided to post some pictures from my trip to Amsterdam that Harm just sent me.

Here's Jenny, Catherine and I on Harm's couch

In front of The American Book Center.....in Holland


Here we are in front of a group of statues that depict a Rembrandt painting. It's hard to tell but I'm petting a dog, Catherine is becoming one with the group and Jenny is shaking a dude's hand.


And finally here is everyone having a coffee just before we left Holland.

Did someone say candy?

Jill sent me this picture of Alex and I just had to post it because I find it highly entertaining.

A Bit of Culture

This weekend Catherine and I partook in the Brighton Festival by attending a ballet called Bahok (no idea how to say that). From the start is was very interesting and all I could think was "Katy would love this". It was much more modern than any ballet I have seen and managed to incorporate all kinds of movement from tribal moves to traditional ballet. All in all it was a really good experience and I really enjoyed it. If you want to see a video of it go here.

The 5th of May

Well another cinco de mayo has come and gone and West Dean did this on up right. It was a party in the fashion of last year complete with awesome Mexican food (made by the Americans of course), lots of margaritas....and diet coke for me, dancing, and I'm told some streaking at one point. (luckily I missed that portion of the evening) I guess cinco de mayo is actually a celebration of a defeat over the French so we had a Frenchman pinata complete with beret and striped shirt. He received a good thrashing and was filled with lots of yummy candy. I will try to locate some pictures as my camera battery was dead at the time.

On Safari!

Well this weekend was a Bank Holiday weekend, as in long weekend for an unknown reason....works for me. Catherine came down to West Dean and we decided to go visit Longleat, a historic home near Stonehenge which serves as the primary residence to Lord and Lady Bath. The dude that lives in this place is a little bit crazy (strange artist type guy) and part of the estate has a Safari Park, which is featured weekly on a show called Animal Park. Well we had seen several episodes of this show and have been saying we were going to go for some time and this weekend we finally made it.

We got to see giraffes, camels, lions, tigers, buzzards, monkeys, wolves, deer, hippos, sea lions, and many other animals. This camel decided to go for a little walk in front of the car and even stuck out his back foot in a jaunty way. The other highlight has to be the monkey area where we had four monkeys climbing on the car and even witnessed one ripping parts off the car in front of us, needless to say they are cheeky little guys. It ended up being a really fun and adventurous day that was very enjoyable.

Bookie Open Evening No.2

Well we bookies had an open evening last week and I thought it would be nice for you all to see a group photo nearly everyone. Brannah decided to make this awesome banner in order to explain what we do exactly. The evening went really well and everyone seemed to have a nice time viewing everyones work and learning how to do a couple of the things we do. As you can see we went all out on the bread and even managed to serve drinks from giant beakers and graduated cylinders, not too shabby....although very nerdy.

Book a dentist appointment

Have you ever looked at someone and thought about what they would sound like before actually hearing them only to be completely shocked by what you actually hear? I was on the train from Chichester to Brighton on Friday and this nice looking girl in very conservative work wear got on the train. She looked like a nice enough girl maybe even a little sheepish. Well as soon as she got on the phone I was very rudely awakened. First of all she was one of those London girls who says "right" after every word, kind of like the American "like". She then went on to use probably the most foul language I had ever heard...in a PUBLIC train, where everyone could hear her. Then she started telling the person on the phone about how the phrase "I'm going to punch your teeth in" can be a very effective phrase and that the person on the phone on the phone should start using it. AND then she said this, "Tell her to book a dentist appointment now because come Monday she's gonna need one." I about lost it!.....and also made sure to not make any eye contact with this chick because she was clearly off her head. Just had to share that one.

One Sheet of Paper

Someone told me about this exhibition at the Hirshorn Modern Art Gallery in DC. The rule was the artist could only use one sheet of paper. You should check it out.

Something Surreal

Well the new term has started back up at West Dean and I have been given a very curious object. It is an exhibition catalogue from a Salvador Dali exhibition....and boy is it a strange one. As you can see it is a figure made of hair with a drawer coming out of her face. To make matters even more surreal they decided to make her breasts flip open and show off little images of the work in the exhibition. Needless to say it is an interesting project...to say the least.

Bookie-palooza 2008

Ok, so I know that is the most LAME title EVER, but that's all I could think of. So today Sonia and I head off for a little road trip to Loughborough (no idea where that is) to attend the annual Society of Bookbinders Conference. (I know I'm lame) Anyway, people are requesting posts and I figure I should deliver, no matter how boring and close to losing the will to live I push you guys to.

So the Society of Bookbinders operates under the acronym SoB....I realize I am about 11 years old, but how funny is that? I think when your acronym makes inappropriate three letter words or acronyms for other less than PG phrases, maybe it's time to set that idea aside and go by your full name. Just had to get that out there because apparently I have yet to move up to the 5th grade.

Needless to say I will be away for a couple days and nowhere near a computer, but I just wanted to get something out there for M and J who have been telling me I am missed lately....thank you very much, I miss you too.

Snow in Brighton

Well I am currently staying in Brighton with Catherine while writing my really really boring paper for the MA that is due on my first day back from Easter break. On Friday Catherine told me that there was an arctic chill heading to England and that it would snow this weekend. I did not believe her at all, just assumed she was pulling my leg. Well I woke up yesterday morning greeted with a blanket of snow on everything and continued snow fall until about 3pm. CRAZY! Snow! In Brighton! In April!

Anyway, I know I promised to "up the funny" and this is in now way shape or form even remotely entertaining, but it was so unbelievable that I couldn't resist posting about it.