new year's resolutions

- be a better schmoozer and talk to every single new person i sit next to on a plane this next year. (i was reading jc's vault.com guide to schmoozing, and realized how poor of a job i do networking and going out to be in contact with people. i think i've also neglected my personal friend and professional network some.)

- take one digital picture every day. so far so good! hopefully i'll get my act together and publish them here.

maybe more to come...still need some reflecting to do.

no sleep

i didn't sleep at all last nite, the nite before new year's eve. yeah, one nite too early. i was cleaning up the house for three hours from midnight to 3am. (you know, house has to be clean before the new year. good luck. j/k.) i was also working on the lumps logo from about 8pm - midnight. then after cleaning picked it up to create business card fliers. finally sent it off around 11am today to the printers. i hope i can stay up til midnight tonite. i took a brief nap a little while ago.

sunday brunching at cityscape

today the family celebrated my sister's bday. we sunday brunched at hyatt regency's cityscape. did you know that if you brunch there, you get complimentary parking in their hotel parking lot for 8 hours? pretty good deal if you wanna spend the day shopping or going to the theater. the food was really great there. lamb chops, primer rib, caviar, crab claws, mmmm... i think drinking two mimosas made me sleepy.

the royal tenenbaums

i finally saw it! it was a last minute thing to see the very last showing after picking up ds from sfo. we really enjoyed it. a fun-filled, quirky movie. so many funny moments. it'd definitely different and unique compared to all the other hollywood movies out there. i've never seen rushmore, but i know i gotta see it now! i really liked the young tenenbaums. kkkkkkkkk

it was so funny to see the family dysfunktionaiies. wish i could have seen it with the whole morther clan but my momwasn'treallly in too this type of funny humor.

synopsis: The Tenenbaums are an eccentric New York family. Actually, they're extraordinary--all geniuses. Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) is a successful litigator. His wife Etheline (Angelica Huston) is an ambitious archaeologist. His daughter Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a gifted playwright. His son Chas (Ben Stiller) is a masterful businessman with a taste for real estate. And his other son Richie (Brian Wilson) is a natural tennis champ. However, when Royal packed up his life and left his wife and his family in a cloud of betrayal, everything fell apart. Twenty years later, he feigns illness as an excuse to reunite with his estranged family. From Wes Anderson, director of RUSHMORE, this film is full of true-to-life comic relief that will have audiences reeling.

deprived no longer

after 25 long years, i am no longer deprived, like 20% of the population here in sf. i finally have cable! woo hoo! the reason for the switch was the threat of losing nbc. we have hbo and showtime too for the first two months. finally, i can figure out the craze about the sopranos and sex in the city!

it took three cable guys (with three cable trucks) to wire our house. they were here for a while too. i have pix of course. i'll upload them sometime. hoping to get pix up by the new year.

i wonder if making the band season two started yet. i had heard that it's only going to be on mtv. good thing we got cable now!

we now have four remote controls...tv, vcr, cable, dvd. it's crazy.

allrighty...i'm waiting for the l'oreal feria sunset blaze dye to set, so i now have some time for some catch-up blogging...

early paternal christmas dinner

last sat we had an early christmas dinner with my dad's side at dragon well or something like that on taraval. the chinese restaurant was just ok. nothing to be excited about. there was one really funny sign for the bathroom. it was a picture of the the normal guy silhouette and girl silhouette next to each other on a yellow background. it was had the word restrooms and a really big red arrow. what was really funny is that the sign was mounted and framed very nicely! (or course i took a picture of it.)

early maternal christmas

on sunday we had an early christmas dinner with my mom's side. it was very nice at carpaccio in menlo park. a pretty nice italia place. the whole mother clan was there which was nice. afterwards, we went to my sis's temporary place in mtn view. there i gave my hungry hungry hippo presentation to them. they enjoyed it, and it was good to be able to share with them what i've been up to. i also showed a slide show on the tv of the digital pix i took that nite. man, having a digital camera is so much fun. it's almost as indispensible as my palm pilot and cell phone.

christmas eve

i hung out at aa's place to try to work on some design stuff for a lot of the day. aa's place is pretty nice, like out of a pb catalog or anthropologie show room. she made lunch for nl and me, which was pretty good. nl and her got started baking christmas goodies. they sent me out to get some last minute supplies. i ended up at the local market, and boy, that was the busiest i've ever seen a grocery store! the express like was about 15 people deep. everyone was getting stuff for their christmas dinner. it was the wrong time to be there. while in line i got a phone call from a bud, so i spent the wait time chatting.

we didn't really get around to doing the design stuff. i gotta work on it tonite and tomorrow.

for dinner my family went to japanese food at some place on west portal then drove down to south city to check out the christmas lights. i took a lot of test pix with my camera. i still havn't figured out the settings completely.

christmas day

woke up. opened presents. i didn't sleep by the tree waiting for santa like i used to for the early years of my life. (i stopped doing that when i was around 22.) i don't think i got any really cool wow presents this year, but that's ok.

kate & leopold

i really wanted to see the royal tenenbaums, but my mom didn't want to. she doesn't think she could stand that kind of crazy humor. (i love that stuff.) so our family went to see kate & leopold. it was good. i didn't realize that hugh jackman is so tall. the movie is entertaining. plot is a little thin at a couple of points, but that's ok.

the next movies i want to see...the royal tenenbaums, the man who wasn't there, ali, and a beautiful mind.

oh i just remembered, i saw another movie last saturday nite. it was...

amelie

i think this was the first french movie i ever saw in a theater. this movie is so good. you have got to see it. nominated for best foreign picture for the golden globes. here's the synopsis review from rotten tomatoes...

The feel-good Amelie is a lively, fanciful charmer, showcasing Audrey Tautou as its delightful heroine.

Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) is a young woman who glides through the streets of Paris as quietly as a mouse. With wide eyes and a tiny grin, she sees the world in a magical light, discovering minor miracles every day. A shy and reserved person whose favorite moments are spent alone skimming stones into the water, Amélie was raised by a pair of eccentrics who falsely diagnosed her with a heart problem at the age of six and so limited her exposure to the outside world. Now a free and independent woman, Amélie wears a bob that curls in every direction and dresses in red. With a job in a café and an aptitude for spying on her neighbors, Amélie entertains herself by enacting a series of homemade, kindhearted practical jokes. She returns a long-forgotten box of childhood knickknacks to its proper owner, she sends her father's garden troll on a trip around the world, and she creates a love connection at the café between the hypochondriac druggist and a beer-drinking old grouch. But when the day is done, Amélie finds one stone unturned, and decides to work her magic on the quirky object of her affections, Nino Quincampoix (Matthieu Kassovitz), whom she has never met.

caught this movie with my sis who had no idea what it was about. i think that this was one of the best movies i saw this year. i was a little sleepy since it was late so when my eyes closed longer than they should have, i had to ask my sis what the subtitles said. amélie has an infectuous spirit of life throughout the whole movie. go see it. i heard a couple of rave reviews from some creative people who said that i had to go see it, and they were right.

back to christmas...

casual christmas dinner

we had an informal dinner with the mother clan. ate a chinese banquet at the seafood harbor in milbrae. good food. hung out at my grandma's place later. lots of fun together. we caught the last half of an affair to remember. supposedly this old classic movie became super-popular again after sleepless in seattle came out, because of a lot of references to it.

post christmas shopping

i braved the crowds downtown with jc. luckily he has the hook-ups with hotel parking, so we didn't have to worry about the lots, even though we didn't make it down til 1pm. we spent two hours at the virgin megastore. we got some super fat deals there. it was the last day of the 30% off with the blue card. (you better have this card!) it was also the first day with a bunch of virgin coupons, which you received if you spent $100 during the christmas shopping season. so i was also able to use coupons saving me another 20-25%. i ended up picking up a few dvds for about $10 each...blade runner, good fellas, and full metal jacket. i havn't seen the latter two movies. i helped some other people get other things...christmas cds, a book, another dvd, and rogue squadron for the game cube (this is the third copy of the game for this one crazy guy).

i also got the brothers quay collection on dvd. i think that one of my teachers highly recommended them, so on an impulse i picked this up. i'm pretty sure that i would have trouble finding this in blockbuster. review to come. anyone care to see it with me? i don't think anyone would be too into it. these are a collection of 10 stop animation shorts. box copy says..."With their passion for detail, their breathtaking command of color and texture, and their astonishing use of focus and camera movement, they turn their miniature sets into unforgettable worlds, suggestive of Kafkaesque nightmares of menace and decay, or the landscapes of long-repressed childhood dreams."

after virgin, i made a few returns then spent a good part of the nite prepping for the photo safari. i took a long drive to in-n-out to get prizes (passing thru upper fillmore, chestnut st, fisherman's wharf, pier 30, and back down geary.) i noticed a lot of stuff and came up with hunt items that way. (e.g. gorilla sports and the fire hydrants on fillmore.) it was a great creative exercise, doing the planning. pretty fun, too.

i still need to do some catch-up blogs...but before i do that, here are today's events...

moving help

i helped out jf to move up to the city today with o. we made a couple of trips back and forth between south city and glen park. good thing i had the old volvo station wagon.

the lumps photo safari

for a little bit over the past week, i've been working to put together the lumps photo safari. a digital photo scavenger hunt for a list of tasks and assignments throughout the city. people had only 90 minutes to do as much as they could.

the rules

Try to photograph everything on the list, as much as possible in the time limit – until 9:30. The best teams are creative, clever, and well coordinated. (You’re probably superhuman if you can do all 26.)

Each task shot will be judged as follows:
- successful completion of task 3 pts (standard)
(as many possible group members in each shot)
- creative artistic interpretation +2 pts (bonus)

Bonus creative artistic interpretation points are earned by:
- telling a good story through your picture (location, props, good usage of everyone in the photo)
- good/interesting camera angle (no far away profile shots, get as close as possible)
- courage and extra effort to go all out to get that shot!

Super Bonus Points: 5 points to the team that completes the most unique tasks (which the other teams do not do.)

The teams will return to Safari Central at 9:30. Every late minute after the deadline is minus 1 pt. Only one photo max for each item. (You should not upload/present shots you do not want to be judged.) You can double up items for one shot for efficiency. (You’ll get double any bonus points for that shot.)

Some of these clues are cryptic and challenging, requiring some smart Sherlock thinking. Some are open to interpretation for your creativity. Have fun and get out there!
Good luck!

the tasks

A: ANGELS we have heard on high - golden and bright
B: a BOXING great ape – a jungle-style workout
C: CHRISTMASY CATHEDRAL
D: do a LAUNDERLAND load
E: ESCAPE from the Rock
F: FRIENDLY PASSENGERS – cable car tourists waving at you
G: GIVE a high-five to someone in uniform
H: HULA-HULA GIRL – doing the Hawaiian ho-down
I: INFINITY and beyond
J: JUMPin JOHNNY ROCKETS
K: KISS a stranger - however, wherever, whoever
L: LAVARAT – a Sunset sign somewhere
M: the MATRIX restaged - “operator!”
N: “NOW PLAYING Thai Me Up”
O: ORDER a hippie’s pizza
P: PHISH FOOD – lick it and love it
Q: Make a QUEUE
R: RIDE a red & white fire hydrant
S: SHOPPING CART Sit-In - put 5 people inside
T: TOURISTY VIEW of the city
U: UNDER a bridge
V: VANDALISM – urban rascality, malicious mischief
W: the WISHING WELL – where you get what you want
X: XEROX your face – smooshy cheeks
Y: Climb on a YELLOW SCHOOL BUS
Z: ZOO – walk on the wild side

the groups did pretty well and got a lot accomplished in the tight time table. i was a little disappointed that no one really tried to kiss anyone. (i was thinking of someone's hand!)

afterwards we went to go go's. there were a dozen of us fit around this one table at this chinese restaurant. to me, tonite felt a lot like lumps 2 years ago. a tight, smaller group cramming to be together, different people talking and sharing with each other. new people feeling comfortable and getting to know people. people meeting for the first time and those were the days. a dozen of us bunched around the big round table...a lot of times, just one discussion stream going on. it felt great.

finally pooped. catch-up tomorrow. hopefully.

I am a Breakout Bat. I am an abstract sort of creature, who dislikes any sort of restraint. If you try to pigeonhole me, I'll break the box, and come back for more. I don't have any particular ambitions, I just drift, but I am adept at keeping life going along. What Video Game Character Are You?

just heard this on the radio. i think this is one of my favorite christmas songs now...

THE CHIMNEY SONG
by BOB RIVERS COMEDY CORP

There's something stuck up in the chimney
And I don't know what it is,
But it's been there all night long.
Well, I waited up for Santa all Christmas night
But he never came and it don't seem right.
And there's something in the chimney
And it doesn't make a sound,
But I wish you Merry Christmas.

There's something stuck up in the chimney
And I don't know what it is,
But it's been there all week long.
Well, the dog keeps barking up the chimney flue
And we don't know what we're going to do.
Cause there's something in the chimney
And it doesn't move around,
And it's been a week since Christmas.

There's something stuck up in the chimney
And I don't know what it is,
But it's been there all month long.
Well, it's jammed up tight above the fireplace
Now the house smells funny, such a big disgrace.
That there's something in the chimney
And it doesn't talk at all,
And it's been there since last Christmas.

There's something stuck up in the chimney
And I don't know what it is,
But it's been there all year long.
I'll been waiting up for Santa like I did last year
But my brother says, "He's already here."
And he's stuck up in the chimney
And he doesn't say a word
And he'll be there every Christmas.
And we'll have him every Christmas.

other favorite christmas songs
- o holy night
- god rest ye merry gentlemen
- last christmas

old eskimo proverb

may you have
warmth in your igloo,
oil in your lamp,
and peace in your heart!

merry chirstmas!

career and school advice

thursday i had a career chat with one of my two teachers from my recent branded environments class. jt was out of town, so i just met up with ci. we chatted for an hour or so over at d'stillo (or something like that) next door. we talked about my goals, his perspectives on that particular niche of the industry.

he was really helpful in terms of asking about my specific scenarios and giving feedback on them. exactly what i need. looking for more schooling. maybe, maybe not an entire set degree curriculum if it's not in line with my needs/goals. what was incredibly encouraging, was the idea that i may not need to do all the work for a three year design degree. he affirmed that i have the ability to concept and present, and that getting the fundamental tools could be pretty much all i need. go to school to get better tools and a bigger tool box.

i know that my family would be much happier with the idea of a shorter duration for school and a smaller amount of debt. i know that ultimately i don't need the earned title of another degree. all i really need is a good book and a good tool box.

i really want to go down to LA in jan to check out the school and talk to dept heads and teachers. i need to investigate the entertainment design track and the graphic design tracks. look at the work in the gallery. see what curriculum offers the most of what i want. or the most flex...we also talked about different experiences which could be good for me. definitely leaving sf for a bit. maybe la or ny.

a lot to think about. i need to do some investigating and refining of goals, before he and jt can help me move on. ci was also pretty encouraging and helpful with my present day scenario for work/pay. we'll see how it all goes. for the past few months, i've started to prepare mentally that i could be outta here by the summer. who knows?

my new favorite italian restaurant in north beach

wed nite i had dinner with my grandmother. it's been a while since i had a one-on-one meal with her. i originally wanted to go to tommaso's (best pizza in sf) in north beach. i had been there once before so this would have broken my principle to seek out newness, but i thought that it was worth it so that my po po can experience it.

we eventually found parking, tried to check out one place (ciao), which she had been to years ago but is now closed. we walked a couple of blocks over to tommaso's (across from the millenium and next to some nasty video place. anyhoo...i suggested we check out Café Niebaum~Coppola. i had heard about some cafe restaurant that francis ford coppola owns and also had passed by it before. i hadn't heard if it was a good place or not. well to my pleasure it's one of top two or three italian places i've been to.

it is a small, cozy casual spot. feels like a european bistro. everyone on the staff speaks italian. they were all very friendly. the prices were pretty inexpensive-moderate for an authentic italian place in north beach. (pasta pomodoro is cheaper, but i don't consider that real italian food. and it's not nearly as good.) the pastas and pizzas were good sized (but not gigantic like bucca). we shared a caesar salad (made with egg yoke and anchovies). we also shared a folded over pizza and some pasta with a whole ton of clams.

i only have two small quibbles about the place...

1) they use metal cafe tables, which are pretty light. i bumped it twice with my knee. the first time nearly spilling my grandma's wine glass. the other time almost knocking down the olive oil.
2) they don't have tiramisu.

they have some nice stills on the wall and memorabilia from the movies. godfather I and II was written and edited in coppola's zoetrope studios right upstairs. po po would have bought my a godfather t-shirt, but it wasn't in xl. it was really fitting for me to go to this place this week, since i just saw godfather I and II for the first time days before.

my grandma and i really enjoyed the place. we'll definitely be back. we would even get our family to go there on christmas day, but it's closed that day, and the day before and after... they have poetry readings every other tuesday from 6-7. i'd like to go back for that. (anyone interested in going to a series of short stories read by actors on jan 22nd? lemme know. rsvp required according to the site.)

my po po and i really enjoyed the food. we got to talking about life some and enjoying the moment. i think her advice was "to be fully present in the moment." that's how to enjoy things well.

what i was up to the past few days...

downtown with the boys

i did some christmas shopping with jw and jc, two guys currently free like me from the daily constraints of work. it was cool hanging out and catching up, esp since jw was outta town for a few months. we took advantage of the three to a car = one free hour of parking deal at the downtown garages. if we had four peeps, it woulda been two hours!

while downtown, we stopped into san francisco center. we checked out the "build-a-bear" store there for the first time. it's pretty cool. you go and build your own stuffed animal, customized in pretty every single way possible. you start with the skin, stuff it, can add a sound or your own voice, add a heart, get it fluffed, and add a ton of accessories (e.g. mini skechers, snowboards, clothes, shades, etc.)

we ate at this tiny basement level asian food court up on kearny. house of lumpia - filipino cuisine is where we ate at. pretty cheap. two item combo plate under $5. i had chicken adobo and some sort of mix of pork and vegetables. the lady gave me a bowl of vegetable stew gravy which was nice. we all also got complimentary bowls of house soup. man, that stuff was pretty nasty. it left an aftertaste. was extremely lemony and sour salty. not in a good way. maybe there was a lot of vinegar.
i think this place is ok to go to, just don't drink the soup. yuck.

i didn't get too much from downtown. (i think i'm going to go back in an hour, and also do more shopping tonite.) we also kicked it on union street, bumming around some more. checking out the cool stores that offer design products for the home and personal accessories.

catching up with kl

while we were in a/x, i bumped into kl, my art center at night graphic design teacher from the spring. jing ding. it was great catching up to her, and chatting for a bit. we talked for a bit about work and school options for me, entertainment design vs graphic design, possibly continuing to self-select my own curriculum some how, going to art center, how school is the right time right now. also how i have the right discipline and the right stuff. it was really great timing talking to her, especially since i got similar career advice from someone else later on in the week. more to come...

next: discovering one of the best italian restaurants i've ever been to, my third three hour movie of the week, career/path advice from a teacher, and my return downtown (where i'm going now!)

spy game

my second brad pitt movie in two days. i saw it sat nite with mc and cl. been meaning to watch it for a while. i liked it a lot. plot is a little complex and slightly non-linear, but it's great.

la note

sunday i went with my sis e's birthday brunch at this place in berkeley called la note. i've never been there before, but it's a pretty popular french brunch/lunch place. it was pretty crowded. so crowded that e was there at 10:30 to get a place in line, and by 12:15 they still hadn't seated us (granted, it was a large party). my sis and i took off cuz we had to head to the south bay. oh well...i'll try that place some other time.

saul's deli and restaurant

since we still had to eat, i suggested that we head up to saul's, further north on shattuck. i think i had stopped by once, but it hadn't made much of an impression on me. it supposedly has a great reputation, as i remember a few years ago when i was in berkeley. well it sure did this time. maybe they redid the restaurant and expanded it. it's a jewish deli and restaurant.

we shared some latkes with sour cream and apple sauce. incredibly good and big. a little greasy too. also shared a potato knish. pretty yummy also. i had a pastrami sandwich too. really great stuff. all that food put me into a food coma on the way down to sj. good thing my sis was driving.

lomo on ice

we went to sj to participate in another lomography event. this one had free ice skating at the sj rink. we got there a little late, so unfortunately by the time we got to the front, all the spaces for the session were closed. (people limit for the ice.) we coulda waited til 4 to get on...but that was too late for us. oh well. we did take some cool pix with the lomo cameras. the pix should be up on display on a public wall there. i also have two passes to go ice skating there for free. hopefully i can take advantage of em.

the christmas rock

went to the annual outdoor rock praise nite. this time it was held at the music concourse by the embarcadero. really awesome time of outdoor carolling and singing with other christians from all over the bay. about 25 lumps people came out to check it out. check back for pix soon!

i got to talking to this white girl a, wearing a santa cap. she looked at me and said that she met me before. i didn't recall meeting her at all. she said that she met me before at the rock. i hadn't been to the rock for 4 or 5 months. but i know that they often have you introduce yourselves to people. got to some small talk with her to be friendly. she was from some church in hayward. after a little while she went back over to her family, said bye, and sorta touched my stomach saying good-bye. like a friendly pinch. (no, i'm pretty sure that my stomach wasn't hanging out or anything like that.) it was kinda odd. (i probably should do some sit-ups anyways.)

an offer you can't refuse

i just saw the godfather and the godfather part II for the first time ever. yeah, i shoulda watched it a long time ago. ds was sharing his newly aquired trilogy collection. i borrowed the first one and saw it last nite at midnight with jc and jj. we were incorrectly told that it was an hour and 45 minute movie. instead, the first chapter lasted about three hours! i was having some trouble staying awake. but after about half-way thur, i was awake for the rest of it.

saw the second chapter tonite over at ds's place with some people. i was awake for all of it. i brought over some coke and was drinking it all nite. just to be safe. it was long but pretty good. builds a lot on the ups and downs of the family. lots of good themes and quotes from the movie. i'd blog more about it...but i'm out of battery life on the laptop. so i'm posting now.

oceans 11

i saw this movie friday nite with ds and his sg. the movie was pretty good. the pacing was a little slow tho. i also thought that the fountain scene was too drawn out and cheesy (an inappropriate tone for the movie), but i bet it was an homage to the original rat pack movie. i dunno about that romantic plot line. it didn't completly convince me.

sliders usa

we went to hang out with his sg afterwards. we were gonna hit up nations in westlake, but in the same complex i discovered another burger place, sliders usa, which had a visible line of people waiting. no people at the empty nations. so we tried this place. pretty good condiment bar for the bugers. patties come in 6 oz size and 8 oz size. pretty big portions

driving to san rafael

we sure drove around that nite. from j-town to westlake then to the sunset to drop off some kids, then all the way up to san rafael to drop off another. i don't think i've been on that side of the bridge in 2 or 3 years! we had an interesting ride back afterwards.

i took pix of the whole nite, but i don't expect to publish digital pix until jan or so.

asian american bone marrow registry

i've been meaning to sign up for the bone marrow registry for a few years now. it seems like a really worthy cause. donating just two teaspons of blood can lead to someone's life being saved. maybe you've seen on the news or in the paper...but there's an 8 year old chinese-american girl in the bay area, joanne pang, who is desperately seeking a matching donor. did you know that it takes less blood to be registered than it takes to donate blood?

it was pretty painless. i went today to the tzu chi buddhist center on irving/30th to finally sign-up. (i have pictures to show of me getting tested...maybe later i'll share em.) i've never donated blood before.

don't miss out on your chance to get tested and possibly save someone's life! there's more information on joanne on her website. there's one last bone marrow drive testing in san francisco this next saturday.

the Asian American Donor Program will be at:

The Stonestown Family YMCA, Social Hall
333 Eucalyptus Drive, San Francisco
Phone number on the day of the drive (415) 242-7101
Saturday, December 22nd 3:00 pm - 6:00 pm

go do it! be in a position to give hope to someone and save a life. testing only takes about a minute, and it doesn't really hurt.

what's next

now that my project is over...what am i gonna do with having free time again?

- clean up the house after all of the "hungry hungry hippos" tornado which hit and stayed the past week.
- complete business cards for myself. now that i have more of a body of work to show for freelance gigs, i need some cards to hand out.
- do a real gregwong.com. get off of this template and blogspot hosted stuff. time to really design and be organized.
- figure out how to use my digital camera. i still havn't uploaded the pix into the computer to check out the quality. i hope i don't have flash problems. it seems a little too strong in all of the photos.
- touch up the hungry hungry hippos model. i'll probably be giving my presentation to my old teachers and relatives and a few interested friends.
- complete lumpsofclay.com. i have all of the assets. i just gotta put it together.
- do lumps collateral materials. complete the identity, put together business card fliers.
- read my comics stored up from the past few weeks.
- complete the design RAW essence of san francisco project, if it's not completely dead.
- watch movies: spy game, harry potter, oceans 11. i also wanna see the tannebaums, coming out tomorrow.
- get some paying work. (but i think that will come more easily once i finish those other personal design projects.)
- work out. i havn't done it in 6 weeks i think.
- look into schools.
- catch up with friends.
- go down to a lomo on ice event in san jose this sunday.

that's about it. i hope to do it all by the end of the year! if i could keep up at least half of my productivity level over the past week, it shouldn't be a problem. that would still mean pretty full days, tho.

the presentation

it went really well last nite. it's great that it's over and i that i managed to actually complete it.

i showed my project to a few people after tuesday nite for a preview. it was great cuz it pushed me to try to get a lot done for a milestone one day in advance. it helped me to pace myself a little better. i got some really great feedback too from some people who were trying to understand the concept and hadn't seen my project before. it was all really appreciated for people to spend like an hour late at nite to scope out my work in progress.

earlier that day on tuesday, i was planning that i would do an all-niter. aa had suggested i just get some sleep and work on the next day on my presentation outline...organizing my thoughts. i had no time to prepare my articulation for the project much. well, i ended up getting sleep that nite, and got back to it in the morning. i pretty much spent the entire day completing my presentaion boards and crafting...having no time to work on that outline. i had to run over to aaron brothers on geary (they're prices aren't too bad, particularly for mounting boards).

i was working up to the wire and a bit past it, too. in the last hour at home, i got tables done for my model, built a circular elevator with hippo sculptures sitting above and below the elevator, and finally figured out the ramp. i'll put up pictures eventually and document it all.

in the end, i had 13 boards (20"x30") and a model that was about 24"x24"x12". pretty huge.

since i was late to class, i went last. there were some special guests from landor and also some personal invited guests. i used up the full 12 minutes in describing my project. following aa's recommendation, i started off by broke up my presentation in talking about the game, the objective, the concept, the audience, the brand (and attributes), the identity, a tour or the space and experience (walking thru the storyboards and the model)

i got great feedback of the work presented. people said that fun was really encapsulated and blown out thru the space. one guy noticed a lot of the details in my presentation which i didn't necessarily point out. (i had to connect the dots, not describe the dots.) someone else really like the mark. my teacher jt, gave me a pretty nice complement...that i had more creativity in my body than everyone else in the room put together. (and this was a room full of creative people!) he's mentioned before that he's amazed by the amount of creativity i bring to it.

jt and ci were really great teachers. they put a lot of work into the class, gave great feedback, and also validated the students. at the end of each presentation, they shared with the group a bit about the students in terms of their work and what they brought on a personal level to the group. they really affirmed the growth of everyone and the hard labor. they're also supportive in whatever our next steps are in terms of our design careers. i'll probably try to hook-up with them in the next week or two and have a nice chat with them.

my bud jc is going to take the class next semester. he should have a great time.

yay. a new transformers comic is coming out from dreamwave.

i've had three bottled frappachinos today.

i'm not too productive right now. i think i get into my zone around 11 or midnight.

coming along

this is my one blog update before my hungry hungry hippos presentation. it's been coming along so far. a little behind schedule now tho.

friday nite i pulled an all-niter carving those darn hippo heads. it probably took me about 8 hours each.

i've loaded up on caffeine. last week i went to albertson's and bought two packs of bottled frappachinos (coffee and vanilla) and one of each of the different energy drinks.

energy drink fix

there are about 4 different kinds that i could find. like red bull and a few competitors. the first one i had a while ago was venom. it tasted like slightly carbonated gatorade. wasn't too bad. then i tried kmx (made by coca-cola, btw). that had a slight berry taste. yesterday i had hanson's energy. that one was pretty good. kinda citrusy. i think i liked the can packaging the best, too.

the last one left to try is red bull. i'll have it today or tomorrow. i read that more than one red bull a day isn't really good for you. maybe that's only when you have raging bulls (red bull with vodka) tho. or maybe it's one of those energy supplements. anyhoo...i'll review it later. i'll also post some pix later too hopefully.

breaks a plenty

sat and sunday i took a few social breaks - two birthday dinners, one brunch, and one visit to the cartoon art museum. i'll post later about it. took tons of pix with my new s30.

what's left to do...

- add the ramp, tables, chairs, and columns to my model - 3-4 hrs
- finish rebuilding the mood boards (what i'm working on now) - 2 hours
- touch up/resize storyboards - 2 hours
- mount storyboards onto boards organized designed in a grid system - 1 hour
- do two tiny hippo sculptures in balsa foam for my newly added circular elevator - 6 hours (if i have time)
(maybe i should just buy some super sculpey instead.)
- trim and attach acrylic wall - 1/2 hour
- write copy for signage and the storyboards - 2 hours
- create, print and layout process boards, identity board, collateral system, and floorplan/elevation board - 6 hours
- script and rehearse presentation - 1 hour

ooo boy. that adds up to 24 hours of work! dang, i better get a move on to try to be all done for the practice run tomorrow. (right after watching smallville. gotta make time for that!)

maybe i should get more energy drinks. and more dance music. i'm listening to the same few cds over and over!

playing catch-up

i presented my stuff last nite at class. it was pretty much the bare bones of my presentation, with about 40% of the content there. the main walls of my scale model are up. (it measures 2' x 2' x 1'.) one hippo head is sculpted out of balsa foam. that must have taken me 10 hours. (that's what my teacher guesstimated.) maybe it took 12? i can't remember. it was all a blur. hopefully i'll be faster for the next two.

after last nites class, i guesstimated that i need to do about 40 hours of work done by tuesday nite. i'll be previewing my HHH to some friends then. (lemme know if you'd wanna see it.) that should prevent me from doing a crazy all-niter tuesday nite, right before the big nite. i hope. with the stuff i have going on this weekend, i ballparked that i have to do about 10 hours of work a day. (my sunday is shot, and i was aiming to be done monday evening. tue and wed will be buffer days.) that was before today, which pretty much passed by with any work at all! (well, i did get supplies tho.) so maybe i can do four hours of work tonite (after i stop blogging) then 12 hours tomorrow, 12 hours saturday, and 12 hours monday.

so what do i have to do?

- sculpt a hippo head from balsa foam (10 hours)
- sculpt another hippo head (9 1/2 hours...hopefully i'm faster by then)
- cut out, glue, place scale tables and chairs (3 hours)
- redo my three mood boards - print out 12 color sheets for each board to tile into one image (3 hours)
- design my other presentation boards (4 hours)
- design a descending ramp (1 hour)
- write creative copy and captions (2 hours)
- spray white primer and finish up the hippo heads (1 hour)
- get plexiglass from tap plastic for an exterior wall to show the surface line (2 hours)
- design and add a scale elevator to the model (4 hours)

uh oh...that's 40 hours right there. looks like i underestimated last nite when i was figuring it out mentally. i knew that i should add another 20% more time for delays, underestimations, lags, whatever. that would make 48 hours of pure craft time!

i also need to do some work for the design raw workshop this sunday...

- write up a summary of my san francisco essence project
- do a vector drawing of it in illustrator. (crayons melted onto rock. i think i'm calling it "fusion.")
- revise and finish the product (melt more crayons onto rock)
... that's could be like 6 hours there.

i also want to have business cards ready for my presentation nite. it's a must if i'm hoping on doing some freelance work, and my presentation is a big showcase of my skills. i just bought paper at arch today.
- layout, printing experimentation, spray mounting sheets together, cutting
... another 6 hours (which can be done tuesday).

uh oh...that means a total 60 hours. holy macaroni. that could be 15 hours of work for friday, saturday, monday and tuesday. i think i'll need to plan another 30 minutes to make a run to the grocery store to get a case of caffeine. i wonder if i should try red bull.

i gotta do my catch-up blog dumping now, so that i can clear my mind of everything else...

frank miller strikes again...just not here

right before class, i tried to make it out to see frank miller at the union sq megastore. on the way there, i got a call from mc that we were moded cuz it turns out that it's the virgin megastore, in union square, new york! aye carumba. oh well. hopefully he'll be on a press tour to the bay area later. on the bright side, i wasn't late for my class. i was 20 minutes early.

that was last nite. now going wayback...

oases visiting

thur, i visited tn at oases to potentially do some brochure design work. interesting place. borderline chinatown. non-profit set-up to reach out to the kids. i told them that i can't do work til after the 12th, cuz of my presentation. still waiting to see what happens with that.

art center review

right after the oases visit, i went 7 blocks away for my portfolio review appointment. art center was holding a review at some west coast exhibition design company. pretty cool environmental stuff there. i got a chance to look around. (it's jing ding, given all of my considerations towards environmental design recently.) i think i talked with mr for over an hour. sr, the head of admissions, remembered my face from my visit down south back in may. i'm finally going to get my application in to them in jan. now i just need to decide for sure the major program i wanna study. new media/graphic design or environmental/entertainment design. decisions, decisions.

i think ultimately, i'd be interested careerwise in designing for a real-life holodeck. a virtual/physical branded experience. technology should be a lot closer in like 5-7 years.

ups visit

friday, i made a trip to help dl ship boxes to ups. i cut my finger doing so, but it's about all healed by now. ups gave me some free band-aids. never went to ups at portero before. dl gave me a ride to the embarcadero rink for my next appointment...

meeting ss

i was referred to meet ss from someone in my class. he's someone for whom i could do some potential work. we arranged to meet at the kristi yamaguchi ice skating rink. i guessed correctly that he was chinese b/c of his last name. it was good meeting with him, and the stuff his firm does is very much the niche work that i want to do...enviornmental/branding design. physical spaces and some new media too. showing him my portfolio, he assessed that i could take my career two ways...in terms of storyboard illustration or in terms of enviornmental design. that's very much the same portfolio/talent analysis i've heard two other times this past week. (once at an art center portfolio review in oakland on thursday, and saturday from some designer friends.) it was a really timely introduction to ss. there's some future potential work on the horizon for me, and he's now coming as my one allowed guest for the presentation nite. (hopefully he'll be wowed even more by my full, formal presentation.)

lots of sketching time at bucca

later on that nite, i hung out for a final meal with dl and peeps at bucca. did you know that they take reservations now? we didn't. one guy got there at 7 to try to get us a table. we weren't seated til 9:30! that's so insane. we coulda eaten there twice! during the long wait...i attempted to do work in my sketchbook. that attracted some kids over to admire my skills. at first looking in the distance. then coming up and standing right in front of me. i ended up drawing them, and gave them the picture.

maybe i should set-up a booth on the street. i think i can do it.

dlu gone

made it to the airport late sat am to see dl off to ny. he's gone now. he wept some when we prayed for him. we all knew that he'd break down eventually. =) we embarrassed him at the security, yelling good-bye to him multiple times. he knows he's loved. he got a scrapbook with creative pages done by his friends...saying good-bye. for mine, i drew a caricature of myself, thinking of him, and some pictoral sketches of many memories over the past 3 years.

grandma's art show

after a bite to eat, i went to chinatown to see my grandma's chinese brushpainting exhibit.it was nice to see it, and the othe artwork. (i went by myself, since i don't know anyone who'd be into checking it out, but i ran into my mom there.) po po wouldn't let me video her much tho. poops. afterwards we went to get coffee. i think i told them too much of my future plans...and the planned 15 min pit stop turned into probably 90 minutes of talking in the cafe and on the street about my future and parental pragmatic implications and thoughts of it. i didn't get any work done.

3D

i had helped plan this "3D" event for my bud ek...who hit the big 30. some astute people guessed correctly that 3D referred to his three decades. i didn't wanna put on the evite his exact age for people who didn't know. in case he was sensitive to it. i also came up with another literal name for it...december dine and dance, since the event was on dec 1st. we went to chevy's and then went to the glas kat. most of us got in free with a vip pass hook-up. i think they stopped taking them once they saw ek handing out the passes to people in our party.

i stayed an hour longer than i expected. the club was nice. disco, 80s music. hip hop room upstairs was an extra $5, but rw and i slipped into there for free early on.

the dc move

i went to early service the next day, to be available to help dc move. for him, i only got 4 hours of sleep, rather than 6! :P he got done a whole lot earlier than i came. he still provided lunch (which i picked up from round table). very cool of him.

after sunday lunch, i went home...took a nap...then pretty much just worked, slept little, ate, blogged randomly, sporadically chatted a little too frequently, checked my e-mail a tad too often, received my new digital camera, and worked, worked, worked. that was my life from sunday noon til wednesday morning, when i went to 7-11 for the caffeine run. i am now caught up blogging. this is like an hour or so later? well...it was worth catching up.

the run-around today

i mentioned that i was going to do work today, but i didn't. what happened? i ended up going to a late brunch with my mom and my sis (who came back from dc for good last nite, and will now be living in palo alto). we went to Q. of course it was my suggestion. funky american food. that's what the t-shirt says. cool interiors, and great food menu that changes with each meal daily. i really gotta go back more often. it's my favorite place on this west side of town...after that i went to the art store to get some supplies then went to arch, another art store to get more stuff. i must've spent like two hours at both places. so much cool stuff and even gift items. it was great catching up with my sis too. caught up from the past three months.

hard-core cranking

until my presentation day, i will blog maybe just once, try to check e-mail a whole lot less (only once or twice a day), will not get on aim (unless i really need to talk to someone specifcally), keep phone calls to under 5 min. i think i'll try to limit all of the virtual and actual social activity to a bare minimum. i'll also pick up either red bull/venom, coffee, and coke. i gotta be really hard-core the next several days. if i can't, what business do i really have considering a full-time design school or a career doing this stuff?

you can definitely pray for a bunch of things throughout my final studio week. pray for my concentration, endurance, discipline, wisdom in balancing stuff and prioritizing correctly, and windows of opportunity to open.

off to do work!

up all nite

i just stepped out of the house for the first time since sunday afternoon. i had to break my self-imposed house sentence to get some caffeine. didn't have any in the house. after staying up all nite working on carving and cutting for the model, i needed a pick-me up.

i got some energy drink called venom. it's something like red bull, not that i had ever had red bull before. didnt' know what to expect in terms of taste...but the can says "high potency energy...with instant bite." i just finished it. i feel a better now and i think i can concentrate again.

maybe i'll take a nap later, maybe not. i also picked up a bottled coffee frappachino for later.

theme tune found

hoo-rah. rw and tl both came thru separately with the hungry hungry hippo tune! i hope i can sing it with confidence in front of the class.

yay. i just saw myself in the background of the cube. no one would really be able to tell it was me tho, unless i told them.

hungry hungry hippos help

do any of you remember the jingle from the tv commercial for they Hungry Hungry Hippos game? (i know it was a popular spot running in the 80s, and the ad song got stuck in people's heads.)

i desparately want to know the tune of the jingle. i can't find it on the net. i was able to find the lyrics to help you out...

"Hungry hungry hippos...
Open up and there it goes
It's a race!
It's a chase!
Hurry up and feed their face!
Who will win?
No one knows!
Feed the hungry hip-hippoes"

i'm hopping to sing it for my practice presentation tomorrow nite, and also for the real deal presentation next week wed. i havn't allowed myself to catch up on my blogging from the weekend, cuz of all the work i still have to do for the model and to get boards ready tomorrow. i havn't left the house since sunday!

anyhoo...if you know (or can find the jingle somewhere, maybe on some file sharing program), please contact me asap. thx.

the dark knight strikes back

mc just told me about the big news of the frank miller signing at virgin on wed. man, i've got class 30 min after it starts. wonder what to do. i'm still working on my hippo stuff, right now. this book has already been huge in the media. it comes out this wed. check it out. even if you're not into comics, a signed copy would be a highly collectible thing or a great gift for someone.

happy 20th birthday britney!

(just a random factoid i found right now.)

the way of the exploding stick

wc sent me a fun stick fighter game.

the new "it" thing
dy just sent me news about the segway. the machine which was codenamed ginger and which was billed as being like the new killer app technology, being bigger than the internet. it was a closely guarded secret. now the news is out by time magazine. the technology revolutionizes walking and personal transportation.

there's an interactive cgi graphic window which shows how the technology works. very cool. i wonder if it'll take off or not. just cuz a technology is revolutionary doesn't mean that it'll change the world or even catch on.

look for me in the background of the cube

a mini-update before the whopper catch-up to come. when i went to meet ss to talk about some potential work on friday, we met up at the embaracadero ice skating rink. (he was producing some program event there.) at that time, they were filming a segment for the cube, renel's segment on evening magazine. they filmed her standing on the ice rink talking to the camera, with some ice skaters in the background.

throughout the entire segment, you should be able to see me on camera. i should be standing in the backround on the left, leaning on the glass edge of the rink (outside of it, looking in and towards the camera). i'm wearing a dark blue sweater and khaki cords. the segment should air sometime this week. maybe tomorrow? they also had a shot filming the ice skater kids doing their stuff on the ice. you can probably see me in the same spot on the left.

i didn't do anything dumb like waving or carrying a sign, altho i could have. anyhoo...evening magazine is on in the bay area on channel 5 at 7. the cube is in the middle. so if you're not already watching for malou nubla, then watch for me!

gross

right now, i was eating some of my mom's pasta leftovers from a restaurant. i just found a hair. i picked it out...thinking maybe one isn't too bad. maybe it's hers. (or maybe it's a waiter or chef's.) i just about took another bite. then i found another hair. ewwww. i dumped it immediately.

more updates to come... meeting ss, going to ups, a two and a half hour wait at bucca di beppo's, and 3D.

also, i think i get my camera tomorrow! i'm excited.