Vroom Vroom!

Last Saturday (01.26.08), Ben & I went up to Harrisburg, PA with our friends Tom, Andrea, Kevin & Rachele for the Pennsylvania Auto and Boat Show.

First of all, it was hilarious because it takes place inside something known as the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex.
This is a huge group of buildings, which exist for the sole purpose of a farm show. Only in Pennsylvania.

Anyway, it wasn't a manufacturer's show, so no concept cars. But we did get to check out some sweet rides. For example:



Ben & Andrea in a Mercedes-Benz SL550 ($100,000+)



Tom & Ben in a BMW Z4



Being a dork in a Jaguar coupe...this might have been an XJ (?)



Subaru Impreza engine - not the WRX STI (boo) - but check out the baby turbo!

Unintentional Hilarity is my Favorite Kind

Anyone else find this headline funny? Or just me and my really bad sense of humor?

O'Malley To Give State Of The State Speech

Two of My Favorite Things....Together!

Diamonds & Gossip Girl!




These adorable "?" necklaces from Alex Woo were on an episode of Gossip Girl! So adorable.

Other necklaces were featured as well... check out the details here. Blair wore the diamond B & diamond W... obvi.

& look at Jenny being all cute!



I want one :)

[all images from AlexWoo.com]

Gift from the Interwebs

This one's for Sarah;


moar funny pictures

This one's for Maggie;


moar funny pictures

You Didn't See the Memo?

I was poking around Joystiq this morning (I love lazy Saturday mornings), and they recently featured this video, about a work day in the life of Turret from the game Portal.

It's hilarious, kind of like Office Space in the Aperture Science Laboratories.

Warning: this is seriously, seriously dorky & NSFW (language) ... & hilarious.



(from here)

My favorite part:

Turret 1: You know who I ran into last week?
Turret 2: Who?
T1: The Companion Cube
T2: OMG I hate that guy. What a douche.

Gonzo.

I often use the Firefox add-on StumbleUpon, which I highly recommend - but I warn, it's very addictive.

It's especially good for finding randomly fantastic things to blog.
Including this, which speaks for itself.



<3

Please Meet My Friend(s): LL Cool J, DMX, Snoop Dogg & Jay Z

Towards the very end of the work day today, Craig shared with me this sweeeeeeet YouTube video:



It's Aires Spears (from MADtv) doing a rap in the voices of LL Cool J, DMX, Snoop Dogg & Jay Z... and it's seriously spot-on.

When I first saw this, my jaw dropped. I was absolutely positive it was dubbed.

But apparently it's legit.

Dude's got skills.

An Introduction to the Obsession [My Love for Nordstrom]

I used to work at Nordstrom, and I was hating it by the end of the second summer. Mostly because (1) my crazy schedule made it hard to visit the far-away boyfriend and (2) my manager was a bitch.

But outside of all that, I'm still obsessed with the store. And I'm on the website, a little too often. It's one of my favorite shopping environments both brick-and-mortar and e-tail.

I especially love the Designer Collections area. The web experience is just adorable and of course, this is where all the best clothes, shoes & accessories are.



& one of the things that I enjoy the most is the modeling. Since this it the true High Fashion merchandise, they use the most high fashion models.

That means lots of the ANTM hand-on-hips-elbows-forward pose.

Observe:


Andrew Gn Linen Pencil Skirt, $750


Armani Collezioni 'Sand Dollar Print' Belted Kimono Jacket, $1675


Michael Kors Leopard Print Sheath Dress, $1295


Michael Kors Matte Jersey Dress, $1195


Zac Posen Jersey Dress with Stitch Detail, $950


I rest my case.

[all images from nordstrom.com]

Taryn Simon's "An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar" [Another Post Inspired by Wired]

(I'm debating how cool/uncool it would be to create a tag called "Inspired by Wired")

Photographer Taryn Simon has put together her newest book, An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar by shooting images of places and objects that are otherwise abstruse to the American public. How she got access to some of these scenes is intriguing enough for me to want to buy this book ($47.25 at Amazon ... did I mention that my birthday is coming up?)

Her images are haunting & thought-provoking, both in composition and subject matter. I would love to hear your thoughts on her work.

The album (and source of the image below) available here.

My personal selection is the nuclear radiation:



The image is so striking, and without a caption it might not register as a photograph at all. And it kind of looks like the cylinders of radioactive waste are trying to send a message, but that could be just me.

The blue glow is apparently due to Čerenkov radiation, a form of electromagnetic radiation. I found a decent explanation on a UPenn website:

To be precise, this radiation, named Cerenkov radiation after its discoverer, is produced whenever the velocity \beta c of the particle exceeds c/n, where c is the speed of light in a vacuum, n is the index of refraction of the medium traversed by the charge, and beta is the usual relativistic term given by the expression
beta = {1\over\sqrt{1 - (v/c)^2}} if v is the velocity of the charge.

I have no idea what that means, but it sounds about right.

I also chose this image because it was taken at the Hanford Site in Washington State, a nuclear storage facility and one of the most radioactively contaminated locations in the States.

According to Wikipedia (never the most reliable source, but certainly the most convenient), the Fat Man bomb (dropped on Nagasaki) was built with plutonium from the Hanford Site.

&&

In my research on the Hanford Site, I was able to locate a Google link to the Department of Energy's official Hanford website (www.hanford.gov ) - but everytime I tried to access it, I got an "Problem Loading Page" error message.

Just something to think about.

WANT

If I'm home on a weeknight, I always make a point of watching Attack of the Show (<3) on G4 (<3).


This week they have been covering CES2008.

...That would be the Consumer Electronics Show...n00b.

The vast majority of the AOTS coverage has been to show off very drool-worthy electronics. I want it all.

Especially this:



The Asus Eee PC.
warning: above link is esentially a useless website, and it even looks like one of those fake webportals that sometimes come up when you type a domain incorrectly, you know?

It's amazing.

The video that convinced me of that fact:



(from here)

It's a tiny little Linux laptop (XP compatible, if you really want to ruin it)with a solid-state (read: flash memory) HD, so no moving parts to break.

It's got a 7" display and weighs less than 1KG, so it's totally portable.

Granted the hard drive options are 2G, 4G or 8G (about the size of an iPod Nano) but it's not for regular home computing or gaming. It's for portability and web browsing (the interwebs).

The 4G & 8G models come with built in cameras too!

I use mostly web 2.0 programs anyways...

I justify the desire/need for this a few ways:

-- The 8G model is only $500 (CHEAP)
-- I already have a regular (HDD) laptop (even if it is busted)
-- I have a large-capacity external harddrive
-- No need to buy software. I can download OpenOffice if I realllly need it
-- It doesn't use Windows, so no stupid problems!

I WANT IT!

Why I Love My MicroSD Card [Or, My Day at the Philly Museum of Art]

Last Saturday, Ben & I went up to Philly to visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art (you know, the one from Rocky...)


[I just stole this off the Museum's website]


View Larger Map

I hadn't been to the Museum in a while - since an Art History class trip senior year - and was really looking forward to have a whole day to explore. And explore we did... we just kept moving and it felt like the Museum was never ending!


I was really impressed with the collections, especially the installations made up of architecture that has been re-built into the Museum. This includes temples from China and India, the courtyard of a monastery, and a Japanese tea house. Perhaps it was not the architecture itself, but rather the experiential aspect.

Two things disappointed me:

1. The very limited Pop Art (& similar) exhibit - as this is my favorite style of art (if you couldn't already guess)

2. Apparently we missed the Costume & Textiles collection, which I just discovered while poking around the Museum website. Maybe Ben made sure that we missed it? hahaha But seriously, it's pretty pathetic of me to miss the fashion. Maybe I shouldn't admit that openly on the interwebs.

But the most disappointing thing was:

I forgot my camera. Bad ML!

Luckily for me, I'm a huge dork & have a 1GB MicroSD card in my MOTO KRZR just for days like this.

Translation: I can take pics on my phone, and actually use them.
So the quality is crappy (or fantastic, depending on how you consider it) but check them out anyway:



Ok, I'll admit this one is really really bad. But it was one of my main motivations for going up the Museum in the first place - and the reason my class visited. It's the Staircase Group by Charles Wilson Peale, and I swear it almost brought a tear to my eye.

It's one of the most incredible trompe l'oeil paintings evarrrr.



I fucking love Warhol, so I was just generally excited to see this. So adorable. Not sure what's up with the lighting though...

What's Your New Year's Resolution?

My resolutions:

To keep in touch with friends & family better
To be fabulous & fashionable all the time

I had a really great NYE.












Did you?