You'll want to watch this video of Theo Jansen's "beach animals" if you're an artist or an engineer. Inspiring.

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A man in South Korea died in an incident that likely involved his cell phone. Yikes! Allegedly his LG phone was found melted in his chest pocket, possibly after exploding there, where it caused fatal injuries to his heart and lungs. That got me googling for cell phone injuries/accidents. Not pretty. Most of the research I found said to use a headset and to keep the cell antenna away from your brain/off your body's vital organs.

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Nice article on C|Net on why Guitar Hero may be leading to a huge conversion of people who might actually want to pick up a real six-stringer in the future. btw, that was an excellent episode of South Park. :)

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REMINDER: Ghostland Observatory is tomorrow!

My friend Adriana has awesome new artwork up. She's just awesome, period.

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Ruth Asawa exhibit at Rena Bransten begins this Thursday, Nov 29 – Saturday, Jan 12 08 (Tue-Fri: 10:30am-5:30pm / Sat: 11am-5pm)WhereRena Bransten Gallery (77 Geary St, 415.982.3292). Price? FREE! Awesome news in case you missed her retrospective at the DeYoung like I did last year.

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My friend Reba is in Dance Ceres so you should go see them or I will beat you up with cotton candy. Or something. They perform this Friday and Saturday at Dance Mission, 6 pm both nights. $15.

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In time for the holidays, Gary M. sent along a link that helps you mix cocktails with the ingredients you already have in your bar. Rad!

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If you're a geek like me, I'm sure you'll very much agree this was a great weekend for TV with BSG's "Razor" 2-hour movie on Saturday and yesterday's ep of Heroes. Next week's ep of Heroes will be the season finale, which makes me sad because there will be nothing to look forward to until March 2008 when BSG's season premier airs. This means I'll actually have to be productive or something on Sundays and Mondays, or heaven forbid read a book. :)

Scene360 launches a new issue, so be sure to go check it out. Now!

Hi, you're still here. omg.

I just sent you to Scene 360 and you're still here? DUDE, my interview with Scene 360 has gone live! Now will you scoot? I hesitate to plug it as I'm seriously a shy person (I know, a truly shy person would have no business with a blog, but what is a creative shy person to do?), and ridiculously modest too, but it's a funnyish but heavy sorta interview. You'll learn more about me than you ever cared to learn in one sitting.

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Are you on Facebook? Here's more about what I'd written in my last entry about FB sharing your purchasing/surfing data in your mini-feed with your friends.

Well, it's been a busy week and I'm glad for the respite of the next few days. I am thankful to be content with solitude, thankful for my apartment, thankful for the good health of my friends and family. So many links to share...

First up, WTF, Facebook? Why are you sharing our purchases without our explicit consent? See this, read this, join this, and then sign this. If it wasn't for Scrabulous, Facebook, you'd already be dead to me.

Green Team is hilarious, especially if you're very much acquainted with the three Rs and know that one friend or group of friends that always have to out-green you or feel the need to school you for not being green enough. Thanks for the link, Elka! Elka also sent me a link to a Flying Spaghetti Monster tree ornament. Cuuute!

Cathy Lo, a skilled writer and designer, happens to also be one of the most talented artists I know. She has beautiful new artwork up on her own site now.

Last, but not least, Kindle!! Golly, I want to play with one now...

Volunteer to help clean up the oil slick that has mucked up the beautiful Bay Area coastline. The Department of Fish & Game (EPA) and the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) will be offering training to volunteers this weekend if you're inclined to help in both San Francisco and San Mateo. Click here for more info.

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Update: Gimpy toes aren't broken. Yay! Just taped up and on ice. They should be fine in the next few weeks...

I'm at the Orinda Public Library as I wait to see my doctor yet again. Dork that I am, I tried to install something while on cough meds and ended up dropping the drill on my foot. Grrr. Just call me Jenny-gimpytoes. It's a bit better and the swelling on the big toe's gone down now, but I still have a strange feeling that it's not fully connected to my foot. Rather than risk broken bones setting themselves in some gnarly way, I've opted to go get it checked out ASAP. God bless Hyland for agreeing to take me here.

The Orinda Public Library is rather state of the art with comfy furniture and outlets at every table, CFL lamps, and free wi-fi. There is a lovely plaza outside and a café downstairs—I'm seriously impressed and wish that more libraries could be like this one. While it's nowhere as gorgeous as the Seattle Public Library, this is one very comfortable yet functional place to read and work which is ultimately what matters in a library.

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Perhaps as a means of atoning for introducing me to twogirlsonecup, Dave sent me a cool link to a paint brush that is probably made of fiberoptics and draws with whatever it "dips" into and copies. Lookie!

So this weekend I finally got sick. It's the sore throat that always kills me, never mind the runny nose or aches or soreness; my throat is my achille's heel. I pretty much cancelled/bailed on everything this weekend and only left the house for a total of 1 hour to buy sustenance. I hope I didn't get H. sick... What's funny is that this current flu seems moody and gets worse late at night and in the morning. It makes me wonder if it's an allergy to sleep or something.

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Just saw this on CNet that there are rumors of Apple debutting a lightweight and uber-portable laptop that will weigh half of what the current MacBook Pro weighs. That makes me happy that I'll be upgrading my computer next year instead.

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I saw this hilarious protective iPod skin that is truly an homage to goatse.cx and sent the link to my two ex-roommates. These two uber-nerds who'd first indoctrinated me to all manner of internet memes like tubgirl, Strong Bad Email/Homestar Runner, as well as goatse.cx. Within minutes, Dave replied back with a response that including a new thing for me to google: twogirlsandacup. If you google it, please be warned that it's extremely not safe for work. Or for lunchtime for that matter.

p.s.— Dave: I want those two minutes of my life and whatever was left of my innocence back, dude.

Rainy Saturdays seem to beg for a Carpenters song, don't you think? Well, I'd been lamenting the fact that I'll be working this weekend (or part of it, at least) but the fact that the weather is craptastic outside makes it somehow less painful to be cooped up inside and parked in front of my desk. I hope the rain lets up by middday so I can at least go out for a spell, if only for a walk.

I've been working on bending my perspective on things, on how I see things as good or bad which ultimately influences my attitude about them and life in general. Things like rain, or work. At some point, I do my best to view these things favorably, and then after a certain point of trying, I get tired and feel I'm deceiving myself over something's true suckitude.

Let's take rain, for example. On the upside, it's nourishing for the world outside, its presence ensures verdant streets. It sweeps away all the grime and oil that's been building up on the streets since the last time it rained. You don't have to worry about watering your plants for a few days, and if you're weeding, the deep soaking from the rain will help pulling weeds much easier by saturating the soil. Rainy days are a perfect time for cleaning the house or doing other unglamorous or least-favorite chores because, seriously, what else are you gonna to do?

On the downside, rain sucks because a lot of the drivers in the Bay Area suddenly drive like they don't know how anymore. Rain sucks because the ants suddenly decide to kick it in my place to ride out the storm. All the fun plans you might have been dreaming of for today? Yeah, just forget about it.

All in all, rain is a good thing when it comes in moderation. We can't schedule or modulate nature, that's for sure.

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Jackie sent me a link to hoity-toity toilets that are apparently all the rage now. They save on resources because the bidet and bum dryer mean that you don't need to wipe with TP. From the article:

'"It's much more green if you look at toilet paper consumption and production," Pinizzotto said. "We use 20,000 sheets per year per person. For one roll, it takes 37 gallons of water to make. It really is amazing what goes into toilet paper."'

I wonder how much water it takes to get the average bum clean vs. how many sheet of TP the average person uses.

Thanks to the magic of Skype, I recently caught up with my friend Diane who now resides in Mexico. I heart Skype! In other news, I've been ridiculously busy so pardon me if I drop out of blogging for a while.

I can't believe Thanksgiving is happening so quickly. I've never cooked my own turkey but it looks like that's going to happen this year. :) GAH!!! I'm psyched to hang with David (who's coming up from Sandy Eggo) and my fams, but I do wish the Jackie will be here, too. Ah well, there's always Christmas. Also, WTF with the weather? I'm wearing two layers of thermals. :\

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I forgot to mention that while I was at Non Sequitor, I ran into an old design classmate from eons ago, Brad Alder. He now is a muralist and designer, but spends most of his days painting. He also has a mural up in Clarion Alley, which recently was home to the Clarion Alley Block Party. You should definitely take yourself on a walk through that magical sliver of space between 17th and 18th Streets and Valencia and Mission.

I watch very little TV considering how I work from home and how much I could actually be watching. Right now I'm waiting for Heroes to come on and have stumbled upon Chuck, which is on just before Heroes. Fluffy, but sorta funny.

Ooh, Heroes is on now!

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Okay, commercial break. Live blogging can't be very interesting for you, dear reader, because you get to watch ADD in collapsed time, huh? :) Anyhow, it's been a good weekend. Could you believe the weather? It's like we got a brief respite from the brisk fall weather for just the weekend and suddenly we're back on track with the cold snap today. I had a very, very busy weekend that included visiting family, getting and putting together my new chair, going to Daria's birthday thing at Bourbon & Branch, which you must visit if you like the 1920's and have a penchant for excellent mixology.

Sunday I had brunch at the nearby Thai temple with Athena and Liat Also had a visit from a, um, very special guest. :) After a break, I had dinner and went to see a play with Howie and Felicia. To be more specific, we went to see after the quake, which is based on a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami of the same name. I enjoyed the sparse stage and the romantic storyline.

NON SEQUITOR, a group show featuring two friends of mine (Mike Monteiro and Alexis MacKenzie), opens tomorrow, Saturday, from 5–9 p.m. at Ritual. I'm going super-early because I've got hella commitments, but I hope you make it out there to meet the artists and to see interesting art. :)

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YEE SO!! :)

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I went grocery shopping with Hyland today and picked up a 5-pound box of seedless and easy-to-peel satsuma oranges from Berkeley Bowl this evening. Oh my god, so good. Soooo goood! It comes in a black cardboard crate/box and the brand is "ABE-EL" and I promise you shan't regret it.

Tell me, why is it that the mens' department almost always get the cooler accessories? They're generally better made and stylistically more enduring than the items I find the women's department of the same store. For example, here's a scan of something I picked up at Urban Outfitter's men's section after work today:

It's a razorblade lasered from a piece of red plexiglass. Also available: a blue plexiglass hand grenade, white plexiglass brass knuckles, and some other "manly" object in black plexiglass (at this point I'll wager it was a gun), but it was obviously not very noteworthy otherwise I'd've remembered what it was.

I'd been upstairs at Urban's women's section and glanced over the froofy things I saw and just sneered at either the style, the shoddy workmanship, or the quality of materials. Sad.

Anyhoo... I'm going to have to shorten the chain, but here's how it looks on (pardon my appearance—no makeup cuz it's bedtime):

All in all, a good half hour's hunt for a wonderful pop of color to go with all the green I suddenly have in my wardrobe. :)

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Eric sent me a link to Tina Roth Eisenberg's blog, swissmiss. I LOVE the gadgets and design-geeky things she posts there. Thanks, E.!

Mike M. just sent me a link to Make My Logo Bigger Cream. If you are a designer, you will laugh, you will cry, and you will understand. This awesome parody is actually a portfolio piece for Agency Fusion, and they did a kickass job with the video, writing, editing, design and production all the way around. Kudos!