Architecture Sucks

All architects know this. I think its mostly all the garbage that you have to put up with to make architecture. People who want something for nothing are at the top of that list, at least today. What is it that makes people think that a set of drawings (that can take months of design and production work to finish) are somehow something that should be free? Or that I would want to design something for someone else to "do the details"? Something is seriously wrong with people's perception of architects' values. And no, its not just a head in the clouds scenario.

Britney Spears, Broccoli or MIT Wondergeek

Newsflash:
Britney Spears is actually a piece of broccoli. Actually. This is some entertaining spam. I wonder if its all computer generated or if someone is sitting in a dark room somewhere cranking out headlines with Britney and Paris Hilton.

I just bid 10 bucks for Britney's baby on Ebay. Thanks spam guy!

Dictionary: Yellow Peril

I picked up an old pocket dictionary that the local library was giving away. Its from 1963, had a nice cover, so whatever I grabbed it. Flipping through, I found an interesting definition that I've never seen before.

yellow peril - The danger to people of a white race threatened by the domination of people of a yellow-skinned race.

In other news, China leads the USA in gold medals 46-29, but the USA is ahead 95-83 in total medals.

Firm Names and Paris Hilton

Architects are always imagining up clever firm names, like musicians talking about band names. Although if I had a band it would either be Spooky Pants or Sandwich Without Consequence, an architecture firm needs something more sophisticated. Personally, I think it needs to be something that is at once generic and memorable, like Paris Hilton. You know what you're getting although it still has some level of mystery and whatever with it. Generic/Specific at the same time, its hard to do. That way, also, its not something that's too trendy or style specific that you typecast yourself...

Some half baked ideas....
Easy Architecture
Public Practice

its not there yet.

The Boy Returns

Today my favorite younger brother returns from his 1 1/2 year stint on the Cayman Islands. Returning to Dirty Jerz. Sucker. Come for the highways, stay for the guidos.

The People Have Spoken

All six of them, including me, what a turnout. The pirate bite wins the award for most masculine way to eat a banana, with all other methods getting one vote each. There are no hanging chads and there will be no recount. Thank you to Cecilia for voting for Baby Bites. There is something interesting about it. I bet the Continental could pull it off. The pirate bite is the winner, so if you plan on eating a banana like a man, you know what to do.

An Afternoon in NYC

I went off to meet my friend Ersela at the David Byrne "Playing the Room" installation by Wall St. I managed to take 1 1/2 hours to go from West New York to Wall St, and she had to leave before I got there. Something made me think that taking the ferry and a bus would be faster and easier than driving in. It wasn't, and it was more expensive too. On the way, I got a call from my bank because someone had stolen my credit card info and went on a shopping spree at a Walmart in Jacksonville, FL. I've never been to Jacksonville and the only time I stepped foot in a Walmart was on a spring break road trip. If you went to the trouble of stealing credit cards, wouldn't you be more ambitious than Walmart?


Went to the American Indian museum downtown, which I didn't even know existed, but admission was free and it was hot out. I highly recommend it. There was an exhibit called "remix" where they showed contemporary Indian artwork, and an artifact exhibit of two tribes on the coast of British Columbia. They used "box drums" big painted wooden drums, and the women cut their lips and put discs in them the same way that some African tribes do. You know that National Geographic stuff. I thought it was cool to see people on different sides of the earth doing the same things. Maybe it will catch on here some day.


Walking uptown, I ran into Chris and Ade, friends from NJIT, we sat in a park, ate cherries, and talked about how architecture sucks.

Research: A Masculine Way to Eat a Banana

One day, a guy who wears man bags (not me) was confronted by someone who's nickname ends with boner (not me) about the fruit he was enjoying. "You know, , there is no masculine way to eat a banana", said Mr. Boner, completely deflating man bag wearer from enjoying his healthy snack.

We could just leave it at that. But it would be a disservice to all those homophobic people out there who want a masculine way to eat a banana. Those, some of whom read this blog in fact, fearful of the stigma of banana eating. To them I say, do not fear, you are not giving a dismembered banana tree oral stimulation.* It does not work that way.

But that is not enough. We must go further. Bananas are too good. We must find a way.

Here are some options to consider:

Pirate Bite- My personal favorite. The key is to imagine yourself as a pirate, and to bring the banana to your mouth sideways and snap off a piece. Make sure to show a lot of tooth, but do not use alot of tooth. One benefit to this method is that with the snap off bite, the remains of a snap off have a grainy fibrous natural quality, as opposed to a toothy bite that would leave a smooth creamy edge. Muscles are fibrous, fat is creamy. Fibrous is more manly than creamy. Snap off.

Mash Up
- The preferred method of Mr. Boner. First, peel completely, then mash the entire thing up into a ball, then take a big bite. I think the messiness adds to the manliness. You have to go all out with this one. Balls to the mash up walls. Smile madly while you mash it up. Crazy eyes. People will be so caught up in the fact that you are a madman that they will forget that you are eating a banana. Madman is manly. It has man in it.

Hand Offs
- This one's pretty simple. Peel the banana as usual, but instead of biting off pieces, break them off with your hand and bring said broken off pieces to your mouth hole. This method is ripe (wocka wocka) for customizing to your own style. Perhaps instead of gingerly bringing the banana piece to your mouth you slam it down, ending with an open hand slap of your face. Perhaps you throw the pieces in the air and catch them in your mouth. I don't know. Make up something you jerk. Do I have to think up everything?

Baby Bites
- As if you're feeding it to a baby, chop it into little slices on a plate and eat individually. This one takes a special kind of person to pull off and still be masculine. Extra points if you can do it while wearing a bib and sitting at a table that is way too high for you.

*By the way have you ever eaten at one of those indian banana leaf restaurants where you plop all the food onto a banana leaf? Its big fun.

A bread shop - Psychic Readers

I overheard some guy at the port authority bus termial asking about "a bread shop called au bon pain". I then proceeded to kick him in the balls. Then a Puerto Rican guy came out of nowhere, stabbed him, stole his luggage, and said "welcome to new york.". And then I found five dollars.

Have you noticed that psychic readers always have upstairs 'shops' and are always sitting on a chair outside asking you to come in? I don't know what this says about their psychic ability, except it makes them easy targets for mocking.

sneaky boston

I performed a covert day and a half trip to boston for sneaky birthday fun. It was good fun, and I got to have my favorite turkey sangwich from the greatest sandwich maker in the world, the dreadlocked girl at Shays. Turkey sang on french bread. Plus we had balloons, broken glasses, and 40lbs of mardi gras beads to round off the party. Then I went to NYC to meet with a headhunter who basically told me that I'd be lucky to make the same salary there that I did in Cambridge, all because too many talented jerks want to live there....supply and demand.

Rest in Peace Mikey Guido

My old friend Mike Hanna died this week from leukemia. He was 30 years old. Mike liked making fun of people, buying sunflower seeds to pick up girls, and talking about what it would say on his next business card (The Ownah).

Not too long ago our friend Dina joined a fundraiser for the disease and is running a half marathon in San Francisco in October. If you don't like cancer you should help her raise money for research.

Her fund raising page is here:
http://pages.teamintraining.org/nyc/nikesf08/dmansour

This is her Facebook "cause" webpage:
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/89168?recruiter_id=16894209

The Heavyweight Champion of Egypt

TOOT TOOT TOOT TOOT

Katkoot = pussycat

Awesome Photos

Check out this page of ridiculous and awesome photos, its like a science experiment explosion.
http://www.lucyandbart.blogspot.com/

Their website has an amazing face warp thing too:
http://www.lucyandbart.com/

LucyandBart is a collaboration between Lucy McRae and Bart Hess described as an instinctual stalking of fashion, architecture, performance and the body. They share a fascination with genetic manipulation and beauty expression. Unconsciously their work touches upon these themes, however it is not their intention to communicate this. They work in a primitive and limitless way creating future human shapes, blindly discovering low – tech prosthetic ways for human enhancement.

I obviously have more time on my hands this week.......

Do you want Patriot's Day in your mouth?

Do you want to embarrass airplanes? Do you want girls in bikinis? Then watch. This is awesome, terrible, goodness. It will make you sick like you ate way too many twizalerz.

MMMM....cardboard

Anyone interested in a single-speed cardboard bike? I'm thinking that its got to be pretty uncomfortable being all shockless and stuff. I watched the video on BBC...the kid wouldn't let them use it on camera.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7457220.stm

my last week in cambridge

In a nutshell for anyone at all bored enough to be interested, lots of slow packing, eating, being an accomplice to hookey playing, I shot a bow and arrow and collected candy and money $2 at a time for prime shots, lots of frantic last minute packing, saw a murderer, didn't shoot arrows at him, capped it off with Tacos Lupita goodness, then changed the radio station constantly for 4 hours till I got to NJ...whoopdeedoodee

pack this

I hate boxes. They look at me with evil grins. I stuff them. No more boxes, everything else is going into garbage bags........the final Cambridge karaoke fest is tonight....i need to shower because I stink....right now all of Harvard Sq smells like a homeless guy after a burrito dinner.....ma- newer

How to Talk to Women

I don't know if this is real or not but its funny....and yes its true, I'm one of the few men in this city who doesn't have something wrong with them..

boxes to the left of me

boxes to the right...here i am, stuck in the middle of boxes....my box scavenging paid off last night when I hit the jackpot outside of a hair salon...i will never pay for boxes....boxes are like tap water...boxes are like sunshine

BOXES

a few more days of packing and i'll be out of cambridge....tonight is the last stand at BLUE RIBBON, the greatest bbq place....git some!

Back in USA - How YOU doin'?

I landed in Newark last night - whee. Now I have to switch from vacation mode to interview mode, my first one's at 4pm today.....

Newark Airport isn't half bad. Its been a long time since I've been there. When I got to the customs counter the cop greeted me with a "How you doin'" Which, since I haven't heard from anyone in ages, except from my own mouth, sounded very good.

Aswan DAAAAAM!

Aswan is HOT. Like being thrown in the midst of a charcoal pit hot. With everyone laughing and not sweating as you sit there in shock hot. Its hot.

We took the night train from Cairo last night, arriving this morning. Hussein, a friend of our cousin's husband picked us up and drove us around all day. First thing we did was check out the High Dam, the view is great and the water is much cleaner than in Cairo. We took a boat to Philea, an island close by that has some temples. Lots of the pictures and words are chiseled out as each new generation tried to erase the last one. There's even some crosses cut in from when it was a church. At this point I was dead tired from the heat.

The Aswan people and the Nubians here are the nicest, most genuine of Egypt that I've come across so far. Which is not hard with pushy Cairenes and crazy eyed Alexandrians. The nubian guy who took us on the boat is getting married tomorrow, and Hussein said we might check out a Nubian wedding tomorrow, maybe its the same one.

I'm slogging around looking for shade and water all the time. Had the tastiest sugar cane juice today. Its all over the country. They have these storefront stands with big ass machines that they feed a couple sugar canes at a time through, and out the bottom comes a couple cups of super fresh sugar cane juice. I think 90% of the machine must be storage for the used up canes that make the delicious and refreshing stuff. Tomorrow morning we'll take a falucca on the nile for a couple hours, and the next day we are going to Abu Simbel early in the morning. Halfway into this trip through beautiful Egypt.

PS. Aswan is hot.