Monday, February 28, 2011

2-28-2011



Monday nights are never interesting. Like doing laundry is the most interesting highlight of the evening. I'm still doing my best to make things interesting.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

2-27-2011



So my mother would be a lot happier if I went to church as often as I went to brunch on Sundays. Too bad for her, I like fancy eggs and coffee much more than sitting on a bench for hours. Did you see that the coffee came with raw sugar? I don't use sugar in my coffee, but it kind of makes me wish that I did. Nicole quickly came up with a solution for what to do with the sugar. Her drink even came with its own sugar already on it. She's also fond of fancy eggs.

I do realize that we go to brunch religiously every Sunday. We kind of do a lot of ritualistic things every weekend like looking at antiques. We do this so much that I end up taking pictures of the same things over and over. Meet Gatspy the antique cat. He's been on my blog before on 2-3-10 and 7-25-10. He really likes me. If I don't pet him enough, he pets me, and if that doesn't work he just yells until he gets his way. Back to the looking. I looked at this little guy, and a pig with a gold tongue while Nicole found a painting that she liked.

Another ritualistic weekend event is Cheeseburger Tour! Did you think we forgot or something? We've been going to the Akron area a lot recently, but today we're back at home base in Clehlann Ohia. Like right in the middle of it to go to Johnny's Little Bar & Grille. It is indeed a bar and it is pretty little. The grille part is responsible for what they call the "best cheeseburger in town." I don't know if I would go that far, but it was very good quality meat, and its simple plainness immediately reminded me of summertime cookouts in a backyard. And at this time of year, I'm pretty much in love with anything at all that makes me not think about winter and snow and being miserable.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

2-26-2011



We went to Akron today to see an MC Escher exhibition. Photographs were illegal, but here's a cell phone picture Nicole stole 'cause she's too real for gallery rules. It was our favorite thing in the whole show because it had the forest, cats, snakes, wild mushrooms, critters...pretty much everything that we like all at the same time.

Friday, February 25, 2011

2-25-2011



Do you ever wonder what really happens in my office? Or where I go for dinner on Friday nights? This is how things really happen.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

2-24-2011



So the only real reason I broke my phone got the new iPhone is to be able to Facetime with my niece Baby Lily. This is my sister using her phone to show me a picture she took with her camera so I could see it on my phone to take a picture of it with my camera so you can see it now on your computer (or phone). Next level technology exploding your brainz.

p.s. Yes, I am aware that we are Asian.

Cooking show round two! Nicole has a cauldron boiling and sugary cream whipping tonight. Tonight we're baking vanilla bean cupcakes with marshmallow frosting totally from scratch. Cooling a fresh tray of cupcakes out in the snow would be a fine idea at most houses, but not this house. This house has a skunk. A skunk that is apparently attracted to the scent of fresh pastries (and makes my auto focus go crazy). Luckily Nicole is faster than a hungry skunk, so she got the cupcakes back in the house to put the topping on (on her nose that is). Some of it made it onto the cupcakes. !!! The End!

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

2-23-2011



After almost four years of going everywhere and doing everything together, my beloved antique first generation iPhone is retiring today. Really, it's gone part time...meaning it only makes voice calls about 50% of the time and the rest of the time it just makes static. I don't really mind the static, but the people I call don't seem to like it very much. I'm honestly surprised it's lived this long at all. This isn't the first time we've refreshed Apple products. The shot above are just the ones that were easy to get to. This doesn't include my white iPod with the gameboy screen, Nicole's pink iPod mini, or the other iPhone that got jacked at the Met in New York.

In other news, pickles for dinner.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

2-22-2011



I'm posting about the same thing as yesterday, because I like my picture from today better than the last one. I'm going to go drink scotch now. Bye!

Monday, February 21, 2011

2-21-2011



Do you remember the totally awful Mr. Freeze character that Arnold Schwarzenegger played in the 90's Batman movie? Everything is like that today but for real. This doesn't look natural.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

2-20-2011



Welcome to the next installment of cheeseburger tour. Nicole is making sure that every weekend I'm having the most fun possible being the worst vegetarian ever. Today, we're going to Whitey's Booze N' Burgers. They've been open since 1953, and apparently have a lot of regulars. They're most famous for their chili which looks like minature tacos, but their burgers are also quite good. This is Nicole's "burger" (apparently there was some sort of cheeseburger buried in the bottom of that). Beyond the food which was great, the highlight of my dining experience was the claw machine lobster tank. I'm not sure if it tops the one I found on 7-23-10 though.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

2-19-2011



Have you had your morning coffee yet? Because it's Saturday morning (above), the weather is the nicest it's been in months, and we're going adventuring in the woods. And by that I mean looking at eagle's nests and beaver dams and taking pictures of eachother. This post will have lots of pictures of Nicole doing stuff like walking around and taking pictures of things in the woods. Furry hats, coffee, and 35mm SLRs are required. More taking pictures of taking pictures and walking. Nicole is very happy about this. We found dead frogs that were frozen around the edge of the lake. I'm not quite sure how Nicole feels about that. Lots of things are still frozen but some of it is starting to melt. The rest of the animals are probably hibernating in places like this beaver dam. Though they might still be out doing things. At least some things are starting to be green again. This is Nicole spontaneously taking off her clothes and jumping around because her green shirt matches the moss (this makes perfect sense once explained right?). This is blue. We actually have a policy and protocol for found feathers and where they're allowed to be in the house. Here are some of Nicole's film pictures. They're more interesting than the ones I take. Speaking of me taking pictures, have you ever wondered how ridiculous I look taking all of the random pictures I post on here? This is pretty much how silly and contorted I get on a regular basis. Nicole looks better and takes better pictures like this.

I would say that Nicole should start a photo blog to replace this one, but she's not very interested in hauling a camera around everywhere. She's much more into garbage picking and reclaiming random lamps to fix (notice even her necklace is a chandelier). Also note the white elephant lamp she found. Seriously, a giant white elephant lamp. Who has this stuff? And if you have it, why would you ever throw it away? Rather than lamp hoarding, I fed my Craigslist addiction and added to my stock pile of film that was about to be thrown away. Then we had dinner.

Friday, February 18, 2011

2-18-2011



So today I'm turning my blog into a cooking show (aka I was bored so I harassed Nicole with my camera while she was cooking dinner). The first step is to accidentally buy chocolate milk but use it anyway (above) to make Chocolate Milk Vegetarian Corn Dogs. The next step is to pour some fake butter in with the chocolate milk and other batter ingredients. At some point, cut some vegetarian hot dogs in half and stick sticks in them. Dip the hot dogs into the chocolate batter and carefully put them into the fryer to fry them. You should probably take them out of the boiling oil before eating them. Be sure to take pictures of how pretty they are first though.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

2-17-2011



So today's post is a kind of sad and really gross, so if you're sensitive to sad/gross things you might want to skip today (you know who you are).

The past few days on my way to work/lunch, I've seen this huge bird eating an animal carcass in the middle of a field. Naturally, I'm attracted to anything out of the ordinary, but never had the time to pull over for pictures while the bird was there. I felt like it was kind of morbid, but I told myself that death and scavenging are necessary parts of the natural cycle of life. Tonight on my way home, I saw a giant deer crossing the street headed towards the field. I was really surprised to see it intentionally go right over the the (gross) carcass. It was really sad seeing him investigate the body of his dead friend.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

2-15-2011



You can tell Spring is almost here because the wild fruit loops are starting to sprout.

Since I had so much fun getting yelled at last time, I went creepy motel exploring again today. No one got mad at me this time, but it reaffirmed my initial wondering who actually stays in these places and how do they stay in business?

Monday, February 14, 2011

Sunday, February 13, 2011

2-13-2011



Why is Nicole putting on her coat and giving me beckoning faces with such blurry urgency? Probably because if I keep taking stupid pictures, we'll be late for brunch (yes, it's Sunday). I know I post a lot of pictures of food, but you may not know that Nicole sings songs about everything she eats. Especially if it makes her tongue change colors.

On the way home, Nicole American Pickers-ed a broken lamp. Garbage reclaiming happens almost as often as going to brunch. It doesn't work at all. Probably because of stuff like this. Ever since exploding a wire in our wall (and the year she spent helping to rewire the whole house because of it), Nicole is now a proficent amature electrician. She's actually really good at it.

After fixing the lamp, we went to go eat strangly shaped pretzels. Just like 10-7-10, Nicole got Cavs tickets from her job. We got to sit in the same (awesome) seats and see the same (not very good) team. However, just like last time, my favorite giant Asian named Yi was in town. I like basketball games. The players are so graceful and make such effortless faces while they knock each other over. Jazz hands. Mo Williams sitting on Mo Williams lap defies the laws of physics almost as much as small white Shaquille O'Neal who apparently still plays for Cleveland. Really though the fans alone of the worst team in the league kind of make going to games worth it. It's way better than staying home and watching The Jersey Shore on TV...even if it's sometimes like watching a full on train wreck. Like when little kids reenact the Michael Jackson knife fight from Beat It (actually that was kind of awesome). Besides, we won free Chalupas! Nicole really just goes for the cotton candy. Tony and Barb just go places to be photogenic. Especially when we raid suites to take pictures on the way out. Hooray for sports and athletic merchandise.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

2-12-2011



So where are we going today while following this polar bear in the back of a pickup truck? We were too sick to do it last weekend, but now (almost) healthy again, we're continuing cheeseburger tour! I'm really going hard with this "I'm allowed to eat meat sometimes" strategy on the weekends. Today we're checking out Hamburger Station, another local legend burger place, but rather than a drive-up style place, this one serves more White-Castle-esque slider sized burgers. These are cool because you can eat 10 of them and not really eat that much, and you can also pretend that you're huge while doing so. Beyond the bags of onions and potatoes to make you think that your ingredients are cooked fresh daily (who knows how long those bags have been sitting there), the real draw to this location was the rumor of a table with saddles for chairs. We didn't see the table at first and though that this was just a vicious rumor, but no, you can actually sit in a real saddle while you eat miniature cow patties (that doesn't sound right). I don't know if I'm stressing this enough...a table surrounded by four real saddle chairs. As for the actual food, it was very good (other than the fact that they used an entire bag of onions on our burgers). This is still the champ though...even if this particular location looks like a gas station.

After that, we went on a pilgrimage of thrift and antique stores. We love shopping for junk (I'm pretty sure that's the same vintage of rolling chair that we have at work). Today, I was especially attracted to religious items like this Free Mason Bible, an old Apocrypha, and this heirloom Bible. I'm not sure what Nicole was looking for. Maybe this futuristic organ. Long story short, after following one shops directions to another a few times, we got lost. In the middle of nowhere. This happens to us kind of a lot.

Now I wasn't too sure about posting this last bit, but I think it's really funny, and I almost busted my face open on the ice trying to take it...so here. A few things to point out, this was in the front window of a thrift store for second hand, used stuff. If that wasn't enough, notice the anti-theft sensor tag. Do they really have such a shoplifting problem of transparent pink underwear that they need to implement loss prevention security precautions? (I don't think I want to know the answer to that). Happy Valentines day everyone!

Friday, February 11, 2011

Thursday, February 10, 2011

2-10-2011



Our quest for seasonal junk food came up empty handed. But on the bright side, Nicole is looking into financing a new jeep with four wheel drive.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

2-9-2011



So I posted last year (2-15) about the Chinese New Year meal that my dad makes every year. Since we were too sick for the actual day this year, we put it off until today. Above is a giant pile of tofu for my vegetarian side, but there was plenty of meat to cook in baskets for normal people.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Monday, February 7, 2011

2-7-2011



I have an over active imagination and in order to put up with my crazy, sometimes Nicole patronizes me and makes up stories to make me happy. One such story that she told me was that the reason that no one has ever see a giant squid in its natural environment is because they hide in the fog so people can't find them. I wholeheartedly believe these fables.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

2-6-2011



I went to the tattoo shop to hangout for Victor's post-birthday recovery day. I put some grainy film in my FM2, and this it what I got.

Something more interesting was over there.
Close up.
Speech bubble.
Hey, look over here.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

2-5-2011



We're still getting over being sick, so we spent the day at home with our cats. This is Mushroom's Avatar poster.

The Lockview serves grilled cheese with umbrellas (clearly this is pertinent to my interests).

This is Victor's birthday.

We saw a girl playing a Paul McCartney bass.

Friday, February 4, 2011

2-4-2011



I eat at/blog about Melt too much I know, but today I had an unbelievable sandwich even from them. This is what a sandwich with eggs, bacon, cheese and waffles for bread...dipped in pancake batter and deep fried looks like.

So clearly, I'm crazy and obsessive about things like Melt. I'm aware and resigned to this fact. I'm also crazy and obsessive about a bunch other things. Since I'm just staying in this Friday night to rest up and not be sick...here's a short macro tour of weird things I'm into. These are just a few things that were around and easy to take pictures of...there are many more.

Selvedge denim (pictured above) - This finished edge along the seam is the indication of an esoteric weaving process that no one on earth but textile nerds really care about. To everyone normal, they're just jeans. I care.

Polarized lenses - Just like a polarizing filter for a camera, this little P is supposed to magically block reflection and glare and help you see though walls. I sure hope it's all true for how much I paid for the little guy.

Patterened wovens - I own far too many variations of the same plaid, gingham, check, whatever shirts. They almost all have the nerdy little detail on the sleeve. I like this.

Gripper strap - my new Domke bag has little bits of rubber woven into the underside of the strap so it doesn't slip off your shoulder. I feel that this is in contention for one of the greatest inventions ever, and that this feature alone will make me a life long Domke user.

Random old stuff - If you've read this blog at all before you already know this about me.

Grey dots, orange middles, and Prestos - If you know, then you know. They each have their own time and place.

Camera lenses with 1:1.x f-stops - Nothing gets me all worked up like fast primes...I want to be buried with mine when I die.

This is a really strange one (don't judge me) - Ever since we got our first cat Sienna, I've been in the habit of collecting shed whiskers. Now that we have two cats, we get both black and white.

Bonus: Since I'm putting myself on blast, Nicole has awesome little quirky collections too. Here's just one that I saw as I was running around documenting mine.

Movie tickets - This is the stub for every movie Nicole and I saw together since we've known each other (except for whatever is still in her purse). These are all stored in a metal container that Nicole made by hand in college. Not only are her collections superior and thorough, they're far more organized.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

2-3-2011



I'm stuck at work late tonight. And by that I really mean...I get to have dinner with my good friend Chester Cheetah at a Ritzy restaurant called "Mon
Bureau." The waiter is French.

Am I the only person who thinks Cheetos look like clubs that tiny cavemen would use to bludgeon their prey with?

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

2-2-2011



Provisions.

This is where I sprung a leak when they drained me yesterday.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

2-1-2011



Hey look! Those are my insides. Don't my bones look cool? I went to the doctor's office today just to get drugs, but they made me put on this fashionable shirt and pose for the fancy camera again. They also drained my blood, but I was too busy being terrified to get any pictures.