boring saturday.

So I woke up at 11 am. Lounged around in my pajamas for a while and then decided to take my shower so I could go out and buy some food. After I showered though I realized I was too lazy to go out so I ended up eating Cap'n Crunch Peanut Butter for lunch. I did some Red Mango work, then paid for my cellphone and our electricity and internet bills, then calculated how much Yessa and I owed each other (because we keep putting things on each other's tabs), watched Season 2 Episode 1 of Code Geass, and started looking for apartments online because our lease is up on September 30th. Hay. So it wasn't an extremely uneventful day, but it just wasn't exciting or happy.

Anyway, because I only had cereal for lunch, my stomach started grumbling at around 5:30 pm. I thought I'd wait it out for a bit, but the growls wouldn't stop so I finally gave in at around 7:00 and headed out to Saint's Alp Teahouse for some Chicken Chop and Black Milk Tea (Yum! This was what I was actually craving for more than the food!) I was so worried that my tummy would embarrass me on the jam-packed elevator on the way down! Luckily it kept quiet for at least that minute. It resumed its complaining as soon as I stepped out of the apartment building! *laughs*

So after my 30-minute subway ride and walk to Saint's Alp, I ate dinner (alone) while writing a to-do list on a sheet of paper I brought along. How nerdy and loser-ish. But, I didn't really care. I was with my jumbo mug of Black Milk Tea and everything was all right with the world. *grins*

It was around 8:00 pm when I finished eating and decided I would walk the 45 streets and 6 avenues back to the apartment. I don't know what got into me, but I was wearing comfy sneakers, it was a cool night and I was bored out of my wits. I had nothing better to do with my time (or at least, I had no work that I wanted to do at the moment. I still have some pending work lying around.) So I started on my trek uptown.

After a few stopovers at 1) a vintage clothing store with the coolest booties, 2) Aldo, which now sells these $60 MJ inspired oxfords that Yessa bought last week (love them!) and 3) H&M (where I bumped into Daniel, our production intern) and an hour and a half of walking, I finally arrived back at the apartment! The "cool evening" had disappeared because I had worked myself to a sweat from all the walking. But I must say, I'm pretty happy I got to do a little exercise.

Back at home, I again started looking for apartments that are up for sublease (and it's not easy at all!) I e-mailed a broker I spoke to before I came to New York back in late 2007. I'm hoping he gets back to me soon so he can help us out. Apartment hunting is never fun. And moving is even worse! I am dreading the day I have to box up all my stuff and move again.

Anyway, I finally gave up on the apartment search for the night and decided to do a little art project instead. I've had an empty gold frame behind my bed for a while, so I decided to finally put something in it. I cut up an Urban Outfitters paper bag and used that for the matting.



I then looked for a hummingbird picture on the internet, stylized it in pink with some gray layers, printed it and put it into the frame. And ta-da, I have new art for my wall. Yey! At least now I've done something semi-productive with my day. Now I can go to sleep. Good night!

studs studs studs!

I found this gray blazer at Daffy's for $19 and thought it would be fun to see what I could do to spruce it up and make it current.



So, I bought some silver studs and decided to adorn the collar part of it. It hurts to do it with your bare hands, and my right index finger especially was a bit sore afterwards from folding down all the metal backs of the studs. But, I must say, the 2 hours spent planning and studding was worth it in the end, at least for me!

Here's how it turned out. This has been hanging on my closet door for close to a month now but it's been so hot that I haven't gotten the opportunity to use it yet. So, I guess I will have to wait for fall to come along before I do.

our new toy!

My brother loves playing the guitar. And like many other aspiring guitarists, he posts his videos on Youtube to share with the world. Well, recently, my mom watched his latest video which he recorded using his 3-year old Dell's internal microphone and an external webcam while wearing his worn-out pajamas. While in person his newly acquired Taylor guitar sounds really good, on video, well, let's just say his recording method didn't do his playing any justice. His sloppy outfit didn't help matters either. "Why did you take a video of yourself while wearing pajamas?" my mom asked. She didn't comment on the playing, but that actually means it didn't sound very good because otherwise she'd be all gushing about how much my brother's playing has improved over the years.

Anyway, so when it came time for shoti's birthday, my mom asked me to do some research on microphones that would do a better job at picking up an acoustic guitar's sounds. We eventually bought my brother a Behringer Xenyx 1204 mixer and an Audio Technica AT2020 microphone over Amazon. I didn't know his Taylor 514-CE had a built-in pickup, so the microphone turned out to be an unnecessary purchase (but I can use it to record my singing if I want to! And Yessa can sing to her heart's content with shoti's guitar!) but we were excited to try things out and see just how big a difference we would hear.

After two trips to the Guitar Center on 14th Street to get the proper cables, and after hours of trying to figure out how to work a mixer (which for the longest time looked like a very scary-looking and intimidating object with tons of knobs that controlled things I never knew existed - hello equalizers, trims and gains) we finally successfully recorded a song onto Garageband and later on to Photobooth. Hallelujah! You can hear this new recording on his Youtube channel. Yey!

I also tried patching my Korg keyboard through the mixer and it recorded onto Garageband beautifully! Now I think my mom's dreams of a band are finally coming to life. Shoti and I can't wait to tinker around with the recording and possibly make a tune of our own! Wheeee! We love our new toy :D