31 December 2007

aaargh. happy nye

i'm back at the SAT airport. trying to get on this flight headed north.

i should be back in boston by 830p tonight. to meet up with my friendies and drink some champagne and celebrate the end of 2007.

ugh. lets hope all my flights leave on time and i make it.

f'ing traveling sucks.

the end.

30 December 2007

looking back while headed north

resolutions from last january 1:
1. spend more time with family
2. get involved
3. volunteer
4. move to texas
5. get ready for grad school
6. shop less
7. stay in better contact w/ my friends
8. read more books, papers and magazines
9. see more films
10. waste less time on the internet

in the past year i have accomplished #1, 4, 7, and 8
i have made progress on #2 and 9
as for the rest (#3, 5, 6, and 10), i seem to have a bit hopeless this past year. definitely more progress this next year.

i'll make up a new list sometime in the next week. i think 'starting fresh' on jan1 is kind of a dumb idea, but it is a good milemarker just to check in and see how things are progressing along... so in that spirit, i'll make some 'progress goals' for 2008... sometime soonish.

for now, i'm back at my favorite place, the airport, waiting for my flight back up to the bean. another new years eve in boston with the friendies. :) party tomorrow. as long as i get there... stupid delayed flights.

28 December 2007

remember the alamo


my favorite
Originally uploaded by florajasmine
i like wandering around my city in the dark of the early morning, shooting things. even if it is a little chilly. good times until i came home and crashed at 830am and did NOT want to get back out of bed to save my life.

p.s. speaking of 'remember the alamo!' the other day i saw a car with one of those magnetic ribbon things stuck on the trunk that was red, white and blue and said 'remember the alamo'. breast cancer, the troops and the alamo? all available in magnets for your car. wtf? seriously? ok.

i really hope that person meant it sarcastically, but somehow i doubt it.

26 December 2007

festivities

hope everyone had a nice christmas with the family. and if not christian... well. hope you had a nice day off of work doing whatever...

mine was great. saw lots of fam.


played games. (they had fun even if it looks like they're doing homework)


went to bilingual mass with lots of incense. sin and fish sound very similar in spanish... i keep confusing pecado with pescado - it made me giggle a bit. whoops.


watched movies.



took a movie of a drunk/rabid possum...


spent a lot of time passed out on the couch. good times...

23 December 2007

never knock the way another cat swings

some pre-xmas randomness:
  • i freaking hate all stores and malls and commercial areas from dec1 through dec25. prob even through jan 2 or 3. they're packed. ppl are wasting money on things. kids are crying. america's debt is increasing. in a move to avoid all the junk that annoys me, i spent a chunk of my day outside in the sun finishing kite runner.
  • i've put off reading this book for ages cos it was too popular and usually that means things are shite and overrated. but this book actually was a super read. i started reading it on my flight home on friday afternoon and finished it up today. charged through it. it kinda made me sick reading some parts on friday. that just meant it was well written. when a book makes me feel ill, or immensely sad, or even makes me cry - i love it. i love being moved by words. i finished this book today being happy that i finally read it. still not sure if i actually want to see the movie tho.
  • that said... it's dec23 and i'm still not done with my xmas shopping. no surprise there. not too bad tho, b/c all that's left is to do the 'family' gift where we give the same thing to each chunk of the family.
  • i took this picture yesterday morning that i'm really happy with so i'm going to print and frame it tomorrow x 10. hope everyone likes it...
  • i saw 'across the universe' yesterday with my brother. (finally) i think i wanted to like it more than i actually did. it was a totally fun movie... just not all that i wanted it to be. i hate when that happens... cos i did like it, think i just wanted to LOVElove it...
  • i remember not liking the beatles when i was younger... thinking - how is it that everyoneee can love them and i dont? now i get it. i dig them, just like 90% of the rest of the world. beatles made great pop music. and covers of it can be just as fun... turns out.
  • today my favorite used bookstore in SA had all cd's for half off. so i bought crazysexycool for $2.49. as she was ringing up my purchase, the chick at the counter said, "oh, i remember when it used to be cool to listen to this cd." USED TO BE COOL? this cd has hip-hop classics. i only had the tape version back in the day. so this was a super find. um, it was awesome back when it first came out and when i pressed listened to diggin' on you again today - it is still awesome.
  • i know. i'm cool. i need no confirmation.
  • fam reunion tomorrow night - yay.

22 December 2007

no white christmas for me


office view
Originally uploaded by florajasmine
funny that i left snow covered boston yesterday and flew south to arrive in san antonio where it was 60 degrees warm 1030 at night.

fantastic. my toes do need to defrost a bit.

a ton of family time over the next week- the main thing i'm here for. and some presents and christmas festivities and the stuffing of my belly.

yay. home is good. i like my december with a side of palm trees.

also... i hope my flights back up to boston next sunday go as smoothly as they were yesterday... pleaseeee. i hate flying now...

20 December 2007

flashback to 1994

the fact that i find grown(ish) men wearing suede airwalks from the mid-90s to be endearing and even a little attractive probably signals that there's something wrong with me.

last night at a party ellen and i couldn't stop staring at this kid's shoes. they were like airwalks or vans or something. some kind of round suede skate shoe throwback. soooo not hip, more like straight out of 1994. as ellen and i have discussed on numerous drunken nights - middle school was a definitely awesome time in our lives. apparently for most of america that was a horrid and awkward part of their childhood.

eh, not so much for ellen and i. we had great times.

middle school meant increasing amounts of independence, the release of dookie and morning glory (which to this day are still favorites), celeb-crushes on mike from mxpx. slow dancing in the caf at school dances, hanging out behind the gym to gossip, meeting at someone's house after school to hang out and watch the band practice or to get skateboarding lessons from the boys. it was all good times with an allowance thrown in for bonus.

basically. i have a 1994 fetish. like how listening to basketcase will kinda make me melt.

7th grade and all things associated (the airwalks, the music, all the skateboarding boys) have a special place in my heart. even in the year 2007.

this kid's shoes gave us a total flashback. definitely not hip but still so cute. hahaha.

i miss middle school.

18 December 2007

the good, the bad and the ugly

always a good idea to save the best for last.

ugly:
  • wearing ballet slippers thru a slushy downtown boston
  • driving through icy parking lots and feeling the tires spin
  • surviving on 6 hrs or less sleep a night when i usually need like 8

bad:
  • knowing that a wicked awesome street art collab in san antonio got killed w/in 12 hours- and i never had a chance to see it
  • getting beeped at by a skeevy dude in a cadillac... for 3 blocks, and then getting hit on through his passenger side window

good:
  • free drinks and a little catchup on the gossip while funk band plays winehouse covers and i sign along
  • filling a shopping cart at the liquor store - and knowing i dont have to pay for it (shout out to tim who picked some wine for me)
  • meeting new kids and making friends
also. i kinda want to buy this.

seriously? man.

every year around this time i question some of the decisions i've made. like why didn't i go work on wall street? i went to school for it. i interned there. and decided, eh, not for me.

but dude! i could have sacrificed a bit of my soul and a lot of my life for a couple years. to go make serious $$$ and then jump out of that nyc banking scene. and then settle into a nice, normal job but be set up oh-so nicely with a huge nest egg to get things started.

dang.

i'm not even doing some great, humanitarian work. i'm just an office kid with a lot of free time that i waste. shite. working for no serious ca$h and no greater good. i'm shot on both ends.

stupid goldman with their big checks. instead of following my dad's advice to find a boy at the gym i think i need to start following gawker's advice and searching for a g.$achs boy.

ha! if only i could be so shallow...

17 December 2007

fb junkie

someone at the faa hates me

the travel gods truly like to screw around with me.

on thursday i managed to grab a seat a mid-day flight out of logan and after a layover in denver (?) i made it home to san antonio. it only took 12 hours but i never had to shovel any snow.

yesterday i visited three airports, sat on two planes, and only flew on one. apparently due to cancellations and skeevy plane maintenance, there were no airline seats out of san antonio until tuesday (dang international conferences. tourists taking up my space!) so the majority of my afternoon was spent driving eastward on 1-10 in the back of my uncle's volvo. to bush int'l. where i got on a plane, watched diggnation, listened to e.v.r., fell asleep to ratatouile, and woke up to sit on the tarmac at logan for 45 min before being allowed to de-plane.

i got into bed around 2am and woke up at 620 to my building's fire alarm blaring. no smoke so i went back to sleep for 45 minutes and then had to get up and come to work. greatttt weekend.

seriously? i spent 24 hours over the weekend TRAVELINGGGG. why do things like this happen to me? i have can't say i have the worst travel luck ever, cos i usually get where i'm going - eventually. it's just only after i've been messed around with for a bit. airports and airlines and fate all like to play little jokes with me. poopers.

----

also, my mum and bro were icky sick all weekend and now i think i'm coming down with something. i'm supposed to be invincible! think i'm going to vit-C overdose now. it's my cure-all. :) prob shouldn't wander around icy boston too much either... but i have stuff to doooooo! man. x-mas overdrive, commence.

12 December 2007

sounds of the soul revival

daniel was telling me about sharon jones and the dap-kings this weekend, how i would be in to the sound. told me i had to give them a listen. so i did some listening yesterday and yeah, she's got 'it' and they're fun. i've been missing out.

also on monday one of my musicblogs had a post about 'em with video. which i watched.

then today i was listening a 3 wk old episode of mark ronson's radio show on the drive in to work and he was all about sharon jones and how everyone needs to listen to her and buy her record. the kid gets excited about all kinds of stuff; sometimes i agree and sometimes i don't.

today i was like, yeah... it is good stuff. i should listen to more... i'm digging this soul scene. i like some serious music and lyrics sung with feeling. yeah yeah.

i also like when my friends, a music blog, and a pop-dj* all offer up the same music recommendation and i actually agree.

* what is mark ronson? a club dj? pop-star? celebrity? entertainment personality? don't know. he's a music producer, a dj, a songwriter, label owner. a scenster and taste maker... dunno. pop-dj. popular (music) disc jockey. pop-dj. haha. yes. even with his increasing popularity in the mainstream and the constant plugging of his own stuff,
i still like him.

10 December 2007

good time in the city

old bc friendies came to visit me in boston this weekend. we did lots of awesome things and lots of classically "us" things. i wish anna, daniel and i could hang out more often. the whole living in LA and the UK thing kinda prevents that though...

-----
so for the weekend, we made the most of our time...

dinner and lounging on friday. a little drinking and dancing to close out the night with some work kiddies which ended pretty low key and allowed us to wake up at a decent time on saturday morning.

tim and anna (mostly tim) were in love with the fact that there was a starbucks in my building. finally we got our act together to grab some burritos all around and then we did an in-car lap around campus to show tim, anna's bf, where we all went to class and slept and did dumb stuff. post chestnut hill we dumped the car and hit the streets. it was a little sunny out and not too cold (40F?) so decent enough to wander around.

we walked from fenway down to newbury and then all the way through the commons. in the commons we spent some time sliding around on the frozen duck pond and then staring at a hawk in the middle of the park. i kept the crew moving towards faneuil and then to mike's in the north end for some cannolis which we scarfed down next to the statue of paul revere in front of the old north church.

basically, we did a big tourist walk showing tim (brit boy) all the stuff you see in postcards and history books and movies about boston. and also i pointed out some of the work of my favorite graffiti artists the whole way around town... and my nice friends feigned interest. haha. i know... its my thing. the walk made everyone pooped so we came back and i fell asleep while everyone else watched a top model marathon. it's ok though, i did wake up for a little adventure that turned into a late late night and early morning. i havent been awake that late/early in quite a while. cos i'm an old lady and all...

anyways, me passing out to the sound of reality tv. so 'us'. also every time we went somewhere in my car we listened to amy winehouse and daniel and i sang along. so fun. we LOVE her and are sad together about her current scene. daniel and i got to talk about our silly hollywood gossip and i got to scare anna with sci-fi tales of the future with storms like from day after tomorrow and cutting off people's fingers to steal their identity. i love these kiddies.

closed out the weekend by eating at super 88 and finally seeing american gangster. um. it was very long. mostly the beginning. the last 40 min was great. denzel is amazing. few little things bugged me, historically speaking- rza's wu-tang tattoo and the more recent styles (80s/90s) of graffiti that were on the walls of harlem. little things. still, good story telling. glad i saw it.

next i want to see i am legend and juno. and probably some other stuff... i may go more often now that i live so close to the theater. maybe...

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now anna, daniel and tim are gone. back to the usual boston. it's cold and grey, but i'm ok. i can start planning my trips to visit them now. i have a couch in LA calling my name... and by february - there'll be a couch or futon or scrap of floor in london too! yay. trips trips trips!

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pictures below. click to blow them up big and stuff.

the hawk


kids in (front of) the hall


my cheesy self and the boys standing on the frozen duck pond


and of course. some graffiti

04 December 2007

freaky

http://gawker.com/news/the-future/schizophrenia-is-the-new-ad-gimmick-329133.php

seriously? eek.

poo poo on me

i hate when i find a new fun band (via recs, blogs, and myspace) and then google them only to find out they had a show in my city 2 days earlier.

the number of times this has happened MUST be higher than 10.

seriously! ugh. my musical luck is lame.

los campesinos remind me of a baby belle & sebastian kind of. also YLT and broken social scene, as pitchfork states the obvs. i like 'em. would have been fun live.

dang it!!!

maybe they'll have a show in austin or SAT when i'm down there... psh. yeah right.

03 December 2007

my kiddies


happy
Originally uploaded by florajasmine
they're coming to visit on friday! yay!

def looking forward to this weekend.

p.s. i have an apt in boston again. so ppl can come over and visit and we can have fun.