Today, we went downtown to pick up the Christmas tree. Yeah I know, really late, but we didn't have time. We went to where we always go, United Melon in Downtown Los Angeles. They generally have Christmas Tree auctions going but since it's so close to Christmas they weren't having any, so that kinda sucked. I enjoy the competitive spirit when hunting for the right tree. Not a huge tree after all but a good tree, nice Douglas Fir, 8 footer maybe a lil bit more. Not super fat though.
I think there is really something going on in the Christmas tree industry. Christmas tree prices have gone up, Christmas tree quality has gone down along with their height, the size of tree lots have shrunk, and the number of Christmas tree auctions and auctioneers have dimenished as well. United Melon for instance used to have 4 auctions, 2 large lots, and multiple rails to bring in box cars full of trees, not to mention multiple concession trucks or roach wagons as they are sometimes called. I remember when I was younger and we were always able to find 10 foot + trees. Now your lucky to find a 10 footer or even a 9 footer. I remember getting a 12 foot tree for $55 dollars and now your lucky to find one and it's going to cost you over a 100 dollars. I remember the biggest tree we ever had was a 14 footer. We didn't pay over 80 dollars for it. On the auction front, I've seen generations of auctioneers. One in particular Vanessa, who is actually the daughter of this one auctioneer who used to auction trees off when I was young, she still auctions, but this year she was the only auctioneer. When I was young United Melon used to have 4 auctioneers, with generally 2 auctions going at once and then they'd break and change auctioneers. Today though there's only Vanessa, and as good as she is, she just doesn't have the speed and the twang of those who have come before her. Maybe everyone has moved to synthetics but I believe in real fresh trees that once were alive and are no longer. I miss the glory days of the Christmas tree industry.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Good Ole' United Melon
Baja Bug
Here's a Baja Bug outside of Fry's Electronics in Industry. Crazy setup. It has what looks like a oil cooler mounted up top so it can get air. Pretty crazy.
White Cake
From the people that brought you the phenomenon known as "White Flight." We present "White Cake" Seriously, this looks like a rip off of the Yellow Cake boxes back in the day for I forget which company.
Lawn Mower Racing 2007!
Random title at Fry's that reassures me if someone puts up money for games like this, if worse comes to worse I can have a job working on LawnMower Racing Mania 2009, NOW WITH MORE WEEDS!
¡Hola Gatita habla español!
Another Fry's oddity. I guess it had to get dubbed sometime, haha. I almost would watch it just for the fun of it. Makes me think of that copy of Reservoir Dogs I watched dubbed in Spanish.
Wendy Wu: Kickin' Edition
So, I was at Fry's Electronics with a few of my friends and we happened upon this DVD title in the DVD section. Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior. The story of a girl who is trying to become homecoming queen but then like apparently she's the reincarnation of some famed woman warrior from the Wei dynasty and must fulfill her destiny. Feels like a shameless ploy by disney, to attempt to garner minority viewers from the asian american community with their new heroine Wendy Wu. Sad Disney, just sad.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
The King Reigns
Well apparently Burger King's XBox games have sold 2 million. That puts it into the range of Gears of War the "big" game out for the XBox right now. Really quite funny. Anyways, now that I'm home I've found myself just hanging with friends or on the computer. I need to start getting productive. Just a few days ago I played Star Wars Monopoly with my friend Jon and his brother for about 5-6 hours I forget. It was fun but gee, I haven't played Monopoly in so freaking long. Been playing a lot of WoW (World of WarCraft) lately as well, been leveling up. It's all Christmas time in the world, haha. I need to get out of the house to shop for Christmas, I hope I get a chance. It's so odd how quickly it comes up when you get off school, it's like a few days and bam it's Christmas. Gotta also design the annual card as well, gotta get cracking on that. Prolly gonna go get our Christmas tree tomorrow down at the Christmas tree auctions downtown. This is really sad but I was able to get a hold of a lot of old Macintosh games, I'm so thrilled to play some of these old games again. It's really sad there hasn't been any real games out there that have gotten me excited for the computer in a long time. Oh wells.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Kazama v. Yoshioka
Kazama v. Yoshioka 2nd run at the D1 Grand Prix Final at Irwindale. Kazama passes Yoshioka. Awesome move. In the end, Nomuken almost got bumped out by the dark horse MacNamara from Ireland, Tanaka won the event over Kazama, and Kumakubo won the season.
Boonkie Tapping
I dropped off Audrey at LAX on saturday afternoon to fly back to Chicago for Christmas. Then I headed back home and then out to Irwindale Speedway. What for? Why for D1 GRAND PRIX! It was the final for the season. It was raining and Matt, Cesar, and myself got fairly wet. Me probably the least though because I had my heavier waterproof jacket. The speeds were a lot slower due to the rain and there was very little smoke but still the races were good. Here we have Vaughn Gitten Jr. boonkie tapping I forget his name in the first round of the tandem battles. Vaughn got eliminated in this round.
Jazz at JFK: Jet Blue Terminal
This isn't your Lincoln Center. This is Jazz at JFK: Jet Blue Terminal. So, bizzare to see a jazz quartet busy playing after I get through security and on the way to my gate. Of course I'm not complaining because I love straight ahead jazz but in an airport? Doesn't belong now, the drummer even had a Gretsch drum set. My plane though ended up being delayed by an hour almost. The flight itself was rather bumpy at one point and made me a lil motion sick. First time I have ever gotten a bit sick to my stomach on a plane. I got picked up at the airport by Audrey, so nice to see her.
Physical Computing Class & End of Semester 1
Well the semester is over as you can tell. The last week of school for the most part was unstressful which was good. I had most of my projects wrapped up well ahead of their due dates which was good. All of my projects were fairly well received. Two of which were recommended to look for a gallery or public space to display them or to look for funding to make them on a larger scale("Green & Black" & "I.E.D. Field"). The other was recommended to continue working with and to make multiple versions of it ("RBG2CMYK").
The last presentation I had was for my Physical Computing class, this is the class picture of all of us. I'm way in the back on the right you can barely see me. Some of the gals in the class started crying which was like okay talk about attachment. I wasn't particularly sentimental but the class was a good lot of people. The projects in the end were all pretty good and for the most part interesting. Some of course more so than others, hehe.
After this I went and had lunch with my friend Ji-Sun. Good vietnamese place that is bloody cheap during lunch but not so cheap during dinner. In general it's Ji-Sun, Rob, and myself, Rob had class so we all couldn't hang out before I left sadly. When I get back though we're all gonna celebrate since I wasn't going to be around to do so with everyone.
This semester has flown by and it's so odd to be done a quarter done with my graduate degree. Kind of scary in a lot of ways. On another note I got most of the classes I wanted for this coming spring semester which is quite nice. It'll be a lot of reading, writing, and discussing.
Eye in the Sky
The "eye in the sky" used to do the motion detection for my final project for physical computing, the "I.E.D. Field." This was a preliminary setup in prep for the final presentation.
Oh Yeah!
This feller I don't have a name for yet. He's an odd drawing on the white board at my dorm room. I had eaten a can of my roomates chilli by mistake and had gotten him a replacement and he drew up a happy face. I took that and made this fellow. Not sure what sort of personality is, but he's a rather funny lookin' guy.
Biker-Crackers
So, there's this building store front near my school on 10th St. between Broadway and 4th Ave. They have 6 giant nucrackers in the window all done up like this. Make me think of biker nucrackers or "ZZ Cracker."
Camo Tree
I forget which day it was I think it was during finals week that It rained and this tree still moist looked like it was painted with camoflage.
National Security
Well I'm guessing the department of Homeboy I mean Homeland Security got a tip off that the Stuyvesent Town Christmas tree was in danger of being attacked.
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Not sure which department store this is but it's right across a street from the CompUSA on 5th Ave.
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Well the week after Thanksgiving during my quest to find boots I wandered up and down the city in and out of shoe stores all over. I forget which building this is but it looked really nice. I got to see a lot of decorated buildings along my wanderings which was rather nice.