Great News

Mark is starting classes on monday at the Los Angeles Recording School. It will be a twelve month program and he will graduate as a certified Pro Tools Technician. We are very excited about this and will be celebrating tonight at The Viper Room. Woo hoo!

San Francisco Take two

On thursday Andrea and I decided to make a spontaneous trip to San Francisco to pick up new thrift/vintage clothing for our e-bay store. She had not yet been to San Fran and has lots of friends that live there so we were both very excited for the random vacation. The thrift stores were ok, a little expensive but we got a few really great items. We got burnt out from thrifting the whole day Saturday so we spent the rest of the weekend hanging out with Andrea's friends (who were nice enough to let us crash at their place). They gave us a good perspective of what it is like to actually live there. I was super impressed with how little (by that I mean none) they drive. Mark spent the weekend hanging out with Jon. He surprised me by cleaning the whole apartment. I'm pretty sure it has never been or ever will be this sterile.

We (Mark and I) are planning to take a trip to San Diego in a few weeks with Jon, Lindsay, and Andrea. We figure that we should take advantage of living here and see the west coast.

VOTE

A couple months ago Mark and I participated in the filming of a movie spoof for the 2008 MTV Awards. The group of guys making this particular spoof are a part of an acting group called Craptastic and they chose Cloverfield for the movie to make fun of. The video was picked out of hundreds and is now in the top seven. You can see it (and vote for it) at this web address (see below). It's the second to the bottom. The one with me on the front, lol.

http://www.mtv.com/ontv/movieawards/2008/spoofsvote.jhtml

Parents Visit

My parents came to visit for my birthday. We had a great time hiking, sight seeing, swimming, and sitting in traffic. I'm pretty confident that they got a good taste of the city.

Ebay link

Here is the link for our E bay store. (click the title of this post)

I thought that some of you would like to check it out. I'm posting pictures from my parents visit very soon, so check back in a day or two.

San Gabriel Hike

Andrea invited Mark and I to go hiking with her on saturday in the San Gabriel Mountains. I don't think that I need to say much. The pictures speak for it.

Oscar is special

Mark and I have known for a while that our cat Oscar is a little (ok a lot) slow. Visitors always ask us how we know. Well... mostly by comparing her development to that of Mary's. Some examples we give are how she doesn't move out of danger like when something is about to fall on her, or how she is obsessive about putting things like recipes, plastic bags, and paper towels in her food and water dish. She has recently taken up a new habit of sleeping in very strange and uncomfortable places. We don't love her any less, we just don't deny that she is well... special.

Sue's visit

Mark's mom came to visit this past weekend. We had a great time walking all over the place and chatting. On saturday we went hiking at Runyan Canyon and went to the La Brea tar pits and the BACMA museum. On sunday we went to Sprinkles, the hip new Beverly Hills cupcake cafe. Then we headed to the beach to walk off the super sweet treat. Mark made dinner for us both Saturday and Sunday (amazing as always). It was good to have a familiar face here, even if it was for only a few days.

How to really be green. No purchase necessary.

So it's that day when everyone is talking about being "green" and it's becoming a more popular topic every year with the growing concern for the state of our environment. This is a topic that has been close to my heart. I don't claim to be an expert but there are some obvious misconceptions that I would like to point out.

1. Green clothing - most of this is not actually more "green" than normal clothes. It often takes more resources to make and "green" materials like bamboo have to be shipping around so much more, wasting fuel.
SOLUTION
It is much better to wear the clothes that you have and avoid throwing them away by donating them or turning them into rags or fabric scraps. I try to buy mostly vintage and pre-worn (thrift) clothes to create less demand for the production of new clothes.

2. Paper bags (instead of plastic) - they use pretty much the same amount of energy to recycle. One is not really better than the other.
SOLUTION
Take canvas bags with you shopping (keep some in your purse or car). However if you do forget them then consider which one you would actually re-use.

3. How to be green books - this is my biggest pet peave. Why are there so many books on how to be green? Why are we wasting all that paper? I don't care that it is recycled (recycled paper uses SO much energy to make). The only "green" book that doesn't use paper is Cradle to Cradle which I highly recommend. If someone can't afford internet access to read online how to be green then they are not going to buy an overpriced book on the topic.
SOLUTION
Don't buy them

4. Ethanol - Corn is NOT the answer. It takes about the same amount of fuel to make ethanol as it takes to just use gasoline.
SOLUTION
Don't drive. Ok so that sounds pretty extreme but most of us drive WAY more than we need to. My fellow Los Angeleans are shocked that I can get around this city without a car. But I do and it's not that hard, just a little inconvenient. Alternative transportation and vehicle will not be produced unless we DEMAND it.

O.k. thats enough for now. I'm sure I'll come up with more to rant about on this topic later.

Home office

It's really hard to create two work spaces in such a small apartment. Mark and I have put a lot of thought into where it should be and how it should function. We aren't finished but I thought I would post pictures of where we are so far. I picked up that adorable desk at an estate sale for $20! The same day I found that chair on the curb for trash pick up. The back is cracked and needs repaired but for now I think it will hold me. Mark has two desks to hold his recording equipment. I still need to get a computer monitor so that I can give Mark his back and we need to pick up a more ergonomic chair for his set up. And look at how big Mary is getting!

Sushi

As some of you may know, I love love love sushi. I could eat it just about every day. Mark is not such a big fan, although he likes sushimi, which I do not. So to my surprise Mark made sushi for me this week. This is no easy task. Those seaweed papers are thin and brittle. His presentation is always so beautiful that I have to take a picture before I eat anything he prepares.

How to write an e-bay description

Andrea and I have decided that when writing an e-bay description you must be accurate, honest, and ridiculous. Last week we put six items on e-bay. We were confident in most of them, except for the Olympic cups. We decided to spruce up their description with clever adjuctives and to put funny pictures of them on the auction page. Well it worked, two people really wanted to buy them and one actually did. We decided to run with it this week, since most of our items are sort of ridiculous anyway. I thought that some of you might enjoy the descriptions so here is what we wrote for the glass dish, and coasters (shown in above photo's)


Retro stackable JOY plastic coaster set of 5

Don't miss out on this retro set of coasters. They will spruce up any
coffee table. They have the word JOY printed on each one. The word is
more visible on some than others so you can customize your coaster to
your varying level of joy! (see pictures) They appear to be from the
1970's and are made by RITEPOINT in the U.S.A.

Floral glass mini ash tray / soy dish / candle holder

What a versatile piece. This beautiful glass dish features a floral
design reminiscent of art noveau and asian art. We have come up with
many uses including: ash tray, spoon rester, candle holder, soy sauce
dish, key holder, and jewlery holder. And I'm sure that you can come
up with even more. You shouldn't miss out on this adorable addition to
your home, or car, or boat, or office.

Birthday Presents

I want a fawn for my birthday.... Or a Nikon D40.

Sassafras

Andrea and I have been working super hard on our e-bay store. We are currently working on building up 20 positive feedback points so that we can officially open a "store". Today we put up some ridiculous items including a kids Mickey sweater and 1984 Coca Cola Olympic cups. That is sprinkled in with vintage heals and purses. The pictures and descriptions are kind of silly. I'll add a link to the stuff once I can find one. The top picture above is our logo and tag line. Which font do you like best for the tag line? I can't decide.

Favorite new website

http://www.designspongeonline.com/


If you like decorating even a little bit, you'll LOVE this website. I can't stop looking at all the cute houses in their sneak peeks section.