I have a folder in my bookmarks entitled 'treat yo self'. It's full of fun little awesome inexpensive things I want, and can easily buy if I have an extra twenty bucks or whatever one week and feel like a little pick me up. Want to know some of the things I would treat myself to if I had a little extra dough?
Yup, I'm pretty easy to please, haha. Also, isn't Parks and Recreation one of the funniest shows you've ever seen? Never seen it? Then you are dead to me until you watch every episode.
The other day Beca posted some close-up photos of her tattoos, and it was super weird because I had the exact same idea, had already taken the photos, and just forgot to write a blog post with them in it. Thanks for the reminder, Beca! Mine are REALLY close-up though. Maybe closer than any tattoo photo has any right to be.
The first three are of my knee as it was in the final stages of healing. I took these over three days, you can see how quickly it healed. When you look at it this way, it's no wonder it was so itchy! The first one? Ugh. Gross!
And here are a few other tattoos I have. Isn't the skin a strange terrain when you see it so closely? I love seeing all the weird lines and cracks. I'm sure those have some kind of scientific name I haven't learned yet. Dermocracks.
Check out my chest hair, hahaha. Wow I feel so manly all of a sudden.
I love notebooks! I love school supplies! On top of this fancy little number I bought two other cute notebooks, some cute sticky notes, and some bookplates for fun. Taking a class is a great excuse to treat yo' self.
This skateboard video, made in Vancouver on Halloween 2011 by the Zenga Bros. RAD
Also by the Zenga Bros,The Danakil Diaries. I want to see this all feature length, damnit! Holy shit, that little boy has pointy teeth! Those cyclists are hard-core.
Want to learn a language, like, I don't know, Mongolian, but there's no teachers in your city? Well fret not, because this online language school can help! A German friend of mine is learning French from someone in Senegal right now.
This documentary, Bully. (video) I was bullied until I got "big boobs". Then I was "only" sexually harrassed ... never popular, always weird and nerdy. I am all for teaching kids to stand up for the right thing, not the cool thing.
Just a disclaimer here, I know they're all horribly blurry and underexposed. And I cut off Ninja and Yo-Landi's heads in like half of them. Let me explain: I only brought a flashless light plastic toy camera to the show, and used 400 speed film...and I was in what was I guess a mosh pit. I didn't know rap/rave shows had mosh pits until it was too late. Anyway they're kind of interesting and I thought I'd share them today because it's a leap-year and it's like an extra-long February and for some reason that makes sense to me. And it's fun to share everything sometimes, even if they suck. I started far away and then was like "nope, I have to get closer".
Here's a little YouTube video, at around two minutes especially, you can see the crowd I was in trying to take these pictures. I think that explains it all. The video is worth it to watch Ninja dance. He's awesome. Also, for the gentlemen (and select ladies) out there, Yo-Landi is wearing a cut off shirt and you can see underboob. You can't really see them until around one minute in.
But seriously guys, I tell you, even if you think their music is weird or silly you should REALLY see them live. They are such great performers.
Reading: I am still working on the final book George R.R. Martin has written in the Song of Ice and Fire series. It's awesome but not when you're on a time limit. I have around four hundred pages left to read, and it's due back at the library in three or four days! Best get reading hey? I think the last hundred pages are just indexes of people's names and what house they belong to though, so that helps.
Listening to: a lot of The Pixies. Again. I just can't believe I never appreciated them when they were in their prime, you know? I mean, I just saw them in concert last year or whatever and they ruled, but imagine when the albums were fresh and new and they hadn't played "Hey" ten billion times before. How much energy they must have had.
I know there are a lot of people out there who haven't really given them a chance. Listen to Bone Machine here, and then realize you're an idiot and listen to every song they ever made.
It still weirds me out to know that voice is coming from this guy, Frank Black. He's amazing, he has the best scream. And yes, even now he sings just as hard.
Side note: when Ryan was in college he had a radio show and got to interview Kim Deal. Which basically means we are both totally famous.
Another band I've been re-visiting lately is The Smalls. Oh boy oh boy. These guys. They're from Alberta, Canada so I kind of doubt you guys know them, I don't know how famous they got but I don't think very. You know the country singer Corb Lund? No? You should! He's awesome. Even his super country songs are hilarious, he has so much personality. Anyway he played bass in The Smalls before he went out on his own. Here are my two favorite Smalls songs.
And Corb Lund, well it's hard to explain. He has quite a punk following though, especially around Alberta. It's very interesting.
And this is the most awful catchy song you've ever heard. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Watching: THE WALKING DEAD!! It's back. And scary!
Doing: a lot of memorization exercises. I get a list of around 70 words and suffixes and prefixes and stuff every class, and have to memorize them by the next class because we have an exam. I have class twice a week. It's pretty intense. Lots of flash cards and fill in the blanks and stuff. It's not very glamorous.
Looking forward to: oh boy my friends I wish I could tell you everything that's going to be happening at my work this summer! It's all semi-hush hush at the moment because nothing is really written in stone but I do believe it's gonna be the best summer yet. Here's a clue to one thing.
After reading Sarah's post on loving your body no matter what size it is, I got to thinking about human bodies and went a little 'Otto' from The Simpsons. "They call them fingers but you never see them fing!". My comment over there was this:
Sometimes if I'm feeling this way I will think about what my body actually does. It's AMAZING to think about all the cells put together to make organs. All the organs and what their jobs are. All the thousands of tiny little things all working together and allowing me to be cognizant and sentient. How can you hate something so perfect?
And I mean that. How can we focus on one aesthetic aspect of the human body when it's insane that we are breathing and thinking and walking at all? Your body is a wonderful machine.You should appreciate the fact that you even exist and it's crazy that we have cars and brain surgery and music. I don't know about you but all of a sudden I can hardly bear to take it all in. We are alive!
