Radda radda, radda radda radda radda.

I really like the TV show Chowder on cartoon network. Its slowly becoming better as time goes on, and definitely is sneaking up on Fosters as my favorite cartoon. Fosters has a lot more episodes under its belt, so we will see how things go at the end of Chowder's second season, but I find myself falling a lot faster for Chowder than I did for Mac or Bloo, or even Eduardo. The thing about Fosters is that there were so many different characters I cared about, while in Chowder there's really only two (even though there are way more), so Shnitzel and Chowder get more love between the two as compared to say Cheese, Bloo, Mac, Eduardo and Frankie, who all got equal shares of the pot.

HELP CHOWDER BATHROOM PEE EXPLOSION

Spaceships of the (FUTURE)

Sometimes meetings at work can get a little boring, and 90% of the time when I am bored I start doodling on my notepad. I never go into meetings without one, and every once in awhile I find that I've doodled something swell.

Today was not one of those days!!

We have weekly status meetings in my boss's office, which I guess are pretty helpful, if anything its nice to stop sitting in front of the computer for a half hour. Either way since some items of discussion only require the attention of two people that don't include me, I usually end up thinking about some kind of theme and then draw stuff based on that theme. Today it was safari!



You can see I've drawn an elephant or two, a giraffe, an ostrich, and I think that the guy on the right is some kind of hippo, but the jury is still out.

A few weeks before this masterpiece was conjured up we had a meeting about design drafts, and I had the song Purple Bottle by Animal Collective stuck in my head. I doodled some lyrics, and drew a bottle, and also some toothpaste for some reason. After the meeting the boss came over to my cube, and checked out what I had accomplished in my notes. He decided that the bottle was actually a lamp, and drew up a nifty little toothbrush to go with my tube of toothpaste, which according to him was called "Molly Fresh".



Don't ask me how Godzilla got there, because I honestly don't know.

Lastly, during a brainstorming session quite awhile back, my boss and I came up with different ideas for Spaceships of the (FUTURE). As you can see below, the highlight of this doodle-fest was the Octopus Bus. According to my boss, the Octopus Bus is a spaceship that is made mostly for public transportation. There are jets that shoot out of the end of the tentacles for navigating the skies and landing softly on giant Octopus Bus landing pads. I wasn't subscribing to this idea, so we actually had a pretty detailed discussion about how it would work and the pro's and con's of this kind of transportation system.



Basically the whole thing ended with me trying to prove his ideas as ludicrous and completely impractical for public transportation, or any kind of transportation for that matter. He claims to this day that I was just jealous of his creativity, but he is also responsible for the Penis Needle spaceship you see up there. So you be the judge of that.

Last week while he was on vacation I had the honor of being proved a moron by a CNN story about Google launching a race to outer space. Next to the article on the home page of CNN's science and technology section was this computer generated artist's interpretation..



I don't know if something like this actually is in some kind of production, but boy do I feel the asshole. Also please do not sue me if this image is not allowed to be here. It came from CNN.com. I don't know who is responsible for it. But I am not claiming that I did.

So it seems that not too long from now we'll all be riding in Octopus Buses. Or at least until the next big animal inspired space ship craze comes around.

The Best Parts of Movies That Aren't the End

I saw The Happening this past weekend. I really liked it. I want people to go see that movie without some kind of predetermined idea in their head that its supposed to be this horrifyingly gory life changing movie. It was basically hilarious and fucked up. The director says he was trying to make the best B movie ever. While its definitely not the best, its got to be up there.

While I'm waiting for the rest of the world to get their heads out of their asses and learn how to enjoy themselves while watching a movie again I figured I would post up here my favorite parts of movies (that I can remember today) that isn't the end of a movie. I made that rule because while Dan and I were discussing what ours were he mentioned that the end of Big Fish and The Life Aquatic were two of his favorite parts of movies. While I agree with him I also think that generally the end of a movie is supposed to be the best part of the movie or at least the part that leaves the largest impression on you, so this has more to do with the parts of the movie that weren't intended to be such a big deal but in reality, are.

1. Blue Velvet - Ben's (Dean Stockwell) Karaoke Solo
After the first time I saw this movie every other viewing of it was pretty slow generally because there were no more surprises, but this scene still gives me the goosebump smileys and always demands complete attention from the audience. You have no idea if Frank is going to kill or hug Ben, and fuck if Ben doesn't lip synch this song like he's saying some kind of personal eulogy right before an infuriated rampage of fucked up drug induced slaying. I mean you get the idea when you meet him that Ben is a pretty chill guy, but for some reason watching him sing this song makes me think that when he does guys in the ass he is pretending his dick is a five sided saber sword and the fucker's head is exploding with maggots while his balls are duct taped to a pack of firecrackers. Here's the video, courtesy of YouTube.



2. Zardoz - Zed's introduction to the Renegades
This whole fucking movie is amazing on so many levels that I don't think most humans are capable of comprehending. There are so many things in this movie that could arguably be the most fucked up things that happen, or the funniest, or the most confusing, but I'm going to go with the first time Zed sees who and what the Renegades are. I mean here you have a cold blooded killer, who rapes women in his name, Zardoz, on any given Zardate. This guy climbed into the mysterious stone head and without a second thought MURDERED his own God in COLD BLOOD.

So what is it that scares this beast, this massive perfect-bred human capable of destroying the tabernacle and the world as the Eternals know it? The only way you are going to find out is by scrolling about six minutes and thirty seconds or so into this clip below. Brace yourselves, you'll thank me later.



3. Ted Bundy - Mid movie music montage (camping scene)
My brother got into another discussion with a lady about why he loves Ted Bundy so much while he was at Bonnaroo, and the lady couldn't prove any of my brother's points to be wrong. I mean face it, regardless of how you feel about Uncle Ted, you have to admit that he was one of the smartest guys ever. He got away with murder and robbery countless times, broke out of jail twice, pretty much had everyone who knew him (including crime writer Ann Rule) fooled about who he really was, and to this day no one really knows the whole story of how many people he did or didn't kill because of how he was using the criminal psychiatrists to delay his death sentence. If you ever listen to the recordings of the interviews with Ted Bundy you'll get a glimpse of how hilariously cunning he was, its solid gumby gold.

Anyway, a guy made a movie about Ted, and its a great movie, again, regardless of how you feel about the guy. About half way through the movie there is a nice little music montage of a few of his murders, and the upbeat music makes it more than memorable. You'll find it about 7 minutes in on the video below. My personal favorite is the clip of him camping out having a smoke next to some very lovely, but quiet, ladies. Enjoy.



An honorable mention goes to the scene in I Heart Huckabees when Tommy (Mark Wahlberg) fucks shit up in the meeting room. Kind of an interesting coincidence that Mark Wahlberg is also in The Happening, basically playing the same dude, but a lot better dressed and clean shaven.

New York Field Trip!

Squids just look so damn cool

Ever since Japanese class ended I've been having a hankering to visit the Japanese Grocery Mitsuwa in Edgewater, NJ. Problem is, its about an hour and a half drive away up the turnpike, and costs about 15 dollars in gas and another 7 in tolls to get there. That's kind of a lot of money to only go to one place for the whole day, and a lot of time traveling for only a small thing. So Mike and I decided that instead of taking that route (and since we had not been able to spend much time together recently aww) we would make an entire Saturday adventure out of it by taking the train to NYC and doing some New York stuff then taking the Mitsuwa shuttle to the store.


Though we didn't get as early of a start as we both would have liked, we ended up in the city around 1230/1, and traveled down to Chinatown to check out a place I think called "Elizabeth Place" on Elizabeth St. It was my first time really walking down Canal St. in the middle of the day, so I got pretty excited when I saw this squid hanging in the window. I bought some cherries, too.

The first thing I noticed when I got down the escalator was a giant tare panda (lazy panda) plush in the window of one of the stores. I dropped my jaw, as I have heard of such wonderful treasure but I had never seen it in the flesh. Before I could say the words "Lazy Panda" Mike was purchasing it at the register. Happy birthday to me! And yes, we carried it in the giant plastic bag it came in all the way through New York city for the rest of the day. But it was well worth it. The rest of the items in the basement of this place was mostly random jewelry, plushes, key chains, charms posters and the likes. I could have spent most of the day in there just picking out tiny things as gifts for people, but instead I made a mental note of what I saw for internet purchases when people's birthdays come up and the likes.

Mike and I smile in celebration of delicious food

After we headed out of there we both realized how ridiculously hungry we were, which was pretty stupid of us because we had planned to eat as soon as we got there. I kind of had an issue because I had eaten Chinese for the last three nights, but as luck would have it we found a place that had Pho, and inside this wonderfully cheaply priced place I was able to get the rice noodle dish with beef that I used to get for lunch when I worked in Pennsauken. I don't think I've ever mentioned it before, but we would seriously go a week eating this stuff for lunch every day, and I seriously missed it. I knew that I would be able to find something similar to the combo platter we used to get, but this was the exact same thing- even spring rolls on the side. I knew I would be able to find it one day, but I did not expect this to be the day. Even better was the fact that we got to sit in the window door jawn, and the two meals plus some chicken stick thing we got came to under 20 bucks. Such an awesome thing to have happened.

Mike vs. Pop Burger

We took the subway up to FAO Shwartz and checked that place out. They had a wall of stuffed pandas, a giant dragon over the front of the store, guys in toy soldier suits at the doors, and that giant keyboard that Tom Hanks and that chick played on in the movie Big! They had retro robot toys and jack in the box and really nifty Harry Potter merch. The store was neat to see mostly because of the giant stuffed things they had about. Across from there we saw a place called "Pop Burger". We had to go in to check it out, and Mike ended up ordering the 2 pop burger item.

As it turns out, Pop Burger has really great burgers. The 6 dollar item was basically 2 small White Castle sized burgers, but the patties were pretty damn thick, and the bun was a serious roll rather than thin white bread like roll. Mike swears it was worth it, and I had a taste and it was a pretty damn good burger, though six for two of those guys was asking a little much if you want my opinion. We then headed down to Nintendo World, and the whole place was plastered with Wii Fit posters. Up and downstairs every system was playing Wii Fit, and all the new clothing was Wii Fit Yoga stuff. I thought that was kind of lame. We DID find snorlax items though! Never before had we been there and they have had them. Mike and I both got the small 2" figure, while he bought the 6" plush. I'm pretty jealous that I didn't get one now that I've had the chance to hold it. He also got himself the keychain that I got for free when I subscribed to Nintendo Power that I lost at the Bloomsburg fair.

Mike Vs. Takoyaki

Lastly we headed over to the Port Authority and took the shuttle to Mitsuwa, where I bought two new books at Sanseido called "ehon o yonde roli poli" (read a picture book roly poly" and "Papa is Ultraseven". It turns out at Mitsuwa that day they were selling fresh takoyaki (fried octopus balls) of which I am seriously not a fan (but it was really awesome watching them make it!). Mike bought some and it turns out that he really likes them. I tried one because I am a sport, and I couldn't even swallow it. I did get some pretty decent sake though, and ice cream mochi which is probably my new favorite Japanese dessert. We didn't end up getting a real meal there since we were kind of still full from earlier and it was pretty crowded, but we did get the shuttle back to the city just in enough time to walk to Penn Station and basically walk right onto a train going home!

The train ride home was really crowded, so we had to stand for a few exits but kept ourselves entertained by playing a game Mike learned about from Excel Saga. When we stopped at Newark airport it smelled pretty bad for some reason. When we did finally get a seat we spent the rest of the time reading Ehon O Yonde Roli Poli out loud. We certainly peaked a few people's interests reading a picture book in a language they probably couldn't place and laughing pretty hard.

The end of the day was topped off by me beating Mike in Pokemon Puzzle League! Huzzah!

I have something to say!

There are a few things that I would like to get off my chest, so lets consider this post my first and hopefully last where I actually talk about my feelings outside of superficial daily life happenings.

1. Its way too windy where I work.
This is pretty surface evident. When I leave my house at 830, its 70 degrees and warm. When I get to work, its 50 and cold. My place of employment's parking lot is basically a giant wind tunnel, and I just want everyone out there to know how much of an effect this has on the outcome of my day depending on how many times I have to go out into it. The wind is basically one of the largest problems I have with having to go to the work building every day, and this morning it really bummed me out. So now that I have that off my chest, lets move on.

2. Sometimes I sound like a complete asshole.
Last Wednesday we had our final Japanese class at MCCC, and since there were only 8 of us in the class we all agreed to take our sensei out for dinner and have a little post-class horrah. Sensei thought it would be fun to hear what the reasons for everyone getting into the Japanese language class were. As I was listening to everyone else's reasons I was preparing a list in my head of what exactly it is I love about Japan and its culture. I was half listening to the reasons everyone was giving and half exploring the feelings I had, trying to make sense of something that I really hadn't talked about in a long time. I had a bit of trouble, because I really have made this whole Japan thing a part of who I am, rather than just being a fan of anime and video games. Everyone had pretty interesting reasons, especially Nelly-san, who went on to explain her love for Japanese art and print making, and how she had grown up in Peru surrounded by her father's art books and literature. That woman is truly something amazing by the way.

When it finally came to be my turn, something inside of me completely collapsed, and I ended up saying how I had always been a fan of video games and anime, but never really fell in love with Japan until I went there and realized 'how much better it was there'.

How much better it was?

Are you kidding me, Molly? What exactly does that mean? Are you saying that Japanese people are better? Are you saying that America is such a crappy place to live? Do you really think that all in all that country is just 'better' than it is here? I never really got to explain myself. I think I might have gotten out something about how much prettier it is, but at this point I don't really remember. I can only remember being so saddened by the actual words that came out of my mouth and following it up with how I want to live there, but only in Tokyo (prompting my sensei to later refer to me as a 'snob') and also having to defend myself about my dislike for Japanese food.

How in the hell did I become so socially akward? Have I always been this way? Is this why people think I am such a retard? I never actually am able to say what I am thinking until hours later, it seems. Even when I do put a lot of thought into what I am trying to say.

Well to save some kind of face, what I did mean to say in those five minutes that I had, was that I feel that Japan feels like it would generally be a better place for me to exist in. That it is much more aesthetically pleasing there. That the care that goes into such simple things like the shapes of trees and landscaping and the general relationship between nature and the city is a wonder to me. That there are things in Japan that I am more interested in than in America. That I feel that push-button eateries are much more fun to eat in than a diner. That the McDonalds tastes better there. That the subways and trains are always on time. That the country is cleaner. That the people are more beautiful. That the fashion is more forward and innovative. That the music is more captivating. That the language sounds more pleasing to my ear. That it smells so much more like the Earth seemingly should smell there. That there is a culture there that people respect and love. That people are more efficient. That the television is more interesting and funny.

The reason I only want to live in Tokyo, also, is that it is a city! I'm not saying that ONLY TOKYO ONLY ALL THE TIME, but I am saying that if I am going to move across the earth you can be sure that I am going to move to a place where there are a lot of people and also there are going to be other gaijin. Not to mention I have only spent a lot of time in Tokyo, so if I am going to ship there for awhile I am going to, for my sanity, have to spend time there before I can gather the ambition to try living somewhere else. Japan, for me, is a land of complete unfamiliarities, which scares the shit out of me. Tokyo, I believe, would make that transition much easier. I believe it would serve as more of a stepping stone, rather than the only place in the country I deem good enough for me to live in.

I mean I could go on but I think at this point you can see how incredibly ridiculous I felt after saying 'its better'. So I while I apologize to everyone sitting at that table for sounding somewhat arrogant, I do want to stand by the fact that once you go there for yourself I believe strongly that you will better understand what exactly I mean when I say 'better'. I know very personally that Japan is not an awesome place all the time, especially for foreigners. However, I do also feel that Japan's feelings for gaijin are occasionally justified, and I feel that those downs that I have so brutally experienced first hand are a small price to pay for the bigger picture.

3. What the fuck is up with my art?
This is the last thing I am going to talk about. Its more of a curiosity thing than anything. I've been working with the same kind of style of art for awhile, and while I believe that the quality of the work I've been doing has somewhat been compromised by quantity, I used to get a lot of positive feedback about what I was doing. Lately, I've been putting things up for sale at etsy.com, and while many people have been saying, oh your art is great, no one ever buys some.

I have sold two custom pieces, but thats not enough for me.

Now I know buying art isn't really something people do as often as buying clothes or music or whatever, but its lead to me thinking about how much people like my art as opposed to how many people that I know and are my friends like to TELL me they like my art. I don't really have the same kind of access to critiquing that I used to when I was in school, and I guess its lead me to question the authenticity of what people have to say about what I do. Maybe I just need a break from producing illustrated things for awhile, maybe I really have been too focused on making many ok art pieces rather than a few great ones, or maybe I am trying to hard to make new kinds of art (objects etc), or maybe I need to move onto a new medium for awhile?

If you read this blog, I'd be happy to hear what you have to say about what I do. pandakabobs.etsy.com. I'm not trying to get you to go there to buy things. I want some honest feedback. I think about what kinds of art I make a lot, and criticism is something that I honestly take to heart, especially from strangers who can give me a fresh look on something that I really spend a lot of time doing instead of thinking about.

So thats all, hopefully something rad will happen soon that is worth blogging about.

THE INTERNET IS NOT WORKING

dream come true!

Guess who went camping again!?!?

Me!

So let me tell you how it went.

Thursday I left work early to get some things done, and around 2 my brother, father, and I headed out to our friend Ralph's 200+ acre property in Loomis, NY (about an four hour drive). On the way there we stopped at the Chester diner, which quite possibly was the worst diner I had ever eaten at ever. I'm not even kidding you when I tell you that the cole slaw was bad. I know you're sitting there thinking, who the hell eats diner cole slaw. Well I do. My dad does. Its a thing. My dad tried the slaw, said, "Damn this shit is bad." I said, "Pops, all diner slaw isn't that great," then I tried it. It was so horrible. It was the worst diner slaw that ever existed.

We stopped at a liquor store that a nice old lady worked at. I remember her because she was smiley and helpful and nice, and she had a very well put together hair do. She was from Jersey, as it turns out. We left Chester.

Driving up to Loomis none of us remembered seeing signs for the Panda's Parlor. This kind of put a new level of excitement to the weekend - we were all wondering if the place was still there. I don't know if I talked about that place or not, but in case you're unfamiliar with it Panda's Parlor is an ice cream/carwash/coffe joint. Panda-themed. Heaven.

The first thing my dad did once we got up to Ralph's was get his truck stuck in a ditch.



After that was taken care of, we headed into the trailer for some much needed winding down with some box wine.



Ralph had a sandwich, because pulling vans out of the mud is hard work.



Truthfully, he was going to take us out to dinner, but we had already eaten at that horrible diner.

The next day we woke up to snow, and temperatures quite colder than the day before. We were now accompanied by our pal Jun, and made our way into the nearest town, Walton. Walton has a castle in it. It also has the largest walk in cooler around. I'm inclined to believe they have the ONLY walk in cooler around. You could also purchase girls underwear at the hardware store. I thought that odd. We had lunch at a different diner, which had


freedom toast

But their food was bangin. The locals stared at us for quite awhile when we came in, all eight of them. It was kind of eerie, but I knew it was going to be the last time in 3 days I was going to be inside somewhere and warm, so I stuck it out.

After pickin up a tarp, some groceries, and food from the dollar store we headed back to Loomis mountain and hiked everything up to the campsite in the ATVs. Set everything up, got rained on for a few hours, drank quite a bit. It took us about 2 hours to get a solid fire going. After we finally had the opportunity to warm up and grab some firewood, we realized we had no dinner. Lucky for us, my trusty new cell phone got text message service up there, and we entrusted Ralph Jr. with the task of bringing hot dogs.

Ralph showed up about an hour later, not only bringing hot dogs, but the warmer weather with him. It stopped raining, which made things a bit more comfortable. Ralph and Jun and I at one point headed up to the phone booth at Lake Flappenralph (the phone booth is just a spot on the top of the hill where most people can get cell phone service). There was a bit of snow on the ground, and Ralph decided to do some donuts in it. That is how he flipped the ATV, which you see at the top of this post. We all kind of dicked around for the rest of the day, until the night brought in the fog.

The thick, horrifying, blacker than the blackest black fog. You could not see more than 20 feet in front of you near the fire. When you left the fire, it was basically pitch black. Since we were expecting company soon and Ralph Sr. needed to know when to take the ATV back down to the trailer to pick them up, Ralph Jr convinced me to take the ATV with him back to the phone booth. We honestly could not see a thing. Even with the headlights of the ATV on it was incredibly hard to see. I'm not embellishing in the slightest when I tell you it was exactly like a horror movie. When we got to the top of the hill, Ralph flipped the lights of the ATV off - I was riding on the back -- and I couldn't even see the back of his head. I'm not talking about closing your eyes maybe seeing a little light behind the lids darkness, I mean I can't see my hand when I hold it in front of my face dark. We even got lost on the way back trying to find the entrance to the next field, passing it twice before finally using the light of the distant campfire to find it. I honestly was terrified, and though I usually get scared over the dark and dumb shit like that, this was a kind of darkness that I had never experienced before, and I doubt that many people have ever experienced it.

That night we were joined by a family of four, Ralph's sister in law (ex sister in law? hm) and her 2 kids and her husband. Two more people showed up at about 3am, but stayed in the trailer and came up the next morning.

The next day I woke up to see the trees - which is not supposed to happen considering I have a flap that goes over the top of my tent. Well that flap, and the tarp, were blown over by the wind that night. No one slept well, and everyone was freezing cold. My brother's things and tent were soaked, so he came and sat in my tent while we listened to the state of the art stereo system, which was really just my ipod and headphones hanging from the hook in the middle of my tent. The day was spent trying to keep warm, going for ATV rides, chopping firewood, exploring the rock quarry, and playing DS. I had brought my markers and some plastic to draw on, but it was certainly way too cold to even consider that. It did get nicer over the course of the day, and we spent about an hour that evening trying to track down the sound of turkeys coming from a distant field. Turkeys sound just like a bunch of kids laughing and fighting. Its kinda funny. We never did get to see the turkeys, but that just gives me something to look forward to next time. Dinner was ab fab spaghetti and home made sauce, accompanied by a tasty salad concocted by yours truly.

We got pretty wasted that night.

The next morning we all woke up a little chilly, but the weather was gorgeous. My dad went down and slept in the trailer with Ralph because he was startin to hurt (first real thing he's done since he got out of surgery), so Ricky got to stay dry by sleeping in dad's tent. I was ready to jet - present company was really getting on my nerves and I didn't want to spend six to eight hours stuck in traffic like the last time we came home from Loomis. We ended up leaving around 1. I do hate leaving that place, because its just so damn beautiful, but because of the rain, and the mud, and the snow, and the wind, I just felt horrifyingly dirty. This is coming from a girl who sometimes goes a week without showering. Thats how dirty I felt. And I smelled bad. Not the usual camping woft, but this was some brutal camp fire mud shit smell.

On the way home we DID see Panda's Parlor, so we stopped, but the ice cream place was still closed. I got some coffee from Panda's Java Joint instead. It was pretty damn good coffee! I actually didn't expect it to taste good at all, considering we were in the middle of nowhere and I figured that pot had to be stewing all day long. I was wrong. And it was only a dollar. Plus I got a cup with a Panda on it. How rad.

So thats about it - I'll probably have to come back and amend this if I think of anything else super rad that happened - but in the meantime here is a link to the pictures I took. Can't wait for next time!

Photos of us camping!

Photos of artsy things around Breezy Acres