OCELOTE’s Neighborhood

SELF PORTRAIT THURSDAY!
7.3.08

Astoria Bagels (Bagel?) puts TOO MUCH cream cheese on their bagels.

Just look at this big chunk of cream cheese that fell out of my everything bagel:

I'm not a fan of hearing people whistle. Sorta annoys me.

And no, it's not because I'm jealous since I can't whistle.

I mean, I can't swim very well at all, but I don't get annoyed when I see people swimming.

(This is the best topic I could come up with after forgetting what I was originally going to write about.)

I can also talk about how Starbucks is closing 600 of their locations around the country. "Experts" think it's because the chain expanded too quickly.

I wouldn't be sad if all Starbucks went away. I don't drink/like coffee anyway.

There was this area in Houston (N. Sheperd and  W. Gray) that has (had?) two Starbucks locations RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from each other.

I think that is probably one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen.
And I hope both of those locations close down, too.

New shirt variations:

Sarah C. is partial to the pink t-shirt; I'm partial to the green one.
(I might keep the green prototype for myself. We'll see how I feel after I'm done here at Parachute for the day.)

Netflix sent me "The Apple" yesterday in the mail.
Have you ever seen that movie? It's really stupid and insane and funny.
But I've only seen it 1.25 times.

Today "The Brown Bunny" is being sent to me. I don't really like Vincent Gallo (seems a bit self-absorbed/self-centered---and not in the good way) that much, but I liked "Buffalo 66". So, maybe I'll like this.

I also want to see Chloe Sevigny be a respectable actress.
 

My good friend, LT, from Leicester, England opened up her own Etsy shop! She had posted some pictures of her artwork and I told her she truly should consider selling them on Etsy as they are way too brilliant not to be:

She's totally boss.

So, I never really formally actually introduced my new assistant Sarah C. to you, did I?

I've shown her photo on my blog once before, but in case you've forgotten, I'll show you again:

And the both of us:

She's only been in the US for a couple weeks now. She came here from Liverpool, but she's originally from Manchester.

She used to be my internet stalker, but all that persistence and creepiness really made an impact on me---so I decided that this girl must be good people. I figured I should just be her friend.

I call her Crompy, not Sarah, though, because I already know a Sarah.  I can't keep up with more than one Sarah, especially when there's one working close to me in the same studio.  Jeez.

So, Crompy is here until September. And then she'll unfortunately have to go back home to England. =(

But who knows, I COULD end up really hating her by the end of her stay because sometimes she does things that I just really don't approve of.

Exhibit A:

Today she though it'd be a good idea to put her gummy worms in her iced coffee:

And THEN she thought it'd be a better idea to drink it:

You know that I can't handle stuff like that.
(My stomach is already starting to hurt just looking at those photos...)

So, that's Crompy (aka Sarah C.).
She's just like me---but a UK female version.
And she's a good assistant.

Just an annoying person...
We need to work on that.

The screening went well albeit having a Q&A session in Malaysia once again proved nearly redundant. However, I got to size up the allies and competition - got my head straight and figured out more about how I'd go about surviving in the Malaysian industry. Can survive lah.

Had a bit of a scare today. I'm not really ready yet to throw myself out there yet. Not till I graduate, not till I'm actually producing more work which I feel is more representative of me. Someone said today that my short was gonna be shown at GSC at One Utama and I freaked out. It turned out to be a mistake but it made me think about publicity. I've always wanted to become well known for my achievements but I don't think I've ever weighed what that would truly entail. I've become more private as I've grown older and if I wanted to market myself, I'd know how to but now that this 'goal' is beginning to manifest, it's intimidating. It's intimidating but considering the field I'm in, it would defeat the purpose to make films as well as lay low. I mean I have the confidence, but not the ego to keep up with this kind of thing but I'm going to have to throw myself in someday. We're talking about me, the kid who at 3, kept throwing herself into the deep end of the pool to learn how to swim and would've died if the lifeguard didn't fish me out thrice. Fuck Scorsese. Fuck Tarantino. Fuck celebrity. A colossal ego must be soft to sleep on every night.

I'm glad I'm back in Malaysia now though. I'll be leaving again soon but it's always a challenge, as you grow older, unexpected things happen. For example, the growing familiarity of things. Maybe I'm too used to being where no one really knows me, that the growing familiarity of things turns into a suffocation of all things that represent you through your own culture and private history. Especially in the form of "do you remember that time in high school?" *shudder* It makes me too much for me to take.

I learn to say less nowadays. Blogging feels adolescent but only now are Malaysians going crazy over it and I'll be damned if we ever have anything interesting to say. As long as it doesn't condone talk without action (yeah right). After 7 years of blogging I've taken my brainwashing to the streets. Hell, I couldn't be bothered reading my own posts, can you? Now get out of here and go do something more interesting.

P.S.
It's my birthday on July 8th.
That is in one week, okay?
I'll be 24.
(And according to my Texas state ID, I'll be 34.)

That's me on my birthday a couple years ago:

And that's me later on that night:

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Eh, I thought I'd write about the zoo, but the moment's passed.

I'm feeling strange today.
And the guy at the bodega asked me if I was feeling all right because I look really tired apparently.
I think I got up before I should have---I got plenty of sleep though.

Perhaps the muscle relaxer I took before bed made me want to sleep in this morning. Who knows.
(I took the muscle relaxer because my back has been weird again this week. Not painful, just tight and lots of pressure.)

I watch "Mama's Family" before bed last night.
I forgot how much I missed that show. It's so funny.

If you don't like it, you can fuck yourself.

Lillian G. and Ben J. last night at Lillian's studio:

What I really wanted to write about today is the zoo, BUT I must put that on the back burner right now (at this moment) so that I can tell you about my good friends' (Max and Sarah of RuffeoHeartsLilSnotty) achievement:

They've been chosen as Fred Flare's Next Big Thing!

(Read the interview here.)

Basically each year, Fred Flare asks designers from all over the world to submit an item that Fred Flare then decides whether or not it's worthy of being the Next Big Thing.  So, Sarah and Max submitted their nekkin' brace to Fred Flare and it was chosen! Being a Next Big Thing finalist is really good and awesome because of the exposure to potential customers and wholesalers and such.

On July 2nd, you'll be able to vote for your favorite designer from the 27 Next Big Thing finalists. The winner gets a thousand bucks. Holler.

So, you should totally do that. I'm going to.

And I'll remind you, too.

(I'm the one who urged Sarah to apply to this because I was going to apply, too. But I forgot about applying because I had a house guest. And I was having an issue with someone. So, my mind was occupied. And I didn't remember until the day after the applications were due.)

I'm so dumb.

But I'm also very proud and happy for Max and Sarah.
They're awesome people. And very talented. 

I made my first Etsy sale!

This does great for motivation, actually.

Today I went out with my friend, Ellie W., (who I actually grew up with -- she lived across the street) and we got lunch, saw "Wall-E" (so adorable!) and got coffee. Sort of.

AND a week from Wednesday one of bestest buddies, Cary R., will be in town.

SPAIN WON THE EURO 2008 ON SUNDAY.

This summer has officially begun.

More point forms:
- I downloaded Alpha Centauri. Basically wanted that game for ~ 6 years. And then I was like, "Hey. The internet is so good for that." I also learned that I do not know anything about computers, but now I have a vague idea of what an iso is.
- I also legitimately downloaded the Creature Creator demo for Spore, which is fiiiiiinally coming out sometime soon. I really enjoy it, and will likely soon get the full version less legitimately.
- Went to the cottage. 2 days, ~ 8 episodes of rain, once when I was in the kayak. Saw "Across the Universe". I kind of wanted to hate it, but couldn't. Really, it was quite good.
- Okay seriously it rains all the time. Allll the time.
- So things with Professor are going famously! I suppose I should have provided interim updates since the last thing I said was that it was questionable, but everything seems to have smoothed out. Yayyy. I really like him. And we're going to spend my favourite holiday, aka Canada Day, together. Erm, magical...?
- Work yadda yadda. I have this week off. Gotta get my fill of Toronto before I'm off to the hinterlands come this weekend.
- Saw 2046. Not so great. Bad one, Mr Wong. (Interlude: Watched it with Professor. Putting my arm around someone makes me feel manly!)
- (Please note that Professor is but a nickname.... dating a real professor would imply a creepy age difference.)
- Free Harbourfront shows! (Nothing I like, though...)
- Okay so apparently starting a sentence with "As well," meaning also, is something we only do in Canada. I have Canadian and American neighbours: confirm? thoughts?
- I was at Sonic Boom! today (bought Milk Man and Intercontinental Champion), and some woman asked me "Excuse me, do you work here?" WHAT A COMPLIMENT!
- I finished Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, which was really good. And set in TO! This was my second excellent Cory Doctorow, so I certainly recommend him. Oh and you can get I think most of his books for free on his website sooo.
- This song:

I've been sleeping with the windows open because it's so hot lately and the other night someone rolled up to the front of my building blaring Nelly at around 2:00 a.m. With a heavy sigh I got up and put the windows down to shut out the noise.

If you're going to wake me up with bad R&B, at least make it Akon. Thanks.