Wednesday, April 30, 2008

David Blaine Holds Breath, Breaks Record

These are a few of my favorite things: David Blaine, Oprah and breaking world records. I watched it LIVE!

Submerged in a water-filled sphere on the stage of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" during a live broadcast, Blaine held his breath for 17 minutes and 4 seconds. That beat the previous record of 16 minutes and 32 seconds, set Feb. 10 by Switzerland's Peter Colat, according to Guinness World Records.

This is the first of two stunts Blaine is reportedly planning to perform this year.

The other will involve him trying to break the world record for sleep deprivation. Briton Tony Wright stayed awake for 11,5 days, but Guinness World Records refused to list the feat, because of the "grave risk" to his mental health.

- 44 days inside Plexiglas suspended over the Thames.
- Frozen in a case of ice in Times Square for three days.
- Stood atop a high pillar 35 hours in Bryant Park.
- Buried alive for seven days.
- Spent a week under water in NYC

On October 29, 2002, Random House published David Blaine's Mysterious Stranger: A Book of unique Magic. Part autobiography, part history of magic, and part armchair treasure hunt, the book also includes instructions on how to perform card tricks and illusions.
Scattered throughout the book are clues to Blaine's $100,000 Challenge, an armchair treasure hunt of visual ciphers and logic deduction devised by game designer Cliff Johnson, creator of The Fool's Errand.
The Challenge was solved by Sherri Skanes on March 20, 2004, 16 months after the book's publication.

Sherri, I cannot tell you how rad it is that you solved the puzzle!

Monday, April 28, 2008

How do slugs breathe?

On Saturday i went to a cookout at a friends house. While there we found a slug and started studying it. Owel saw this hole in the side of the slug that was opening and closing. Is this how slugs breathe? Lets find out...

The pneumostome is a feature (the respiratory opening) of the external body anatomy of an air-breathing land slug or land snail. This feature is usually clearly visible on the right side of the animal when the pneumostome is open, but may not be easy to see when it is closed.
This is an opening in the right side of the mantle of a Pulmonata ordered or subclassed slug (suborder Stylommatophora) or snail, through which its single lung is filled with air.
The frequency of pneumostome closing and opening is typically less than 0.5 closures per minute in fully hydrated slugs and snails. The rate of closures per minute increases the more dehydrated the slug is.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

INTRODUCING-Mitch Alday, SUPERSTAR

One of my dearest friends is a man named Mitch Alday.
He's a teacher of American literature.
I was sitting on the steps of the Moon building (our art building in college) before one of Dr. Virginia Troy's art history classes, when we met. I have treasured every second of every minute that i have known him since.
He stores more knowledge in his head than anyone i know. I only wish i knew half as much about art history as he does!

(Mitch, Mitch's dad and DECOY at graduation from college)

This is a true story.
Once i had gained the knowledge that mosquitoes have 47 teeth. I kept this secret to myself and the next time i saw Mitch I popped the question. I am not lying when i say, he stood there...shifted his head up and scratched his scruff and said in a questioning voice "47?" still thinking. And then in that solid, for sure Mitch voice. " yes, mosquitoes have 47 teeth i believe".

He is directly linked to one of the most horrible crimes ever committed in Georgia history. The Alday murders where there was an attack on the Alday family of Donalsonville, Ga., in which five men were killed and one woman was raped and killed. It was called ''the most heinous crime in Georgia'' by Gov. Jimmy Carter. Carl Isaacs, 34 years old, was convicted of the six murders in 1974.
Wednesday, April 23, 2003. The day after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld his death sentence, and 30 years after the crime, the man considered the longest-serving U.S. prisoner on death row was scheduled by a Georgia court for execution May 6.
The Houston County Superior Court scheduled Carl Isaacs, 49, to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. May 6 at the maximum- security prison in Butts County, said Russ Willard, spokesman for Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker.

There was even a film made about it in 1988 entitled Murder One.


And so, the other day Mitch introduced me to the Corpse plant, and i thought i'd shae it with you.

The titan arum or Amorphophallus titanum (from Ancient Greek amorphos, "without form, misshapen" + phallos, "penis", and titan, "giant") is a flowering plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. The popular name titan arum was invented by the broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough, for his BBC TV series The Private Life of Plants, in which the flowering and pollination of the plant were filmed for the first time. Attenborough felt that constantly referring to the plant as Amorphophallus on a popular TV documentary would be inappropriate.

It invests a lot of energy during blooming to heat up the sulfur-based compound in its stalk. Because it uses up so much energy to bloom, it only does so every 5 to 10 years. In spite of the plant’s long preparation for its flowery display, the blooms last, at best, two to three days, so visitors will have to be vigilant to see and smell it. A flowering stalk can be seven to 12 feet in height and three to four feet in diameter. After the bloom dies, a leaf stalk resembling a tree sapling will begin to emerge.
The "fragrance" of the inflorescence resembles rotting meat, attracting carrion-eating beetles and Flesh Flies (family Sarcophagidae) that pollinate it. The flower's deep red color and texture contribute to the illusion that the spathe is a piece of meat. During bloom, the tip of the spadix is approximately human body temperature, which helps the perfume volatilize; this heat is also believed to assist in the illusion that attracts carcass-eating insects.


Once i watched the movie Elizabethtown and it confirmed for me, what i had thought all these years about Mitch's.
In the scene they are on a plane and Claire Colburn,Kirsten Dunst, is the flight attendant. She is talking with Orlando Bloom who plays Drew Baylor. A kid flying home for his dad's funeral. His dad's name was Mitch.

Claire says to Drew, "Never met a Mitch I didn't like. Fun, full of life. Like... everyone wants to be a part of Mitch's club".

Like hitting a nail on the head.
Love you Mitch.

DECOY: The Creative Class 1


Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 in the house of her parents, known as La Casa Azul (The Blue House), in Coyoacán. At the time, this was a small town on the outskirts of Mexico City.

The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 when Kahlo was three years old. Later, however, Kahlo claimed that she was born in 1910 so people would directly associate her with the revolution. In her writings, she recalled that her mother would usher her and her sisters inside the house as gunfire echoed in the streets of her hometown, which was extremely poor at the time. Occasionally, men would leap over the walls into their backyard and sometimes her mother would prepare a meal for the hungry revolutionaries.

Kahlo contracted polio at age six, which left her right leg thinner than the left, which Kahlo disguised by wearing long skirts.

(in DC at the National Women's Museum)

On September 17, 1925, Kahlo was riding in a bus when the vehicle collided with a trolley car.

She suffered serious injuries in the accident, including a broken spinal column, a broken collarbone, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, eleven fractures in her right leg, a crushed and dislocated right foot, and a dislocated shoulder. An iron handrail pierced her abdomen and her uterus, which seriously damaged her reproductive ability.
Although she recovered from her injuries and eventually regained her ability to walk, she was plagued by relapses of extreme pain for the remainder of her life. The pain was intense and often left her confined to a hospital or bedridden for months at a time. She underwent as many as thirty-five operations as a result of the accident, mainly on her back and her right leg and foot.

While she recovered in a full body cast; she painted to occupy her time during her temporary state of immobilization. Her self-portraits became a dominant part of her life when she was immobile for three months after her accident. She once said, "I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best". Her mother had a special easel made for her so she could paint in bed, and her father lent her his box of oil paints and some brushes. Frida's bed was also fitted with a canopy mirror fixed to its underside so she could see herself and act as her own model.

Frida was a student at the National Preparatory School in Mexico City, while Diego Rivera painted the Creation mural in the Bolivar Amphitheatre. She would often stay and watch him paint.
Later as a young artist, Kahlo approached the famous Mexican painter whose work she admired, asking him for advice about pursuing art as a career. He immediately recognized her talent and her unique expression as truly special and uniquely Mexican. He encouraged her development as an artist and, soon began an intimate relationship with Frida. They were married in 1929, despite the disapproval of Frida's mother. They often were referred to as The Elephant and the Dove, a nickname that originated when Kahlo's father used it to express their extreme difference in size

The marriage of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo is one of the most famous alliances between artists.
Diego and Frida's marriage was nothing less than stormy. They loved each other very much, but Diego was a well-known womanizer, and had several affairs throughout the course of their marriage (including one with Frida's sister).
Frida also had many lovers, both men and women, including the communist, Leon Trotsky, the famous actresses Dolores Del Rio and Paulette Goddard. She was also involved in affairs with the wife of the surrealist poet Andre Breton and the famous artist Georgia O'Keeffe.
In 1940, Frida and Diego divorced, but the separation only lasted one year. On December 8th, Diego's 54th birthday, Frida and Diego were married for a second time

Drawing on personal experiences, including her marriage, her miscarriages, and her numerous operations, Kahlo's works often are characterized by their stark portrayals of pain. Of her 143 paintings, 55 are self-portraits which often incorporate symbolic portrayals of physical and psychological wounds.

Kahlo was deeply influenced by indigenous Mexican culture, which is apparent in her use of bright colors and dramatic symbolism. She frequently included the symbolic monkey. In Mexican mythology, monkeys are symbols of lust, yet Kahlo portrayed them as tender and protective symbols. Christian and Jewish themes are often depicted in her work. She combined elements of the classic religious Mexican tradition with surrealist renderings.

At the invitation of André Breton (the leader of Surrealism), she went to France in 1939 and was featured at an exhibition of her paintings in Paris. When Breton tried to convince Frida to join the group, she would have nothing to do with it. "They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't,'' she said. "I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.''The Louvre bought one of her paintings, The Frame, which was displayed at the exhibit. This was the first work by a 20th century Mexican artist ever purchased by the internationally renowned museum.

In 2004 a trunk was discovered in the back of an old wardrobe that had been forgotten in an unused bathroom. Kahlo is known as much for her outspoken and sometimes outrageous style as for her intensely personal paintings.Kahlo was known in part for her fashion leadership, and was featured on the cover of Vogue's French edition.

While most women were turning toward the simple, elegant dresses, Kahlo was wearing long, full skirts that borrowed heavily from Mexico's traditional Indian dress. She often had her hair in braids, and refused to remove a mustache or trim her unibrow, both of which she exaggerated in her signature self-portraits.

The trunk of clothes was found during a renovation of her family's home, where she died in 1954 after a life of nearly constant pain and dozens of surgeries for broken bones she suffered in the bus accident. Inside were dresses, tablecloths and a letter from Rivera.

The clothes were a window on Kahlo's life. The curators of her museum were struck not only by the actual garments, but by the fact that they still smelled of Kahlo.

"There is still a trace of that very particular odor," said Magdalena Rosen Zweig, who helped restore the clothing. "It's not mildew or mothballs, but the smell of a person, cigarettes, perfume. It's a very particular smell, something that makes the clothing come alive. It's something that helps you understand a person."

Some of the skirts were stained by Kahlo's oil paint, and one had a small, scorched hole from a cigarette.

"We respected that during the restoration process ... because it is part of history," Rosen Zweig said in an interview.

Besides providing a comprehensive look at Kahlo's style, the clothes also reveal how tiny she was. Rivera, more than 6 feet tall and about 300 pounds, towered over the 5-foot-3 Kahlo, who weighed less than 100 pounds. The disparity prompted Kahlo's mother to nickname the couple "the elephant and the dove."

"She has such a small waist," Rosen Zweig said. "You can't find mannequins her size. She had a tiny waist and a very small back. Everything about her was tiny."

Her body, crippled by disease and the bus accident, was the main topic of many of her paintings -- stark self-portraits that depicted her unending pain and inability to have children.

Clothing became a way to hide or even address her physical disabilities. After suffering a broken back, she often wore a hard, plaster corset that she painted with intricate designs. During her months of bed rest, "it was a ritual to get dressed," Rosen Zweig said.

She noted that the clothes showed how Kahlo's style evolved. As a young woman, she wore high-neck blouses and black gloves that may have belonged to her mother. Later, she mixed loose-fitting dresses with ornate necklaces, ear rings, flowers and hair ribbons.
(Associated Press)

Curators opened the lid to find hundreds of Frida Kahlo's colorful skirts and blouses, many still infused with the late artist's perfume and cigarette smoke.

It has taken two years to log and restore the nearly 300 articles of clothing.

A few days before Frida Kahlo died on July 13, 1954, she wrote in her diary: "I hope the exit is joyful - and I hope never to return - Frida". The official cause of death was given as pulmonary embolism, although some suspected that she died from overdose that may or may not have been accidental. No autopsy was ever performed. She had been very ill throughout the previous year and her right leg had been amputated at the knee, owing to gangrene. She also had a bout of bronchopneumonia near that time, which had left her quite frail.

In 1953, one year before Kahlo's death, while Diego was enshrined as Mexico's greatest living painter, he gave an interview in which he stated, "Frida Kahlo is the greatest Mexican painter. Her work is destined to be multiplied by reproductions and will speak, thanks to books, to the whole world. It is one of the most formidable artistic documents and most intense testimonies on human truth of our time.''

Later, in his autobiography, Diego Rivera wrote that the day Kahlo died was the most tragic day of his life, adding that, too late, he had realized that the most wonderful part of his life had been his love for her.

SUPER SPECIAL HISTORY BONUS JUST BECAUSE YOU KNOW DECOY AND LOVE ART HISTORY TOO!

The hand earring painted in this portrait was given to Frida as a gift from Picasso the first time they met.

The Diary of Frida Kahlo : An Intimate Self-Portrait

Frida Kahlo kept an amazing diary throughout her life full of sketches, writings, ink drawings and water color paintings.
Featuring more than three hundred illustrations, half of them in full color, a facsimile of the diary--never before published--of the twentieth-century Mexican artist in its original size is accompanied by an English transcription and commentary. This is an wonderful book to flip through and will be a excellent gift for any Frida fan.

If you ever get the chance to travel to Mexico, then make special plans to stop by the home that Frida was born and died in. La Casa Azul in Coyoacán, a town on the outskirts of Mexico City..

The gardens.

Frida Kahlo's House
Original furniture, letters, objects and Frida´s dresses. Through them it is easier to live her love to popular art ; her intelectual life beside Diego Rivera and health difficulties. It has become a kind of devotional site known as The Blue House. 247 Londres St., Coyoacán.

While you're there, The Trotsky's House is just around the corner. Home to Leon Trotsky a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. He was one of the leaders of the Russian October Revolution, second only to Lenin. And remember, one of Frida's lovers!
The Trotsky's house was preserved in much the same condition as it was on the day of the assassination and is now a small museum and cultural center where the soviet leader lived his last days before he was assasinated and killed with a pick ice by NKVD agent, Ramón Mercader. Trotsky's last words were "I will not survive this attack. Stalin has finally accomplished the task he attempted unsuccessfully before."
45 Viena St. and Río Churubusco Ave., Coyoacán.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

New Drawing- Dee.

I always stop in and see the latest exhibits at my neighborhood gallery, Transformer on on 14th and P.

The past show was one of Photographs by Hatnim Lee.
Hatnim Lee creates vivid, large-scale photos of saturated colors -- from fashion shoots to poignant portraits -- with an ease that belies her youth. Following an internship with David LaChapelle in 2006, Hatnim Lee continued to develop her craft in Los Angeles, CA, Brooklyn, NY, and Washington, DC.

Lee's exhibition at Transformer features a range of works reflecting her photographic interests over the last two years, and launches her new book: HATNIM LEE PHOTOGRAPHS September 2006 - December 2007.

Sometimes i see a person or a photo and everything inside tells me to draw them/ it. That happened with the photo Dee, by Hatnim Lee. So, on Friday i went back to transformer and drew for about an hour or so. My sketch book was small so i had to divide up the drawing as i drew. I couldn't wait to rush home and piece it together.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

INTRODUCING: Beth B, Superstar

One of my most favorite finds of last year was Beth B's Mustache Pin.
Only 5 bucks!

This year I added to my two-headed monster collection with this print.
Only 3 bucks!

Super Fun and Super Cute.
VISIT: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=23598

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Bjork and the Eels: Concert to remember the birds

My mother warned me that one day they will grow up and leave the nest.

But she failed to warn me that one day a huge storm may come and wash the little babies away!

It has rained and rained and rained here for the last two-three days. This morning was the first time I had gotten a chance to check on the baby birds.

Palomo and Paloma came back to the house three times during the day. They walked around the nest, obviously checking out the damage. Paloma walked all around the edges of the building.

At one point Palomo sat on the railing and puffed out his neck and feathers and started making strange noises. OWEL said he was surprised at how visibly upset they seemed.
I am so sorry Paloma and Polomo.

Bjork and the Eels. Concert to remember the birds


I Like Birds

Unravel
He'll never return it

When you come back
We'll have to make new love

He'll never return it

When you come back
We'll have to make new love

He'll never return it

When you come back
We'll have to make new love

Bacon and Egg Face

I ran into a friend last night who carries drawings i've left him in his wallet. This time i suggested a swap. This is the drawing he did for me.

One of the old drawings had a Michael W. Smith quote on it. This particular acquaintance doesn't seem to be too hip on christian music. Sadly, he didn't get the reference.

Michael W. Smith (born October 7, 1957) is a Grammy Award-winning American singer and songwriter. He is one of the best-selling and most influential artists in Contemporary Christian Music. Smith is a three-time Grammy Award winner, and he has earned 34 Dove Awards. Over the course of his 24-year career, he has sold more than 13 million albums and he has recorded 29 number-one hit songs, fourteen gold albums, and five platinum albums. Smith is an American Music Award recipient and he was named one of People magazine's most beautiful people.

"go west young man, and let the evil go east"

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Paloma Picasso

I found out today that one of Picasso's daughters was named Poloma.

Paloma is what i named one of my pigeons. It means girl pigeon in spanish.

Paloma Picasso (born April 19, 1949, Vallauris, France) is a French/Spanish fashion designer and businesswoman. She is the daughter of artists Pablo Picasso and Françoise Gilot.
At an early age, Paloma was the subject of many of her father's works, including Paloma with an Orange and Paloma in Blue. Eventually she turned to the field of fashion design and started her own company and brand, such as her eponymous perfume and a line of evening wear. She also designs jewelry for Tiffany & Co. and was known as a regular at the legendary discotheque Studio 54.
She made a notorious appearance as the Countess Erzsébet Báthory in Polish filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk's erotic film, Immoral Tales (1974).
Paloma Picasso lives in Lausanne, Switzerland.

HIP had once received this ring as a gift from someone. Until tonight we were always confused. She swore that the box had something Picasso on it. Now we know that Paloma designed it! We love it even more now.

Shepard Fairey-Barack Obama

Shepard Fairey was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design when he designed a sticker featuring the legendary obey giant. The sticker was very basic in design, a Andre with the words "obey giant Has Posse" and 7'4," 520 LB.

MANIFESTO
The OBEY sticker campaign can be explained as an experiment in Phenomenology. Heidegger describes Phenomenology as "the process of letting things manifest themselves." Phenomenology attempts to enable people to see clearly something that is right before their eyes but obscured; things that are so taken for granted that they are muted by abstract observation.

The FIRST AIM OF PHENOMENOLOGY is to reawaken a sense of wonder about one's environment. The OBEY sticker attempts to stimulate curiosity and bring people to question both the sticker and their relationship with their surroundings. Because people are not used to seeing advertisements or propaganda for which the product or motive is not obvious, frequent and novel encounters with the sticker provoke thought and possible frustration, nevertheless revitalizing the viewer's perception and attention to detail. The sticker has no meaning but exists only to cause people to react, to contemplate and search for meaning in the sticker. Because OBEY has no actual meaning, the various reactions and interpretations of those who view it reflect their personality and the nature of their sensibilities.

Many people who are familiar with the sticker find the image itself amusing, recognizing it as nonsensical, and are able to derive straightforward visual pleasure without burdening themselves with an explanation. The PARANOID OR CONSERVATIVE VIEWER however may be confused by the sticker's persistent presence and condemn it as an underground cult with subversive intentions. Many stickers have been peeled down by people who were annoyed by them, considering them an eye sore and an act of petty vandalism, which is ironic considering the number of commercial graphic images everyone in American society is assaulted with daily.

Another phenomenon the sticker has brought to light is the trendy and CONSPICUOUSLY CONSUMPTIVE nature of many members of society. For those who have been surrounded by the sticker, its familiarity and cultural resonance is comforting and owning a sticker provides a souvenir or keepsake, a memento. People have often demanded the sticker merely because they have seen it everywhere and possessing a sticker provides a sense of belonging. The Giant sticker seems mostly to be embraced by those who are (or at least want to seem to be) rebellious. Even though these people may not know the meaning of the sticker, they enjoy its slightly disruptive underground quality and wish to contribute to the furthering of its humorous and absurd presence which seems to somehow be antiestablishment/societal convention. Giant stickers are both embraced and rejected, the reason behind which, upon examination reflects the psyche of the viewer. Whether the reaction be positive or negative, the stickers existence is worthy as long as it causes people to consider the details and meanings of their surroundings. In the name of fun and observation.

Shepard Fairey, 1990



I believe with great conviction that Barack Obama should be the next President. I have been paying close attention to him since the Democratic convention in 2004. I feel that he is more a statesman than a politician. He was against the war when it was an unpopular position (and Hillary was for the war at that time), Obama is for energy and environmental conservation. He is for healthcare reform. Check him out for yourself www.barackobama.com. Proceeds from this print go to produce prints for a large statewide poster campaign.

Thanks.

-Shepard

I went to college in a small town in north Georgia. The library would close around midnight and everyone would go to the Waffle House. I once sat there and listened to this girl cry and explain how, after her first two semesters in college she had gotten one F and 2 D's and had now lost hope. All of it. She didn't think she could return to school after Christmas break if she didn't have hope. I remember thinking how crushed her spirit must be to describe her loss as a loss of hope.

I later found out that HOPE is the state grant that most Georgia kids get if they keep their grades up. Not having HOPE meant her parents couldn't afford for her to come back.

It seems like people are constantly searching for heroes. Unfortunately, sometimes our leaders don't seem to be heroes and we eventually lose hope. In the early 60's Jack Kennedy brought with him the revival of the spirit of heroism.
Bring it back. VOTE!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89431734
http://obeygiant.com

Friday, April 18, 2008

Carnivorous Plants.


When my brother and I were young we used to buy little potted Venus Fly Traps from Wal-Mart. We would catch flies and spiders with tweezers and feed the plant.

I'm sure we would have gotten a jungle if we could have!

I've wanted to buy a plant for a while now and have been checking out hanging plants in stores around my neighborhood. The other day i stopped in at the new and beautiful garden store on 14th and church.
That's when i started looking into the Pitcher plant.

Pitcher plants are carnivorous plants whose prey-trapping mechanism features a deep cavity filled with liquid known as a pitfall trap. Carnivorous plants (sometimes called insectivorous plants) are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients (but not energy) from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants appear adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic bogs and rock outcroppings. Charles Darwin wrote the first well-known treatise on carnivorous plants in 1875.

True carnivory is thought to have evolved in at least 10 separate lineages of plants, and these are now represented by more than a dozen genera in 5 families. These include about 625 species that attract and trap prey, produce digestive enzymes, and absorb the resulting available nutrients.

Five basic trapping mechanisms are found in carnivorous plants.

-Pitfall traps (pitcher plants) trap prey in a rolled leaf that contains a pool of digestive enzymes or bacteria.
-Flypaper traps use a sticky mucilage.
-Snap traps utilize rapid leaf movements.
-Bladder traps suck in prey with a bladder that generates an internal vacuum.
-Lobster-pot traps force prey to move towards a digestive organ with inward pointing hairs.

These traps may be active or passive, depending on whether movement aids the capture of prey. For example, Triphyophyllum is a passive flypaper that secretes mucilage, but whose leaves do not grow or move in response to prey capture. Meanwhile, sundews are active flypapers whose leaves undergo rapid growth, aiding in the retention and digestion of prey.

My new Pitcher plant.

NEW BIRDS


14th st.

Both babies have hatched

They are turning more grey than yellow now.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

xkcd comic= good

Mejor Amiga

11 year old snail.

Taxi Gang sent me this the other day. I liked it.


'A Chinese man says he's had the same snail as a pet for 11 years - and takes it for walks.
Yang Jinsen has now had his pet for twice the normal life span of a snail, reports the Southern Metropolis News.

Yang found the snail by the roadside on his way home from school in 1997.

Back then, he was 14 and the snail was the size of a small coin. Now, he's a married man and the snail fills the palm of his hand.

"I built a small home for it in the yard, and fed it water and soil," he said.

"On weekends, I would take it walking in the fields, and in the evenings I would put it on my desk, playing with it while doing my homework."

Last year, he married and moved to Dongwan to work: "I got permission from my wife to bring the snail with me to the new city," he added.

Experts say it's amazing for a snail to live so long and say it could be because it has been so well looked after.'

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

TARGET. ONE DOLLAR


As everyone knows, there is a new Target/ mall in DC. RELAX and I went there today for the first time. I found these cute bags in the one dollar section. The part i always LOVE! RELAX was shopping for something else though.
No one will ever believe it, but RELAX bought a BIKE! Tonight she road it to Adams Morgan and i couldn't stop laughing. I told her she reminded me of my mother on a bike. I was so proud of her, getting a bike and all. Super Super Cute! I can't wait for summer to come!

Live drawing at The Red Derby


The Red Derby is this bar up on 14th and Quincy. I'm sure there are a thousand really great things about this place.

The things I love about this bar are: It's close to Unjuanted's house, cute bathrooms, a really big chalk board in back where you can always draw, and i met Ben there. Ben works for Panic TV and we have filmed two live drawings there.

This drawing was for Jason.

And a Birthday gift for the Pope.

We did the first one again, for due to a better camera.

Relax thought this girl was "pretty".