...

I've become significantly disconnected to the blogosphere since I've moved to NYC, mainly because I've still been frantically trying to find a job/get an interview/actually speak to someone and not a machine involving a job/etc. etc. etc.. I decided to take a break from that and found something (courtesy of @cmdshiftdesign - can one combine Twitter and blog updates?) worthy of updating about that doesn't involve cover letters, updating resumes, and/or online portfolios.

56 Re-designs of the Snow Leopard box.

I'm not quite the expert on Snow Leopard because I'm pretty sure if I installed it on my 2+ year old little MacBook, it would just give up on life. Which isn't something I can afford to have it do right now.

Regardless, Snow Leopard is a name that lends itself to lots of different interpretations, which is why 56 different box designs seemed incredibly intriguing. Some are just downright creepy, but worth giving a look at anyway...

Sad face for jobs.

Proof that posting your resume to online sites does nothing except perpetuate job-hunting-frustration.
-----
Dear, Alison Yuhas

We have read your CV.
We are a small consultancy agency situated in Poland, Warsaw.
In current moment we have an open position of Financial Manager.
-----
....especially since uh, I don' live in Poland. :x

Ugly website Monday.

...because I feel like we've all made or been subject to looking at sites like these, thought I'd share DesignO'Blogs Ugly Website contest.

Logo Thursday.

In my morning reading of all-things-interesting-on-the-internet, I came across the awesome new Fort Worth Museum logo. I had seen it last night, but in my cereal-induced-coma at 11pm, it didn't even register what it was. But I think it's one of the best logos I've seen in a long time:









Graphic design history lesson! It kind of reminded me, conceptually, of the MIT Press logo:

//chalk.

Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

Apparently 1900 frames and 6 months later, Autumn Story now has this awesome video to go along with it. ...and a lot of chalk dust.

i.
Random older customer: "Do you accept American Express?"
Me: "Yes, we do."
Random older customer, who is seeming crazier and crazier: "Do you have anything against mice?"

Thoughts running through my head: "Mice? In what context? In my house? In the wild? Can mice even *live* in the wild? Doesn't that make them rats?"

...all this translates as a blank stare. And I eventually manage to stammer, "Um, no?"

Exeunt Random older customer.

What? Yea. I don't know. When the weather gets warmer, all the crazy inhabitants of Allston feel the need to flock to Rite Aid. As long as they're harmless, it provides for some good stories, if nothing else.

ii.








Adobe pillows?! You. Freaking. Bet. MySuiteStuff now makes these, and I can't help but imagining the Adobe icons in my dock becoming pillows on my bed. And then I get kind of terrified. Ok, maybe they can exist on my couch. When I'm not having people over.

iii.
Uhh...save the best for last? Absolutely. Pentagram is releasing this awesome book, Manhatta, that paints a picture of what Manhattan was like 400 years ago. And what it's projected to look like in the future. It's so freaking cool. Maybe it's just because I'm obsessed with the History channel's new show, Life Without People, and The World Without Us, but it does look really interesting and well done. Surprised? Negative. :)

404?

After getting this on April Fool's Day, I thought it was some sort of weird thing Google was doing for April Fool's, besides the CADIE thing.

Turns out, it was just my internet being slow... :x

18tons?

Small, but seemingly older boy talking to bus driver: " Man, how do you drive such a thing?"

Older bus driver: "Let me tell you boy, this thing weighs 18 tons. When you're behind the wheel of something that weighs 18 tons and someone plays chicken with you, you don't flinch."

Seemingly older boy (that I later find out is going to law school in VA): ::dumbfounded look:: "Gee...I don't even know if my car weighs a ton..."

The hilarity in this conversation was just the dynamic between the two, that I guess you had to be there to see. Or maybe it's the fact that it's a horribly rainy Monday morning and my iPod died the second I turned it on, and I forgot my umbrella, and totally needed some form of amusement on the bus...

i. I still haven't watched Lost yet. Things that might need to happen before I think about sleeping tonight.

ii. I flew from Boston to NYC and back to Boston within 24 hours this weekend. It was an awesome weekend and awesome getting to go home for Mama's birthday party (especially since she had zero idea I wasn't going to be there. Somehow, everyone managed to blab to everyone else, but she still was kept in the dark). There were lots of tears and OMG's and "I can't believe you did this's", so overall success.

iii. I came home to a package on my counter, which was my business cards! Which printed amaazingly, and on Sarah's suggestion, I ordered them from Moo.com . Granted, it took them an exponential amount of time to send them (I ordered them on Jan. 9th and got them yesterday, apparently they had printed them incorrectly, and had to reprint. Which is funny, because they're still lacking the back image that I sent. If I had ordered more than 50 I would bother sending them back, but at this point, they're just a test run. See below!




























iv. This small child at work yesterday, was passing a magazine stand and on the front was the latest issue of some sort of news magazine with a large portrait of Obama on it. Small child could not have been more than 6 years old, and stammered for a good 6-10 seconds about, "Daddy! Look! It's Orack. No, bama...Obm-, Bar-, OH! Barack Obama!" and you have adorable.

v. Flying between MA and NYC > the bus. x893748972. We're talking SO much easier on all accounts. I literally closed my eyes on the flight back today, and opened them seeminly 5 minutes later when the seatbelt noise for landing sounded. Awesome.

With my <3.

I got this email this morning and thought the last part was pretty priceless:
---
Dear Alison,

I have to say that I appreciate for all of your help to let me finish my application completed through your website.

Thank you for your job with my heart.

Best wish,

YeohyuAhn.
---

Mind you, I've been helping this woman/man out for about 2 weeks with the upload of their online application materials and still don't know what their first/last name is because they've signed emails with everything from Yeo, to Ahn, to their full name, complete with hyphen, Yeo-HyunAhn. Such confusion!

So I did wind up going back to sleep this morning, only to have the nuttiest dreams ever. Here are the three (non-consistent) parts:

i. The paper crane-ish bird
All of a sudden I was in my room (yes my real room) and this paper crane-esque bird thing with a tail like a peacock came out of the top shelf of my closet. Which was apparently some sort of animal-producing-portal? It kept folding out it's tail and it looked really sweet and I kept taking pictures of it. But my camera had no batteries, so I had to take them out of my mouse.

Now, mind you, when I went on my computer after I woke up, I had to check that my mouse had batteries in it because it took a sec for my comp. to recognize it. Weird.

I wound up google'ing this bird and it turned out to be a muffin bird. What? Again, don't know. It's eyes were crazy and it had these really intricate origami-patterns on it's tail. Anyway, we befriended it. And then my parents (who were suddenly there) and we decided to make dinner. My grandmother was also suddenly there, and got mad when she saw that I had a picture of my aunt on my nigh table. Which, I indeed, do.

Making dinner, my professor showed up. We were cooking chicken legs in a toaster oven in my room. My professor sprayed cooking spray in the toaster oven and I got really mad. Then it was crackling and what not while the chicken legs were cooking. I kept glaring at him, and suddenly he was gone. The end of segment i.

ii. The centipede
This huuuuge, massive centipede comes out of the animal-esque portal in my closet. My landlord was in our living room, on a ladder, doing something. And I yell for her, and we grab it by the tail. And then it starts loosing scales. But one by one. And finally we put it on the window sill outside. I don't have a window sill outside my window in real life.

The end of segment ii (this was a short one).

iii. Niz!
I get a text message from Niz, who I don't think has ever texted me, let alone has my phone number, telling me that he was in Boston, visiting his parents (who really do live in Boston). He asked what I was doing tonight, and told me that him and Joey were going to Lauren Federgreen's house (!?) for a party. I was really excited to see them, so we go. She lives across the street from me. My apartment is still my apartment, but in a house. On a residential/cute street. So we get to the party, and I realized I need to go to Pathmark, which is also conveniently, right across the street. So I go, get there, realize I don't have my wallet, but I have a can of Coke in my hand (I uh, I don't even like soda), and I call Tina. And that was that.

When I woke up, I was confused and didn't know what was going on and I realized I was sleeping. I also usually don't remember my dreams, let alone in that much detail. It was a really, really strange feeling, and I have batteries in my mouse, but still no plans for tonight, haha...

?

It's 702am on a Saturday morning and it's 8 degrees outside. Why am I awake and can't fall back asleep? I have noooo idea. :x

Foodler.

I have discovered the amazingness of Foodler this morning when I woke up in a really hazy/hung over state, and realized I needed some fro-yo in my life, but was not walking the 1/2 mile to Angora. Lo and behold, I got frozen yogurt, delivered. To my door. It was amazing. And made going to work a lot easier.

I also found this dude today: http://banksy.co.uk/ and besides having a really awesome name, his stuff is really sweet. There are a few snags with the website that would endlessly bother me, but. His manifesto makes up for it.

And despite the fact that it's not even 11pm on a Sunday night, I think I'm going to dedicate myself to a few episodes of It's Always Sunny..., finish epic amounts of tagging on Flickr, and pass the heck out. Plan? Plan.

socks.

Hayley just won a contest and what did she win? 100 pairs of socks. Who knew that you could enter and win, basically, a lifetime supply of socks? That means that's like, a tonnn of pairs of mismatched socks.

Also, to continue with the roommate saga, I came home from work to the following email yesterday:
---
Hey Alison,
I just wanted to apologize on Shelbia's behalf because I'm sure she didn't say anything about having her friend stay on our couch this weekend...she didn't tell me either. I told her that it was inconsiderate and that she should always ask if she is going to have people stay over like that. Don't feel like you can't say something to her if you want to. I'm sure you weren't happy about it...I know I wasn't! Okay, just wanted to let you know that I talked to her. I'll see you soon!
Esther
---

I suppose this is deserving of some background information, though. Shelbia (other roommate) has this guy staying with us this weekend. No big deal, right? Right. She didn't tell us, but again, nothing to freak out about. He's here, obviously has no where else to say, so whatever.

Only sketchy thing: is that Shelbia gave him her key yesterday. And how do I know this? When I came home from work, he's the only on in our apartment. Sprawled out on the couch, inadvertently taking up all the counter space in the kitchen and the living room, since they're both one, and is doing work on his computer, with his printer, that he's established on our counter. At this point, I'm just annoyed that some random dude had a key to our apartment and no one else is home. But regardless, what's bitching about it going to do now?

So back to the email. Esther, the considerate roommate, was obviously pissed, but at the same time, is asking me to be equally as pissed with her? At first I was like, "Hey, I can speak up for myself," and didn't need her permission, but then just didn't respond because well, they're friends. And work together. And work with our landlord. And have the same friends. And the last thing I want to do is get in the middle of my bff roommates. Or get tricked into doing so.

So no response is the best response, correct? Esther has taken a leave of absence from our apartment apparently, since I haven't seen her in about 72 hours, and the last time I did, she was with her boyfriend. So I'm assuming she's hanging out with him while dude is crashing on our couch.

I would, actually, like him to leave at some point, or wake up. Since yesterday he didn't wake up until 3pm, when I was leaving for work, and it's almost noon and he's still not awake yet. Things that greatly hinder important facets of my life: coffee making, oatmeal cooking, etc. etc. etc. ...

--plates?

If you're in the market for some new dinner ware, you should check out the work of Sarah Cihat. They're a bit (ok, a lot) on the expensive side, but pretty interesting anyway.

Oh, I'm also obsessed with this house...










For no other reason than this woman lives 1/2 underground, 1/2 above ground, in the middle of a *desert* in *Idaho*. Who even knew there were deserts in Idaho? I thought the majority of the state was potatoes and lakes. Interestingg...

time flew.

So, apparently 3 weeks at home can change a lot.

My dad is doing really well, my grandmother isn't doing so well, but that's what's expected when you've hit the 90 year mark. All things considered, everything is pretty good, and there's more to be thankful for rather than to be upset about.

2009 is looking to be a good year, and being home was a good way to welcome it.

Home was a relative whirlwind, since I think I covered most of the tri-state area (NY/LI, NJ, and CT) and then some, was running back and forth between Westfield and NYC for the first 4 days of home due to dr's appointments, apartment appointments (I have an apartment on the UWS! Come June 1st - with Anthony. :D), and was trying to drive everywhere while taking full advantage of having a car.

I guess 2008 was a good year? It was kind of the in-between year of Boston/NYC, masters/no masters, etc. As far as New Year's resolutions...I have no idea. I think for the past 9 years mine has been to stop biting my nails, but I think I've finally stopped doing that? I'll keep you updated.

But Happy New Year!