101 in 1001

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.
For more info on meme, click here.

1. Apply and get accepted into an MFA program
2. Make an art piece that costs nothing to make
3. Finish my big led project
4. Make a solar-powered art piece
5. Make an art piece involving video
6. Use Processing in an art project
7. Collect hair from the drain & make art out of it
8. Submit work to four juried shows a year (1/11)
9. See Louise Bourgeois’ work in person
10. Experience James Turrell's crater
11. See art at least once a month (4/32)
12. Learn to make cream puffs & eclairs
13. Bake a cake
14. Bake a pie
15. Make a tart
16. Make ice cream
17. Bake crusty artisan bread
18. Learn to prepare five Vietnamese dishes (0/5)
19. Learn to make sushi
20. Make something from the Tartine cookbook
21. Experience a tasting menu at a 3-star Michelin restaurant (this one's from another meme)
22. Try all the Michelin-rated restaurants in LA
23. Check out Sundays at Three at Silverlake Wine
24. Try a restaurant specializing in food from Africa
25. Try one new restaurant a week (37/143)
26. Have brunch on the Queen Mary
27. Pay off credit card debt
28. Open a High Yield Bank Account at Schwab
29. Figure out expenses and a budget and stick to it
30. Buy a house
31. Clean out & organize garage
32. Get rid of 20% of clothes
33. Stay within household budget of $100 on groceries each week
34. Reorganize contents of kitchen cabinets
35. Get rid of anything > than three years old from kitchen cabinets
36. Get a maidenshair fern and not kill it
37. Clean out dead plants
38. Whittle Netflix queue down to 400
39. Build a content management system
40. Learn to program an arduino board
41. Become more proficient in video editing
42. Become an expert in dom-scripting
43. Redesign my website and build a new one
44. Design & build a database for my website
45. Buy a terrabyte external drive
46. Sew a bag/purse
47. Make a quilt
48. Knit a long-sleeved sweater
49. Knit something with fair isle
50. Knit something by Kim Hargreaves
51. Knit something by Wenlan Chia
52. Knit something from Rowan
53. Crochet an amigurumi
54. Don’t hoard yarn. Knit with the yarn I want
55. Take a walking tour of downtown LA
56. Visit the newly remodeled Griffith Observatory
57. Visit the Arboretum
58. Visit Winchester Mansion
59. Visit Point Reyes
60. Visit the Museum of Jurassic Technology
61. Visit Catalina Island
62. Visit Watts Towers
63. Visit sculpture garden at UCLA
64. Visit Griffith Park
65. Visit Long Beach museum of art
66. Buy a digital slr
67. Complete a bike marathon
68. Don't eat fast food for a year
69. Don't drink Coke for a week (yikes!)
70. Floss every day for a month
71. Reduce red meat consumption to two times a week
72. Get rid of food baby
73. Do 250 sit ups a week (perhaps this will take care of 49)
74. Exercise with Pilates video
75. Finish reading Sync, Omnivore's Dilemma, Stumbling on Happiness, & Hot, Flat and Crowded
76. Make a road trip to Salton Sea
77. Make a road trip to Joshua Tree
78. Take a vacation somewhere tropical
79. Visit another country
80. Visit three state parks (1/3)
81. Take six hikes in California state parks (1/6)
82. Go kayaking in Belmont Shore marina
83. Visit a water park
84. Make a cross-country road trip
85. Watch the sun rise
86. Watch the sun set
87. Organize and host a food event
88. Change out all batteries for rechargeable ones
89. Remember to bring bags everywhere I shop for a month
90. Figure out how to compost at home
91. Make a diary of how much I drive in a month and cut by 20%
92. Make cloth napkins & stop using paper napkins
93. Buy Organic or Local food
94. Buy & use a reusable water bottle
95. Sign up for a Community Supported Agriculture program
96. Make three new friends
97. Make dinner for a friend four times a year (0/11)
98. Call mom once a week
99. Make dinner for my mom
100. See the ocean once a week
101. Complete this list

omnivore's 100

being the eater and omnivore that i am (and list lover), here is my list from very good taste blog. you too can participate.

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

my omnivore’s hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

interesting hodge podge list. there are a few things i had never heard of, like kaolin and raw scotch bonnet pepper. at the same time, i can see the list is influenced by the blogger's personal upbringing and geography. food from africa, spain to name a couple are absent. i like aloo gobi, but i wouldn't pick it as the signature indian dish to try as it's neither the most flavorful nor unusual. what about dosas or dahipuri? same with chicken tikka masala. some items are about taste. while others are about experience--the experience of trying something extremely out of the ordinary. a few items seem more nostalgic or culturally loaded than either of these. i think the best foods combine all three--they taste good, are off the beaten path, and remind us of past times.

paring the list down to 100 had to be challenging. each person could come up with their own list, and i'd be curious to see what would be on the list my group of foodie friends would compile. a few things i would add are xiao long bao, bugolgi, kulfi, fufu, ceviche from a street stand in baja in place of other things on the list.

10 years ago

recently, i discovered an interesting meme on a friend's blog. Per wikipedia:
A meme (pronounced /miːm/)^[1] consists of any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity. Memes propagate themselves and can move through a "culture" in a manner similar to the behavior of a virus.

not sure if it is narcissicistic, exhibitionist or self-reflective, but i find myself drawn to personality tests and such. without further ado (i've noticed myself including these rather trite sayings in my "vernacular". they're like catchy christmas songs that you can't get out of your head.):

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
i was living in the mission district in san francisco with three other nerds. we threw an espionage-themed house party in which we wired the house with webcams and broadcasted to monitors & tvs in the house and the website. * the photo above photo is of me as a half cyborg human agent. of course, i wasn't a total party animal. by day i worked a 9 to 5 job at charles schwab, and by night, i was painting and taking a class on typography.

2. Five things on my to-do list today?
- pick up a book on hold from the library
- change my haircut appt
- solder some leds
- get the motivation to put buttons on juliet and finally finish the damn thing
- clean the catbox
- water plants...oh wait, that's six. shit.

3. Snacks I enjoy
i was asked this at a workshop recently. didn't realize snacks were such a vital part of our culture. anyhoo....
trader joe's parmesan garlic pita chips, terra chips, coconut chunks, trader joe's organic mini cheese sandwiches, gummy cokes, choco-coconut pocky, fruit, oh and chips & queso

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire (no particular order)
make art full-time.
support my boyfriend so he could make art full time.
buy my mom a house in california near family.
buy land along the coast and design and build a leed-certified home using alternative sources of energy with a large studio, power tools, lots of ridiculous gadgets; grow my own vegetables.
give money to charities and fund research in alternative energy.
i should probably pay off credit card debt, too.

5. Places I have lived
saigon, vietnam
galveston, tx
austin, tx
san francisco, ca
rancho santa margarita, ca
long beach, ca

6. Jobs I have had
sno cone stand attendant
research assistant at university lab
barista & general manager at a 24hr coffee shop
administrative assistant
hostess
web producer
project manager
new media director
graphic designer

if you read this, you have been tagged.