..:. Cracking My Vainpot .:..

The weather has been really unstable this weekend, so I rode Romeo the blondie instead for a change.

Ha! When Jim saw us, he came pawing at me.

Silly Jimmy.

If you miss me *that* much, then perhaps you shouldn't have tried to kill me last time! I know you're a champion and a spunky late cut. But what was all that rodeo bucking and running into the woods about?!

<making faces>

May be I'll ride you again in Spring... may be.

Making a collage can be a fun and creative process. Best of all, it could reveal your true self!

“Looks like it could be a great backdrop, doesn’t it?"

Collage making is nothing new. All you need is a pair of scissors and some glue. Source of images and clippings? Take your latest photos, tax forms, magazines from the dentist, dirty newspaper that nobody reads anymore. Anything. Before cutting things up and rearranging them, some people prefer to plan ahead. Come up with a theme and gather their materials accordingly. Say Tommy first decides to do fairy tales, and then off he goes thumbing through old albums to piece together a unicorn.

Here, I recommend a more organic approach. Go with the flow and, like a gypsy peering into her made-in-China crystal ball, let it slow cook and evolve in front of you.

1. Brainstorm, cut out random bits that that your fancy.

Any back catalog pictures that you couldn’t figure out what to do with? Miscalculated shots that you want to rescue from obscurity? Pet projects that didn’t quite make the cut?

2. Next, put all the photos in front of you, juxtapose and rearrange.

Stir them up til you can feel some deep-seated feelings bubbling up, shuffle things around until a magic rainbow comes out the other end.

“Gosh! This aging hippie’s so hideous I just had to cut him out for more people to laugh at!”

I once went to the opening of the Kauffman Center, a new local concert hall, and saw this old timer sporting a beard from outer space. He could well be a wizard from Harry Potter! Armed with my new LC-A+ camera, I couldn’t stop snapping at him…

3. Amplify! Crank it up!

Once an idea takes hold, set the scene and get all the players and props you need to create that atmosphere.

Working theme: stupid beard

Aim: humiliation

Atmosphere: schoolboy humor

Technique: let that beard spring into life, give it a face and make it smile

4. Go away and then come back.

Is that unicorn still magical? Does that attention-seeking beard still look funny? Feel good about the collage? What would your mum say?

This is when I cracked. Looking at my Franken-collage for a second time, all I saw was how horrible I was.

OMG. I’m bad person.

Why did I try so hard to put him down? Sure, he’s weird and completely out of place. But what it is that made me go out of my way and become a bully? Did I just do this to feel good about myself? Feeling all ashamed, I brushed it all aside and went to bed.

5. Soul search.

Does this collage reflect your personality, your character or your ambitions? Are you adding anything to the vast collection of art works out there? Has it been done before? Is this the best you can come up with? After a while, those V-signs didn’t look so victorious anymore. Instead, they seemed rather accusing and aggressive. As I shoved the compilation around, some of the fingers got turned around, looking like scissors!

OMG. Do they symbolize my subconscious desire to cut that beard off? And that’s not it.

"Amish Beard-cutting Incidence"

It reminded me that back in last November, an Amish man in rural Ohio attacked another and forcibly cut off his beard. The police got involved and it was all over the news. Here’s a link.

I now dedicate this collage to stop bullying. In order to raise awareness of these bizarre beard-cutting incidents, I turned those fingers around and positioned them like scissors. I hope Mr Hippie Potter is still living happily with his long white magical beard.

Peace.

[Original article first published on 2010 Jan11 on Lomography.com, translated into Portuguese on 2010 Jan19.]

Double the carat & triple the price!

Average engagement ring $6,348 usd

Average wedding $28,000 usd

Average honeymoon $4,466 usd

Average child rearing (n=1, 18 years, inc private college) $331,802 usd

Total = $370,616

Hmm... I'm not that jealous of my str8 friends anymore.

But what about, what about the cost of being gay [NYtimes]?

No simple arithmetics there.

With Ben & Jerry and Whole Food taking over Haight & Ashbury, where will the hippies go?

Homeless christmas tree

A long & colorful era finally come to an end...

I buy them pizzas and coffee everytime I'm in town... Perhaps inside, I feel the same?

[authority] [life is a journey, walk with me~]

Kodak Duaflex IV (circa 1947) - pseudo twin lens reflex 620 film camera

You only live once, so why wait!

Pañda Colada Jello Shots: -

2 packets of pineapple jello powder (3oz each)

1 pack of dark color jello powder (3oz)

1 can of coconut milk

1 bottle of Malibu or other coconut rum

1 tube of food dye - black

First, pour the coconut milk into a pan, slowly bring to boil. Empty 2 packets of pineapple jello powder into 8oz of hot coconut milk, stir until dissolved. Cool the mixture down from steamy to lukewarm. Stir in 6oz of Malibu.

Grease the teddy bear mold lightly with cooking spray. Pour in the alcoholic jello mix, leave it in the fridge for 4+ hours. To get the pandas out, steam up the bottom of the mold with hot water or rub the mold with a hot towel. The bears should separate from the mold and slide out after a few angled proding and shaking.

Garnish with bamboo (green jello) or gummy bears to accentuate the size difference :)

Attempt 1: paint the panda paws and ears with food dye gel.

Pros = flexibility

Cons = terribly uneven, color bleeding

Bleeding dye. Looked horrible, but *Great* excuse to taste them before presentation ;-P

Attempt 2: Before pouring the Pina Colada layer, use a syringe to make the paws, etc with dark cherry jello mixed with black food dye.

Pros - tidy

Cons - limited by the design/contour of your mold. Paws layer may separate/melt when taking the bear out of the mold

At Nyla's final leaving party, one of his rubgy team mate tapped me on the shoulder said "That's friendship there!". As it turned out, Nyla liked the pandas so much, he was fending off people's fingers :)

For more fantastic Jello shots/ Vodka Jelly: [My Science Project]

Panda-shaped Piña Colada Jello shots!

All for a dear friend, in fact my first buddy in Kansas City. We're very different in every way but somehow he's close like a little brother to me now. Will he love or loath England? Is London ready for an Oriental muscle cub (Panda!)?  

5 years ago, I bumped into a young lad from Shanghai. Just arrived in London, he asked me what's so good about the UK? What can he learn from this gloomy old London? Even China has better subway transport, newer buildings and lower obesity rate, he complained.

I hope Panda will find his own answers :0)

Couldn't find any white Piña Colada Jello in KC and time was running out. So I ended up using pineapple jello and Malibu coconut Rum. Might have to wait til Panda's welcome back party to test out this DIY recipe.

This has to be my last year in Kansas City.

This has to be my last year as a postdoc.

No buts or maybe.

After half a lifetime, I conclude that being gay (and single) consumes "too much" of my energy.

How much is too much?

Can we really cut out and put on a scale the emotional/sexual portion of our lives?

It's an unquantifiable feeling, of course.

But I do strongly suspect that I spend too much time and energy looking for love, looking for sex.

The thing is, being gay makes these activities 10 times harder, simply because of the dismal number of potential mates.

Sometimes I wish I can lead a simple, more settled lifestyle.

Sometimes I think my time is better spent thinking about experiments.

Will I be a better scientist if I was straight?

Will I get less distracted if I was already partnered?

But this is not a "what if" post.

This is just me evaluating the quality of my investment, this finite gift called time.

Let's say I live to 70 years old, til 2046.

I hope I can look back and content that it's a life well lived, if not well loved.

First time a rock get me excited :)

[Jurassic? Ammonite Marcasite from the Himalayas]

I love seeing things with my own eyes, and nothing beats coming face-to-face with the physical evidence of great theories.

Did the tectonic plates really run over each other?

Did complex lives really evolve from simpler ones?

The best thing about science is, you don't have to believe anyone or in anything. You can go find it out yourself.

No more resorting to superstition and hearsay.

No more spoon feeding from the "experts".

No more lazy handwaving.

Holding fossils of ancient marine animals from the highest mountain, I could all but marvel at the wonders of this world and sigh at the limits of our own imagination.

I must confess I've only seen two Marilyn Monroe movies, so I never quite spotted the cliché that the recent Colin Clark biopic really was [NYT]. Nonetheless, this Michelle Williams offering, which I found rather delightful, did jog my memory and made me wonder.

Have I ever had a puppy love?

哪一段才算得上是我的初戀？

Fate really has a sense of humour.

With less than 24 hour notice, I had to lead the swim team dryland workout.

Slotted right in the middle of the swimming routine, we had to do it wet.

Not pretty. I was slightly annoyed.

Well, until I saw who's showing up.

All the army guys and college boys have come home to KC for Christmas!!

Fit like male models(minus the atitudes), these fresh faces can do crunches in their sleep.

Holy crap...

and there I was, yelling and counting, telling them how to do push ups in speedos.

Intimidated I wasn't.

Just busy trying not to stare.

Hanging out after practice, it didn't take long for me to notice CIA.

Straight, tall, sculpted with beautiful lips and features sharper than a young Keanu Reeves, he's also well-educated, well-travelled and surprisingly down to earth. So comfortable in his own skin that he's at ease even when surrounded by a bunch of fairies.

Most importantly, he's engaging.

As I realised he has many of the qualities I'm looking for, a lightbulb also went on in his head.

"I thought you're my age!"

The aliens made me do it! :-P

[Blender Pinhole Cameras]