[Make Your Own] Record Bowls

August 29, 2012September 27, 2013Leave a comment

Creativity is a trait that I think most of my friends and I share – we’re imaginative about the way we view the world around us and when when it comes to personal interpretation of the world and manifesting it into something else, I’d like to think each of us gives in a uniquely talented way. When I was younger, I was into beading and bead work – and truth be told, I actually brought my tools to Los Angeles with me. I’ve picked up and put down crocheting a number of times, though my drawings can seem elementary to me at times the more I use my watercolor pencils and pastel sticks the more fun I seem to have with them. But there’s more to being creative than these very specific mediums; I’d like to think I’m creative when it comes to Interior Design, organization of my apartment and DIY projects.

Websites like Pinterest and Instructables are always giving me crazy, fun and uniue ideas for the apartment, gifts and hostessing. Some of the ideas are amazing – like freezing fruit in ice cubes for a stellar and healthy Summer drink pick me up; and some of them prove to be more difficult, like the Cinco De Mayo inspired striped rainbow Donkey shaped pinata cookies full of M&M Minis. Trust me, I tried and failed; and no, you can’t see the pictures.

When I moved to LA, my family gifted me with a great coffee table book called “Show Me How: 500 Things You Should Know“: it’s full fun and quirky things like how to roll sushi, dance the tango, heal your body with accupressure points and tons of easy to follow DIY ideas. So far, my ultimate favorite has been crafting old records into usable bowls. So, without further ado – let’s get to crafting!

Please note: No important records were hurt in this process.

Tools:

Vinyl Records from a second hand shop or hand-me-downs from a friend; if you can still play it and or enjoy it, you probably don’t want to melt it.
An Oven
2 Bowls; one that can go into ovens: e.g. ceramic bowls, sauce pans for the stove
A Cookie Sheet
Oven Mitts

Steps:

Get your records on, or out rather.
Heat the oven to 225°F (105°C)
Wait for Ten minutes
Arm yourself with those oven mitts and take out the cookie sheet
Gently mold the newly malleable record to the shape of the bowl
Wait for another Ten minutes

And, voilà – you now have your very own record bowls;if you can find a vintage record of a favorite tune, it becomes a great gift for family, friends and yourself.

PS. Having an assistant doesn’t hurt….but sometimes, it definitely doesn’t help…

Quotable: The Beauty of Impermanence

August 28, 2012September 7, 20121 Comment

One day some people came to the master
and asked: How can you be happy
in a world of such impermanence,
where you cannot protect your loved ones
from harm, illness or death?
The master held up a glass and said:
Someone gave me this glass;
It holds my water admirably
and it glistens in the sunlight.
I touch it and it rings!
One day the wind
may blow it off the shelf,
or my elbow
may knock it from the table.
I know this glass is already broken,
so I enjoy it — incredibly.

Achaan Chah Subato

What the Wednesday: Tracks on Mars

August 22, 2012August 22, 2012Leave a comment

Today is a big day for the Mars ‘Curiosity‘ rover as it prepares itself for its very first test drive in search for life, the universe, and the number 42.

After considering the not so simple notion that we’re currently, right fucking now, on another planet searching for other forms of existence (pause; geek the eff out), my next thought was this:. If you were operating Curiosity, what would be on the soundtrack to your first ride?

Tracklist:

Kid Cudi – Embrace the Martian (Crookers Remix)
Daft Punk – Robot Rock (Soulwax Remix)
Chuckie – We Can’t Hear Anybody Out There
Boys Noize – Kontact Me
The Bloody Beetroots – Rocksteady (Gigi Barocco Remix)
Fake Blood – Mars (Herve Re-fix)

Tech Tuesday: Can You Find Me Now?

August 21, 2012August 21, 2012Leave a comment

The Ice Cream Sandwich update for my Rezound has mostly been a good thing; my phone boots faster, applications load quickly, Facebook doesn’t force quit in the middle of loading pictures and the OS is a lot sexier.

But the other day, as I was trying to use Verizon Navigator – I noticed a small hiccup with the update.

Any time I attempted to load a ‘Map‘ related application (e.g. Verizon Navigator, Google Maps, Latitude, Places), my phone restart itself. On the plus side, it’s challenged me to actually know directions instead of being super dependent on technology to lead the way. Conversely, it’s been pretty damn frustrating because I realized I might not know Los Angeles quite as well as I thought I did.

I did some research on the interwebz and realized that this isn’t a unique issue; quite to the contrary, there have been quite a few complaints and forum threads dedicated to this very issue.

The Bug:

Open Map or Navigation App
Select Destination
System Reboot

The Fix:

Unfortunately, there isn’t a long term fix for this problem. According to Google’s forums, this issue has elevated status and was given to the product development team.

In the mean time, there is a short term solution:

Uninstall Google Maps 6.10 and revert to old version of application (6.9 or 6.3)
Toggle the “Automatic Update” button
Go ahead and try the app again

And voilà, problem solved!

Sunday Soundcheck

August 19, 2012September 8, 2012Leave a comment

I’ve spent some quality time with my cats and my music this weekend; it’s been both nice and necessary. If you have air conditioning in your apartment (and it works) consider yourself very lucky right now! This weather has been ridiculous lately – maybe upper 90s for the past few weeks at the very least. Which is fine and dandy during the weekends, but during the week it’s just cruel and unusual punishment to have the beach so close yet so far.

Basically every day I dream about sitting near some calming body of water with some great friends and good music. Well, I’ve accomplished half the battle; enjoy this hour long playlist of some of my favorite mid-summer, sunny Sunday sounds!

Tracklist

Eats Everything – Jagged Edge
Flashmob – Need in Me
Aaliyah – If Your Girl Only Knew (Finnebassen Remix)
Martin Roth – Beautiful Life
Finnebassen – Touching Me (Dj Christodoulos Remix)
Jamie Woon – Lady Luck (Luciano Remix)
Kameleon – Confetti
Green Velvet – Preacher Man (2012 Edit)
Umek vs Traumer – She Never Wants to Come Down (Tocadisco Remix)
Funkagenda ft. Big Ed – Afterclub (Riva Starr Remix)

Doing it Right: Going Overboard with Harmonic Productions

August 18, 2012August 14, 2013Leave a comment

Besides the times I sing along to ‘The Lonely Island’ – I rarely step foot on any type of boat. When I was in preschool, one of my teachers had a little 15′ boat he’d take us little tykes out on; it was honestly one of the highlights of my childhood. A group of 15 kids would go out in the middle of the Bay and have story time; but the older I got, the more seasick I became and started to avoid smaller boats like the plague.

My body has a weird habit of internalizing my movements during the day and replaying them at night, and even if I was on a Ferry – I would wake up in the morning, feeling like my body was rocking to and fro. Last summer for the 4th of July, I went out in Santa Barbara on a friends boat and had to jump ship 30 minutes in because being in the cold water was preferable to feeling sea sick. Long story short, I’ve essentially sworn off boats of all shapes and sizes.

TWel, that all changed last weekend when I cruised down to Newport with some of my good friends for some fun in the summer sun. Harmonic Productions, the promotional team that runs HEAR, BASK,and Damaged Goods, has been throwing Overboard boat parties on the famed Tiki Boat in Newport Harbor for the past few summers.

Los Angeles was in the midst of a 100+ week long heat wave and being outside wasn’t exactly fun. Down in Newport the weather was a gorgeous 85 and sunny, a few clouds but overall amazing weather to sail around the harbor. The timing could not have been better.

The Tiki Boat has a fully stoked bar on the bottom level, a DJ booth, dance floor and there were a few booths to sit and relax in if you’re into that type of thing. But between the deep house jams, lively conversation and run ins with friends both new and old – that wasn’t a very likely scenario. The upper deck had a large observation area and ample space outside for us to mingle and enjoy some sunshine. The cruise lasted for five crazy fun hours and we were making friends up and down the harbor; there were a few little kid moments that reminded me of being on the school bus and making faces at the people passing by. But instead of faces, it was peace signs, good vibes and fresh dance moves.

I was lucky enough to have several different groups of friends in attendance, which FYI was kept to a very low number so we could get everyone on the boat. Maybe 250 tickets were sold for the event, and that’s being generous. But even if you didn’t know anyone when you got on the boat, when you left you had some brand spanking new friendships to show for yourself. Everyone that was involved, from the promotional team, to the DJs, to the bartenders and back to the fun loving, trouble making crowd in attendance – helped make that event as fabulous as it was. I can’t wait to go back for the party next year!

Oh Snap: Street Art v1

August 18, 2012Leave a comment

In every way of the word, LA is bustling with diversity, creativity and inspiration. There’s as much diversity between the different cultures in LA as there are within them. The creativity and inspiration of each subculture here is born out of colliding ideas. And these ideas are translated into art, architecture, music, performance dance, and more – the key is knowing where to look; with street art, it’s no further than the wall of a dilapidated building, a fire hydrant or billboard.

Over the past few months I’ve been taking Urban Nature Walks and taking pictures of anything that catches my eye and I can’t wait to share it with you guys through my Oh, Snap! series. What better way to kick it off than counting down my top 10 pictures. All of these photos are taken with the Instagram Application for Android, and I’ll let you know what filters and edits I’ve used. Enjoy!

10.