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By
lani
19 Feb 2002
so i finally saw the movie “kingpin” yesterday. it wasn’t as funny as kim said it would be though. i have to say that it revealed my sacred calling. “kingpin” the prophet! lani, your quest in life: combining technology and beauty for the good of mankind and professional bowling! engineer custom bowling balls.
<p>i could follow in the footsteps of my ex-officemate (elastic polymer engineer now dedicated to making better golf balls). polyester balls with 3-D cores must have a market if <a href="http://www.ebonite.com">they’re manufacturing them</a>,right?</p>
By
lani
13 Feb 2002
yahoo had a valentine’s day reminder with “show her you love her” and a dozen red roses. ok, now did you ever hear the one about victorian flower meanings? i have too, but someone one told me that its validity is under debate. i like pretending anyway, that secret messages were sent from lovers (madame bovary style…ok someone someone, please make a literati sutra or something.) or suitors. that the victorians promoted hidden meanings and were prone to overanalysis. and that maybe they would have accepted me…ack, the world is cruel!…jk, they probably would have been like “what is this crazy little asian girl doing here?”. Anyway, 9 out of ten sources have stated that the meaning of red roses is “passionate love”. So this is the question i pose to you…would sending your lover a dozen roses be like a booty call?
By
lani
06 Feb 2002
I recently watched “Hero” (1997) with Takeshi Kaneshiro. I thought it was a good movie, full of style montages that i find frequently in HK or Japanese films that i enjoy (“The Most Terrible Time of My Life” (jpn – again with Takeshi and Triad), “2000 AD” (HK)). Judging from the costumes, it seemed like it was set in the 30’s or 40’s…after Shanghai was leased to the British anyway, but much like “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” it would be hard to categorize it as a period piece due to certain modernisms. in some ways i think of it as non-linear plot progression. or the recognition of films styles/cliches set against eachother, similar to eisensteins montage of images, to create an effect that is often humorous.
<p>anyway, it was a good movie. i laughed, i cried, i shook my hands at the screen, and then at myself for being led so effectively.</p>
By
lani
04 Feb 2002
i am entirely lacking the ability to come up with a neat and catchy subject heading. hence, the first thing to come to my mind…“monday” no less monday morning.
<p>i spent most of the weekend in richmond. i went to an art party to super8 (and succeed this time) her performance sculpture. went ok, but i lost the 3 eyed 4 armed vacuum strapped yellow alien toy that i stole from chris which he found in a park. it even had a red <span class="caps">LED</span>. (sob) i am immensely sad about this. (sniffle) i used to make alien buzzing sounds for it and it would light up when i pushed its vacuum pack button. and then i just lost it. i should have never taken it to a party!…that’s it, i don’t think i should have children. i’d probably just make buzzing alien sounds at them, attach <span class="caps">LED</span>s to their heads, and then lose them after a bottle of $3 red in a big warehouse…left helpless to make their own buzzing sounds and push their own <span class="caps">LED</span> buttons. why <span class="caps">GOD</span>?! why?!</p>
<p>(sigh) </p>
<p>ah well, shoot me up with depo and call me mommy dearest.</p>
By
lani
17 Jan 2002
my attempts to quit smoking have been futile. i think i was only trying to quit because i was only becoming more paranoid and sketched out from potential confrontation from the bosses and demi-bosses whilst smoking. and that someday the inevitable confrontation about smoking and not maintaining a “professional image” would come up.
<p>***************************</p>
<p>blessed were the days when conversations went as such:</p>
<p>“you know smoking will kill you…”</p>
<p>“yeah, i know. i think of it as casual suicide.”</p>
<p>***************************</p>
<p>also, had an indie rock relapse. i don’t think listening to emo at work is good for my health though. got the get up kids and <a href="http://www.thestrokes.com/">the strokes</a> single.</p>
<p>my roommate is going to wire the basement over the weekend so we network our computers down there…so hopefully i will be online more often soon. we still have order the service though. one of my favorite roommate moments thus far has been: washing dishes concentrating very hard on the exact curvature of a stainless steel pot and its interaction with the nylon fiber scrubber to look up and see…chris dressed in his usual nebraskan (all acid washed and flannel) through the cut out in the wall who then sings part of a van halen song, yehaws and points the power drill in air and gives it a twirl for accentuation in hearty “excited cowboy stance”.</p>
<p>************************</p>
<p>as josef says: <span class="caps">XOXOUT</span></p>
By
lani
07 Jan 2002
that must be an acronym for some kind of military roaming device…
<p>so i’m moving. this time i signed a lease for an entire year! i figured it out and if you count the hotel i stayed in for two weeks and when i was semi-nomadic, i’ve moved 5 times since july.</p>
<p>friday, i:</p>
<p><ul></p>
<p><li>took the wrong train home</li></p>
<p><li>found myself in Lorton, Virginia</li></p>
<p><li>flagged down a cop and got dropped off in seven eleven where i had 2 cops of coffee, 10 oz. of carrot sticks, and 3 cigarettes while i waited for my mom and my sister to come pick me up and also pissed off all the regulars with by incessantly asking for directions and relaying them over the cell phone.</li></p>
<p><li>decided in the car to help my family drive the moving caravan (yes, they’re moving too…)to Atlanta as soon as possible</li></p>
<p><li>bought energy drinks, luna bars, metabolife, and gum.</li></p>
<p><li>left at midnight after a family pill-popping session and embarked on what turned out to be a seventeen hour trip including stops for more stimulants and stops for our bodies to randomly pass out from the abuse.</li></p>
<p></ul></p>
<p>but i got back to dc on sunday and moved some of my stuff from virginia to dc, but there’s oh so much more moving to do. woe woe woe is me.</p>
By
lani
26 Dec 2001
Science reprinted this article on a polymer physicist who dedicates his spare time to studying the crystal structure of breads, which mentions The Great Fruitcake Toss of Manitou Springs, Colorado. According to a Cinnabon Press Release, there are four different Cinnabon sponsored ways to toss fruitcakes and maybe even win a year’s worth of Cinnabon. For the “Toss” you have to build your own mechanical device, you can also rent or bring your own own golf clubs for the Drive Contest, or participate in the Derby Contest where you provide your own fruitcake derby car, or just participate in the “Hurl” where you can hurl a fruitcake using the “Official Great Fruitcake Toss Catapult”. and if you can’t provide your own fruitcake, you can always rent one for a quarter.
By
lani
25 Dec 2001
i started this at work where the two topics have been occupying most of my thoughts. i’ve only been working six months and i’m already ready to throw myself back into school. and i think it’s because i lack a solid definition of when it’s going to be done. at least in school, you knew that if you pulled an allnighter or five, you’d be done for the semester, and after X amount of predefined credits you could graduate and have finished something…something. but things seem so infinite in the working world. when does it end? when do i finish? is it really about completion? the questions themselves go on and on.
the other complicaiton in my mind is Sept. 11. it was a glimpse into the finite. panick. turn around. going the wrong way. can’t cross the bridge. can’t get into a car accident. gas food water money news…and then the after effects. biosensor hype. <span class=”caps”>DARPA</span>. anthrax scares. people looking out the window everytime a helicopter flies overhead. flying.
so as someone lying in between atheist and agnostic, i find it difficult to find reasons to keep on ticking, which some of you may find trite…but something makes me feel like there is reason to re-examine it. can we run back to existentialism? does it still apply? and does it have the same context?
death and fame run hand in hand for me maybe because they are both ends. as well as topics surrounding my own question of self-motivation. and so, the solicitation.
By
lani
25 Dec 2001
‘Death and Fame’ is:
<p>1) an experiment.</p>
<p>2) a solution to insomnia possibly caused by my ill attempt to create the “champagne float”.</p>
<p>3) an attempt to hush the constant “why? why? why?” that tap dances behind my left eardrum.</p>
<p>4) a solicitation.</p>
By
lani
21 Dec 2001
half our center ran across four lanes of a highway to watch the olympic torch drive by in a chevy pickup truck. it was kinda funny to see people from lab standing on the side of the road. someone even slowed his truck down to ask us if we were ok.