Tom Waits – Chocolate Jesus

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It’s that time of year again . . . it’s World Nutella Day! It’s been snowing here most of the day, but I was determined to hunt down the illusive Nutella jar and get its photo (then eat its contents). I found this one attempting to hide in a tree. Busted. Here is last year’s Nutella Day post.

Ms Adventures in Italy
Bleeding Espresso

Duran Duran – Planet Earth

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Please excuse my absence from this past week (or so). I was in California visiting friends, driving along route 1, celebrating my birthday and doing other fun vacation things. They say it’s winter over there but I say it’s spring. The weather was perfect . . . 50s-low 60s, gorgeous (almost stormy) clouds in a blue sky. On my six hour flight across the country I took some time to draw postcard #4. I had a window seat and used my ever changing view as inspiration for the card.

On the flight I decided to treat myself to one of the following:

• Absinthe for $8
• wifi for $12.99
• movie for $8

Absinthe was the clear winner and was well worth it. $8 is steep for a movie I don’t care about on the small screen and I can live without being connected to the world for 6 hours (I later found out it was free for the month of January). The absinthe even came in a pretty glass bottle (photos below).

I am hoping to bombard you with posts in the next couple days because 1. I am behind on a few and 2. I probably won’t be going anywhere since according to the weather gods we are supposed to get 20″-30″ of snow (this number keeps going up, so by tomorrow it might be 20′-30′ . . . wouldn’t that be swell).

P.S. I think it’s safe to say postcard #2 went missing. I am sad about this. No more round postcards.

If you would like an original hand-doodled postcard, email me here with your mailing address. I will only use your address once to mail the postcard and then I will delete it from memory.

Mucca Pazza – Surf

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Catching up a bit since I am behind a couple posts . . .
I might have to visit this laundromat more often just so I can look at this fantastic “exotic plastic” laundry bag dispenser. Here are a few things I love about it:

• “Exotic Plastic in Designer Colors”
• German flag rainbow
• “Laundry Bags” typeface
• Photos of kids with laundry bags bigger than they are. One looks rather spooky and the other is so excited his parents made him carry the giant “exotic” bags.

Ratatat – Nostrand

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One of my aunts visited recently and since she has already seen all the DC sights, we took a wee day trip up to Frederick, MD to check out their covered bridges. It’s a nice thing to do if you like to get lost and wander through farmland. I plan on going back sometime specifically to get lost and take photos along the road.

Boards of Canada – Dayvan Cowboy

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Here it is . . . postcard #3. I know postcard 1 made it to its recipient, but I am not sure about postcard 2 . . . it’s floating out there somewhere. I hope it just hasn’t arrived yet and not that it’s lost because the USPS doesn’t know how to handle a round postcard.

If you would like an original hand-doodled postcard, email me here with your mailing address. I will only use your address once to mail the postcard and then I will delete it from memory.

On a non-project related note, I am pretty excited for the latest album from Four Tet. SoundCloud has the entire album streaming on their site here (I also embedded the player below). It didn’t grab me quite as quickly as Rounds did, but after a few listens I am hooked.

Favorite tracks so far start at: 4:00 (especially around 11:42 in), 13:12 and 36:05 in the stream below.

There Is Love In You by Four Tet

Wall of Voodoo – Mexican Radio

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My friend “hoi” and I both like to take photos and have talked about collaborating on some photography projects. Our first one was to take photos, exchange a few raw files and process each other’s photos to see how we do things differently. A little over a week after we had nearly two feet of snow dumped on us we went to Great Falls to take some photos for this project. Two of the comparisons can be seen here and you can view his version of the above photo here.

The photo of the branches was taken by hoi and the photo of the falls was taken by me (I’ve noticed that in winter I want everything to be black and white/sepia toned). We are going to try to make this a regular project. I think the results will be even more interesting when there are more colors involved. Click on the images to see the results larger.

View large versions of photo by hoi
Original
Processed by Ramune
Processed by hoi

View large versions of photo by me
Original
Processed by Ramune
Processed by hoi

Design by Lynne Venart; photo by Angela Kleis.

Deastro – Light Powered

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Wee! My photo from an icy visit to Great Falls has been chosen from 1130 photos and 435 photographers to be one of 47 photos shown at DCist Exposed this year. Initially I chose three other photos to enter, but on the day submissions were due I switched one out for the photo below (good timing!). I am pretty excited as this is the first time (since graduating school) that I have entered a competition and been selected to exhibit my work.

Congratulations to all the other winners and to those who entered. There were some pretty great photos in the running. The rest of the winning photos can be seen in the DCist Exposed 2010 Winners Flickr pool. I look forward to seeing all the photos up on the wall opening night!

P.S. I don’t normally name my photos and I need a name for this one. Any ideas? My working title is “Cold Reflections.”

The Knife In Collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock – Colouring of Pigeons

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To start . . . I have had this song on repeat for the past few days. It’s The Knife’s latest project in collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock. Tomorrow in a Year is a Darwin-inspired opera and I am curious to hear more from it. I am not a huge fan of opera (having gotten sick when seeing Aida at the pyramids at Giza and walking out early . . . something I never do) but I really like this song (although I will admit my favorite parts are when Karin is singing and not the opera singer). You can download the song for free here. It gets good after about three minutes.

Onto the post . . . the other day I was at Paper Source and they had a bunch of card stock on sale for 50% off, wee! Their paper tends to be a bit pricey so I was pretty psyched to load up on postcard materials to doodle on and send to you! I am not sure what the post office thinks of oddly shaped postcards but I guess we will see. If you happen to receive this week’s postcard please let me know.

If you would like an original hand-doodled postcard, email me here with your mailing address. I will only use your address once to mail the postcard and then I will delete it from memory.

Toro y Moi – Blessa

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Yesterday I was in a very contemplative mood, thinking about 2010 and what needs to change this year. Things have been a bit stagnant lately and I am planning on making some moves to change that. The most extreme idea I had was to just pack up what I really want with me in my car and drive west to some place where I don’t know anyone. I doubt that will happen, but a good sized road trip and a move are in order this year I think (anyone out west want to hire me???).

All of that is to say, I was a bit overwhelmed yesterday thinking about all these things and had a very strong desire to draw (doodle to be exact). I searched high and low for my sketchbook but could not find it. Since the force was strong in me and I would not rest until something was on paper (and not just regular paper), I found some postcard-sized card stock and drew a postcard to mail to someone. A sketchbook is nice, but why keep all my doodles to myself? Wouldn’t it be fun to get a random postcard that someone drew in the mail?

Thus was born my latest weekly project! Along with my normal every.seven posts (that should in theory go up every Sunday), I am going to draw a postcard every week, post it on Wednesday and mail it to someone randomly (without revealing the recipient). If you would like to receive a postcard, please email me your mailing address and you just might receive one in the mail. I will only use your address once to mail the postcard and then I will delete it from memory (I will not subscribe you to any strange magazines (somewhat NSFW)) . No two postcards will ever be the same since I will be hand drawing each one. Who knows . . . maybe when I get rich and famous (Ha!) you can sell it for bank.

Soooooo . . . to start off this new project I give you this week’s postcard! One of my lovely friends will be receiving it in the next few days. I also need to come up with a good name for this new series of posts. Thoughts?

P.S. I’ve had this Toro y Moi song on repeat for a while now. It’s a bit summery, but I think it works well with the watery nature of the postcard and keeps me warm on these chilly days.