Your parents’ advice probably sucks.

Your parents are two of the most important people in your life. They care for you, they love you, and they want the best for you. Yet, they can be detrimental to your growth as well. The reason? They are stuck in their old ways of doing things, and they simply do not know any better. Many have determined, based on their own life experiences, a paradigm of living that they project onto their children. We hear them preach on morality, success, happiness, etc. And we see them put their kids through all kinds of extra-curricular activities and we hear them use words like ‘doctor’ or ‘lawyer’ to describe an ideal future of prestige and financial security. Often times parents believe too much in the “safe zone” and their conventional wisdom.

There are so many people that have fallen into the trap of studying medicine or law, trudging through the work and textbooks of material. Only later do they figure out that they hate their jobs and are only in it because they are a slave to money. These people wanted to do something else, but didn’t because it was more risky. Or they never took the time to figure out their own true ambitions, so they said fuck it and became a doctor or lawyer. Now I know I’m picking on doctors and lawyers here, but they are just two strong examples since such a high percentage of them hate their jobs. The point is: you shouldn’t feel as if you settled into a career or settled into some lifestyle. If it doesn’t feel right, you’re most likely correct by siding with your intuition. So discover what you want out of life, don’t settle, and fuck the parents. Never live your parents’ dream.

Society loves to focus on the bad.

It’s unbelievable how sensitive people are. A person can spend years and years building up a good reputation in the work that he does, but it takes only a single unfortunate incident to cancer all of that out. It’s like all the great things a person does in his life has only a 5% total weight compared to all the bad things (95% weight). So many people have a tendency to “average out” a person, and reason in their heads that some of the good will make up for the bad, or that some of the bad will make up for the good, and then try to draw an all-conclusive statement about a person. Here’s the only fucking solution: Take the good and bad separately for what they are and realize the absurdity of the 5%-95% way of thinking.

Frank Gehry: Words of Wisdom

First off, I want to make it clear that I hate Frank Gehry’s buildings. Now having said that, I really respect what he has to say in this clip. It may sound cliche and old, but it’s still completely true. What if Frank Gehry had given in to his early critics and decided to drop his curvilinear style in favor of planes and right angles? Would he have become the starchitect and Pritzker Prize winner that he is now? Or would he have faded into obscurity because he obeyed the laws of conventional architecture wisdom? It really takes a certain amount of courage to hold still in your beliefs (in his case, his belief of what architecture could be) and not give in to intense criticism. Sometimes you just have to question the beaten path.

Foreign Contaminant

Have you seen Wall-E yet? It’s the best film of the year so far (until The Dark Knight that is). It deserves all the praise that it’s gotten, and it looks like Pixar will win the Oscar for Best Animated Film once again. Well deserved. The film really is about discovering yourself and working to get what you want. In the case of Wall-E, he had been alone for 400 years until finally EVE comes into his life and brings meaning to his existence. Great story.

But I also want to draw attention to my favorite supporting character, M-O. He’s this little cleaning robot with OCD who doesn’t like dirt or any foreign contamination within the spaceship. And throughout the film you’ll see him do nothing except basically clean Wall-E’s tracks. He also has some of the best sound effects applied. Check out this scene with Wall-E and M-O when they first meet up. Cute and funny. I think I like this film better than Finding Nemo. Pixar’s track record is flawless. Go see it!

Nobuo Uematsu = modern day Mozart

One last post before I go to bed at 4:00AM. Nobuo Uematsu is one of the best music composers living today. And one of the reasons why Final Fantasy X is my favorite game ever. Check around for his music on youtube, but definitely listen to “To Zanarkand.” My favorite song he’s composed. Definitely one of the all-time greats, and I still have it on my playlists.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Wonderful image. It sums up the design process quite nicely. For the design challenged, I’ll explain: You see an iceberg is very deceptive when you see it from a boat. Only about 10% of it is actually visible. Similarly, when you see the product of a designer (or a group of designers), you are only seeing the deliverables, or the results of the design. But in actuality, the making or fabrication of the results only takes a very small amount of time relative to all the thinking, trial-and-error, and prototyping that goes into a finished deliverable. I would say that in architecture the deliverables are more like 5% of the total design process. Every quarter, we spent only the last 3-5 days completing the final drawings and model. Everything before that was the thinking and development stage of our building designs. This is why the work of designers is so underrated, and why most of the public really have no sense of just how long it takes from the initial concept to the finished product. Also, this should be a reminder to all designers not to rush anything out, but thoroughly experiment with all possibilities before deciding on a path. If you don’t allow yourself enough time for design thinking, which was unfortunately the case in one of my architecture studio classes, you get a shitty final result because your idea never fully matured during marination.

Adriana vs. Alessandra: supermodel ramblings

So this one time during architecture studio (ARCH 400 at UW Seattle), I had to pull an all-nighter to finish up something, and a classmate of mine (Mary) also had to stay up kinda late to finish up her project too. We started talking to each other as a means to keep awake, and somehow we started talking about supermodels. I have no idea how it even began, but that’s what we talked about for nearly 3+ hours. It was one of the most unorthodox and out-of-place discussions I’ve ever had with anyone who wasn’t a close friend. And we talked about Adriana Lima and Alessandra Ambrosio most of all. Both are of course two of the most beautiful women today, and both are women that Mary, in her own words, “would go lesbian for.”

So, I’d like to offer my take on the two models. Adriana is more flat out beautiful than Alessandra. Gorgeous eyes, full lips, and a better body. However she has a bad smile and only a single “look” in pretty much all her shots. Alessandra on the other hand has a more angelic face and a much more radiant smile. But most of all, Alessandra is a better model, being able to strike a variety of poses in still shots and also on the runway, where she has the unique ability to level her upper body completely vertical while doing the catwalk. Most models completely suck at doing that, and have no control. So because of Alessandra’s higher modeling IQ, I think she ultimately comes out on top. You’re free to disagree, but you’re wrong, so there!

B&W Photography: You don’t fuck around.

Ever taken a black & white photography class? It’s so much fun, especially being in the dark room and developing and printing your film. During my senior year at UW Seattle, I took an architecture photography class with John Stamets, and it was probably the most fun I’ve had in any architecture elective. I even purchased a Nikon FM10 just to take the class.

One thing I noticed immediately is that unlike digital, you tend to take a lot more time setting up your camera and framing your shots because you don’t have the luxury of simply deleting bad pictures, and the film costs you money. There’s also no image reviewer on the camera, so you never know how good/bad of a photo you took until you start printing and realize that you might have to go back on location and retake some images.

There’s also a really relaxing feeling about being in the dark room. John had music playing (usually house music) the entire time. It’s cool using those enlarger machines, and dipping your photos from one liquid-filled bucket to another is like magic. It seriously never gets old. I still have a couple rolls of film left, and I’m wondering where I should take them. Check out my deviantART gallery for some of my B&W photos.

Christian Bale = ultimate man-crush

He’s fucking Batman! I could stop right there, but I’ll rant some more. This guy is one of the finest actors living today, and dedicated as hell to his roles. He dropped around 100 pounds to play his character in The Machinist, and then gained it all back and then some to play Batman in Batman Begins. Just fucking great! And now you’ll see him in The Dark Knight, and every early review has said that it beats the crap out of the original. Also, this guy is damn hot too! If you’re a straight male and you don’t have a man-crush on this guy, then you’re gay! And since he is the ultimate man, it makes his wife, Sibi Blazic, the luckiest woman in the world. Damn fuck shit!

I hate the view in my apartment.

First off, excuse my photography skills. I have a Canon SD600 and have no clue how to properly take a night picture. But anyways, below my window is basically this back door pub with drunken bastards yelling and shit every once in a while. It’s fucking ridiculous. I feel like taking a sniper rifle and shooting them. And then sometimes there’s a guy on a Harley bike and he thinks he’s badass revving his bike around at 2:00 in the morning. What the fuck! But I still like my little apartment. I own it and it’s completely paid off.

In other news, I’m watching late night NBC, and Selma Blair (on Leno) and Emily Mortimer (on Conan) are pretty fucking hot. Hellboy II has gotten great early reviews so far, and Emily was great in Chaos Theory.

Kayaking is FUN

So during my internship at Discovery Bay Games, I had a chance to go kayaking for the first time. It was pretty damn cool. Good exercise, and beautiful scenery. There were also these birds that would hover over the water and then dive-bomb into the water to catch a fish. Now I want to go to the Grand Canyon and try this shit out for real, and get completely blasted by water. I’m originally from Phoenix (lived there until the end of my high school years), so it’d be a return to the old days.

The Devil Wears Prada = best chick-flick

Seriously. Fucking great. Most of these films suck, but this one is a gem. Now I’m a bit biased since I’m a designer, and although the film does contain some cliche scenes, it executes them very well. And of course, if you’re a fashionista, there’s plenty of style. That outfit worn by Anne Hathaway when she first gets all made up is pretty fucking hot! Decked out in Chanel and gold chains. The film also has this really great scene where Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep’s character) completely owns Anne Hathaway’s character when she finds it silly that Miranda and her team are finding it difficult to pick out a belt. It’s exactly how I feel about design in general. There are so many people who don’t understand the details and cannot discern the suttle differences, or don’t understand compositional qualities. I’ve always found it frustrating to explain to non-designers why something makes sense and others don’t. Miranda puts it really well. If you don’t get it please STFU.

That’s one good-looking kid.

I’ve never seen Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ child before until now. Anyways, she is a crazy cute good-looking kid at only 2 years old. I mean most kids this age just all look the same. But Suri, WOW! I heard there’s some controversy over whether or not this is even Tom’s kid. Katie carried the child, but they say the sperm may have come from someone else. But regardless, she is one beautiful toddler. And she even has the haircut of her mother. She also looks a little bit Asian too. I can’t really pinpoint where exactly, but it’s very suttle. I just hope that Tom doesn’t corrupt her with that scientology bullshit. Best of luck to her future.

“Debriefing” by Harry Gregson-Williams

If you’ve ever played Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, you know that it has one of the best soundtracks for any video game ever. But there’s one particular song that’s always stuck on my playlist: “Debriefing” by Harry Gregson-Williams. It plays during the ending scenes. It’s so good that it should be made the official theme song for Memorial and Veteran’s Day. Not kidding, it’s absolutely brilliant. Especially the part starting at 2:48. The build-up is so damn moving. RIP The Boss.

The Dark Knight: WAHAHAHAHAH!

So many TV spots for this upcoming film. July 18th can’t come soon enough. Early reviews so far have all been positive, and hopefully it will remain that way. Kevin Smith had this to say about it: “Without giving anything away, this is an epic film (and trust me: based on the sheer size and scope of the visuals and storytelling, that’s not an overstatement). It’s the “Godfather II” of comic book films and three times more earnest than “Batman Begins” (and fuck, was that an earnest film). Easily the most adult comic book film ever made. Heath Ledger didn’t so much give a performance as he disappeared completely into the role; I know I’m not the first to suggest this, but he’ll likely get at least an Oscar nod (if not the win) for Best Supporting Actor. Fucking flick’s nearly three hours long and only leaves you wanting more (in a great way). I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed by it. Nolan and crew have created something close to a masterpiece.”