i wish every day were halloween

me as troy polamalu, pittsburgh steelers strong safety:

i love having all that hair!

the real troy:

i really wanted a helmet, but they cost $70 :(

OOJ: Chocolate Rex

spotted along highway 4 near the jemez dam in jemez springs, NM: chocolate rex and friends!

Warehouse 21, Santa Fe, NM

spent an afternoon in santa fe watching "Mosquita y Mari", a sweet, sad film that was shown at Warehouse 21, a community center for under-21s, complete with a cluster of scruffy, skinny kids playing hacky sack outside the front door. Warehouse 21 offers arts programs for kids and has some great mural work (see below) on site. "M y M" stars a luminous 17-year-old (17!), Fenessa Pineda, playing a high school sophomore who perfectly captures the wide-eyed hopefulness of life at that time, maybe because she's at that point in her own life in reality. when i was that age, i was absolutely convinced that if i could manage to move out of home and get out on my own, my life would only get better. looking back, you could not pay me enough to be a kid living with my parents again, but for all the hurt of those years, it was the only time in my life where i felt like anything was possible if i worked hard enough. i guess i was lucky to have even had that feeling, no matter how brief- some kids have a hard time even picturing a life different from what they know. which is why places like Warehouse 21 are so critical for kids; check out their website!

OOJ: Technicolor Cake

an ode to the miracle of food coloring

OOJ: Mean Bao bakery, ABQ

clockwise, from top left: homemade pineapple cake, custard swirl bread,
green tea sweet milk roll, mango/coconut sweet milk roll, egg custard tart
(dan tat), char siu bao, sesame chicken bao

while abq has many charms, good asian food is not one of them. so when i heard a taiwanese bakery (Mean Bao) had opened on central ave, i ran to see it for myself as soon as the weekend came and bought myself one of almost everything (i passed on the whoopie pie- no, that's not a traditional taiwanese pastry). and while i might be able to find better baos in L.A., these treats were more than adequate to satisfy my taipei nostalgia.   

OOJ: Bruno Mars diorama

another stunning student project. 

you have to look closely, but those are little paper people sitting in all those red seats.

also check out the dope spelling of "morphine".