The new year is here, a lot happened in 2006 within the GR world. Here's a few highlights. If you read GR over time, and you'll know what we've been up to.

1) Award at JANM. GR wins an award for being a "visionary in the arts" - something like that. JANM is the Japanese American National Museum.
2) Madrid. I went there in Feb to be on a panel discussion on art at ARCO.
3) GR helped the Imprint conference, and we even had a sneaker panel that was pretty cool.
4) GR goes bimonthly. 6 a year starting in 06.
5) I judged at Takashi Murakami's Geisai art fair. Fun and more.
6) I went around the world From tokyo, HK to england (for the Spank the Monkey art show).
7) We spoke at Harvard, Walker art museum, and Irvine! There were others, but I can't remember right now...
8) I showed in two art shows, at GRSF (haha)
9) Met a lot of great folks and got to see others thru GR. Shepard F, Carlo McCormick, Dzine, Mr Murakami, Ai and Shingo, Dan Wu, Cut & Paste folks, Hiroshi Fujiwara, Jeff Staple, Michael Lau, Towa, Ryan McGinness, John Jay, Everyone who showed art at GR stores, Ashy, Kohei, Taroshooten, Cube, Ray Fong, Nao Harada, Edward Templeton, Gargamel, Kaws, and so many others.
10) I curated an art show in upstate NY. St. Lawrence University.

There were many other highlights in 2006. This list could probably be 10 entries longer. I think I went to GRNY 6 times, and GRSF 6 times and took a lot of other flights. It's nice to be back at home for a while.

We built a lot in 06 to hopefully set more up for 07. Other than that, all I ask is for people to be fair and decent.

Don't buy a new car, ever. Did you know buying a car is like talking to a guy like Borat. The guy will say whatever he needs to so you can pull out your wallet and buy a car. Some of it won't make any sense, and you'll be scratching your head. Also a lot of dealerships have the sleasiest sales people, don't get one of them. Be ready to leave!

1) Did you know buying a car averages 4 hours, it can take 6 or more!? Why not just 1 or 2 hours? It's a long process.
2) If you want a certain car, it can take months, so you might be stuck with one that has extra features that you have to pay extra for.
3) It's possible you won't get what you want, so you'll have to settle for something else. Different color outside, inside, etc.
4) the car negotiation process is a drag. It's the most ridiculous song and dance ever. It's goofy, you volley prices across a table. It's as dumb as can be. It's hard to keep a straight face in this, but I guess the way to do it, is to walk away and see if they chase you. It never gets regular, it's completely surreal. If you want to laugh go for it. Who cares, right?
5) Know what you're doing before you walk in. Figure out how much the car costs, figure out how much you want to spend, and how much you want to try and lower the price. Who knows where this info is, but in the end, it's all a terrible experience. Just try and get money off. Start ridiculous and then see if it works.
6) Be ready to be hungry and eat food. If you're there for 6 hours you'll get hungry. Use it to your advantage. "Let me think about it while eating food." See ya. Maybe that'll help.
7) Bring a negotiator. Want a deal? Bring someone who can do this. It's worth bribing someone for this help. It's unfortunate, that it takes a special person to help buy a car with the best deal. What happens to the folks are great, honest, but can't negotiate like a swap meet seller?
8) Be greedy. If you can do it, be a dick. I guess in the end, they expect that, and they're on commission! Do the best you can. It's a terrible process.

The commssion supposedly happens after a phone call comes. You supposedly will get a call asking you about your experience at the dealership. Two people very sternly lectured me and told me, I must say, "extremely satisfied" to ALL of the questions. I felt like I was acosted to say that answer to everything. They even asked me, "will you do this?" I answered with, "It depends on which questions they ask." Fair right? But they didn't like my response, and drove the point harder and harder and even said, "call us first. Or hang up" before I give a lesser answer. It's ridiculous and I'll answer how I want. The phone call is the last bargaining chip I have. I'm keeping this one for a bit.

Little Sunday Driver

This is the size of a Hot Wheel. It's Sculpy and will drive for a long time. The idea with Sculpy is to try and not make it look like something you can buy from Hallmark for $5. This dude is wearing ear muffs, a pink tie, white shirt, weird car with faces on both sides, and a crazy hat that's part Rege, Woodring, and Moebius. Try Sculpey sometime. SxK.

Dave Choe is a ham, watch him play video with a high school band. Dave's career is experiencing good things right now, and if you're in NYC, go see him on Saturday, January 6th, 7pm-9pm at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery_529 W. 20th Street, 9E_New York, NY 10011. It'll be a solo show.

I find out through the grapevine that we and our neighbors are the only ones who didn't give our UPS driver a christmas gift. What are the right protocals for this under these conditions?

1) I'm not Christian although I might give others some "christmas gifts" usually for my family and such.
2) Our driver isn't that great. We once had a great driver who I'd give a "bonus" to at the end of the year. The one we have isn't him.
3) Our ups driver made it a point to tell one of our employees about his lack of gift which makes it seem like he feels he's entitled to it
4) he didn't give one to us - yes, what do you think about that? He's getting paid to do his job. We're paying for him services, so... where's our gift?
5) he can actually be a jerk at times and has been to our manager.

To his defense, he does his job. He delivers us the packages, and picks up the ones we have for him - which is becoming less and less as we start to move on to using more of the crappy government services. What's the right thing?

Random musings. Late December.

Whoa gift basket #2! This one is from our print shop - Transcontinental. Thanks Mike Bradley and Kent Gower. They're nice folks, and something like this comes every year. They don't mess up much, and they're usually pretty good to me. So Merry Xmas and so on folks. When you get older, you get gift baskets, this year it's two, previous it's just one. It's over...

Sculpy project while watching TV. The headdress is cut off a bit, but in the end, it's a dude cruising in a car happy with a funky Tuvan hat. I'll have to paint this. Like his tie?! He's selling bibles door to door.

Whoa there GW... Islam isn't necessarily shit, right? This was seen in a parking lot in Santa Monica. Funny technique. Lettering gets a D rating. I welcome graffiti that has a message, and it would be neat to see more if it replaced some of the other types of graffiti. Maybe I'd actually get mad by a message and it'll make more change. Graffiti inspiring change in more fields than "just" art. That's an interesting thought.

Dessert Recon 2 - Phoenix Cafe Boutique

208 E Valley Blvd
Alhambra, CA 91801 (626) 299-1238

Next door to the Phoenix Inn restaurant is the small dessert spot. It's a small spot with mean ladies who work there. If you don't speak Chinese, expect little help from these angry ladies. see that one in the purple with the hat? Imagine this person as being mean...

Nice seats at the window. It's for quick tastes, it's nice to be there. In the counter on the left, there are nice jello like cubes of different flavors. These are great.

The woman in purple... she has no booty whatsoever.

In one glass case, it's drinks, fruit, stuff, etc. Some of it, they'll add fruit to it, others it's just ice. My suggestion is to get the fruit tapioca, it's the first thing on the menu, it'll come with chopped up fruit, tapioca (not boba), and coconut milk. It's really good even though there's less fruit in it than once before. I would have taken a photo, but my camera died. Eat at the Phoenix Inn, it's good Chinese food, and save space for dessert.

Desserts Recon - Scoops
712 N Heliotrope Dr. (2 blocks west of Vermont just north of Melrose)
Los Angeles, CA 90029 (323) 906-2649

It's not on Melrose, but a few doors up in an uppity cool neighborhood. If you were into going to the Macondo to see music way back in the day, this is the area. It might even be the exact spot, even though I'm a bit foggy on where Macondo used to be. You enter and the place is simple, bright, and has no frills. It's a place to eat ice cream. It's a bit off the main street, main neighborhood, and main people... it's carving out it's own existence and that's the toughest way to do anything.

The wall opposite of the ice cream looks like this. It's an art show!

The other side often looks like this. People come and ponder the flavors. He doesn't have hundreds, it's more like 20 at the most. Some have intriguing mixes like pomegranate passion fruit, bread, vegan chocolate peppermint... it changes and sometimes he takes ideas off of the bulletin board. Add your flavor if one comes to mind.

Homemade and handmade. The green one way down is pistachio.

This is vegan mocha (something), I forgot, but the brown is vegan chocolate peppermint.

This is Tai. He's the proprietor and a great guy. The ice cream is top notch, it won't disappoint. There are both vegan and non vegan ice creams and each flavor is made with care. We sell Scoops ice cream at gr/eats, and often people come in just to get ice cream. Hold the food! Scoops is a noticable departure from Pinkberry. If he had stores all over, the world would definitely be better. I've met Tai only once, but he has a good way about him, and you'll be happy when you leave.

read some more reviews.

Yogurt boy in the apron tells me to not take any pics. I guess no pics inside of PB

Mochi and kiwi. Unlikely companions, but it works.

The straight word: Pinkberry is the next Pokemon and it blows.

Yes, I know people love this place but I'll give you my reasons why Pinkberry fails. First, I've lived through three frozen yogurt fads. 1) Penguins, Heidi's, and TCBY. These sucked, and now they survive by selling ice-cream. 2) The fruit ground up phase in the early 90s. In LA at least, there were spots that had special machines that ground up yogurt and fresh fruit. Anyone remember Humphreys? Where are they now... 3) Pinkberry... Why will this last when the others didn't? You tell me...

I waited and waited thinking this was going to be great. In the end what are you getting?

1) A Rip - Pinkberry yogurt is just frozen yogurt with fresh fruit. At $4, you're getting ripped off. Buy a container of plain yogurt and freeze it, add fruit. I watched people go in and get yogurt and act like it was special. I also watched some get some who said it was a rip and the yogurt sucked. I'm not alone.

2) Good toppings - The mochi is actually good, but you can easily buy a piece for a buck. The fruit is fresh! Good for them, it's the only part they get right.

3) Mixed up - The space looks space age and neat, but isn't yogurt supposed to be natural and maybe better for you? How about a more natural environment? Why sell plastic junk kitchen shit? Department of Duh.

4) Yogurt boy - The guy who works at Pinkberry in the Sawtelle area is a rude kid, who thinks he's cool. In the end, he takes the establishment down another notch. Next time, call our name when the order is ready like you did for everyone else, and don't make lame comments - it's getting you nowhere.

5) You get stupid cookies on the table. It's already junk food, but now they're giving you more?

We were all disappointed in Pinkberry, it definitely fails to live up to the hype. For $4, get something good and as another said about Pinkberry, "don't believe the hype."

James Brown is dead. Wasn't there a song called that? But this time, he really died. RIP to the godfather of soul.

Paul Westerberg from the replacements did something weird. Why would he put a screwdriver through his hand? It was an accident, but it's hard to understand how you can do that! I guess Kobe put his hand through a window "while cleaning the garage." So a screwdriver through a hand taking out wax from a candle is totally possible. Look for him to be sidelined...

Getting towards Christmas...

David and Sun-min check out the drawings at gr/eats. So far we have 40, making it a 1/20 chance of winning. The final judging is going to happen soon after the 30th - the cut off date to enter the Draw Babo contest. You still have ample time.

Things are looking good. In the foreground, these look like the flowers Tray holds on the t-shirt!

Pablo walking Kaulana and Primo. These are Akitas. Primo is the old man.

Fabian on the Blackberry. Enough said.

This is what the day was like. That's Kyle on the left. Like a where's Waldo drawing, find Martin! He's in it.

Goddamn her. If I had Trump change, I'd probably sue Rosie too just so I could take a few dollars from her "fat ass". Her "Chinese" act is screwed up. If I had to energy of Donald Trump., I'd dig into truckdriver talkin' Rosie too. It's gotta be easy.

Dirty Hands, the movie about David Choe. That's Harry Kim, the filmmaker and we were in his apartment to do one last interview before the film could be cut and done.

There's a trailer at the site, you should check out. I guess it's an honor being part of David's life. From the first days we met to Comicon in 1997 or 8 and actually even before that at a Sunsets screening. Yes, Dave saw the film and talked to me then in SF. Being the last piece of the film I guess I was there to cover some things we might have missed from the earlier interviews. David's had early exhibitions, illustrations, and friendships with me/us here at GR. I hope I don't look too much like an idiot. The camera Harry is using is some newer Sony camera that's tiny. It looks like a regular home video camera, but it's not. It's tiny too. 6 years in the making, and it'll be done in 2007, hope we can be a part of that.

Back to Santouka. Shio ramen for Mr Bevry.

Can't hold back on the ramen. The key is the "special pork". That's what it looks like, and it's incredibly tender and amazing. It's different than the single slice of pork you get with the ramen, which is thin and more fatty. This is dense, probably cooked in a broth since it's nearly falling apart. It's a bit pricey, at something like $9 or $10 for the large, so my suggestion is to bring a friend and split the extra pork, it's a lot for one person. 2 visits and so far, stellar both times. I'm now thinking the medium or regular is the right size to get. The soup is rich and it might be too much to take in for a large. I wonder why the heck, do I see bowls of half eaten ramen there when I leave?

Check out the Ricoh. This was a macro quick point and shoot shot. I didn't do much to make this special.

Zoom in and pow. Sharp! The bee is out of the main focal plane, but the power of Ricoh GR reigns supreme.

Don't fuck with the Don. "Rosie you're fired!" This guy is like a gangster. "Probably I'll sue her cuz it'll be fun. I'd like to take some money from her fat ass... Rosie is a loser." Don't fuck with Don, he's scary and can talk major amounts of shit and can back it up. He fucks Rosie up bit time. Meanwhile, he can show compassion for a hot Miss. America. What a guy. Check out Don.

Next fun video. Transformers.

My cousin and I have always had a fascination with giant squid. Maybe it's because we'll eat smaller squid whether it's calamari or ika sushi, but a giant squid can feed us for a year. It's been a myth for so long and even though there's sightings which usually have a bigfoot like appeal, here's one that's 24 feet, a small one compared, but this is clear video. Leave it to Japanese researchers to catch one.

UFO DIAPOLON
This robot toy can't be beat.
Three robot, the Trunk on the left, the Legger in the middle, and the Header on the right. On their own, they are powerful, heavy, and shoot missles. They don't really look alike, but they are family. I don't remember the show at all anymore. Surely there was one, but didn't catch on here at all compared to Mazinger Z and Raideen.

In their styro and packaging that's probably about 30 years old, each missile and part is in place. The robot have been played with, but they are intact.

The magic is that the Trunk, Legger, and Header all come apart to make one larger robot. IUt's cool how the feet have the mariner like spears, and the arm has saws that come out. Of course the chest missle will blind you, and I forgot to put in the blades for the fists. They shoot out too. Can you believe that a set like this was made? I had this robot set as a kid, and it's taken close to 8 years to reassemble the trio (I think I got the Trunk first about 8 years ago), and maybe 15 years since I thought about trying to get them all with each coming from different places. I've told myself that I'd stop buying robots like these once this set was done. Will I stay true to my word? I haven't bought a robot in years, until Header, so perhaps I will.

VICTORY - This is the winner of the Nintendo wii. I've had a bunch ask. We'll here's the winner. Also the mystery Mrs Field's package.... drum roll.... I called and asked them who the heck sent them to me! And the one person who I forgot. Our T shirt printer! Wow. Issues... yeah, she had a broken machine for a long time, making some jobs stall, but it's being worked out. I'm sure she was down about it for a while. I was hoping it was the bank or USPS or UPS. Now I feel a bit bad, but the cookies will help.

Walking in a different direction after my day, maybe to walk off some dinner, I found myself going towards Santa Monica Blvd. It's a neat area that doesn't really have a name, but has restaurants, and a cool video store. It also happens to be the night before Shari passed away. I can keep blogging about it, and she's not coming back anytime soon. I figure instead of moping, I'm going to try and talk just a little about what she saw around her immediate neighborhood.

Walking towards the video store where we both rented videos, Shari and I walked by this center. It's like a corner mini mall that's attached to a crummy market (Safeway). This center has a Hallmark store, bakery, laundromat, and some weird stores. I don't know what the heck these are... But see right about the roof of the car? That store has all kinds of crap. It's like a mixed up store selling clothes and junk.

The shoe store is open pretty late. I have no idea what's really there, but this center is sort of catering to Mexican nationals who live in the area. I'm glad they have sort of a place to be together, since I'm not sure if they're even cared for in the least by others.

Good food, I'm sure. It's awesome how something like this can just pop up on Barry avenue near Santa Monica blvd. It's there every night, and when I'm hungry, I'm going to eat there. It's smells great.

I'm not sure if this is necessary, but I can't help but walk by once in a while, this is the area where Shari's life was taken from all of us.

Although it's been a year, not one hint of her is here. Maybe it's for the best, she shouldn't be remembered here at all, she should be remembered doing the things she liked-crafting! Making Helvetica hoods, buttons, and other cool things.

Here's her hoodies. The blue and yellow one on the left is mine.

This is Video Store Named Desire. We'd rent movies here (and it's one of the best video stores ever). If you look closely in the window, that's Mike in the white t shirt. He's a bit camera shy. Shari and I would have conversations about Mike, and I remember how Shari once thought Mike and one of his employees were father and son! I thought it was impossible, and tonite, I asked Mike once and for all, if they were even related. No. But the kid used to call Mike, "Big Daddy," so Shari probably heard him say that. Mike and I got a small kick out of that tonite. I'm glad I shared even just a little bit of her memory with someone who knew her.

By the time I wake up and get my day going, it'll be more than one year. I hope there's a group of us thinking about her at any given time throughout the rest of our lives. If you didn't know her, that's a shame, and I'm sure you've lost someone special who we should have all met.

Today, this shows up on my desktop. Mrs Field's cookies. I guess they're pretty good, right? Tons of crap, brownies, cookies, all good to make me smile. But who's it from? The note said, to GR - "thanks very much for your patience this year w/ our issues." Let's figure this one out since it's unsigned. It shipped 2 day air to my house.

1) printer - we didn't have any problems this year. But maybe " issues" is a pun.
They're not that creative. No.
2) distributor - again, a great pun, but I don't know what "issues" there were exactly. Did they fuck up and not tell me and are apologizing? No.
3) past employees who are now admitting their wrong doing? Possible.
4) lawyer / accountant - maybe. There's always issues. Possible.
5) UPS or USPS - maybe. But they won't send cookies and they do suck and we do have "issues" with them. But no, I'm sure it's not them.
6) Current employee who's been a problem? Possible.
7) Doctors who couldn't fix my finger? Possible but unlikely.
8) Al Quaida apologizing to us at GR with cookies? No.
9) GW Bush saying sorry to GR? No.
10) Mrs Fields herself? Doubtful, but nice of her maybe.
11) The Earth thanking GR for helping? I'd accept that.
12) Popular Culture fans? I'd accept that too.
13) The Bank. Yes, maybe it's from the bank. Possible. We've had problems with our bank, but that only got hashed out yesterday, and this was shipped 2 day air. I'm not quite sure.
14) Maybe it's from aliens and or Yeti. We're really nice to aliens and Yeti and many paranormal topics. Maybe it just came from them. They hacked Mrs. Fields.
15) A Vendor? Again I have no idea who I had problems with. Surely some of them, but nothing that warrants such nice cookies and pastries. Probably not. We've never gotten a gift this nice from one.
16) A film festival? The issues thing is possible. We donate tons of magazines to them. Probably not.
17) My plumbing problems? Did my yard or porta-potty I rented hook me up? I wish.
18) Secret admirer who got none (therefore "issues"). Could be, but I don't know who this could be. Sorry.
19) Mean customers and evil art fans who say they're not coming back, but keep coming back? I'd like to believe this. There's been some "issues."
20) Last possible... someone who think we've had "issues" and worries about it. Meanwhile, I haven't spent any time thinking about it. Could be...

Issues... no idea, I thought I (we) had a fairly good year (I'll go through it soon in a post). Maybe it's a symbol of a great bookend to a year for GR that I thought went decently. Nonetheless, whoever I (we) had issues with, they're the bigger person for sending us a gift. Meanwhile, I'll sit and stare at these cookies and wonder.

Someone wrote to me asking about starting a magazine. I guess it's ok for me to post my responses. I hope they do help, although there's no real answers to some of these questions... I left the topic of his possible magazine out. I also edited things down to make them shorter and easier to read.

Was it difficult to take GR from a zine to where it's at now? Did you and Martin work full-time on GR from the beginning? Or did you have day jobs for a while? How did you fund it in the beginning when you first jumped into a full-on magazine? Given my limitations, do you think this idea is unrealistic?

1) I think you do have to start small. If you can figure it out, you can make a site first, then make the publication later. People seem to do this these days, it's tough work, but if you want it bad enough, it's there to do. It's totally possible to make this work. It's a decent idea. You might have to make sacrifices, you can't do it all. Had I not sacrificed, I wouldn't be doing what I do today. I watched people move forward in life, while I lived at my parents and toiled all night. Typical, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

2) It's a long ride, 12 years or more for us, so it's not easy, but small steps is what it took. It wasn't an overnight thing, it was small improvements each issue. Did you know we had black and white in the mag until maybe 2 years ago?

3) Martin worked FT elsewhere for 10 years. I worked on GR full time much much longer. I lived at home until I was maybe 30 or near there.

4) Funding. $200 for the first issue and it was out of pocket. If you have $200 you can start something. I don't know when the "full on mag" thing started, I usually say it's the first issue, but the jump to the third issue was $2000. You gotta have at least $2000 and something to get things going anyway, on the minimum. But we did start with $200.

5) Things are as real as you want them to be.

Click on this to make it bigger, but we accidentally got many of these posters from Woody at Sneakerfreaker. So no new issue yet, but many posters. But while we're at it, how many of these can you name? Are all of those 5 striped ones KSwiss? Sneaker Freaker Woody is a great guy, if you ever get a chance to meet him, shake his hand.

Santouka originated in Asahigawa in Hokkaido and now they've landed in West LA in the Mitsuwa food court. What was once Tampopo ramen in the food court serving what was always maybe average ramen, it's now the king of ramen in Los Angeles.

A small line formed at lunch time on an average tuesday. There's not a lot of seats open, and the audience is mixed, some are Japanese, many aren't, but you can tell a lot are food people checking the place out. There's a bit of construction going on, but it's not too annoying.

The glass case, shows the entire menu, there's ramen, basically three types, salt, shoyu (soy sauce), and miso. The inside line from my friend in Japan is that the "shio" or salt ramen is the one to get. I opted for the regular shio with ikura over rice combo.

The ramen broth is a tonkotsu (pork) and shoyu broth mix. If you order shio ramen in another ramen joint, you might get something nearer to a clear based ramen, but shio here means it's salted tonkotsu-shoyu ramen. The bowls are actually small, so if you opt for just ramen, you might end up a bit disappointed. If you're a ramen eater, get the large. If you're getting a combo, perhaps stick with regular. The ikura bowl was fair, in the end, it's sort of like filler, you're getting rice and fish eggs, and neither are spectacular, but Santouka is famous for it's ramen. The shio ramen was again, smaller in size, but hearty in flavor. The whitish broth has a savory flavor that's filled with the familiar tonkotsu style pork broth you'd fine in ramen from Kyushu. It's oils mixed with it's long boiled broth make it exciting and satisfying. The noodles aren't anything new, they're decent, and the small fixin's inside are fine with the pork standing out. It even comes with a mini umeboshi.

The plastic food versions actually look decent, although there was less ikura than the plastic example showed. The hardboiled egg was actually surprising since it's been soaking in a soup base. My combo was $10.49. If you decide to get just ramen, for the shio small it's 5.49, medium 6.49, and large 7.49. You can always get extra pork, and that's good too. The hot miso ramen seemed least appetizing, and I probably won't be getting that until I've tried everything else.

Take a look at the ramen. These are plastic. Click on it and zoom in and you can see what's written here.

Santouka Ramen
3760 Centinela Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90066
10:00am - 8:00pm
(310) 915-0442

The Other Address!
21515 S Western Ave
Torrance, CA 90501
(310) 212-1101

Here's an excerpt of an email about Uglycon. Of course, I'm keeping this positive, since there was some collector backlash involved as well. I may add more to this later. Maybe not... not sure yet. But here it goes.

I am Griffin's mom- remember the Secret Mission Babo nutty eight year old?

I wanted to comment on the event, that has now become a memory burned into our cerebral banks- I am sure he and I will talk about it for years to come.

We found out about the event on the Ugly Dolls website, when I was looking to adopt some more dolls for Griffin for Christmas. It has been a love at first sight for Griffin when my sister bought him Jeero when he was in kindergarten.

I had no idea that the dolls had such a cult following; we came because we thought it would be fun, Griffy wanted to be in the costume contest and he really wanted to meet David and Sun Min. He knows all the stories of each doll; he considers them his buddies, he reads to them, we take them in the car and sleep with the entire family, which has grown to 15 after UglyCon. He loves Big Toe, which you all awarded to him at the contest- he was thrilled!

That night he kept thanking me for bringing him and telling me it was the best night of his life, which warmed this mom's heart and made the journey from the OC well worth it.

Griffin loved hamming it up in the parking lot and goofing with Ox and Wedgehead, as you will see in the pictures...

All of these pics are courtesy of Griff's mom. I like how the Ox on the left has a Muppets like mouth. I think that's where the person looks out of!

Griff got 2nd place in the costume contest. It's not the size of the costume, it's the personality of the character. Griff passed out cookies like Babo.

Martin got one too!

Griff is a tiny dude!

Anyone who reads GR is a friend of mine. Look at Griff's T!

Whoa, that's Big Toe. That's what Griff got for 2nd place. I wish Uglydoll was around when I was little. They would have my friends then like they are now. I hope Griff never outgrows Uglydolls.

-lastly, thanks to Griff's mom. Imagine if she was too tired or too busy to make it down to Sawtelle? Taking a short trip and checking out something new can have it's high points. Coming to Uglycon II in SF next year?

Brian Ralph is one of the greatest from the Ft Thunder "collective". A lot of you might not know him but he's been doing the Reggie 12 on the back page of GR for the last while. It's been a good run. So here's an interview with Brian. He draws like none other and if he spent all of him time on it, he'd be a household name. Right now, he's helping kids achieve their dreams. Brian's the man.

Sawtelle Time Random musings.

Those are Ultraman in the window display of Curry House. They do this every year, but why Ultraman? This is the weird cool stuff I like.

Saewon does shipping for us during the holidays. Oh sister #2 learned shipping quick. Today was the big deadline for packages with USPS. It was on every news station across the nation. So we went for it and packed a ton even though our deadline was last week. That's what it sort of feels like to be Santa Claus.

This car was amazing. Parked in gr/eats, it said, Don't you Wish your Girlfriend was this dirty? Yeah! And it had a pics of dicks, pussies, and on the other side was a small nekkid lady.

Shari Sakahara

Our friend and intern Shari passed away December 21, 2005. It's been nearly a year. I thought I'd post about her for a bit. I was doing some cleaning, and realized that I have one of her hoodies. I only wore it for the first time today and it's timing is right. She cut the letters out by hand, one by one, and with those across my chest, I feel like she's around and close to me. I looked at some of the text about Shari that's online and many of them link her with us at Giant Robot. It's always be an honor. Pour some out for her this holiday. I will for sure.

GR holiday - no holds barred. Some of these blog posts recently are sort of family album type stuff, hope you don't mind them. Holidays are family time, maybe some of these will remind you of some of yours. This was all at gr/eats.

Wendy and Martin started the food fest. That dish with the pineapples is vegan enchiladas!

What are you lookin' at, Pryor?

Beer swiggin in the kitchen. That's organizer Keenan in the background. gr/eats has a grade A.

Keenan made this trailer man, shepard's pie. Burger, bacon, eggs, fries, chili? cheese... this might lower things a grade.

Weird. Now, lower it one more grade. We're now at a C.


A sample of the fare. Raise it back up a grade. B.


Michelle is wearing the Goner records sweatshirt. Know about them? It's a Memphis label who put out the first Guitar Wolf albums in America. Legendary. Still a B.

David took home pounds of ham. That's how they do it in China.
Thanks Keenan and Mike for washing the dishes and taking care of everything. Back to the A.

Figures. The dude on the left is an alien by our friend in HK, and occasional GR contributor, Prodip. I'll get more of the story later, but I think this is his first figure. Sculpted by Mr Lau, this is based on a real alien.

Uglycon continues... at gr/eats. We have more than 20 entries into the drawing component of Uglycon. Here's a few than are hanging up at gr/eats. I'm digging this whole thing. It's pretty amazing.

Whoa, Mr T!

I'm impressed that people are taking the drawing part serious. In some cases, it's jokey looking, but sometimes, that works out the best. There's some technically well done pieces, and some loose ones, I'm not sure which ones are the best.

Holiday workin'. Today was saturday and a busy shopping day at GR. I decided to help out and bag stuff, work the front, and generally try to do anything I can.

This is "small" or "little" Michelle, which means there's a "Big" Michelle. Is being known as "Big" Michelle a good thing? I think "small" Michelle is taller than the "Big" Michelle. But "Big" Michelle is louder than the super quiet "small" Michelle. Confused?

I sort of botched this shot. The kid is just staring at David who's eating his lunch in the middle of GR2. I bet the kid was blown away that Dave was munching on chicken pesto pasta with no shame. Fun times.

From what I could tell the day went smooth, not too many unhappy campers. I have the urge to reorder just about everything we're low on, but I really can't. It's too late in the year... and we have a ton of merch to check in anyway - meaning, we have tons of new stuff even this late in the year.

Jazz Cat Cafe - 640 Valley Blvd - Alhambra, CA 626-293-8999
Themed spots are fun and this one makes weird but endearing sense. At Jazz Cat, the walls are painted with murals of cats playing music and people into jazz. There's a bulletin board of pictures of real cats near the counter where you can also order a selection of boba drinks. Jazz Cat's spacious and loungish, but then when you see people at their tables, it's hot pot everywhere. When we walked in, Astrud Gilberto piped through the speakers, it was bossanova hour.

The menu has noodles, and a variety of dishes, but the main feature is the hot pot dishes. There's two kinds, one that's more like a shabu shabu but personal size, and another that has a butter cream sauce as it's base (I passed on the latter).

This is the vegetarian version, and there's plenty of dishes with meat and different flavors. There's thai style, spicy, curry, and a house special. The vegetarian pot comes with bushels of veggies, more than you can handle. The sauce is peanutish and works perfect.

The blue flame is strong and will boil for a while. As it burned down, I mistakenly tried to add some of the pink flammable fuel from my pot which wasn't ignited. Mistake! I spilled a bit on the table, and my chopsticks and the fuel started to burn on the table. Flames started to grow. I started to extinguish it with the cabbage. But that didn't quite work, so I dipped napkin in the soup broth and poof, it went out...

This is what the vegetarian dish looks like when it shows up at your table. Take away some veggies and add some red meat and there you have it. You can choose rice or onigiri with each entree. For $1.95 you can add a sweet type of boba drink and for 3.95 you can get a drink and dessert! Can you eat it all?!

I ordered the special kimchee seafood udon. Close to a kimchee chigae, I wasn't up for the regular hot pots, but this one did the trick. The broth was rich, the shrimp, mussels, and squid were great and walked out perspiring. Enjoy the Jazz Cat for it's weird ambiance in cold weather. It's perfect winter fare.

I'm posting this since these comments about what to do when stuck in the snow, might actually help. Thanks for the comments, Gabe, Duane, and anonymous(2).

Gabe said...

I just read somewhere about the rule of three for survival (think it was on CNN):

- you can survive three hours without shelter
- you can survive three days without water
- you can survive three weeks without food

I think this list assumes you are in horrible conditions (i.e. extreme cold) and have fulfilled the requirements preceeding each step.

Sucks about the CNET guy. Guy went for it, and his family was saved.

Anonymous said...

if you live in a cold climate or plan on travelling it's a good idea to bring an emergency kit in your car if you breakdown/get stranded:

-extra gloves, socks, hats
-flares
-flashlight/spare batteries
-matches/lighters
-bag of sand, or salt or kitty litter (something to provide traction for stuck tires)
-first aid kit
-blankets
-food (fruit, chocolate, energy bars etc)
-bottled water
-jumper cables
-small shovel
-fully charged cell phone

also read somewhere that if you do get stranded you should turn the car on for 10 minutes every few hours to provide some heat while still rationing the gas.

6:32 PM

Duane Fernanez said...

GOOD List - I also read recently that you should TRY to conserve the heater and only use it 15 – 20 minutes every hour. AND VERY important – make sure snow doesn’t pack up against the tail pipe, as you can die from Carbon monoxide poisoning.

8:19 PM

Anonymous said...

I think once you got your car running, the snow would melt from your exhaust, but it is smart to clear it.

The map they used was a paper road map that showed the route they attempted as "scenic", not "impassable in winter". Which is tragic. It was also only raining when they started from Roseburg, quickly turning into snowy impassable winter.

They had a few things with them, and obviously they had extra clothes since they were on a long family road vacation. But stocking up on food supplies, particularly high caloric ones in an emergency, is smart. Having extra blankets, hats, etc. in an wintry excursion, is smart.

I would think burning tires for warmth and signaling would be a last act, once you are out of gas. Stomping out in the snow is smarter, they are looking for irregular patterns in a sea of trees. Plus, when visibility is low, smoke doesn't matter too much. Still, it's brilliant. Too bad it didn't work.

From what I understand, the gate was supposed to be locked (and they turned onto a logging road because it wasn't locked), the owner of the Black Bar Lodge tried to call Emergency Services to let them know he'd seen tire tracks, but no one got back to him. He tried to check it on his own, but couldn't get his snowmobile in all the way. The SAR teams who noted the road and open gate called it in and were told the OWNER OF THE BLACK BAR LODGE HAD CLEARED THE ROAD. In otherwords, had checked it out and found it didn't have the Kims. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

So sad. And it wouldn't have helped for him to set up a snow camp, because he was really trying to get help and was not staying put. That poor amazing guy! What a legend. As for going off the main road, I read there were bear tracks, so maybe he was chased? Not sure if that's just part of the myth already growing around his excursion (some said he had snowshoes etc.)

One of the best ways to mark your trail is to snap branches on the lower boughs of trees and drop them. That way searchers can track your progress without doubling back too much, and can scan for abnormally broken branches.

Setting a fire in a snow area is actually pretty hard. They dried out wood under the car to get it to "light". Green wood is very hard to set fire to, and wet frozen wood is nearly impossible. This may be another reason why they had to burn tires

After walking out of the Art Center library, there it is... A huge ass Keith Haring. Is this shit real?

Martin and I were asked a judge a student review at Art Center in Pasadena. The project is to make a robot. Most of the students have had no experience in doing this sort of thing, so it was sort of an exercise using new tools, and methods of production. A lot used 3d printing, and many other methods all the way to sanding and painting. The idea is that they had to learn something by making a robot.

Sort of a character, this dude made a border patrol robot that cruises around and laser blasts illegals. The laser is intended to be a stun type of thing, so "they" can be arrested or sent back to wherever they came from. His back story, and presentation was great. It was very science fair and his robot had a military/government vibe.

Gorilla robot. Interesting and you can see the scale of this robotic "silverback". Not bad at all.

This is a surveyor type of robot. This looks ready to be used as a sci fi film model. It was cleanly made and had an automotive concept car vibe. It's Art Center... that's what happens.

Whoa a pink cat. Like an Aibo, but pink and cute.

This might be one of the prizes of the bunch. The guy who made it had a Santino type of vibe going on. He had answers for everything, and had a funny personality. He really digs Transformers, so he created a SD version that is fully functional. Almost.

It can transform into a ship.

He made graphics which he used for another class project, and made a box and a whole background sales type of display. This was cool.

This is a Nap Dog based on lap dog. It has multifunctions and looks professional and ready to sell. It looks like something that can really exist on the shelves.

Mouse vacuum cleaner. The tail can wag while is sucks down lint. My suggestion was to turn this into a virtual pet. The more it eats, the happier it will be.

The Wyvern... Isn't this a D&D character, but robot? Nicely done.

Whoa, it's Herbie mixed with a Patlabor. Cute and tough at the same time. It's sort of a dorky robot that can kick ass? Look at how small them arms are next to the head!

Lineman robot. Plays football. This has tons of moveable parts, and is engineered well, although it's just a prototype. Yes, the arms broke off as he showed it to us, but it's neat.

Whoa, the sister robots with big heads. These didn't quite work out although I liked the influence from Playmobil. This could be great.

This might be one of the neatest pieces. Part Miyazaki, maybe some Star Wars, this piece had a great look. It seems like an evil and dark robot that might be capable of something nice.

Overall, the quality of the projects are insane. Could you make anything that looked like this? I was expecting more blocks of wood type of robots, but to see them look finished and pro is surprising.

Thanks to "Detex" Scott Mitchell for the invite.

The tallest man alive saves dolphins... I like this guy. Read about him. He's a hero and from China! Imagine Yao Ming the ball player is 7'6" and is only 3" from being the world's tallest man. I guess even a giant herdsman can be a hero.

Thinking about it a bit more. How many times do you think this guy has been criticized for not being in the NBA? For not being a terror on the glass and stuffing every shot taken near him? I'm sure some even have said he's a waste of height. The old quote of "you can't teach height" came in handy. Let's see Shaq put him 22" biceps in a Dolphin's mouth.

Cinema nights. Going to the movies doesn't always have to mean going to a theater, spending on parking, junk food, and the movie itself. It can mean, sitting on sofas, talking before and after the film. It's also not important to have a film on a huge screen either, a television works, we all watch shit on youtube anyway, so a TV is fine. Plus look at the beer bottles, you can't do that just anywhere.

Cinehous (that's Pryor's film deal name) presented The Double Life of Veronique. A 1991 film by the dude who made the Red White and Blue flicks. In the above shot, Pryor gave a talk about the film including why he liked it and why it's important. Although I'd pick stupid movies for my cinema nights, the arty classics have their place too.

New GR Shirt done by Iron Mike

Which color suits you best? The weird blue or the white? Choice three is a loud pink.

Although all the pics will eventually get on the site, here's some more. These are some behind the scenes images.
The wall paper comes off. The only tough part was that a camera crew got in our way.

There was a window of a few minutes before the door was open and the paper came down. The folks took a great look.

The line was long... we were already open at this time. Thanks.

I was trying to get one with the billboard in it.

Hoards! Thanks again.

Maybe as amazing as the opening night is listening to the history of the Uglydolls. At one time, I counted something like 40 people, which is a pretty full house in GR2. I'm proud of the Uglydoll fans for coming out and supporting the event, GR2, and the Horvaths.

David showed a weird Little Bony clip. Dancing girls in Bony costumes. Weird! The Q and A part was great. The fans had great pointed questions about Uglydolls that I didn't know. I think David was equally surprised at some of the questions. (If you read this, thanks for stepping up to ask questions, it made it more fun)

It looked sort of like this. That's David on the laptop, we borrowed a projector (thanks Julia - I should get one of these!), old karaoke machine (thanks mom), and the screen was from Pryor.

David signed another hours worth of autographs. I'm glad everyone who came got "stuff" signed. David's the right guy to handle "stuff" like this. He'll sign forever.

whoa! This is great "stuff"

The winner of the raffle. She got not yet released items from Uglydolls! Look at Martin on the right. Thanks again, Uglyfans, you deserve a pound(a). Hope you had a good time.

Uglycon Saturday!

The day started the night before actually, we hung the work, the pinatas, and got everything ready. The next morning, we met up again at 9am, and the line was already going! At about 6:15 we were open, and did our best to get the event running through. The handmade dolls all sold out, and we're glad that we allowed 2 per person. If we allowed 3 per person, the dolls would have run out much faster and people would have been more upset. The part I don't like is that I know some of the "nice" folks who are Uglydoll collectors are just as bad as the collectors they despise. I'm sure there were some in line who are there to eBay and there were some people in line who were there to be extra buyers along with others. Either way, I suppose they had to wait in line for hours, so that perserverence counts for something.

The lines were long, that was one complaint. And although option existed for people to leave the line and come back, everyone wanted to hold their ground. I guess it's because we were administering the limited edition 50 Babo sailorhats, and 100 of the special new color Wage's. No one seemed to believe that it was special! But here's what's up. They are a new orange, and the shape is different than the upcoming Wage. Ok back to the line, we have one register, and it took a long time to pay, but here's why. We've been doing this for years, and we don't often have shows where there's lines and hundreds of hungry collectors. But here's what happens. If we have two registers, things like double sales, (art sold twice) can happen. To not make mistakes we have one line, one person handling art sales. It's the safest way. Imagine if you were the one who we have to call later and say sorry!

Now back to the good.
Aside from that, I'd like to say that I was proud to have hosted the event. The costume contest went super well, it rained, so we didn't parade down the street like we wanted, but overall, the event went well. I think people were happy. David and Sun-min signed autographs for hours, they signed everything, and stayed friendly to absolutely everyone. It's amazing and a great lesson to see how cool they are. That's part of their success. Who wants to work with a-holes?

Uglycon was born nearly a year ago. We talked about what we wanted to do more recently, and it could have easily been more uptight like a fake carnival. We let things sort of ride, I think that's our way, to plan, but then roll with it. We didn't know how some things were going to work out, but again, fairness was first, and we did our best.

The line started at 5am. Amazing. Uglydolls are popular.


This is a special cape made for the Uglydoll!



Mothman and the new monster for 2007.

Pinatas galore! There's 8 of them.

UGLYCON. Are you ready? It's been some time of planning, and now it's execution. Will we make it?! Yes we will... updates soon.

Sneak preview shots of GR2's Uglycon. See the pinata in the background? That's David on top of the ladder.

Check out that Uglyworm. See a bunch more below!

Pinatas are cool. I dunno what the heck character that is on the right.

Susie Ghahremani's Bird Call show ended this week. It was a blast. Great work, meticulous paintings, and overall, an insane show. Before the birds had to get painted over, I took a bunch of pics. It was nice to have birds all over the shop.

I like this last shot, the sun's getting low, there's a couple of birds, the legs of a robot and our logo...

Adding this article... seems like it gives a lot of insight that I haven't read elsewhere.

So what are the do's and don't of surviving in the cold?
I have no idea, but maybe here's some things I learned just from watching the news.

1) Burn tires - you might not think about that, but yes burn em. Burn anything you can. But maybe burn em during the day. I'm not sure what the Kim's did, but I'm pretty sure rubber gives out some dark smoke. I've once burned some paper in a backyard, just a little of it, and black smoke rose in a fury.

2) Stay with the car - It's all hindsight, and who knows who desperate they felt. James is a brave dude with stones of steel. 8 miles in the cold. That's a tough guy. If you go, I guess you need to be superwarm and will need lots of water for sure. It seemed the news talked a lot about him not having a hat and gloves. Only go if you have a hat. I guess you do have to think about where you're gonna sleep too if you're hiking away.

3) If you do hike away, I guess you need to leave markers so you can find your way back. If it snows, then the terrain will look different in a hurry. This is all sounding difficult as I explain it. I'm not sure if I could do this myself... But in a pinch, even what seemed like a guy who couldn't do it, did it and worked his way through tough terrain.

4) I remember the hunger strike at UCLA, they drank water but no food, I think they went a couple of weeks and I happened to know one guy who said he had no permanent damage to his body.

5) Cell phone. I guess even if there's no signal, try making calls, it seems like it reaches a tower anyway. That's how they started locating the Kim's. Keep that cellphone going. Maybe try it once a day maybe twice. Who knew!? The weird thing is how did the folks flying at 500mph way up in the air in a hijacked plane make a bunch of calls? But you can't get a cell in rural Oregon. Cellphone technology is confusing.

6) Use the mirrors from your cars to reflect light.

7) I'm not sure if starting a forest fire is a good idea, it's probably a terrible one, but I think people have done this before when they were lost.

8) Stay on the road? Who knows why Mr Kim left the road, maybe he had to... but try to stay on the road.

9) Maybe tell folks where you intend to go. What roads etc. Trusting online maps, might not be a good idea. I heard the road they took was a logging road. It seemed that not one car went in that path for the week. That's insane. It's hard to suggest everyone spend money on GPS, but it's a way to go.

Thinking about this is depressing, and although I almost feel like this has become a list of what he should have done, who knows, maybe it'll help just one person. If you have other tips, go ahead and comment.

Dogs need blankets and towels. Have any? Here's an online flyer by one of our friends/copy editor Kim Okamura.

James Kim. I've been following this for days, and, although reports are sort of odd at times, since some reports have said he was alive on tuesday and made direct contact with him, etc... The finality is that he's no longer with us. I was happy when they found his wife and two kids fine on monday, but as the days have gone by, it started to get more and more grim. I think aside from feeling bad for the family. I think this event which made big news across all media companies, maybe served as a learning tool. As a reporter for CNET, maybe that's how he'd want this viewed.

Back to the WUNDERGROUND post... here's some help as to who made what...


Mat made the giant green monster, Jim Drain recontextualized the authentic totem pole, Xander made a giant castle with bells and diaramas, Erin Rosenthal made the volcano sputtering out deep sounds and fluttering images , Leif made the guy waking from a cryogenic freeze to a turbulant animation, Brian Chippendale made a vibrantly decorated shack, Jung Hong made the floating orb of sewn together grocery bags with a terrarium hanging within, and Pippi Zornosa carved the signage and real snakeskin lamps.

Thanks Leif Goldberg for the help.

20 songs that influenced Kurdt Cobain at stereogum. I'm not sure if he would really be into More than a Feeling by Boston, but Sonic Youth yes... But Kool Thing? Maybe. I'm sure he would have listed many other songs before Kool Thing. The Knack? Not sure aobut My Sharona either. Where's anything by Beat Happening? Since he's from the NW, The Sonics?! This can go on for days.

Oinkster. Eagle Rock, again...

Those are Belgian fries. I liked the slaw... chicken was chicken.

The serf!

Lego my Eggo. These are the shit, now only if I had some.

This dude, Eddie was an intern of ours for a bit. He's a total nice guy who lives in Brooklyn. I remember we played tennis one day..

Kehinde Wiley had a couple of pieces at Roberts and Tilton, and he's the same dude who rocked the billboard above Undefeated on La Brea.

Ai Yamaguchi art

Whoa dog!

Amber from 4x4 and Aaron Rose (he curates the billboard project)

Surfers

BxAxC

Whoa, time warp. That's Tony Pierson on the right. That's his wife, and I suck for not remembering her name. Tony is a friend of mine from high school! I seldom meet high school friends and it's great to see Tony (on a side note some of Roberts and Tilton's staff went to my high school as well. But they were class of '02. It's fun talking about it since I don't very often.) he's a great guy and played in bands, and does photo among many talents. It's nice to see him and his wife.

This is a huge toy. It's actually a mannequin by David Choe and this makes his toy adventure story complete. He wanted to make a toy, and went huge. I have this naked being in my living room, and it freaks out guests all the time.

Nearly the antithesis of Barry McGee is David Choe, this is his toy released by Ningyoushi and Upperplayground as part of the Bay area crew. It's 4 figures, Choe, J Fish, Ortho, and Sam Flores. The figures are neat, tightly done, and really cool. We'll be getting them any day, and these will be nice stocking stuffers. The Choe figure is a little small, but really retains his coloring and look. I'm impressed and finally there's a small Choe figure. He already made a figure bigger than everyone else's...

Barry Mcgee showing at Roberts and Tilton. Installing was fun. No matter what Barry does, it's always like magic. The opening is tonite, we're tired.

Skulpy Kidz meeting
We decided who were today. It was a great day for clay.

I'm the King.

He's the Emperor

She's the Dictator.

Anyone else who joins begins at a serf level. You might be able to graduate to jester level where we'll throw you tiny pieces of clay, and with those you have to make something that makes us laugh. (this was the emperor's idea). For relaxing times, make it skulpy kids time.

Part of SxK time, is getting to see Eagle Rock and the surrounding areas. If there's time to get coffee, or food, I try and check something out. Last night it was Blue Hen. I didn't eat in, so I didn't take a photo of the eats. But click on the link, and you can read the Iron Chef of food writers, Jonathan Gold's review.

I ordered the curry. It's definitely a different type of curry, vegetables, maybe more towards indian but with much more grit, and thickness-but not as thick as Japanese style curry. It's more like how Japanese make Indian style curry as seen at roach in the food Blue Marlin on Sawtelle. I got the chicken, which was great. I chose brown rice, and it came with a tiny side of baby bok choy. This place advertises that they use organic ingredients and that's special. I wish them luck.