naked bike ride

quite a few people i know are doing the above. i'm not though i support why they're riding.

london & arundel

(above) supposed inside of arundel...

this past week, b&i went to london and checked out the science museum, chinatown, the crap oriental canteen place, buckingham palace, well... basically tons of tourist stuff. i'd been waiting for ben to come, because doing tourist stuff is way funner {yes, funner} when you have a bf around. oh yeah. kinda fun=by yourself, fun!=with a friend, funner=with a significant other. oh yeahh.
we hung out with the park and watched these boys practicing drink tricks, i suppose they were bartenders, but they were really good at juggling martini shakers etc, i hope they make good tips. oh man.
then come the night time, we got some snacks for the train, and went home to make cream cheese wontons and watch a nice romantic film... jurassic park. "oh yeah dog." (i've been saying that too much.)
then last weekend was kieron's birthday.. the big two one. and ben phillips & pia made a wicked amazing dragon birthday cake. covered with candies. and we went to "born bad" the 50s night at komedia club. pretty good! i got a lighter at the sunday market that looks like an OLD cell phone... pretty amazing. and funny. probably best buy in brighton.
then the other day, charlie brown, ben's past tour manager, and present friend, came down for the visit and we went to Arundel to see a castle that was way too expensive to go inside. that's fine though, plus it was a cop out because most of it was built in the 18th century. LAME. but it was really pretty & there was tons of wildlife to see. (see swan above, obviously.)
also, this weekend, marcroy smith & ben schauland decided to start a magazine called "amskat" amateur skating magazine. and i've been named the official photographer.. i might draw pictures too.

basically i need a fish-eye lens, to make good skate pics. obviously. but it is an amateur skating mag. ha!

ps some other pics are:
a store called "cyber candy" that sells american things, including the illegal "mountain dew"... because of bromine. look it up.
a plaque on the bathroom stall that scared the dickins out of me. really sketch.
low tide in littlehampton. ben's out there. we saw immigrants digging for muscles in the sand.
a "tv on the radio" at snooper's paradise. pretty good.
english countryside right outside brighton.
mannequins from an amazing AMAZING retro ragstock-type store in soho, london.
a scary "cleaning" machine in asda.. aka walmart. i don't know what i'd trust to clean in there.
me dancing at 50s night.
ahh!

BBQ

cook out at mine!

the first week of may

well ben got in on saturday... with luggage in one hand and luggage..HUGE KEYBOARD in the other. i felt bad for him having to lug that all the way to brighton. sheesh. but a musicians gotta do what a musicians gotta do, right? hmm
i photocopied tons of still remains things and plastered them all over my room to welcome ben like a true obsessive fan. i made some drawings of the faces of still remains and i kind of like them, seriously...
this weekend was really fun. there was a BBQ at our house this week and it was a reunion of the
"T-T-T-T-TRANSFER KIDS!"-rob.
that cookout was pretty great. funny. and mosty vegetarian. which is nice..
otherwise, the week has been full of making up for lost time or romanticness ♥
b & i made an amazing curry dinner, inspired by the long lost curry soups of britni west, last year in minneapolis.
other that those amazing times, we've been simply lounging on the beach, exchanging knowledge & overconsumption of ginger beers, as well as we've both been pretty ill this week. ugh. next week i think we might be going to jess's house in liverpool for her birthday!
oh yeah, that's our backyard, in the picture where ben's having lambrini. pretty nice eh?

A P R I L

i'm truly sorry i haven't updated this in a long time.. so here's what's happened..
not very much..
top left corner=kieron johnson. one of my housemates {i think he looks like poochie, a character from a certain cartoon hit television show.} he, this kid ben phillips, and i collaborated on a couple {like 9 or 10} big drawings together, by drawing on top of each other's work on huge A1 pieces of paper. it was pretty fun. we thought it was alright, but our tutor, paul burgess, simply LOVED the drawings. ha. he really wanted us to work together more in the future. i think that'd be dandy, and then we showed them to a rep from topman {a men's clothing portion of topshop, a uk teen clothing store} to see if they could use us in a placement this summer. i think that'd be really sweet to do an internship in the uk. but hm hmm i might be going to costa rica in june, it seems.. oh baby!
ok anyway, summer's coming fast/might already be here, and the beaches are filling up like a bucket of milk. or something.

we had a bonfire on the beach the other weekend, and it was really fun. kieron, ben, rob, me, and possibly trevor & ben formed a semi-elite club of sweet people called "transfer kids." i think kieron's gonna make tee's. awesome!
but yeah, tons of kids showed up to the bonfire, kieron kept getting burnt by "exploding stones." and when we left the fire, there were only kids we didn't know left, so we kicked all the rest of the wood & cardboard into the fire to make the fire huge! i thought we were going to scare away those stranger hippies but they stayed. and we left like totally too-cool-4-school dudes. well, we collected the wood, so we could be jerks and kick it all in the fire. yeah!
ok. i'll post a recent post now...

london with g&a pt 2

well, i went to london with george & aurelia..again. the first time was in january when i went with aurelia and met up with robert, george, and sam. this time we still met up with robert, and it was pretty fun {although was in a totally "chill" mood all night, meh} we went to the science museum & i took pictures of some of my favorite things, including: a motorized tricycle, crash test dummies, a japanese car from the 60s, chandelier made of bic ballpoint pens, & a collection of things about tobacco haha. basically the smokers toothpaste, which i saw yesterday at asda {walmart} weird... anyway.
{the other picture is of our house's growing collection of vhs's} recently added: ghostbusters, jurassic park, labyrinth, big, alien, and back to the future. heh we can't remember. ha
anyway,
whilst i was in london last tuesday, i got a white frilly dress at a vintage store for a pretty fair price and i plan on wearing it on the beach in may! yess. {speaking of, it snowed here yesterday.. april 2 and snow? they apparently never get snow here and when i woke up i saw people walking around outside with umbrellas to shield themselves from the snow. i laughed.
the last two pics are of me and aurelia at an east end london pub with pretty lighting.
hmmm.
trendy? yes, it was.
end.

mandy pt 2

hey! sorry for the lack of updation but here's the "part II" of the mandy journey. we had tons of fun on brighton beach, including iced cream cones on the pier. we went to a really good place for burgers called "gourmet burger kitchem," which i definitely would visit again. the burger i got had bacon & avocado on it. and they made their own ketchup.. with diced tomatoes..and it was so sweet tasting. wow. i had like 2 dinners off of that burger. yikes!
then we decided to hop a train and visit lewes castle. it was really small {i took a picture of the gate of it.. see top} and we found a door to what looked like a 'secret garden' but it was just private property. we also frequented the open market for some cheap fresh vegs & watched a few sunsets on the pier. aww muy romantico.

the next day {the saturday before she left} we took ANOTHER train to Dover to see the castle used in the film "the other boleyn girl" and it was amazing. so huge! really windy inside probably because it was on top of a hill. i'm not sure how royal women kept their hair decent. sheesh! i like the picture of mandy with the castle. show's how huge it is. i liked the view from the top. noice.
some other pics: mandy in my room. the "clown car" police car. ahaa. makes me wanna be arrested. xx

this blog business is becoming quite tedious. especially with the recently loss of my free home internet. heh so the posts might be a bit further apart. mandy's last day here. i'm off! x

M A N D Y I S H E R E

ok so mandy came here on tuesday of last week... 19 march. perfect. and it's really eased a lot of crap feelings of homesickness i've been having. sheesh!
for the most part, we've been chillin' in brightown. but on saturday we ventured into london to view some galleries and see the sights. mainly featured here: sights. hah.
when she first got here, we went for a long walk around brighton, i showed her a bit of the pier & beach. they're building/repairing a carousel on the beach & i liked how the plastic horses were just sitting in mid-gallop on the beach pavement. looked like they were trying to make a run for it but were frozen in time, by clockstoppers to be captured and put back on the wheel, which carried them forever in circles for children to laugh and ride on their backs.
enough poetry. enough references to beyond amazingly brilliant films about teenagers stopping time to kiss their crushes and rule the school. btw check out that quality film, if you have no idea what i'm talking about. "clockstoppers." classic.
also, we got kindereggs. (glorious chocolate eggs, hollowed out with toys inside. she has one in her mouth. it was gross. so i put it on here. obviously. why not?
if you've been reading this {mom ha} there's the mural that is now finished. i watched the dudes makin' it earlier this month. and they put a 'lil mickey in there, probably not my choice of character. but yes. 'tis finished. hmm.
mandy riding a horse video game. and mandy's veiny wrinkly feet. another semi-gross thing i put in here to possibly embarrass her later haha.
i like property lines that are made with paint. highlights of england.

saturday in london:
big ben, london bridge, that church from mary poppins where the pigeon lady feeds the birdzz. the white cube: a gallery that literally was a white cube in the middle of a parking lot alley...
oh and some goodies. a funny ice cream truck that i had a good laugh with, and i have no idea what was going on at buckingham palace.. i feel bad.. but we joined in with the picture-takin' as well. i saw soldiers & police on horses & marching & obviously tons of people. hmmm. interesante.
now i'm sitting on the couch, mandy's playin' la guitara upstairs and i think we're going to the beach to watch the sunset.

Ps crazy, we got back from london on saturday night & it had snowed in brighton!! noooo..

16 march | a quiet weekend

alright.. this weekend:
on friday i got done with school after getting an assignment to submit something for the YCN london live briefs.
{click on the pictures to see the site}
then i went with kieron to see his friend who was hanging out down the alley from our house with a pretty famous graffiti artist who was commissioned to do a mural for a wall next to the laines {main shopping area}. i watched for a bit then went home to research for the briefs. i want to get them done before mandy arrives on tuesday. we're only supposed to submit one,
but i think i'm going to do three. yikes.
ANYWAY, this week was carmen's birthday and she got some lovely white roses from her mom.
i think we counted 28 roses. which is a weird number for a bouquet i think. hm.
saturday, i ventured through a windy rainy 15 min walk to sainsbury's to pick up some food. i've been craving chinese food. but they don't have general tso's chicken here {an american classic} so i made my own! i've never fried anything before.. or actually... steamed broccoli, it's a sad story i know. well, broccoli isn't really my favorite veg, so there. i'm a carrot person.
and a human.

anyway i was so excited last night that i could make general tso's from scratch, because at the supermarket,
i couldn't even find all the right ingredients, and the recipe i found was an american one, that relied on measurements of "cups" etc, so i had to eye up everything, because they don't have "cups" in the UK. i think i'm making mandy bring me some hehe.
they cook by scales here. in grams.
i bought a bunch of clementines for really cheap too.
and they sit prettily on my desk right now. makes me happy on these grey rainy days.
i woke up randomly at 6am this morning and took a picture of my room in the early daylight.
so i thought i'd put that in there too.
the other pics on here are of my coffee maker and perfect breakfast sandwich that i had this morning.
and aurelia's poster she screenprinted for the "homemade haircut club" in which she used me as an example.
"makin' an example of me" hm.

it's not an official club, although it should be. ♥
Ps one of the briefs i'm doing is for a new eco-friendly shopping bag for sainsbury's

tom is a swede

this week i went to the "second-hand superstore" which is simply a rummage sale in a church, with a very alluring title. it was a 20 minute bus ride and after we got off the bus, while walking up a hill, we saw some llamas & a really shaggy horse.
at the church, there was tons of really cool records, and some nice books. i got 3. a children's book all about music.. with a mean picture of ludwig van beethoven. and i also got a very english jane austen book, and a book from the 50s on being a good wife. ha. my main purchase was an old table to use as a desk, for a mere ￡5. amazing. and then my little deskie rode the bus with me back to brighton. some ladies on the bus told me i should've brought tea to serve on it. hehe. now it's in a little window nook in my bedroom. {i saw a nice cot mattress at the superstore too but i didn't get it. i thought it was pretty}

also, yesterday i received a package from my friend mandy {who's visiting me on monday..yesss} it had yummy things in it and was also filled with wrappers & trash. i thought that was funny. then, last night i went to a photography/sculpture art opening at my school (where i saw some flowers growing in a plywood box}. and went to henrietta's house to hang out before the after party. at the after party i saw pia and she got some fish i guess. it was too loud to hear the story, but they were interesting looking tiny fishies. we danced the night away and then i went to sweet sweet sleep. good time.


{real one}

this is really nice.
my friend tom sweded "the dark knight" trailer. brilliant.
in one night. a whole trailer. seriously.
yesterday i saw the movie "be kind, rewind" and it made me cry a little.

my new house

i purchased this with my loan money.

2 march

it was a good day today, followed by one of the most horrible evenings i've ever had in my life.
earlier today though, i went with my roomate kieron for a walk down the laines of brighton, on our way to the open market for some fresh vegetables. we saw a plywood house that was a camera obscura.. and we got organic ginger beers and checked out the camera. inside.. there was a lens, with a wheel you could spin to face the camera/lens a certain way, and then using little discs you could get the imagery of people walking down the street, live, into focus. amazing.
i want to build one in our backyard and be a peeping tom. ha.
then we got to the open market after awhile's walk, and i got oranges for 60p and he got tons of veggies and a bit of ginger for about a pound.
then we just bummed around a few charity shops on our way home. went by sainsburys and bought more jamaican ginger beer. ginger beer is soooo much better than ginger ale. i was talking to a friend in iraq and he told me that ginger ale was supposed to be like ginger beer but it went terribly wrong. i agree.
tonight i'm watching the top 100 sexiest people with some girl friends, and it's been a pretty good day, except a heartbreaking email i received. it was the worst. but i will jsut be selfish for awhile and everything should turn out alright.
ps if you wanna learn more about camera obscura. click the first pic.

the other pics are of a really tall church in the middle of town, you can see the tiny seats at the bottom of the pic, and also the street musicians on stilts. i felt like i was at a carnival today.
also old buildings & ribbons at the open market.

gothenburg & stockholm, sweden

hey this is gothenburg & stockholm sweden combined.
for the record, gothenburg was way more pretty than stockholm. but i think it's because that's the areas that our feet carried us to, so it might not be comparable. except some swedes told us too, that gothenburg was prettier than stockholm.
the first picture is of what i thought looked like a pretty amazing pop-eye boat. back to back with a mini captain hook ship in gothenburg, also in gothenburg was some pretty good cappuccino's that me and ben had at this hidden away coffee shop called "it" and the walls of "it" were made of stone and we drank our coffees in an outside hallway that had bar type seating against the wall.
the rest of the photos are from stockholm...
another cup of coffee at a hidden away place in the poshy soho area of stockholm. the place was hidden because inside it looked like grandma's attic. 3 levels of antique wallpaper, frilly aprons, old photographs & paintings, gilded mirrors, floral upholstered old furniture, & gaudy laced lampshades. perfect. everything was found, and it really felt like grandma's house.
gloves on a fence. that's for ben.
a palace looking place complete with swedish flag.
ben's american apparel pics... yeah man! tj's hand adorned with the tattoo yeah man!
bicycle pump in the middle of the square. with futuristic blinky lights. hah.
end of tour pic.
oh, and a cracker assortment i saw at the supermarket.
yeah, i know i'm not talking much about sweden, it really wasn't all i hoped it would be. ben & i went to the diesel store, and i saw a wicked looking urban outfitters. otherwise... meh. totally high class. the part of stockholm we ended up in.

copenhagen, denmark

the danes have been good to us today & yesterday.
yesterday ben & i walked around the city. there's tons of touristy things here and it's really funny. i see lots of american references and things around the towns & i like takin' pics of 'em. like clint eastwood in front of "rosie mcgees" western pop culture restaurant.
we stopped by "ripley's believe-it-or-not" and looked around. it was so creepy & weird. so we left. then we saw a few thrift shops & the MOST bicycles ever. we wondered about how they couldn't be stolen, because almost none of them were locked to a bike rack. just parked. but then today we realized that they just lock the back tire. so you can't move without breaking all the spokes.

we went to an all-you-can eat pizza place. italian food, indian music, french parisian posters on the walls, & 2 americans dining in denmark. really mixed culture.
apparently we were right next to the denmark "red light" district, but we didn't know it.
then we went to see the film "cloverfield" at the cinema for 80krones each.
oh, we also got some really good coffee downtown, they took euros there so i got to empty my pockets or foreign currency.
today we drove 2km further into town & ben and i walked around town some more, went to a music store and another thrift shop. we stopped in the skate park to watch some little kids skateboarding, that was cool. i saw other little kids chasing pigeons around in front of a fountain. amazing. i definitely got that on my camera.
an old woman stopped ben on the street for him to autograph a printed out copy of a band photo. it was really funny. but she knew immediately that he was from the band and we weren't even near the venue.

in the photos:
ben looking at bikes
more bikes
me drinking a german capri-sun
weird gargoyle
HUGE recycling bin
theater candy, that one picture is NOT set to b&w. they have really cool candy here. and tons of it.
{also in the theater was a billion chandeliers hanging from the ceiling by red ribbons}
funniest slogan i've seen in a while to be broadcast so big on a building
signs from "rosie mcgees"
station wagon mercedes. someday to be b&i's
capital, town square of copenhagen.. times square? ha. {complete with mostly american fast food light-up signs}

oh you. oh scandinavia.
tomorrow, sweden... my dreams come true.

germany #2

hey, this is hamburg.
ben & i got up early and walked around town. we saw some weird statues and then went down to the "red light district" area. it's just something you have to see when you're in hamburg. and it was crazy. well not so much during the day.
i've been taking videos of my walking around europe, just little bits & pieces... and i captured {on video} some bums sleeping on the sidewalk today. that was interesting. some other hobos left their mangy dogs on the street to beg. they looked sad. i wish i had some money to give them. but maybe they were just streetwalkers. or streetsleepers. hah. ben likes the beer in germany simply because the bottles have anchors on them. i think they're pretty too.
some of the pictures on here are of the dogs, astra beer, the marking of my friendship with jordan whelan. it was breakthrough.
graffiti. germany has the best muraled graffiti in the world probably. makes other gangs jealous.
"hella naturell" water, that struck me in a funny way.
coca-cola light, essentially diet coke. but they don't have diets in europe. just light people.
lady liberty=apparently sex in hamburg.
a crazy yellow bicycle that ben said he saw last time he was in hamburg, in november. in the same place.
ben & i in mirrors, of a strip-joint i think.
bullet for my valentine's "table of rock 'n roll sin" {there was a bowl of cereal with ash in it hah}
me, eating a hamburger in hamburg.
mike church, or still remains, singing karaoke in a local "metal bar"
cool looking cabaret advert
exit sign. nice.

weisbaden, germany

i really like a lot of the venues that i've gotten to see so far in europe. this one was in an old train station. in the middle of a railyard. i believe they had an artist collective come in & do graffiti on the outside walls of the venue. talented people. the photo in the upper right corner shows the different artist's work on the exterior a bit.
everything that i saw was really rusted & shabby but then brightly colored. there was an old church/factory that i liked a lot. ben tried a little to break in, but then we decided not to because there were probably heroine shooters in there. also, everywhere on the ground was trash. i felt really punk & metalcore. if i were to see a metal show, i'd want to see it here i think.

above, this is what i took pictures of:
cool bike
bottle of coca-cola. my favourite.
artist collective/advert {i don't remember the name of it}
just a little part of the colorful walls of the exterior of this place
rusted spray paint cans attached to the wall
bus in back
ben holding the coke
church/factory & sculptures of weird animals, i think
train passing, some kind of cotton blossoms
a wall with a painting of people in the 40s, {from a 3-walled structure covered in murals} -there were tons of murals.
art everywhere.

belgium

the trees here have nubs.

the show was probably one of the best still remains shows i've seen.
50 kids.
instead of it being awkward like i assumed it would be..tj invited everyone on stage & it turned out to be a huge party conveniently on steve's birthday/valentine's day.
it was partially about the music & partially about watching all of the girls & boys make out with each other.
the first girl invited on stage was i think 13 years old and she could definitely captivate her audience with the most scandalous dancing i've seen in a long time. gemma & i laughed really hard and then i ran on stage and kissed ben. probably one of my dreams for a long time. also, i pressed the highest note on his keyboard during a song. another one of my devious dreams.

i really liked tonight.

ps some of the cream-of-the-crop of belguim: breakfast park. b & i's future dream home, just needs some windows and cleaning up a bit, traffic signs to refreshment, disco ball, i thought the front of house was really cool inside..brightly painted still remains posters up. i stole one.

13 feb continued

Best Show to Date: Paris.

vive la paris!

13 feb
spent in paris. yeah!
now, is when i go through each picture and tell you what went on during them. great. eh? ok.
1. i flew air france {half hour flight} and took the subway {2 hours} to meet up with ben and still remains at Eurodisney. i couldn't understand how to navigate the subway, i had one switch to make and i couldn't read anything, {in french} luckily a man with great pantomiming skills helped me board the right train. hah
new additions to the band: Princess "Sleeping Beauty" Aurora & Prince "Charming" Charming.
it's funny because when i got off the train i went with ben to get something to eat and we went to a restaurant with Ol' Texas music playing. live band. oh the twang.
2. this morning, ben & i got up really early.. 9am ha. and walked around. we found these great statues... all over the place. and then we later found out we were in the Louvre park.
3. Still Remains on the marquee for the Olympia. you may remember this venue from such videos as sid vicious "my way" and many serge gainsbourg performances. founded by the same dude as the Moulin Rouge.
4. some jackasses in the park. i'm serious.
5. french sandwiches! baguettes! baguettes! baguettes!
6. Le Opera. beautiful. gold statues.
7. far away eiffel tower. too far to walk.
8. arches in from of the louvre. more gold statues. on top.
9. ben with the Louvre on a platter.
10. the moulin rouge. there was a really creepy bar across the street from it to the right and there were gross pictures of girls with.. well.. it was just disgusting. i threw up a bit. but inside the Moulin Rouge, was those crazy pictures, where if you look from one direction, everyone was posed in clothes and as you walked by, it changed to another picture where the same people were posed the same but naked. it was really funny.
11. a lady statue. she was pretty.
12. perfumes on the street next to a shop. unguarded. yesss.
13. map of where we are. the louvre.
14. inside the louvre. tons, and i mean TONS. of rock in there.
15. ben and i being risque in front of the moulin rouge. yeah.
16. nicely placed labyrinth. in paris, you have to walk through them all the time in order to cross the street. it's true.....JUST KIDDING. HAHhaha. gotcha.
17. ben very frenchly having a cappuccino across the street from the red windmill. haw haw haw.
18. street musician with a cat & birds, and a crank wound music box. perfect.

19. rent-a-bikes
20. us having beautiful coffee on our 2 year dating anniv. amazing.

currently listening:
"Paris Paris" by TTC
album: 3615 TTC
2006, french hip-hop