Drink a large coffee right before bed. Once the placebo effect of having just drank a large coffee wears off, you have a bit under 4 hours until the caffeine actually hits yourself and sends you flying out of bed at breakneck speeds.

It’s actually kinda nice.

The downside to laser cutting is that if you want undercuts, you basically have to create them as separate pieces and then laminate them together. The upside is that they look, and are, awesome.

Last leg of cutting is scheduled for tomorrow. Then I just have to cut the threaded rods down length and assemble.

“The secret to success is being able to make mistakes faster” – Stuart McFarlan <- yes

…wow. Did you watch that? I just watched that. Wow.

…ok, some of the cgi is a bit iffy, but the video in general, it’s just great. I really like the use of mixed timelines. <3

Chicken + asparagus + parmesan + ground salt and pepper pistachios = great on pasta. (Sorry, no pictures tonight.)

It’s been a while since I’ve given a project update here. In part because I’ve been really busy (1 job, 2 internships, and school) but mostly because I’m trying to find a way to tell you all about my progress / what I’m doing without giving away the ending.

I don’t think I’m risking too much with this update, so here it goes.

The project I’ve been working on involves a lot of both large and small scale work. The small scale stuff requires a lot of parts to be fabricated. This gave me an excuse to design stuff to be made on the laser cutter we have in the building here.

Last week I cut some test pieces:

Which I then assembled into a 3d form so they can serve their purpose of joining threaded rod at perfect 90 degree angles.

Eventually I’m going to cut a few more of these (with modifications made, this is a learning experience.) and eventually wind up with this:

For now though I’ve gotta say, lasers are just awesome.

Goodby , Silverstein & Partners has come out with a series of wonderful ads for Frito-Lays, just in time for Valentines day.

My favorite of these is definitely Fire Sprite, which features a cute little flame burning everyone it tries to get close to (we’ve all be in that relationship, right?) There does seem to be a bit of a non-sequitor between the animations and frito-lays chips and dip, but they’re so cute and wonderful that I’ll forgive it.

In addition to these wonderful ad-spots, they also rolled out an accompanying webpage: madeforeachother.com. It takes forever to load, but it’s really fun to explore.

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners really has a wonderful use of texture as color that is evident in all their animations, as well as in the webpage.

And now, for your enjoyment: some of the couples you can pair up on madeforeachother.com

Just to show a few…

O.L.S.G.P. stands for Onions, Leeks, Sausage, Garlic and Parmesan. I know, clever title for this recipe, oh well.

I’ve been working a lot lately, and earlier in the week things got truly desperate as I found myself to be down to just some pasta, a bag of onions, and a bag of pre-grated parmesan (and a few other things, but nothing else that could potentially be combined).

At the time I was also sick, and I wasn’t about to go to the store anytime soon.

So I sliced the onions really thin, caramelized them with some garlic, boiled the pasta, and threw on some cheese. Cheap, quick, easy, edible.

Today I finally went and hit up the store, and I came back to this recipe. Deciding I wanted to expand on it some, I got some leeks, italian sausage, and a block of parmesan.

The onion is still the star of this recipe though, so there’s a good bit of onion.

Here’s the recipe:

1 package italian sausage
2 onions
2 leeks
8 cloves of garlic
Half a box of angel hair pasta
Block of parmesan.

Put a big pan over medium heat. Brown and drain your sausage. (If it is in a skin, remove it from the skin.) Remove the sausage from the pan, and set aside.

Reduce the pan to medium-low heat. Slice your onions and leeks really thin and throw them into the pan. Don’t touch them! Let them sit for a little bit and start to caramelize and brown. Don’t let them sit too long though, or they’ll start to burn.

While the onions and leeks are caramelizing, chop your garlic. By the time you finish doing this should probably be a good time to toss the onions for the first time. Add the garlic at this point.

While this is cooking, boil some water and cook up your pasta. I did a half a box, but really how much you make is up to you.

Toss the onions every so often to prevent burning. Once they’re all brown and soft, and the garlic is soft, you’re pretty much done. Drain your pasta, toss it with the onions, leeks, sausage and garlic and serve. Grate parmesan on top.

I got some free chairs off craigslist. All but one of them needed repair (dowel replacement). A bag of ribbed joining dowels cost me $1.99, so effectively I spent 50 cents a chair. HURRAY!

I still have to fix the last one, but once I do I’ll have 2 pairs of matching chairs.

I finally have a place to sit at my table.