my plan

My goal for this paper is to dominate it with vivid words. I'm not a fan of boring and monotone papers, and the last thing I want is to be guilty of that. I know there are some parts in my paper where i am caught in a pickle and I don't know how to avoid the "it's", but there is always a way to improve. I plan to do just that, and I hope that I'm not sizing myself up too much. the end.

bathroom?

You would think all of this grafitti would be on the side of a building, but these checkered walls filled with writing can be found in the upstairs bathroom of Randevouz Cafe. It's pretty random if you think about it. I'm there at least once a week smoking my night away with a friend or two, and when I walk into that bathroom I get smacked in the face with color. You get sucked into the colors of white and black along with the various shades of blue and those checkers. On the walls are your typical "Susan&Matt 4ever!!" markings, but there are also some pretty sweet things to feast your eyes on.
Walking into Randevouz's bathroom is like walking into another dimension, and every direction you turn you will find something interesting to look at. What's funny is that you can enjoy this when mother nature is calling.

Friday night movie.

I went to see Pan's Labyrinth at the State Theater on Friday, and I was prepared to spill countless tears of fear while hiding behind my hands. At least, that was what I was expecting to do. Instead of the movie being scary, it was more of a disturbing film with people getting bloody and girl who is involved in a fantasy world. Since I'm a pussy when it comes to anything bloody, a fourth of the time involved my friend saying "Ewwwww" while I was hiding behind my hands crying "Is it over yet?". When we weren't in one of our episodes, we were awkardly sitting in seats that were too close for comfort while munching away at a cheap bag of popcorn and chugging down a cold root beer (the only plus about State Theater is the cheaper snacks and tickets). The film was pretty good in an odd way. If you're into eery and bizarre films with a touch of gore, then put Pan's Labyrinth on your 'to do' list.

tunes for the town

Here are my song choices for Ann Arbor.....

1. Led Zeppilin, "Immigrant Song"- Ann Arbor is packed with diversity and one reason is because there are a whole lot of foreigners (including my parents). Walking through my neighborhood is like a trip around the world....no joke.

2. The Get Up Kids, "Anne Arbour" - Almost everytime I tell somebody I'm from Ann Arbor, this damn song gets brought up. So I felt obligated to sit down, download, and listen to the song. As the melody was being sucked into my ears I came to the conclusion that the song sucks, sorry Get Up Kids.


3. Snoop Dogg, " Gin and Juice" - you can roll, stroll, sit, or hide (if it's done right) down those streets of Ann Arbor getting cozy with some tree in hand. I've seen it too many to count, and even the cops seem pretty laid back about the whole thaaang. I have a story to prove it....

On a summer night, my buddy and I were sitting in the Diag and a group of people went behind a bush. So they're in their little pow wow smoking out and a cop comes by and lights a flashlight at them saying in a gruff voice, " What are you guys doing back here at night?" One guilty kid attempts to sound inoccent by saying, " We're doing nothing sir." It was obvious they were doing something, since you could see them passing the glowing bowl behind that small bush. Soooo, the cop stares down the young lad and his crew while responding, "Go do that somewhere else where I can't find you."


I'm not saying this will happen everytime, but that is one nice cop.

P.S Locals tell me that there is a 25 dollar penalty for getting caught smoking...crazzzzzy.


4. __________________<<<< place an afro drumbeat song here, or something super ethnic on those super ethnic CDs.

I'm not familiar with any artists in that catogory of music, but hopefully you got the idea. Basically Ann Arbor is a town filled with Urban Hippies or kids who think they are by wearing birkenstocks and their mexican blanket sweaters while jamming to Guster. Personally, I'm not a fan.


5. Cansei de Ser Sexy, " Alcohol" - The title explains it all. I've seen the drunken mess students create on a nice Friday night, and those great parties filled with beer that tastes like dog piss. Also there have been a random student or two passed out and sleeping in front of Backroom Pizza (off of South University) at 3 in the morning without a care in the world.


That's all that I can think of off the top of my head for now.....

The Getup

Saturday I had my interview with the owner of a vintage store called the Getup. The interview went well, but on my way home I had more questions I wanted to ask her so I'm going to have to hunt her down on Monday or Tuesday. To be honest, I don't know what my aim for the paper is yet. I have some ideas running through my mind, but none of them are good enough to write a paper on. My mind is numb from creativity, and this feeling sucks. The one weakness of my writing is that it takes me FOREVER to come up with something good. F-O-R-E-V-E-R. Time for me to sit back and brainstorm until I come up with something interesting.

sweet deal

A few days ago my friend took me to Kerrytown for lunch. I'm not too familiar with the area, so I put my faith in her picking out a place to eat. She lead me into a market that was packed with produce and reeked of fresh fish, and there were too many people in there for my comfort. For some reason I thought we were going to eat in there because near the back of the market is a corner dedicated to korean food, but my friend pulled me towards a door in the back. As we got out, we were walking down a narrow alley and she told me that a Japanese restaurant is here. This was hard to believe since the alley was ridiculously small and it is random location, but on my left side there was a door for a Japanese restaurant. As soon as we walked in a small plump woman in traditional Japanese attire welcomed us with her poor english and big smile. She shuffeled her feet towards us and handed us their lunch menu, that literally had 6 items. Not too much variety, but very cheap for a Japanese meal. We both ordered Udon, and the hostess quickly went to the back of the kitchen and became our chef. Not too long after we ordered, a nice tall and very full steaming cup of Udon came out of the kitchen. This amazing little woman told me that my total was $3.25, I gadly handed her my money and got busy with pleasing my stomach. Not only was the food good, but I got a big cup of udon with veggie tempura on top for the price of ONE roll of sushi. My friend knows how to satisfy my belly without killing my wallet , which gives her brownie points towards our friendship.

This logo and everything that it stands for is an interesting approach for Detroit. I feel that it would take some time to make Detroit "cool" and more approachable for a younger crowd. It seems like people who go to Detroit, go for a specific reason and not randomly. For exmaple, I know people who might go for the sake of a sports game, a party/club, and for the music. I have never recieved a phone call from someone saying " Do you want to walk around Detroit today?" and I never have had the urge to unless there is a music event going on.
I don't doubt that this new campaign for Detroit is a bad idea, but it will take a lot of work. I am curious to see just how long it will take to make Detroit a tourist city, and if people will actually give it a chance. All we can do is wait to see what happens!

Spring?!?

This weekend has probably been the coldest weekend of my life. It's zero degrees out, and somehow I survived walking around in this cruel weather. I'm surprised that I didn't freeze in place and look like a greek statue. It's that kind of cold where you're only out for a minute and somehow it feels like a whole lot of needles are jabbing at you. It's painfully cold out, and I wish I could have the power to generate massive amounts of heat so no one would freeze.
What's pretty odd is that early in the morning when I take my dog out, I hear the chirping of birds that you would normally listen to on a spring morning. So either these poor guys are confused because of the messed up winter we're having, or spring is on its way (which is a little hard to believe). Let's cross our fingers and hope that spring is coming, because MI winter is a jerk.

I