Viva la taco trucks
One of the things i love about living in LA is the taco trucks. ALOT of people i know wont eat from one in fear of getting sick but no matter how much i try to convince them that they are the best mexican food you will ever have they don’t believe me, oh well their loss. Today i got a craving for a burrito from the taco truck down the street from my house called Tacos El Gallito (check it out on yelp). I got a asada burrito and asada quadadillo to save for lunch tomorrow. If you have never eaten at a taco truck, do yourself a favor and get a taco from one next time you see one.
If you’re as much of a fan of the taco trucks check out this site; http://saveourtacotrucks.org/
Hope Rides Again
Yesterday near my work in Hermosa Beach people from the Livestrong movement were doing a really cool sidewalk chalk illustration and handing out boxes of yellow chalk encouraging people to write or draw a statement of intent, encouragement & inspiration for friends & loved ones fighting a battle with cancer & then take a picture and upload it to wearyellow.com. I’ve been a big Livestrong supporter for sometime and wear the yellow rubber bracelet every day so this was really cool to see in person.
Scene Royalty?
I was looking at some stats for the site today and noticed one of the top searches is “Ian Monsta” so i figured i’d google it and see what came up, nothing spectacular mostly blog and message board posts where i use that name but one link stood out.
http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=6262850410
It looks like it is a fan page and not actually ran by Michelle but i found this funny.
“the greatest photographer everr.
with the scene royalties of..
Audrey Kitching
Kristyn Strange
Sabina Kelley
Jussi
Jenn
Mandy Murders
Ian Monsta
and so forth.”
Flattering to be mentioned with those names but way off base, ha.
Also there is a photo section called “The Stunners” and these photos are in there, i’m sure they are more for Mandy but still funny.
Raptors Ahead, Caution
So looks like someone in Indiana decided to pay homage to the Zombie roadsign hack and warn motorists about Raptors ahead.
http://www.theindychannel.com/news/18620871/detail.html#
Will this become a common hack? My guess is yes being it seems relatively easy and well, is hilarious
Japanese rockabilly pirate zombies in downtown LA
Last night i headed up the freeway to hang out with Jason & Kelly in their hood. We grabbed some pizza at Rocket Pizza which is directly below their loft, talk about convenience, and then Dhanai & a couple of his friends met up and we all headed to this rad bar called the Redwood.
Inside looked exactly like a pirate ship, pretty sweet, and had a huge rockabilly crowd. The best part was this movie they had on the tvs which i googled on the handy iPhone and found out is called Wild Zero, basically its a Japanese zombie b-movie with a rockabilly band from outer space (from what i gathered, there was no sound), i think i’m gonna have to rent it. As we were leaving some chick was trying to get us to stay to watch her husbands band and offered to buy us a round but nobody but me wanted to stick around, turns out it was Levi Dexter who is a pretty well known rockabilly artists and she was Bernie Dexter who is a well known pinup model who looks a lot like Bettie Page.
After that we headed to Bar 107 for a little bit, grabbed some more Rocket Pizza and called it a night.
I also took out my stitches yesterday, so far its not looking too bad.
The Kings played in Montreal today and was quite possibly the worst reffing i’ve ever witnessed in a game. The next 24 of 36 games are on the road and they are currently on the outside looking in on the playoffs by a few points, they’ve been playing great lately and might have a chance to sneak into the playoffs, here’s hoping.
Battle Wounds
So, Thursday night 5 minutes into the championship game of my adult hockey league i play in i had a little accident and got cut pretty bad on my face by a skate. I ended up in the ER till 1 a.m. and came out with 22 stitches, not fun. Below are some pictures. Whats funny is at no point from the wound to waiting in the ER for 3 hours to getting all the stitches did i feel any pain, just goes to show how sharp and cold ice hockey skates are. I’m definately not looking forward to getting the bill since im uninsured and more so not stoked on the scar im undoubtedly going to have, oh well at least i’ll have a cool sailors scar in the words of Colin.
New year means new design
So i recently upgraded the backend of the site to Wordpress 2.7 and have been messing with a new design for a little bit as well, well now it’s up. Nothing special, it’s pretty simple but i like it. I might still mess with the colors a little bit though.
After 6 months of my phone reception gradually getting worse in my house i finally made the decision to leave T-Mobile and go to At&t, i decided to go with the iPhone and anybody who really knows me or spends a decent amount of time with me will find humor in this because of how much shit i have talked about “scene” phones, iPhones and Mac’s over the years and now i am a 100% Mac user. I’m still getting used to and even though im not a huge fan of being accessable weither im at a computer or not i’m starting to really like alot of the features.
Maybe i’ll do a post of my favorite Apps during the week or something.
My current top 10 Mac Apps
So since i made the switch from PC to Mac i’ve discovered a whole word of simple apps and i figured i’d share some of them. These are in no particular order and some even cross over to PC.
Gmail Notifier – If you have Gmail and you dont use this app you need to get it now, instantly be notified when a new email comes in from a small menu bar icon. The great thing about the Mac version over the PC version is there is alot more options from the menu bar icon, such as composing mail.
$: free. Download: http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/notifier_mac.html
Awaken – It’s simple but probably my personal favorite app. Ever get sick of the same annoying buzzer of the alarm clock? Me too. With awaken you can wake up to any song or video on your mac and it’s quite a bit cheaper than buying an iPod alarm clock.
$: 12.95. Download: http://embraceware.com/software/awaken/
Simplify Media – Amazing is all i have to say about this one, it works on Mac & PC and even on the iPhone. Have your friends install this program, add each other to your friends lists and be able to stream their entire itunes library. Have more than 1 computer but not the same librarys on each one? No Problem, just install this on each comp and be able to stream from any of your accounts. The only catch is the computer with library you want to connect has to be on so if youre like me and have your laptop closed when you’re not using it you can’t connect to it. Add me to your friends list – username: vanitydesignstudios.
$: Free. Download: http://www.simplifymedia.com/
Caffeine – Easily the smallest and simplest app on this list. Ever try watching a movie or a long video and have to keep moving your mouse every couple minutes to keep your screen saver popping up or your mac going to sleep? Click the little coffee cup and it disables sleep and screen savers till you click it off.
$:Free. Download: http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/
Djay – Turn your Mac into a full blown DJ setup using all your songs from iTunes — ready to rock your next party. Setup a playlist in iTunes, mix the tracks in Djay & save it all as a mp3. Definately a fun app.
$: 49.99. Download: http://www.djay-software.com/
TubiTunes – Save & convert videos from the web to your computer.
$: €4.95. Download: http://www.manytricks.com/tubitunes/
Linotype FontExplorer X – Easily the best way to manage your collections of thousands of fonts.
$: Free. Download: http://www.linotype.com/fontexplorerX
Mac The Ripper – Use w/ Toast 8 to backup all your DVD’s.
$: Free. Download: http://www.mactheripper.org/
TuneAid – Backup and transfer your iPod. Also available for PC
$: Free. Download: http://www.digidna.net/tuneaid/
NewsFire – My personal favorite Rss Reader.
$: Free. Download: http://www.newsfirerss.com/
Malus Artist Spotlight
So i’ve been lucky enough to be asked to be the first artist to be featured on a new section the Malus Clothing website, peep it out here http://buymalus.com/as_ir.php. I want to thank my dear friend Jason Mageau who is the owner and sole designer for giving me the honor of being the first artist to be featured.
In other news i recently redesigned by friend Talia’s photography myspace page, so check that out here – Krewtography.
Hopefully by mid week ill be making a set of Photoshop brushes that ive been working on available for download, so keep checking back for those or you can subscribe via RSS to receive automatic updates.
TWLOHA Hoodie
About 8 months ago i did some designs for all over print reversible hoodies for the non profit organization To Write Love On Here Arms and they printed one of them in a black color, anyhow i was cruising around the internet and found a new white colorway available in their online store so i figured i would post the link for anyone who might be interested.
Purchase Here: http://www.zambooie.com/twloha/Detail.tpl?cart=121833717123346295&st_id=234&sku=TWLSEHOOD102
Experimenting w/ HDR
So i’ve finally decided to try to dive into the world of HDR photography. I had tried it before but after not getting a decent result got discouraged, but today i read a new tutorial by Abduzeedo that resparked my interest. With that said here’s my first attempt at HDR photography, im fairly happy with the result, this weekend im going to try and go shoot some stuff specifically to play around with HDR. The image used was from a trip some friends and i took to the Mammoth Hot Springs in the winter of 2006 during a snowboarding trip to Mammoth.
HDR:
Original:
Chasing Monroe
I just added a new wallpaper to the Freebies section. I made it for my friend Chase who is a model/artist. There are 2 versions of the wallpaper, 1 has text and 1 doesn’t. It was pretty much all made from an effect from a great tutorial that can be found at Abduzeedo, he has ALOT of great tutorials, definitely worth checking out.
Also i recently launched the redesign for my dear friend Steven Daily for whom I’ve been his web guy for a few years, we’re both extremely busy so it was hard to get us both free at the same time to get it up but after a couple years it finally is, check it out at stevendaily.com and let him know what you think of his art.
Enjoy!
Drumroll Please
Welp heres my first post from my first ever Mac.
I don’t have much to say except i added a video player in the About section with some videos ive been in.
Mac meet Monsta
Well after years of swearing to death that i will always be a PC user i buckeled and purchased a Macbook Pro. I’m pretty excited and will absolutely be installing Windows on it, so im not completely abandoning PC’s. I decided to go with the 15″ 2.4 ghz w/ 4g memory & a 200g 7200rpm hard drive (thanks grandma!). I unfortionately wont get it till most likely next week, its like Christmas in July.
In other news i took a puck to the face in a pick up hockey game Saturday night, hopefully ill get some sweet pics of my bloody mess in the next couple of days.
“What Grinds Ian Monsta’s Gears”
So over at the Malus Blog i will be doing a weekly edition of “What Grinds Ian Monsta’s Gears” where i basically just rant about whatevers been bothing me during the week. With that said head on over and check out the first edition “Just Say No To White Rap In Commercials”
In other news, i’ve recently stumbled on a old but new to me CMS called Expanse that is a CMS aimed toward making updating content & galleries easier for artists. I’ve been messing around with customizing the basic theme & i will probably heavily test it out for the new Steven Daily site.
Overkill
So my “Hetero Life Mate” Jason has a clothing company, Malus Clothing, and he’s asked me to be a “guest blogger” on the blog section of their site. I havn’t posted anything of value yet and am not sure what i will post but go check it out anyways -- Malus Blog.
I’ve been slowely gathering recent designs for the Design section and have added some photos to Photography so check those out, if you like any of them leave a comment, and if you want prints i can make that happen too.
Other than that i don’t really have much else to say, i’ve been on a big Men At Work kick lately and am a huge fan of Scrubs so with that i leave you with a video of Colin Hay performing my favorite Men At Work song “Overkill” on old episode of Scrubs.
Oh yeah, i bought a sweet new bed frame from Ikea yesterday. Peep it.
Facelift
Welcome to the new look of Vanity Design Studios. I think most designers will agree that when your constantly doing work for others when it comes time to create something for yourself the creativity may not be there. With that said I’ve decided to go the route of modifying a Wordpress theme to my needs, big ups to Chad Tafolla for pointing me in the right direction for this specific theme. Also with the mention of the Wordpress theme i should note that I’ve used Wordpress entirely as a CMS for the whole site, I’m really digging the capabilities and am going to try to implement this option as much as possible into future projects for clients.
I will be most likely be blogging a bit more, what about? Not quite sure yet, but i figure i might as well use it if I’ve got it right?
You are not your username
Well, i finally did it, i joined the blogging world. To be perfectly honest i dont have much to blog about or offer anything exciting so im not really sure how popular this will get, who knows if ill even give the link out.
I decided to install wordpress and test it out because as a designer you never know when your client will want a blogging system and ive only heard good things about wordpress. The more i played around with it the more impressed i became and decided to keep it around, although i will probably mostly use it for testing new plugins and themes and such, but who knows maybe ill because a regular blogger.