deux fois, paris

Laura and I were in Paris up for the weekends of the 2nd and 12th doing some research. Here's what we came up with:


The Metro

If you're into the minimalist japanese aesthetic at all, welcome to Muji. I cannot stay away.


Yeah, it was as cold as it looks.


No matter where I am, my mind is usually elsewhere. Obviously someone had the right idea.


Marais

Marche Bastille.

The food at this place wasn't spectacular, but the ambiance was well worth the price of admission. We actually went twice.

Laura, salade. The yellowness of this place, inside and out, was a welcome contrast to the omnipresent gray.

When it's so cold, you inevitably end up doing a lot of this, which isn't so bad after all.

Ski Sunday @ Gourette

Went skiing a few weekends ago.

With Paul and Lauren.

Me Not Being A Real Blogger Blogging

Hello friends and lovers. You're right in thinking this doesn't sound like Blizz, because it's NOT! I received a request to update my blog, and as I don't have one, I decided to borrow. Trespass. Usurp.

Okay. This is my first time. Here we go. This weekend we went to Toulouse. That's the fourth largest city in France, but it is quite quaint as a matter of fact. I had a really lovely time and didn't even cry once! Here is some documentation.

This is me on the train. I am so excited! The French villages were so picturesque it was like someone built them 500 years ago just for me to marvel at from a train window. But then I fell asleep.



This is my first real French quiche, and NOT, as some of you might have thought, a regional skin condition.



These are two of Blake's colleagues, Ana from Germany and Crystal from Trinidad. We found them at the train station and then they left us in the rain.


Here are some bomb-ass chickens roasting away at the Sunday marche the next day. Here's what happened: we bought a whole one of those suckers, took him to the park, and ate him with our fingers!



One of these gargoyles is an impostor. Can you find it?


A bridge.


Blake trying to make a new friend.



Okay, looks like my time's up. Seems that I'll have to restrict my contributions to the sidelines from now on. It was fun while it lasted. Now comment so much so Blake will be jealous. A bientot.

life

I bought a ticket to Barcelona and spent my five-day weekend reliving the past. It was a homecoming of sorts, but inevitably these sorts of things end up being a bit anticlimactic.









But nonetheless, it was great to be back.
And catching up with old friends is important. Mr. Be Brave Benjamin Palmer and his lovely girlfriend Judith.



View from the train, returning (sadly) back to Pau.

more turkey please...




This street seemed to be the center of the "western" culture in Istanbul.

Laura , coveting.

Vacay.

Laura, turn around! It's right behind you!


Here's where you buy a fish sandwich.


Mini-airport. Miniaturk.


A terrorist pic-nic.

Black Sea.


Only legal in Amsterdam.

Mid-October

There's something about these tiny little kitchens that just makes you want to eat breakfast.

My room. It's about 500 times messier now.


Went to the beach yet again this weekend. The swell had dropped and the conditions cleaned up, so it was fun, despite the crowds.

Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky

Given the huge audience of "Blog by Blake," I'm under a constant barrage of requests to plug people's projects via the site. Usually I just respond to the emails with the standard, "While I do think your ________ is interesting, I don't think the content corresponds fully with the spirit of a Blog by Blake and thus....." or something like that. Until now.

Last year UC Santa Cruz alum Dmitry Trakovsky traveled to Sweden, Italy, and Russia in a search for the legacy of Russian film god Andrei Tarkovsky. His journey is documented in "Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky," a film that takes a penetrating look at the life, death, and what remains of the mythic Russian director.


Come meet Dmitry and watch his film, either at:

the Sao Paulo International Film Festival, from October 17-30th in Brazil.

or at the 22nd Leeds International Film Festival, from November 7-8th in the UK.

Finally got wet.

I made it to the beach this weekend and got to christen my new board. It's too bad people were making fun of me for riding such a stupid looking thing.


There was some swell but the sandbars were far from perfect.


Umm this pic will give you some scale.

Finless in Chile

The camera's a bit shaky but some good surfing nonetheless.

Umm Roe v. Wade and......

From HuffingtonPost:

Today, the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reported on potentially embarrassing clips of Sarah Palin being interviewed by Katie Couric that haven't yet been aired. The Politico has more information on one in particular:

Of concern to McCain's campaign, however, is a remaining and still-undisclosed clip from Palin's interview with Couric last week that has the political world buzzing. The Palin aide, after first noting how "infuriating" it was for CBS to purportedly leak word about the gaffe, revealed that it came in response to a question about Supreme Court decisions. After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases. There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.

Pau Ville

The housing search was arduous but I think I've landed myself in a good situation.

My Parisian roommate Paul and his gf Lauren, enjoying a Pyrenean afternoon on the balcony.

Here's my bike: the Regina Sport.

It can be pretty here.

London Town

I kept it real, only eating true English fare. Here's my lamb curry.


This is London in a rare natural light, called "sun".


But this is what it looked like most of the time.

Here i am, chillin' in London Town.

The Electoral Map

Chuck Todd, an electoral analyst for MSNBC gives us a rundown on the electoral map for the coming election in this article: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/08/06/1249422.aspx

Despite nation-wide public opinion polls indicating Obama and McCain in a statistical tie, the electoral map is telling us something different: a solid lead for Obama.