On Friday night I had drinks with a big group (read: architects) to honor Troy who was leaving OMA and heading off to teach at Rice. I think eight or nine offices were represented. At some point Troy tried to count but he was too wasted and got confused and then someone handed him a beer and he was not confused anymore. That is a good tactic. If someone is confused at work, hand him or her a beer. Suddenly, everything is clear. I’m telling you, it’s magic. Anyway that’s totally beside the point. We were drinking and dining al fresco, which is a fancy way of saying “eat and drink outside and watch Annie get eaten alive by mosquitoes.” Note that no one else got bit. I have no idea how this works, but I got something like eleven bites all over my legs.

So here is something interesting: mosquitoes feed mostly on nectar, but females are the ones that bite and feed on blood because they need the extra protein and iron to lay eggs. What I’m trying to say here is that the bitches are the ones causing problems and getting out of pocket. Also what I’m trying to say here is that the bitches love me. I need pants made out of Calamine lotion.

My friend Anh just sent me this link. It made me laugh and then made me throw up, just a little, in my mouth.

Also, I have a headache. This may or may not be related to America’s birthday festivities last night. It may or may not be related to wine. It may or may not be related to the wine I had after the wine. Without further scientific study, I cannot be sure. I am reaching out to the science and medical communities to help me determine the cause of my headache, sleepiness, slight nausea, and the cashmere sweater that my tongue is currently wearing. I suppose I should reach out to the fashion industry too, for that last part. It’s really too hot for cashmere.

Speaking of the fashion industry, the new Phillip Lim 3.1 store in L.A. opened and it was designed by my good pal Dominic Leong over at Para. Check it out here. It’s as crazy as Dominic is. I want to go and squish all the acoustic foam. Like if you are stressed and live in Los Angeles, go over to the Phillip Lim store and squeeze the crap out of the walls. I think one of the rooms has walls covered with cow hair, so pet the crap out of that too. These cows may or may not be related to the meat hats above. Dominic worked his ass off so I’m proud of him. It’s his first built project. Kudos Dominic, now go and get me some sweet, sweet Phillip Lim threads. Also, I have your mail. If you give me sweet, sweet Phillip Lim threads I will give you your credit card bill which I know you want really badly. Also it looks like you might have already won 2 million dollars, that is exciting.

Sometimes people’s insanity both impresses and frightens me. It imprightens me. I am sure there is actually a REAL word for this feeling, but it’s a lot easier for me to make up a new word because that is what I do for a living. I am a wordsmith. I also make internets.

Anyway, recently an architecture student named Jason imprightened the crap out of me when he sent me a proposal and a plan for my very own one-bedroom apartment, complete with coffee bar, burrito-making station, and hedgehog habitat. (Hedgehog not included.)

Seriously. Jason. WHAT THE FUCK? You either have TOO much time on your hands, or you have very little time and you are extremely bad at managing it. You will obviously make a very good architect. All you need is the right eyewear. Maybe a stupid red scarf. If I ever meet anyone in need of a burrito-making station, you will be the first to call. “Annie, I really want to design a burrito bar for my two-bedroom, who should I hire? Who did Chipotle?” You know, if I had nickel for every time someone asked me that, I’d have . . . no money. But since I have no money, it’s obvious I get asked that everyday. Hrm, interesting. That doesn’t make sense, but you know what? Just nod. That is what I do. I nod all day, in addition to making words and internets. As you can see it gets very busy here in Annietown. If you blink you might miss something extremely important. DO NOT BLINK OH GOD DON’T DO IT.

So check out Jason’s plans here. NOTE that it will start downloading immediately. It’s a PDF. Prepared to get your mind blown. I am sure all the architects that read this blog will be like hedgehog habitat, are you 4 realz? He stole that from DS+R who stole that from Hillier. Whatever you guys. I am too imprightened to care.

Interesting to note, my friend who teaches architecture at Cooper Union said that the Boston ICA looked like a Target, so I am not the only one who thinks people should go to the ICA and buy a lot of toilet paper. Just saying. It feels good to feel right, you know what I mean? It hardly happens for me.

Anyway thanks, Jason. You have scared me. If you come near me I will pepper spray you.

I am back from the Isle of Fire. It was raining, and yet somehow the Isle still remained flaming.

The one thing I missed over the weekend while being flaming on the flaming island of flames was something as equally as flaming, the Architecture League of NY’s Beaux Arts Ball, or as I like to call it, “prom.” I was unable to attend, sadly, but apparently the theme this year was “balls.” There were hundreds of balls of various shapes and sizes and bounciness. And of course the balls jokes were abound. I mean how can you not make balls jokes in a room full of balls? It’s like they were asking for it. People were holding balls, hugging balls, cupping balls, kicking balls, rolling balls, dribbling balls. A lot of balls were there, though none of them were actually attached to anyone since they are all architects. Ha ha ha JK JK. IT IS A JOKE, ARCHITECTS. Anyway, LTL were the organizers this year and the partners were walking around in a gigantic inflatable hamster ball. I wasn’t there but it sounds like what the Flaming Lips use for their shows. I know that if I were there I would’ve thrown balls at them.

Throwing balls at people = a good time.

Even if it’s as lame as an architecture prom.

Anyway JoMo stole a large silver ball for me which is about as big as my entire apartment. I don’t know what to do with it, the ball barely fit through the door. There is a gigantic ball in my apartment. But only one, the other was lost to ball cancer. The ball was filthy so JoMo washed it in the bathtub. He washed his balls. God it’s endless. This shit is endless, you guys. My brain is going to explode. It almost wasn’t fair that I couldn’t go.

Tonight/Last night I ended up presenting at Pecha Kucha as a last-minute sub for architecture critic/total douchebag Philip Nobel. (Pecha Kucha is kind of like Powerpoint karaoke where you prepare 20 slides and get 20 seconds for each slide and it moves ahead with or without you. It’s mostly architects, designers, and the like. Then there’s the occasional person who doesn’t know shit about anything and that’s where I come in.) Nobel wrote the organizers saying he was “sick” and stricken with “fluemonia” though, quite frankly, he sounded pretty good when I talked to him. Like coherent enough to do Pecha Kucha. It’s SIX minutes, you’ve got to bone up, you know what I mean? You’ve got to BRING IT and SHOW UP as my track coach used to say (he was an Olympic speedwalker, yes speedwalking is a sport, kind of). Anyway Nobel totally bailed and Marco asked me to sub. I said yes, of course. PK is fun but stressful, and more importantly Marco is a good friend. I will BRING IT AND SHOW UP. So I was like yeah! And Marco was like yeah! And I was like sweet! He would’ve high fived me if 1) I high fived and 2) we were in the same space. Then Marco was like OK better hurry with the slides.

Oh. Right. The slides.

Like every idea I’ve ever had, I did NOT think this one all the way through. I thought, dude, I can totally use Nobel’s slides, that’d be hilarious and no work. But then Nobel told me he hadn’t done his slides at all which just proved to me that that pansy had no INTENTION of doing PK and instead bailed because he had not the COJONONES (that means “balls” as in “testicles” or “yambags” or “hot pockets” and Pedro just told me that “cajones” means drawers, but not the kind like underwear, the other kind in which you store your underwear) to get up there in front of 400 people or whatever it is. He has a big mouth BUT NO BALLS. NOBEL, WHERE ARE YOUR BALLS? With a mouth that big, you should really know how to back it up. Maybe you swallowed your balls with that big mouth of yours ha ha ha. No really.

Anyway, I spent all day scrambling to make 20 slides with SWEET animation and the most eye-gouging color combos because that is how I roll with the Powerpoint. If you are forced to use Powerpoint then you have to go crazy with all the features because it is comedy gold. Not that it mattered because the computers at PK did not run my version of Powerpoint, so not all of the slides worked. Oh well.

Anyway, I spent about 5 slides calling Nobel out on being a douchebag flakemeister and the next few hitting on some of the majorly douchebaggy things he’s said about architecture and the like. Meanwhile, I have no clue about architecture whatsoever so it took a lot of research and reading and Nobel helped me out by sending some of his articles. Then I had to ask friends really stupid questions like “Who is Philip Johnson and where is he the dean of architecture?” And then a friend had to explain that Johnson wasn’t actually the “dean” in a literal sense, but more of like dean of Architecture with a capital A and I was like, so it’s kind of like how I want to be mayor of Earth? Exactly! Anyway, I totally rather be mayor of Earth than dean of Architecture but maybe that is me. Also I do hate it when people capitalize architecture. Like, you don’t capitalize history or health or science, do you? OK then!

Anyway it went well, and this time I only got a few boo’s (for saying that the new ICA in Boston looks a bit like Costco). Last year I think a few people walked out because they did not think people should make fun of architects. So thanks for everyone who came out and raged, it was good times.

I eat a lot of toast. I think I have mentioned this before, somewhere. I eat many pieces of toast a day. In the process of making and eating toast, I sometimes leave crumbs. I happen to be very conscientious about leaving crumbs, but toast is full of crumbs. In fact, it’s like crumbs stuck together and shaped into a piece of bread. So no matter how careful I am, I leave crumbs. Then I have to vacuum, etc. Sometimes I want to chase myself around my apartment with a vacuum cleaner while I eat toast.

So, what if I made some kind of bib out of sticky tape? Then all the crumbs fall and hit the tape. OH MY GOD I AM BRILLIANT. I WILL BE RICH DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT STEALING MY IDEA.

Then I was thinking how all my friends with pets always have lint rollers and complain about the hair situation. So why not make it easier by making some kind of overcoat or smock out of lint rollers? It’d be a lot easier than shaving your cat. Then when you leave the house, you can take it all off and ta da your clothes are pet hair free! Or you can make a lint roller outfit for your pet. I mean if pets can wear sweaters and hoodies the can certainly wear lint rollers. I should get the patent on this pronto.

Frank Gehry has a patent on the “fish shape.” Can you believe that? I didn’t until someone showed it to me on the U.S. Patent Office website. It seems ridiculous that one can own a patent on a shape. You’d think that fish would own the patent on that one. If I were a fish, I’d be pretty pissed. I’d get a patent on Frank Gehry-shaped things and then sue him for being shaped like Frank Gehry.

So I am working at home today and suddenly I heard this INSANE LOUD sound. Like the sound of a building crashing. And I kind of sit at my desk/kitchen table/coat rack thinking, oh man, do I go outside? Do I want to see whatever it is that made that sound? Then I heard the ambulances and the fire trucks and then I heard helicopters and people yelling. So I thought, do I really want to know what’s going on? Am I better off not knowing? I am conflicted. So I think, OK. I’ll go outside, and be that rubber-necking gawking asshole.

Turns out there were a lot of other rubber-necking gawking assholes gathered on my street because they had evacuated some of the buildings in the area. Apparently there was an accident at the construction site for the new Trump “Hotel/Condominium” on Spring and Varick. It’s not totally clear what happened, but sounds like scaffolding fell, wet concrete and debris fell and hit nearby buildings, the 42nd floor collapsed into the 41st floor, and one construction fell to his death. It’s bad. That Trump Tower has been a huge controversy mostly because Trump is a total dick and really sleazed out on this project. It’s a huge tower that’s going up and he had to finagle the zoning in order to do it. Is it a hotel? Is it a condo? Who can be sure!

According to NY Times: Owners will be permitted to live in those apartments for 120 days out of the year, or 29 days out of any consecutive 36 days; when not living there, owners will be able to rent out their apartments.

Ha ha ha, he is not fooling anyone, except I guess for the city officials who let them do this garbage.

Trump had problems with the area being landmark so they are racing to finish the project before the courts decide on it. This means accidents happen. The whole thing is sketchy. But more importantly, IT IS UGLY. Like fine, if you’re gonna be a dick, at least make it cool. But you know, it’s Trump. I remember watching an MTV Cribs (best show ever) with Trump and it totally blew my mind how ugly the whole thing was. I’m like this is a joke, right? LIFE-SIZE CERAMIC TIGERS. That’s all I have to say.

On Friday I went to TWO architecture office parties. Two! That’s two more than any non-architect should ever attend. Have I lost my mind? Oh dear, I think I have. LOST: My mind. Answers to the name “Annie.” If found, please return immediately. No questions asked.

The first was at Front, where my friend works. It’s a few blocks from my compartment, so I thought, why not? There will be FREE BOOZE and I think that we can all agree that best kind of booze is free, much like the best things in life, such as free booze. It was fun. There was a band. The band members actually outnumbered the people. Oh fine, I’m lying, but there was a horn section. And a belly dancer. Not bad. Most office parties do not have a belly dancer. I think we can all agree on that. Nor do they have an accordion player. Note to all other office parties: You have been ONE UPPED. Anyway, if you plan on having an office party without a belly dancer or an accordion player, then I suggest you either find them, or not call it a party. Call it “a festive get-together that will be an OK time and you will not totally hate going but it could be drastically improved with the addition of a belly dancer and an accordion player.” I know that might be too long to put on your invitations, but you don’t want to piss anyone off. If you say “office party,” people will expect belly dancers and accordion players. Then if you do not deliver “the party” people will get upset and start throwing things out the window, including chairs, computing devices, and that mouth-breather Dan from Marketing, who probably deserves it, but still. Just a tip.

Party number 2 was at Snohetta. It felt more like a rave than anything else. Mostly because people were wearing glowsticks and everyone was a tall European and dancing to techno. I was like, wow, Snohetta pulled me straight back to 1998. I met Craig, who is shaped just like a pear and very smiley. I like Craig. He seems like a nice guy. I like that he treats his employees well and everyone leaves at 6:30. Everyone who was at the party wanted a job there. See? If you treat your employees well, then people will want to work for you and then you choose whoever you want. Then you can control the number of douchebags that work in your office and then you can throw parties with glowsticks and give Annie a bucket of cash monies. Snohetta has this huge office and you could probably fit at least 32 of my apartments in there, and they only use an eighth of it. I swear one room had dust in it. I was like dudes. Two words: BOUNCE HOUSE. Craig, you are a dick if you don’t give your employees a bounce house. Just saying. Get on that.

My office party is this weekend. On Sunday. I have no idea why it’s on a Sunday. Probably because it’s cheaper. It will be a dinner where we sit down and people will make toasts and speeches and it will be very civilized. There will be no glowsticks. No kegstands. No disco. No one will do the snake on the dance floor. Which is probably a good thing.

Now in non-party news:

OK, I have nothing to add here. I guess party is the only news.

So, uh, how are you?

Sometimes I am in the mood for a soda and I think hey, I will drink a soda. Why not? I should “live a little.” But then I discovered Diet Coke Plus and I got very sad. Do you know about this? It is totally ridiculous. It’s Diet Coke PLUS vitamins. Look, I drink Diet Coke specifically because it does not have vitamins. I do not want my Diet Coke to be healthy. I want it to rot my teeth until they’re little nubs and I have to throw all my food in a blender to eat it or get the fancy titanium bone graft implants that my dad has (who interestingly enough, rarely drinks soda). I want my body to be filled with all that glorious high fructose corn syrup and caffeine and whatever MSG type crap they put in their “secret recipe” that makes Coke so MF flavorful and delicious. I want all of this, yes. Listen, Diet Coke, you are not fooling anyone. I know your little games. Coke will never be healthy unless you replace it with water and call it Coke. Just saying. I guess the idea is that someone will want a Coke and think, hey, why not get Coke with vitamins? Anyway, the moral of this sad, sad story is that you should take vitamins if you want vitamins and drink Coke if you want Coke. And never the two shall meet. OR I guess we can go the other way and add Coke to salad. Like if you’re going to eat vitamins, might as well eat corn syrup and caffeine. It is an idea. Diet Coke with Salad.

I have a new blog post up at Emeco. This time it’s an open letter to Philippe Starck. Also if you are Australian and you are an architect and you are part of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, then check out this week’s newsletter. I have written an open letter to all of you. I will post up the PDF’s here when I get them. This whole newsletter thing is very random. And since the first piece of hate mail I ever received was from an Australian architect, it makes it all the more awesome and strange at the sametime.

Thanks to everyone who came out to Pecha Kucha tonight. I understand that many were actually turned away at the door which totally sucks and I’m sorry. There’s nothing worse than dragging your shit out to rock, only to get totally denied from the rocking. Clearly people do not want you to rock. Listen, I have no control over this. If it were up to me everyone would rock. Rocking, in fact, would be some kind of requirement for just being a mammal.

I think the presentations went pretty well. I liked the dude from Snohetta because he seemed like a pretty jolly guy and also I like the idea that their employees get 5 weeks off and work 9 to 6, though I have a hard time believing that any office actually functions that way. I have a feeling that they “can” leave at 6 but never do. Kind of like how I “can” rob a bank, but I know I shouldn’t. I also liked the thing Israel (from 2×4) did with the t-shirts (though dude, Israel, you went way over the 400 second rule, you should be publicly flogged, but actually, there’s no such thing as private flogging is there? Flogging by nature is public so why do people always say public flogging? Whatever, English, you are vexing me again). There were about 800+ people there and it was so hot inside that I actually tried panting. I mean if it works for dogs, it could work for us right? Guess what, it doesn’t work, but I tried it so you don’t have to. So it’s confirmed. Panting doesn’t keep you cool. But you know what keeps you cool? MOVING AIR. Note to air: KEEP MOVING.

I was up till 5 this morning doing these slides–and there were three other people who took on a few slides themselves, so I’d like to give a shout-out to Marc, Lizzie, and John. Don’t ask me why I didn’t start making my slides last week, clearly I like to make my life really stupid. Basically up until the last minute I was frantically trying to figure out how I could make my slides as cheesy as possible, and believe it or not, it’s actually harder to make something look bad, than make it look good. Although I guess people make things that look bad all the time, but then again they think it looks good, but then if you really think about it, they probably worked really hard to make it look good to them, which is actually bad, so I guess people really do work hard to make things look bad, whether or not they think it looks good. Oh man I am tired. I think that makes sense in my head. It’ll make sense in your head too if you read it a few times or stay up long enough. Anyway, I am particularly fond of the slide with the cow that flew across and the ramen slide. Those are my two favorite. Though I also liked the one Marc made with the soldier that comes out and shoots hearts and the Egyptian pyramid one. When I first saw that I laughed so hard. It was about midnight and things were still funny to me. But then things stopped getting funny around 4. Anyway I’m glad I did it and I appreciate all those that came out.