We had an amazing trip to South America, but it is so nice to be home again. A few small luxuries I missed while in Peru for 33 days: safe drinking water, reliable hot water, toilet seats, being able to flush toilet paper. Two of my new favorite fruits are granadillas (gelatinous, pulpy passionfruit) and shimbillo (sweet seed pod fruit). I kind of wish I could live in Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu town), which has natural thermal baths and serves as the gateway to the famous Inca ruins of Machu Picchu.

Lima, the capital and largest city, is the hub of travel to anywhere in Peru, so we were there on four separate occasions. We spent the weirdest Christmas ever in the dirty jungle city of Pucallpa (including a breathtaking 360 degrees of fireworks at midnight on Christmas Eve). We spent New Year’s Eve in Lima (including dinner in Barranco in a 1909 train car with stained glass cathedral windows and wood paneling, and dangerous seaside fireworks in Miraflores).

I have almost 3,000 photos to sort through. My girlfriend is already posting her photos to Flickr, but it may take me forever to do the same. Back in Oregon, our cats definitely gained weight while we were in Peru. Even Tanuki looks chubby now. Emotional eating? Or sheer laziness plus unlimited food? Reminds me of this classic A Softer World comic.

Below is an outline of some of the places we visited. I have a journal full of handwritten notes, and there are many stories to tell, but this trip outline is all I can manage at the moment. After a weekend of recovery, I was thrust back into my pre-vacation work life today. The profound culture shock of being back in my own country—and having to return to my desk, in an office with no windows, where I stare at a computer screen for eight hours each day—is deeply troubling.

The Inca Empire: December 4-13

• Lima
• Puno/Lake Titicaca/Uros floating islands/Taquile Island
• Puca Pucará/Raqchi
• Cusco
• Aguas Calientes/Machu Picchu
• Sacred Valley (Písac/Urubamba/Ollantaytambo)
• Cusco/Sacsayhuamán
• Lima

The Amazon jungle: December 13-31

• Lima
• Pucallpa
• Yarinacocha Lake/Puerto Callao/La Jungla
• San Francisco de Yarinacocha (Shipibo village)
• Pucallpa
• Lima

The high desert: December 31-January 6

• Lima
• Nasca/Nazca Lines
• Arequipa
• Lima

By the way, 2011 was the 100th anniversary of Machu Picchu’s “discovery.” And it was the first year of the Nazca Lines-inspired Peru’s New Brand. I love Peru’s new logo.

The terrible Auto-Tuned music

As a bonus, here are some dance-pop songs I remember hearing endlessly and unavoidably on Peruvian radio (mainly CPN Radio 90.5 FM Lima) while traveling. We were subjected to these Auto-Tuned sounds during all hours of the day, especially in Pucallpa. Sak Noel produces music even worse than Rebecca Black songs. Some things can’t be unheard. I ended up liking a few of these songs, possibly due to Stockholm Syndrome. This is music to rot your brain. The last video is a Shipibo song from the Amazon jungle. Listen to them all in this YouTube playlist: “Peru loves Auto-Tuned dance-pop music.”

• Michel Teló: Ai Se Eu Te Pego
• Sak Noel: Paso (The Nini Anthem) and Loca People (What The Fuck)
• LMFAO: Party Rock Anthem
• Joey Montana: La Melodia
• Usher (featuring Pitbull): DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love
• Pitbull: Give Me Everything
• Farruko: Pa Romper La Discoteca and Hola Beba
• J. Álvarez: Junto Al Amanecer and Regalame Una Noche
• Plan B: Si No Le Contesto and Es Un Secreto
• Black Eyed Peas: The Time (Dirty Bit)
• Shakira (featuring Pitbull): Rabiosa
• Jennifer Lopez (featuring Pitbull): On The Floor
• Jay-Z (featuring Alicia Keys): New York
• Britney Spears: Till The World Ends
• Katy Perry: Firework and California Gurls
• And we also heard this from some Shipibo friends:
  Los Shipis: Ishtontani Amenwe

Why is Pitbull, a Cuban-American rapper, sneering and barking on almost every track that gets played in Peru? Some things we can never know. If you’re really in love with this kind of music, check out the PERÚ Top 100 for more pop inspiration.

More updates and pixel art

For more regular updates, you may want to follow me on Twitter. Also, check out my recent Peru-themed 8-bit pixel art at Mascot Mashup.

More ideas and inspiration to be creative: “Design Something Every Day!”

Interesting: “Eight cool social media infographics.”

These sites are fascinating: FFFFOUND! (image bookmarking), grain edit (modern graphic design inspiration blog) and Black and WTF (seriously, WTF).

Flight 1549 and marine animals

This animation (with audio) is based on all currently available data concerning the US Airways Flight 1549 crash: Flight 1549 3D Reconstruction, Hudson River Ditching Jan 15, 2009. Hard to believe it’s been almost a year now since that Hudson River landing. Even though you know the plane lands safely, it’s still a tense experience to hear the audio again, especially in the context of the flight animation. Worth watching.

Check this out: A pod of bottlenose dolphins off the coast of Florida have developed a remarkable hunting strategy in order to catch fish: Life: Bottlenose dolphins mud-ring feeding.

This is amazing: “Solar-powered sea slug harnesses stolen plant genes.”

These photographs are stunning: “David Liittschwager – Marine Micro Fauna (8 pics).”

Holidays

More photography: “A Very Tesla Christmas.” Take a Tesla coil and a super-long camera exposure and you can have an “electrifying display of holiday cheer.”

From Stereogum: “New Indie Rock Christmas MP3s For 2009.”

I bought a pineapple to eat over Christmas break. I’m also thinking about trying to grow a new pineapple using the crown of the old one: “How to Grow a Pineapple at Home.”

Krampus

Speaking of holiday cheer, I really like this Shirt.Woot t-shirt designed by Missmonster: “Greetings from Krampus.” It celebrates the annual return of Santa’s old pal Krampus.

Happy New Year!

(In case you need it: press in dire situations.)

I’ve browsed through a number of non-Flickr sites lately that have provided excellent inspiration for my own photography projects. Here are some:

• Scott Wade’s Dirty Car Art Gallery
• “Rubik’s Cube Sandwich,” which I plan to make someday (but with different, more colorful fruit and vegetable ingredients)
• James D. Griffioen’s photo sets, including Feral Houses
• “Gallery: Inside Alaska’s Answer to Area 51“
• The Ruins of New York
• The ghost town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, which still has an actively burning Silent Hill-style mine fire (also see Johnny Blough’s Centralia set on Flickr)
• Russian plastinochnye (record) collages

Weeds, fruits and vegetables

I will probably want to refer to this article later. From The Oregonian: “Get rid of those weeds once and for all.”

This list by the Environmental Working Group will help you decide what produce is the most important to buy organically grown: “The Full List: 47 Fruits & Veggies.”

I’m thinking about trying some Vegiforms-type molds for my garden vegetables next year. Who doesn’t love novelty vegetables with little faces? These clear plastic forms are very similar to how the Japanese create square watermelons for easy refrigerator storage and stacking.

Technology and gaming

Cool: “Five Futuristic Interfaces on Display at SIGGRAPH.”

Amanita Design’s Machinarium looks amazing: “Machinarium has become too gorgeous.”

Insect technology

I found this fascinating: “Hacking a remote-controlled moth with insect venom.”

Cats and baby animals

He’s quite the cat: “Pet cat catches the daily bus for four years.”

Need to replace your toilet? Make your next one a toilet-tank aquarium: Fish ‘n Flush.

Lastly, here are three more of of these blogs: FYBA, Item Not As Described and Probably Bad News.

Short film series

On June 1, David Lynch will launch Interview Project, a 121-part documentary series featuring portraits of Americans from all over the country. Check out a sneak preview: “David Lynch Presents his 121-part ‘Interview Project’: An EW exclusive.”

I might have written about this before, but I’d just like to reiterate that Isabella Rossellini’s Green Porno series of shorts for the Sundance Channel are very weird: “Salute Your Shorts: Isabella Rossellini’s Green Porno.” The series is about the mating habits of various animals.

Entertainment and advertising

Here is some recent creepiness from BK: “Star Trek – Burger King glasses ad.” Yes, the insanity of the BK Kingons goes even deeper on YouTube. I still think the live-action King is the greatest (read: most awesomely creepy) costume of all time. Not sure about the Kingons. More or less creepy?

I was amused by this: Star Wars vs. Star Trek. The Death Star destroys the Starship Enterprise over San Francisco. (Make sure the sound is turned on.)

Guess who was on a boat last Wednesday night? Take a good hard look, shorty.

There are so many brilliant ecards at someecards.com.

I found an image of Abraham Lincoln riding a tandem bicycle with a beaver (or otter?) by accident. I like it: Rozerem Abe Lincoln. I liked it less once I realized it was part of a Rozerem ad campaign.

Cancer

A friend of mine is now obsessed with electronic cigarettes (or e-cigarettes). I think her rationale goes something like this: “You’re saying I can foster an acute nicotine addiction without the lung and throat cancer? Sold!”

I question this article: “Pollution Can Change Your DNA in 3 Days, Study Suggests.” But, yeah, we’re probably all going to get cancer anyway.

Gardening

Here is a helpful vegetable planting guide: Companion Planting. And another gardening article: “Aphids cause sticky situation.”

I bought a hardy kiwi plant today (among others). Here’s a guide on pruning and training the vines. Also, more comprehensively: “Growing Small Fruits for the Home Garden.”

Graphic design (suffering)

I love these so much: “You Suck at Photoshop, Hilarious Tutorials by Donnie Hoyle.” They’re entertaining as hell, plus I actually picked up a couple of different Photoshop approaches.

Memorial Day weekend

I am looking forward to attending the annual WebVisions conference in Portland this Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, I’ll be heading to the Sasquatch! Music Festival at the Gorge. On Sunday (and maybe Monday) I’ll be in Seattle. Then it’s back to the routine.

I’ve spent a lot of my free time gardening lately. I guess it’s mostly garden preparation (read: shovel rage and weeder fury) at this point. Maybe next weekend I will plant some everbearing strawberries, probably Hecker (read about strawberry varieties). (I also plan to reference Oregon State’s Landscape Plants: Images, Identification, and Information to finish figuring out what’s growing in my backyard.) You can follow me on Twitter for more details about my gardening progress and other random thoughts.

Animation and entertainment

First, here’s an Easter leftover: “Swedish parishioners unveil Lego statue of Jesus.” The colored Lego blocks were placed on the inside so people could only see the white form of Jesus. Hmm.

“A Wolf Loves Pork” is an awesome stop-motion animation short by Takeuchi Taijin: “Wolf Chasing A Pig Stop-Motion Animation Using A Series Photographs.”

Hadn’t really thought about this before: Watch This: Disney Re-Uses Their Animation. Makes sense.

I like this parody of the Where the Wild Things Are trailer: Spike Jonze’s Everyone Poops.

Ah yes, Michael Bay, Joel Schumacher and Roland Emmerich all get mentioned: “Michael Bay Signs $50M Deal To Fuck Up ‘ThunderCats’.” The Onion wins again!

Science, business and economics

Whoa: “Weird Science takes on economics and the sex trade.” Learn about “the downsides of career advancement, the dynamics of shopping carts, a product that will feature in your future spam, and trading sex using meat as a currency.”

Here are two Gizmodo features: “This Is How the Sky Would Look if Both Your Eyes Functioned as Telescopes” and “London Bar Pumps Gin and Tonic Into The Air: Please Breathe Responsibly.”

That’s quite the collection of brands on this list: “The world’s 10 most powerful brands.” Here’s another interesting list of brands: “Twelve Major Brands That Will Disappear.” Recession depression!

Technology, legal and politics

Network neutrality? It’s Comcastic! Here’s a comparison to the UK: “Pick your poison: bandwidth caps or throttling?”

The court decided to make an example of The Pirate Bay founders: “Pirate Bay founders jailed, ordered to pay $3.6m in fines.” I mean, they didn’t call it The Pirate Bay for nothing.

Vaguely animal-related

Have you heard the Animal Collective’s “Zero” remix? Interesting what they’ve done to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song.

This is amusing: Fuck You, Penguin. It’s a blog about cute animals, kind of.

I liked this article on the evolution of visual perception: “Color Vision: How Our Eyes Reflect Primate Evolution.”

In April of 2009, Boaz is setting out on an Un-Road Trip. He’s criss-crossing the United States using every mode of transportation except for car. This may include a horse or dog sled, thus this link totally fits within my animal theme. So there.

I’ve been listening to the free NIN|JA EP (made available on Friday), featuring exclusive unreleased tracks from Jane’s Addiction, Nine Inch Nails and Street Sweeper. It’s all right.

I’ve been watching The Lonely Island’s YouTube channel, mostly older stuff I hadn’t seen before. Highlights for me include Nintendo Cartoon Hour (loved it) and Jorm Dances To Fleet Foxes (so randomly goofy). Awesometown was sort of funny, but probably not worth 20 minutes of your life (well, except the last five minutes include humorous 3D-glasses interruptions of “The ‘Bu” by Frazzles, the Awesometown squirrel).

It’s getting to be the time of year for gardening. Here are two articles I found that I’ll probably refer to in the future. They include many tips for fruit tree pruning and vegetable planting:

• Bend Bulletin: “When pruning, look before you leap.”
• Eugene Weekly: “Spring Planting Guide.”

Instead of garden gnomes and pink flamingos, perhaps you’d like to add this to your yard: Bigfoot, the Garden Yeti Sculpture.

Lastly, this is weirdly compelling: Amazing LED-light Art by Sheep.