April 30, 2009
Check out the craziness happening inside the comments in this old blog post.... (read more)
April 2009 Archives
At work, a lot of the management was asked to have their photos taken for inclusion in an upcoming PR book about our company. Ben was kind enough to serve as photographer, and snapped photos of everyone. Here's me, smiling a bit for the camera. I should point out that... (read more)
April 29, 2009
We Got Time is a music video for singer Moray McLaren, directed by David Wilson. Amazingly, the effects from the video were all done without stopframe techniques or computer-enhanced graphics. The animations were all custom made, and the transition effects were achieved either through cutting between takes... or (and this... (read more)
April 28, 2009
Windosill is a fantastic new game from Vectorpark. Unlike the prior games/projects, this one's an actual download and not online. I first came across Vectorpark a long, LONG time ago. I'm talking way back in like 2000 or 2001. I mentioned the game back in 2004, but if you... (read more)
Via BoingBoing, I came across this video of director Kevin Smith, giving a hilarious talk about his failed/doomed script attempt for Superman Lives. I started it off thinking I'd just check out a few minutes of it (the thing is like 20 minutes long). After 5 minutes, I got sucked... (read more)
April 27, 2009
Along with the cake tastings, getting married allows you to go on tastings to try out various caterers. Because we enjoyed our meal at Chris and Leslie's reception, we decided to work up a menu with Roberto and Mickey at Prickly Pear. Though they aren't normally open on Sundays, they... (read more)
April 26, 2009
On my way home, I got stopped right at Logan Boulevard. A sea of bicycles went by, stopping traffic from all directions. Luckily I got my camera out, and shot a few minutes of everyone biking by. There were a lot of folks yelling out "Happy Friday" to everyone, and... (read more)
On Friday after work, a bunch of folks headed out to the nearby Plymouth Grill (holy crap - they have a horrific website) for some post-work drinks. We've had a similar outing here in the past (with just the Design team), but today we had folks from all departments join... (read more)
April 25, 2009
After Liz got back from her exam, the two of us headed over to Lula's for lunch. On the way back home, we passed a house where we spotted this guy taking a nap: This pretty much summarizes what an ideal Saturday feels like. Doesn't he just look incredibly comfy?... (read more)
April 24, 2009
Tomorrow (Saturday), Liz takes her second and final Cumulative Exam for her Masters degree. She's been hitting the books pretty hard for a while now, and this is one of those big, everything-you-learned-this-year kind of exams. It's also one of those pass-or-you-don't-graduate kind of exams. She went through something similar... (read more)
Auto Tune the News is a hysterical and fantastic spin on the current events, putting them into song. Listening to this, everything just sounds wonderful. This is the first version, entitled "March Madness. Economic Woes. Pentagon Budget Cuts." This is another version (Pirates, Drugs, Gay Marriage). Not quite as good,... (read more)
April 23, 2009
There was some extra wrapping paper around the apartment, and Liz threw it on the ground for Baxter to play with. Here's a video of what a bunny looks like, at play: More bunny-related links here.... (read more)
Swear to God, you guys, I think this is actually real. Apparently, there's an upcoming musical entitled Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. And if that little fact doesn't blow you away, consider that it's being directed by Julie Taymor (you may know her as the director of the movie... (read more)
April 22, 2009
Found this video (via BoingBoing), and listening to it felt like sunshine. This was made by Playing for Change, an organization (and documentary) "dediated to connecting the world through music" with the intent of fostering "a new, greater understanding of our commonality."... (read more)
So I'm on Twitter. I don't use it all that often, really, and don't follow a ton of folks. I'm not an avid user by any means, just making an occassionaly post here and there. Today, I happened to come across a post on MetaFilter about PBS; specifically, it was... (read more)
April 21, 2009
After work, a bunch of us headed over to Brian's place for a board game night. He had recently purchased a copy of Settlers of Catan, and invited folks over to play. I came across a mention of this game a while ago, and had the article marked in my... (read more)
April 20, 2009
A bunch of us got a nice note from Jason regarding the upcoming Cassette From My Ex book. Things are moving along, and he shared a link to a Babelgum video that highlights the project. Having only read some of the stories online, it was neat to see Jason... (read more)
April 19, 2009
Today we had a tasting scheduled at Tipsy Cake, to sample some of their cakes. Luckily for me this time, I wasn't hit with waves of nausea and was actually able to enjoy the whole process. We met with Naomi, who was cool with us taking photos. In fact,... (read more)
Spotted this on the way to work on Friday. Somehow the star just nestled into a small indentation in the street, and looked as though it belonged there. The thought I had when I saw this: "Whether by luck or by design, we find our homes."... (read more)
April 18, 2009
Remember how I found a penny a few days ago? And how it was the luckiest penny ever? The bank where I found that penny was near my work place - the Bank of America located at State and Adams. Turns out that on Friday, at around 1PM, the bank... (read more)
April 17, 2009
Wow. I'm sitting here eating lunch in my office, and casually browsing the web. Happened across a link to this video that seems like an ad for Philips. My jaw is on the ground. There's a bit of clown creepiness going on here, but nothing that should make you... (read more)
The story of Kari Ferrell is a fascinating read, and something I just got sucked in to. At the age of 22, Ferrell landed a job at Vice Magazine using a combination of her charm, knowledge of music, and prior experience working with GoldenVoice (the promotion company that puts... (read more)
April 16, 2009
This looks legit to me, but I'm always a bit wary of this sort of thing. Among the candidates for Time's annual list of "The 100 Most Influential People" is moot, the founder of 4chan.org. Once the folks at 4chan discovered this, they did a little digging around and... (read more)
I was at the bank yesterday after work, waiting to get a roll of quarters (for our laundry machine). While in line, I looked over and spotted this on the ground. While I don't normally pick up pennies, I felt compelled to do so. I realized that I was... (read more)
This guy has been sitting on my desk, unchanged, for the better part of a week (a creation made by Katie). Usually, when folks swing by my office they invariably pick up my set of NeoCube magnets and start playing around. However - when folks saw this smiley guy,... (read more)
April 15, 2009
About a year ago (in July of 2008), I heard about an event called Pecha Kucha Night - a gathering where designers got together to share ideas using a pretty unique and interesting format. The term Pecha Kucha comes from a Japanese term for the sound of conversation ("chit chat").... (read more)
April 14, 2009
Tomorrow is the big day for taxes (April 15th). If you're in Chicago and still haven't filed yet, you might want to swing by Alliance Bakery today, from 10AM - 10PM. There's a guy filing income tax extensions for anyone, for free. He's also filing free extensions tomorrow at Small... (read more)
Photographer Peter Funch takes photos from the same location, and creates unique groupings of the people who he's captured over time. There are some pretty fascinating sets here, and make for an interesting way to view the world. This reminds me a lot of Harvey Keitel's character, Auggie, from... (read more)
April 13, 2009
Bendito Machine is a series of odd animations, all done in a similar style (think shadow play). There's this strange mixture of religious imagery and machinery throughout, with the mis-use of those machines causing no small amount of death/destruction. There's an odd sense of justice about each of the... (read more)
April 12, 2009
Thes pics are from last weekend, when Liz and I visited the Garfield Park Conservatory, on a whim. We both hadn't been out and about for a good while, and Liz decided that a field trip was in order. Forgot to write down the name of this guy. Since... (read more)
April 11, 2009
Last Thursday, Liz and I went to visit two local cake shops for cake tastings. Believe you me, given all the stuff we're currently doing to get ready for the wedding... cake tastings fall on the fun/plus side of things. Unfortunately for me, earlier in the day my stomach started... (read more)
April 10, 2009
I'm torn about this - it's fascinating to look at, but also incredibly wrong on so many levels. Schadenfreude at its best and worst. Apparently, Tampa Bay provides real-time mugshots of people who were arrested in the last 24 hours in Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties. But beyond just... (read more)
April 9, 2009
A little amazing to see how much re-use there was, in some of the older Disney films. Part of the times I guess, but what I imagined to be slight similarities turned out to be exact scenes, for the most part duplicated precisely. The chuckles start almost from the beginning.... (read more)
April 8, 2009
Slow news day today. Mostly because I've spent the better part of the last 24 hours in the couch or in bed. Late Monday morning, my stomach started to hurt a little bit. From there, things slowly devolved into general nausea, fever and all the aches and pains one typically... (read more)
April 7, 2009
Doing a quick pass over my Google Analytics stats, I happened to notice that CNN was a referrer, pointing back to content on my site. Amazed, I dug a little deeper and found that they have a "From the Blogs" section, which picked up my mention of their article in... (read more)
April 6, 2009
ToneMatrix, by André Michelle, is simple in its design and a delightful interface to play around with. I started off by clicking a few random squares. And then, after a little while, mashed a whole bunch of them in a big frenzy. To my surprise, the audio results of... (read more)
April 5, 2009
Some time ago, I happened across a blog called Youku Buzz, a kind of YouTube-ish site but based in China. The videos are always pretty sluggish, as the data is halfway around the world, but the content generally seems to be odd stuff that I'd not normally see anywhere else.... (read more)
April 4, 2009
On the way in to work last week, I spotted this guy on a lamppost near the California Blue Line stop. The thing that caught my eye was that it was done on a Priority Mail sticker from the US Post Office. I'd seen a lot more of these,... (read more)
April 3, 2009
For over 24 hours now, I've been looping the same song over and over again. It's by Colin Hay, and entitled Overkill. I first came across Hay and his song when I was searching around for a Billy Bragg song entitled "The Only One." I was trying to track down... (read more)
Late yesterday morning, I noticed that I made my first official Amazon sale!. Based on my review, somebody out there bought a copy of David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Woohoo! While the title of this post is pretty flippant, seeing an actual sale was... (read more)
My (soon to be) bro-in-law Darryl just launched a blog yesterday, entitled Souls Without Bodies. The title comes from a C.S. Lewis quotation: "You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body." Recently, Darryl was given a position at Bethel Church as Director of Connections.... (read more)
April 2, 2009
I'm not one who generally gets all hot and excited by tilt-shift stuff, but this particular video successfully won me over. At first, watching it I was thinking "ok, this is nice, this is neat." But when the subject matter shifts to the Westpac Rescue Helicopter (around 1:02), it becomes... (read more)
Last night Liz made a batch of homemade marshmallows. While I'm not a big fan of marshmallows, the whole process was pretty interesting to see (particularly getting the sticky substance out of the pan to begin with). This batch has a particularly pepperminty flavor, which is heightened by a... (read more)
April 1, 2009
Absolutely incredible. It's not even 9AM yet, and already the April Fool's stuff has gotten WAY out of hand. No doubt some of you have heard about the April Fools worm (Conficker.c) going around. Well it turns out there's a Facebook virus that's also making the rounds - something... (read more)
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