If you're in the Nashville area and find yourself wondering what you should be doing around 7:30pm tonight I suggest heading over to 3rd and Lindsley to catch Codaphonic perform an early set in celebration of the release of their EP, Good Morning Radio.
The band is solid, put on a great show, and there's no way you can listen to the songs and not find something you enjoy. Granted, it does not fall into the typical indie genre that I post about, but it's a pure pop treat - in the way that pop rock should be, feel good but written with a twinge of remorse, introspection, and catharsis. Seriously, download "Ritalin" and try to tell me you don't love it.
September 22, 2006
It's Friday. You are probably TGIF'ing pretty hardcore, huh? Yea, no need to really hunker down and finish up those projects that you've been thinking about all week but haven't really done anything about. Who needs to be productive? No one I know! With that in mind, here are some videos that I believe you will enjoy.
Please take note that "Little Superstar" has been sent to me at least four times in the past 12 hours - it is obviously the greatest thing on the Internet for the time being.
September 21, 2006
Did you know that it was Snapalope Season? Did you even know that a Snapalope exists? Well, they don't. But it's a really well done ad campaign for Slim Jim featuring some bizarre deer like creatures. In the end it does not, in any way, make me desire to partake in the act of actually consuming a Slim Jim but I appreciate the motion graphics and CG integration.
Note to self: Remember MOSSO Hosting next time you are considering a robust hosting plan for a client. While a tad expensive for personal use ($100/month) it seems incredible well designed, easy to use, and on the level of reliability that clients would depend on. Plus it has live tech support - rad.
Who Is Jonathan Ive? - nice article about the Senior Vice-President for Industrial Design over at Apple Computers - the man responsible for the iPod and G5 designs. Obviously an incredibly talented guy. The article basically sums him by saying that he's a quiet, reluctant celebrity more interested in the process of work than in the glory that comes with it. Aside from that there are some amusing Apple related anecdotes in there revolving around the perfectionist qualities of Steve Jobs.
Can We Please Bring Our Damned Coffee On the Plane Again, Idiots? - at first I thought this rant was going to perfectly sum up my feelings on the current state of airline security and then it delved into some actual science facts about liquid bombs and it took me from an agreeable state straight into baffled amazement that no one is paying attention to actual facts anymore. Why is there no media coverage extolling the fact that a liquid bomb is not what you saw in M.I. 2 and incredibly difficult to pull off? Wouldn't it be better to be informed than to be supressed by the constant Orwellian newspeak that is thrown at you?
It's amusing to me to think that 5 years ago there was a serious sentiment to not change our way of life or the terrorists would have won. Guess what? They won.
Yes, that's a bit extreme but it's partially true. Last night I caught a bit of last weeks Bill Maher and have to suggest to anyone with On Demand that they cue it up and give it a spin. These comments from Clark Kent Ervin seemed especially poignant considering that he was the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security:
"I worry about this 'good and evil' language. You know, former President Bush famously said that - 'I'm a religious guy, but I'm not a nut about it.' And I understand what this President Bush means when he talks about evil. There's no question but that 9/11 was an evil act. But that suggests that whatever we do is good. And this messianic approach it seems to me, is very, very dangerous. And, ironically enough, it's exactly the approach the terrorists take."
Send an email to yourself in the future at FutureMe - basically a service that lets you send an email with a scheduled future send date. I'd say it wasn't that huge of a deal but over 300,000 emails have been sent via the service so someone is using it. Be sure to check the Public Messages to see what people are sending.
Mario Cake is both amazingly geeky and incredibly well done. Aside from the amusement that comes from the fact that this thing actually exists I suggest reading the Flickr comments to get an additional kick in the pants of humor - specifically from xhospitalwaterx.
I got an email from The Silent Years asking me to check out their new self-titled album coming out at the end of October and to possibly share an mp3 on my site if I cared to do so. Typically if I get a request like this I listen to the band for a few moments and if it doesn't grab me, I move on. This is a terrible terrible way to judge music. How many bands have you heard that instantly hook you in 30 seconds or less? Probably not as many that grow on you after listening to the album some 20+ times. The internet may have given any musician with a MySpace account the ability to share music but it's also inherently destroying attention spans and the ability to really give some art a fair shot. That being said, the mellow mp3 that was sent along has been in my daily rotation for a few days now and been getting a decent amount of listens. I enjoy it and it grows on me the more I hear it. What are your thoughts?
The portfolio of version industries is an onslaught of layered div's reminiscent of BEAST magazine. In all honesty it's a bit hard to read at times but I gotta give credit to them for pulling off such a visually intense layout. For something a bit more tame but just as telling as to their style, check their showreel.
Since it's only Daniel and I in the office these days I don't have a ton of usage for this list of nerdy Office Slang but I can imagine there are those of you out there that could. For some reason the idea of calling someone "404" is just too perfectly geeky to pass up on.
Though a lot of these terms apply to situations outside of the office - see "Crop Dusting" or "It's A Feature."
The quote on this page is honest and to the point (and a bit humorous) but I'm more interested in the author's insight that says:
Five or ten years from now, I don’t want to be remembering Web 2.0 as the ’80s of web design, neon colored bloated parachute pants and all. The visual design of today is simply a passing fashion, don’t be one of those sites we’re ashamed to look back at, like the GIF-swollen examples of 1996.
Too true. It should also be noted that in 1996 people didn't know any better. They should now.
Anyone in the Franklin / Nashville area looking for a programming job might want to check out this job offering from BrainWave Studios. They emailed me and I told them that I'd post their listing just to see if there were any bites... don't consider this an official endorsement. Just trying to help someone out.
Heads up my New York friends - Kid Robot is going to relaunch their NY store on the 28th. Aside from all the great new vinyl figures they are bound to have, the forthcoming Apparel Line looks great. Hopefully the website will be updated simultaneously as well.
September 20, 2006
Thank you Relative Theory for reminding me that The Big Sleep record came out this week. Son of the Tiger is such a great balance of My Bloody Valentine and their harder rock ilk of bands that I was instantly hooked. I suggest you all investigate immediately:
99% of the time a band releasing a new t-shirt design on the world is hardly news worthy but for some odd reason I think the design of the newest shirt from Apes & Androids is fantastic and completely worthy of being shared. Check it out:
The artist responsible, Simon Noynay has a ton of great illustrations on his site. He's even got a Threadless Select shirt available.
For whatever reason I don't see that many design portfolios these days but when I do run across one that does things a little different I try to take note. The design group Booreiland has quite the nice site. Very clean grid design, nice minimal use of Flash, and some nice pieces to check out.
Added to that is MonoKai - the personal website of one of the Booreiland designers. I've seen my fair share of "Flash Labs" during my tenure here on the web but the pieces found here are not only extremely well done but actually fun to play around with.
Moo.com has developed a new service they are calling Flickr Minicards that allows you to take a set of 10 (or 100) of your Flickr pics and print them in a wide aspect business card format. Off the top of my head I can't think of too much use for this BUT they are offering 10 free cards to Flickr Pro users who sign up now so it may be worth checking it out just to see what it's all about.
September 19, 2006
The new Emily Haines album, Knives Don't Have Your Back, is on the horizon (next week) and I'm quite interested to hear it. It should be a far cry from anything Metric has done but she has always had an enjoyable voice in my opinion. Added to that notion is the fact that the album is supposedly more introspective and personal - as opposed to the political and sexual themes of Metric. Regardless, here's the video for the track "Doctor Blind."
With my new setup I quickly discovered that getting anything off my laptop was a total pain in the ass because I'd have to switch keyboards / mice in order to use it. Enter Teleport - a handy little piece of software that uses Bluetooth to enable you to share one mouse, one keyboard between multiple machines. Aside from that extreme convenience it now allows you to drag files as well - pretty much perfect.
Check out the different styles of the forthcoming Windows Vista OS. Quick comparisons of the four different styles - Aero Glass, Vista Standard, Vista Basic, and Windows Classic. Apparently each one takes a different chunk of memory depending on how much transparency and gloss you want. Overall I'd say it's an improvement from the first screenshots I saw of Vista so long ago. Except for Windows Classic mode - which is unexcusably ugly.
Occasionally I run across some videos that aren't in easy to consume, streamable formats (aka not on YouTube) but they still need to be enjoyed. So get your plugins ready...
Field Music - In Context - music video from the new Field Music album that won't come out here for quite some time. Regardless, the illustration is impressive.
According to the official Beirut site (the band) they have signed with 4AD for distribution outside of North America and will be releasing a bonus EP to go along with their debut Gulag Orkestar. The question is, how can I get my hands on said EP without paying import prices for the entire album?
September 18, 2006
That's it - this Ikea Mini-Site for Garderoben proves that video is the new website. Get those FLV encoders ready because I have a feeling this is going to become a whole lot more commonplace. And, really, from an advertising perspective - it's a good thing. An interactive commercial taken to an almost literal degree. Love the seamless integration of the clip and the transitions between sections / levels.
A few videos to entertain you during your Monday morning worktime lulls. The first, "Enter The Copywriter", should brighten just about anyones day that has worked with / in an ad agency. The second is another entry from this years 48 Hour Film Project directed by Michael Carter and featuring Chris Crofton and Dave Cloud. It also happens to feature some rather vulgar and very nsfw situations. Regardless, it contains at least a few chuckles.
This weekend UK's favorite artist Banksy had an art show in LA. Much like his previous shows the location was not announced until the day of the opening but that didn't seem to stop droves of people from showing up. Check out this gallery from the show. The first 10 or so pics are all of celebrities attending which I would hope Banksy could care less about - but the amount of art being shown is fantastic. The very last two pieces in the series are possibly my favorite.
Oh, and there was a live elephant as part of the exhibit completely painted trunk to toe in an atypical Banksy fashion (i.e. not graff style - more Louis Vuitton).
