Okay, so I admit it... I have a fetish for label design of beverages. Not entirely sure when this started, but I suspect a good guess would be when I was about 17 and hanging out in the licquor stores looking at all the cool designs of the bottles. (Seriously... I've always looked older than I really am).

Over the years, as paper, printing and etching technology has improved, I've watched the beverage design become cooler and cooler (c'mon, admit it... haven't you ever picked up a vodka bottle and said "Now that's cool!"). Throw in European beverages (I actually own an Itchy and Scratchy cola can), and the always wacky Japanese designs (waaay too many to reference), and I honestly think that label design has become my favorite area of graphic design (and one I dare not dabble in myself). I have actually collected all the different flavors of Orbitz...

So why am i babbling about this? Well, courtesy of a archived discussion at : :SpeakUp: : I was perusing, I came across this gem of a site, BevNET... it apparently lists virtually every drink made in the US in the last 20 years (okay, I may be exaggerating just a wee bit there). For some reason they actually review the taste of each one (I mean, who really cares about the taste? All of us only care how cool the design is, right? Right??). I mean, they even got dNL, one of the coolest logos I've seen for a corporate drink in a long LONG time!

So let your eyes drink upon the visual festival of drinks!

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If you're ever in Austin, Minnesota be sure to visit the Spam Museum

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And that geek is me (oh, and Rob too)...

USATODAY.com has a decent (but brief) overview of some of the proposed future standards of wireless technology. I am actually a bit boggled at WiMax, which will supposedly improve the 300 foot maximum of current Wi-Fi to an astounding 30 miles!

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First, Hollywood discovered that it was profitable (and easier) to rip off itself by doing remakes of movies (usually ignoring if they were good or bad in the first place).

Then TV caught on to it as well, not only rehashing old TV shows (or 'importing' them from the motherland), but one could sanely argue that reality TV is simply one big long episode repeated with different casts. (Or it could be the same cast, just with lots of plastic surgery.... but I digress...)

Now, Broadway/musical genre is catching on... again (since they've always repeated themselves).

Apparently, John Cleese has been telling people there will be a Broadway version of "The Holy Grail." Tentatively scheduled for spring of 2005.

I am sincerely intrigued as all get out!

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Okay, so this site, v e c t o r :: s c a n, has a truly HORRIBLE interface, because it looks like nothing has loaded... but way on the left there is a small navigation bar (vertical, no less!). Click on the second one, the one that says "Products". Then click on "BlockJam". The click on the movie icon. Watch said movie.

I wish the rest of this Japanese artist's work was as interesting, but it really isn't.

Now there have been a handful of sites/products the past few weeks that have really made me want to get into the industrial design/engineering field. I love graphic design design, but sometimes I want to branch out, and seeing an insanely deceptively simple product like this really flips me out.

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Following up on Rob's previously announced immense love of all things Spam...
Philip Abadilla has opened a first Spam restaurant in Manila....

And, as Rob is wont to say... words fail me...

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This may seem mundane, but it honestly intrigues the heck outta me...

A 27 year old architect, Áron Losonczi, has apparently invented semi-translucent concrete, using optical glass fibers. Of course the artist in me sees a ton o' potential for cool light pieces, both interior and exterior, but if this is econmically viable, I can honestly see this transforming modern architecture as we know it. More importantly, it can profoundly affect people's (read: employees) psyche.

Architecture has gotten much better at embracing employment environment issues from the worker's perspective, but many corporate offices still feel heavy and oppressive... If done well, this conceivably could dramatically alter our future workplaces.

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I'm guessing this is to promote the latest Ving Rhames film. If not, good luck from Chaos Digest, guys! (We're anti-zombie here.)

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Remember the original Hitchhiker's Guide game from InfoCom? Play that and all the old hits using your preferred instant messenger client. Don't blame me if you get nothing done this afternoon.

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How do you suppose this evening ended? (You sicko.)

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I've been a Mac user since 1988, (thanks, Andy!) and I've been hacking around with the GUI since the first week I handled the (one button is zen, honest!) mouse. Back then, Oscar the Grouch would pop out of your trash can and sing, your Mac would barf your floppy disks at you, and Curly would "Woo woo woo!" at your mistakes. Screen savers really meant something then. Ahhh, Flying Toasters...

With the release of Mac OS X 10.3, Apple's given us a remarkably stable and flexible platform for goofing off. Probably the best tweaking tool out there lately is Konfabulator. This nifty utility is basically a runtime for JavaScript coupled with an interface to all the Mac's "under the hood" functions. So, you can easily create system toys and tools that tap all the power of Unix utilities but are still all shiny and Mac-like. My laptop now displays no fewer than three weather reports, and I am seriously on top of my battery condition. I can even tell you almost exactly how much CPU I'm wasting running all this stuff.

Still, if you miss having a shiny deco kitchen appliance come flapping across your display from time to time, Konfabulator brings back that initial feeling of pure, gee-whiz cool for a while. I wonder if they have a theme song...

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I just found this cartoon in the Guardian, which got me digging, and it turns out that our President's family had a fairly large chunk of change seized by the U.S. government under the Trading with the Enemy Act, just prior to World War II. It looks like the Bush fortune got started by dealing with Hitler.

This is actually pretty telling. It would explain Dubya's obvious lack of respect for government in general; he wraps himself in patriotism and does whatever he likes, and the rest of the government is either with him or against him (including you, citizen). I'd guess Prescott Bush got George Sr. into politics to help forestall future government intervention in family business interests.

The 2000 Florida election debacle and the subsequent pillaging of the American treasury by Halliburton and The Carlyle Group point to a Bush Family relentlessly effective at making trouble work for them. I'm tired of playing: can we have our country back now, please? How many billions do you really need, anyway?

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Big thanks to Mike Daisey for pointing out this cool clock by Japanese digital artist Yugo Nakamura. Mike's got a much better blog than mine, so be sure to go look.

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Own a BMW M3? Wanna pop the clutch and take off screaming? Too bad, yuppie scum! There is no clutch! But wait, what's this? Apparently, the car's controller software has some neat-o hidden extras. You access them by manipulating various dash controls in a certain sequence, a la Mortal Combat special attacks on your PS2. I wonder if it can transform into a jet or anything...

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This week my daughter definitely turned two. Okay, she is really closer to three but now she is behaving like a two year old. I have heard the words NO and MOMMY more than I ever wanted to in this lifetime.

Some months ago "toilet learning" was working slowly but surely. These last weeks my daughter has decided that she does not want to go on the potty. She likes diapers. She likes the potty, but not for the intended purpose. She'll happily disrobe and sit there, but nothing, errr, happens. I am at a loss.

She is very articulate (like a 4-year-old) so I am able to ask her why the task never happens, and her response is a very helpful "I just don't know." I have rewards piling up, and these are just falling short of a trip to Disney World (we're way past stickers now). I would like to enroll her in some kids play classes this summer but they require her to be out of diapers. Does anyone have HELPFUL suggestions? I guess funny ones would be okay, too. I could use a laugh.

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Those of you familiar with the Gnutella/LimeWire network (bite me RIAA... come on and sue me) may have stumbled across this gem last fall... it was basically labeled as an '"adult Star Wars/Star Trek parody." An extremely well-done animation, and even has excellent stereo sound. While a rather hefty 28MB download, it is a very funny 5 minutes of time well-spent if you have a broadband connection.
[WARNING: This is very strong R-rated piece... do not download if you are easily offended (this means you mom)].



Happily, it has turned into a full-fledged series called Tripping the Rift, now showing on the Sci-Fi channel. The warden and I caught the first two shows, and they were honestly very, very funny (they did tone it down a wee bit... but not much). The jokes are seriously laugh-out-loud funny and plentiful, double- and triple-entendres, with numerous background sight-gags as well. Incredibly witty... virtually nothing seems to be off-limit.



Definitely one of the most promising premieres I have seen a mucho long time. Check it out... if you can handle wicked, adult humor (it is not just a bunch of F-bombs), you will not be sorry! Here's a helpful listing of upcoming shows... Normally showing on Thursdays at 10:30pm (that might be a hint at how adult the humor is), a repeat of the second episode is airing Sunday Night at 11pm CST.



Much MUCH better than the lame, obviously low-budget CGI show "Game Over" UPN just premiered this week (nary a chuckle in that show, let alone a laugh!)...This is already high on my TiVo Season Pass list.

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Students have pretty much abandoned the paper encyclopedia in favor of Google as a research tool. I'm pretty sure that the notion of reliable attribution is dead: kids go get what they assume are good facts, even though they may have come from, say, The Onion.

My immediate reaction to this was to quote Orwell: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." My thinking is that without paper encyclopedias, the past is a little less immutable. I couldn't quite remember this quote, so I went looking on Google, and then my head went two ways.

1) The irony of this is pretty obvious. Then I realized that I've started developing my own information purification habits. In this case, I looked at about five sites, and all of them had the quote the same way. I therefore assume that this is the correct quote, in spite of the fact that not 20 feet away is a first edition of the novel itself that I could easily double-check. This is pretty sloppy thinking, and it will certainly bite me at some point. However, what worries me more is that may be subtle errors creeping into education and science, all based on the idea that if enough people are saying the same thing, it must be true. I wonder if it's possible to make up and substantiate a "fact" entirely online and introduce it into to common usage. Hmmm... (Tinfoil-Hat Moment: I wonder how often this is already done. Remember William Randolph Hearst?: "You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war.")

1a) If Google gets wiped out in 10 years, will American science regress to the point where the last widely-available edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica hit the shelves? Probably not, but you get the idea. This must be why inkjet printers still sell so well.

2) In the course of looking up the Orwell quote, I found it couched several times in disparaging comments about cliches and conspiracies. It seems that 1984 has become the well-worn drum of conspiracy theorists, and it's now fashionable to ignore it. Today, when privacy issues are so important and civil rights are being eroded by institutional paranoia and corporate greed, Orwell's words are more relevant than ever. If you hear someone writing them off as "old thinking," try to remind them how much wisdom still lives in the past.

And there you have it: I saw one story, and went twenty ways. Maybe I should switch to decaf.

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Some Russian has worked out a way to hang ads in the sky for "intercontinental coverage." Let the megabranding wars begin. Can you just see the script kiddies getting into these? "Your hax0r3d, 34rth!" Great.

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Patrick Crispen of netsquirrel.com advises us that the Alabama Power Co. (motto: "Hey, Bubba, watch this!") recently helped the University of Alabama install "squirrel proofing" on campus power transformers. This because the poor little suckers are frying themselves regularly, and often bring down power on campus as they check out. The campus paper, The Crimson White, has some coverage. The only reason I find this worth mentioning is the article goes into some detail on squirrel outreach and social issues. U of A is second to none in squirrel wellness:

"When a squirrel hints that he has inclinations to jump into a transistor, the other squirrels need to recognize that that is a cry for help," joked Grant Hiatt, a member of the Alabama Animal Rights Fellowship.

We'll (probably) be watching for new developments as this story unfolds, and on the lookout for more "squirrel issues" stories, as usual.

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Via MoveOn.org [doesn't Rob normally post MoveOn stuff?]:

Last month, President Bush's Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, called America's largest teachers' union [the NEA] a "terrorist organization."

MoveOn is apparently demanding that Bush fire Mr. Paige (shyeah, that'll happen)... feel free to add your two cents, if you desire...
Fire Rod Paige!

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Now, I've become a big fan of film scores in the past 4 or 5 years (personal favs include Kikujiro, Braveheart, Dances With Wolves, Passion, pretty much anything by Anne Dudley and early James Horner), but this interview with composer John Debney (who honestly has never really impressed me all that much) has got to be one of the wierdest interviews I've seen in a long, long time....


As an aside, I recalled reading that Lisa Gerrard (she of Gladitor and Whale Rider fame, and of earlier goth days as (the good*) half of Dead Can Dance) had been invited to add music to the score of "The Passion of Christ". Sadly, it seems she was unable to please the director, and her music was not used. I wonder if it will still be released or not...

* - Sorry to the DCD fans, but Brendan Perry's voice... well, sucks.

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[link] | [email:   ] | posted by haydesigner in SD @ 5:11 AM

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As of midnight eastern, Dish Network stopped broadcasting all of Viacom's networks. This stems from a dispute over how much Echostar is expected to pay Viacom to carry it's networks. Viacom wants something like a half-billion dollars, and Echostar is calling this "excessive." Viacom's "really saddened" about the whole thing:

You, our viewers, are the most important relationship we have and we are really saddened that because of EchoStar/DISH Network's threats and actions, you may not receive our channels and so many of your favorite shows, such as "CSI," "NCAA Basketball on CBS," "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Survivor," "60 Minutes," "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," "SpongeBob SquarePants," "Blue's Clues," "Dora the Explorer," "Newlyweds," "The Real World," "106 & Park," "Roseanne" and "The Cosby Show," and in just 10 days, "March Madness and the Final Four."

When a multi-billion dollar media conglomerate is "really" anything, I'm doubtful about their motives. Watching them affect the air of a deeply concerned pal just throws a searchlight on the ethical horror story that is modern corporate behavior; I don't want to be manipulated any more. Call me cynical, but after watching Viacom trying to raise rates for years and insisting on bundling all their crap channels (who watches Nickelodeon GAS?) with the more valueable stuff, I'm coming down on Echostar's side here. Bonus: I won't risk being even accidentally exposed to "Newlyweds."

SkyReport.com has a decent analysis of the whole bruhaha.

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Our British friends have managed to acquire a secret report from the Pentagon depicting near-term, massive, destructive environmental changes. A highlight:

"A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world."

Sounds like (yet another) good reason to change horses this November.

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Hawaii is apparently Hormel's stronghold; Hawaiians consume more Spam than anywhere else in the union. So, bad news to discover that sales are slipping. Here's Hormel fighting back; ready?

(At least it's not "Spray Spam," or that miserable spreadable version again...)

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Swiss designers Rinspeed and Esoro have teamed up to bring you this new toy. I'm sending in for a review model, which I promise to test extensively. Stay tuned.

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I like to watch the insanely fat squirrels in my back yard bury Cheerios. They are hard to miss and they knock on the window when the food on the deck is running low.

I thought this site was worth a chuckle, although the squirrel vernacular is a little, um, rough. I am willing to entertain the possibility that they're evil, but they are sooo cuuute.

Also, on a squirrel related topic: if you ever get a chance to go to the beach in Carmel, California, bring small snacks.

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The proletariat has spoken. Martha Stewart was unlikable.
1. She is a smart, poised, successful business woman.
2. She is a Democrat.
3. She knows when to take a stock tip from her broker seriously (oh, and she has a broker).
4. She *luckily* made money on her stock trade (the point of stock trading).
5. She did not cook the books, or raid the pension plans of her employees.
6. Her employees like her, and she has the audacity to run a company that way.
7. She has better taste than them.
8. People keep buying her creations.
9. She is a woman.

Prosecuting Martha on the basis of this stock trade was ludicrous. The prosecutors knew they only had to hint repeatedly at some obscure improprieties to get a jury of the jealous to convict in a civil arena. There is a reason the jerks did not try her in criminal court: they didn't have concrete evidence and they could not press their case beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Throughout this fiasco, prosecutors feigned a concern for her Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. (NYSE:MSO) shareholders. But, now the guilty verdict has rendered the company a precipitous drop in share value (from about $19 to $10), probably sending it even lower – about $7 a share. How’s that for protecting the shareholders?

In a time where company executives create countless Enron-style rip-offs only to retire somewhere exclusively sunny to write their memoirs, isn’t this all a little bizarre? I'm wondering if her trial has been a distraction for the Republican double-wide-dwelling dupes (okay, they are not all in trailers but most of them are just pretending to be rich).

Read what the Wall Street Journal and others have to say.

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Once again, citizens of the East have a different take on a perfectly ordinary vegetable.

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Guess who's floating a new book proposal? (Hint: She thought Buffalo Wings were made with real buffalo.) Our friends at The Smoking Gun have an excerpt.

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Announcing in public that we need to ignore someone seems like an oxymoron on a huge scale. Nevertheless, I found some calm and well-supported reasons not to vote for Ralph Nader, so I thought I'd share them with you. Take a look. Pay particular attention to the bit where it discusses what's at stake.

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If a slightly overweight guy were to be accidently combined with a catfish a la "The Fly," the result would probably be something like this. (This is why I always have the head removed from anything I eat...gaaahhh.)
(Note: They moved the image, so the link now points to a Google cache. If anyone saved a copy, let me know.)

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Apparently, Mars was once very, very wet and could easily have supported life. If it did, I wonder what wiped it out.

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Apparently, there's something called Popcorn Packer's Lung, and this guy's going to make someone pay for it. I have Chronic Sarcasm. There must be someone I can sue...

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NASA announced a briefing later today to reveal some "significant findings" from one of the rovers. Wonder if this means they've finally run into extraterrestrial life...?

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I waded through the postings about the Mars mission on AOL. I am afraid for us. I’m hoping that the majority of the postings were from 14-year-olds and a small handful of mental incompetents with multiple screen names. If not, no wonder America is losing ground in every marketplace.

Most posts were poorly worded and full of misspellings (no, not typos). Unfortunately, that was the good part. The postings showed a serious lack of critical thinking skills. Most posters felt compelled to comment despite deplorable ignorance: “you sean one rock you sean em all.” A few found it a platform for some political rant, however irrelevant. Others felt it was a good time to misrepresent the Bible or other foundation of faith: “thou shalt not go to the red light in thy sky.” (These are real quotes, I’m not making them up.)

Setting the Mars mission aside for a moment, I don’t understand the popular anger against NASA in general. Besides enabling stunning views of and information about the universe, the entire world can thank NASA for inventing thousands of products including: smoke detectors, fire-resistant and thermal-protective fabric, bar codes, shock absorbent helmets, CAT and MRI scanning, TV satellite dishes, mercury-free accurate ear thermometers, eye charts for vision, microwave ovens, TV dinners... NASA science is used for weather predictions, agriculture, forestry, land/resource management and navigation to help all of humanity. NASA reinvents the cutting edge and the industry spin-offs are endless. I suspect the Mars mission’s parachute, airbag, and spectrometry equipment will give us some terrestrial applications (to start, let’s hope for ultra-compact parachutes for commercial planes).

Only a couple of posts seemed to grasp that the paltry $820 million spent on this Mars mission went to employing primarily Americans and buying American products. The rest seemed to think that we ripped the cash from the hands of the poor and uninsured, bundled it into the rocket and shot it off of the Earth. The actual cost to the people who really do pay income taxes was less than $4 per person (FYI, the poor and unemployed do not pay income taxes). For the cost of one video rental we get a peek at Earth’s future (the sun is expanding and getting hotter...).

America dominates the aerospace/aeronautics industry. This is one of the last environments where tens of thousands of jobs (for people who eat, buy stuff and do things within our country) are not likely to be “outsourced” any time soon. NASA inspires our kids to get an education, and gives them a place to use it.

My blood pressure is rising...

So, you may ask, why bother browsing AOL at all? It’s an old habit. I’ve had my AOL account since I was a kid, since the first year of their operation. I am, in fact, a “charter member.” I was online back in the days when most of you said “Inter-what?” Before AOL made dialup easy, going online took technical skills and $200 a month. Chatting and posting used to be productive.

It’s hard to give up this long-term arrangement, even though I usually connect through a broadband connection now. But today AOL is rife with other content – the pulse of the amazingly uninformed, the sad majority. It’s becoming clear that AOL might no longer be the place for me. I can say that the posts alone are proof positive that America is spending way too little time and money on science and science education. Oh, hell, any education.

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