Sorry

No posts for a while. Lots of side projects going on.

Better throw out that butter.

This is an interesting find I stumbled upon: Table of Condiments that Periodically Go Bad.

[via my Stumble! feed]

Not cool enough for school.

So I've been neglecting The Daily Visit....because there hasn't been anything too cool or interesting to write about for the past week. I have a couple of things to share while I wait for some files to copy over to the server. Enjoy!

Design not Within Reach.

According to Reuters, Design Within Reach posted losses for the second time this year AND missed their the deadline for filing financial reports, which has led to a threat of delisting by NASDAQ.

Why buy expensive stuff if you can't take it home right away? I'll just order it out of the catalog if it's going to take three weeks anyway.

[via Unbeige]

Pimp your cat.

Give your cat some grillz.

[via BoingBoing]

S+arck House

Check out this cool house building kit by Philippe Starck.

"The wooden box contains the general plan of the house and its components on a scale of 1:50, with and without canopy, with additional 150 m² floor space (ground floor, first floor, roof, two sections and all four facades), detailed plans on a scale of 1:50 for the ground woodwork, principles of woodworking (beams and joists, insulation, flooring and parquet), roofing woodwork, exterior construction work (windows on the four facades and plans for electrical wiring, heating and plumbing), a site checklist, a video showing the various stages of construction, commented by Philippe Starck, a step-by-step site management notebook, a blank notebook for the client's own comments, a hammer to symbolize the labour of building a house and a French flag for the topping out ceremony. The plans for the house, which can be customized, were drawn up by designer Patrick Bouchain and architects L. Juliene and J.M. Mandon. Needless to say, implementation of the project calls for skilled workers, official planning permission and adaptation to the site for local conditions."

It's being sold via the Apartment Therapy classified section for $2000 (add $30 for a VCR) See more and read more here.

[via Apartment Therapy]

Is it the shoes?

Stephon Marbury is not the money/ego-lusting basketball player we all thought he was.

"Stephon Marbury is now endorsing a sneaker that costs just $14.98, a pittance when compared with the often daunting prices that companies such as Nike and Reebok charge for their footwear."

He also plans on wearing the shoes during the season. Marbury will prove that if you wear $14.98 shoes or $300 shoes and if your team sucks, you'll still lose.

[via ESPN]

Haters want to hate.

There's a movement to kill the caps lock key on all future keyboards. Don't we all have better things to do?

[via Engadget]

Leaders finish first...with more money.

There is a very interesting article is in Communication Arts' photography annual regarding design management v. design leadership. Conclusion: leaders make more $$$$$.

[via Design Observer]

Photoshop Magic

A history of digitally altered magazine covers and news-worthy photographs can be found here on someone's page at Dartmouth. My favorite is still Ann Richards on that Harley. That's one white hot mama.

[via Coudal Partners]

Flat Silicone.

These silicone strainers from SiliconeZone look really cool....and they lay flat when not in use.

[via Cool Hunting]

Don't blame Rumsfeld and the Republicans, blame PowerPoint.

Apparently war planning and briefings in Iraq are being communicated via PowerPoint slides (see above for an example). This war would definitely go over better with a graphic designer....or even if Rumsfeld and his entourage started using Keynote. Read more about it over at Crooked Timber.

[via Design Observer]

Nothing to post today except this:

Happy birthday Paul!

It's not easy.

India Amos blogs that designing a book is not as simple as selecting a typeface. If your mother still doesn't understand what you do as a designer, India's description may help.

[via Coudal Parnters]

The fox and dog of type specimens.

I didn't know this....but if you're familiar with font activation software, the purpose for previews of "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," is that the phrase contains all 26 letters of the alphabet.

[via weirdfacts.com]

Unusual deaths.

I stumbled upon a list of unusual deaths on Wikipedia. Somehow they remind me of Six Feet Under opening sequences. Weird.

[via Wikipedia]

It's about time these were rethought.

That little white box on the ground there is the new Concealed Surge Protector from Belkin. It allows all your cords and plugs to be hidden in a nice tidy box. I must have one. No word yet on when they'll be at your local big box electronic store, but they'll retail for around $49.

[via Gizmodo]

Making other designers seem expensive.

Everyone is jazzed about flags. The New Mexican has an article about the history of the design of the really cool New Mexican flag. The designer/physician/archaeologist only made $25—that was about 80+ years ago...but still, c'mon dude, it's designers like you that make it tough for designers like me to charge a lot.

[via Unbeige, photo via the New Mexican]

Get a hummer with your happy meal.

McDonald's is including small die cast toy Hummers in its Happy Meals.

"With enough visits to McDonald’s, children will be able to collect eight different Hummers in a variety of colors, including two versions of the H1, the original and most monstrous member of the Hummer family, which General Motors stopped making in June."

Environmentalists are pissed.

[via the New York Times]

Reflection in the oil.

A contributor to BP's brand reflects on BP.

[via Design Observer]

Flag it.

Tom Coates whose blog is plasticbag.org, has a really great analysis/critique of a few state flags. An interesting topic for your design teachers out there. And of course, he says the Texas flag is the most successful. Read for yourself.

[via Coudal Partners]

Gellin' like a felon.

Reader email over at CNN:

I was not allowed to board a plane from Fresno to [San Francisco] yesterday (August 10) because my shoe insole was supposedly made of "gel".

Ragui Michael
San Francisco

[via BoingBoing]

Brand Whore.

Look at this douchebag. He got the Ralph Lauren Polo logo tattooed above his right nipple so when he goes shirtless, he can look like a douchebag. Apparently branding yourself, figuratively and literally, has become a new trend. One tattoo artist in D.C. says:

"getting inked with designer or corporate logos is 'definitely getting more acceptable.' Logo requests range from Chanel and Gucci to Windows and PlayStation."

[via DCist, photo via MSNBC]

ElimiDate Eliminated.

...and that other show Blind Date was sort of killed as well, but I led with ElimiDate, because the headline sounded cooler.

"Both ElimiDate and Blind Date are not coming back next season. ElimiDate hasn't been renewed at all, and while Blind Date has been renewed in 90% of the country for next season, they are just going to show repeats."

[via TVSquad]

What does your metro look like?

Check out this compilation of metro logos from around the world.

[via Coudal Partners]

Why is it called a "jewel case" anyway?

According to wikipedia:

"The case does not derive in any way from containers for jewelry. Instead, the name apparently originates from watchmakers' use of the term jewel to refer generally to a polished hemispherical bearing used in a mechanism (high-quality mechanical watches and clocks commonly use gemstones, typically rubies, for such bearings because of their low friction properties). A jewel case has two moulded hemispherical plastic bearings, in its hinges, hence the use of the term 'jewel'."

[via wikipedia]

A Jewel of Jewel Cases.

Tired of those crappy-ass generic jewel cases? Check out Jewelboxing.

[via Coudal Partners]

These rooms will jack with your eyes.

My friend Jeremy pointed this to me a while back before I started blogging, and was recently reminded of it by a posting by Coudal Partners.

These rooms are painted so that, when looked at from a specific angle, optical illusions will appear. To see more go to 2Loop.com (the flashing ads there are freakin' annoying though).

Crazy.

[via Jeremy and Coudal Partners]

Cover Catalog Online.

All those great UCLA Extension Catalog covers by your favorite graphic designers are online for viewing and admiring.

[via Unbeige]

Not to be confused with a Kleenex box...or the old Apple Cube.

These beautiful Apple Design Awards given out at the WWDC, glow when they're touched. One of this year's recipients promptly documents the glowing cube's dissection.

[via iconfactory]

The Final Frontier of Inspiration.

Trekkies need a bit of inspiration every now and again. Check out these Star Trek Inspirational Posters a la Despair a la Successories.

[via TVSquad]

World domination through blogging.

My good friend Julien has started a blog where he wants to 1) get a lot of hits and 2) dominate the world. Help him out and check out his blog called The Blogging Blogger Blog. We'll see how long it'll take for The Daily Visit to be subject of his performance art.

Screech Mugged, but they didn't take his career....thank goodness.

Screech Powers got mugged IN his hotel room. Read more here. Where is Zach Morris when you need him? He'd know what to do.

[via TV Squad]

The search and seizure of your privacy.

This story posted at the New York Times today will really make you think twice about googling "anal fissures."

Copies of detailed records of searches via AOL are circulating online, and some Sherlocks are backtracking the queries to actual people.

Collecting this type of data for the purposes of increasing search engine efficiency and targeted media placement comes at a cost—your privacy.

I came across a tool the other day that might help slow down this type of data collecting. www.the-cloak.com is a website that allows you to surf through their website, thus masking your identity and location and making your surfing "anonymous"—think of it as a buffer. There is more information along with diagrams on their FAQ page.

If they get a subpoena, they'll probably turn over their records, but it's still an extra step.

[via Design Observer]

Shiv'er me timbers.

There are some more beautiful photographs of a collection of shivs (taken by Brett Yasko) along with backstories at the Design Observer.

"The shivs shown here, from the collection of designers Chris Kasabach and Vanessa Sica, were confiscated more than twenty years ago from New Jersey’s Rahway Prison (now East Jersey State Penitentiary), a maximum-security facility that houses more than 1,500 inmates serving sentences of twenty-five years to life."

Take a looksee....or I'll cut you.

[via Design Observer]

Infinitely scalable.

If you can believe it, this "photo" of Keira Knightley is actually vector art drawn in Adobe Illustrator using a gradient mesh technique. Craziness. See more of this guy's work here.

[via Gizmodo]

X-Mas does not come early.

Sooooo.....the WWDC proved to be less fruitful than what was rumored. No new iPhone, no new widescreen iPod, no movie rental service via iTunes, no definite adoption of HD-DVD or Blueray. Nothing but the Mac Pro, which sports 2 Intel Dual Core Xeon processors (essentialy a Quad-processor, which runs at 2x the speed of the previous dual G5), running up to 3 Ghz, and enough slots to hold 2 TB of storage, 2 optical drives and 16 GB of RAM. I won't be getting one of these anytime soon.

Lots of cool things to come in the next version of OS X called Leopard, which will make everyone's new MacBook or MacBook Pro run much much faster and seem much cooler. But that's not out until next spring.

I'm not satisfied.

"Hasta la vista, Vista"

I love it. We'll find out about some new Apple products within the next hour when Steve Jobs takes the stage from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Fran.

[via Engadget]

Hack.

Some hack photographer working for Reuters, named Adnan Hajj, is trying to blow smoke up our collective asses with this obviously doctored photo of Beirut post airstrike. Obviously Adnan does not know how to use the cloning tool very well; that smoke looks like crap.

"In the message, Reuters said that 'photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvience.'"

See the before and after on ynetnews.

[via Jeremy]

What being lazy for 30 years will get you.

I found a very interesting article about how GM and Ford got screwed by not the Japanese, but themselves.

"It’s quite possible that none of this would have happened, Japanese car company officials say, had American executives, politicians and union officials not put pressure on their companies nearly 30 years ago to build factories in the United States. It certainly wouldn’t have happened so fast."

Screwgie.

[via the New York Times]

Zebras get new stripes.

NFL referees get some new unis.

"Making a fashion statement was not the primary motivation behind the decision to make the change, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said. First was the desire for a lightweight, more efficient fabric that would be cooler in hot weather and warmer in cold weather."

Maybe feeling more comfortable will decrease the number of shiesty calls this season.

[via ESPN]

Yippee-ki-yay

Bruce Willis is about to start filming Die Hard 4 which will be called "Live Free or Die Hard."

"Promising the 'biggest, most realistic set pieces in the franchise's illustrious history,' studio 20th Century Fox has revealed that the new film centers around an attack on the computer infrastructure of the United States government. With a shadowy figure overseeing the technological terror, McClane must adapt his old-school ways before the cutting-edge scheme shuts down the entire nation."

[via MTV]

White guys can sing Yacht Rock.

Michael MacDonald, Kenny Loggins, the Doobie Brothers and Hall and Oates: sounds like the hot tub at Shelly's.

Check out the Yacht Rock series that can be found on YouTube. It's freakin' hilarious. And if you're in Austin, the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown is having a Yacht Rock Marathon on September 19.

[via YouTube and Johnnie]

From the Maineline to Greenwich.

White guys can't rap. Thanks to Rebecca for sending this my way!

[via YouTube and Rebecca]

1984 Legos.

This is so freakin' cool.

It's a Lego set that is based on Apple's 1984 commercial.

"There are only 100 units of this limited edition playset available. The Lego playset will go on sale tonight at 9:00pm eastern for $198.99 each."

Buy it here...tonight!

[via Gizmodo]

Intentional?

As a designer, I think yes...because that's something I'd love to do.

This is a pretty crazy photo of the tracking light at the bottom of the new bluetooth Mighty Mouse mouse released by Apple a few days ago. Some say it's an intentional Easter Egg, some (like my friend Tom) think its a bunch of crap.

[via Infinite Loop and Josh]

Hungry men like bigger women.

Interesting article found on BoingBoing.

"They asked the men to rate how hungry they were on a scale of one to seven. Using these responses, the researchers selected 30 hungry and 31 satiated men to take part in the study.

The men were then asked to rate the attractiveness of 50 women of varying weights, all within a healthy range, who had been photographed wearing tight grey leotards and leggings.

The hungry men rated more of the heavier women as attractive than the men who were full up."

Read more about it on the BBC.

[via BoingBoing]

Does DVR increase TV viewing?

It certainly allows me to watch all the shows I want to watch....but would I watch all the shows I want to watch if I didn't have a DVR box?

"Mediamark's numbers state that 20 percent of adults watch 44.5 hours or more of TV per week, while only 15.7 of DVR owners watch that much boob tube. The numbers come from in-home interviews of 26,000 adults from March '05 to March '06, but the broadcast networks aren't buying it. David Poltrack of CBS said that interviewees often under report TV watching, and that the research by Arbitron that is usually cited—which conveniently points to more viewing and therefore more ad dollars—is machine-recorded, and therefore more reliable."

[via Engadget]

WTF?

My friends Johnnie and Jeremy sent this to me. Funny stuff, but DON'T VIEW IT WITHOUT HEADPHONES. The guy totally flips out towards the end.

[via Johnnie and Jeremy]

"I wish I could quit you...Batman"

According to MTV, Heath Ledger will be playing The Joker in the next Batman movie titled "The Dark Knight" scheduled to be released in 2008. Interesting pick.

[via MTV]

Anti-pilling soft fleece pillow hands.

This is utterly ridiculous. Zaky is "an ergonomic pillow that simulates the weight, touch and feel of the hands of a caring parent." For $35 you won't have to worry about neglecting your baby ever again.

[via Gizmodo]