PURVEYOR OF FINE WORDS

May 27, 2002

May 27 2002

Glurge

If, for some reason, you like forwarding those sappy emails that make their rounds on the internet every once in a while—please stop. They’re stupid. Instead, just tell your friends to go to Glurge.com for a whole library full of pseudo-inspirational reading.

You might also be interested in obtaining this fine pink Hello Kitty laptop that’s really kawaii!

Do you feel lucky?

May 27 2002

RTFM

I think I’m one of the few minority that still reads product manuals. For me, it’s about knowing everything a product is capable of doing. Apparently for others, the object is to find out everything that the product was not meant to do (as the Washington Post reports).

But KitchenAid may not miss the woman — a company spokesman vows this happened — who called to ask which was the best spin cycle in her clothes washer for drying her lettuce. Then she wanted to know how to get the chlorophyll off the washer drum because it was staining her clothes green.

Did you know “Britney Spears” is an anagram for “presbyterians”? Find out yourself at Andy’s Anagram Solver!

Do you feel lucky?

May 19, 2002

May 19 2002

Getting Old

I’m only 23, and signs of senility already are surfacing in my life. I was waiting in the drive-thru at In-N-Out for a good 15 minutes before I even reached the speaker to give my order. Having been inching up every few minutes, I then continued inching past the speaker without stopping and giving my order. I only realized that I missed it when I heard the cashier talking over the speaker 10 feet behind me. Luckily the car behind me wasn’t too close so I backed up and screamed at the speaker from a more reasonable distance of 5 feet. Had I been unable to back up closer to the speaker, I think I would have been too embarrassed to get out of the car, stand next to the speaker, and give my order.

Do you feel lucky?

May 16, 2002

May 16 2002

Google for Moz

Andy was nice enough to alert me to a Google toolbar project for Mozilla, after reading my reservations about Mozilla.

Do you feel lucky?

May 16 2002

The maestro

My estranged friend Jeff, who seems to ebb in and out of human contact, was kind enough to send me a thoughtfully highfalutined response to my recent change of email announcement.


…Its obvious that they have a complete and total
disregard for who you are. For that reason alone, I think that they will go
out of business in six months. Anyone who fails to give you the respect you
think you deserve, well, we know that they must lack the necessary amount of
gray matter to run a business (or lift a fork for that matter)….

…Yes, that’s right, your site, for your the
only one with the programming ability, the internet savvy, the aesthetic
vision and the sheer, raw intelligence needed for the task….

…And how can one man do
now what it took 3,300 to do before? For an ordinary man it would be
impossible. But for a man such as you, Johnvey, a sage so wise, with such
understanding of computers, business and the human mind, the question is not
how can one do the work of 3,300 but why would you need more than one?…

…So good luck on your new quest (not that you need it). I’m sure that
success will come as easily to you as failure comes to those around you….

Well done Jeff. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go rescue a small village in the Congo from a fire ant invasion.

Do you feel lucky?

May 16 2002

Revival!

Overheard conversation today:

Girl 1: No, I don’t like Hugh Grant.

Girl 2: Ooohhh-maaah-gaawd! How can you not?

Girl 1: I think he’s a dork.

Girl 2: Oh.

The past month has been quite hectic (and consequently the only thing I can remember from today is an inane conversation about Hugh Grant), as I have started a new job with the government, am handling 2 independent web development projects, and have joined a new startup. All of a sudden, I have left myself with very little time to watch The Simpsons so I believe that a TiVo will find its way next to my TV soon. Some of you may already be saying, “Why don’t you already have one?”—to which I would reply, “Just lazy.”

Do you feel lucky?

 

Reading

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Linking

  • One of the most popular events of the annual New Yorker Festival is Calvin Trillin's food-oriented walking tour of SoHo, Greenwich Village, Chinatown, and Little Italy. According to the New York Times, one of the tour's favorite destinations is Banh Mi Saigon Bakery, also one of my top lunch destinations.

    Standing outside, dipping his roll into peanut sauce, he said he liked to eat standing up. "If I couldn't eat in a four-star restaurant again, it would mean nothing to me," he said. "But if someone said I couldn't eat any more cilantro, I would be very upset."

    (link)

  • The Big Picture has a selection of photographs from Yann Arthus-Bertrand, who is the answer to the question "hey, who takes those amazing aerial photos of all these different places on earth?" Many more images are available on Arthus-Bertrand's web site and in his many books.

    Some of these photos are coming to NYC in May 2009 in an exhibition in Battery Park City.

    (link)

  • Remember the fun we had reading about this root beer tasting a few months back? The #1 root beer from that tasting, Sprecher (from Wisconsin), is now available on the root beer section of the menu at Ssam Bar. My Moscato d'Asti-addled brain forgot to get a bottle to go when I was there last, but I'll be back for you soon, Sprecher.

    (link)

  • We've seen personal annual reports, but now Christopher Doyle has devised a set of personal identity guidelines for himself.

    The image above is from a spread marked Full Colour Vertical_Private. The following 'key identity formats' are, of course, Full Color_Vertical, Full Colour Seated_Casual and Full Colour Seated _Formal.

    The incorrect uses are hilarious.

    (link)

  • David Friedman of the excellent Ironic Sans blog took some photos of a Kentucky denim factory that distresses jeans for high-end designers.

    I used to scoff at paying a premium for jeans that come with holes in them already. Then I saw just how much work goes into distressing jeans, and I realized that these people are artists. You can't just have any loose threads, you have to have the right loose threads. They can't just be faded. They have to be the right color. A lot of work goes into making these jeans look just right.

    (link)

  • A photographer talks about how he edits his photos and collects editing approaches from other photographers as well.

    You usually have a hunch, but the great thing about photography is that it's so unpredictable, so you never quite understand how and when a good photograph comes about. But when editing, I do contact sheets, then machine prints and then select from that.

    And when asked what makes one image stand out more than another, is it emotional or an intellectual reaction he answers: "It must be intuitive. If it were intellectual, I'd be able to explain what happens. That's why I'm a photographer. I express myself visually, not verbally.

    Two main themes emerge: 1) take some time off from your images in order to evaluate them more fairly, and 2) edit with an outside party, someone you trust to be tough but fair. (via conscientious)

    (link)

  • The New Yorker devotes the entire Talk of the Town section in their latest issue to their endorsement for President. As you might guess, Obama gets the endorsement and John McCain receives no quarter from the editors. The key part of the article concerns the candidates' possible appointments to the Supreme Court and their consequences. A more conservative court scares the shit out of me.

    (link)

  • A new study suggests that HIV jumped from apes to humans around the turn of the 20th century, which coincides with the development of colonial cities in sub-Saharan Africa.

    HIV was and remains a "relatively poorly transmitted" virus, he said, so the key to the success of the virus was possibly the development of cities such as Leopoldville in the early 1900s.

    The large numbers of people living in close proximity would have allowed more opportunity for new infections.

    "I think the picture that has emerged here, is that changes the human population experienced may have opened to the door to the spread of HIV," he said.

    (link)

  • Evan Roth has been putting metal plates with messages and symbols cut into them into his carry-on luggage when he goes through security at the airport.

    Here's Roth's idea, which he calls "TSA Communication" and tells me has already made it through three trial airport runs: Take a metal plate, stencil and cut out a message -- words or an image -- place the plate at the bottom of your carry-on bag, and watch what happens as the TSA employee operating the airport X-ray machine notices ... or doesn't notice.

    So far, he's used plates with outlines of the American flag, a "NOTHING TO SEE HERE" message, and something he calls The Exact Opposite Of A Box Cutter, a plate with a box cutter shape cut out of it.

    (link)

  • Several photo series of fashion models transforming into different outfits. It's amazing how different they can look with changes in makeup, hair, and clothes.

    (link)

  • A Helvetica-themed version of Monopoly. (via df)

    (link)

Links provided by kottke.org.

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