Ploafmaster General

Today we are going to be doing art.

Tonight Valerie and I finished watching Mad Men - Season One thanks to Netflix. As usual, I'm late to the party, but this series is incredible.

With a setup that pulls few punches, we see a cast of nearly unsympathetic characters who, episode after episode, leave me feeling a little hopeless. This doesn't mean the people aren't engaging. Whether it's the acting alone or the window into romanticized 60's culture, I can't help but find myself riveted by Don Draper's shadowy past or Pete Campbell's vaulting ambition.

We watched the first episode of season two on Hulu this evening, and now we're trying to figure out a legitimate place to find episode two (three through the present are available from Comcast's On Demand service, so that's easy enough). And just when I thought I'd be able to start watching fewer programs...

Who'd have thought you could convince a Nigerian scam artist to perform a sketch from Monty Python?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IQqd17p9_0&hl=en&fs=1&w=580&h=470]

When I found out that Honda was introducing a hybrid only model for 2010, I was pretty excited. But then I saw a picture of the reincarnation of the Honda Insight:



Honda may have been the first to market with a gas-electric hybrid car, but this design sure looks familiar...



I've been a huge fan of Honda for years, but ripping off the Prius design is just weak sauce.

Chickity-check this handy app from Trey:

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1702404&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1
Chiplog Demo from Trey Piepmeier on Vimeo.

Looks pretty sweet, and I'd like to get my hands on it.

There are two new pictures of my lovely wife on Flickr. They're the only two out of 12 which were even remotely worth posting, and they're two of the most spontaneous. I indented to shoot a roll of portraits, but a number of factors caused me to rush, resulting in some awkward composition and poor lighting/direction choices.

I'll take this as a lesson in photo-shoot planning.

I dunno how many times I've seen the following on t-shirts, TV shows, or ANYWHERE, really:

GRΣΣK

And we're all supposed to chuckle because we see letters which are clearly not capital "E" but still bear a passing resemblance. I guess it's also supposed to reinforce the Greek-ness (Greekiness?) of something, too, whether a fraternity t-shirt or the title for My Big Fat Greek Feel-good Movie of the Year.

This twists the proverbial knickers because the letter in question isn't pronounced like an "E," it's pronounced like an "S". SIGMA is the Greek letter for "S". EPSILON is the Greek letter for "E" (though not necessarily pronounced like our long "e") but I guess "GREEK" just looks too, well...English.

Blog action will be fairly light this week because things are getting busy as the week winds toward my hombre Jake's wedding on Saturday. That coupled with a short work week and plenty to do around the house means I'm going to be distracted from my usual internet tomfoolery (side note - I LOVE that "tomfoolery" didn't trip the system-wide spell checker!).

It should be worth it, though. I'll have plenty to write about after the weekend, and I'll likely have plenty of photos afterward (and hopefully a few before then, too...). Stay tuned, ye faithful handful of readers!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7-tP12f1Pc&hl=en&fs=1&w=580&h=470]

The above series of shorts comes from San Francisco artist Eric Joyner - a chap who has a strong affinity for vintage toy robots and the donuts they inexplicably crave. I heard about the artist a few years ago via The Sneeze, but only today discovered this glorious collection of clips.

Be sure to check out his paintings, though - there are some true wonders.

eruc·ta·tion
Pronunciation:
i-ˌrək-ˈtā-shən, ˌē-
Function:
noun
Date:
15th century

: an act or instance of belching

Consider this my requisite "I'm so excited about the upcoming football season which starts tonight that I just have to write about it even though every major sports outlet in the country already has something far more in depth and insightful than I could hope to pen" blog post.

Kickoff is at 7 pm, EDT, in Giants Stadium.

Trey calls me a Mint Stalker, and that's accurate. I frequently use my site stats to see who's been visiting and commenting.

Still, it's eerie when I see an IP address from inside my own building at work...

Once again, there's loads of buzz around the whole freaking Internet about the latest thing (well, okay, that's half the reason to be ON the freaking Internet in the first place, I suppose). So I was checking out the web page Google's Chrome browser, only to be stopped by this:



Wait...doesn't Google OWN YouTube? Let's hope they can fix this one in a hurry...

Ladies and gentlemen, DUCT TAPE ADHESIVE BANDAGES:



Now there's no losing that bandage over your vomit-inducing forearm gash. And no losing the grime that's sure to stick to the left-behind residue as well.
(via Uncrate)

I bet the police in Shizuoka prefecture look a little closer next time they drag in a body...

RIP, Don LaFontaine.

A little piece of me is about to die inside just from linking to this, but here goes...

Thomas Kinkade has stooped to a new low by painting a visual cacophony of radioactive pastels into the form of the Daytona 500.
(via Chris. Thanks, I think...)

A few fresh stills reside on my Flickr stream. Check it.

Today John Gruber linked up a Wired article about the Red video camera. I agree with his observation:

The most amazing part is that the core technology didn’t come from a company like Canon or Sony — Red created it themselves.

I think it extends further than the sensor itself. The notion that a guy who sold handlebar grips and sunglasses would go on to create a camera which has Hollywood heavies salivating is incredible. So I figured I'd explore similar situations where entrepreneurs or players in other lines of business break into established or unrelated industries.

Consider, first, the automobile industry. The established competitors spent plenty of money, time, and effort passing off concept electric vehicles citing nebulous timelines for when we could expect to see such cars on the road. Along comes a pair of engineers with the help of some Silicon Valley investment to create the Tesla Roadster. Here we have an all electric car in production. Pricey, yes, but it's only the first model, and more designs are on the way. They sold out of the entire batch of their first production run in advance and have a waiting list.

There is also the now familiar story of Apple's iPhone and the rest of the cellular industry. Industry giants scoffed at the newcomer (well, new to this market, at least) at first. Now with around 12 million handsets in the wild and apparently 45 million more to be produced through August 2009, we see every major handset manufacturer aping at least the full-touch-screen concept, and at worst design cues as well.

It's interesting to see how certain industries become insular after long periods of a few dominant players. I'm always impressed and encouraged when outsiders bring fresh thinking to these arenas challenging conventional business practices. Sometimes they make waves, and sometimes they turn entire sectors on their collective head.

Well well well...it appears ol' Zep may be getting back together. Nothing's official, and Plant isn't yet on board, but all the instrumentalists are recording new material. That has to count for something :-)

Well, the Nikon D90 is official. It may not be full-frame, but it's a whole lot of everything else - so much, in fact, that I believe Val and I will pass on the D200 when the time comes.

The ability to use quality photographic camera lenses to shoot HD video (720p at 24fps) pretty much sold me, and the rest of the camera's specs make me comfortable with the choice. Not only would Valerie and I be able to produce quality images in a host of conditions, but I could finally put video on the computer that's better than my crappy point-and-shoot digicam provides :-)

The only question now is how soon I can talk Val into letting us get this thing...We have a destination wedding to attend next summer (possibly in LONDON!), so maybe it'll be an easy sell!

Well it seems, heading into the 2008-9 NFL season, that my Giants are dropping like flies. We lost a number of key starters over the summer, and Osi Umenyiora is out for the season with a serious knee injury.

And now we'll be without Super Bowl show stopper David Tyree for at least six weeks...

Let's hope Tom Coughlin and Steve Spagnuolo can hold it together - it'd be a shame to fall apart after such a brilliant finish last season.

So first thing's first...I'm not a surfer, and I never was. I'm not likely to be, either, now that I live a fair clip inland. But growing up near the Jersey Shore I, like nearly every kid around me, wore surf wear brands like Rusty, Ocean Pacific, Billabong, and my personal favorite, Quiksilver.

Additionally, while I like a nice time piece, I've never been obsessed with fine watches the way many fellas seem to be...but today I saw The Ray:



I'm sure when this drop in November it'll sell out quicker than I can blink at a price I can't afford, but I can still appreciate the chrome and ebony.

This spectacular video highlights American design in the late 1950's:

http://www.archive.org/flow/FlowPlayerLight.swf?config=%7Bembedded%3Atrue%2CshowFullScreenButton%3Atrue%2CshowMuteVolumeButton%3Atrue%2CshowMenu%3Atrue%2CautoBuffering%3Atrue%2CautoPlay%3Afalse%2CinitialScale%3A%27fit%27%2CmenuItems%3A%5Bfalse%2Cfalse%2Cfalse%2Cfalse%2Ctrue%2Ctrue%2Cfalse%5D%2CusePlayOverlay%3Afalse%2CshowPlayListButtons%3Atrue%2CplayList%3A%5B%7Burl%3A%27American1958%2FAmerican1958%2Eflv%27%7D%5D%2CcontrolBarGloss%3A%27high%27%2CshowVolumeSlider%3Atrue%2CbaseURL%3A%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Earchive%2Eorg%2Fdownload%2F%27%2Cloop%3Afalse%2CcontrolBarBackgroundColor%3A%270x000000%27%7D

The funny thing here is that the film was sponsored by Chevrolet. It makes me sad that American car manufacturers can't seem to recapture that emphasis on design outside of a few concept cars.
(via shiphome)

I was viewing some photos as a slide show on Flickr when I noticed a link for "Options" in the top left of the screen. I clicked it, thinking perhaps I could view images in a random order. Alas, that's not the case, but here's what I saw:



This sort of reference exemplifies the nerdy attention to detail that makes me love this site.