Archive for December, 2008

I love this owl. Do you hear me? LOVE. LOVE IT.

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

My favorite moments of this video are 1:07 and 2:15. I need this shape-shifting anime owl in my life right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es52WQKLumI

Stuff I’ve been making recently.

Friday, December 26th, 2008

I haven’t forgotten about the tortoise. I just haven’t had the chance to get to my table saw and cut out my background piece for it. Hopefully when I go over to my parent’s house tomorrow night, I’ll run away from the holiday celebration for a short period of time and hack some pretty birch plywood into small squares and use one for my tortoise. However, this doesn’t mean I have not been making stuff. I’ve made some delightful animated gif ads for NewCastleNOW.org. Look, a rotating globe ad:

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I iz proud. Right now I am working on a massive (I mean MASSIVE) embroidery project for my kitchen. I have a big piece of Formica blocking in my refrigerator that I want to cover. About eight years ago, I was on grand jury duty and started an embroidery piece to kill the time while I waited for the train, sat in the courtroom, etc. Then it sat in a Williams & Sonoma bag in the basement for seven years, and recently I unearthed it and had an “Aha” moment. Sho’ nuff, it fits perfectly in the spot I want to cover. So I have picked it up again and am sewing on it like it is going out of fashion.

It’s a rectangular piece of muslin I painted black, about four-and-a-half feet by two feet. I painted some muslin red and cut out the shapes of maple leaves. Then I ironed the leaves onto the black background using fusable web, a glue sheet that melts when ironed. Now I am making the veins and color differentiations with thread and, because I am me and I am anal to the max, I am using itty-bitty little stitches. Here are some pics to give you an idea.

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It’s going to resemble maple leaves frozen into the surface of a lake. After all the leaves are stitched, I’m going to stitch silver thread all around each leaf to look like frost. Then I’m going to finish the edges of the tapestry with ribbon and hang it from a rod.

Stitches on leaves with my toes for scale:

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Two more leaves, one unfinished (you can see a small bit of unfinished leaf in the one with the yellow tones):

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I think it will be a nice wallcovering, and I like the fact that something that sat neglected in my parent’s basement for so long has found a purpose. It’s going to be a while before it’s finished, I have five more leaves to go. I’ll update it as it happens.

I’ve been watching TV. I know! Shocking.

Saturday, December 20th, 2008

1. OMG, why is every other commercial for perfume? Perfume is a SMELL. You cannot smell anything on the talking picture box. So far, what I have learned is that if I buy perfume, I will smell like a non-smiling twenty-something lady model, or possibly Elizabeth Taylor, or a horse. Which is to say, I have no freakin’ idea what your perfume smells like, so quit it with the stupid commercials.

Actually, that’s not true. Mariah Carey has a commercial for her perfume, which has butterflies and rainbows on it. I can tell exactly what her perfume smells like. It smells like a girl. A girl who revels in the stupid stereotypes that are associated with women. Like this. Or this. If it wasn’t for her version of “O Holy Night” I would dislike everything about her.

2. Has anyone seen the trailer for the new Clint Eastwood movie? Where he says, “Get off of my lawn,” to a bunch of hooligans? How GREAT is that!?! Clint is an old gruff dude and he’s totally embracing that. I think he needs to incorporate more oldisms into all his movies. But not in a Grumpy Old Men way. Those films were appalling. The only way I think it would be alright would be if Clint said something stupid like, “I got coupons for the Stop and Shop!” but then he riddles someone with bullets. Then it’s okay.

I designed something. Let’s all look at it.

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

It’s a cover for Publicis’ annual thing that they send out with a review of the year’s activities (businesses won, people hired, awards, etc.) Publicis seems to like a great deal of ornament and layers with drop shadows nowadays, so I’m pretty pleased with what I came up with. It’s so lush and detailed. Definitely in keeping with their look. Hooray for me.

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It’s like a Christmas present and when you unwrap it, you get… well, you get information and facts about our company, which isn’t on most people’s lists, but whatever, it’s still a good-looking cover. The insides were really cool too, but I don’t want to post any pictures of them here. I don’t think any of the information was sensitive, but I’d rather play it safe. Don’t wanna dooce myself.

Lights.

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

Ah, the holidays. They come at this wonderful time of year when the sun sets at four in the afternoon and I fall into a deep depression from lack of vitamin D. Thankfully, I work in an area that has a spectacular array of Christmas lights, which helps when even if you get out of work at a reasonable hour like 5:00, it’s still dark. On my walk back to Grand Central, I get to see this:

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And directly in front of me as I exit the building, I see this:

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It soothes the soul, it really does. Even better, this year they have this new thing going on. See those trees in front of Macy’s? You may remember them from the Thanksgiving Day Parade post, when I cursed them for blocking my view. Well, now I love them, because they have LED lights in them that make them look like they’re dripping phosphorescence. The first time I saw it, I stood there with my mouth agape like I just strolled out of the mountains of West Virginia and I done never them lit-up things. I took a video of it with my camera and turned it into an animated gif, and even though the footage is very grainy, hopefully it will give you an idea of what it looks like.

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SO PRETTY. It’s mesmerizing. I hope to trek over to Saks Fifth Avenue and take pictures of their windows. They’re really good this year. They’re about a snowflake named Jeff Mike who didn’t fit in with the other snowflakes. Awwwww.

Addendum: Here’s a lolcat that shows, fairly accurately, what I look like when pretty Christmas lights are flickering all around me.

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Four things I’ve noticed on television today.

Sunday, December 14th, 2008

1. Sean John/Diddy has a new perfume out and it’s called “I Am King”. I have low self-esteem and now I think I know where it all went. Piffy Puffy Poofy got it all, and maybe someone else’s as well. Goodness gracious, that’s a lot of narcissism.

2. While watching the Christmas commercial for Victoria’s Secret, I realized Heidi Klum can have twenty-seven kids and a stroke and she would still be the hottest woman in the whole freakin’ world. Heidi is HOTT, all caps, two “t”s.

3. Just saw a commercial for Jim Carrey’s new movie Yes Man. I don’t really want to see it, but there’s a scene where Jim goes to a Harry Potter costume party and for a split-second someone wearing a Dobby mask walks through the shot. Frankly, that’s kind of awesome. Now I think I’m going to have to see it. Oh, and I just watched the preview… yeah, I’m going to have to see it. Expect a review eventually.

4. Have you seen the recent Campbell’s/Progresso soup ads? SO MUCH DRAMA. Soup commercials used to be, “Our soup is delicious! Try it!” Now it’s like the east coast/west coast rap wars.

“7 out of 10 people prefer our soup!”
“No, they don’t, they prefer ours!”
“Your soup tastes crappy!”
“Well, your soup has msg!”
“Your mother has msg!”
“Oh, kiss my soupy-”
*bang bang bang*

People, it’s SOUP. It’s a wet version of “real” food. Build a bridge and get over it.

Review of Milk. Short version: You should go see it. It’s good.

Friday, December 12th, 2008

Sorry about the lackadaisical blogging lately. You know, for an economy in crisis, I have had more work than ever. There was the annual meeting on Wednesday, and the CEO wanted pictures of everyone in the agency for a slide show while people were entering the auditorium. Guess who had to go take pictures of everyone, therefore sealing my fate as the most-disliked person in the agency? That would be me. Because I felt so guilty for taking everyone’s picture, I then spent hours and hours photoshopping everyone – taking out zits and red eye and bags under said red eyes, etc. Never mind the regular work I had to do. It was tiring, to say the least. But the meeting went smashingly and that’s what really matters to me. Yay, Team Presentations!

Before the mega-workathon began, I got to see a preview showing of Milk, with Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, James Franco, Allison Pill and Gus Van Sant in a Q-and-A afterward. Let’s start with an overall review: Good film. Not the best film I’ve ever seen (that would be Shawshank Redemption), but damn good. I’m forlorn because now Sean Penn is going to get Best Actor at the Oscars for his stellar performance as Harvey Milk. I really wanted Frank Langella to get Best Actor for Frost/Nixon. I haven’t seen the film yet, but I saw the play that the movie is taken directly from, same title actors, and Frank was KILLER. Super-awesome. And now he’s not going to get it. Sniff, whimper. The plot seems overly dramatic, but I found out later that all the things I thought were smudged by the director to make the story more interesting were true. Like Harvey Milk’s lover killing himself in an elaborate way the night before he was elected to office. And the way (*MAJOR SPOILER that you should know about anyway because this is a historical event that happened thirty years ago, but I’m giving you a heads-up out of courtesy*) Dan White kills Harvey Milk, and then blames it on Twinkies. Twinkies made him kill. For reals, people. Can’t make that stuff up. Also, I thought I had a vague grasp on the homosexual scene in America, and I was wrong. I had no idea that in my lifetime, a law was passed in some states that made it completely acceptable to not hire someone, or to deny someone the right to live in your area because they were gay. And if you were a teacher and openly gay, you could be fired. And if you supported an openly gay teacher, you could be fired. I was shocked. I thought outright prejudice against gays was like, a dusty ancient black-and-white-photos thing, not something that was happening fairly recently. It really threw me. And in San Francisco, a place I thought that was one of the most welcoming cities towards gays. Shocking.
Two interesting side notes: One, Emile Hirsch recently starred in a movie called Into The Wild, produced by Sean Penn, and now he’s starring in a film with Sean Penn as an actor. When asked how that was for him, Emile said, “It’s difficult playing a game with your coach,” which I thought was a cool way of putting it. And James Franco, when asked what it was like to kiss Sean Penn, said, “You get another man’s 1970s mustache in your mouth. And I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘Hey, I’m kissing Spicoli!” I thought that was hysterical.

If you don’t get the Spicoli reference, you should rent Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It is a classic American film, and even if you don’t like the film, it’s referenced all the time in popular culture, so you’ll be more “hip”.

Addendum on December 15th: I was watching Reelz Channel today, and they were saying Mickey Rourke might get Best Actor for a film called The Wrestler. What the hell is this? People just be comin’ out of the woodwork with nominations. FRANK OR SEAN. That’s it.

I would like to give props to my homies (insert gang sign here).

Thursday, December 4th, 2008

Normally, I don’t use people’s real names here because I don’t know if they want to be written about on a blog. However, today will be different. Recently, two people that I went to college with or worked with are REPREZENTIN’ and I want to bring your attention to them.

First, I went to SUNY Purchase for my BFA and studied in the Conservatory of Theater Arts and Design (major: Set Design). You know how there’s always someone in your class who you know is a winner and will succeed because they’re just that terrific? Jason Lyons was in my class (major: Lighting Design). Immediately, he was that guy, a “Most Likely To Kick A Copious Amount Of Ass In His Chosen Major” type of person. I was more of the “Most Likely To Be Not Here Next Semester” type. Or the “Most Likely To Snap Late One Night And Shove A Drafting Tool Into Her Eye” type. So, now about ten years have passed since we graduated (him – with honors, me – not so much), and I get an email about a comedian I like a lot, Mike Birbiglia. Lo and behold, Mike has a show off-Broadway.

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And would you look who did his lighting.

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Look at that resume. LOOK AT IT. Boy’s makin’ good. I am so proud of him. I mean, it wasn’t in doubt for a second, but still, it’s nice to see the best thing possible happen to talented people. I should also add that Jason is a super-nice person and should you happen to make his acquaintance, you will see that for yourself. Go see Mike Birbiglia’s show. Mike is great, and I guarantee he will be well-lit.

Second, I worked at BBDO for about five years, and I met a variety of art directors and such in my time there. One of those people was Jayson Atienza. He has a distinct painting style and his main canvas is shoes. I built his website for him originally as a side gig when I was at BBDO. The other day I was in Pylones and saw a book called Custom Kicks.

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It’s an excellent book, full of really cool ideas. And not only does Jayson get his own page, he gets the closing page as well.

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Jayson is also possibly the only person who can look good in a mullet. Really. Not bad at all.

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So I just want to say congratulations to Jason and Jayson and I wish them a ton more success. It’s always so wonderful to see that.

Addendum: Here are a few pics from Custom Kicks that I thought we also excellent representations of sneaker adornment. Good design.

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