Newsweeks’ Oscar Roundtable
January 27, 2008 | Categories: Films / Internet / Magazine

Last week, Newsweek posted it’s 11th Annual Oscar Roundtable, which brings together six of the biggest Oscar contenders and has a nice chat with them. The conversation comes in 14 parts, each running anywhere from 2 to 8 minutes, all of them being extremely interesting. This years roundup brought Angelina Jolie, Daniel Day-Lewis, Ellen Page, George Clooney, Marion Cotillard, and James McAvoy.

The conversation goes all over the place, from their first job, politics, and obnoxious neighbors. George Clooney provided the best story of the night, talking about an encounter he had with helicopters flying over his because Britney Spears lives 300 km away from his house. Listening to him tell his stories, it’s very evident how extremely nice and genuine he is. I also learned that every actor in the world is in utter awe of Daniel Day-Lewis and the performances he gives. Definitely worth the hour investment.

Bobby

Clean Your Computer Screen Instantly!
January 24, 2008 | Categories: Internet

This could quite possibly the cutest/funniest/grossest thing I’ve seen in a while. If you’ve got a dirty screen, simply click here and magically your screen will be cleaned! I promise this isn’t some sort of virus, or anything weird, it’s just funny. I realize how dorky this is, but I could stare at it all day!

Bobby

Super Mario Bros. 2 with Drums
January 24, 2008 | Categories: Games / Internet

Growing up, I was a hardcore Super Mario Bros 2 fan. I wasn’t cool like all of the other kids who played Super Mario 3, I enjoyed the campyness of Mario 2. You got four character to choose from, the slot machine after each level to win more lives, the potions that opened doors to bizarro worlds… what wasn’t to love?

Andrea Vadrucci must have been like me, as you can see in the video above, who’s spiced up the classic soundtrack with some punk-ish drumming. My favorite part is at about 2:05 when he gets to the boss battle music.I can totally picture Princess jumping on the eggs that Bird-O shot out and throwing it at her, and when it hits her she makes that pained sound. That sound brought me such pleasure as a small child.
Also, his double bass pedals are pretty fun. It’s a pretty dorky idea, but it certainly made me smile this morning.

Found through Joystiq

Bobby

Last.fm Has Freed the Music
January 23, 2008 | Categories: Internet / Music / Technology

Last.fm announced today that it’s worked out a deal with major and indie record labels to be allowed to stream full songs and albums by artists. This is apretty crazy announcement, seeing as how this means you can preview entire records if you want to. I guess that the labels are getting paid every time a track is streamed, so I hope that Last.fm doesn’t start throwing more ads into the works, but overall this sounds rad.

The songs can be played up to 3 times before you’re given a notice talking about their upcoming subscription service that they’ll be releasing. With this plan, you’d be able to play tracks as much as you want “and some other useful things.” It’s a cool idea to be able to listen to any album, any where, all the way through. I wonder how this might effect all the other players in the music game like Apple and Amazon?

Bobby

Kitsune Noir iPhone Icon
January 17, 2008 | Categories: Blogs / Internet / Technology

I just wanted to post a quick blurb about the iPhone’s new home screen icons. Now when you put Kitsune Noir as an icon on the home screen of your iPhone, you’ll get a cute little +KN icon instead of a janky screen grab of the site. If you want to do this for your own website as well, be sure to click here for all the how-to information.

Bobby

Giant Animated Apple Ad on NY Times Front Page
January 17, 2008 | Categories: Internet / Technology

The NY Times this morning has a massive Apple ad featuring Mac and PC, and a quote from the Wall Street Journal. The quote states “Leopard is better and faster than Vista”, so PC gets up on a ladder and staples a sign next to it saying “NOT”, and then tells Mac that they have the whole internet to correct. It’s a pretty cool little ad, especially because they go out of one frame and into another, yet again Apple is showing everyone just how dang clever they are.

But is the ad a slight barb at The Wall Street Journal as well? It’s kind of odd that the NY Times would be running an ad which criticizes another major newspaper… or is it? Anyhow, Apple keeps me happy with little treats like this.

Update: My friend JKim alerted me that the ad is also up on The Wall Street Journal’s site as well, so I guess there’s no beef?

Bobby

Color Study #4 by UPSO
January 15, 2008 | Categories: Art / Illustration / Internet

I’m slowly becoming obsessed with collecting art prints, even though I don’t have any place to put them all. A fine example is UPSO’s recent contribution to 20×200 called Color Study #4. For those not familiar with 20×200, they release 200 prints at 8.5″ x 11″ for $20, 20 prints at 22″ x 17″ prints for $200, and 2 prints at 40″ x 30″ for $2000.

Obviously I bought the $20 one, the only one that’s really in my budget. I also bought this print by Todd St. John (who also runs Hunter Gatherer) because I love the simplicity of it. New prints go up every Tuesday, so be sure to check them out weekly for awesome (and affordable) art!

Bobby

American Craft’s New Website
December 4, 2007 | Categories: Art / Design / Internet / Magazine / Redesign

With American Craft Magazine’s big redesign last month, it’s only fitting that they also gave their website a makeover as well. The site takes on a lot of the style that the magazine has, and even lets you read the main feature from the new December/January issue, featuring Steven and William Land. There’s also a blog type section that covers books, galleris, people and places, as well as things going on around the net. In addition to all of that, they also have a calender section to check for upcoming shows. You can even narrow down your search to your local area.

Overall the redesign looks awesome, and is definitely carrying over the clean and modern vibe the magazine gives off.

Bobby

Layer Tennis: James Hutchinson vs. Trevor Van Meter
November 30, 2007 | Categories: Design / Internet



While this certainly wasn’t the best play of the game, I think it’s enough to give the win to Mr. Trevor Van Meter. I think he was consistently more creative throughout the game. This was a pretty cool game, especially having all the fun animations. I hope they do more of these, though I could imagine how difficult doing this would be. I’ll have to keep an eye out and see if either of the artists talks about how the experience was. All in all, a really fun match!

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Well, this is the final return from Mr. Hutchinson, a really good effort. To me it looks like the guitar heroes have turned into Jay Z, Michael Jackson/Marilyn Manson hybrid, and possibly Damon Albarn from Blur. There’s also the really fun, rockstar background going on as well.
This was a really good move, and I think that James still has a chance. It’s all up to Trevor and his last move.

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What’s the best way to take of invading bug monsters? Fuckin’ jam!
This goes back to the humor and creativity of Round 2, with Trevor’s art and sense of humor making this so awesome. And I love that they’re Guitar Hero guitars, not real one’s. Bonus points for massive nerdery.

Keep reading Layer Tennis: James Hutchinson vs. Trevor Van Meter…

Uniqlo Grid
November 18, 2007 | Categories: Design / Internet

Uniqlo has a rad new interactive game which lets you play and experience the grid system that they use. I wasn’t quite sure what to do at first (probably because I didn’t read the directions…) but after like 5 minutes you totally get it and it starts to become really fun. There really isn’t a point tot he game, it’s more like a social project where up to 50 people get to make the decisions of what the grid will look like. You can add or remove squares, rotate them, or combine them.

I was playing earlier, and usually I try to turn all of the squares the color I was assigned. But someone else decided to drag all of the squares off the grid, leaving it blank. This kind of made it fun because then I started working to actually keep something on the board. It’s a pretty fun way to kill 15 minutes or so. There are also a lot of really great sound effects that go along with the game. You could honestly just sit and watch if you wanted to.

The game was created by Yugo Nakamura of YUGOP, who I posted about in July. The guy is a visionary when it comes to electronic artworks.

Found through Computerlove

Bobby