Browsing PicLens Style

What a fantastic little FireFox plug-in this Pic Lens is! In their own words, it "transforms your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for enjoying photos and videos across the web." In my words, it's pretty sick - I love it. So do a lot of other people too. My advice: find 20 spare seconds and install it. Simple as that.

I'm Afraid of "The Hobbit" Movie

Yay - they are making not one but two "Hobbit" movies! Um... actually... I take that "yay" back because upon further review, besides the fact that Guillermo del Toro based on beard, glasses and job description seems to be a cleaned up version of Peter Jackson, there are many reasons to worry about the quality, the story, the style - basically everything - about these new "Hobbit" movies.

One reason to be wary is because of how del Toro feels about the genre. In 2006 he said,

"I was never into heroic fantasy. At all. I don't like little guys and dragons, hairy feet, hobbits -- I've never been into that at all. I don't like sword and sorcery, I hate all that stuff."

The second reason this director should not be trusted with the Tolkien franchise is that (to quote the Salon piece), "his aesthetic is darker, more Gothic and more grotesque than the Tolkien-via-Jackson universe; it derives more from the medieval mire of middle-European fairy tale than from the high-toned, pre-modern northern European epics Tolkien was channeling."

Something is rotten in the lands of New Zealand and Tinseltown. Read the full Andrew O’Hehir penned Salon article (just click on the top right where you see the small words in a red box that say "Enter Salon") for all the reasons you should temper your enthusiasm. I have two words for you: George Lucas. 'Nuff said.

Subway Love

I would like to start off by stating that I have been waiting to post until I have had enough time to write a super well thought out piece about something very relevant to the issues we face today. This has been a bad idea though because this amount of time either never comes or when it does, writing about the issues we face today often makes me either angry or sad, or sometimes both at once, which then discourages me from putting my thoughts down in a binary way. I mean, what kind of a world am I bringing a kid into anyway, right?

Well, to brighten things up on this rainy Monday (which as an aside is the name of a "Shiny Toy Guns" song that I love), it is a world that has subways! As a kid, I loved the subway - the machine's motion mixed with all of the revolving human commotion that occurs on the platform and within - and I still do as an adult. I have loved living in both NYC and London - two cities with iconic underground systems - for this very reason as I flat out love not owning a car.

Regarding my home city's system, in 1972, Massimo Vignelli developed a now famous map of the NYC Subway system. I was happy to learn that you can now buy an updated versions of this map but watch out, its a tad more expensive than the free ones the MTA distributes.

I was recently made aware of Eddie Jabbour's attempt at building a better mousetrap so to speak called Kick Map which is pretty cool as well. Here is one critics take on it:

"The Metropolitan Transportation Authority might learn from Eddie Jabbour. After studying more than a century of New York train and subway maps, Jabbour concluded that the current map, which originated in 1979, has become obsolete. Jabbour started buying old subway maps on eBay and researched their histories. More than two years work culminated with his own, a smaller and easier to read map influenced by all its predecessors.

Indeed, his map is easier to read. It is clean, uncluttered and efficient. There is a folding, pocket-sized version, smaller than a calling card. Every train line is depicted with its own corresponding line on paper. It's easier to tell what train stops where on his map."

In summation, I promise to try and post more, even if they aren't 5,000 word screeds about the idiocy of our war in Iraq, the looming recession, the mortgage crisis or other fun topics.

Pet Names

I've listed below the 10 most common dog and cat names based on a recent analysis of VPI's 450,000 insured pets:

Dogs: Max, Molly, Buddy, Bella, Lucy, Maggie, Daisy, Jake, Bailey & Rocky.

Cats: Max, Chloe, Lucy, Tigger, Tigger, Smokey, Oliver, Bella, Sophie & Princess.

Two things of note: 1) Max wins for both and 2) human names are more popular for dogs than cats which I find a little odd.

Baracky

My friend, who has been working on Obama's campaign for the last almost two years now, sent me the video below which, while being Pro-O, is definitely entertaining.

Via YLFO

Lord of the E-Mail?

I have no clue how Yahoo! got the Tolkien estate to give them rights to use Bilbo and Gandalf to advertise how you can text and chat inside Yahoo!'s email offering. Half of me thinks it is oddly interesting to "watch" Mr. Wizard and the Halfling converse as if they were 15 year old girls. The other half thinks it is sacrilegious. You decide which half you fall on.

Being Everywhere At Once

I'm smack dab in the middle of The Painted Bird, a novel that many people read while in junior or senior high school (for me however it was never included on any class's reading list).

One passage in particular jumped out at me and I thought I'd share it. It's about one of my favorite subject - religion:

"The church always overwhelmed me. And yet it was one of the many houses of God scattered all over the world. God did not live in any of them, but it was assumed for some reason that He was present in all of them at once. He was like the unexpected guest for whom the wealthier farmers always kept an additional place at their table." ~ Jerzy Kosinkski

The book is unique and a well done. I wish I read it years ago....

Fool

This past Tuesday, I carried out an elaborate April's Fool Joke while at my client's office for a meeting. I was told via a text message from a co-worker that Client A wrote him to say that it was Client B's birthday. Since it was April's Fool Day, either it was or it wasn't, but me being me I decided to err on the side of caution because if I was wrong, it was April Fools Day and it would be hysterical - I mean, I was with them both all day long.

So, I stole away from the work session and somehow managed to buy 6 donuts, a birthday card and trick candles from stores located in their office complex. I then walked back into their executive board room singing, candle aflame. The prodigious smoke from the trick candle almost set off their smoke alarm which would have made the entire joke even more priceless. At the end of the song, I looked at the client who I thought had set the whole shebang up. She blankly looked at me as if I was mad yet funnily charming.

I thought I was helping one client punk another. Turns out my own co-workers had me punk myself. I felt like Jeff Bridges in his car at the end of Arlington Road. If you haven't seen the movie, see it. I found the story compelling.

Upon arriving back at the office, I received a hero's welcome of sorts, for everyone was quite pleased with the way they had set me up. Their used my own good nature against me for I cannot help being who I am and they knew it. They also knew I could laugh about it, which I did and which I am - case in point, I'm sharing the story with you here.

Other good April's Fool's Day jokes this year were Google Custom Time and YouTube's redirect all links from its front page to a video of Rick Astley's 1987 hit Never Gonna Give You Up.

Wang!

I never knew Numberwang! or its cousin Wordwang! existed before today. They are game shows whose host and contestants are both on another level from you or me - watch and see.

Via Colin

Since I've Been Gone

Any time I stop posting, it's usually because I've been pretty busy - this time is no different except that I've been rolling along at an overall even pace. Since my last post:

• I rented with friends an apartment house near the Leidseplein in Amsterdam and then the following weekend a swank hotel room with my wife in New Amsterdam because why not.
• I was bumped up to 1st class randomly on my transatlantic voyage back home from Europa and loved every second of it - truly ka is a wheel.
• I truly learned the value of the adage "You catch more flies with honey."
• I've been busy trying to launch a web site - which will happen sometime next week.
• I started a new footie season and in our 20-12 game one victory, my stat line was just the way I like it: 1 goal & 3 - 4 assists.
• I remembered to buy Serj Tankian tickets for his show in May at Terminal 5 and was able to score a few.

Things keep happening and most of them are good. We'll see what the next few weeks bring. I'm looking forward to them.

April showers bring May flowers. Mayflowers bring pilgrims. Pilgrims bring promise. Etcetera etcetera etcetera