SOKO #5 on Behance

Always love these issues by Behance. So much amazin' that I could only pray they'll eventually make a sexy version for the iPad.

A Single Man Review

Fans of The Fountain and Wong Kar Wai's films will truly appreciate this stunning outing by Tom Ford. I don't particularly enjoy the term "art film;" art itself should always be embedded in the cinematic form. But it is an art film, with images clearly aesthetic in every shot and beautiful music demonstrating the main character's everyday torment in remarkable civility. In the end, we see through images that love is love no matter who you are, where you come from or what your circumstances are. It could have been a man and a woman, the fact that it's a man and a man is almost irrelevant. The fact that you can present it in such a stunning, fashionable, and concise package is just remarkable. 8.3/10.

Carles is My Hero

"I blog about blogging," said Carles
He also spoke of synthesizers and hipsters creating memes
for themselves because they all have srs attention issues

He also doesn't use much punctuation which makes it
a little harder to read than most blgs that are 2.0 and up

But I'll admit
its surprisingly addicting to just blog to blog
without fear of ridicule (unless ur a copywriter)

If u wanna get into this meme business like me
plz visit hipsterrunoff.com

Hipster Bag Porn

I'm considering doing a project over the summer creating illustrations of the things people carry these days in their bags. Seems like a fun enough project and will be a nice little artifact study over a period of 2-3 months. Perhaps I'll even throw a UX spin to it and call it, "The User Experience Designer Rucksack."

Brooklyn's Finest Review

Like Training Day, Brooklyn's Finest once again treads across the popular theme of police corruption, which is probably more clichéd in setup than execution. Antoine Fuqua has a way of telling tragic, gritty, and at times, outright depressing stories in fantastic style, this one is certainly no different. He pulls and pulls for character depth, but even with all the well-orchestrated shoot-outs and mini crescendos towards violence, one still yearns for some kind of true connection to any of the characters. Meanwhile, I prefer to keep the faith that this depiction is all a serious exaggeration. 7.7/10.

The Definitive Dining Room Chair

I think I've found it, folks. I've found the perfect dining room chair. It's the DC09 Chair by Inoda+Sveje Design Studio. Delicious!

Gonna Make This a Poster

Cell phone etiquette is probably one of my biggest pet peeves while teaching, eating dinner, or even just making conversation at a bar. Which probably explains why I love this project so f-ing much.

Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces

Got my book in recently. And signed by none other than the legendary Maxwell himself. Woot!

Mary and Max Review

This claymated feature made by the folks of the award-winning Harvie Krumpet may not have the production values of the likes of Disney or Pixar, but the quirky little one liners and incredibly detailed characters make Mary and Max undoubtedly one of the more compelling art films I've seen this year. 8.4/10.

Easy Weekend for Guilty Pleasures

Nothing to lose, plenty to gain. I like these kinds of situations.

The Library - Nothing to Lose (MP3)

Micmacs Review

Fans of Amélie will surely be pleased to know that Micmacs keeps up with Jean-Paul Jeunet's captivating comic art style as it tells a story of a lonely misfit who finds a band of brothers who have experienced the struggles of being ousted from society. As with his other films, the world is slightly distorted and much unfolds like a dream. I watched this with a French friend and she mentioned that the English subtitles were a bit dodgy in quite a few areas, which may be just enough for some to skip this one, but if you're one to still appreciate a story filled with fun characters, amazing cinematography, a surprisingly refreshing change from your Hollywood action thriller, look no further than Micmacs. 8.1/10.

Roman and Williams Interior Design

Mad styles. Way to make me hate my living room, guys.

T-LEVEL Infinity for Backpacking

Spain. Canada. South America. Somewhere. I'll be somewhere this coming Winter. The T-LEVEL Infinity roll-up bag seems like a decent choice to shove all the shit I'll be carrying around.

Ip Man 2 Review

Ip Man 2 pretty much picks up where the last one ended. The story is pretty bland, with most of the plot devices only there to lead to the next fight. You also have a blatant cinematic display of Chinese pride that is rather blatant and unsubtle, but if all of that is a-ok with you, then you're well on your way to get blown away by amazingly choreographed action scenes that put many recent martial art films to shame. I kind of secretly wished for the melodrama of the first one, but I guess a popcorn flick will do just as well. 7.9/10.

BP Lacks Design Process

In this case, the lack of a design process causes devastating effects during a coffee spill in the BP office. A epic game of finger pointing, slow process, and pure chaos ensues.

Thirst Review

If you're familiar with Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, you might have a idea of what Chan-wook Park's work is like. His movies tend to be dark, elegant, and tragically absurd thrown in with a heavy dose of dark comedy. Thirst is certainly no exception to this trend, filled with stunning cinematography, with a contemporary Shakespearean tone throughout.

But while Park's style is apparent in a artful sense, my biggest gripe about the film is the poor attention to detail with the special effects, which tends to distract rather than contribute to the story. The complete lack of a good soundtrack also creates a sense of emptiness, though perhaps that's what Park was ultimately striving for. I, on the other hand, found it to be like the end of a hot-dog - it's missing the sauce and relish I had in the middle. 7.3/10.

Hipster Jokes

Here's one:

Why did the hipster donate to Haiti?

Because it's underground*

The (Near) Future of Digital Music and MP3s

I'm no Bill Gates or Mark Weiser, but I have been active around the digital music space for roughly over 15 years, including its first incarnations in 1993 through 1999, where the wild west of P2P distribute such as Napster began. But again, I'm no expert - just a digital philospher. So, let's talk a thing or two about the future of digital music, shall we?

It used to be all the rage how awesome it was to get a CD down to 128 kb/sec. 11 times smaller than a normal CD - nuts! These days, we've got enthusiasts up in arms about lossless and vinyl collectors waving their LPs around for a savior to come save our ears from digital annihilation of good sounding music.

There's a few things we can all agree on though. Hard drive sizes seem to be no longer an issue. By the end of 2012, we can expect to all have enterprise-grade hard drive storage in our digitally connected homes.

For me, the next logical step is an obvious one. Cloud music. Lossless media encoded in the highest formats available, all available from any media streaming device with WiFi. Social sharing. Music was meant to be shared with others. I'm not talking P2P - but actual rich media platforms that allow for active collaboration, collecting, and showcasing. Lastly, monetizability (as well as a few other things). It's gotta make money. At least for the industry folks, this one is vital.

Take Apple. They bought up Lala.com not too long ago, so I imagine they already have the same idea and are off to a head start - I'm a bit curious myself to see how they plan to pull it off. But the idea of no more MP3's stored on our laptops that's the attraction factor here. It's about freeing up hard drive space for applications rather than digital media. It's detaching our worries of losing our collections one day from a freak fire accident. All of these things provide an interesting prospective for a digital media future that's already moving towards that direction.

Now, if we can get cloud storage space with no caps and control those money-hungry ISPs looking to find any excuse to put a cap on our data bandwidth usage, then yeah - we might be soon enjoying our digital lifestyles with one less device to worry about; no more external hard drives!

Life As It Always Was

It's amazing how many people walk in and out of our lives. The memories of the good times - that alone probably means more to us than any amount of money can buy. It's important to remember those good times. So, how about a song that's a candidate for song of the year (2010) in my book? It's an experience you'll want to remember.

Matt Van Schie – Journey (MP3) 
Need to dance? Try M.I.A. - XXXO (Remix) (MP3)

How To Hack Your Panasonic GF-1 to Have Full 1080p Video

Now, that's what I call a hack. Makes my impulse $900 buy a little more justified, at least. Time for a weekend of nerding out!

Here's how to do it:

1. Download PTool 3.36 and Panafirmeware 1.3
2. Open 1.3
3. Open PTool 3.36
4. Load 1.3 firmware
5. Set new settings (MJpeg-Q, MJpeg-T, MJPeg-width, MJPeg-hight, Video-Buffer and Bitrate's)
6. Save the new Firmeware to 1.33 . . . - SD-Card
7. Place the SD in the GF1, load new Firmeware
8. ... and have fun!

Thrifty Chic

Here's a sub-$100 makeover that's worth a second look: 

• Paint: $28
• IKEA light fixture: $30
• White bedsheets: $18
• Lumber for shelf: $7
• Headboard: $8
• Milk glass vases: $3
• Brass cages: $1.50 

Awesome, yea? Makes me wanna renovate this little shack off the kitchen I'll be moving into next year. Thanks, Melissa Esplin!

Gotta Nuke 'Em All

Weirdest. Mashup. Ever.

New Mac Mini, End of Apple TV?

It's all aluminum, faster, HDMI, and $100 more than the original Mac Mini. For a home entertainment center, it's a bit too much in my opinion. However, feeding it into a 52" LED HDTV doesn't sound too bad as a desktop computer.

Home Entertainment

It's definitely home entertainment where it's at; our digital portal to our outside world. We just gotta make better use of them TV's. C'mon, Google TV, Boxee, Apple TV, where ya'll at? You call this the future?

Final Fantasy XIII Review

Here's a good lesson to take away for future game design: Do not simply add content to extend the life of your product simply to keep people satisfied by increasing numbers and massive time sinks of farming or grinding. It sucks. It reeks of a lame psychology experiment to show how easy it is to manipulate reward seeking behavior, leaving it as an artificial add-on that's ultimately pointless to the real part of the game. Aside from that, great production values and an entertaining play-through makes this major quirk a bit more bearable. 7.2/10.

Caleb Owen Everitt Branding

One of my heroes, next to Shepard Fairey, Chan-wook Park, and Michael Jackson. Except he does branding - and only slightly gooder than the average genius.

CHI 2010

Took my Lumix GF-1 for a test run at the CHI 2010 conference in Atlanta, GA a few months back. I edited it in iMovie '09 and added music from the Assassin's Creed II soundtrack. I'll admit it's a bit overly epic, but I think it adds a little gritty edge to it. Enjoy!

I Love Dust x Eames DCW

A nice NY collaboration between the Eames team and British designers, ilovedust. The end result? Something any brand enthusiast would kill for to have in their living room.

Happy Hipsters

Susan and Will's bedroom is an artful manifestation between two creative types. Though to be honest, the bare windows would probably drive me batshit insane every single morning.

Big Captions, Even Bolder People

This could potentially be my new favorite blog. Big Captions; where jokes and statements are made using typography.

Charlotte Tolhurst’s Egg Sandwich Recipe

Food photographer-cooks. We need more of them. They're like Picasso's... armed with pastry buns and spoons. 

• 1 egg
• 5 hand cut slices chorizo (about 5mm or a little less than 1/4 inch thick)
• A hand full of rocket
• A little olive oil
• Pesto stuffs

Fry the chorizo in a hot pan with a little oil - not too much as the chorizo will produce its own oil. When the chorizo is starting to crisp up move to the side of the frying pan and fry your egg until the white is cooked through and the yolk is still runny.

Slice open a ciabatta roll and fill with the chorizo then the rocket and top with the egg, finishing with a drizzle of pesto. Yum.

Miike Snow Does It Again

I wish I could grow a beard as a kid. Beards bring so many awesome perks. Like the ability to shoot lasers and throw parties.

Gozu Review

Only Takashi. While I'm on my surreal horror spree, I stumbled upon this inconceivably ridiculous piece of cinematic deconstruction set in a homosexual love story played out against a self-aware purgatory-like town in the middle of nowhere. Gozu is rife with jarring shifts from parody to horror and eventually freewheels into a deranged ending that'll leave you scratching your head and questioning your Freudian beliefs. If ridiculous gangster theatrics, role playing, and gender metamorphosis is your thing, feel free to explore this existentialist piece. 7.1/10.

Noroi Review

Simply put, Noroi is like the Blair Witch project if it were made by a paranoid paranormal investigator that eventually gets himself killed by committing to a series of senseless, stupid actions that literally sets him up to get destroyed from every angle. Sound familiar? Well, it's definitely recycled, alright. It's also slow, boring, and completely not interesting. There's some promising moments, but your time would be better spent feeding pigeons bread to annoy your neighbors than wasting 2 hours plus away at this disappointing excuse for Japanese horror. 3.9/10.

Eames is Gold, Man

Got burnt today. Crisp. But being able to see (and sit in!) so many vintage Eames pieces offered at the Alameda Antique Faire today... made it all worth it.

Ageable Goods

There's something utterly irresistible about goods that age with time. Take this leather drafting kit, for instance. It's dead simple, functional as hell, and appears like it was meant to be used for 20+ years without signs of wearing out. If only technology could translate so well...

Get Used to the Seats

Lovin' the simple and modern use of typography style used in this contemporary book storytellin' the college life for incoming freshies.

Too Cool for School

Happy weekend, ya'll. Seems like it's gonna be a good one.

Sebastien Tellier - Look (Dirty Little Secret Remix) (MP3)