My Thoughts Exactly

(via Alex Noriega)I have a feeling, that I'll be feeling this way tomorrow (and the day after and the day after that and so on...).

Oh My!

(via swiss miss)

Hoping that this would get me where I need to be faster... but with my misperception of time, not even tele-transportation would be able to save me...

Layer Tennis: No rackets required

Selection of layers from Week 11's Match between Chris Glass and Aaron DraplinSelection of Layers from Week 12's Match between ISO50 and But Does It Float

Layer Tennis is a series of live design events on Friday afternoons presented by Adobe® Creative Suite® 4. • Two competitors swap a file back and forth in real-time, adding to and embellishing the work. Each artist gets fifteen minutes to complete a "volley" and then we post that to the site live. • The players may be designers, animators, illustrators or pretty much anything else, and they can use any tool or application they like. The match progresses volley by volley. • A third participant, a writer, provides play-by-play commentary on the action as it happens. • The match lasts for ten volleys.

I saw this term being thrown around in blogs and websites I frequent on, and I willingly ignored it. I guess, I was afraid I'd be hooked on something new... But then I saw ISO50 would be competing, then my eye caught that Digital Kitchen (opening sequences for Dexter, Six Feet Under, True Blood) had participated in a previous match, and I realized that resistance was futile... As I had initially feared, I am now addicted to it.

Finally, a kind of sport I can actually follow!

Absolut Minibar

After releasing Absolut Bling, and Absolut Masquerade, Absolut released its very latest gift pack aptly called Absolut Minibar. This awesomely designed pack is based on Absolut's "In an absolut world" campaign, and when it's unfolded it can hold ice and garnish for some "Absolutly" delicious cocktails.

I miss my Absolut consuming days in Chicago, when Absolut APEACH with pineapple juice was "my usual".

As Real As It Gets

click for larger view

I stumbled upon this today. Really, they did some amazing use of Photoshop to do this.
You can view some behind the scene pics here. 

Captain's Log...

I can't say that I'm a huge fan of the Star Trek franchise, I can't even say that I'm a small fan. However, I have been (extensively) exposed to it during my teen years, predominantly due to my older brother's obsession with it. Thus, I am aware of the overall concept and characters, while I can only name a few names and situations.

Anyway, I am very curious and really interested in seeing how the early 90s aesthetics of the costumes, sets, and effects from Star Trek: The Next Generation translates to today's technology and digital craftsmanship. The movie posters, both of the concepts (the traditionally pictorial one and the one where the Enterprise logo is emblazoned with the faces of Nero, Uhura, Spock and Kirk), are pretty cool and if the movie shares the same feel as the posters I might even become a fan!

Draft To Craft

This Is Not A Love Song

You said you'd be there for me
In times of trouble when I need you and I'm down
And likewise you need friendship
It's from my side pure love but I see lately things have been changing
You have goals to achieve
But the roads you take abroad are heartless
That wants you make another way
You throw stones
Can you see that I am human I am breathing
But you don't give a damn

Chorus
Can you feel my heart is beating
Can you see the pain you're causing
Can you feel my heart is beating
Can you see the pain you're causing

Blood blood blood.... blood is rushing

And now the world is asleep
How will you ever wake her up when she is deep in her dreams, wishing
And yet so many die
And still we think that it is all about us
It's all about you
You sold your soul to the evil and the lust
and the passion and the money and you
See innocent ones die, people hunger for decades
suffer under civilized armedrobbers, modern slaveholders

Chorus

Evaded, eliminated, erased, interrogated
Our tradition, our love for our fellow countrymen,
our property, our resources - our pride

Can you feel my heart beating
no no no....you don't

Móa

In 1999 an icelandic singer, by the name of Móa, released an album called Universal. The album did relatively well in Europe providing Móa a certain amount of attention, (plus a modelling gig for Calvin Klein Jeans), and while she went on and announced new collaborations and more experimental sounds to be released in 2001, she abruptly disappeared...

Poof! Nada! Gone! Her website was down after a while, internet searches returned scarce results, (I have to say, I got to know about an animal called moa which is nearly extinct though) and the less I found, the more I wanted! I only found one music video on youtube and the sound isn't even synced with the video. Now, here we are 10+ years after the release of "Universal", Móa is still a ghost artist*, and Universal is still in my top-5 album list.

A bit about Universal & Móa: Initially I should mention that she looks a lot like Uma Thurman. Her music moves in the same neighborhood as Bjork's but deviates from being a cheap imitation. Móa's genre seems to be taking it's own course right at the point when she blatantly infuses it with jazz and a lighter pop-ish feel than that of Bjork's. Others referred to her music as a lukewarm fusion of Jazz, Massive Attack, and Bjork, but I tend to disagree... She simply did what any ambitious, experimenting, young musician (bearing Móa's Jazz background) would do, while her very particular high pitched voicedifferentiates, by far,her sound from all the aforementioned artists. Can't Forget You, and Overcome are my very favorite off Universal, with Memory Cloud, Joy & Pain and Rockets being some awesome tracks too.

Electro-Jazz-Pop never sounded so ...cool! And considering the fact that this album was released before Y2K, she did a pretty good job at guessing what the sounds of the 00s would be!

*In 2006 Móa worked under the name "Lace" to create Zeitgeist (which I'm about to purchase off iTunes, as soon as I make sure that she is actually involved in it). From the snippets I managed to listen to, this one seems to be sort of inferior to Universal, but I'm not being judgmental before reception of an overall listening.

Work Out

A free iTunes download of Bravo's docu-series premiere, plainly called "Work Out", back in '06, introduced me to Jackie Warner: a trainer to the celebrities, and a $400-per-hour-trainer, that is. Being the fitness freak I am, I watched all three seasons of the (at times seemingly ushered?) reality show, which revolved around Warner's life(style) and her struggle to balance everything between her successful gym and her demanding girlfriend (stories of envy and rage unravel throughout the three seasons, but that's beside the point).

Jackie released a workout DVD right after the end of her docu-series, reality, or whatever "Work Out" can be filed under. Again, being the fitness freak I am, and having watched the whole show, I needed to complement my Jackie Warner craze with the acquisition of this DVD. The DVD is simply amazing, especially the 20-minute core segment!!! I like to call it "The Absolute Abdominal Workout". The best part is the fact that it actually works!