IDEA 06 Winners

I was looking through the winning entries from the 2006 Industrial Design Excellence Awards, and here are the ones that caught my eye:

2 Seconds Quechua - This is a tent that you throw up into the air, the thing expands and unfolds, and it turns into a two person tent. Pretty neat. They say that it disassembled and folded back into it's original form in fifteen seconds. I kind of have a hard time believing this; I bet it's just like trying to fold a map back together.

The Hover Creeper - Believe or not, back in the day I used to change my own motor oil, so I know what it's like to crawl underneath a car to get to the oil pan. However, I never had the luxury of having a board with wheels to lie on. The Hover Creeper replaces the traditional rolling board with a board the floats on air. Presumably, this thing never touches the ground. It sounds pretty futuristic, I would want one just to ride around the house.

SanDisk Ultra II SD PLUS - I guess this might be old news for most digital photography enthusiasts, but it's new for me: this memory card has its own USB connector. All you do is fold the card along its hinge and plug it into your computer's USB hub, eliminating the need for any card readers. I can just hear the memory card read industry just crashing down right now.

Water Tile - Have you ever been in a shower, maybe in some strange hotel, your face and hair are all soaped and shampoo'ed up, and then you go and bonk your head on a low hanging shower head? Don't lie - I know you've done it before. I certainly have. Kohler make this handy shower tile which is flush with the other wall tiles. The only problem now is, where will you hang the shower caddy?

Nutty Buddy - The pleas of the desperate have been answered: the Nutty Buddy is a new kind of athletic protection device that "provides never-before-seen levels of comfort while being able to withstand a baseball traveling at more than 100 mph." Oh, bravo I say! Bravo! It also has an extra "tail" that goes between your legs, which is meant to provide you with an extra measure of protection for your frank 'n beans. Best of all, it's just fun to say "nutty buddy".

Nacho Libre

Jack Black is one of the funniest guys around today. Everything he does is a guaranteed laugh, or at least a giggle or guffaw. Maybe I like the guy a little too much, but look at this picture:


See? Funny. When I first heard about Nacho Libre, it sounded like a sure thing: Jack Black and Mexican wrestlers? This can't fail!

We went to see Nacho Libre, and was it funny? Yep, sure was. Was it a good movie? Well, I think it will be a good movie for the people who like Jack Black, Luchador wrestling, or enjoy Napolean Dynamite-style weirdness. If not, then this maybe you should go see The Lake House. Or Cars. You know, something that everyone will enjoy.

There isn't much of a story in this movie, and very little character development. However, the point of this movie was to let Jack Black do his thing: he gets to take his shirt off, he gets to sing and he gets to fart (this movie was produced by Nickelodean, so that's as far as it goes kids). All in all, not a great movie, but a worthy addition to the Jack Black film library.

Fly! Fly like the eagle!

Countdown to PSP

I lasted about 1 year and 3 months, but I've finally broken down and bought myself a Sony PSP. Hopefully it's on a plane somewhere on its way to me right now. Godspeed, my new little electronic friend.

In the beginning, the PSP reportedly had its share of problems: dead pixels, slow loading times, short battery life, just to name a few. Worst of all, the games they had at the launch weren't really that great. I'm hoping the hardware bugs have been fixed by now; we'll have to see about that. What pushed me into finally getting the PSP is that the games seem to be getting better. Here's a few that have caught my eye:

In September LocoRoco is coming out, a game where you have to steer a little blob of goo through successive levels by tilting the ground and changing the size of your blob by splitting him into little blobs. I've watched some video clips, and this kind of quirky game is right up my alley. What's not to love about a yellow smiling piece of goo?

Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel just came out this month - it's a virtual comic that you read on your PSP, with a lot of animation, music, and sound effects worked into the story. The artwork is by one of my favorite artists, Ashley Wood, whose style meshes perfectly with the look of Metal Gear Solid. It's a cool application for the PSP that hopefully will do justice to both the artwork and story.

Late last year, Sega released Virtua Tennis World Tour for the PSP, which is an updated version of their Virtua Tennis game originally made for the Dreamcast. If you've played this game before, then you will know that Virtua Tennis is simply the best tennis video game ever, on any system. The quick "pick up and play" aspect of this game should translate nicely to the PSP.

Finally, here's a part of a British student project that's been making the rounds on the internet: It's a scarf that can be converted to a hood for using the PSP:


Great if you want some privacy or its too bright to see the screen; not so good for seeing all the people laughing at you, or the guy who's stealing all your stuff.

Something For The Kitchen

This handy little knife block caught my eye today, and I asked my fiance how it would look in our kitchen. She made a face and said "nooooo" in a slow drawn out kind of way, meaning "not in my house". She also said something else about not wanting to give our future children a bad impression.

Oh, alright then. Maybe some other time. If you're interested, Overstock has it on sale. Mark my words, one of these days this fine piece of work is going to be sitting on an Antiques Roadshow table.

Judging A Book By Its Cover

Earlier this year, Penguin Books put out a series called Graphic Classics, a group of well-known works of literature packaged in a snazzy new paperback format. The cover illustrations are by leading comic book artists, including Chris Ware and Seth. I was roaming the aisles at Costco the other day, and I bought Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (with a cover by Charles Burns) and Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy (with a cover by Art Spiegelman).

Before I took this trip to Costco, I felt the need to read some my books that I never got around to reading. By sheer coincidence, I dug out a copy of The Jungle that I had purchased many years ago. I was never required to read this book in school, and its one of the books that I've always been curious about. A book about the poor working conditions and the unsanitary practices of the meat industry at the turn of the century? Sign me up!

Call me shallow, but I'm actually pretty excited to read this book now because the cover is so cool. Take a look - which book would you rather read? This one:


Or this one:


Go ahead and admit it... you would pick that delicious animal head too.

X-Men: The Last Stand

We finally saw the latest X-Men movie this past weekend, and I was really looking forward to it. So how was it? Well, it was just ok. It was a decent summer blockbuster, and holds up reasonably well with the first two movies, but it didn't top them by any stretch of the imagination.

As I watched the movie, I generated a list of questions and observations in my head. Before I dive into my list, if you haven't seen X-Men: The Last Stand, then what I'm going to say may spoil some things for you. So when you have a moment, go out and see the movie. I'll wait.

...

Oh, you're back. I hope you went to see a matinee and didn't pay full price. Anyways, here goes:

• Cyclops got the shaft in this movie. The guy barely appears in a few scenes, and that's it. He's supposed to be the leader of the X-Men, for pete's sake.
  
• Where's Nightcrawler? He would have been handy for all the jumping around that went on in this movie. I guess one blue, furry mutant is all that's allowed.
• OK, Xavier's school is in upstate New York, right? Magneto gathers his Brotherhood and goes to attack Alcatraz island in San Francisco. There's a sequence where Wolverine leaves the mansion to go find Jean Grey, who has joined the Brotherhood. When he finds them in a forest, are they on the west coast or the east coast? If they were on the west coast, how did Wolverine get there? He might have taken the X-Men's Blackbird plane, but it seems that he just ran out the front door & hopped on his silly motorcycle. If they were on the east coast, then how did Magneto transport the Brotherhood over 3000 miles to San Francisco? Did he steal a plane? A bus? Did he recruit a mutant with unlimited frequent flier miles?
  
• I must say that Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants were pretty useless. We saw a guy who could grow daggers out of his wrists and throw them and a guy with super-hearing in the forest. All I remember seeing during the fight on Alcatraz was a guy who could stick to walls like a tree frog. When mutants fight, I expect a lot of flying around with laser beams shooting out of people's hands. We didn't really get that in this movie. Color me disappointed.
• I can't wait to see Nacho Libre.
  
• This movie had the most comic book-like climax ever with Wolverine desperately trying to reach Jean Grey with her energy flying all around him, shredding him to bits. I could find a panel or two out of the X-Men comic, but I'm too lazy to do that.
  
• Cyclops totally got the shaft in this movie. If you really want to stick with the comic book version, it should have been him with Jean Grey at the end, not Wolverine.
• So when Magneto takes over the Golden Gate Bridge, it's daytime right? Most of the people abandon their cars to get off the bridge. At the end of the movie, it's nighttime and there's a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge with all the cars on the bridge with their headlights on. I'm surprised that everyone driving around in the daytime turns their headlights on. Bay Area drivers are so responsible.
• It's amazing how quickly they started rebuilding the Golden Gate Bridge. Where did they get the money from? I bet they diverted all the money from the new Bay Bridge span. The East Bay gets the shaft in this movie too.
  

Bat News

I saw on the tv news this morning that the Batwoman character is going to be resurrected in the Batman comic (see story here). The big kicker is that she's going to be a lesbian! Oh my goodness!

Now, I'm all for diversity in super-hero, but why is this news? Gay and lesbian characters in comics are nothing new. I've never really been a big Batman reader, so maybe I've missed something along the way, but Batwoman was originally a character from the super-cheesy Batman comics of the late fifties and early sixties. She wore a yellow & red outfit and was part of the wacky Batman family that included Bat-Mite, Bat-Hound, Bat-Ape and Bat-Baby. I thought the character was killed off sometime in the sixties, but I could be wrong.

New characters come and go all the time in the comic book world, so it perplexes me that this is a news-worthy story. I would wager that very few people know that a Batwoman even existed. Most people know Batgirl, but I don't think the common man on the street knows Batwoman. Sure, it's great publicity for DC Comics, but why does anyone care? Oh yeah - she's a lesbian in a slinky Batman outfit.