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.

Alex Toth

I just read that Alex Toth passed away today. He was a legend in comics and animation, and he possessed a style which can never be duplicated. He will be greatly missed.

Slot Machines and Furry Animals

We just got back from a short vacation in Las Vegas, and although we didn't win a boatload of money, we had a good time nonetheless. It's been a year since we've been there, and the place is still booming. There's still plenty of room for more hotels, casinos and shopping centers. This town has a long way to go before it hits the saturation point for all this decadence.


Here's my one gripe: people, leave the kids at home. If you have to bring the kids to Las Vegas, at least get them to bed at a decent hour. Nothing is more appalling than seeing a mother walking around a casino at 1:00 in the morning with a drink in one hand and a small child in the other.

While we were Vegas, we saw Over the Hedge. This was a movie that I've been waiting to see, and I wasn't disappointed. The kids will be entertained, and there are plenty of jokes only the adults will understand. What's not to like? This is good, clean family fun.

It's amazing how good they can make CGI animals look nowadays. Furry animals look really furry. These computers - I bet they'll become really useful one of these days.

Caves and Caverns

I was looking through the upcoming DVD releases the other day, and there was a movie coming out called The Cavern. It's about a bunch of explorers who discover a deadly secret in an underground cave system and find themselves in a desperate fight for their lives.

Hey, wait a minute - wasn't there already a movie about that? Oh yeah, it was called The Cave. It was about a bunch of explorers who discover a deadly secret in an underground cave system and find themselves in a desperate fight for their lives.

Maybe it was just a coincidence that these two movies have similar stories. Maybe underground monster movies are really big right now. Maybe these movies are metaphors that you can't run and hide from the rigors and responsibilities of daily life. Who knows?

At least The Cavern could have come up with a different poster design that didn't remind me so much of The Cave. If you line them up, you can pretend the hapless explorers are descending down from one movie into another:

So what have we learned? Not much. All I know is that X-Men: The Last Stand opens in a week. Wahoo!

It's A Baby!

Our friend mochablue had a bouncing baby boy on Monday! Congratulations...you so rock!

Actual baby not pictured.

Mission: Impossible 3

I watched the original Mission: Impossible series on tv when I was a kid. My favorite part of the show was at the beginning, where the leader of the Impossible Mission Force would take his special binder labeled "IMF" and carefully select the photos of the agents he wanted for the show's mission. The funny thing was, except for the occasional guest star, he always picked the same agents for every mission.

I remember usually the shows involved trying to get some information out of a guy. They would come up with some elaborate scheme to make the guy believe he was on a tropical island or in a foreign country. Once the IMF extracted the information then needed, they would pick up and leave. Their poor victim would then find out he wasn't on a tropical island or in foreign country, rather the whole thing was a setup and he was on some backlot in L.A.

For this latest installment of Mission: Impossible, I was glad that the movie finally involved some IMF teamwork, rather than Tom Cruise working solo. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of Tom Cruise solo action; he's running around this movie as fast as his short little legs will take him.

Run Forrest! Run!

For a while I thought that I wouldn't be able to truly enjoy this movie, because all I would see is crazy 'ol Tom Cruise with that big toothy grin of his. However, the good news is that this movie makes you forget he's insane in real life, and he doesn't flash his goofy grin until the end of the movie.

Mission: Impossible 3 is the first of the big summer blockbusters, and it certainly delivers on the big guns and blazing explosions, the prerequisites for any summer movie. I wouldn't say that this is the best in the franchise, although it will tide you over until the next big blockbuster comes out (X-Men: The Last Stand - 5/26! Wahoo!).

Luckily, there was a box nearby for Tom to stand on.

TV Shows I Miss

I probably watch too much TV. Unfortunately, that means I also spend way too much time thinking about TV. From time to time, I think about shows that I'd like to see on TV again. Since I know everyone would want to know, here's my current list:

Fear (2000) - This reality show was inspired by the Blair Witch Project, where MTV would send a group of teenagers into a supposedly haunted location wearing cameras on their heads. The group had to spend the night, and each person had to go to a certain area to do a task, which could possibly stir up the alleged ghosts in the area. It was kind of silly, but it was fun to watch the kids freak themselves out over nothing. There's a DVD out with a few episodes, but they should put out the entire season with all the episodes.

Actually, watching Ghost Hunters on the Sci-Fi Channel is a decent substitute for this show.

Bands on the Run (2001) - This was a VH1 show that followed four indie bands as they traveled around the U.S. competing against each other for a recording contract. It was a good show because all the different bands had interesting characters in them, and made for some good reality TV drama. What was cool was that the band that won, Flickerstick, won because they had the best music, despite the fact they never won any of the individual challenges on the show. I don't know if they could duplicate the success of this show with another group of bands, but at least they could show the reruns of the original show. It would certainly be a whole lot better than Celebrity Fit Club or The Flavor of Love. Plus, it would actually have something to do with music!

Bakersfield P.D. (1993) - As I recall, this Fox show didn't last a whole season, but I remember really liking it a lot. It was kind of a Northern Exposure "fish out of water" show where Giancarlo Esposito played a police detective joining the small police force of Bakersfield, California. Naturally, everyone else in the town is kind of odd & quirky in comparison to Esposito. The show was critically acclaimed, but unfortunately no one watched it, and it was cancelled before it found its audience. It doesn't seem likely that this show will ever see the light of day again, even as a DVD.

Behind the Music (1997 -Present) - I know they occasionally make new episodes of this show, but they have a ton of these shows that they never show anymore. It seems that whenever this show is on, it's either about the Notorious B.I.G. or Kid Rock. What's sad is that they have over 180 other episodes of this show that they never show. Sure, not all of them are winners, but in a lot of ways Behind the Music is an educational show about music history. Heck, without this show, I would have never known who Thin Lizzy was. What it kill VH1 to show just one different episode per day?

Kindred: The Embraced (1996) - In order to provide a fair and balanced view, I asked my fiance what show she missed, and this is the one she told me. I've never seen this show before, but it's about vampires. Neat!

Clone High (2002) - This was a short-lived cartoon on MTV, which only showed about six or seven episodes before it vanished. It's about a high school with all the clones of famous people throughout history deal with teen problems. How could this fail? The show had some hilarious moments. It's got one of my favorite cartoon lines: "If there's anything that Mahatma Ghandi stands for, it's revenge!"

...Believe me, it's funny if you've seen the cartoon. I just bought the series DVD on eBay, so I actually don't miss this one much anymore.

No! Not You! Anyone But You!

I'm going to put on my comic book geek hat on now. If you have one of your own, go ahead and put it on too.

One of the things that I like most about comic book covers is the cheesy dialogue. The little spoken word balloons that were used to describe the earth-shattering dangers or the life-chaning drama that was waiting for you inside the comic. Did the dialogue on the cover always deliver in the story? Sometimes. But it always helped sell the comic - the action on the cover told you that you would be making a big mistake if you missed this issue.

The sixties and the seventies were a great time for cover dialogue. Unfortunately, comic book characters stopped talking on comic book covers in the eighties. The trend continues today, where comic covers are mainly illustrations which usually have little to do with the stories contained inside. It's really a shame.

I really love the comic book style of speaking. If you could hear how I think, you'd probably hear me talk to myself in the typical superhero style: "I must do laundry now...or all is lost!" or "Someone will pay for these high gasoline prices...this I swear!"

Today's theme is "no, not you, it can't be you", courtesy of the Fantastic Four:

Your Odama-ma

Another word about the Gamecube video game Odama, which I'm currently playing now: this game is so friggin' hard. It's making my life a living hell right now.

As I mentioned earlier, Odama is a quirky new game that mixes pinball and battlefield strategy. The appeal of this game is that you get to mow down trees, buildings, and enemy soldiers with your giant Odama ball. Conceptually, it sounds like a lot of fun.

I suppose you could say that I just suck at video games, but to achieve the objectives of each level under the given time limit is really, really hard and frustrating. In a lot of video games, if you keep practicing at the game, eventually you may develop the skill to successfully get through the game. In Odama however, there's a randomness to the pinball side of it which means you simply need to get lucky to advance in the game.

The sun will set on you many, many times.

You also need to be good at multitasking. On one hand, you're batting your pinball around; on the other, you're trying to use the microphone to order you're troops around the battlefield. It can be fun when you do well, but when you're getting nowhere it really sucks. It's taken me a long time to get nowhere in this game. If you saw me play this game, you'd see me screaming "March left! March left!" into my microphone, then throwing down my controller in disgust as my troops march straight ahead.

I hate this game so much. I'm going to have to start looking for cheat codes soon.

Um...yeah. Good luck with that.

Red Eye

During my bout of illness over the past week, I had a case of conjunctivitis in both my eyes. More commonly known as pink eye, this affliction is very common, but it was the first time for me. My doctor told me I actually had red eye instead of pink eye, and it was the worst case he'd seen all year. Yay for me!

So I was looking for a DVD to watch, and my fiance suggests to me, "why don't you watch Red Eye"?

Red Eye? Brilliant!

If you haven't seen it, Red Eye came out last year and is about Rachel McAdams getting drawn into a plot to assassinate some Homeland Security muckity-muck. She plays a hotel desk clerk who gets pressured into switching the Homeland Security guy's hotel room to where the assassins can do their jobs more easily. Cillian Murphy is the bad guy who holds Rachel McAdams' father hostage and coerces her into helping them. This coercion takes place aboard a late night flight, hence the movie's title.


Overall, it was a decent thriller, but it wasn't particularly nail-biting. If you think too hard about parts of the story, the whole thing seems kind of ridiculous. I kept thinking about Cillian Murphy; he played the bad guy in Batman Begins, and he's a bad guy in this movie. He better not play another bad guy for a long time, or he's going to get typecast. Incidentally, he makes a pretty non-threatening villain. In the Batman movie, at least he had the scary mask going for him. In this movie, Rachel McAdams pretty much kicks his ass, stabbing him with a pen, a high heel, and beating him silly with a hockey stick. Pretty sad.

As far as airplane movies go, this one doesn't lead the pack. You know I'm just waiting for Snakes on a Plane! Yeah! Ssssssssssssssssss!

Our Man Bush

Sorry folks, I've been sick for a while. I'm still sick now, so don't get too close.

I'm sure I'm not the first one to notice this, but there was a news story the other day where Bush defends embattled Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld by saying, "I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."

Decider? Oh, Dubya. There you go again, using those big words to make yourself sound smart.

President. Visionary. Decider.

Bad Ideas

In the spirit of opening presents before you're supposed to, I've been playing with my new digital camera that my fiance got me for my birthday (even though my birthday isn't until May). I'm going to be looking for things to photograph, so everyone better close your curtains and blinds.

Just kidding. Really.

I'm reminded of my days back in school when I was taking a photography class; for every one good idea you have for a project, you probably have a half-dozen stinkers that never made it off the ground.

One of my ideas was to take a series of black & white photos of varioius kinds of roadkill. It would have a lot of visual punch, plus it would make a statment about man's callous inhumanity to our furry friends. The only problem is that the roadkill you typically see in this area (possums, raccoons, etc.) are usually on the always-busy freeways. It's just wasn't very safe for me to stop my car on the freeway and try to get some good shots of dead animals.

See? Bad idea.

Another idea I had was to take a series of photos of different parts of a gutter of one of the major streets going through Oakland. It would start at the more affluent, well-kept neighborhoods and run all the way down to the more seedy, run-down parts on the other side of town. The project would show the contrast between the sparkling clean world of the rich versus the filth and piles of refuse of the not-so-rich.

I did a little research on the street first, and you know what I found in the gutters? Gutter water. That's it. I discovered that all gutters look the same. No story to be found here.

Yep, bad idea.

So once again I have a camera in my hand, so look out. Maybe I'll come up with some better subject matter this time. Warn your pets.

His Boring Ass Life

I'm a big Kevin Smith fan - I eat up anything related to Clerks, and it's really entertaining listening to the man himself speak. Lately I've been reading Kevin Smith's blog My Boring Ass Life, in which he is currently publishing a multi-part true story called "Me and My Shadow". It deals with Jason Mewes' (Jay of the Jay & Silent Bob duo) struggle with drug addiction over many years. It's really gripping stuff, and it rises way above the typical blog fodder of celebrities with botox and guys getting kicked in the nuts. Start here for the beginning of the story - so far he's published seven chapters of the story.

Also, the sequel to one of my favorite movies, Clerks 2, is coming out in August!

New English

There used to be a time when I thought I had a handle on the English language. If a word wasn't in the dictionary, then it technically shouldn't be used. At least that's the rule when you're playing Scrabble: if it's not in the book, then you can't put it on the board. There are slang words, but those are the kind of words you use when you're talking to your homies on the street, not in regular conversation with normal people.

However, our language is constantly evolving, and if people use a made-up word enough, it will eventually work its way into our collective subconscious and become a part of the English language. You know, words like Homer Simpson's "d'oh" or Will Smith's "jiggy". Here are some of my favorite made-up words:

guesstimate: guesstimate is the less accurate cousin to the word estimate. This is your slow, not-so-bright backwoods relative that you don't get to see too often, which is probably for the best. I always wondered why people ask for a guesstimate rather than an estimate. What you are really asking is for someone to pull a number out of their ass.

ginormous: gigantically enormous or enormously gigantic. If gigantic and enormous aren't enough to describe how big something is, then here's the word for you. Wait! I've got a new one: if something is more than yummy and better than delicious, then it's yulicious. You can use this for describing attractive people as well, like "baby, you're yulicious". I just made that up. You heard it here first.

craptacular: I actually like this word - it's fun to use. It simply means spectacularly crappy, as in "Hey man, that song you just sang was craptacular", or "Mmmm..., your pot roast is craptacular". It's fun because if someone is not paying attention, they may think you're paying them a compliment.

rig: A while back I registered with 1up.com to try to win an Xbox 360. On my personalized member page, they asked me to describe my "rig". Rig? What's a rig? Isn't that what they call trucks?I thought it meant your form of transportation. I didn't have a picture of my car, so I inserted a picture of my bike:


I later found out that "rig" means a computer. Duh.

It can also mean a syringe for shooting up. Neat!

Luckily, there are sites like Urban Dictionary to help hopelessly unhip people like me figure out what everyone else is talking about. Word!