Egads! Not that!

Uncategorized | Posted by admin
Mar 30 2009

I thought about it for a week or so… and as a Kyle Busch hater* I’m not going to support his sponsors. Notably M&Ms. Curses! Why couldn’t he have Starbucks or Folgers instead? Easier to boycott those than the delicious melt-in-your-mouth candies. I’ll now be fully supporting Hershey’s/Reese’s, which happens to sponsor the RCR team of Kevin Harvick. Not too bad of a trade.

So yeah, Kyle’s JGR-team sponsors are:
M&Ms/Snickers (M&Ms and Mars, company)
Pedigree (not hard since I have no pets)
Interstate Batteries (Go DieHard)
Toyota (Outta luck, I have a Scion xB)
Coca-Cola (but they sponsor a lot more, so no big deal if I stay with Coke)
Banquet frozen foods (Go Tyson)
Combos snacks (gross anyways)
Siemens (kinda hard since no one really knows what they do, exactly - kidding)
TI’s DLP (hmmm… movies at Galaxy Theaters or Lincoln Square? Cloth or pleather?)

Kyle’s personal sponsors:
Electric Visual Evolution (sunglasses)
NOS energy drink (Red Bull ftw, always)
Vans

* - Kyle Busch can flat out drive the wheels off anything he drives. Whether it’s talent or exceptional equipment, he gets on-track results. What I don’t care for is his public tantrums and lack of control when things don’t go as planned.

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“Man up!” Pot, meet Kettle.

racing, teams | Posted by admin
Mar 23 2009

Kyle Busch needs to follow his own instructions. After a mistake on pit road in Saturday’s Nationwide race, Kyle Busch lost possibly the race from the miscue. In effort to perform the perfect sub-15 second pit stop, a tire was rolled too fast to the wall and bounced away from the crew member designated to grab it. It rolled out to pit road, “escaping” the pit box and ensuring a penalty to the team. There were crew members frantically trying to signal other crew members, and when the problem became aware to all the crew, everyone was visibly upset.

Mistakes happen, in any sport. How you react to those mistakes will define who you are as a competitor. Watch football, basketball, baseball. Mistakes happen and the team resets and moves forward.

Kyle came over the radio, said “You guys suck,” and when the race finished he parked his car just off the racetrack (not his pits) and stormed off. Last time I checked, racing was a team sport, and at the upper levels, they are professionals- not hobbyists or amatuers. Kyle is a passionate racer who lets everything fly out, and dismisses his brain-mouth filter on occasion. Like Saturday. After a driver crashes, no crew member goes, “Way to destroy the car. It took us 3 weeks to build it. You suck.” Racing has so many variables to what can go right or wrong, calling out crew members for a mistake is quite immature.

Apparently Kyle told his crew before the last pit stop in Sunday’s race “to man up, get the job done on the last stop, which they did,” he said. “I’m proud of them for doing that. When the time mattered most, they got the job done.” (Nascar.com article here)

So who tells Kyle, when he throws his helmet, gloves, and Hans device everywhere and then storms off the track without talking to his team, to “man up?”

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Anyone can get a job…

accuracy, graphics | Posted by admin
Mar 20 2009

Apparently if you “know” Photoshop (heavy emphasis on the quotes. Do the finger motion if need be.) you can get a job anywhere. I enjoy laughing at the horrible mistakes submitted to Photoshop Disasters (like this one: http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/2009/03/levis.html).

Be forewarned, PsD contains some fashion magazine p-chops that run the gamut from Vicky’s Secret to Maxim. Most of these p-chops are trashy, to say the least. Fashy-Trashy.

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Enough already

Uncategorized | Posted by admin
Mar 13 2009

Ok, Hollywood graphic designers. Enough is enough. Adobe Font Folio has over 2500 fonts to choose from. There is no need to use the same font for every tech/sci-fi/action movie out there. It’s getting ridiculous.

Off the top of my head, these are the movies that overuse this font:
Transformers, Eagle Eye, Pandorum, Echelon Conspiracy, and 12 Rounds. What font? This one:

Overused font

Overused font

Also- stop with the blue line with the white dot, a la Transformers and Star Trek.

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This… is… beautiful…

Uncategorized | Posted by admin
Mar 13 2009

In concept. The light pink/mauve whatever color isn’t sweet. But just the alternative showcasing involved. Much better than just a box.
 

Designworks’ new gaming computer brings architecture to PC towers

05-Design-Concept-Gaming-Tower-Thermaltake-high2.jpg

BMW Group Designworks USA has branched out into gaming computers, and their new “Level 10″ PC tower concept for Thermaltake is a doozy. And like most Designworks project, beyond the eye-candy factor is a combination of philosophizing and functional-izing:

The inspiration for this approach the design team took right from the computer worlds themselves - expressiveness, virtual townscapes and futuristic game components served as orientation for the arrangement and the look of individual components.Each high-quality component featured by the “Level 10″ concept is enclosed within its own protective case, rendering it not only an integral part of the design but also guaranteeing interchangeability and transportability.

The concept also has an aesthetical answer to the physical necessity for best possible cooling, this also being associated with the virtual world of the gamer. The asymmetric arrangement of the robust vertical heatsink and the horizontally located individual components creates a strong architectural statement, clearly revealing the powerful cooling characteristics of the Thermaltake Gaming Tower.

The Level 10 was on display at CeBIT, but there’s no word as to when this might hit store shelves.

(more…)

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New boss, same as the old boss.

Uncategorized | Posted by admin
Mar 11 2009

So I’m moving to the WordPress platform as it’s really nice. Plus it seems more user friendly to me.

This blog will be my random thoughts, odd things, and general knowledge that gets filed under “Mind Full of Useless Stuff” category. My more serious work will be at SocialWallflower.com

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I see what you did here.

pop culture | Posted by admin
Mar 10 2009

From IMDB.com:

Watchmen: When A Win May Be A Loss

Although it took in $55.2 million at the weekend box-office, the news for Warner Bros.’ Watchmen wasn’t all that good. After reports came in of heavy pre-opening ticket sales on Internet sites, a theater count of 3,611 and a screen count of about 7,500, analysts had expected it to come close to or even exceed the $71-million opening gross for the previous Zach Snyder fantasy thriller 300. Moreover, sales fell off precipitously on Saturday and Sunday (the movie took in almost half its gross on Friday, including midnight screenings), and some pundits saw the result as an indication that the movie’s appeal was limited to young adults who were fans of the graphic novel on which it was based. (Warner Bros. said that 65 percent of the audience was male and 54 percent older than 25.) They predicted that the movie, which some said had cost as much as $200 million to produce, would take a big tumble next weekend.

Whoever thought that Watchmen would pull huge numbers is not bright. Watchmen isn’t a comic book that’s been around for decades with multiple iterations. It’s not a franchise like Superman, Batman, or X-Men. It’s one graphic novel. From the 80s. With limited readers. There are no generational ties with Watchmen. At least not to the extent of said comic books.

Trying to compare Watchmen to 300 isn’t justified either. Same director, sure, but did movie heads compare Schindler’s List to Jurassic Park just because they were directed by Steven? No. While 300 was a technical achievement, Watchmen isn’t. There isn’t anything groundbreaking in Watchmen; it’s just another adaptation.

Also, Watchmen was presented as a superhero tale, very dark, and very violent. I would venture a guess to say the general populace saw the previews and thought, “Hmm. Looks like an X-Men rip-off movie. That’s dumb.”

Lack of identity with the characters and source material should have been the first clue to the movie heads. Throw in the non-Watchmen movie goers who don’t really understand the theme, and you have more non-recommendations.

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Logo Fight: Re/Max vs. Rehava

communication | Posted by admin
Mar 10 2009

Um… Re/Max, your logo is ugly. Quit going to court to fix your own problems. And the Rehava.com logo looks absolutely nothing like yours.

No one would ever get the two companies mixed up.

via Neatorama by Alex on 3/10/09


Do the two logos look similar to you? They do, according to the trademark attorneys of Re/Max, a national real estate franchise. They’re challenging the trademark application of a real estate startup Rehava, which has a new commission structure that is different than the established culture:

Adam Scoville, Re/Max’s legal counsel, said he can explain.

First of all, both names start with “r” and have logos with accent lines near the letter “e,” he said.

“It goes beyond that,” Scoville added. “If you chop the top off of the ‘h,’ you (almost) have the ‘m’ in Re/Max. The next letter is an ‘a,’ and if you take the ‘v’ then you have half of an ‘x.’ “

Steve deGuzman, Rehava’s broker-in-charge, said he doesn’t buy it. He said the trademark challenge is harassment and a form of corporate bullying that will cost his firm thousands of dollars.

“It’s a huge distraction, particularly for a startup and also in this kind of a market,” deGuzman said.

He suspects the Colorado-based franchise is challenging the trademarkbecause of Rehava’s controversial commission rebates, which some in the industry see as a threat to traditional compensation standards.

Link - via reddit

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From the files of “Huh?”

accuracy, web site | Posted by admin
Mar 10 2009

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There’s always time to launch your dream

Uncategorized | Posted by admin
Mar 10 2009

Interesting perspective.

 
 

Sent to you by mike via Google Reader:

 
 

via Signal vs. Noise by David on 3/10/09


“I’d love to start a company / become a great programmer / write an awesome blog, but there’s just not enough time in the day!” Bullshit. There’s always enough time, you’re just not spending it right.

Now that’s some tough love, but I’m sick and tired of hearing “no time” as an excuse for why you can’t be great. It really doesn’t take that much time to get started, but it does take wanting it really bad. Most people just doesn’t want it bad enough and protect their ego with the excuse of time.

This excuse is particularly depressing when it comes from students. Oh, I have so many classes. Oh, I have so much home work. There’s simply no time to learn outside of school. Then you’re doing it wrong!

Never let your schooling interfere with your education, someone clever once said. Being willing to sacrifice at the edges is one of the most important skills you’ll ever learn.

I’ve received plenty of Bs and even Cs for classes that I was incredibly proud of because they came from hardly no time spent at all. Time that I could then spend on reading my own curriculum, starting my own projects, and running my own businesses.

And I did. During my undergrad, I created Instiki, Rails, Basecamp, and got on the path to being a partner at 37signals. Do you think I could fit all that and still get straight As and have lots of time left over for playing World of Warcraft? No.

If you want it bad enough, you’ll make the time, regardless of your other obligations. Don’t let yourself off the hook with excuses. It’s too easy and, to be honest, nobody cares on the other side.

It’s entirely your responsibility to make your dreams come through.

 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 

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