Archive for 2010
March
09
Last night Laurel and I ventured out of our own little rabbit hole and went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D at Fairfax Corner. She had been bugging me for weeks to see this, I had been interested but I had fears of it being like Charlie and the Chocolate FactoryW. Which I did not like…
So which was it? Terrible or Awesome?
Find out more after the break?
No commentsMarch
01
Beerfest!
There are a ton of times that I’m watching a commercial and I say “Hey it’s that guy from that movie!” and then everybody responds.
What? From where? What are you talking about? Why are you so excited?
I know actors have to work to make money, so I’m not looking down on them. It’s just that I identify them with one role in my head and then they come out selling car wax and I think it’s funny. Most of the time the role I know them from isn’t even their biggest role, some times the commercial becomes more famous than the movie role.
That is the case here. I know this guy as Mr. Schniedelwichsen, the German guy who leads the two brothers to Beerfest… and then subsequently gets killed. So then last year he showed up in a commercial that is probably more widely seen than Beerfest, as the “Think with your dipstick” Guy for Castrol Motor oil. But I first spotted him in a IBM ad for their medical imaging tech. I remember seeing him in that white lab coat and thinking… “Are they trying to pass off the guy from Beerfest as an actual doctor?”
More pictures and videos after the break…
No commentsFebruary
26
Fade to Black
Beer Review:
Chocolate coffee sweet molassasy thick feel bite of hops. This is a good black ale. You have to be in a dark beer mood to drink it, but you’ll be rewarded if you do. There’s so much flavor inside this bottle, the smell of dark chocolate, the taste of strong coffee. It has a thick sweet texture with a formidable bite of hops at the end. At 8% ABV it’s pretty strong, so a 6 pack will probably do you in for the night. But the beer is so strong tasting that I’d recommend stopping at 3. Overall it’s just a good beer that I will seek out again.
Bottle Review:
This may be one of the best designed bottles that I’ve seen in a while. I could be that I’m really into this old english ribbon-y font right now, but I think it’s timeless. The cut of the label and how it’s just filled with so many details that it almost becomes texture. You kind of just feel like a badass when you’re drinking it. When a beer is called ‘Fade to Black Ale’ you need an awesome bottle to match it.
Schu-Review : 4 out of 5 Schus
No commentsFebruary
26
Maybe someday I’ll get too old to wear skate shoes. I’ve cut back on the styles I wear. I probably won’t be getting those hot pink and black ones again. I just get plain styles and colors. Bit I couldn’t pass these up on Whiskey Militia for $25. GMU colored skate shoes! Even if I only wear them with Mason clothes it’ll be worth it.
February
25
van no. 32 (green and yellow), originally uploaded by Orrin.
Yesterday Laurel called me because her car (1994 Saab 9000) wouldn’t go into drive at a red light. She shifted into reverse and back to drive and it started again. Turns out that her transmission fluid was low. But it got me thinking about having to buy a new car if Laurel’s starts to die.
My first car was a 1987 Chevy Van 20 that had been the family van for about 10 years before it was passed down to me. This meant that I was ‘The Van Guy’ for all my friends. I drove them around and I carried lots of crap around with me. So I have a special place in my heart for vans. Aesthetically I just like their shape, they’re like the rounded-rectangle tool of vehicle design. But they do have sort of a stigma among the ‘Normal non-van owning people’ that the people inside them may either be pedophiles or just crazy people living inside them. Part of me wants a sweet airbrushed mural on the side, but that may be taking it too far.
Is my desire to own a sweet custom van greater than my desire to fit in with normal society? We’ll have to see!
3 commentsFebruary
24
Stitch the Lids
I’ve been really interested in custom lettering for a long time now. I’ve just started producing work that I’m happy with. There’s something abotu custom lettering and fonts that appeals to both sides of my personality. It has the creative influence of finding out where each letter is going and how they’re interact with eachother. Then comes in the technical side of getting it into illustrator. But then my obsessive side takes over and I get lost trying to make everything exactly right. I think my work suffers here, I try to line everything up too much and it all ends up being too exact and looking a little stiff. But I’m working on it.
3 commentsFebruary
23
Still pictures make us look like we actually know what we’re doing. Like this one where I look like a complete badass.
No comments
I don’t give a shit about 80’s metal and this is still the best documentary I have seen all year. Hell it might be the best movie that I’ve seen all year. I just connected with these guys so much. It’s the reason I love documentaries, these are real people. They aren’t some characters thought up by writers. They have real problems, real emotions, and real heart.
Through the movie you see how much promise and success they had back in the beginning and then they just kind of went nowhere, but they never gave up. Now it’s 30 years later and they’re still trying to make it. The movie focuses on the lead singer and drummer of Anvil. The lead singer ‘Lips’ is the one in the band who won’t let the dream die, he works at a catering company and takes vacation time to play shows. There are people in his life that you can see don’t share his vision and don’t really support him. But his girlfriend and older sister stick with him no matter what. Maybe that’s the part that really resonated personally with me? The other main character is the drummer, Robb Reiner (not the actor/director). He and Lips have this rocky ‘Brothers in Metal’ relationship that creates some intense emotional moments through out the film. When the ending comes you are so emotionally invested in this band that they really feel like family.
I cannot believe that this movie didn’t even get nominated for best documentary in the Academy Awards. The only close competition I would give it was The Cove and that for me is a distant second. Food Inc., the front runner for the award, was NOTHING compared to this movie. ANVIL doesn’t need flashy graphics or voice overs, it thrives on basic human spirit. The story of Anvil provided enough emotion for 10 movies.
If you have a heart and a dream, you will love this movie.
watch the trailer
buy the music
Schu-Review : 5 out of 5 Schus
*UPDATE*
Apparently this movie came out in 2007, but since I just watched it last week. I’m still calling it the best documentary of 2009.
January
28
Before
After
This blog redesign is still a work in progress, my strategy has been to get something out there that is functional and then add onto it piece by piece until it’s perfect. I’d always noticed that the posts themselves were a little plain, but I just couldn’t find something that fit the style. I thought it would be cool to have a sort of Apple-ish calendar poking out of the top of every blog post…. so that’s what I made. Doing these little things is a good way to keep my design skills fresh in between actual paying design jobs. Which are few and far between.
On the code side it’s not that much of a change, just added a fee floated divs here and there and a couple lines to the CSS file. I’ve pushed this template so far that I’m begining to think I should make an actual theme out of it and submit it to Wordpress.
Maybe I’ll get there eventually, but it’s not perfect yet.
No commentsJanuary
28
So I’m sitting there in a spicy pickle induced nightmare in the bathroom at work when my phone vibrates. It’s an alarm I set to remind me to buy tickets for the Kevin Smith show at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue on 4/22. So I’m really in a pickle here… (rim-shot). I have 5 minutes to either finish my business and hope that there are not enough Smith fans in the DC area to sell out the show in 10 minutes or accelerate this mission and get back to my desk.
WWKSD?
I’m sure the new Kev would just light up a joint and twitter something irreverent, but I’m talking about the old Kev. The guy that maxed out his credit cards to make a movie about roof hockey and dick jokes. That’s my Edmonton Gretzky, a guy with natural talent who gets things done. So I pinched off that spicy mother and got back to the desk with minutes to spare. Got the tickets and am now writing this post.
Mission accomplished.
No comments
