All Peas and Carrots

Matteboxing

2012-02-01T18:48:00.006-06:00

I'm no photographer by any stretch of the imagination but I've been playing around with a swell little app called Mattebox and loving the results. At the very least, it's getting me to shoot more, which can never be considered a bad thing.

New* Work: Introducing the knode

2012-01-18T22:41:00.011-06:00

Oh nothing, just going through the ol' "sent" box and sharing a few here and there. I design oodles of emails for my 9-5 and don't show off nearly enough of them. This is me aiming to fix that.

*not new at all.

New Work: Sales Preview Email

2012-01-12T21:50:00.005-06:00

You guys, not posting here in forever should not and does not mean I haven't been up to my elbows in all kinds of super great projects. I can't quite show them off just yet, but here's a little shot of something I did for my 9-5. I know, I know... ribbons. WOOF, right? What can I say? Shit, sometimes you gotta go ribbons.

Click the screengrab above for what I just realized this instant is a superjank low-res version of the whole email.

This Is A Test From My iPhone

2011-03-23T22:27:00.003-05:00

This week I was tasked with creating a logo for our new house line of doohickeys. These are the sketches I made before I realized the project had been committee'd to death and canceled. Still, it was fun sketching thumbnail comps for, like, two hours one afternoon at work.

BTW, this was posted using Blogger+, the best blogging app for iPhone I've tested.

New Work: Order History Icon

2011-03-13T12:17:00.002-05:00

One of a set of five custom icons, just a tiny piece of a decidedly larger project for my 9-5.

WIP: mommasboydesign.com refresh

2011-03-05T16:24:00.003-06:00

There are times, every couple years or so, that I get really jazzed about redesigning mommasboydesign.com. This is one of those times. Here's a peek. I really like where it's headed. I hope to have the whole shebang finished in the next few weeks.

New Work: Poster Design

2011-02-06T12:40:00.002-06:00

Warhol-Style Soup Can iPhone Icon

2011-01-04T21:21:00.006-06:00

I have this grocery shopping list app that I love but I don't really care for the icon, so I whipped up this replacement this afternoon using Andy Warhol's soup can as inspiration. Is that nerdy? That's nerdy, isn't it? Oh well. Right-click-save-as below to download the icon if you want to use it yourself. You'll need iPhone Explorer to swap in the new icon. Okay, now this is getting super nerdy.

Download: Soup Can iPhone Icon

WIP: GenOne Technologies Logo Design

2010-11-28T11:42:00.005-06:00

This was a project for my 9-5. I was given the name and 24 hours, and tasked with creating a logo for what could maybe someday possibly become something of a store brand product for the company. Yeah...

WIP: Fitness Fox Website

2010-10-26T22:24:00.002-05:00

Below is a little taste of what I'm currently working on. We're collaborating with the client on final touches but most everything is in place and I'm really pleased with how things are turning out.

New Work: (downtown) Omaha Lit Fest Poster

2010-07-27T22:05:00.000-05:00

New Work: Emergency Dental Website Design

2010-06-13T22:45:00.000-05:00

New Work: bodybasics.com

2010-04-30T16:12:00.001-05:00

New Work: ipffsb.org

2010-01-18T18:59:00.000-06:00

New Work: Logo Design

2010-01-11T14:59:00.004-06:00

Recently completed this logo for startup lawfirm (I know, I know) Kurtz & Augenlicht, LLP. Good guys, really know their stuff, going to do well for themselves, I imagine. ~~Now, if they'll only let me fix their website.~~

Listomania

2009-12-28T19:09:00.001-06:00

Every December everyone in the world rolls out their best-of lists for everything imaginable. Movies, books, albums, videos, pop culture moments, red carpet outfits, culinary achievements, and so forth. This practice is stupid and pointless. Or is it? If everyone is doing it, and you're not, aren't you the stupid one? Right. Let's get to it.

Top Thirteen Thematically-Relevant Songs/Videos Used in My Weekly Fantasy Football League Note This Year:

"Crush My Battleopponent's Balls," Dethklok
"The Rat," The Walkmen
"Floyd the Barber," Nirvana
"Where There's A Will There's A Whalebone," Islands
"Saved by Zero," The Fixx
"Seven Nation Army," The White Stripes
"She's Lost Control," Joy Division
"Well Alright," Spoon
"Robots Fucking," TV on the Radio
"Take it or Leave it," The Strokes
"Banquet," Bloc Party
"So Bored," Wavvves
"Two Weeks," Grizzly Bear

Listomania

2009-12-21T14:35:00.002-06:00

Every December everyone in the world rolls out their best-of lists for everything imaginable. Movies, books, albums, videos, pop culture moments, red carpet outfits, culinary achievements, and so forth. This practice is stupid and pointless. Or is it? If everyone is doing it, and you're not, aren't you the stupid one? Right. Let's get to it.

Top Ten Radio Stations I Listened to in the Car on My Way Home from Work Today:

87.7
88.3
88.7
89.3
91.5
93.1
94.7
97.1
98.7
104.3

Listomania

2009-12-11T13:24:00.003-06:00

Every December everyone in the world rolls out their best-of lists for everything imaginable. Movies, books, albums, videos, pop culture moments, red carpet outfits, culinary achievements, and so forth. This practice is stupid and pointless. Or is it? If everyone is doing it, and you're not, aren't you the stupid one? Right. Let's get to it.

Top Ten Swears I Said Yesterday Morning When My Car Wouldn't Start

Fuck
Shit
Motherfucker
Dammit!
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
Son of a bitch
COCK!
Rat fucker
Cocksucker
God dammit (dejectedly)

Listomania

2009-12-09T10:31:00.003-06:00

"Mbira in the Morass," Volcano Choir
"Bonnie and Clyde," Wayne Horovitz and Robin Holcomb
"Year of the Dragon," Sufjan Stevens/Osso
"Waiting for my Man," Beck
"Woe is You and Me," The Strange Boys
"Is and Always Was," Daniel Johnston
"Wordy Rappinghood," Tom Tom Club
"Sweet Road," Animal Collective
"Hiding Neath My Umbrella," God Help the Girl
"Cool Places," Sparks and Jane Wiedlin

Listomania

2009-12-07T14:59:00.005-06:00

Staples brand ballpoint pen, blue
Cowboy mug
Note paper bearing the following list (how meta!):
- ~~smaller typeface~~
- connection
- cscp webinar
- p&p
- ~~enews tracking links~~
iPhone
Time sheet
Keys, house and automobile
Binder clip functioning as money clip containing five dollar bill, CTA card, two debit cards, insurance card, and Costco membership card
Holiday music mix CD given to me by a coworker. Track ten: "White Christmas," by the Drifters
Moleskine notebook approximately 1/6th filled with still more lists
Invitation to a recycling party. Donation of three cell phones, laptops, iPods, or Kindles grants me free admission, and Kermit the Frog may or may not be making an appearance.

New Work: (downtown) Omaha Lit Fest Poster Design

2009-08-02T14:44:00.004-05:00

Version 5.0 of the (downtown) Omaha Lit Fest is happening in about six weeks and once again Ive been tabbed to design the poster for it. (That's part of it up there. Peep the full version here.)

Now, I know what you're thinking and I'll tell you the same thing I told Lit Fest director Timothy Schaffert: No, those are not my wife's legs. They're mine. Her shoes, though.

The (downtown) Omaha Lit Fest happens September 17-19, 2009, in—doy—Omaha, NE. See omahalitfest.com for details.

Zodiac

2009-07-31T19:51:00.000-05:00

The night I met Scottish folk-rock troubador Donovan I also tried to pull the ol' switcharoo and trade in my lameduck girlfriend for her hotter, funner friend. [Know where this is headed?]

We were all drinking downtown—me; the girl I was dating; her friend, who I wanted to be; and Donovan, who was unwinding with a Macallan after playing a show in town. The girls were tickled with the kitchy thrill of meeting the guy who sang "Mellow Yellow" and we all drank ourselves silly while being all ironic starfuckery with the guy.

Later that night, fucking wasted and having a nightcap at my house and listening to records (sans Donovan), I decided it was time to put the moves on my date's friend. My date was passed out on the couch, The Best of Donovan was playing on the stereo, and I told the friend how I'd like fuck her right now because she was super cool and my girlfriend looked like a goddamn troll and sucked in the sack.

...

You know that first scene in the film, where the kids are in the car, super ready to get it on, and then the killer drives up and shoots the shit out of them all cold and methodical—pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, blood everywhere, screaming, twitching, gurgling—then leaves, then comes back, and unloads a few more rounds into the poor fuckers? I say those kids got off easy.

The Wrestler

2009-06-24T13:25:00.001-05:00

Nobody likes a fuck-up.

We tolerate liars, cheats, drunks, wife-beaters, and many murderers much better. Those idiots get picked up, dusted off, and sent back out for a second chance like a little kid who scraped his knee horsing around on the playground. But guys whose hearts are in the right place but whose instincts are all wrong? Who make a mess of everything not because they're mean but because they're just losers? Who can't catch a break and who are almost too ground-down to even try to make their own? Those knobs? Fuck those guys in their stupid fucking faces. AMIRITE?!

New Work: Nebraska Summer Writers' Conference Logo/T-Shirt

2009-05-28T11:04:00.004-05:00

If you grew up in a certain time, in a certain part of the country, and of a certain economic status, few objects are as definitively summer as the classic nylon webbed lawn chair.

I don't know how rich kids spent their summer vacations, but I'll wager it wasn't at some public campground-cum-salvage-yard swatting mosquitos and waiting for one of these flimsy aluminum deathtraps to collapse and dump them into the firepit. Or getting large swaths of leg hair ripped out every time they say down or stood up or moved or sat still or... Seriously, the backs of my thighs are perfectly hairless thanks to a childhood of summers sitting on the pinch-tastic web seats of chairs like this. None of my female cousins will even go near one while wearing a bathing suit.

A Page From My Notebook

2009-05-27T10:40:00.003-05:00

My drawing skills went AWOL some years ago, but my preferred method of brainstorming design projects remains the good ol' thumbnail sketch; just a quick something to either help focus a thought or test out a few different angles. I usually mark up my design plans with a lot more shorthand notes than shown in the Pilcrow swag sketch below, and while most of my pen-and-ink planning goes on regular-ass printer paper or the back of junk mail I keep stacked near my desk, I've been meaning to go back to carrying a notebook with me at all times, with a nod to this post on Design Observer.

New Work: Pilcrow Lit Fest Poster

2009-05-11T09:54:00.002-05:00

First, there was the Pilcrow Lit Fest website. Now, the poster. And soon, a program/schedule of events, name tags, postcards, and other event collateral. Beyond that, who knows... Tee shirts, video games, blimp signage, rub-on tattoos, and Pilcrow-inspired baby names? Stay tuned.

New Work: ipffsb.org Website Design

2009-05-02T10:58:00.003-05:00

I think it's lovely, in this age of empty self-promotion, when good work speaks for itself and clients are earned simply by reputation and word of mouth.

Earlier this spring, I did some work for the ladies of Sleepover 2.0—a logo, a website that's been shuttered for some reason, etc.—and during the Sleepover telecast, the director of the Israeli Palestinian Film Festival tracked me down, professed his love of the SO site, and asked me to redesign the IPFF site. Seeing as how I've already done work for similar events Pilcrow Lit Fest and the (downtown) omaha lit fest, I was happy to take on the project. And I'm quite taken with how the brand new ipffsb.org turned out.

The 2009 Israeli Palestinian Film Festival runs May 4-14 on the UC Santa Barbara campus.

New Work: Viva Nash Vegas Logo

2009-04-17T11:07:00.002-05:00

The best road trips usually involve lots of bathtub speed, reckless driving, half-witted county sheriffs, fistfights, buxom hitchhikers, Hell's Angels, CB radios, and jumping either a dry creek bed or moving freight train in a souped-up muscle car.

That said, road trips that skew a little tamer can be fun, too. There's plenty of time for PG-rated mayhem between scheduled bathroom pitstops, home-cooked meals waiting for you at various points in the trip, and a comped luxury hotel room waiting at your destination. This is the kind of road trip that needs it's own fancypants logo, which is where MBD comes in.

Read more about Viva Nash Vegas over on Bigmouth and say hi to the girls either via Twitter (@amyguth, @leahjones) or their show on Blog Talk Radio.

Peas and Carrots in the House, Y'all!

2009-04-04T17:03:00.002-05:00

Spotted at the Abbey Pub before a Kosha Dillz/Yak Ballz show:

Good Design is the Concept

2009-04-03T19:33:00.002-05:00

You've seen this video, yes? Or at least heard the story behind it? How, in 1976, French director Claude LeLouch mounted a gyroscopic camera on the front of a Ferrari and commissioned a Formula 1 race car driver to go all Grand Theft Auto before there was such a thing: Paris, end to end, in less than ten minutes. 140 miles per hour, running red lights, going the wrong way down skinny one-way streets, taking to the sidewalk to pass a slow moving truck, and nearly clipping spectating pedestrians, with that burly Ferrari engine growling and tires screaming for their lives the whole time.

Problem is, such an awesome display of recklessness never happened. LeLouch has admitted that the Ferrari was a Mercedes, 140 was more like 80, and the mysterious speed demon behind the wheel was the director himself.

However, knowing what you know now, watch again and tell me that nine minutes behind the wheel is any less exhilarating.

I like this video in the context of talking design because it's a perfect visual metaphor for my philosophy that design doesn't need to be concepted to death to work. Sure, it makes for a good if not gimmicky presentation to the client when you can say you chose a color because, say, its PMS value is exactly one-third of the year the company was founded, but just as LeLouch's video is badass regardless of backstory, neither should design rely on the crutch of a nebular concept to be impactful.

And what do you know, Paul Rand agrees with me. (Dig the afro mullet on Miggs B.)

I Call This One The Jewel/Osco "Pathetic Bachelor Special"

2009-03-29T12:43:00.003-05:00

Man, few images could sum up ages 22-29 for me more succinctly than this clipping from the weekly Jewel circular. What's the girl version of this sad, sad dinner for one? Lean Cuisine, box of white zin, and a single rose?

The MBD Endorsement: Destroy Twitter

2009-03-28T15:57:00.003-05:00

Now that everyone in the world is using stupid Twitter, you're going to need a way to view and filter the oodles of retarded dreck, e-noise, and 140-character infomercials from people who, if they behaved in such a self-aggrandizing way in person, you'd never speak to twice.

Twitter's web interface is lousy slow on my iMac so I've turned to Destroy Twitter. Contrary to some blog flack bemoaning its lack of features, DT, an Adobe Air app, is hands-down my favorite Twitter tool. It's great looking, has a sweet name, and does everything I—as a decidedly non power user—need it to. If DT also came as an iPhone app I'd totally marry it.

Hey, wouldn't it be cool if someone made a Twitter client called Tw@? I'd pay for that.

Download Destroy Twitter here. Now go outside and speak to an actual person, you pasty subnormal!

New Work: interactiveAmy.com Logo Design

2009-03-28T14:56:00.002-05:00

I don't take on a lot of logo design work but if all potential clients came to me with their vision as thought-out as Amy of interactiveAmy.com did, I would definitely do more.

Seriously, this one practically designed itself. iA knew the colors she wanted to use, knew she wanted something bold, and together we had the logo for her fledgling social media consulting venture designed, printed on business cards, and gracing her website in less than two weeks. That girl is a doer. And she tweets a lot, so I guess she's, like, a super rockstar at social media.

My Mechanic Is Clever

2009-03-19T10:44:00.003-05:00

That oily thumbprint? It's printed on. Part of the design. Simply outstanding.

It's Like a Grid Within a Grid Wrapped in a Grid

2009-03-09T12:49:00.002-05:00

That epileptic ADD banner may be gone, but the new Pitchfork site redesign is still wicked hard to look at. Everything is all crammy and bled-together, the logo is as bland as an acoustic Jet b-side, and they don't even have a favicon. Hey, Pitchfork: The World Wide Web called from 1996 and it wants its address bar back.

/Theta Quadrant'd

This Ain't Stealing: Wavvves

2009-03-07T12:29:00.005-06:00

Funny, because I'm not 17 anymore and this isn't the last week of school before summer break and Brad no longer owns that shitted-out Honda Civic, but fuck I feel like getting a couple 40s, maybe heading over to Bobs house to scrounge for some weed or snacks or Monster League Football and killing time until the show tonight where there'll be more weed, booze, and chicks who pay no attention to us so we'll go pick up Charlie and maybe smash some mailboxes or push a lawnmower into a pool before we get some gas station nachos and swing back by Bob's to grab that last half bottle of vodka and meet up with these other girls we met at that party last week that got busted and we had to hide in the basement for two hours and Seth pissed in the laundry basket because he couldn't hold it until the cops left but those girls were kind of ugly and I'm still pretty hungry and Brad says Suzanne is having a party tonight so why don't we go over there and get some food or steal some of her dad's beer out of the garage fridge, I mean, I don't have to work tomorrow until two, so, yeah, let's go...

Download Wavvves here.

Obligatory disclaimer: I didn't upload this file. I only found the link. You want me to take it down? Just ask.

New Work: Sleepover2.0 Website Design

2009-02-22T11:07:00.002-06:00

The newest addition to my portfolio (which, by the way, can be found here and will, later this week, be updated to include this and other new work) is the anthropomorphic spokeslogo and website for Sleepover2.0, a webcam slumber party broadcast from the Hotel Sax in downtown Chicago. (Not what you think, perv-o, but still worth tuning in to.) Hit up the Sleepover2.0 site for all the details and, as always, email me if your own site is in need of a makeover.

Hear That, Kids? BROWN!

2009-02-11T10:58:00.002-06:00

That new Pilcrow site I was telling you about is now live. Do check it out. Many, many thanks to my brother-in-law and Wolta Christmas Madden Tournament foil Eric for his top-notch and super quick work translating the site design into blog form. I've granted him a two game head start in the '09 tourney for his efforts, which should leave no doubt as to how much I appreciate the work. [Now get a website, holmes.]

On Acquiescence

2009-02-08T09:39:00.000-06:00

Sigh. I suppose if Madison Square Garden can endorse Kobe for MVP, I can learn to toot my horn online. Follow me on Twitter to watch firsthand as social media jumps the shark .

Who Wants To Be Billy Martin Anyway?

2009-02-06T17:04:00.000-06:00

Not me. I always fancied myself more of an Earl Weaver guy.

Totally unrelated: Anyone want to buy a slightly-used kidney? If you call before cocktail hour starts, I'll throw in a free liver.

New Projects: Pilcrow Lit Fest Website

2009-02-02T10:58:00.002-06:00

Since early Saturday afternoon—with a short break yesterday—I've been hard at work on a new website for the good folks behind Pilcrow Lit Fest. I'm not going to show you what it looks like just yet, but it's almost finished (I work fast when I'm inspired by good people with big ideas doing creative things) and I couldn't be happier with how it's turning out. A tiny hint: I'm bringing back brown. Expect the full reveal in a week or so.

Super Bowl Predictions

2009-01-31T23:04:00.001-06:00

+ The Super Bowl marks the end of the NFL postseason, and as such, I will shave my beloved playoff beard. I'll miss Old Scratch, but the week to cultivate my Pro Bowl 'Stache will ease that pain.

+ This year's Super Bowl logo [pictured] will go down as the worst one since last year's version. Seriously, what's with the turrible logos this decade? I never thought I'd yearn for the design aesthetics of the late 80s and early 90s, but there you have it.

+ Jennifer Hudson will stretch the anthem past two minutes, most likely breaking down in tears at some point but with the help of Jesus power and Obama strength, will recover to end with the trilliest of overwrought flourishes. "Fun" fact: Even if JHud butchers the anthem for an interminable 120 seconds, she still won't make the honor roll for the longest anthem in SB history.

+ Save to cash in on my anthem wager, I will watch a combined zero mintues of pregame and halftime festivities. Just show me the game, TV! All that other MTV'd-out, yay-America pomp is for the dishrags who "don't really get pro football" and print out scorecards to rate the commercials. These are the same people who serve veggie spring rolls and have quirky napkin rings (and for that matter, napkins) at their Super Bowl party. Spring rolls are not Super Bowl food! Super Bowl food is fatty and greasy and barbecue-y. To wit...

+ I will eat so much shitty food washed down by so many shitty beers that there's a good chance I won't have the motor skills or brain function to change the channel or stand up under my own power and will therefore end up watching the episode of The Office that NBC will air immediately after the game. Truthfully, I didn't know what show was slated to follow the game until I looked it up just now. This is different from two weeks ago during the AFC Championship Game when Jim Nantz couldn't let three plays go by without plugging The Mentalist—whatever that is—on CBS.

+ I'll get sucked into the Puppy Bowl for half of the third quarter and won't mind a bit.

+ The Pittsburgh Steelers will win, in a not-great game. It will be a little sloppy and mostly lackluster. In other words: It will be a normal Super Bowl, like 37 or so of the 42 before it. Final score: Steelers 27, Cardinals 17.

+ Regardless, Larry Fitzgerald will have another silly crazy game and the world will anoint him the Best Wide Receiver in the NFL®, like they did to Randy Moss last year. Fitzy's bananas postseason has all but assured that he won't be around in the fifth round of my '09 fantasy draft, where I plucked him (to great success) this year.

+ Sweetpea, surveying the wreckage that has become of her formally generally kempt and civil husband, will, at some point in the afternoon, Google "annulment + illinois + football" with fingers crossed.

+ Lucky for me, she will not pull the trigger and I'll have until early August to atone for my loutish behavior before the whole NFL cycle repeats itself.

This Kind Of Explains A Lot

2009-01-27T19:35:00.002-06:00

The only backstory you need to know about this little nugget is that it gets mailed to me every month along with my 401k statement. And with each mailing, several questions arise. Questions such as: Why are you mailing me a blank sheet of paper? And, Do printed words declaring a sheet of paper blank an actual blank sheet of paper make? And lastly, Didn't I have, like, way more money than this last time?

You're Frozen When Your Heart's Not Open

2009-01-18T15:53:00.001-06:00

This endless expanse of craggity ice and claustrophobic grey sky is a photo of Lake Michigan taken several weeks ago, before the mercury in all my cartoon thermometers shot out the bottom of the bulb, screamed down the wall, and smashed a hole clean through the floor. God bless winter in Chicago.

As Promised: My Cat!

2009-01-16T15:56:00.004-06:00

Chairman Meow and I have a routine. It works for us. While I'm working, he sprawls out on the desk next to my computer and occasionally bats at the mouse. When I get up to make coffee, shred a paper, or peek in on SportsCenter, he hops down into my chair and immediately goes to sleep. He's basically the best Oscars seat-filler ever.

Logos Save Lives

2009-01-16T13:14:00.004-06:00

Here's a fun game. A friend sent this to me yesterday, along with a challenge to guess, based solely on that bipmap repro, what product/service/company is being represented:
"Skateboard sold at CVS for $9.99 in 1993?" I replid. "The second best-selling pineapple malt liquor in Four Corners dollar stores? Non-sanctioned women's roller derby squad?"

Sadly, by virtue of being for girls, my roller derby theory was closest, as the logo above belongs to Zonta International, a "global organization of executives and professionals working together to advance the status of women worldwide through service and advocacy," an admirable and worthwhile endeavor if I've ever heard one, but one that isn't being served by what often amounts to the public's first impression of the organization.

No one is saying that because Zonta caters to the XX set that their logo needs to be all pink cupcakes and pegasi. And maybe in the grand scheme of battling poverty, illiteracy, AIDS, genital mutilation, and human trafficking, a really slick logo is kind of superfluous. Then again, the perfect logo could be the cornerstone of an overall rebranding, one that helps to elevate the public's awareness and perception of a given organization, which in turn brings in more donations, which allows for more aid programs, which affects greater change until all the world's problems are solved forever.

Hey, it could happen.

I read an article on Designer Observer recently about the many ways design can thrive during a recession. One of those ways was the phenomenon of out-of-work designers with nothing to do but monitor the tanking of their retirement accounts turning their attention to the non-profit sector and throwing a few altruistic hours the way of an organization that needs but maybe can't budget for a revamped website, some polishing to their newsletters, or even, you know, a new logo. (Just not this one. This one is spoken for. Find your own selfless act.)

A Snowflake Fell And It Felt Like A Panther Swipe

2009-01-14T10:38:00.002-06:00

It's not quite the blizzard Amy Freeze and Co. were promising but there is a bunch of snow and single digit temps settling over Chicago this morning. Score another one for freelancers, very few of whom will be grumbling about their hypothermic commutes to work this week.

Let's all listen to Glasvegas:
A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like A Kiss)
Glasvegas

Tiger > Leopard

2009-01-11T22:36:00.004-06:00

Call me late to the game, but I just came across these QuickLook plug-ins that have made Leopard, for me, much less of a lame duck update. The plug-ins for viewing AI files and folders in QL are particularly helpful.

Seriously, aside from the stellarness (of the idea) of Time Machine, what is the big plus to upgrading to Leopard? Similarly, is the jump to CS4 from CS3 worth plunking down its Voyager Spacecraft-like sticker price?

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

2009-01-10T22:54:00.003-06:00

Can anybody tell me what’s going to happen to the documentary genre when all the profileable musicians, poets, painters, and writers in the world aren’t junkies and drunks and cheddarheaded retards anymore but instead get their jollies shopping at Whole Foods and going to spin class three times a week?

You laugh, but it’s happening. Ten years ago it wasn’t an art party unless everyone was coked out of their minds and someone was sucking dick next to the keg. Now I can’t excuse myself for an after-dinner cigarette without feeling like the entire table blames me for the ozone, oil dependency, and the decimation of family farms. Well, I’ve fucking had it. I’m going to need artists to throttle down their non-violent war to reverse the institutionalization of gender roles in America one of their perfectly enlightened boutique babies at a time and get back to, like, taking dumps on hookers and shit, mkay?

I Like The Printed Blog. I Especially Liked It Back When I First Saw It. When It Was Called A Newspaper.

2009-01-06T10:55:00.006-06:00

Just caught wind of a new venture launching in Chicago and San Francisco. Something called the Printed Blog. [TPB has, in a delicious paradox, a non-printed blog to explain the Printed Blog. No word yet if those posts will make the hard copy version.]

Hmmm, stories and information, culled from several sources and writers, printed daily and distributed to the public... Printed Blog, "Hollywood Minute" is on line one for you.

Except for any VCs who threw money at TPB, the real losers here are the poor wretches whose job it is to lay out this inevitable clusterfuck. Something tells me there's a fresh design school grad holed up in an office downtown updating the LOLcats column for the sixty-third straight hour who is seriously reconsidering his dad's offer to send him to mortician's school.

Pickpocket Part Two

2009-01-04T22:50:00.000-06:00

An addendum to my earlier Pickpocket post: this poster for the movie I found online.

Just look at that thing! How gorgeous is that? I've heard writers talk of sentences or paragraphs they've read that they wish they'd written themselves. That awestruck admiration is how I feel looking at this poster. It is perfection, pure and simple, and pretty fucking depressing at the same time.

2009 marks ten years exactly that I've been calling myself a designer and at no point in the last decade have I created anything so apt as this. Knowing that this is out in the world, I feel like I need to go out and buy a hamster and a cage and line the cage with my portfolio for the hamster to cover with his little poo eggs just to feel like my work isn't a total waste.

Conversely, say I did design a visual that so flawlessly and effortlessly captured the essence of its subject... What then? I might as well retire my chunky black glasses and take up professional rock climbing or bass fishing or bassoon playing, because nothing I could ever do graphic design-wise—even if I worked another 99 years—would top such splendor.

The MBD Endorsement: Spellchecking

2009-01-03T14:14:00.000-06:00

"Did you spellcheck your resume?"
"Doy. I'm not a moron"
"Really?"
"Yes. Like, four times."
"Really? Because that's not how you spell that."
"Dammit."
"Or that."
"DAMMIT!"

Pickpocket

2009-01-03T11:10:00.004-06:00

As far as French New Wave films go, Pickpocket won't make my Mt. Rushmore but this sequence is the balls:

Did you know you can rent movies from the library now? Only they don't call it "renting." They call it "lending," because you don't have to pay jack to take the movie for a week. Nothing! It's a service I've vowed to take greater advantage of from now on and encourage you to do the same.

Logical Next Step: Bullfighting

2008-12-30T14:54:00.004-06:00

Just want to direct your attention to the bottom right corner of that picture up there. [Here's a nice big version for you.] See that? League champion. In my very first go of fantasy football. It's not so surprising; pretty much everything I've done this year for the first time ever I've ruled at.

The MBD Endorsement: Paying for Quality

2008-12-15T20:28:00.004-06:00

Sweetpea has turned me on to this thing, a philosophy I suspect she got from her grandfather or someone equally wise, where she believes in paying a premium for high-quality goods, rather than filling your life with cheap, disposable junk you'll likely end up replacing several times anyway.

I'm not talking about throwing money away on flashy shit like $400 Japanese denim, nor am I equating higher cost with higher quality necessarily. But there exist certain things—the steak frites at Tallulah, European sports cars—that are totally worth the extra cheddar and some things whose discounted price tag doesn't offset the general crumminess of the product.

A product, for example, such as Office Depot brand ink. I thought I was so smart buying a generic OD ink cartridge when my printer needed a refill but yesterday, after two months of streaky, faint, useless prints, el cheapo cartridge crapped out. Half full, of course. The blinking error lights on my printer are like three tiny little Nelson Muntzes haw-hawing my "saving" five bucks by going cheap on my ink. Lesson learned, Office Depot. Lesson learned.

Collaboration Nation

2008-12-10T21:32:00.001-06:00

Very few times in my professional life have I ever partnered up to work on a particular design project. I've either worked at tiny companies with small staffs where the luxury of assigning multiple people to a project did not exist or larger outfits where they could afford to divide the labor into tiny, standalone tasks for each employee.

But as of two weeks ago, I've had a project cooking where I'm part of a three-person team working on a single project. We each have our areas of expertise—not quite chopper pilot, safecracker, tank mechanic, etc., but still cool—and I'm really excited to see how it all shakes up.

The MBD Endorsement: Backing Up Your Files

2008-12-03T11:27:00.002-06:00

So this morning I was futzing with the design and publishing settings of Ye Old Peas and Carrots (please to enjoy) and in one errant keystroke, the index file of MBD.com was written over and replaced with a portion of this here blog.

Could have been traumatic and tragic to lose such a large chunk of just-completed work, but because I'm a cool customer and back up everything religiously (we use and love Carbon Copy Cloner here at MBDHQ but that's another endorsement for another time) getting everything back in place and running smoothly was a snap.

I realize that for some of you, backing up your files--whether to an external drive or media, online storage dump, or some combo thereof--is just common sense, but too many people still don't do it (or do it often enough) and wind up helpless and hopeless when catastrophe strikes. Which it will, guaranteed.

You've been warned.

Dress British, Think Yiddish

2008-12-02T11:52:00.006-06:00

Sweetpea and I spent a big chunk of this last weekend giving the house a thorough going-over. Lots of scrubbing and organizing and purging and finding homes for stuff and the place looks great. We even found, tucked away in a closet in an unpacked box leftover from the move last spring, this fetching frame just begging for some art. I think we decided on a winner.

Jungle Fever

2008-12-01T14:10:00.004-06:00

My cat doesn't get out much, and when confronted with the occasional visitor to our windowsill, I think he struggles between wanting to hunt down and kill the little furry thing and wanting to make out with it. Either way, good thing there are two panes of glass between them.

Idle Hands are the Devil's Something Something...

2008-11-23T13:00:00.002-06:00

Had a little extra time this week so I redesigned MBD.com. Please to enjoy.

The Chicken Fries Contain Potassium Benzoate

2008-11-20T20:06:00.008-06:00

Look, I'm not saying that the planted Burger King wallet I found last week is cursed, or that Burger King restaurants are cursed, or that I even believe in curses, but ever since I found that damn wallet and the free Whopper coupons inside, it's been nothing but bad luck for the MBD household. If anyone in the Taco Bell marketing department wants to leave some non-jinxed freebies on my doorstep I'd be much obliged.

Momma's Boy Thinks He's So Big...

2008-11-14T16:24:00.004-06:00

It's been a year and change since I hung my web-shingle, and I'm bored with MBD.com. I smell a (-nother, to replace the one I started and scrapped in September) redesign to the site in the coming weeks or months.

Speaking of change:

Or, if you prefer:

Decision '08

2008-11-04T09:33:00.004-06:00

I voted this morning in what could be considered the most important election in my lifetime. The choice between two worthy candidates was not an easy one, nor was it without potential consequences. I spent much time considering my options. I researched track records of the candidates, and gathered all the information I could find that could help me to best judge their future potential. I don't think my choice will be a popular one, given where I call home, but after a lot thought, I decided to follow my heart and my gut and I feel 100% confident in my final decision: I'm starting Tony Scheffler over Greg Olson on my fantasy team this weekend. Godspeed, good sir.

This Ain't Stealing, Volume Whatever: Deerhunter

2008-10-25T16:50:00.000-05:00

An obvious pairing they're not, but two things that rate pretty high here at MBDHQ nonetheless are weirdos from Georgia and Lou Reed. And like a warm, gauzey Transformer Jr., Deerhunter's Microcastle does woozy haze-rock very well. In fact, I just came in from outside where it was kinda grey, kinda chilly. I had a big lunch, petted the cat, and sat down to answer a few emails and Microcastle has been pretty much the perfect soundtrack.

Download Microcastle.

The MBD Endorsement: Dropbox

2008-10-15T22:51:00.006-05:00

I've been pining for an app like Dropbox ever since gDisk went kaput a year or two ago. I loved gDisk, as it allowed me easily move files from my home computer to my machine at the office, thus working on freelance projects while getting paid by my regular 9-5—the crafty freelance designer's version of double billing. But then one day gDisk got all wonky and AWOL and I was sad. I tried the awful gSpace and the clumsy MediaFires and RapidShares before finally settling for schlepping a USB drive around with me.

But this week, on a tip from the Unclutterer, I discovered Dropbox. I've only watched the intro video and had the app installed for a minute, so I've barely scratched the surface of what Dropbox can do, but so far I fucking love it. It's so slick and easy. And free! All wins in my book.

What's Your Color IQ?

2008-09-30T09:53:00.002-05:00

Mine's 20 (whatever that means), but after staring at this test for three minutes, my googly-eyed walleye vision rating is off the charts.

Happens to everybody. Nobody gets out of life alive.

2008-09-27T10:01:00.002-05:00

Dang, man. Tonight, rent Hud and pour out a little of your Pearl for Paul Newman, the baddest motherfucker who ever lived.

Each Howl, I Get Bigger

2008-09-14T12:00:00.002-05:00

This weekend I'll be in Omaha for the (downtown) omaha lit fest. Keen eyes will notice how that poster up there fits this year's theme, "Plagiarism, Fraud, and Other Literary Inspiration," like bodypaint swimsuits fit Heidi Klum.

RantBlogariumVille

2008-09-04T12:02:00.010-05:00

Or, Fixing What's Wrong With NameThis.

For the last few weeks, I've been playing with NameThis, a website that uses crowdsourcing to name new products and services. Basically, someone plunks down $99 and provides a description of the product, service, or company they want named and the members of NameThis have 48 hours to submit and vote for their favorite names. If you voted for the name that ends up the winner, you get a little money. Be the submitter of the winning name and you get a lot of money. (Relatively speaking.)

The idea behind NameThis is new companies get real-world-approved brands delivered to them for less than a C-note and the people who helped name the brands get a little scratch in their pockets. Everyone wins, right?

Not necessarily.

You know those online logo design companies that promise professionally-designed logos in four days for something like $129? You know how actual designers hate these services because they churn out shitastic work and collectively lower clients' standards and expectations of real designers while making it harder for those designers—people who give a shit about their profession and have worked and studied for years in order to do what they do—to charge clients what their work is worth? Well, NameThis is basically the branding version of that. I'm sure that folks who make their living getting to know individual clients and their businesses personally in order to develop a uniquely tailored branding and marketing strategy love that cheapasses can now pay NameThis $99 and have some bored housewife name their new line of bedazzled dog leashes. NameThis is basically an idea vulture whose raison de etre is fleecing those who don't know any better and fucking those who can't beat its price and instant-gratification turnaround.

But whatever. Judging from the growing number of members and activity on the site, I don't think anyone gives two shits about jobs being snaked from professionals—not when they've got more important matters like Sarah Palin's 80s hairstyle to get hysterical about. So since I can't make NameThis any less evil, I'll settle for making it more functional. To wit:

#1. Blind submissions. Anyone who's watched the voting and tabulation of winners can see that the same dude wins almost every time. And since you get rewarded with cold hard cash if your horse places, the smart thing to do is to back that dude, no matter how retarded his submissions are. It's a strategy I've employed for a minute now and others have admitted to doing the same. All of a sudden the voting (NameThis calls it "investing") is tainted and the best names rarely come out on top. (See recent winners Advantain, SheilData, Off the Beaten Snack, and SheJuvenate.) Good for me and my bank account; not so good for the sucker who dropped $99 only to be stuck with "Connectroniks."

#2. Demarcate the submission and voting processes. As it stands now, users have 48 hours to proffer names and vote on their favorites. When the clock hits zero, NameThis runs a top-secret algorithm factoring the uniqueness of the name, the investments in it, and some other flim-flam hoo-ha, and announces a winner less than a minute later. But what if the most perfect name in the whole contest wasn't submitted until hour 47 of the alloted time? It's simply not possible to accrue enough votes in an hour to overtake an inferior name that's been collecting that'll-do investments for nearly two days. Simple fix, this one. Cap the naming at 24 hours, then open the voting for 24 hours. Everything's square, everything's fair. Just like in life!

#3. Take down this video. (Let the page load, then click on "what happened here" to watch. If you dare.) Look, kid in the video, you fucking chief, I admire your enthusiasm but the douche act has got to go. That's a real Grade-A, piece of shit, loudmouth gasbag of a douche performance there. We don't need any more of that in the world. You look to be about 14, so maybe it's not too late to change your ways. Here's how: The guy who shot the video? The filmschool dropout who thought it would be so cutting fucking edge to blend the cinéma vérité of fucking Friday Night Lights with the gritty urban milieu of The Departed and do it in—get this—black and white? That guy? Fuck him. He's a bigger tool than you are. Second, go back to your loft in Bushwick or wherever and flush all your coke. All of it. Right now, right down the toilet. You need to chiiiiiill for a sec, mkay? They could light Shea for a month if they could somehow harness the energy generated by the grinding of your teeth. Lastly, pay a visit to your folks, who you probably haven't seen in a while. Surprise them. Buy some flowers for your mom and give dad a great big hug as soon as he opens the door. Then, greeting pleasantries fulfilled, I want you kick them as hard as you can. First in the back of the knee to get them on the ground and then just go ape. Kick 'em in the neck, the spine, their fat asses for comedic effect, and lastly, right square in the face. Clearly those two did some grave disservice to you as a child, as your fuckstick behavior can only be the result of prolonged sexual abuse or never hearing the word "no" once in your spoiled, wretched life.

Too much? Too mean? Pointless sour grapes? Fine, here's that Palin mullet thing. Go nuts, 'tards.

Show and Tell: What's Justin Working On?

2008-08-15T15:07:00.003-05:00

Lots of freelance, including posters and putting the finishing touches on the redesigned website for the (downtown) omaha lit fest. Check back as the festival nears for updated lists of panelists and events. After two years away, I'll be attending this the fourth installation of Timothy Schaffert's lit weekend. Should be interesting to see what he's done with the old gal in my absence.

The Endorsement: August 13, 2008

2008-08-13T12:14:00.004-05:00

Move over, my wedding day; today is officially the greatest day in the history of the universe: Madden 09 is on shelves, Sweetpea is on her way home, and I found a penny on the sidewalk this morning. If the microwave in the breakroom shorts out and the fire department sends us all home early, I'm buying a fucking lotto ticket.

Bachelor Week in Review

2008-08-06T16:17:00.006-05:00

Those of you filling out your Bachelor Week Bingo cards can go ahead and mark off the squares for "fell asleep watching Porky's II," "ate cereal straight out of box while not wearing a shirt," and "drank a beer in the bathroom." Classy times here at Bachelor HQ.

I Will, However, Adopt The Practice of Addressing to All Women as "Sweetheart"

2008-08-04T21:04:00.007-05:00

Few things turn me off more than ubiquitousness or bandwagoneering. And with seemingly everyone spurting blog-love for AMC's Mad Men, I planned to avoid a show I figured was basically just Gossip Girls for the mutual fund set. However, bored with Simpsons reruns and DVR'd episodes of The Sopranos and drawn by the fact that the show was set in an advertising agency in the early 1960s—long before viral marketing and social networking and that stupid fucking Burger King king—I decided to give Mad Men a shot.

Two episodes of the new season in and I can't say the show is as great as has been reported, but I'm enjoying it well enough. There's something uniquely satisfying about men with square jaws and precise hair standing around talking mechanicals and art departments, tumblers of scotch and lit Chesterfields in hand. Beyond that, however, there's not much else going on. The mad men wear wool suits and eat red meat for lunch and drive their American cars out of the city at five o'clock to their homemaker wives. The mostly one-dimensional secondary characters—the Jews, broads, blacks, and homos—seemingly exist only for the proselytising of the writers. This is how it was in 1962, man!

Meh, I'll keep watching for now, either until the storylines spiral into overwrought love triangles, outlandish murder cover-ups, and long-lost twin brothers, or when football season starts, whichever comes first.

I've Said Stardream Quartz So Much The Words Have Lost All Meaning

2008-08-03T15:23:00.002-05:00

Behold, my first—and last—attempt at wedding invitation design and construction. Special thanks to Paper Source for the stock; ModLux for use of their paper cutter; and Sweetpea, whose yes kickstarted the whole project.

Plus, It's More Commute-Appropriate Than, Say, Juggs

2008-08-02T16:35:00.003-05:00

I renewed my GQ subscription today. Just mailed the check, as a matter of fact. A check that killed me to write.

See, last week I found out my health insurance premiums are going up (again). And last month my office learned Clark Griswold-style that there would be no raises this year. Gas is closing in on $5 a gallon, groceries are more expensive now than at any point since I started buying my own Lucky Charms—store brand, of course; they're 40¢ cheaper. Generally speaking, the dollar is in the toilet and I don't have enough of them (dollars, not toilets) to feel any kind of relaxed.

So, all that said, why spend $17.83 on a subscription to GQ? It's not for the $600 wingtip buying guides. Or the editorial features and pictorials of half-naked actresses I've never heard of. (Esquire does those better.) Nor is it even the layout of design of the magazine. (Again, Esquire.)

What convinced to to re-up GQ was Joel Lovell's "Men and Money" column. It's great. The last two columns of his I read—renting vs. owning your house and being 30 with no retirement fund or investment plan beyond your savings account to speak of—especially. Dude might as well be writing my financial life. And while he offers a few simple, doable plans of action to begin managing one's money like a big boy, I'm more buoyed by the fact that there are financially fucked brothers-in-arms out there, guys my age and professional standing who are just as confused and scared shitless by the fact that no matter how hard they work and deny themselves consumer pleasures in order to squirrel away a little money, there never seems to be enough of it on their monthly statement to feel like they can take even a weekend vacation or order the $32 bottle of wine just this once because the economy could go fuck-all (moreso) any moment. Lovell's "Men and Money" is not bulletproof financial security, but it makes me feel a little better about my money strategy. And that's worth $17 in my book.

This Ain't Stealing, Volume Whatever: Fasciination

2008-07-29T10:59:00.004-05:00

Wow, how cuddly (read: disinterested, lethargic, neutered) is the new Faint sound? Way, that's how. My old friend Dead Alison would be spinning in her grave if she heard what has become of her second-favorite Omaha export.

The Faint: Fasciination (pw: nodata.tv)

Bachelor Week, Day 1

2008-07-28T17:04:00.006-05:00

Let's all wish Sweetpea safe travels during her ScavenTour road trip, okay. And while you're at it, send some of those guardian angel vibes toward me and Chairman Meow left at home, because if anything happens to to that cat while Sweetpea's away, this blog will get updated even less frequently than it is now.

... because I'll be dead.

... and they don't have WiFi in whatever torturous hell it is Sweetpea would send me if she comes home to a house one kitten lighter.

Jealous?

2008-07-15T21:53:00.003-05:00

Lemme paint a picture for you: It's mid-July in Chicago and it's hot, real hot, maybe 91 or 92 and humid as fuck. The house is sweltering. But here in this room, the window is letting in a little breeze and you have a big, icy glass of lemonade sweating on the table in front of you. She's at her desk across the room writing a new story and playing DJ. She likes the Air France EP and your Smiths library and between songs you joke and snark and talk nostalgia in that easy manner afforded to best friends sharing cold drinks on summer nights. The sketches and scribbles that will eventually become the poster for the 2008 (downtown) omaha lit fest are spread out in front of you, gathering momentum in your mind, but, for now, sit mostly untouched. It seems such a shame to spoil this moment with work. Work can wait. It's time for lemonade and "Suedehead" and Sweetpea.

This Ain't Stealing, Volume Whatever: Black Kids

2008-07-08T10:30:00.004-05:00

Oh boy! I haven't been this excited over a new release in a long time. Wizard of Ahhhs [previously] was so raw and fun and good, but the Black Kids' Columbia signing and slurping in Rolling Stone had me worried for the integrity of the follow-up.

Fret not, however, as Partie Traumatic retains most of the spirit of the self-released EP. Rough edges have been buffed smooth but not slick. The DIY vibe of friends-and-a-four-track hasn't been major-labeled to death. Well played, Black Kids.

Black Kids: Partie Traumatic

It's Just a Shirt, People, Not a Political Statement

2008-07-04T20:43:00.003-05:00

All day long I've been getting looks. How-dare-you looks from old dudes. Right-on-brotha looks from hipstery types. All kinds of looks. I heard one girl, before she shouted across the street, "I like your shirt!" hiss-whispering with her friend something along the lines of, "Well, it can't be a coincidence today. You should say something. No, you say something. Fine, I'll say something..."

Sorry to disappoint you, ladies, but yeah, it's just a coincidence. This was the shirt at the top of the laundry pile today, so it's the one I pulled on. No biggie.

Everyone be safe this weekend, mkay? Don't light Ladyfingers with a Zipppo and call me if you need a ride home after the party.

Oh Covetous Desire, Thy Name is iPhone

2008-07-01T13:18:00.003-05:00

I just watched this entire clip and all I can say is, Me want. Remember back when my Pilcrow wish for a Tony Fitzpatrick painting came true? Let's try that again, shall we? Better make it two, though; I'm not sharing with Sweetpea.

Finally, I Can Pimp My MySpace Page

2008-06-25T09:34:00.007-05:00

I'm a retarded fucking web designer. That's no metaphor, either—when it comes to web design, I'm as big a halfwit mongoloid as they come. Talk of DIVs and absolute positioning and style sheets leaves me spitting and shitting and sputtering like crazy and the amount of key-jingling (in the form of friendly, comfortable print design) it takes to calm me down has been steadily increasing for years.

Yeah, I've designed a few websites. Simple things, cobbled together using Dreamweaver and amatuerish bits of html and JAVA, that look and act mostly like I envisioned them when they were just sketches on paper, but their duct-tape-and-baling-wire code and execution always bothered me. Profesh web designers chided me for my DW crutch, bloated code, and hacky workarounds. I tried to change, to evolve. I really did. Time and again I sat down with TextEdit and a browser, trying to get a handle on all those lines of baffling code. CSS eluded me. I pored over websites and books and message boards. Tried new angles, new ways of thinking. Took every bit of advice and instruction. Still I couldn't make a go of it, always falling back into my familiar, clumsy Dreamweaver ways.

But no more! I will not be HTML's bitch one second longer. Not since I found Coda, a miraculous little application that has finally made web design graspable to me. "One-window web development," the tagline given to Coda by Panic, is, in my experience, both completely true and wholly insufficient.

Yes, Coda's interface design lets me generate, test, and edit code all in the same window. But what's more incredible is how it's lifted the fog from my tiny pea brain and snapped web design into brightshiningcrystalclear focus for me. Suddenly it all makes sense—and it's so easy! The revelations brought on by Coda make me feel retarded again, but a different kind of retarded. Now I feel dumb for not getting web design sooner, easier.

I'm still green, still feeling my way around this new world of tags and selectors, but I'm feeling really good about it. Any of youse need a website built? This web design stuff is a piece of cake.

No Cuts, No Butts, No Coconuts

2008-06-18T13:30:00.004-05:00

Man, last weekend was fun. If you ever get a chance to spend a couple days in the Blue Ridge Mountains, sipping vodka lemonades and grilling delicious food with a bunch of super-silly peeps, do it. Seriously.

Kelly Erickson Has It All Figured Out

2008-06-16T14:24:00.007-05:00

This stuff makes me so mad.

No fucking doy men and women think and act and process differently. (Psst, they also have different privates. No lie!)

How bad sitcom writers and marketing gurus like Kelly Erikson (Obsessed with your success!") get paid scads of money to boil those differences down to their most broad-stroked, stereotypical base is beyond me. According to Kelly Erikson, anything designed, bought, sold, written, manufactured, or desired is done so with one simple tenant in mind: Girls think with their brains! Boys think with their dinks! Girls consider the future. Boys want everything right now. Blah, blah, fucking blah. (Statistics, studies, or citations to back these assertions up, it seems, are relevant to neither men nor women, as they appear nowhere in Erikson's essay.)

Nonetheless, kudos to you, Kelly Erikson, for your brills social acumen. I hope your thoroughly modern views make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. But just in case that whole marketing consultant thing doesn't pan out, I hear Veronica's Closet is coming back and they're looking for someone to write a killer bit about diet TV dinners in pink boxes.

Today's Featured Article on Wikipedia...

2008-05-28T11:30:00.001-05:00

Fucking rules.

Pilcrow Recap

2008-05-28T09:39:00.002-05:00

Whew. What a weekend. It was a big chore, a huge undertaking, that Pilcrow Lit Fest, but madams Güth and Jones pulled it off with aplomb. Panels were well attended and lively, the NOLA fundraiser was a $mashing $ucce$$ and gobs of fun, and the authors on Sunday trickled back to the homes and cities and airports from whence they came full of smiles and inspiration. [Willy Blackmore's DIY bookbinding demo, along with cues from Tim Schaffert and the Featherproof boys*, got me all riled to start my own boutique press.]

There were photogs and documentarians floating around all four days of the Lit Fest. Some of their great work can be found at the Pilcrow flickr page, or here, or here. More interviews and videos and podcasts and photos to come, surely.

The thank-yous and you-rocks and that-fucking-ruleds are still spawning in inboxes but already talk has turned to Pilcrow '09. It'll be hard to top the inaugural Fest, but whatever plan that Güth hatches is sure to kill.

* I lived in Omaha in the early aughts and what Messinger and Co. are doing—and the hype and groupiedom that follows them—is basically a lit-mirror image of Saddle Creek Records when everyone was fawning over the New Seattle and The New York Times dispatched writers to Nebraska almost monthly to spend weekends profiling Nansel and Oberst. Crazy.

Pilcrow Pretties Make Perfect Presents

2008-05-22T10:30:00.002-05:00

You guys, I got a sneak peek last night at the painting Tony Fitzpatrick donated to Saturday night's Pilcrow NOPL auction and it's fucking stunning. Sexy and dirty and sly—remind you of anyone? So of course it needs to be hanging in my office. I'd been saving that space for a Sunday Ticket-powered flatscreen, but I'm rethinking those plans now.

If only there were some sort of occasion happening in the near future that necessitated the gifting of, to me, by you, the aforementioned Fitzpainting. If only.

Talking Type at Pilcrow

2008-05-19T12:38:00.002-05:00

Were I moderating or speaking on the Lit vs. Tech panel at Pilcrow on Saturday, I'd surely use this article by Paul Dean as crib notes or a discussion starter. So thorough, so informative (Who knew "#@$%*!" had a name? Not me.).

Dean's history lesson gives me some reassurance that digital will not, in fact, kill the typographer—though I'll never fully embrace the idea of books and newspapers going the way of the rotary telephone, a curious antiquity you think your grandmother foolish for keeping around and actually (eye-roll) using.

Either way, count on me being front-row for this discussion. Should be a good one, with LOLspeak and Twitter nerds on one side and crotchety fuddy-duddies on the other.

Pilcrow: Let's Get Ready to Mingle

2008-05-19T11:07:00.004-05:00

Forgive the lack of updates, here at MBD HQ, we're up to our elbows in the final push toward Pilcrow Lit Fest. The posters are done. Programs are printing this week. Various cards and fliers are mostly wrapped up. All in all, things are in good shape and I'm really excited for the weekend. DO drop by for all the litty goodness if you can, but if not, check back here after, when I post some photos of the Fest and samples of the PCL tchotchke.

Flippers and Falsies for the Disney Set

2008-05-01T21:50:00.005-05:00

I've been reading The Corrections during my commute to work. It's good and I'm been enjoying it, uncomfortable with but reveling in how claustrophobic and anxious all Franzen's iddly, paranoid characters make me feel. Yesterday after work, rapt with Alfred and the bullying turd, I missed my stop and had to hike a little extra to get home. (The exercise, I figured, couldn't hurt, as I've noticed recently that stairs get me flushed and send my heart revving—and not just because I know Sweetpea lives at the top of those stairs and I'm taking them two and three at a time.)

On the stroll home, I stopped at the park where a couple little league games were in progress. On one field were the tee-ballers, the real tiny guys who corkscrew wildly in the batter's box dirt when they whiff over the top of the ball and whose too-big helmets go all bobblehead as the tinies weave toward third after a hit.

Older kids, maybe grade threes or fours, junior White Sox and mini Reds, were playing on the next field over. We had uniforms back when I was a little league pitcher and weak-hitting infielder, but they weren't, like, real MLB team uniforms. Usually we got a blue or green or red t-shirt with "Philips Siding and Awnings" screenprinted above our numbers on the back. One year we got actual jerseys with our names on the backs and pinstriped pants to play in. I took extra time getting dressed on game days when I had that uniform, making sure the shirt was tucked and and all the seams straight, and hiked up the pants el Duque-style to show off the cool black stirrups. In that uni, I was Ted Williams and George Brett and my Dad all at once. I was badass.

I think, down the road a bit, if I have kids, that baseball in the summer would be great fun, if they want to play. Grammar-school beauty pageants, however, are completely and indisputably out of the question.

The Bears are on the Clock

2008-04-25T09:42:00.001-05:00

Oh, boy, the NFL Draft!

Living in Chicago, where the biggest, most compelling football happening since about early November was the free agent signing of Marty Booker, the draft is like a beautiful bacon oasis in a desert of puffed rice. It's hope renewed, and the first official cue that it's cool to start thinking about the next season.

Think about it: The Pro Bowl is a watered-down, two-hand-touch Nancy-game. Free agency is interesting for about a minute. Minicamps are full of worthless, non-story storylines that Sportscenter beats to death. Heck, even preseason games aren't that great; yeah, preseason is live action football, but just barely. No, in the months between the end of the Super Bowl and kickoff weekend—September 4; put it in your GCal now—the draft is the only part of the off-season that is even the tiniest bit exciting.

Last year at this time, with the Bears coming off a Super Bowl appearance and the team returning pretty much intact, I wasn't looking for much—some youth on the offensive line and maybe a safety to step in when Mike Brown invariably gets hurt. Not only didn't I get those in the draft, but the Bears basically gave away Thomas Jones, making candyass Cedric Benson (whose Madden ratings don't reflect his actual abilities, by the way) the featured back. Injuries and inconsistencies combined with a tough schedule to make for a throwaway 2007 season.

2008 could be even worse for the Bears. The schedule is easier, but with the defection of Bernard Berrian, they are without a single playmaker on offense. Rex still has the tiny hands of a chimp, Benson showed last year that he's got no heart, and the offensive line is another year older and more rickety. Both Tommie Harris and Brian Urlacher are disgruntled about their contracts and Urlacher's coming off a sub-par season and surgery on his motherfucking neck.

So where do the Bears go draft-wise? I don't watch enough college ball or Mel Kiper to know at all who's good and who's a washout waiting to happen. If I'm picking in the Bears war room, I go unsexy and take an offensive tackle in the first round, though it'll be hard to pass on Rashard Mendenhall or Jonathan Stewart if either are available at 14. They also need an explosive WR but rookie receivers are hit-and-miss and drafting one high is often a bust waiting to happen. Other holes in the roster included defensive linemen, maybe a younger corner, and, again, a safety or two for when Mike Brown shreds his knee buckling his chinstrap during the National Anthem.

So there you go. I don't have any better idea who to draft than do Jerry and Lovie. Whatever they do, I'll be watching on Saturday—seven hours, I'm sure, Sweetpea will think are the biggest, dumbest, most philistinian waste of time ever.

Crotchety Rant!

2008-04-24T10:11:00.003-05:00

I always like it when music and visual design get married. Or if you're Crystal Castles and Trevor Brown, get married blackout-drunk in Reno, realize after the fact you never intended to get married and you now hate each other, kick each other's ass, and take the nasty divorce proceedings public to be chimed in on by me and the guy from the Mountain Goats.

I won't get into the money side of all this art-ahj, the alleged contracts and non-payment, the conflicting accounts from each camp (...there I was, on my way to drop off some blankets and fresh peaches to the local orphanage, when Crystal Castles, wild-eyed and drugged-out, ripped my livelihood and identity from my organically-grown bamboo tote and printed it on their record sleeve...), but as someone who's been on both sides of similar situations, I can only say this: Get over it, everyone.

At it's core, this purported Horrifying Example of Artistic Plagiarism isn't actually so societal-fabric-shredding as the players and commentors would have you believe. It's really just a painter nobody's heard of sniping with a band nobody cares about over some queasy pictures on a t-shirt.

Yeah, we, as artists, all gots to get paid, and stealing is bad, and once lawyers get involved forget it, but can we please please please stop taking ourselves so goddamn seriously all the goddamn time, please? Very rarely, especially in creative circles, is anyone even remotely as important as they think they are.* Crystal Castles aren't groundbreaking, Trevor Brown isn't Earth-shattering, I won't change your life, and there are maybe three people in the entire world who give two shits about you and your schedule/kid/headache/job/opinions. Jus' sayin'.

*Unless you're Minor Threat and Dischord. Then, by all mean, go apeshit.

A Welcome Break from the Recent Sports and Video Game Posts

2008-04-23T13:29:00.002-05:00

I scored 31 of a possible 34 in this game. My Designer card should be revoked.

Play Goddamn Fucking Ball!

2008-04-15T09:58:00.003-05:00

Now that the weather's caught up with the calendar, it finally feels like baseball season. And what better first pitch to throw out than this classic from Earl Weaver and his Manager's Corner on the Baltimore Orioles Baseball Fucking Network.

Girls Don't Talk to Me Now, Either

2008-04-09T23:30:00.002-05:00

With the exception of the afternoon I learned to smoke Kools in Chris R's backyard and that weekend we all went up to the lake and nearly sunk Bryan and Michael's Blazer, I pretty much spent my entire eighth grade year in my basement with this game. Seriously, stockpiled with Tecmo, a bag of Doritos, a two-liter of Dew, my Primus CD, and a handful of Slim Jims, my family might not see me for days. There was the season I notched 100 sacks with Bruce Smith. Or the full-quarter scramble with Don Majkowksi. 5,000 yards with Andre Ware. I once manned every team on the S.F. schedule and dealt the mighty, hated 49ers a perfect 0-16 season.

Now that I've found The Greatest Football Video Game Ever online, I fire it up over my lunch break for a quick dose of eight-bit nostalgia. Playing on a keyboard can't hold a candle to those uncomfortable square NES controllers but all the old strategy is there: Kick it short to conserve time. Sterling Sharpe will always outjump the DB. Derrick Thomas is unstoppable.

Anybody have Travis Staab's phone number? I'm jonesing for a Chiefs/Raiders throwdown.

If This Ain't the Mess, It'll Do 'Til the Mess Gets Here

2008-04-06T17:46:00.002-05:00

One week gone by and this was supposed to be a post about how we're all moved and settled in, but some furnishing snags and three or four bouts with a nasty flu has us a bit behind schedule. Things aren't so bad, really. The movers, three forch dudes from Starving Artist Movers, got all our boxes and tubs and baskets and bags and furniture and bikes and everything into the new house and with a little (lot) more schlepping on our parts, Sweetpea and I set to finding homes for all our combined stuff. We're getting there, as SP likes to say, little by little.

Saturday night, we took a break from our unpacking to cook up a little soup and salad dinner and watch No Country for Old Men. I rather liked the movie, despite being Die Hard-conditioned to want a big showdown at the end, rather than the way the Coens played this one. I'd easily put it in my Top Ten for this year, if for no other reason than I didn't see more than ten movies in the last 12 moths. Hopefully we'll get the house together, and my freelance will level off and quiet down, and we can enjoy a few more dinner and a movie dates in '08.

Just What I Need Right Now: A Sweater

2008-03-27T16:19:00.002-05:00

God, I fucking love the Dead Kennedys.

I Think My Calendar Is Misprinted. Says Today Is March 21.

2008-03-21T16:19:00.005-05:00

I used to be the worst kind of party guest. (And maybe I still am; I don't go to many parties these days.) I was Last Call Guy. I was Lionel Richie—all night looong. I was the Viagra boner of every party: up all night, even after most everyone else had had all the fun they wanted.

Almost invariably, be it Oscar party, Fourth of July barbecue, an art gallery fête, book release gala, charity ball, or cocktail hour after work, I would close the place down. When the other guests were collecting their coats and saying their goodbyes, I'd still be going strong. Later, with my hosts in pajamas and shooting icy get-him-out-of-here looks at each other, I was opening a fresh bottle of wine. I swear one time I made it all the way to breakfast the next morning, sharing the table with two tots excited about their field trip to the zoo and wondering where the guy with the stubble came from and what that sound like grinding teeth was.

I didn't think much at the time about being such an imposing, mooching douche. Still don't. In fact, to this day, I find it difficult to empathize with my hosts, all the people I'd been an irritating asshole to; people kind enough to put up with me long after I'd overstayed my welcome. I'm sorry, I just can't.

Now, if you'll excuse me. I have to go shovel my walk for the 30th time this year.

Bryce Drew Must be Spinning in His Grave

2008-03-20T12:42:00.002-05:00

Oh, this is horseshit.

All I want to do is eat my lunch at my desk and peek in at some of the first round games going on right now. But does CBS Sportsline make it easy for me to point my Mac a their little broadcast? Nay. And does my IT guy make it easy to download and install whatever juryrigged version of Windows Media Player I need to do so? Nay.

Out of the question is taking a long lunch at the bar around the corner. I barely like college basketball and I can't stand the office "braketologists" with their rolled-up sleeves, Dockers, and game analysis cribbed from Doug Gottlieb. So yeah, no, I won't be taking in an games on a sprts bar big screen. I'll just sit here, munching my bagel, and refreshing the stupid ESPN site.

Overheard on the Bus this Morning

2008-03-13T13:20:00.001-05:00

"I love salt. It's my favorite thing to eat. But on food? Uh uhn."