A while ago I discovered a great collection of scanned book covers from 1950s-ish pulp fiction in Flickr. I had gone looking for things to post on our clipboard wall, but these are too fun to walk away from — especially now that Sandee’s put cats up.

Two interesting submissions to the Core77 Business Card Hacks Challenge: earbud speakers and a cord winder.

The entire kitchen is Sandee’s playground, and that includes the chalkboard. I’m not sure what holiday she’ll decide to honor next.

She’s been busy elsewhere at home too.

Thomas Von Staffeldt’s remix of Arne Jacobsen’s “chair no. 7”. Above are gluttony, pride, and lust. They’re all on auction, but does that suggest avarice?

Sandee’s toasting tomorrow’s inauguration with a special “fresh start cocktail.”  I’m not usually one for overwrought imagery, but the delicate fruit flavor is quite refreshing change from the dark and stormy winter we’ve been suffering. And no, I really don’t know if I’m talking about the 18 feet of snow that’s fallen these past couple months of those eight years we’ve suffered.

Sandee’s not such a fan of the new theme here at MaisonBisson. Without really telling me that I should have discussed the new decor with her before making any big decisions, she does say she feels it doesn’t suit her style. There are lots of ways to resolve the, um, difference of opinion, but we decided that just as Sandee gets most of the authority regarding the kitchen and I get the office, we can find a way to share the website.

The result is Nest. Sandee’s picked out the drapes and carpet, I’m tweaking the installation and moving the relevant stories from our back catalog in. It’s a little amusing to see our tag cloud prominently reflecting our interest in drinks and homemade sweets, but i guess those are the things that we enjoy sharing most. Pictured above are scenes from the top stories: a toast, our submission to AT’s Fall Color contest, and the Sumo Sac review.

I hope to eventually create a combined feed of the blogs, but if you’re interested you can follow the Nest feed here.

The image on this moleskine notebook was custom laser engraved by EngraveYourBook.com, a part of EngraveYourTech.com, where they recently announced they were suspending moleskine engraving due to atmospheric health concerns. You can’t get a notebook, but you can ogle the fancy, laser engraved MacBooks

I sink into a strange, giant blue marshmallow and sigh contentedly. I balked at this new furniture.  I balk at anything that I don’t actually pick out.  I didn’t pick this out, Casey acquired it on his own. Our home is small and I am very picky about what goes into it.  This was a beanbag. A beanbag? I can’t think of a more immature piece of furniture. 

Casey was gone when the package arrived. I had to lug the massive black sack up the stairs to our condo. I dragged it up another flight of stairs to Casey’s office while cursing him under my breath. We needed a giant beanbag like we needed our cats to have a sudden, severe outbreak of fleas. I pushed through his office door then pulled it closed and left the sack for him to deal with.

We got busy. The big black sack sat unopened.

One day, I arrived home to find Casey in his office with a large, slate blue object in his office. He had it opened, revealing the innards of this upholstered oddity while he snapped photos. It was a bit disturbing, like a furniture autopsy. I left my mad scientist to his own devices and went downstairs to make dinner.

Days passed. I had no reason to go into the office. I again forgot about the beanbag.

Periodically, I feel the need to go on a crazed cleaning spree. The need hit me. Vacuum in hand, I opened the door to Casey’s office. The door opened a bit then resisted my my efforts to move any further. I dropped the vacuum and squeezed my body through the narrow opening between door and frame. The object blocking my entrance is a puffy blue thing that stands as high as my chest. I can’t believe how large it had grown. Tentatively, I reach out my hand to touch this strange object. The fabric is some sort of ultra-suede and soft. I lean against it, gently at first. Then I surrender the weight of my body to the beanbag and sink into it.

As a kid, I loved the Care Bears. You remember, those pastel bears with hearts and rainbows on their chest. They slept on clouds. I always thought it would be lovely to nap on a cloud. Now that the beanbag has come into my life I can attest that napping on soft pillowy perfection, like the clouds of Saturday morning cartoons, is indeed lovely. I stayed on the beanbag until Casey got home. Then he joined me. The beanbag fits two quite nicely.

Calling it a beanbag doesn’t really do it justice. It is larger and softer than any other beanbag I have known, any other object I have known. It is decadent. I have rearranged my living room to make room for it. I don’t undertake redecoration lightly.

Love at first sight makes a good movie or a pink jacketed book. I am a sucker for those movies and those books, but I also have been around long enough to know that the best relationships are the ones that develop over time. I can’t say that my love for my Sumo Sultan was love at first sight, that would cheapen what we have. My feelings are deeper and gentler, more complex. When Sumo holds me, cradling me in its cozy embrace, I know that my feelings are returned. I have also given Casey permission to make the occasional independent decorating decision. Perhaps beanbags and I have both matured.

This handful of business cards is good for a little design inspiration. And here’s 70 more if you need an extra shot. Thanks to Frank for the tip.

I ate here. It’s every bit as good as the review suggests. Seb’s description and photos tell more, I’ll post my own photos soon. Update: posted.

Short story: there’s a restaurant in Australia with a three month waiting list, but a Sydney Morning Herald reporter says the restaurant I ate at is its equal or better, but without the waiting list and at US$33 per meal.

“Spork” is a great name for a restaurant, but is it any good? Yelp says it is, but most of the reviews mention the burger, putting me in the position of having to review the reviewers and wonder if a hamburger person can recommend a restaurant to a vegetarian. Not that I am a vegetarian or not a hamburger person, but please tell me there’s more to the retrofabulous-looking place than a cool name and a hamburger. Something that actually requires sporks?

The holidays are past, but we still have a sweet tooth here.

• chocolate shavings for rimming
• 1 part crème de cacao
• 2 parts vodka
• dark chocolate garnish

Warm a martini glass over a small flame, then roll the rim in chocolate shavings. Put a square of dark chocolate in the glass, then prepare the liquor. Shake vodka and crème de cacao with ice and strain into glass. For additional flavor, sprinkle the top with cocoa powder or chocolate shavings.

Please tipple responsibly.

All I know about Denmark is what gets imported: Legos, of course, but also a tradition of exquisitely clean and functional design. That’s why, as I prepare for my talk in Copenhagen later this week, I’m incredibly conscious of my own design and a bit jealous of Jessamyn’s outstanding use of orange.

Anyway, that’s where I’ll be all week. Any tips? Anybody up for a drink?

First Impressions

How much is too much for an entree at a place that plays the kind of anonymous Muzak that Kenny G calls jazz and is decorated like Applebee’s? Trust me, I like renovated mill buildings, but why confuse it with faux grecian columns and too many pictures of dead celebrities? I mean, the interior was clean and pleasant, but lacked attention to detail. If you’re so afraid your customers are going to walk off with the poorly framed prints of old Hollywood darlings that you nail them to the wall through the frame, how much can you expect them to pay for dinner?

Drinks and Appetizers

Still, Cotton’s martinis have been voted the best in New Hampshire. I tried the sampler, a trio of fruity cocktails served in adorable 2.5 oz martini glasses. The flight included a lemon drop martini, a raspberry cosmopolitan, and an orange crush (the crush had me humming REM all evening, but I’m a dork like that). Casey ordered the Vesper (he’s a dork for Bond-themed drinks), a cocktail of gin, vodka and Lillet as they prepare it.

Whatever points the place lost in atmosphere they seemed to regain with the Martinis. The drinks were fresh and light with lovely flavors. My favorite was the lemon drop. So many restaurants serve a syrupy martini which I hate, these were clearly a step above.

To accompany the cocktails, we had the Lobster Artichoke Dip. The flavor of the dip was good, but the homemade corn chips they were paired with were far too salty and overpowered the more subtle flavors of the dip.

Entrees

On special was a pork tenderloin in a mushroom sauce with mashed potatoes and sauteed greens. It was plenty tender, but the sauce that covered everything was bland and cried out for some fresh herbs. Casey’s “Meat and Potatoes” suffered from a similar saucing issue. I am not sure why the chef felt it necessary to drown our food with blandness.

Conclusion

We should have moved on after our cocktails and appetizers. The music killed Casey, but I will happily return to Cotton for a pre-dinner martini at the bar, then I will continue my search for a Manchester restaurant I love.

Details

Cotton
75 Arms Street Manchester, NH 03101 — phone: 603 622 5488
Dinners priced $13-30
Lunch:Monday-Friday, 11:30AM-2:30PM
Dinner:Nightly at 5:00PM

Cotton, restaurant, food, dinner, review, restaurant review

I’m coming to learn that p0ps has a number of interesting things going on, but it was his panoramas stitched from pictures taken by iPhone that caught my attention first. Above is the J Train somewhere between Fulton and City Hall.

I’d thought the iPhone’s camera was pretty decent, p0ps’ work shows it off.

J Train, panorama, p0ps, photo, iPhone

Now matter how depressed I got in New Orleans, I still had to eat. A tip from the ladies at Molly’s on Toulouse led me to Yo Moma’s with instructions to try their peanut butter burger.

Yes. Peanut butter. On a burger. I was also told that if I don’t like mayo, I should tell them to hold it because they’ll put it on thick if I don’t.

Yes. Peanut butter, on a burger with mayo. Indeed, it even had bacon bits.

And, as it turned out, everything was in the right proportion. Each flavor revealed itself in every bite, and they were all yummy.

This might be one I’ll try at home.

Edit: changed some sloppy wording to correct the bad grammar Matt pointed out.

food, peanut butter, hamburger, yo mama’s, restaurant

It’s Tony Day, not just because Joe’s book has garnered some good reviews — “the only excuse for the continued existence of boxing is that its battles have occasioned some of the best writing any sport has ever inspired” — or because he likes telling the story. It’s Tony Day because “Galento [is] a champion of everyone who’s ever gotten in over his head, shrugged, and said ‘What the hell? I’ll give it a shot.’”

boxer, boxing, heavyweight, joe louis, joe monninger, prizefight, title fight, tony galento, tony day

First it was meat hats, then SuperModelMeat. Now it’s meat cakes.

Yes. Three layers of meat, with ketchup and potato frosting.

It all happened when the groom announced that a man’s cake should be made of meat, ’cause “wedding cackes are all girly.” Apparently a red velvet armadillo groom’s cake isn’t manly enough.

Funny thing, now there’s a growing gallery of meatcakes. (Via.)

meat, cake, meatcake, ketchup, beef, ground beef, potatoes, frosting, grooms cake,

Will, Cliff (both above), and I recorded this song in one take in late 1999. Though, calling it a “take” is overstating it. We were beyond silly drunk and lacked any talent for the task, but we had a mic in front of us, a guitar, and a willingness to open our mouths and let something — anything — fly out.

It wasn’t until Will said “This song is called Nukerator” that we knew what we were supposed to be singing about. We’d never sketched any of it out, or even discussed it. This was truly stream of consciousness, so as bad as it is, there’s also something endearing about it (well, at least to us).

Putting together the pieces from that night, we named our ad-hoc band “More Equipment Than Talent.” We’ve tried since to repeat the feat — the ingredients seemed easy enough — but we’ve had little success. Infighting, artistic differences, and a reasonable interest in raising the quality of our work have limited our efforts, but when this song appeared out of the blue the other day while iTunes was on random, I knew it was time to share.

Note: while listening to it last again night to get the lyrics, I realized there are a few lines about school violence that may be offensive to some today. The context, I hope, gives it the correct meaning.

Lyrics:

Will: This song is called Nukerator.

Cliff: No it’s not.

Cliff: What’s with you and f-major 7?

Casey: This is a song about a microwavable instant cook world. We live in this world, this over-abled world.

Casey: We got Cheez Whiz, we’ve got tacos, we got salsa, we got snack cakes, we got pizza feets. We’ve got everything we want.

Cliff: It’s a world of excess.

Casey: And it goes in the microwave and we eat it in five minutes. Cook it on 75% power, just throw it in the nukerator, just cook it now.

Cliff: It’s a world of excess.

Casey: Got pasteurized processed cheese spread.

Cliff: It’s a world of excess.

Casey: I love my bagel bites. My meatless breakfast sandwiches; seven minutes at 75% power

Cliff: It’s a world of excess.

Casey: Microwavable hamburgers, spaghetti, and meatballs.

Cliff: It’s meaningless.

Casey: Microwaveable, inflatable girlfriend.

Cliff: It’s a world of excess.

Casey: A Solitary, confined sort-of-life between the refrigerator, and the microwave, and the Walmart. The Super Walmart with the superstore. The food products, the pasteurized processed cheese spread. the stuff I eat from the microwave after five minutes.

Cliff: It’s meaningless. It’s meaningless

Will: Nukerator. We’re nukrawavable. Nukerator.

Casey: Microwave, my cell phone, my pager. It’s my modern world and I love it.

Cliff: We find it only makes us fat.

Casey: My microwave fries the dynabites, and the cell phone fries my head. And I talk about it all day long. Meaningless

Cliff: It’s a world of excess.

Casey: The average conversation on a cell phone goes like this: Hello, I’m here, I’ll be there later, no, I’m going there next.

Cliff: It’s a world of excess.

Casey: Meanwhile, driving my SUV, I drive through the school house, drive down all the kids, drive down the one with the gun who was gonna kill them all because he couldn’t stand it.

Cliff: Hello, I’m helping your environment. What can I do next?

Casey: I didn’t even realize it because I was on my phone with my counselor, who was fixing my hair. I didn’t understand it. My microwave was broken and my cheeze couldn’t be warmed. Just five minutes at 75% power.

Cliff: I hold no responsibility myself. I only put the responsibility on the head of my counselor. She has it all for herself. I don’t what I’m trying to say, but I don’t have any responsibility today. Will dropped his pick, it’s not his fault. He takes it in his hands. I’ll grab it for him…

Casey: I live in a microwavable, able world. A world of isolation and communication. False pretense, false friendships.

Cliff: Long hair is European, short hair is American.

At this point, Will and I looked at eachother and realized it’d gone too far. Sorry to all that we realized it so late.

drunkmusic, betrunkmusik, music, free mp3s, mp3, more equipment than talent, audio, song, silly, embarrassing, bad, nuke, microwave song, nukerator, drunk, alcohol induced poetry, social commentary, nuclear

Amid all the “ZOMG Paris Hilton is pregnant!” rumors, it’s worth remembering that the girl famous for doing nothing (except repeatedly having her racy photos and video leaked) is retiring in two months.

Yep, on June 20th 2007, Paris is give up on public life. At least that’s what she said in Newsweek:

She’s certainly managed to turn herself into an icon and a conglomerate for essentially being a party girl—that is, for doing nothing. And she’s planning to give up her public life in two years, by which time she expects to become a mother with fiance Paris Latsis. “I don’t enjoy going out anymore,” she says. “It’s a pain. It’s everyone saying, ‘Let’s do a deal! Can I have a picture? ‘I’m just, like, ‘These people are such losers. I can’t believe I used to love doing this’.”

Of course, Paris also said she was giving up on sex for a year (supposed countdown: July 11 2007).

Paris, Paris Hilton, countdown, doing nothing, heiress, party girl, retirement, celebutante, pregnant, rumors

If the DeLorean looks at all like a Lotus Esprit, it should. Both of them were designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, and much of the engineering work was done by Lotus founder Colin–to add speed, add lightness–Chapman. Amusingly, John De Lorean also owned a company that manufactured snowcats under the DMC name.

Owners and wannabes can join the fun at the DeLorean Motor Company open house, being held June 8 — 10 in Humble, Texas.

We have rented the Houston Motorsports Park and their 3/8 mile banked oval track… Attendees will have the opportunity to take their DeLoreans on the track and race against the clock for bragging rights. Time permitting, and drivers willing, we may be able to arrange some head-to-head competitions, as well.

I somehow doubt this monster DeLorean will be there, but you might get a chance to see one of the Back To The Future mods (check the license plate: OUTATIME).

Those interested in buying one of the gullwinged, stainless steel retro-cool status symbols can pick up a used (yeah, they’re all used) model for $20,000 to $60,000 or (cough) a newly rebuilt model starting at about $40,000 and rising to just under $60,000 with most of the options selected.

Creator John De Lorean died in 2005, but Tamir Ardon caught up with the man at his New Jersey home in 1999. In strangely familiar language, he described his plans for a new car:

He told me that the car would be made out of a special lightweight plastic and would have the signature DeLorean gull-wing doors. The performance aspect of the car would have zero to sixty times in the low three second range and the car would cost around $18,000.

Unfortunately, the only plastic DeLoreans I’ve been able to find are made out of Legos (and there are a lot of them: one, two, three, four, more), but you can make a paper DeLorean now (free if you print at work).

Colin Chapman, DMC, De Lorean, DeLorean, DeLorean Motor Cars, Giorgetto Giugiaro, John De Lorean, Lotus Esprit, car, cars, gullwing doors, outatime, sales

MetroNaps started business in 2004 with a boutique in NYC’s Empire State Building, selling 20 minute naps for $14 bucks. The company has slowly been opening franchises around the world, but MetroNaps co-founder Arshad Chowdhury says overwhelming interest from office folks who wanted to install the pods on-site as an employee perk. So the company redesigned the pods to fit through the smaller doors common to office environments (trust me, retail doors are big), and has started selling direct.

Now the company is targeting universities, claiming that “90% of all US college students get inadequate sleep. As a result, students nap in class, in computer labs, and in busy common spaces. With a MetroNaps Pod installation, you can provide an appropriate place for resting.” Indeed, for about $10,000 each (I got a quote, it’s a real number), you can put pods in your campus center or library.

Who’s tried these things? Do they live up to the buzz? Who will be first with one (or more) in their library?

libraries, library, metronaps, metronaps pod, nap, pod, pods, public services, rest, sleep

As usual, beatnikside had to tell me what I missed: Lebowski Fest. It looks like everybody was there. The Dude Jeffrey Lebowski, Theodore Donald ‘Donny’ Kerabatsos, Walter Sobchak, Maude Lebowski, Bunny Lebowski, the rich Jeffrey Lebowski with no legs, and his lacky Brandt. And don’t forget Jesus Quintana or Treehorn’s Thugs. And certainly don’t forget Nihilists Uli Kunkel, Karl Hungus, Kieffer, and Franz.

Lebowski Fest, Kieffer, Karl Hungus, Jimmy Treehorn, Jesus Quintana, Jeffrey Lebowski, Franz, Bunny Lebowski, Brandt, Maude Lebowski, Nihilists, The Dude, Theodore Donald ‘Donny’ Kerabatsos, Uli Kunkel, Walter Sobchak, festival, the big lebowski, Theodore Donald ‘Donny’ Kerabatsos

tree, holidays, liquor, nips, happy holidays

In an anomaly that we would eventually recognize as commonplace on the internet, Touching the Void, a book that had gone out of print, remaindered before it hit paperback, was all but forgotten, started selling again in 1998. Chris Anderson wondered why, and found that user reviews in Amazon’s listing of publishing sensation Into Thin Air had people recommending Touching the Void as a better read. Today, Touching the Void outsells Into Thin Air 2 to 1.

Clearly, Amazon and the internet had hit critical mass.

Based on statistics reported in 2005 or earlier:

• Over 200 million Americans have internet access
• 94 million Americans use the internet on an average day
• Over 62 million households (55%) have internet-connected computers at home
• 87% of youth 12-17 are active online
• 89% of college students and 87% of the general public start their research in a search engine, not a library
• 80% of internet users believe the internet is a reliable source of information

But it’s certainly not just youth driving this:

• Over half of 2005 US tax returns were filed electronically; the IRS is mandated to raise that number to 85% over the next few years
• Online banking is a reality for most Americans who have bank accounts
• The leading demographic of those purchasing movie tickets online is adults over 35
• The early adopters for the iTunes music store were adults over 35

And, as a measure of growth in the past year, John Battelle’s The Search in 2005 reported under 5 billion monthly searches on major US search engines. By July 2006 that number had grown to 6 billion.

The internet is truly changing us. The ability to instantly find anything we want and get recommendations from people of similar interest, irrespective of geography or time, is changing us.

Stories:

• Mark Michaelson is passionate about mugshots. He’s posted them on Flickr, people are finding and commenting and blogging about them, people are developing stories about them, and Mark is part of the conversation. Now he has a show, and a book, and if you send him a self-addressed, stamped envelope, he’ll send you a sticker.
• A friend who likes The Decemberists goes searching for more, finds a photographer who’s done some of their photos, browses more from her portfolio, finds some of a band called Dirty Martini, finds their website, finds their MySpace, previews a few tracks, and decides to purchase the album.
• Sam Brown, who can be found at explodingdog.com, bases his drawings on short phrases emailed to him at sambrown@explodingdog.com. He’ll also mail drawings to fans who mail him their phrases — “i will doing drawings from titles mailed to me. mailed in a truck. i will mail you the drawing back to you. in a truck.” Fans can buy t-shirts, books, and prints of his work. Wikipedia, updated faster than any print encyclopedia, offers details of the site and its creator.
• Then there’s Ranjit Bhatnagar, whose photos were discovered on Flickr by NY MTA Arts For Transit curator Lester Burg. Now his works are on display in the Atlantic Ave station through September 2007. I know all this, of course, because the story appeared in the Flickr blog.

How does this work? How do these thin threads come together to be woven into those stories?

If written a few years later, Malcom Gladwell’s The Tipping Point might include a story like that of the re-emergence of Touching The Void long after it had been remaindered among the tales of the boom of Hush Puppies and Paul Revere’s social networking skills. But, as it is, the emergence of the internet does more to support Gladwell’s thesis than question it.

The internet has created new opportunities for people to make the personal — but often momentary — connections that Gladwell identifies as being so important, to the spread of an idea, a product, a phenomenon.

The internet adds links.

The internet adds comments.

The internet changes the basic economics of doing business, of making a sale, or finding an audience.

Chris Anderson, who was so fascinated by the story of the re-emergence of Touching the Void, followed up his initial article with a book-length examination of the changes that made it possible. What he found was that because was able to make findable an inventory of over two million books, dramatically more than a typical bookstore’s 130,000 books, and because Amazon had almost no inventory carrying costs, it was in a position to turn people who’d heard about Touching The Void, through Amazon’s own comments or elsewhere, into customers. By shortening the distance between interest and purchase, Amazon changed the shape of the marketplace.

But it’s not the technology that delivers success. It’s the personal connections made possible by the technology that are build success.

An example how that can go wrong comes from Reprise’s efforts to market Bonnie McKee. After premier a song on Yahoo!’s LAUNCHcast with good results Reprise decided to make a big CD release in September 2004. Despite being a huge hit with girls aged 12-17, and becoming a top searched name, the album ended up selling only 17,000 copies. An explanation cited in Anderson’s book notes “fans weren’t invested in the artist, only the song.” The explanation is that the internet has changed the rules, and music buyers, or consumers of any item, are becoming partners in a marketplace that expects more than the old marketing drivel, and has access to a broader selection than todays top 40 or whatever fits on a retail shelf.

Vincent Flanders author of Web Pages That Suck explains:

Nobody cares about you or your site. Really. What visitors care about is getting their problems solved. Most people visit a web site to solve one or more of the following three problems.

• They want/need information
• They want/need to make a purchase / donation
• They want/need to be entertained

Too many organizations believe that a web site is about opening a new marketing channel or getting donations or to promote a brand. No. It’s about solving your customers’ problems. Have I said that phrase enough?

And, for emphasis, from the Cluetrain Manifesto:

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter–and getting smarter faster than most companies.

These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can’t be faked.

Most corporations, on the other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humorless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure, and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal. Same old tone, same old lies. No wonder networked markets have no respect for companies unable or unwilling to speak as they do.

There is, perhaps, no better time to be a niche producer, a craftsperson, an artist. The world wants to hear human voices rather than marketingspeak. This is David’s moment against Goliath.

Long Tail, NH Visual Arts Coalition, art, arts, google economy, presentation