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Showing posts from October, 2009

Don Draper Brands Low Corrosion Metal Stamped House Exteriors

Don Draper is the lead character in Mad Men , a swanky 60's cool drama about advertising. It's a war out there. Every day, on the job. Anyone can live in a house, but a man wants to reside in his castle. And while there, he needs everyone on his side. Everyone pulling with him. And to where. To where is he taking his family? To the future. It's not a new world of gristle and grime, of steel and coal. It's plastics, rayon, aluminum. Aluminum Siding. Your home, your castle.

Site Cleanup, Feedback

I've applied my rather sparse design skills to this blog. Removed a buncha stuff on the right, tried to make it as clean as possible. And like a grown child-actor of a once wildy popular family sitcom, I crave attention and feedback. However, I also know that commenting on blogs can be weird, especially if you don't have a lot to say; and posting just to write 'good post', or 'this sucks more than a suckington vacuum on suck day' does seem to be more bother than it's worth. There has also been times where my friends or e-friends or whoever have said in passing that 'such and such' post was great. This is... good, except that if I had never crossed that off hand comment by chance, I'd have never have known. The majority of my stuff gets zero comments. Ixnay. Niet. Nein. Zero. The heterosexual rating for a Liberace show. The number of humvees at a Greenpeace protest. The number of people who avidly watch both "Mad Men" and "Deal or N

Strip Malls

Thanks to Daniel Greene for the photo Strip malls have always held a certain sad mystery for me. The center of small town activity, beaten up and painfully hopeful. They bring to mind sun-cooked parking lots, over-designed laundromats, and fake-Chinese restaurants that feature, of all things, smorgasbord. The small-time fast food franchises trying to take hold. The Salvation Army, the runty clothing stores that seem to only carry 'depressingly working class attire sure to draw ridicule in the big city' clothes. The perpetual 70's decor and aesthetic. It's full of a weird hope because it has so many small business owners scrabbling for success. It's the juxtaposition : 1) nameless, dry hand of capitalism figuring out traffic flows and population densities and demographic consumer habits then deciding to make COMMERCIAL MULTI-UNIT MIXED-USE ZONING FOR 18.2% PROFIT GIVEN CURRENT FORECASTS. 2) The undented, shining and perfect ambitition of individuals. They're bo

Shake It, Baby

So my good friend spruce (aka Jeff) forayed into that limitless mire of hipster fashion, that bog of sarcasticaly appreciated t-shirt design, threadless . He's an artist, as you can see (and by the by, entered some 24 hour comic something or other, and made this very cool, very quirky, very spruce comic ). He's got a great style. I always get the impression that many of his characters are Dali-inspired Gumby-dolls infused with malevolent intent. There's a pliability there, and a quirky fun that you only get when you arm a serial killer with a very strong rubber band, I imagine. Anyhow, he created this from scratch. From nothing. That whole creative process thing is terrifying and weird and I think is put under too many words and thinking; and, like zen or your first wedgie, can only be really be known by experiencing it. Nevertheless, I'll attempt to blather on a bit. When I asked him about his design he was vague. Like, he drew it and whatnot, then thought of a back-

Bowling Alone

Thanks to UTKChristie for the photo. It's strange. You hit adulthood. You live in a neighbourhood and get married and have children and whathaveyou. But you never, or at least, it'd been my experience, have those friendships you did in school. That clamouring crowd of like-minded individuals, all bursting with excitement and energy and the undaunted optimism. A buzzing outlook tempered by anxiety and parental expectations and the blazing possibility that you just might have a charmed life. And, just as likely, that your life will crash in a multitude of failed tests/interviews/jobs and you'll end up one of those pitiful characters featured in Coen Brother's films. One moment, you don't have time for all the people you know or are interested in knowing. And in the blink of a year or ten, you're in a perpetual hamster wheel of commute/work/family/Weekend Activity Planned By Extended Family. There's that somewhat seminal book Bowling Alone , that looks at the