Bad Tshirt Design

I submitted a crudely drawn T-Shirt to threadless.com for critique. I'm not really an artist, but I think it's funny. You can see the tshirt in the picture. If you would like to write a critique.. (the first one was pretty negative, but they clearly didn't get the idea)

You can see the site here.

Talking Heads Live in Rome 1980

This is what makes me love YouTube (and Boing Boing for telling me about it).

Helio Ad Campaign

A couple weeks ago I got an advertisement in the mail for a new telephone from the company "Helio". It was a large piece of plastic touting the virtues of their new gizmo. I was a bit appalled that in today's day and age of "greenness" and "saving the earth" companies would do a mass mailing of large plastic things that are probably going to go straight to the trashcan. There wasn't anything on it to indicate what type of plastic it was so that I might try to recycle it. I wrote them a message saying this and that I would NEVER buy one of their products based on this mailing alone. I don't care if they make iPhone2 or Wii2 or something that will walk on water for me. I'm not going to support this company.

However, today I got a nice email from their VP of Marketing.. I am happy the company took the time to write me and explain. However, it still doesn't explain why they though large sheets of plastic would be appropriate for mass mailings.

Hello Brian,

Thanks for reaching out. Your thoughts are important
to us, especially regarding an important topic like recycling, which we
participate in at our stores, in our offices and whenever possible with all of
our devices and other materials.

The plastic mailing you received is recyclable. As you may be aware, recycling laws vary from state to state and even city to city. Since this was a national mailing, we chose not to include the
symbol because we did not want to misinform people about local curbside recycling rules. We apologize if this caused any confusion and we'll be sure to include recycling instructions in the future.

The plastic mailing is PVC, which is the same material that
many consumer products and accessories are packaged in. While it may not qualify for curbside recycling in your area, this mailing can be recycled at
select recycling centers across the country. You can visit www.earth911.org to find a recycling center near you. On the site you will find a box at the top labeled “Find a Recycling
Center ” with a space for
“what” (PVC plastic) and “where” (zip or city,
state). When you enter your information a list of nearby locations will come up where the mailing can be dropped off.

If you are not able to drop the mailing off at a recycling
center, we are happy to recycle it for you. Just send us your address and we'll send you a return envelope so the mailing can be delivered to Helio and
routed to an appropriate recycling center.

Thank you again for your feedback. It's important to
us and we will be sure to include recycling symbols and/or instructions with
all future correspondence. We have asked our agency to remove your name
from the list.

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4th of July

Yesterday was the 4th of July! Yay. It was a pretty good day for me. I made BBQ chicken and corn, saw the movie Transformers (which was pretty fun), and (most people would say bleagh) went to work and got some stuff done. The coolest part though was that I guess one of our neighbors is some sort of professional fireworks person, because 2 houses down, there was a 30 minute fireworks show! They also had classical music playing (just like most shows, but it reminded me of shows when I was a kid at the Oaks Mall). There were about 50 people there watching at the person's house, so we just watched the fireworks explode about 100 feet or so above our heads (I'm bad with vertical distance, so if that's too close to the ground, don't get offended). It was the first time fireworks going off in my neighborhood has been a welcome occurrence instead of an annoyance.