Veerables
In the late 80s, the parents had friends from New York for a visit. They were my first serious, memorable exposure to East Coast folks and I loved ‘em. High energy, fast talking folks who weren’t quite sure what to make of the Santa Cruz Mountains. When they left, several copies of Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine remained in their room.
I’ve no clue about the current state of Interview magazine, but it appears to be still alive. Back in the late 80s it was revolutionary. It was a massive 10.5” w x 16” h layout simply full of stunning photography and art. I didn’t even read the articles, I just flipped through tremendous pages in awe.
I convinced the parents to purchase a subscription and, after that, every month I’d sit down on the couch to explore the Interview visual landscape. Unfortunately, over the years, the quality of the content dropped. I don’t know if it was Andy Warhol’s death, but the magazine, while still massive, no longer held my attention.
I’m reminded of these Interview moments each month that my Veer catalog shows up. This month, they sent “Another Big Summer Activity Book for Creatives” and I’ve already flipped through it twice, chewing up their images and their fonts. You read that right — I look forward to advertising from Veer. No, no one is paying me to say this.
Veer sends catalogs full of ideas. You don’t need to be an illustrator or a photographer or any type of creative to appreciate the effort that goes into the catalog design. I worry with each new catalog arrival that they’re going to start charging for their advertising.
Go sign up for the Veer catalog if you appreciate visual feasts. You can download their catalogs, but atoms are better than bits.
Two Time Sinks
First, the Flickr related tag browser. It’s a mouthful and also a potential holy shit.
For my second trick, I will magically take away, at least, one hour of your life. Possibly more. Click at your own risk.
[4/1/05 Update]: Details regarding the Mahna Mahna video. Obviously, this is a Muppet production, but a bit of poking the net revealed, it’s a famous production. Tidbits:
- The skit/song had been done various times for the Ed Sullivan as well as Sesame during the late 1960s.
- The singer’s name is Mahna Mahna, he is performed by Jim Henson.
- The two cowlike creatures are called Snowths (mouth + snout)
- This was the open number for the original Muppet show which aired on April 25, 1977.
- The Mahna Mahna skit was also done for the Muppet revival show, Muppets Tonight, as well as being performed live in December 2001 during MuppetFest.
Friday Plugs (Plus Gmail Accounts)
Notational Velocity falls under the “I’ve downloaded it… tried it for 30 seconds.. and have not tried it again” umbrella. BUT. It’s interaction design does have a few a-has. Worth a peek.
Buzz aware folks have already seen TiddlyWiki, but it worth posting since, who knows, maybe you are not buzz aware. You’ve gotta tinker with Tiddly a bit before you get it, but you will. The source is readily available… anybody want to hack the Rands Management Glossary into it?
Slowtron’s How to BBQ A Man. Celebrate the times. Oh, the times.
Lastly, I’ve got six GMail address available. If you’d like one, post your favorite song and your email address as a comment. If you don’t want your email in the wild, just post the damned song and send an email to rands@jerkcity.com.
Friday Morning Plugs
The silent, but deadly Steven Frank continues to entertain with this Spamusement site. Doodles constructed from spam headlines. Worth it.
IMWatching is one of those services you know is going to vanish for some obscure corporate or political reason in the next three months. After a month of usage, I feel like I’m stalking folks on my Buddy List and someone… somewhere is going to get pissed about said stalking and bitch to the right (wrong) person.
Wordcount. Sigh. Wordcount reminds you that you have no talent and this guy does.
Technorati has a brand spankin’ new interface. I like Technorati.
Saturday Morning Plugs
Emma & Co. have fired up a new Apple weblog. Aptly called “macblog.org”, the new site features the writing talents of a collection of Apple enthusiasts. Plus, they’ve got delicious looking candied apples. Worth a look.
Dunstan continues to piss me off with his extreme attention to detail and apparently limitless creativity. Dammit. At first glance, the site does not appear radically different, but spend some time and prepare for awe. Why hasn’t someone snapped this talent up? Or have they?
MT-Blacklist for Moveable Type 3 has entered a beta state which appears to be an actual beta… glad someone remembers what that means. Unfortunately, I’m still manually deleting comment spam every morning… and night. Grrrrrrrr.
While I wasn’t looking, all sorts of quality edgy comics have popped up all over the place. Take a look see at AppleGeeks, Combustible Orange, and Little Gamers in your copious spare time.
Monday Morning Plugs
- Alex King has become a service industry. I’m an avid user to Alex’s TaskPro task management system and now he’s released a hosted version of his program under the UseTasks moniker. Personal use is just $3.95 a month and he’s also offering free accounts for open source developers. Let’s hear it for recurring revenue streams!
- I’m still looking for a goddamn link to the satellite simulater demoed at this year’s WWDC. If anyone has actually tracked down Arun Anderson and his Orbit company, I’d like to hear about it.
- I was slowly making my way through the Photoshops tutorials on the Digital Creativity site and was distressed to discover all the tutorials have vanishes. Guess it’s time to search the archive.
- I’m relying on my Gmail account more and more, so props to this gentlemen for creating a menu extra to check my Gmail for me.
Got a plug? Got a weblog you like? Send it to rands@jerkcity.com — preface the title with “PLUG:” and we’ll see what happens.
