Resolution

My New Year’s Resolution this year was to take free-falling classes. Oh, good! They have them here locally.

Get Your Computer Out Of My Meme

This is not only what 5 MB of storage looked like years ago, it’s what 5 MB of storage looked like in the lap of one of those weird Victorian mothers who was conspicuously hidden in her own photo. You’re welcome.

No Thanks

One thing that’s always bothered me about the Christmas season is this overemphasis on commercialism, where everything has to be for sale. It’s so excessive.

Stray Shots

The camera application which I prefer to use on my iPhone is different than the built-in camera. It’s one in which you touch any part of the screen to take a picture instead of a single “shutter” button. It’s fine, except that it also means that in handling the camera – switching between hands, taking it in and out of my pocket, shoving it in my armpit as I fumble through my bag looking for something – the screen gets touched a lot. I think half of my pictures are of the accidental, oh-crap-I-thought–the-camera-was-off variety. But you know what? Some of them actually look kind of cool, especially when you gallery them. So I’m committing to this. If you need a wedding photographer and you don’t care if the pictures look like arbitrary screenshots from The Bourne Ultimatum, feel free to make me an offer.

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Postscript from Chinatown: Signs that Seem Like They Should Mean Something Kind of Dirty but Probably Don’t

They say that tragedy plus time equals comedy. I’m going to go ahead and say that travel plus fatigue equals comedy also. I think that’s the only reason to describe why Matt Diffee and I snapped these pictures at the end of our trip to the Bay Area this week.

Inquiring Mind

When I’m waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store, I like to flip though the magazines there. I don’t go for those gossipy Enquirer-type rags, though. I prefer an article that will give me something substantial to think about as I walk home: science or sociology or politics. My favorite magazine is the New England Journal of Medicine, because they always have timely and interesting topics, and it’s clear that they’ve done thorough research. Here are some of their recent topics:

UPDATE: I was just told that these are not from the New England Journal of Medicine at all, but from Cosmopolitan! So, I’m apparently not paying as close attention as I think I am. Crazy, right? This probably also explains why the supermarket clerks get annoyed when I ask them if there’s a designated area where I can try on my bowling shoes.

 

The Hall of Infamy

Was Jim Rice too black for Coca-Cola? Is A-Rod a cyborg? Why is Cal Ripken wearing dreadlocks? And did Gary Allenson ever exist? If you’re interested in the answers to these and other questions about the awkward greatness of baseball card design in the 1970s and 1980s, then head on over to the piece I wrote for Print magazine online. Then follow the link over to Imprint (the Print blog) for the interview I did with author Josh Wilker, who wrote the terrific Cardboard Gods, a memoir told through the lens of 1970s baseball cards. Unfortunately, a stale stick of chewing gum will not be included.

So What Isn’t Dead Nowadays?

It’s good to be provocative sometimes, especially if you can get a conversation started about an important topic. I assumed that’s what Wired magazine was doing a few weeks ago with their “The Web is Dead” cover story, ironically announced online. It got people thinking: “what do they mean by that?” And so I was relieved to find out that, no, the internet isn’t really dead, but Wired had a point to make.

Too Big to Fail

The economy is still reeling, and the evidence is all around us: empty storefronts. It seems like every week another bank or retail shop down and moves out. Well, I’ve got a plan to fix it. I’m launching a new business venture: Ponzi. We’re gonna have multiple locations. Whenever a store vacates a property, we’re going to be there. I can’t tell you exactly what this store is, but if you tell all of your friends about it, and they tell all of their friends, and they tell their friends and so on, then it has to work, right?

Vote for our SXSW Panel!

My friend Austin Kleon has put together a panel for next year’s SXSW Interactive about the relationship between words, pictures, and humor. Sound familiar? The title is Your Caption Here: How To Manipulate Images Without Photoshop, and the panel is full of talented folks: Kleon, who recently published Newspaper Blackout; Jessica Hagy, of Indexed; Maris Kreizman, of Slaughterhouse 90210; Ross Nover, of The System; and myself. It should be great, because each of the panelists’ work comes from a slightly different angle, but each is wonderful in it’s own right. You can vote for the panel here, on the SXSW Panel Picker site. Whether you’ll be at SXSW 2011 or not, please vote!