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Not Everybody Loves Raymond

Why is it whenever I turn on the TV I only ever see the same thing?  Everybody Loves Raymond has taken over the airwaves.  It doesn’t matter what day it is or what time, one thing that I can always count on is Ray Romano’s big goofy mug on my TV screen.

I don’t mind reruns.  I love reruns.  But whatever happened to Roseanne, or The Cosby Show, or Charles in Charge?  Okay, maybe not that last one, but I’m confident that better shows than Raymond exist.  They must; I’ve seen them.

New episodes are still being made, so why should I have to suffer twice as much by also being subjected to “classic” episodes?  It’s not like episodes are as memorable as those of Seinfeld or I Love Lucy.  No one ever says, “Hey, remember that episode of Raymond with the Soup Nazi?” or “Remeber that time that Raymond’s brother sang Babaloo?”

Not everybody loves Raymond.  Some of us despise Raymond.

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Language for a Forked Tongue

Satirist Ambrose Bierce published what became The Devil’s Dictionary in weekly newspaper installments from 1881 to 1906.  As dated as it is, it’s still one of my favourite “reference” books, and many of its entries can still make me laugh.  It is brilliantly wicked and cynical.

And because it’s so old it’s in the public domain, and I’ve just found that there are numerous versions of the book floating around online.

Some of my favourite entries:

LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient.

TELESCOPE, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.

NOVEMBER, n. The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.

CAT, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

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Pip and Norton toys!

If anyone’s short on ideas for birthday gifts for me, you might want to consider the new Pip and Norton figures from Critterbox Toys.  Check out that spiffy box!

Pip and Norton are two characters created by Ottawa cartoonist Dave Cooper, who is one of my absolute favourites.  Check out his work if you’re unfamiliar—imagine taking your favourite saturday morning cartoons and mixing in a little lustful sexual deviation… you’ve got Dave Cooper!

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Blip! Bloop! Bleep!

I’ve just found how I want to decorate my next apartment: blik it!

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The Lowdown on the dnL

I’ll archive this post with design simply because of the quirky logo.  Even though the concept of this beverage is entirely bizarre, it is nonetheless a clever and playful adaptation of an existing brand.

For the uninformed, 7up has released a new beverage called dnL, and as you can see, dnL is simply the 7up logo upside-down, in what may be the first commerical ambigram.

What kind of mad twisted confectioner has taken over the soda-pop industry?  Is Willy Wonka in charge?  How did a product like this ever get past the marketing department? 

I’m reminded of McDonald’s campaign for the McGriddle, in which even they admit that their new reason-defying product is “weird, but not that weird.”

I haven’t tried it, but I suppose it’s better than the blue antifreeze they’re pawning off as cola over at the Pepsi factory.

As an aside, anyone interested in ambigrams, I strongly recommend you check out the work of John Langdon.

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All Greeked to Me

Attention all designers sick and tired of using Lorem Ipsum as your standard greeking.  (Non designers: greeking text is the method of filling in paragraphs of “filler” text as a placeholder to see what a typeset page will look like).

Check out The Greeking Machine for fun alternatives!

There’s pseudo German:
Biergarten das, relaxern handercloppen, blimp achtung weiner blitz ker gestalt dummkopf wearin, dummkopf, nine. Zur, pukein wunderbar haus dorkin buerger oompaloomp sauerkraut bar pretzel in.

Techno Babble:
Transistorized deviation or messaging infrared procedural backbone boolean port gigabyte, integer, servicing encapsulated disk led.

And my personal favourite—Hillbilly:
Preacher fricaseed sheep pasture what, creosote fiddle tractor. Hogjowls moonshine fiddle put crazy smokin’, rodeo hauled spell skinned fit pickled ya. Guzzled bull bible chew, fuss beat pick-up marshal. Afford hayseed done ever poor put wagon last, caught penny. Hayseed yer cipherin’ kinfolk jest coonskin.

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My Week Off

As mentioned earlier, I went to the petting zoo at the Ex this past week:

I also went camping up in Bracebridge (yes, that Bracebridge) for a couple of days:

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The Ex

Things I saw at the fair yesterday:

• An Ozzy Osbourne cover band called the Ozzy-Borns
• The crappiest haunted house in the world
• Colin Mochrie
• An elephant swallow (and then vomit) an entire water bottle
• A goat sneeze in my face
• My spare change tumble and fall to the ground from the top of the Zipper

Things I saw later on in the evening:

• Mars

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Language is Cheeky

I subscribe to a number of “word-a-day” email lists, including one from Wordsmith.org.  Today’s word is:

dasypygal (da-si-PYE-gul) adjective
Having hairy buttocks.

I love that words like this even exist.

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My Kind of Culture Jamming

It’s about time something was done about this.  There’s only one thing worse than the overuse of Arial and Times New Roman—the overuse of Comic Sans.

Ban Comic Sans has initiated urban guerilla tactics to inform the public that typography is an artform and that Comic Sans needs to be Comic Sacked.

From their site:

bq. We believe in the sanctity of typography and that the traditions and established standards of this craft should be upheld throughout all time. From Gutenberg’s letterpress to the digital age, type in all forms is sacred and indispensable. Type is a voice; its very qualities and characteristics communicate to readers a meaning beyond mere syntax.

The site invites all lovers of type to rise up together and aid in the revolution.  While I like to believe that every font has its use I do agree that Comic Sans has long worn out its welcome by its disgusting misuse by countless people with no design sensibilities.

Next can we eradicate Hobo?

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Viral Woes

Like many of you, I’m sure, I got blasted by a whole mess of (over 3000) e-mails infected with the Sobig virus. 

I’m on a mac, so these things are never a real threat to me—just an annoyance.

But I’d like to send a message to the hackers out there who write these little stingers:  Get a little more creative.  Even if someone I knew sent me an e-mail with the subject heading “wicked screensaver” I’d still delete it on principle.

Try something a little more inticing.  Instead of “re: your account” how about “re: those naked photos of Britney Spears”?

Instead of “A cool movie” why not a little more detail, like “A cool movie of a man getting kicked in the scrote by a donkey”?

These are just ideas of course, but it’s something to think about.

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American Splendor

Last night I saw American Splendor which stars Paul Giamatti as underground comic-book writer and full-time pessimist Harvey Pekar.

I didn’t know much bout Harvey Pekar before reading about this movie, but I saw the trailer on Apple’s website a while ago and was immediately interested.  I’m a fan of Robert Crumb and I loved the documentary about his life, which I’ve seen countless times, so I was amazed when the actor portraying Crumb in the trailer spoke and gave a dead-on impersonation.

Narrated by the real Pekar, the movie chronicles our hero as the grouchy everyman and how, through working as a file clerk in a hospital, he became a hit writer of underground autobiographical comics titled American Splendor.

It’s a great picture for anyone interested in underground and alternative comics.  Its humour and inventiveness, however, allow it to appeal to anyone whether they’ve read comics or not.  With its novel way of incorporating the real-life counterparts of the actors portraying them on screen (particularly worthy of note is when Harvey makes several appearances on David Letterman, and we see the real Harvey when minutes before going on stage we saw Harvey as played by Giamatti), American Splendor is unlike any biopic you’ve ever seen.  It’s part documentary, part comedy, part drama.  A docudramedy?

Visually the film adopts several comic book style conventions, such as panels and “Meanwhile...” titles.  There are also several moments with limitedly animated illustrations that even have the texture of newsprint which is a nice touch.

The film’s ending is a bit saccharine, but it works.  Harvey Pekar is not a likeable guy (heck, he barely likes himself), but he’s very captivating, and I find myself liking him regardless.

I’m certainly going to check out some of his comics now, and eagerly await the movie’s release on DVD.

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What the Heck Font is That?

Y’ever find a sample of type that you love?  Or try to recreate an existing typeset word?  Ever find yourself crippled by asking, “What the heck font is that!??”

Identifont asks you a series of questions to determine the details you do know about the font and narrows its database down to a small number of likely candidates.

Even cooler, though, is What the Font?!”, which takes all the work out of guessing.  Just upload an clean image (or URL) of the mystery font and the system uses its technological magick to identify the name of the font!

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Poster Boy

To all you Canadians in major cities, be on the lookout for an illustration of Chris Rock that I did for the MTV Video Music Awards airing here in Canada on MuchMusic and Citytv.

I’ve seen the posters up here in Toronto already, and it’s a real thrill to see a full wall of my work out “in the wild.”

Here’s what it looks like:

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Set Phasers on ‘Whiten’

Let me tell you how much I love William Shatner.  Everything he does these days makes me laugh.  It’s the subtle way he seems to be winking at all of us, as if to say, “Yes.  That’s right.  I’m William Shatner.”

Now, I enjoy his latest All Bran commercials.  For those who haven’t seen them, the premise is simple.  A young suburban couple is invited to take the “All Bran Challenge,” which we all know is to eat a bowl of the fibrous cereal every day for two weeks.  Only in this batch of ads, the challenge includes having Shatner live in their house for that period.  Enter the laughs!

But what has me perplexed is the most recent ad I’ve seen.  This one is for Crest Night Effects..

In it, a woman applies the product to her teeth and goes to bed in order to let the “whitening power” do its magic.  While sleeping, the woman has a dream that she is surrounded by dozens of Highland-dancing William Shatners dressed in sparkly outfits.  I am not making this up.

What’s even weirder is that the woman wakes up and is not disturbed in the least.  And there is no hint of irony.  Crest fails to give us a little nod.  They fail to subtly tell us, “Yes.  That’s right.  William Shatner.” Shouldn’t the woman at least look perplexed or shudder a little?

But Shatner himself is far more knowing. Simply by being there he’s giving us that nod, smiling just for us.

“Yes.  That’s right.  I’m William Shatner.  And I’m dancing.”

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