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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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Lights Out!

The power went out just now at work, and we slowly learned that it wasn’t just us, but the whole block… then the whole city… then the whole region… now I’ve learned it’s all southern Ontario and parts of the eastern U.S. including New York State.

I blame the Second Coming.

*Update:*
Power finally returned to my apartment about 5 minutes ago! (9am on Saturday) So of course, the first thing I do is go online to check email!.  I guess I can expect rolling blackouts for a while though.

And those of you wondering how I posted the above entry during the blackout:  We have an emergency generator at work that kept us up and running while the food in my freezer thawed into a warm gloopy mess.

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Nick Shinn-terview

There’s a short interview with Toronto type designer Nick Shinn over at Speak Up.

It isn’t mind-blowingly informative, but it’s always nice to read about someone who obviously cares about what he’s doing.

His closing statement is worth the visit.

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The Sketchbook Journal

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Film at Eleven! Nyuk! Nyuk!

Mark Dailey just refered to SARS as “catchy.” No wonder no one takes Citytv’s news seriously.

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Why You Lazy Crap for Crap!

Am I the only one disheartened by the recent bout of inactivity over at Homestarrunner.com?  My usual weekly fix of Strong Bad e-mails has been put on hold.  The Brothers Chaps even changed the update notice from reading “Updated Mondays” to “Updated Somedays”....

I will try to see the glass as half-full and assume that something magnificent is just around the corner.

Come back Ally!  Come back Ally’s sister!

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Stock Photography Alternatives?

In need of a texture?  A sky photo?  A simple background image for that small design project that doesn’t warrant paying hundreds of dollars for traditional stock photography?

Check out these sites.  The quality of the photos varies (they appear to be taken with digital cameras), and the resolution isn’t super high, but for a quick fix they might be just what you’re looking for:

ImageAfter

Public Textures

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The Future is Then

“Bad news everyone!”

This week marks an important milestone in the world of New New York of the Year 3000.

Not only did I purchase Volume 2 of Futurama on DVD today, but this past Sunday gave us the series’ premature final episode.

The Devil’s Hands Are Idle Playthings was the 72nd episode aired by Fox, but certainly not what the show’s creators (including Simpsons guru Matt Groening) hand in mind as the show’s swansong.  With four season in the can, the creators were told by Fox that no more episodes were needed and to shut down production.

Plagued by scheduling issues and a seemingly complete lack of support from the Fox executives, Futurama should be glad it lasted the 4 seasons it did, I suppose.  But in this age of reality television, Law & Order clones, and substandard sitcoms, _Futurama_ was one of the few shows I went out of my way to watch.

Covering issues such as racism, pollution and litter, religion, commercialism, and sexuality (“I don’t want anyone thinking we’re robosexuals””), it delivered consistent levels of humour and high quality entertainment throughout its run.  Even from the beginning it was as funny, clever, and relevant as the Simpsons was during its best years, and all of the cynicsm we came to expect from Groening was there as strong as ever—but one thing Futurama had that The Simpsons never did was an innocent sense of wonder in the characters’ surroundings as fish-out-of-water Fry cut through the cynicism and saw things around him for the first time just like us.  Imagine a world where anchovies have been hunted to extinction, owls have replaced rats as common street vermin, the severed heads of long-gone 20th century celebrities live on in jars on the shelves of museums, and one’s miseries can be put to an end with a visit to the nearest corner Suicide Booth.  Oh, the magnificent world of tomorrow!

One can only hope that another network might want to pick up the show as ABC did when Fox dropped Jon Lovitz’s The Critic in 1995, but until then I can at least watch my DVDs ad infinitum.

So long, Fry, Bender, Zoidberg, Leela, Farnsworth and Zapp Brannigan!  I leave you with my favourite quote from the series:

(Professor Farnsworth has just invented the Smelloscope.)

Farnsworth: You’ll find that every heavenly body has its own particular scent.
Fry: As long as you don’t make me smell ‘Uranus’! Ha! Ha!
Farnsworth: I’m sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed ‘Uranus’ in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.
Fry: Oh.  What’s it called now?
Farnsworth: Urectum.

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