Category: Odds & Endz

Man, these pencils are cool (via Boing Boing).

The Wide World of Duck Tape. I’m not kidding.

I thought this was kind of a neat way to measure the passing of a year. Imagine that we won’t live long enough to see those boxes on the far left move at all. Wow (via my friend Anne Marie).

Leaving for a wedding in Los Angeles tomorrow. Be back Sunday.

Recycled gift wrapping paper. Now there’s an idea that’s a long time in coming (via Wishbone).

Sick. Very sick. Heeling slowly but surely. Must not blog today. Until I return, please enjoy these virtual studios of artists I stumbled across during this year’s San Francisco Open Studios.

Superhero Designs: Funky Jewelry and portraits done in highly-saturated paints.

Mark Faigenbaum: Prints and collage boxes using architectural blueprints, maps, engineering graphs and other geometric patterns.

Tofu: Paintings and mixed media collages in bright, vivid colors. Reminds me of the film Waking Life.

Popping Bubble Wrap with your mouse.

Call an old friend today…

‘Steady Ed’ Headrick, the inventor of the Frisbee Flying Disc, has died. His will asks that his ashes be pressed into flying discs. Wham-O, the company that makes the disc, says it might not be “technically feasible” but screw them. Everything is “technically feasible”. They’re sjust aying they can’t make money off it. I say honor the man’s wishes and press away.

Just where would we be without the Frisbee? I shudder to think.

I have a thing for tiny little, beautiful books and have a half dozen floating around my house on any particular occassion. Several are just notebooks where I jot down ideas or can shove in my pocket if I’m late to a meeting. But the most important ones I group together on my night table, where I can see them first thing in the morning.

My sketchbook is a rather girly looking forearm-sized volume, with a picture of an angel on the front. My friend Emily gave it to me back in Austin where I took it to open mic poetry events and tried (sort of) to write my own verse. I also use it as a journal, because I left my old journal on an airplane some months back.

Since 1994, I’ve jotted down all the books I’ve read, all the movies I’ve watched and given a line or two of commentary on each. I used to keep them in a file on my harddrive but I found it too much like work and consequently didn’t do it very often. Now I buy little journals at bookstores (one for each media) and keep my notes in them.

The only explanation I have for this is the same reason I like writing letters on paper. I write all day long on a computer. I mostly associate it with writing for public consumption, my reviews, journalism, this weblog. The writing I do by hand is as intimate as a touch. It’s for one special someone or sometimes, just for me.

Birthday week concluded with a fantabulous picnic in Golden Gate Park attended by friends Derek Powazek, Heather Champ, Mena Trott, Dinah Sanders, JISH, Kristen Garrity and many who know better than to spend their time weblogging. Frisbees were thrown, fried chicken consumed and an ancient playground game called Spud unearthed. Joy was everywhere.

Speaking of which, if you’re curious about whom you share a birthday with and what happened on that day in history, hop over to Famous Birthdays.com.

Back to life. Back to reality…