I can't stop watching the Gorillaz video for Dare, which came out in the summer. Somehow I missed it then, but it's become my theme for the new year. Catchy song with the right amount of city grit, very cool animation/video/3D compositing. Features Shaun Ryder as a disembodied head.

Welcome aboard North Pole Airways flight 2005. Please give us your attention for the following holiday safety instructions.

This is a round-trip flight, with many stops across the globe. Make sure your carry-on luggage is securely stowed under your seat or in one of the reindeer storage bins. Use caution when opening the bins, as contents may have shifted during flight. There are 2 exits, one on each side of the craft.

Please study the safety card below for additional safety information, and have a safe and pleasant holiday.


(click the image to view the instructions)

We're getting ready for a trip to Japan next spring, and a friend loaned me some books from the Japan Travel Bureau. Living Japanese Style (1989) has a lot of illuminating cultural pointers and illustrations.



The book is available from sellers on Amazon.

A link on Boing Boing led me to this very cool telephone hack called "Caller Eye Deer."



It turns out that MAKE magazine has a whole photo pool on Flickr. They've taken the photo-sharing service a step further, using existing features to annotate photos and describe thousands of how-to/DIY projects.

Check out the voice-activated blender, too!

The other day I was waiting for the 545 downtown to whisk me away to work across the lake. The bus was late, and the morning was black and cold. I put up my hood and buttoned my wool coat, sipped my coffee. One bus pulled up and opened its doors just next to me. I kept looking down the street, waiting. I heard, "Hey.... Hey...!" coming from the open bus door. I glanced at the door. It was the bus driver, trying to get my attention. He leaned forward to me. "Hey."

I popped my head in, not getting aboard. "Yes?"
"You read poetry, don't you?"
"Yeah..."
"Yeah, you need some bus poetry. Here, take this..."

He reached back, grabbed a little silver book, and held it out to me. I stepped in and took it from him. It was a compilation of all the poems that Metro gathers each year and posts inside the buses, a nice break from the ads for clinical trials and birth control.

I said, "Thanks!" and stepped back off the bus. The driver simply nodded, closed the door, and pulled away.

A few buses later mine arrived. I got in, found a seat with warm air blowing on me, and started to read.