For most of my life I have been a fan of graffiti artists. I slowly watched them infiltrate museums and have their work exhibited. Beginning the weekend of January 6th 2007, graffiti writers will tag the exteriors of two U-Haul vans wrapped in vinyl siding for the Graffiti Road Show, an exhibit from the Martinez Gallery.
About a month ago, some friends and I headed north to visit Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, New York. 500 acres of farmland are home to large-scale modern sculptures by artists including Alexander Calder, Mark diSuvero, Andy Goldsworthy, Roy Lichtenstein, Louise Nevelson, Richard Serra and many others. Most of the work was created post 1960.
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Twice in the last month my wife and I have arrived at our front door to the unmistakable smell of a skunk. To most people this would probably not be all that remarkable except we live in the heart of Queens in New York City. So the question that has kept nagging us is "Could a skunk (or other forest-inhabiting animal for that matter) really live and thrive in a metropolitan area that is miles removed from any forest?"
I've had several encounters with helper dogs in the past couple of months, two of which seem noteworthy...
My (ugly) Ceramic Tile Kitchen Floor. It came with the apartment.
Can you guess what this is a part of in my apartment? If you guess correct you can win a prize of your choice (read comments section for details). I'll announce winner of Friday evening...
I am very critical when critiquing photography. And new digital techniques generally are met with my sour disapproval. However, I've just seen something quite remarkable on the photo-sharing website Flickr. Under the tag "camera toss" there is an entire portfolio of images made by (presumably) throwing a digital camera into the air with the shutter held open.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has a problem. Not all of the nations in the world are happy with their primary identifier, the red cross. Although this is not the first time the symbol has come under fire (a red crescent was added as an acceptable symbol in the Nineteenth Century during the war between Russia and Turkey), a new search is on for a truly benign, unconnotative and neutral symbol with which to represent the organization in countries who are not comfortable displaying a cross or crescent.
It took just forty-eight hours after the events of September 11th to set into action two of the most painful projects that were created in the three years that I worked in the creative services department of a Christian focused record label. The person heading up these projects said our company had something that people needed, and we would be remiss not to share it. He actually used the analogy of a person in the desert who needs a drink of water; would you deny a drink if you had it?
Driver license photos are not meant to be flattering. However, the "redesigned" Tennessee license I received today gives me a new reason to be ashamed to reveal my proof to legally cruise the highways.
In the thrilling world of my eyeballs and general mental stability, I have reached a conclusion. As the savvy reader may remember, in an effort to relieve some eye strain, I turned off text smoothing on my computer, thinking that the blurry-ness of smoothed text on the monitor was contributing to headaches and tired eyes. The resulting look was just terrible. So, furthering the experiement, I returned to the text smoothing and compared reading on a LCD screen versus an old-skool CRT monitor. Conveniently enough, both are connected to my laptop.
The result? LCD: crisp and easy on the eyes; CRT: blurry and headache inducing.
I usually walk up to the counter and pick one of these gift cards up then slip it into either my back pocket or jacket pocket. I haven't been arrested yet.
Well, my computer interface now looks like butt, mostly, but I can report a decrease in eye fatigue. Have I just been reading less on the computer? Perhaps I'm reading things that are properly designed with enough white space. It's hard to tell after only one week.
However, my current level of general fatigue is up--too little sleep + too much drink. I'm getting too old for this.
Lately I've noticed rather extreme eye fatigue while reading on the computer screen. Hadn't happened before that I can remember, unless I was reading lots and lots of text for a long period of time. Part of me figured I'm just getting old (which is absolutely not true!), or still drinking too much on the job.
Image taken from The University of Texas at Austin 1955 Yearbook. Alpha Chi Omega sorority.
hi-speed connection recommended. quicktime is required.
