Wurstfest 2007!

Remember: WURSTFEST always starts on the Friday before the first Monday in November.

That's Right!

HMK

Beware Of Western Digital Hard Drives!

Long story short.

I bought a Western Digital My Book Pro 500GB drive 6 months ago as a backup drive. It worked great.

Two days ago I bought another Western Digital My Book Premium 320GB to backup the most crucial data on the WD 500GB.

As per Western Digital's web site, I downloaded the latest firmware upgrade from the WD site for both drives in an effort to daisy-chain the 2 NEW drives.

The 320 worked but when I plugged in the 500GB for only the second time since I bought it, the firmware upgrade failed and the drive is now dead!

Spent 3-4 hours trouble shooting and on the phone with Westen Digital and all they offer is a refurb replacement drive.

Data recovery for the 500GB drive starts at $400 just to look at it and up to $1,900!

I know that any and every drive has the potential to fail - my main beef is that Western Digital's firmware upgrade was aborted and made my 500GB drive unusable!

And here's 233 more comments about the fact that Western Digital is aware of this and other issues but really does not care: Western Digital Sucks!

That's Wrong!

HMK

Happy Birthday iPod!

Six years ago today, on October 23, 2001, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPod, a $399 hard drive-based MP3 player with a unique Scroll Wheel and bright white LCD interface, an amazingly pocketable size, and high-speed FireWire for synchronization and charging. The first-generation iPod actually shipped in mid-November, eventually selling 125,000 units by the end of 2001.

One hundred and twenty million units later, that iPod has evolved into the sixth iteration, the iPod classic, spawned other iPod models such as the mini, shuffle, nano, and touch, and seen its capacity increase 32 times, even while falling in price. It has also played a major part in Apple’s remarkable growth from a struggling computer company to a major consumer electronics manufacturer, inspiring the iPhone and helping boost sales of iMac and MacBook computers.

Check out this Steve Jobs Keynote introducing the first iPod.

That's Right,

HMK

Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?

If you believe that we are all born artists as Picasso once said, and enjoy thinking while you laugh, you'll dig this.

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it.

With ample anecdotes and witty asides, Robinson points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize -- much less cultivate -- the talents of many brilliant people. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says.

The universality of his message is evidenced by its rampant popularity online. A typical review: "If you have not yet seen Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk, please stop whatever you're doing and watch it now."

This runs almost 20 minutes and makes a perfect quick lunch companion.

That's Right,

HMK

Big thanks to TED

Nine More Days...

That's Right,

HMK

Look! Up In The Sky! It's The Airbus A380!

Now that's first class seating...

The presence in premium class of double beds, strewn for the debut with rose petals, prompted The New York Times to say that the Singapore Airlines A380 "sometimes resembles a luxury hotel rather than an airliner."

The A380 departs for Singapore on Tuesday and will enter service on a Singapore-Sydney route at the end of October.

Dig the slide show over at: CNET News.


That's Right,

HMK


Thanks to Pascal Parrot/Abacapress.com

Really Simplified Health Care

Dr. Wilson's Blue Pills for Blue People, 1901.

Dr. Coderre's Red Pills for Pale Women & Weak Women, 1897

Dr. Williams Pink Pills for Pale People, 1887.

It's just that simple.

that's Righth,

HMK

Thanks to Hal Morgan's Symbols of America.

Dracula!

Check out this nice little collection of foreign Dracula movie posters over at: Deadlious.

That's Right,

HMK

Bit O'Honey Rules!

Bit O' Honey. Bar none, is at the top of my list of The Best Candy on the planet. Next is Big Hunk, Red Hots, Peanut M&M's (straight out of the freezer) and dude, you really can't watch anything on the Big Screen at The Tiki Bijou without Milk Duds, Raisinettes or Goobers.

Bit-O-Honey first appeared in 1924 and was made by the Schutter-Johnson Company of Chicago. Bit-O-Honey was a new kind of candy bar consisting of six pieces of candy wrapped in wax paper and then packaged in a wrapper. Almond bits embedded in a honey-flavored taffy made for a long-chewing candy. Today, Bit-O-Honey is made by the Nestle Company.

That's Right Bit O'Honey!

Bit O'Honey Nutritional lowdown

HMK

No, you're not dreaming, this is a repost from October 2005.

More Weirdness

This is from Halloween 2005, we caught this guy on video running down Broadway after skipping his tab at Liberty Bar.

Weird night.

Check out some more Trippy Weird Things happening right here on the third planet from the sun...

That's Right,

HMK

The Watchmen, Weird Shit

Ok, so by now we all know that Jackie Earle Haley has been cast to star as Rorschach in Zack Snyder's big screen version of the epic graphic novel The Watchmen from writer Alan Moore with artist Dave Gibbons.

In regard to how the talented Mr. Haley landed the roll of Walter Kovacs, AKA: Rorschach, a role that, as I understand it, Tom Cruise really wanted... - I think David Thomas puts it best in his overview from his site:

"...Here’s where Zack Snyder maintains and increases his 300 cred. No one would think of Jackie Earle Haley for Rorschach off the top of their heads, but when you hear it, it just clicks somehow. There’s a tortured intensity to Rorschach that Haley can play the shit out of. An unbelievably difficult casting choice, and Snyder nails it."

Exactly.

Especially considering that Jackie's first "comeback" role before his Oscar nomination was playing Sugar Boy, the badass, almost silent bodyguard in Steve Zaillian's All the King's Men.

Throughout the movie, when he's not cleaning his gun or driving like Steve McQueen, Mr. Haley can be seen eating sugarcubes, hence, Sugar Boy.

I'm thinking the Sugar Boy role had more to do with Zack's selection decision than anything else as Jackie was practically the only actor in All The King's Men to not get trashed by the critics.

Or was it something else?

Check this out - I'm almost finished reading Watchmen for the first time (Fantastic by the way...) and I just had to smile at the cool premonition of this panel:



Trippy... just in time for Halloween.

That's Right, weird shit indeed.

HMK

Pixel It

The ultimate in customization.

Dig the poster with an alterable structure to display messages - a visually professional and attention grabbing alternative to the static poster. “Pixel It” consists of two layers of paper. Cuts on the white outer layer allow the user to fold parts out and therefore create a "Pixel-Structure" by showing the coloured layer underneath.

That's Right,

HMK

Crazy Cool!

Behold! A Diagram of US Flight Paths.

Amazing.

That's Right,

HMK

From the wicked smaht folks over at The Design Conspiracy.

Flashback: The Prequel!

Have you ever been so busy that you crank out so many projects is a super short amount of time that you don't even remember working on them when you see them 12 years later?

They say I did this. And I believe them. I just can't remember actually working on it...

Remember The Alamo!

That's Right,

HMK

Highlighting The Good Bits

Digging these right on target Stabilo Highlighter Pen ads by Grey Advertising, Hong Kong. Executive Creative Director: Keith Ho, Creative Director: Paul Chan / Sonic Choy, Art Director: Sonic Choy, Copywriter: Paul Chan, Photographer: Jeffrey Leung, Retoucher: Simon Kwan.

That's Right,

HMK

Thanks to Cipher and the smart folks over at Twenty Four.

Thank You Dot.Tunes!

That's Right! It's finally here!

I've been wishing for this since the first iPod.

Thanks to Dot.Tunes I can now access and stream media from my iTunes libraries to both my iPhone and my iPodTouch over the internet, through a customized interface.

The totally bitchin' part is that Dot.Tunes v4 is almost a free download; the iPhone and iPod touch plug-ins are 20US each.

And for a limited time, Dot.Tunes is offering a 25% discount to all you smart iLounge visitors. Check out Dot Tunes for a software demo.

Now all I need to get is an iTouch or an iPhone...

That's Right!

HMK

You Can't Handle A Bigger Logo!

That's Right,

HMK

Thanks to Design Observer

Giant Magnetoresistance Wins Nobel

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Two European scientists won the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for a discovery that lets computers, iPods and other digital devices store reams of data on ever-shrinking hard disks.

France's Albert Fert and German Peter Gruenberg independently discovered a physical effect in 1988 that has led to sensitive tools for reading the information stored on hard disks. That sensitivity lets the electronics industry use smaller and smaller disks.

''The MP3 and iPod industry would not have existed without this discovery,'' Borje Johansson, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences told The Associated Press. ''You would not have an iPod without this effect.''

The two scientists discovered a phenomenon called giant magnetoresistance. In this effect, very weak changes in magnetism generate larger changes in electrical resistance. This is how information stored magnetically on a hard disk can be converted to electrical signals that the computer reads.

More over at: Nobel Prize in Physics 2007 Press Release or The New York Times.

That's Right,

HMK

Thanks to the New York Times

Smart Fix

Now this is a cool solution to a problem I've seen in just about every neighborhood I've ever lived in.

This is a replacement sidewalk for the old one that cracked as a result of a growing tree.

The coolest part is that the number of leaves in the new sidewalk diminish the farther they get from the tree.

That's Right,

HMK

Dear Thieves

I found this message from the folks at Blo walking through Yaletown, Vancouver this morning...

That's Right,

HMK

Signs Of The Times

I'm finally clearing stuff out of my old office and making room for the stuff I'm going to keep. The above is one of the old signs I rediscovered yesterday while clearing out my shed. I'm totally digging the yellow/bule/orange color palet!

I've posted some of the other gems I've unearthed so far over at my flickr site: Old Signs.

That's Right,
HMK

Can You Name The Reference Movie?

Good Evening. if you can possibly manage the time I recommend that you view these stills from various episodes of the The Simpsons and their reference movie stills. You'll be glad that you did.

Genius.

That's Right,

HMK

Hippo's Deli Murals

These are two of the four murals I did for Hippo's Deli & Grocery on the Riverwalk here in San Antonio.

And here's the 5' x 21' Produce graphic.

I'll post the other two as soon as they're up!

That's Right,

HMK

Lush

Agency: Struck.
Art Director: Brandon Knowlden
Copywriter: Rich Black
Letter Press: Athenaeum Press

That's Right,

HMK

Thanks to Ad Goodnes

Have You Heard?

Is This On?

Just in time for the weekend...

That's Right,

HMK