First comes the discovery: Someone walks by and sees the plate, which has appeared as if by magic. The alert is instant, epic, and never detailed. “FOOD IN THE KITCHEN” is broadcast with the aplomb of an archeologist who just discovered a T-rex skull.

But sometimes alliances form. If its you that discovers the food, who do you tell? Is there a group you alert first? Perhaps those working directly above or below you, or maybe an individual. You’ve got the power, and giving a few people a head start can be awfully good office karma.

Once the announcement is made, everyone makes a mad, Pavlovian dash leaving an office full of empty, spinning Aeron chairs. Even if you aren’t sure what’s available you go, just in case it’s something awesome on which you don’t want to miss out. It’s the scarcity that creates the demand.

Because it’s free, and in short supply, it doesn’t matter if all that’s available is cold, soggy onion rings (as was the case most recently in my office.) It might as well be gold dubloons the way people clammer for it.

So you made it, you’re among the lucky first few to get some. Now you have to decide how much to take. What percentage of the whole does each person deserve? You look around, wishing that the announcement wasn’t so loud as however many people are gathered around, that’s by what number the bounty must be split. In a group, you exercise chastity and charity. You take one or two, or just half a slice. But if you’re alone, suddenly you’re entitled to half.

Then it’s over. Like the chaos when a crocodile snags its prey from the river edge, the frenzy ends as fast as it starts, and all is peaceful again with only crumbs left, and maybe a spinning plate.

The song in question played as Casey stalked Chuck in his home, ready to fulfill his mission. The song is called “The Twist” by Frightened Rabbit. Check out the album, all the songs are really good:

And here are the lyrics:

Do the twist in the twisting outfit
The loose tie with, the loose limp wrists
Lift your dress enough to show me those shins
Let your hair stick to your forehead

Did you blush then when our hips touched?
I can’t tell, you’re already red
Am i right? you give me the signs
Is that pink mist or just lit dry ice

You twist and whisper the wrong name
I don’t care nor do my ears
Twist yourself around me
I need company I need human heat
I need human heat

Lets pretend I’m attractive and then
You won’t mind, you can twist for a while
It’s the night, I can be who you like
And I’ll quietly leave before it gets light

So twist and whisper the wrong name
I don’t care nor do my ears
Twist yourself around me
I need company i need human heat
I need human heat

I need human heat
I need human heat
I need human heat
I need–

Twist and whisper the right name
I’m David, please
Twist as if you’re just like me
You need company, you need human heat
You need human heat

For now, I will create a single portal page that will serve as my “homepage” on the web: basic, with links to all the places I can be found and things I’m working on. From there I’ll link here, since I’m sure I’ll still write occasional gems of wisdom and who knows, might even become more prolific (there I go getting inspired again.) In a perfect world I’d run my blog the way Jason Santa Maria (who lives in Brooklyn. Who knew?) runs his, art directing everything. But then I’d have to change the design. And actually do more designs all the time. That’s a little ambitious, even for me. At least right now. Mostly I’m just loving what he’s doing and find myself jealous as fuck that I can’t/am not doing the same.

Why don’t I use this blog to link to everything? Because I don’t expect everyone who looks for me on the web to care about anything I have to say here. It seems presumptuous all of a sudden. People will most likely be looking for me to a) hire me b) see what I’m all about or c) check out what I’ve been working on lately. For those who want to read what I write about here, subscription’s on the sidebar.

I’m going to keep the Tumblr going because I really like it and think it’s a great service. This will be another link from my portal page. That way the people who want to see all the weird shit I look at online can do so and those that don’t care aren’t deluged with it.

I’ll have a portfolio linked off my personal domain. That way I can showcase my work outside the blog and can channel traffic to that directly when I’m looking for a job or whatever.

Rounding out the list will be links to any projects I’m currently a part of (I’ve got a few things cooking) as well as links to all the social networks in which I participate.

It’s really Twitter that’s done this to me. I can better share my feelings 140 characters at a time than in random blog posts now and then.

I feel good about this change. Let’s see how it goes.

1. I love email and even text messaging.
2. I love talking face to face.

For a long time, I dismissed my dislike of the phone as an affectation of my shyness. Why then do I like talking to people face to face? It would seem that that would make a shy person even shyer. The more I think about it, the more I realize there are two other factors that make me hate the phone.

Turn Based Communication

I think one of the biggest issues that arise when two humans communicate is the understanding and respect of whose turn it is to talk. It’s easy to talk with someone when it’s clear when they’re done speaking and it’s my turn. Then there aren’t interruptions, and the conversation goes back and forth, like a game of pong, without error.

With email, this concept of turn based conversation is taken to the extreme. Your turn isn’t up until you’ve finished a thought and hit send. When you get an email, you know it’s your turn to respond when you’re done reading. There’s no interrupting each other. Maybe this is why I love long email chains.

In a face to face conversation, you can use body language to signify you would like to add to the conversation. This lets the other person know they should pause, that you would like it to be your turn. It’s also much easier to graciously interrupt if you have something pressing to say or the other person is getting long winded.

On the phone there’s no way to tell if you or the other person wants to take their turn. Anyone who’s been on the phone with a salesman knows this. Salesmen love the phone because they can just ramble on and on and on (see Boiler Room.) As someone who was raised not to interrupt, this adds to the stress level since I don’t want to be rude but would like to put in my two cents.

Ramble On

Many people are verbose. I’m as guilty as the next guy for often going on, and on, and on. If someone sends you a long email, you can skim through it, omitting entire sections, to get to the heart of the matter. When you’re in person it’s much easier to be interested in what someone is saying—you can make eye contact, laugh, and more easily offer witty asides and quips. On the phone, I feel trapped. If the person I’m talking to launches into a long diatribe, I’m stuck, locked into my seat until the ride is over. This feeling leads to stress and anxiety, especially if I see a call coming in for a notorious rambler.

So it seems that my dislike for the phone isn’t based in some deep-seated social phobia, but rather in my need for structure in a conversation and a love of efficiency.

FiLife.com

This is where all my time has gone over the past few months. We’ve all worked very hard to get the site up and running (it’s a small staff) and I’m quite proud of what we’ve accomplished.

So go check it out, sign up and take some stackers, rate your bank and credit cards, and ask some questions. I’d love to know what everyone thinks. If you’re shy and don’t want to send feedback directly through the site, feel free to drop me a note with your thoughts and I’ll make sure it goes where it needs to.

Now that it’s launched, maybe I’ll have more time to write. There’s a couple of site features I’m quite excited about and I’d like to feature them here.

I came across this site via Tumblr. It’s created by topherchris. I love the concept—one short news byte each day—almost as much as I love the minimalism. Helvetica Neue strikes again and as always, never fails to disappoint.

I think, if the design wanted to really be a type-gangster (and don’t we all?) that he could’ve stuck with the -1px letter-spacing used on the date for the title. That would’ve tightened things up and added just a little extra sexiness.

visit and follow: http://whatthefuckdoineedtoknow.com/

I always think that I don’t have time to start something new. The idea of a brand new project, a clean slate, a blank canvas—it makes me think I need substantial time to dedicate to it at first. If I have a project already started, I can spend an hour on it and quit without worry. So what is it about starting something new that is so hard to get past?

I’ve found that things I thought would take a long time often resolve quite quickly. Then it’s done, out of my brain, I stop worrying, and my eye doesn’t start to twitch (a sure sign I’ve got too many ideas in limbo.)

This blog post is a perfect example. This is, in reality, a response to something ze Frank said today about self-motivation. That reminded me of the episode of The Show that I use for personal motivation. It was 6pm and I wanted to go home. “I don’t have time now,” I told myself, “I’ll write it later.” But my iPod was syncing and I thought “I’ll just start it.” Turns out I’m already done, and it didn’t take that long. One less idea in my head, waiting to be acted on.

I use Gmail as my primary email tool and love everything about it. My favorite feature is the integration of multiple email accounts. The drawback has always been that Gmail only supports a single signature. This is a problem. My default email signature looks like this:

–
————————————————
Justin Dickinson // jmdickinson@gmail.com
visit AllMyLiesAreWishes, my personal blog:
http://allmyliesarewishes.com

That’s all well and good for the majority of my emails. But I also have the How I Met Your Mother blog and an email address associated with that. When I email those readers I don’t want to link back here to AMLAW and I want to have the correct info. The only thing to do is remember to delete the default sig before hitting send. For a long time this was how I did it. I’d occasionally forget and in general it seemed like there should be a better way.

I installed Greasemonkey this morning. When looking through the available scripts I found the Gmail HTML Signatures plugin. This script adds the exact functionality to Gmail that I’d been missing. Now when I write to friends or readers from Have You Met Ted it automatically adds the appropriate signature. It even works on replies and forwards. Awesome!

I don’t take advantage of the HTML part because I think that big, colorful, or image-ful signatures are almost always obnoxious. It is just nice that Gmail is finally smart enough to append the appropriate sig based on what account I’m emailing from. Check out the script, and for that matter Greasemonkey, today.

While we’re on the topic, any recommendations for other must-have Greasemonkey scripts?

Ink hit paper Friday and now I finally have an apartment in New York City. I’ve been here for a few months and have looked, and looked for an apartment. It’s not an easy task. There were trials and tribulations along the way, but I finally found a place I really like. It’s in Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn, which was my first choice due to the proximity to a) the Subway b) my friends c) the great neighborhood near by.

It’s a one bedroom, not huge but not tiny either, and I have a small office where I can keep my computer. I move in May 1st (after it gets new paint, doors, windows, etc) at which point I’ll post up some pictures. After I’m in, expect blog posts to become much more frequent.

Here’s an animated 360° Google Maps street view of my block:

Hoefler & Frere-Jones posted a great tip for Leopard users. In case you didn’t realize, you can preview any file quickly by selecting it in the finder and hitting SPACE. This works for images, documents and, it seems, also for fonts. The coolest part of this trick is that if you select a family of fonts, you can view them all at once. There’s even a slick animation.

Shown above is Diavlo, a great, free typeface from Jos Buivenga. Check out his site, there’s quite a few great, free fonts available.

My favorites:

• Sarah Chalke (in German)
• Judy Reyes (sounding saucy)
• Zach Braff (sounding completely unthreatening)
• Rachel Bilson (sounding adorable, even when swearing, as per usual)
• Jamie Oliver (the British people don’t sound as taboo when swearing. why?)
• Derren Brown (in a laundromat?)
• Peter Krause (sounding awesome, as always)

This was the result:

The site has recently won RBJ’s Best of the Web award. I’m very happy for MSM and very proud to have been part of the team that created the site. Go check it out today, it’s really fun. I wish you could see the admin system as well since, in my humble opinion, it’s pretty bad ass.

I’m pleased to announce that I am one of 50 bloggers featured in the Brazen Careerist network. I’d like to welcome any new readers and invite them to peruse my archives (which are a bit disjointed) and subscribe via the link in the right sidebar.

I’m very excited to be a part of this network. I love what the folks over there are doing and I think it’s a great resource for both gen y college grads and the people who’ll be hiring them. Head over and check out the other bloggers.

Eliminations:

Week 1: Nikki

Week 2: Valerie

Week 3: Zoi

Week 4: Nimma

These first few weeks will just skim off the weak.

Week 5: Mark

Mikey, he might be, but I don’t think he has the focus to continue much further.

Week 6: Jennifer

There’ll be a curve-ball challenge where her lack of fundamentals will be her downfall.

Week 7: Antonia

The pressure will be too much for her. That or she’ll offer to make a dessert and get shit-canned.

Week 8: Erik

Likewise with the pressure. I have a feeling he’ll have been on the edge for awhile and maybe some part of a team work challenge will do him in when the others throw him under the bus.

Week 9: Stephanie

I think she’s going to pull a Leah and be too timid and fail to take risks. It’s a shame because she seems promising. This is usually around when Restaurant Wars occurs, always a shake-up for the show and a turning point where whomever’s left standing has “made it”.

Week 10: Richard

On the other end of the spectrum, I think Richard will try something crazy and it will fail. There’s a good chance he’ll have been doing crazy stuff the whole time, but this one will do him in.

Week 11: Spike

I’m sure he’ll be well liked by the others but I think he’s a little green and his naivety will cost him.

Week 12: Dale

At this point I’m sure he’ll be The Villain of the show. Over confidence with a guest judge who is not easily impressed will do him in.

Week 13: Ryan

A strong contender throughout, at this point there will be a coup d’etat when Bravo’s female viewers organize and march against the network for kicking off their eye candy.

Final three: Manuel, Andrew, Lisa

These three will be the clear leaders throughout the show.

Winner: Manuel

I can’t see how anyone else can win. He’s got the best shot from what I can see right now.

This is all speculation and I’ll update my thoughts as the season progresses. Stay tuned!

Over at Bravotv.com you can get to know this year’s contestants. I decided to sit down and read each bio and watch each video. Here I’ve compiled my thoughts on each cheftestant based on a) snap judgment (the fun part) b) reflection after watching their video and c) parting thoughts. After all that, I make my prediction for the elimination schedule. I can’t wait to see how close I come to getting it right.

Let’s go alphabetically. Click their names to go to the Bravo page and watch the videos and read their bios (so you can judge too!)

Andrew

Snap judgement: This year’s CJ

After watching the video: Like him. He’s passionate about food, and treats it seriously. He’s confident but not pretentious. He’s an academic foodie, and really loves food as a medium. I like his cadence, his personality. Plus, he loves Jamaican food and hot wings, and duck confit–he’s just like me!

Parting thought: His strategy is to “cook with honor” I like that.

Antonia

Snap judgement: Uninspired, first to cry

After watching the video: Boring… She loves to cook, but doesn’t come off as a chef. I’m not sure she has the desire or the strength to put up with the igorous demands of the show (Padma, Tom, and the Ripper ain’t your family for Sunday dinner.) She seems pretty tied into Italian, that’s going to hurt her when they demand she steps out of her comfort zone. She’ll pull a Camille and fall on the sword the first time someone needs to make a dessert. She loves Balsamic but hates Saffron? Puh-leez…

Parting thought: What’s with all the people liking the Japanese Mandoline?

Dale

Snap judgement: I hate you

After watching the video: Yeah, he works at Buddakan, big deal. He used to be at Morimoto, yawn. He’s young and cocky, which this show seems to require in at least one of its contestants. He’s this years Hung for sure–cocky and gaysian. Will he have what it takes? We’ll see. “You kinda never have to grow up”, yikes!

Parting thought: his motto is “expect perfection, because if you fail short your left with greatness.” Maybe so, but what is your right with? Zing!

Erik

Snap judgement: Oh, scary. Nice chains dude. No motorcycles in the kitchen.

After watching the video: Are you wearing a chef coat with the sleeves cut off? Eww. This guy seems like he might have a little Howie in him but I think it’s more likely that he’s boring.

Parting thought: I like what he has to say, but he just seems kind of one dimensional.

Jennifer

Snap judgement: Good travel and experience under her belt. Looks promising

After watching the video: She has a “rustic” cooking style where she hides behind seasonal ingredients. I don’t think that’ll last long on the show. You won’t be working with fresh ramps and black trumpets every day honey.

Parting thought: I’m sick of these damn boring Californian chefs who love their lean proteins and seasonal produce. Bring me Sam Talbot who wants to “make love in duck fat”. Ramps are for rabbits, give me preserved meat!

Lisa

Snap judgement: She seem likes she’s firey. I like it.

After watching the video: She’s kind of hot, in a mean way. She thinks lobster is overrated, awesome. I hope she takes Dale’s ball’s in the first episode and doesn’t give them back till Restaurant Wars.

Parting thought: I like this girl. She’s got what it takes to last on the show.

Manuel

Snap judgement: His favorite simple spring recipe is “Crispy soft shell crabs with charred ramp vinaigrette”– now that’s something I can get behind.

After watching the video: Southwest/Mexican by way of classic French training and experience at Le Cirque and alongside Batali? This guy’s got what it takes. A winner across the board. He’s humble but confident, and sees food as an art. He likes fancy sea salts and hates raw peppers. I like him.

Parting thought: I love Dos Caminos so maybe I’m biased toward this guy, but he’s the man. He said it in the video: all these Asian influenced people will fall at his chile-slinging feet.

Mark

Snap judgement: This year’s Mikey?

After watching the video: He reminds me of that douche who threw a party? He doesn’t seem to be very focused? If he has a natural talent, it might take him a few episodes, but I can’t see him making it past the first half? Also, he has that habit of ending every sentence like it’s a question? which I hate?

Parting thought: He worked in a slaughterhouse…cool! I bet he won’t turn out seared scallops every week like all the other poofs. If he’s missing you can check the backroom where he’ll be toking up with Padma.

Nikki

Snap judgement: Front of house experience - she’ll be good at restaurant wars, too bad she won’t last that long.

After watching the video: I’m not sure what it is but I can’t see us getting to know this woman. I think she’s off after the first week. Never trust a skinny chef.

Parting thought: I love when your mom wakes up in the morning and starts a pot of sauce too.

Nimma

Snap judgement: She’s good looking, but her favorite food to cook is pasta? So is every other home cook’s. Not promising.

After watching the video: She sounds like a product of the Food Network. I dont see her being extrodinarily innovative or groundbreaking. Why do I think her favorite “Italian” food to cook and eat is fried and drenched in sauce and not so much good, fresh, Batali/Oliver Italian?

Parting thought: Why are these women all so boring? Lisa’s the only one who I actually want to watch.

Richard

Snap judgement: Can we RIP the faux-hawk? Please? This guy seems like a wanna-be Jaime Oliver.

After watching the video: This guy likes being in a kitchen, which is great, and one of the supreme joys of the trade, but you need more than that to compete here. He doesn’t seem to think about food as artfully as others.

Parting thought: Immersion circulator? Maybe this guy has a few tricks we haven’t seen yet. A surprise molecular gastronomist (who isn’t douchy) would be a good addition this season.

Ryan

Snap judgement: Fan favorite. Philanthropist, frat-boy good looks, he’s a shoe-in.

After watching the video: This guy seems down to earth and passionate. I still say all the ladies are going to swoon for him. He seems to have a casual confidence and knowledge with food and his “seasonal” style seems authentic and not trendy. He hates bell peppers too. I smell a trend.

Parting thought: His favorite food is pizza but he lives on the west coast. How is that possible? Oh, ranch dressing.

Spike

Snap judgement: For every stuffy CA chef making seared scallops they caught with their bare hands that morning there’s a NYC chef opening a burger and hot dog joint for his family and friends. Which is better? Where do I live…

After watching the video: I can’t get past that damn hat, and that blue-steel stare. At least he admits that he’s young and hasn’t figured out his style yet. Maybe this show will make a man out of him. I like that he wants to build relationships in the house. That’s a good sentiment.

Parting thought: Could he be the first true hipster on the show? I don’t count Ilan since I think he’s just a punk.

Stephanie

Snap judgement: This year’s Lia. That mean’s she’ll probably go home before we see her true potential.

After watching the video: She’s a sweetheart, and really seems to love food. She’s one to watch as I think she’s got potential.

Parting thought: Preserved lemons, good show sister!

Valerie

Snap judgement: Personal chef spells “diaster”. You need at least one ball to win.

After watching the video: Another boring contestant. How did these people make it on the show? She doesn’t seem to even care if she gets kicked off.

Parting thought: Another Asian influenced chef. That’s trouble for her, it’ll be hard to stand out from the others.

Zoi

Snap judgement: What’s with these people and the goddamn lamb in the spring? You un-creative assholes. My, a lot of the women this year seem boring.

After watching the video: Ok, now it’s gotten to the point where all these Italian-loving, seasonal ingredient using white women have meshed together and I can’t tell them apart.

Parting thought: I won’t be sure Zoi and Valerie are different people until I see them together at the same time on camera. Beat haters.

Parting thoughts for the season:

• what’s with the sudden love for mandolins? They’re cool tools, but I don’t get it. Is there some sponsorship?
• it’s good to see a new generation of chefs who grew up loving food and were encouraged to explore it as a career.
• many of the contestants this year have obviously watched the show and have learned some “dos” and “don’ts”.
• all the “Asian influenced” contestants are going to blur together and the people who use stand out, bold flavors will rise to the top
• the “heart” of the contestants will come out again this season. many of these people seem to lack a certain NEED to create food.

This has been long enough. Here are my predictions for eliminations for season 4.

The song used here is by Paul Brill. The tricky part seems to be that the song isn’t released yet. This type of thing is frustrating for people who see the commercial and would love to buy the track. I would think the artists would want the song available for purchase as soon as the commercial aired to optimize on the interest the ad generates. Otherwise, what’s the point? According to his MySpace (which has a short version of the track) Brill says the song will be released soon.

There is another Match.com commercial that uses the song This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)” by Natalie Cole. Grab that on iTunes here.

In 2006 Tarsem made his second film “The Fall” which debuted at the Toronto Film Festival and freaked out all the distributors and got buried, never again to see the light of day. (Editor’s note: At this rate, his next film will be called “The Hill” followed by “The Poll”. I can play with vowels and consonants!) Now David Fincher and Spike Jonze have thrown their support behind it and it’s getting a limited re-release. It also helps that the lead, who was an unknown in 2006, is Lee Pace who is now much more marketable having gained success as the lead in another whimsical role: Ned the Piemaker on Pushing Daisies.

Here is the trailer:

Watch that again. And again. And again.

Damn. This movie has the same crazed, artistic cinematography as The Cell. Apparently the director shot the movie piecemeal, financing it out of his pocket and piggybacking on commercial shoots in remote locations (which is pretty punk-rock.)

Maybe this movie was ahead of its time—since 2006 we’ve had a few blockbusters that rely heavily on visuals (300, Pan’s Labyrinth, Sin City) so that could mean that America is finally ready for Tarsem.

I need to figure out what “limited release” means exactly. Why’d I move to NYC if I can’t go see movies that only play “in selected cities” (that phrase was, incidentally, the bane of my existence growing up in a small town.) Anyone know when/where this movie is showing in the city?

via WWTDD and NY Mag

The Cell trailer:

You might know Tarsem from his earlier music video work. Such as this classic:

and here’s the video for the song:

In my research I found that the band “Lights” is actually the girl “Lights”. And she likes triceratops. This is her (via her MySpace):

So not only is she a great pop singer, she’s easy on the eyes. This is the part where I usually supply a link to iTunes so you can buy the song but that link does not exist, it seems like Lights is a new, underground, up-and-coming artist and is still waiting to get into iTunes (so says her MySpace blog). Until then, check out her MySpace page everyday so you’ll be able to buy all of her music as soon as it’s available.

Here are the lyrics for “February Air”, in case you’re into that sort of thing:

If you don’t believe me
If you don’t like my plans
You mustn’t tell me
I know your face like the back of my hand

To walk the city
I talk to you understand
So won’t you tell me
I know this place like the back of my hand

My arms get cold
In February air
Please don’t lose hold of me out there

And I know you’re near me
I know you understand
Say that you’re with me
Do you know my face like the back of your hand

My arms get cold
In February air
Please don’t lose hold of me out there

My arms get cold
In February air
Please don’t lose hold of me out there

yeah yeah yeah yeah

Out there

yeah yeah yeah yeah
hey yeah
yeah yeah yeah yeah
hey yeah
yeah yeah yeah yeah

My arms get cold
In February air
Please don’t lose hold of me out there

My arms get cold
In February air
Please don’t lose hold of me out there

There
There
February air, air
And i know this place like the back of my hand

(Apologies for crappy audio, listen to the entire song here.)

This song was used in a few JCPenney commercials throughout the Oscar broadcast. I immediately recognized the song—“Killing the Blues” by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss from their album “Raising Sand”. You can buy it, and the rest of the album, from iTunes (and you should, click the album cover below.) A wonderful album across the board, this song stands out as the best track.

Buy now from iTunes

Here are the lyrics, if you’re into that kind of thing:

Leaves were falling, just like embers,
In colors red and gold, they set us on fire
Burning just like moonbeams in our eyes.

Somebody said they saw me, swinging the world by the tail
Bouncing over a white cloud, killing the blues.

Now I’m guilty of something…
I hope you never do
Because there is nothing
Any sadder than losing yourself in love.

Somebody said they saw me, swinging the world by the tail
Bouncing over a white cloud, killing the blues.

And then you’ve ask me… just to leave you
To set out on my own
And get what I needed.
You want me to find what I’ve already had.

This ad follows the trend JCPenney borrowed from Old Navy over the holidays—using a dramatic song as the only audio throughout a TV spot.

“American Living” is a new JCPenney brand developed by Global Brand Concepts, a division of Polo Ralph Lauren.

So, it finally happened today. I got spam on my Facebook wall. Maybe this is common, but it’s the first I’ve seen of it. I thought something was suspect when a guy from my High School wrote on my wall apropos of nothing. Turns out he wanted to let me know about a site with great free ring tones.

I know it’s naive but these spamming fucks really get me down. This is why we can’t have nice things. I stopped using MySpace because of all the spam, and one of the reasons I love Facebook is because, up till now, it’s been spam free.

Hopefully this won’t become a trend.

via Larissa Meek

One of the promos for the episode featured the song “Breathe Me” by Sia. This song (video below) was first made popular in the series finale for Six Feet Under where it was used as an overlay for the final (tear-jerking) moments of the episode. It’s a great song, and it has a really great video:

I can’t imagine how long that took. I love that in a single Polaroid she’s wearing a Storm Trooper helmet. Geeky girls are hot. You can buy the song on iTunes here if you’re feeling plaintive. I might have to make a mix since I really enjoy this type of music.

Lyrics, for those that like that sort of thing:

Help, I have done it again
I have been here many times before
Hurt myself again today
And, the worst part is there’s no-one else to blame

Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
and needy
Warm me up
And breathe me

Ouch I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found,
Yeah I think that I might break
Lost myself again and I feel unsafe

Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
and needy
Warm me up
And breathe me

Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
and needy
Warm me up
And breathe me

I liked the song. It has a good evil-broadcast-from-a-podium, “can you dig it” vibe and some pleasing rhymes. So, in the wake of the popularity of my last two commercial music posts, I thought I’d do some research.

The song used is called “Ladies and Gentleman” by Saliva. Remember Saliva? They sang that song “New Disease” or “Your Disease” or “I’m Diseased” or something, it was crap. This song, however, is fierce as hell.

Grab it from iTunes here.

For those that are interested, here are the lyrics:

“Ladies And Gentlemen”=

Ladies and gentlemen please
Would you bring your attention to me?
For a feast for your eyes to see
An explosion of catastrophe

Like nothing you’ve ever seen before
Watch closely as I open this door
Your jaws will be on the floor
After this you’ll be begging for more

Welcome to the show
Please come inside
Ladies and gentlemen

Boom
Do you want it?
Boom
Do you need it?
Boom
Let me hear it
Ladies and gentlemen

Boom
Do you want it?
Boom
Do you need it?

Boom
Let me hear it
Ladies and gentlemen

Ladies and gentlemen good evening
You’ve seen that seeing is believing
Your ears and your eyes will be bleeding
Please check to see if you’re still breathing

Hold tight cause the show it not over
If you will please move in closer
Your about to be bowled over
By the wonders you’re about to behold here

Welcome to the show
Please come inside
Ladies and gentlemen

Boom
Do you want it?
Boom
Do you need it?
Boom
Let me hear it
Ladies and gentlemen

Way back when, Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake created an Internet phenomenon with their Dick in a Box song. If you’ve been in a cave, or want a refresher, check it out here. There’s been a lot of imitators and posers, most of them exactly as bad as you’d expect. “Step 1…cut a hole in the box” was the “I’m Rick James bitch” of 2007. That is until now. Leah Kauffman has created a parody (of a parody) that is almost as good as the original. She’s affiliated with barelypolitical.com, which I know nothing about. Her video “My Box in a Box” is inspired. Check it out:

Leah is hot in a waspy, Dave Matthews concert way, and obviously funny. She does have a case of the crazy eyes though. This video is great, I hope there’s more of her out there.

Technorati Profile

If you want to support me, add this site to your favorites on Technorati.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ps1c1Z2Rl8

This is a commencement speech Steve Jobs gave to the graduating class of Stanford (full context here). He tells three stories from his life. It’s long, but I think it’s moving, and worth it.

1. Typography. Turns out that after Jobs dropped out of college he audited a few classes. On of these was calligraphy. This class taught him an appreciation for typography’s history, art, and value. He used this info later when he designed the Apple computer. And, as he put it, “Since windows just copied the Mac, if it wasn’t for this class personal computing might not have any kind of beautiful typography”. There’s a snowball effect for you.
2. Being fired was awesome. After Jobs was fired from Apple, it let him look at his life and pursue his passions again. This led to Pixar, his company Next being bought by Apple, and his wife and family. Not a bad severance package.
3. Death is around the corner. A bit morbid, Jobs explains how he uses death as a motivator in his life.

He concludes his speech with a quote from an old publication from the ’70s. “Stay hungry, stay foolish”. Not bad advice.

video via the always awesome 1938 media.

I leave you with a classic Apple ad. The message of which now, more than ever, is obviously right from Jobs’ mouth.

The new Apple Macbook Air is an amazing device, no doubt. As soon as it was announced yesterday you were sure that Apple would release a commercial for it with some awesome song by a sexy-sounding female singer ala their iPod Nano ad. Well the future is now, and the commercial is out.

What’s this song you ask? It’s by an artist named Yael Naim. There’s an umlaut over the “i” in “Naim” too, in case you’re into that sort of thing. The song is called “New Soul” and is from the artist’s self-titled album. I love the song and from what I’ve heard of the rest of her album, I love all this artist’s tracks. Check them out for yourself.

• Preview and buy Yael Naim songs from the iTunes store.
• visit the artist’s website.

If you want to hear the entire song used in the Macbook Air commercial, check out the video:

I might have to add Yael Naim to my recent mix tape of female singer/songwriters. Before we know it she’ll be in an Old Navy commercial.

Lyrics, for those of you who are into that type of thing:

I’m a new soul I came to this strange world hoping I could learn a bit about how to give and take.
But since I came here
Felt the joy and the fear
Finding myself making every possible mistake

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la…

I’m a young soul in this very strange world hoping I could learn a bit about what is true and fake.
But why all this hate?
Try to communicate.
Finding trust and love is not always easy to make.

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la…

This is a happy end cause’ you don’t understand everything you have done why’s everything so wrong

This is a happy end come and give me your hand I’ll take your far away.

I’m a new soul I came to this strange world hoping I could learn a bit about how to give and take
But since I came here fellt the joy and the fear finding myself making every possible mistake

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la…

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la…

Enjoy. If there are other commercials you’d like to know the music to, leave me a comment. Be sure to subscribe as well since I try to post up info on great TV commercial music as I come across ones that catch my ear.

DJ Stout has redesigned the magazine Dairy Today that is launching this month. In addition to a bold new logotype, the magazine will feature a stylized “portrait” of a dairy cow on the cover of each issue in an effort to differentiate it from its competitors.

I think these new covers are beautiful. Maybe it’s because I grew up around them, but I’ve always found cows to have a pastoral beauty. If you’ve ever spent time with them, you’ll know they’re very peaceful, mellow animals.

via SwissMiss, and others.

http://www.vimeo.com/267097

I saw this at FitC last year and it’s still mindblowingly awesome.

Brendan has more annoyingly creative stuff on his blog like bouncing pixels for popular posts.

Olivia Olson - All I Want for Christmas Is You

from Love Actually

I’m sure there’ll be more press as we head toward open beta and eventual public launch of the site. Check out FiLife.com for more (I work there now).

This is a good video, and it is a great Christmas special. I know I’ve been rocking out to this Charlie Brown Christmas Mashup for the last few weeks. Dig it!

Game on mother fucker.

In what will be my last post about Martino Flynn (it’s my last day) I want to share this news broadcast. We recently gave up email agency-wide and the cameras were there to record the results.

Fun drinking games to play while watching the video:

• Take a drink every time you see or hear Danielle
• Take a drink every time there’s an awkwardly extreme closeup
• Take two drinks every time ‘he’ or ’she’ is used instead of a proper name since, apparently, there was no fact checking.
• Chug your drink whenever the ‘new email’ sound from Entourage blows out in an over-modulated fit of cacophony.
• When you see me (it’s quick, and you might miss it) finish you drink and stand up. You win!

BTW, the blog they mention in the end (right after that lady-anchor does her comedy bit from 1998) was written by my boy Scott Wolf and it’s a pretty good read.

It all started, as many things do, with Apple. Their iPod Nano ad lodged that Feist song in all of our brains, permanently. I was a fan of her and found the video plucky so I never complained.

From there Old Navy picked up the ball. They featured the song “The Way I Am” by Ingrid Michaelson in an ad for holiday sweaters. Grab the song from iTunes.

The next one I saw was JCPenney. When commercials are on I tend to be looking at the computer (and away from the TV) so this ad caught my attention when I recognized the voice of Deb Talan, who is one half of the great band The Weepies and happens to be from Western Massachusetts–what up! The song is “All That I Want” and, replete with jingling sleigh bells, works perfectly with the holiday theme. It’s nice to see the group getting more exposure. I first heard of them when they were featured on How I Met Your Mother last season. Grab the song from iTunes.

Then tonight I saw–or, rather heard–another Old Navy commercial, using the song “Stars” also by The Weepies. Grab the song from iTunes. Even though the ad looks like it was styled to look like a CW version of A Clockwork Orange, three times constitutes a trend so I started my research

I found a few others from JCPenney that have similar songs:

There’s Forever Thursday’s “How Can It Be”. Grab the song from iTunes. This is probably my favorite ad of them all. It reminds me (both visually and auditorily) of the “Hello Tomorrow” Spike Jonez spot for Adidas.

And Regina Spektor’s “Music Box”. Grab the song from iTunes.

I’m really pleased to see all these songs being used in ads. They fit the holiday mood perfectly and appeal to the female demographic I think these companies are going for. The music has a playfulness to it, but also a vulnerability–the artists seem to be pouring themselves into the songs. I can only hope there’ll be more. If the agencies of these companies need some recommendations, I’ve got them right here.

Without further adieu, I give you the first AllMyLiesAreWishes themed playlist. I call it “Ice Skating”. Put these songs on your iPod and go celebrate some holiday cheer (or at least buy some sweaters).

1. Feist - “One Two Three Four”, The Reminder. †
2. The Weepies - “Take It from Me”, Say I Am You.
   This song has the most whimsical lyrics: “What can I compare you to? A favorite pair of shoes? Maybe my bright red boots…if they had wings.”
3. Ingrid Michaelson - “The Way I Am”, Girls and Boys †
4. Jaymay - “Snow White”, Autumn Fallin’.
   Another band to come from HIMYM, though not this song.
5. Forever Thursday - “How Can It Be”, How Can It Be - Single. †
   There’s very little info out there on this band. Anyone know anything?
6. Bic Runga - “Sway”, Drive.
   This goes all the way back to American Pie. It was used in the scene where Oz and Heather spend the night in Stifler’s boat house.
7. The Weepies - “Gotta Have You”, Say I Am You.
   This was the song used in HIMYM, more specifically the “First Time in New York” episode.
8. Regina Spektor - “Better”, Begin to Hope.
   Some of Spektor’s stuff is a little too weird for me but this album is all good, all the time.
9. Bic Runga and Dan Wilson - “Good Morning Baby”, American Pie Soundtrack.
   Another one to dust off. I’ll even allow a male singer since this song is so perfect for the mix. Plus, come on, Semisonic.
10. Maria Mena - “You’re the Only One”, White Turns Blue.
    “I’m sorry about that time I put my hand between your legs and said it was small, because it’s really not at all.” ’nuff said. Check out the video, she’s cute as hell.
11. Jaymay - “Sea Green, See Blue.”, Autumn Fallin’.
    This song was used to underline the denouement of the season finale for How I Met Your Mother last year.
12. Shiela Nicholls - “Fallen for You”, High Fidelity Soundtrack.
    This song doesn’t fit quite as well with the mood of this mix but it is a track that everyone I’ve ever given it to has fallen in love with.
13. Regina Spektor - “Fidelity”, Begin to Hope.
    Another great video.
14. The Weepies - “All That I Want”, Happiness. †
15. Regina Spektor - “On the Radio”, Begin to Hope.
    The first chorus is a little odd but bear with it, the second time around hits the message home. “You peer inside yourself/You take the things you like/And try to love the things you took/And then you take that love you made/And stick it into some/Someone else’s heart/Pumping someone else’s blood/And walking arm in arm/You hope it don’t get harmed/But even if it does/You’ll just do it all again”
16. Tegan and Sara - “Where Does the Good Go”, So Jealous.
    Grey’s Anatomy fans will recognize this song. Tegan and Sara are such a fun group.
17. The Weepies - “Stars”, Say I Am You. †
    This is the fourth Weepies song on this list. Take the hint.
18. Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories - “Stay (I Missed You)”, Tails.
    Going all the way back to 1995 the mix closes out with the prototype singer/songwriter that paved the way for all the artists you’ve just heard. History is good.

† Used in one of the ads mentioned above.

Devoted Customer Upset Jimmy Dean Downsized Sausage 16oz To 12oz But Charges Same Price.

This is the greatest thing I’ve heard in awhile. This poor Texan just wants to feed his plump wife and 600lbs of men in his home. How could you Jimmy Dean?

PS. Those Jimmy Dean “Chocolate Chip Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick” are the nastiest thing I’ve ever seen. Chocolate and ground meat never go together.

Music Videos

The White Stripes - Fell in Love With a Girl

The Chemical Brothers - Let Forever Be

Radiohead - Knives Out

Gary Jules - Mad World

In closing, here is a short video of Mr. Gondry solving a Rubik’s Cube with his nose. I have no idea of the context for this clip, if there is any at all.

So, it’s finally happened. I’ve got a job and I’m moving to NYC. I’ve been talking about this for a long time and I can’t express how excited I am to finally be doing it.

The Job

I’ll be working for IAC in the awesome Frank Gehry designed building in Chelsea. My job title is “front end developer” and I start on December 10th.

The Move

My last day at my current job is December 5th, a Wednesday. That gives me just four days to pack up in Rochester, move everything I own into storage, and show up for my first day of work the following Monday. I had once planned to take some time off but that is not going to happen even a little bit.

The Building

One of the coolest things about my new job will be working in the Frank Gehry designed IAC building. It’s been written about in a few places and is the subject of many pictures. For more coolness check out the building’s web site. How many buildings have their own web sites?

The Future

Since my day-to-day life is about to change drastically, AllMyLiesAreWishes is going to change as well. I’ll be using this blog to post random cool things I find and talk about restaurants and TV like always but I’ll also be chronicling all my fun adventures in the city. Stay tuned. I’ve got some cool stuff in the works.

These magnetic balls are meant to hold business cards, pictures, or anything else on your desk that you’d like to display in a fresh-to-death way. They’re also good for hours of fun–pull them apart and watch them slam back together. How cool. Watch the following video to see just how cool it gets.

Visit site.

That being said, I cruise Etsy very often for cool notebook designs. I hit the jackpot when I found goshdarnknit tonight. In addition to the image above, there are these illustrated styles:

Check it out. The notebooks are affordable and each one started as a moleskin so you know it’s quality.

Blogged with Flock

Any press is good press though, especially for Ryan and his site, Employee Evolution. Congrats to him on sticking up for a generation.

Watch as “Morley Safer reports on the new generation of “millennials.” They are in their late teens to early twenties and could be ill prepared for a demanding workplace.”

via CBSnews.

Blogged with Flock

What does it mean? Well, time will tell. For the immediate I’m helping out on the site (I designed the fresh to death intro graphic for the four of us) and doing some write-ups. My first two assignments are under way. There’s more in the future–mainly attending dining events in NYC that Adam cannot make and writing them up after.

Why would I want to be an intern? Why wouldn’t I? It’s a chance to validate the already inordinate amount of time I spend thinking, writing, and talking about food and to do so on a platform that puts my writing in front of a lot more eyes than a blog I started on my own. Plus, I can’t imagine that knowing Adam will be a bad thing.

So check out the introductory post and skim the site if you aren’t already a fan. In the interest of self promotion I’ll probably post here whenever I have posted there.

Einhorn is a man! Lisa Edelstein, on the other hand, isn’t. Well, I don’t have first-hand knowledge of that but all evidence I’ve seen suggests that it is true.

The true gender of Edelstein is not the point of this. The point is that Lisa Edelstein—who plays Dr. Lisa Cuddy on House—has always looked familiar to me. I could never put my finger on it. Every scene she’s in gives me that feeling like when you have a song lyric stuck in your head. It left me quite vexed.

Recently I tossed in an old Sports Night DVD to listen to, idly, while I caught up on emails and did some work. It was the episode called “Eli’s Coming”—one of my favorites—which centers around a bad day at work for co-anchor Dan Rydell (Josh Charles). One aspect of that bad day is that a new girl will be sitting at his side for the night’s broadcast, an alleged former paramour named Bobbi Bernstein who is played by none other than Lisa Edelstein.

That was the forehead slapping (more specifically, desk slapping) moment where it all clicked. I used to watch this show religiously in college so this episode, along with one or two others featuring the Bobbi Bernstein character, explain why Edelstein looks so familiar to me on House.

Edelstein has appeared in a couple other shows that I hear some people like to watch.

This is great. I wish I’d had this video to refer people to when they ask me what being a designer means. That it’s more than graphic design or industrial design. You don’t need a beret or a drafting table; a compass or a set of paint brushes. It’s just telling a story. Also, this is an important video to refer to those egotistical designers, the ones who think people need to learn to use their work. The truth is, designers are artisans rather than artists, we build tools that people use, not things that hang on museum walls. Watch this five times then send it to all your friends.

via Pan-Dan.

Update: I grabbed the FLV and wrapped it in a new video player that allows full screen since it’s a tiny file. I hope it doesn’t upset the people at Moooi. I’ll take it down if it does. It’s 22mb so give it time to load. I suggest visiting the Moooi site unless you really want full screen.

This won’t be news to most people who know me personally since I’ve been demanding people participate for the past couple months. That being said, I’m proud to announce my newest project: Have You Met Ted: The How I Met Your Mother Blog. I launched this site in the beginning of September and have been working on it ever since. I am a huge fan of the show so writing for the blog (all of which is currently done by me) has been easy. The site is an original design based on a preexisting WordPress template (I feel it’s been modified enough so as to no longer resemble the original).

The current stats for the blog are not too shabby:

• To date there are 45 posts and 60 comments. That’s a good ratio.
• I’ve gotten almost 2K visits with over 4.5K page views.
• The average time on the site is 3 minutes with a 50% bounce rate.
• A Google search for have you met ted returns the blog as the third result
• The site shows up at the top of page 4 for the Google search how i met your mother blog
• A nice little fledgling community of commenters and fellow bloggers has been built which makes me look forward to writing new posts and checking the comments each day.

All in all, I’m quite happy with my progress so far. The site is less than 60 days old and it’s moving along at a pace that I had hoped for but not actually expected.

I’ll be introducing a new weekly feature on Thursday that I think is an original idea–at least I’ve never seen it on a TV blog before–and better yet, I think it’ll be very popular and quite amusing.

If you like the show, if you think you might like the show, or if you like Century, go check it out and leave a comment. I’d appreciate it.

• You can visit the blog’s main page.
• First time visitors should go here.
• Music from the show? Yeah, we’ve got that.
• This week’s episode discussion. Join in!
• If you’re reading this after Thurs Oct 25 you can check out the new weekly feature I was mentioning.

– JD aka:

I remember I was hammering on a fence in the west pasture when Papa approached. He was carrying a letter or something in his hand, and he looked worried.I continued to hammer as he came toward me. “Son,” he said, “why are you hammering on that fence? It already has plenty of nails in it.”“Oh, I’m not using nails, Papa,” I replied. “I’m just hammering.” With that, I returned to my hammering.

Papa asked me to stop hammering, as he had some news.
I did stop hammering, but first I got a couple more hammers in, and this seemed to make Papa mad. “I said, stop hammering!” he yelled.

I think he felt bad for yelling at me, especially since it looked like he had bad news. “Look,” he said, “you can hammer later, but first –”

Well, I didn’t even wait to hear the rest. As soon as I heard “You can hammer,” that’s what I started doing.
Hammering away, happy as an old hammer dog.

Papa tried to physically stop me from hammering by inserting a small log of some sort between my hammer and the fence. But I just kept on hammering, ’cause that’s the way I am when I get that hammer going.
Then, he just grabbed my arm and made me stop.

“I’m afraid I have some news for you,” he said.

I swear, what I did next was not hammering. I was just letting the hammer swing lazily at arm’s length, and maybe it tapped the fence once or twice, but that’s all. That apparently didn’t make any difference whatsoever to Papa, because he just grabbed my hammer out of my hand and flung it across the field.

When I saw my hammer flying helplessly through the air like that, I just couldn’t take it. I burst out crying, I admit it. And I ran to the house, as fast as my legs could take me.

“Son, come back!” yelled Papa. “What about your hammer?!”

But I could not have cared less about hammering at that point. I ran into the house and flung myself onto my bed, pounding the bed with my fists. I pounded and pounded, until finally, behind me, I heard a voice.
“As long as you’re pounding, why not use this?” I turned, and it was Papa, holding a brand-new solid-gold hammer.

I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes and ran to Papa’s outstretched arms. But suddenly, Papa jumped out of the way, and I went sailing through the second-story window behind him.

Whenever I hear about a kid getting in trouble with drugs, I like to tell him this story.

By Jack Handey

Many thanks to Matt Swain for showing this to me years ago and finding it online for me tonight.

I don’t know if this would be funny, quirky, and amusing or incredibly depressing. I, for one, don’t really need the knowledge that I am the same weight as a cloven farm animal.

via Angry Retail by way of Swiss Miss