Totally rad. Old-school OCLV fork, stripped steel frame, gears, and a super clean King headset. Nice work, whoever this is. Outside Gimme! in Manhattan.

A little more affected here, but the Paul brake lever, straight purple ano bar and grey paint kill it. A King headset, this time in gold, and a Mavic front wheel skewer, really bring the room together. Digging the SLR saddle and the American Classic post. I bet a girl rides this, and I bet she looks super hot while she does so. Outside Equinox, Manhattan.

A steel Colnago with a basket? Nice. And everything, down to the hubs, is vintage Campy. While my uncles used to call that stuff “Cramp and go slow” (instead of Campagnolo), it’s still totally perfect on an aging classic frame. Outside Equinox, Manhattan.

This bike oozes style, but in all the non-affected ways. Celeste is beautiful.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s this totally affected, totally hipster machine found in SF, at the Blue Bottle Coffee. Cool hubs, cool rims. But the cork grips and freewheel are pretty lame on a bike like this. Best part? The re-painted Felt frame: cool tube shapes, fatty chainstays, very cool.

My ride is lame in comparison. But I’m fast on it.

I hadn’t heard about the underpants gnomes’ business plan until today, in a status meeting: “It was a total underpants gnomes presentation”.

Beautiful.

Stay in School from Clay Parker Jones on Vimeo.

Because I’ve never shared this video on this blog (you’ve maybe seen it on my Tumblr, Vimeo or even on the video cassette that I still own), I’d like to take a few moments to embarrass myself. In 2002—my sophomore year of college—I was on an MTV program called “Taildaters”. The premise was as follows: two people go on a blind date. Four of their friends (out of 10 names supplied by each) follow the date in a recreational vehicle, watching the tomfoolery unfold onscreen. They use two-way pagers (really!? pagers?) to contact the daters throughout the date. The tailers’ identities remain private until the end of the episode. I was paid $50 to go on the show and I had the time of my life.

And, in an all-time first for me, someone at my friends’ wedding recognized me from the show. It was a marvelous moment for my ego.

I hope you enjoy it.

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Not a whole lot to say here, other than:

1. This is amazing.
2. This is how I want to present my ideas to people.
3. This is a lot harder than it looks. Seems simple, but it’s an epic story told by a master information designer/animator.

Thank you, Telebrands, for bringing us two amazing things: a great new product (the Comfort Wipe) and this most excellent infomercial. Let it be known that I’m a sucker for DRTV.

A few highlights:

1. Microsoft Impact: an underrated font choice.
2. The release button on the end of the wand: definitely looks durable. That should last
3. The lack of discussion of the wand being easy to clean is probably a good choice.
4. Is it me, or is the TP attaching to the wrong side of the wand? I feel like it would be better on the other side.
5. Until I saw this spot, I had no idea that (a) being a big guy had its advantages and that (b) one of the disadvantages of extra male mass is difficulty with wiping. But I guess that makes sense.
6. The old lady looks like she’s trying to seduce me while talking about her dignity. Not cool, old lady. Should we talk regularity next? That should lighten the mood.
7. As Brow Beat suggests, this is hardly the first innovation to the TP world since 1880. Charmin and Cottonelle both offer moistened, flushable wipes. And can I get some respect for quilted tissues?
8. NUDITY WATCH: There’s some near-nudity happening at 1:31. My slow-motion analysis reveals no substantive evidence of nudity here, but it’s darn close.

So, Telebrands, can I re-do your site?

And Charmin and/or Cottonelle, can we launch a line of moistened wipes that target guys? I think that would be a winner. It seems ridiculous to me that most people stick with dry paper for this task. I don’t see dog owners reaching for 80lb bond to clean up pet messes around the home.

While we’re on the topic, why don’t we try other fabric types? I suggest a seersucker texture, for sanitation during the summer months.

That is all.

The dude with the timesheets killed me. I love it. And this stopped seven non-ad people dead in their tracks last night as they were leaving after dinner, so I figure it worked. Nice job, Taco Bell.

However, two things:

1. This world would be better without another portmanteau, this time between two pretty good words: “Break” and “Vacation”.
2. I love how that song glosses over the fact that the two characters took out ads to cheat on each other. Nice subtle endorsement of the swinger lifestyle, TB!

And this is Dancing Guy, who according to Buzzfeed has “a PhD in party-making.” I can’t disagree. He dances for a while by himself (to 1:15 in the clip, but there’s a break in the footage indicating that he’s soloing for much longer), when another dude shows up. They rock themselves into Mordor for a while — I LOVE the part at like, 1:25 where the dude does a 45° handstand, and Dancing Guy gives him props like he just landed a quadruple Salchow — when a few more dudes find the burgeoning fiesta relevant to their interests. At 2:00 the ladies show up and then, true to theory, the party gets out of control. People start running to the party, when not a minute before it was pretty much dead, just a solitary crazyperson doing the hippie dance to their heart’s content. And then the party gets too big for its britches and everyone stops dancing.

These videos, friends, are illustrative of three phenomena of the internet and (gasp) real life.

1. Things get popular because they are popular (cumulative advantage at work).
2. When things get big, they get bad.
3. A single concerned citizen can get big things going. This person is usually a nerd.

I’ll leave the latter two to another post. Cumulative advantage is particularly interesting in that it speaks directly to the reasons why some things become popular in a networked society. Studies show that the parametric qualities of a given thing have little to do with the prediction for that thing’s popularity; in fact, it’s almost impossible to look at a given thing and determine that it will or will not be popular with lots of people.

This in mind, I encourage everyone out there to throw up their hands and say, “oh well!” and let the visible currents of our society guide you. While there will be anomalies (Subservient Chickens, Miatas, Razrs, and Walkmen), when it comes to predicting popularity, just run as fast as you can to the party and you’ll do just fine. Get there before it gets lame, do what you can, and then move on.

How’s that for social currency?

*I’m just kidding. And here’s a link to the app.

I just got a new pair, thanks to my good buddy Kevin Panke, and I’m going through the incredibly painful break-in process with them as I type. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Rainbows are the most rewarding kind of footwear possible. The break-in is rough, bloody, and long, but the comfort you get after those two weeks is unparalleled. My current pair has lasted since my original post three years ago, and I’m reluctant to retire this pair entirely. But these fresh, Sierra Brown ‘bows await.

 Crispy.

Getting tired, but still looking good.

I’m always intrigued by brands and products that can overcome relatively large barriers to use. In Rainbow’s case, the sandals are far more expensive than other alternatives and they take what seems like forever to break in. And they don’t seem to do much in the way of promotion for their brand, yet they’ve garnered a pretty significant distribution network. As far as I can tell, the reward for use is so high that the barriers mean little to fans of the brand. Pretty fertile ground for those of us in the communications industry.

On a similar note, I’ve just come into possession of an awesome new pair of Red Wing boots. They’re model 1907, and the color — get this — is “Copper Rough & Tough”. They look broken-in already, due to the tanning of the leather, but they’re still quite stiff and are just now beginning to become comfortable. But I’m sure they’ll give me years of service, and they’re a pretty big step toward completing my lumberjack aesthetic. Check out the Norwegian welt (where the sole attaches to the upper). Instead of hiding part of the welt underneath the upper as with a Goodyear welt, it wraps up onto the upper, and making the whole boot rather stiff and supportive. Not a bad thing in a work boot. So cool.

Look at those awesome details.

So cool. Gonna start writing a bit more about clothes, shoes and such. Hope you don’t hate it.

We started with LA. That’s Adam.

There’s me, with the A.

It was super-duper hot. This is where it started to get out of hand.

The E was getting a little out of hand.

But it turned out okay.

 Pretty.

The final piece will spell out the word “CELEBRATE”. The title is still TBD, but it’ll open on June 23, and you should totally come check it out. It will be at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art, at 547 West 27th Street in NYC.