• PARTY DOWN WITH THE GÜT! — Newbies to the show skip right to Season 2, Episode 5. It’s got everything you’re looking for: Steve Guttenberg, art, sci-fi, fine wines, and (of course) a photo of a guy trying to fuck porcupine.
• ELIZABETH SHUE KILLS ON LAST WEEK’S “DOUG LOVES MOVIES” — The ex-Karate Kid star talks side boob and other movie magic secrets, so much so that some of them get bleeped. This week’s podcast should be available later today.
• DUTCH JERSEY SHORE! — Hey, you can understand douchebag in any language! Watch it on RTL5, Thursdays @ 22.00
• COLORFUL SLEEPING TERRORIST COSTUME NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRIVATE USE! — Finally, the Snazzy Napper covers all of your travel needs including looking like a weirdo and making children cry.

I love you Google. Thanks for even showing the word “Free!” while I was making my call from Amsterdam to California.

Hey Skype — fuck you.

via Engadget

One of the things I had been thinking about the last couple of months is how to create more privacy for our guest bedroom whose windows are located on the street level. Even though I frosted the top halves so people outside couldn’t see in without getting on their hands and knees, any guest that came to stay would still feel overlooked since the bottom halves of the windows are still exposed.

At some point, I had this half-joking idea of making a desk out of Legos, but since then I have seriously considered using Lego as a building material for a privacy wall. This mosiac, plastic wall with the exact measurements of the exposed glass could sit on the window ledge quite easily and be removed by just simply picking it up. If we didn’t like the way it looked, we could always change it, and if we decided it just didn’t work, we could take it apart and at least have buckets and buckets of Legos to play with. It seemed like a win-win situation!

And it was… until the first wall fell. The Legos, although meticulously stacked together four wide for extra support, were actually still malleable and as the months wore on, the top started to lean inward until finally, one day, while sitting at the dinner table, Zach and I watched the bricks slowly fall to the ground and break into a million sadness pieces.

The cleaner vacuumed around the carnage for several months while I tried to think up solutions to make the wall more structurally sound. I decided on recreating the wall with supports to keep the top from leaning and so far that’s worked. It’s not perfect, but in the greater scheme of things, we never had to put one hole in the walls, it looks awesome from the outside and people always stop to stare it. Plus it’s nice that the neighbors can’t see me getting the laundry out of the dryer in my underwear anymore.

The Automatiek exhibit at the Amsterdam Historical Museum features these classic, self-serve vending machines dispensing historical Dutch objects instead of the old, odd, fried piece of frikadel as teaser for the upcoming new National Historical Museum.

There are a variety of objects to choose from ranging from the obvious Dutch cheese knife to the more obscure Dutch (?!) cassette tape. With each object only costing one or two euros, it’s easy to walk away from the exhibit with a whole lot of new Dutch stuff in your hands as well as in your head. Unless you are one of these people…

The Oma-Hackers

There’s always some one out there looking to beat the system, I just never thought it would be a pair of outlaw grandmas. These two gal pals showed up one day to the exhibit with their own previously made RFID cards. Many people who come to exhibit tend to recharge their card during their first visit to buy more objects, but to come back for seconds, it was unprecedented. Of course, more shocking was the fact that they just refilled their cards, bought their objects and tried to leave without even watching the movie (which I, personally, think is the best part of the whole exhibit). As some one who worked on the project, I had to stop them and ask them why.

Turns out the Automatiek was the best deal on quality tea towels this side of Amsterdam. What normally costs a whopping €6.95 in the stores was only €2 here at the exhibit and everyone on the granny grapevine was trying to get in while the getting was good. Hey, it’s classier than going to the 99¢ Store, right?

So come on down to the Automatiek exhibit before August 29th, 2010 at the Amsterdam Historisch Museum and get your tea towel today, while supplies last!

More info:

• “Trek in geschiedenis?”, Amsterdam Historisch Museum blog
• “Bij historisch denken mensen aan oude meuk”, Volkskrant
• “Writing history with objects”, Mediamatic Lab

Everything in Japan moves at its own pace—its own perfectly polite and energy-efficient pace. I was amazed to find an entire country whose population individually and collectively have such an amazing grasp of their own proxemics.

In Meguro, we witnessed groups of golfers patiently going from one hole to another, with each group seemingly never having to wait for the previous one to finish. At the same park, splatters of little children were being shuffled around by no more than two women with nothing but colored hats to distinguish them from the other herds of children. Finally, a the bus depot across from our hotel, I watched every night as every bus returned in sequential order and park closing before its gates.

It wasn’t until after I filmed this that my boss mentioned to me that this particular hair dryer was designed by Dieter Weiss, not Dieter Rams. So I can’t tell influential designers apart, so what? My boss stays up all night bidding on old womens’ hairdryers and no one has anything to say about that?!