au fil de...

More stunning images available here and here. From etsy's seller Au fil de... [via]

IPCO, the creamy snuff: "alive with pleasure"

My friend just came back from a month vacation in India and, unlike any other normal/boring person who would buy tons of fabrics, jewelry, art, etc, he came back with giant baloons and precious little novelties - which we are loving to try out. Our favorite one so far: IPCO creamy snuff. It's a mix of toothpaste, tobacco, and some misterious substance that will give you a buzz and make you feel "alive with pleasure". You're supposed to rub it on your gums for 3 - 4 minutes, rinse it off and spit. Here's how it went:

PS: Since @Alelex88 brought it up: i'm not crazy to put that nasty shit in my mouth. 20mg of Lexapro daily and a few beers here and there give me all the "alive with pleasure" I need.

the $233.95 spider

"This is a hysterical email exchange by David Thorne and someone he owes money to. The spider is now for sale on ebay. It was originally used in a payment attempt for a bill, but was sadly refused." [via]



From: Jane Gilles
Date: Wednesday 8 Oct 2008 12.19pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Overdue account

Dear David,
Our records indicate that your account is overdue by the amount of $233.95. If you have already made this payment please contact us within the next 7 days to confirm payment has been applied to your account and is no longer outstanding.

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles

+++++


From: David Thorne
Date: Wednesday 8 Oct 2008 12.37pm
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Overdue account

Dear Jane,
I do not have any money so am sending you this drawing I did of a spider instead.
I value the drawing at $233.95 so trust that this settles the matter.

Regards, David.











+++++

From: Jane Gilles
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 10.07am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Overdue account

Dear David,
Thankyou for contacting us. Unfortunately we are unable to accept drawings as payment and your account remains in arrears of $233.95. Please contact us within the next 7 days to confirm payment has been applied to your account and is no longer outstanding.

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles

+++++


From: David Thorne
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 10.32am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Overdue account

Dear Jane,
Can I have my drawing of a spider back then please.

Regards, David.

+++++


From: Jane Gilles
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 11.42am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Overdue account

Dear David,
You emailed the drawing to me. Do you want me to email it back to you?

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles

+++++


From: David Thorne
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 11.56am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Overdue account

Dear Jane,

Yes please.

Regards, David.

+++++


From: Jane Gilles
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 12.14pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Overdue account

Attached










+++++


From: David Thorne
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 09.22am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Whose spider is that?

Dear Jane,
Are you sure this drawing of a spider is the one I sent you? This spider only has seven legs and I do not feel I would have made such an elementary mistake when I drew it.

Regards, David.

+++++


From: Jane Gilles
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 11.03am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Whose spider is that?

Dear David,
Yes it is the same drawing. I copied and pasted it from the email you sent me on the 8th.
David your account is still overdue by the amount of $233.95.
Please make this payment as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles

+++++


From: David Thorne
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 11.05am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Automated Out of Office Response

Thankyou for contacting me.
I am currently away on leave, traveling through time and will be returning last week.

Regards, David.

+++++


From: David Thorne
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 11.08am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

Hello, I am back and have read through your emails and accept that despite missing a leg, that drawing of a spider may indeed be the one I sent you. I realise with hindsight that it is possible you rejected the drawing of a spider due to this obvious limb ommission but did not point it out in an effort to avoid hurting my feelings. As such, I am sending you a revised drawing with the correct number of legs as full payment for any amount outstanding. I trust this will bring the matter to a conclusion.

Regards, David.











+++++


From: Jane Gilles
Date: Monday 13 Oct 2008 2.51pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

Dear David,
As I have stated, we do not accept drawings in lei of money for accounts outstanding.
We accept cheque, bank cheque, money order or cash. Please make a payment this week to avoid incurring any additional fees.

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles

+++++


From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 13 Oct 2008 3.17pm
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

I understand and will definitely make a payment this week if I remember. As you have not accepted my second drawing as payment, please return the drawing to me as soon as possible. It was silly of me to assume I could provide you with something of completely no value whatsoever, waste your time and then attach such a large amount to it.

Regards, David.

+++++


From: Jane Gilles
Date: Tuesday 14 Oct 2008 11.18am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

Attached

ana laura perez

I am absolutely in love Ana Laura Perez's work. She's an artist from Argentina, her stuff is so delicate, simple and rich all at the same time. She has a thing for really long hair, and she draws that like no one else. Her portfolio features line drawings, comissioned patterns, collages, and some of her published work.

You can check out her blog, her portfolio, her fickr, and her etsy - it's all worh taking a good look at.

virgin: a passenger complaint letter

Here we reproduce a complaint letter sent to Sir Richard Branson, which is currently being emailed globally and is considered by many to be the world's funniest passenger complaint letter. [via]

"Dear Mr Branson

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.

Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at thehands of your corporation.

Look at this Richard. Just look at it:

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:

I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer.

I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.

Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this:

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.

Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.

By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it’s baffling presentation:

It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.

I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.

Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:

I apologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel:

Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.

My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:

Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.

Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.

So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.

As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance.

Yours Sincererly

XXXX"


* Paul Charles, Virgin’s Director of Corporate Communications, confirmed that Sir Richard Branson had telephoned the author of the letter and had thanked him for his “constructive if tongue-in-cheek” email. Mr Charles said that Virgin was sorry the passenger had not liked the in-flight meals which he said was “award-winning food which is very popular on our Indian routes.”

hidden treasure

A customer review of Bic Crystal Ballpoint Pen, Medium Point, Black

by Matthew R. Balousek

"Upon receiving my order, I carefully opened the box and dug through the packing peanuts in order to get to the pen contained therein. 'Beautiful!', I thought, and promptly opened up my moleskine notebook to jot down to myself some notes. My previous pen had ran out of ink four weeks prior and I didn't want to splurge on expensive shipping, which meant I had a lot of notes to catch up on writing.

But, when that quality carbide ball touched the surface of the paper, it was not ink that came out. From a distance I heard the screams of men and the cackling of innumerable ravens. I stopped, cold and sweating profusely. I looked down at the Bic Crystal black medium ballpoint pen which I held in my hand, only to see darkness. I dashed it against the wall, recoiling in horror. I saw in the corner of my eye my faithful notebook, which now lay on the ground. Once unmarred, I saw now the small mark which I had made with the devil's own pen. It spread across the page like a plague, and looking at it I gazed upon true horrors. For, what I thought had been ink was in fact a portal to a dark, unforgiving dimension. A portal whose maw was now widening to engulf all hope and joy in the world.

'God, what have I done?' I exclaimed as I weeped and fell to my knees, 'What have I done?'

From beyond the Dark Gate I heard these words, words which I can never forget. A terrible, booming voice said to me, 'Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fthagn!'

I ran, blindly stumbling, away from that place and never looked back. My only hope is that none shall follow in the path I've walked down, too blinded by hubris to realize my follies."

[link]

+++++++++++++

Thanks, @Alelex88, you endless source of awesomeness!

typography haiku

.•


there is no simpler
joy than having all your words
dressed in their finest




[link]

cocksure

how the human anatomy responds to poorly made design

[via] [link]

perfection

[via]

you have bored me to death

by Ellie Cryer

walking to jericho

Stunning, original photograph digitally combined with paint, by Fiona - the lady behind Walking To Jericho.

seconds

Remember those plates by Christopher Jagmin I posted the other day? I found another series with a similar concept by artist Jason Miller (who, by the way, is an IU graduate like me!). They are awesome and you can buy them here.

[via]

nobody knows

[via the lovely Harpy]

i have sold my soul to LG

I kid, I kid...

Let me tell you the story.

So I've decided to try something different. A few weeks ago, I got an email from a person at an advertising agency who works for LG inviting me to be part of a project they're developing to launch a new cell phone. I found that very odd considering the fact that I'm no Dooce or no web 2.0 celebrity, so I emailed them back and asked them a series of question: "why me??, where the hell did you find me??, do you KNOW what you're getting yourself into by inviting me??, have you REALLY read my blog??, if I don't like the cell phone can I talk about it??, WHY ME???."

So after kindly replying to my very skeptical email, they made it very clear that this was not just a dumb advertising trick, it's more of a a qualitative product research that uses platforms of the web 2.0 to showcase the interaction of the user with the device. To do that, I'll be uploading to my youtube account 10 quick videos per week for the next 4 weeks. The idea is to capture people's reactions to the interface, design, and features of the cell phone (which is a cute, cheaper version of an iPhone).

Now let's get to the FAQ:

1. Will you be getting paid for this?
I firmly believe this is none of your business. None of you, kind readers, pay my bills. However, I do understand your concern with the credibility of this blog. So the answer is: NOOOO. I will not be getting paid. But if you consider a free cell phone at the end of the project a payment, then YES, I will be getting paid.

2. Are you going to be kissing LG's ass for the next 4 weeks?
No, I will not. The main reason why I chose to be part of this project is the fact that I get to say what I think. Those who really know me know that I would never compromise my ability to criticize in exchange for a cell phone.

3. Are you really that cheap that you would do that just to get a new cell phone?
Again, that would be none of your business. But just because it's Saturday and I got to sleep in, I will answer this one: I have a job, people. Fortunately, I have a decent amount of disposable income to waste on that kind of stuff. I just really want to see how this process works and it's something different to do. I don't sew, I don't knit, I don't collect stamps, I don't practice sports, nor do I have any hobbies. Allow me to try something new, will ya?

Ok, so that's about it. Apparently they'll have a hotsite for this project, so I'll be posting the link as soon as I know it. I'll also be uploading 30 sec. videos on my youtube account regularly, so feel free to check them out if you want to.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Quick note to brazilian bloggers who might be dying to criticize me: EAT ME, DEAR.

a-ok

Sasha, President Obama's youngest daughter, giving him a thumbs up after he was sworn in yesterday. Probably not the most popular moment of the inaugural, but the sweetest indeed.

delicate

Beautiful work by Yoko Furusho.

love: a haiku

[via]

this is the brazil i'm from

Chico Buarque and Caetano Veloso.

Carmen Miranda my ass.

endless sources of awesomeness

Just discovered Buy This Shirt. If only I had that much disposable income. Or the balls to wear all of them.

this one made me smile

Two nicely executed pieces designed for Cuttie Cut, a kids hair salon in Canada. [via]

Advertising Agency: Y&R, Toronto, Canada
Creative Director: David Houghton
Art Director: Zachary Muir-Vavrina
Copywriter: Sussana Forieri
Photographer: Jeremy Kohm

by rose la biche

pencil, defined

by Daniel Eatcock

press start to begin new phase

"If you’re just hoping to 'get through' this year’s financial crisis, you may be missing the bigger picture. The financial crisis is merely the final score of a game we’ve been playing for over a century — it’s called Free-market Capitalism. The game is officially over, and a new game is beginning."

We're in charge of discovering a new way of doing business that exists beyond the "one wins, one loses" idea. To me, that's all very exciting. It doesn't freak me out. It moves me forward. If only more people realized that.


[via]

she's me sometimes. it's scary.

"I was his hand and now I'm a ghost. That is not difficult. It's unbearable. Everybody is proud of him, but I'm not. I do not wish him well."

"recycling" orphan plates

by Christopher Jagmin

DIY grid wallpaper

A fantastic way to decorate and organize your desktop. Grids and type warm my heart. You can download an editable version and customize it to your needs, if you'd like.

[link] [via] By the way, this is just beautiful.

a type a day

Typodarium is a tear-off calendar showcasing 365 different fonts, the background behind its creation and several other interesting details. Fifty foundries and designers from all over the world contributed with their favorite fonts. "The result is a surprising insight into the inexhaustible world of letters and numbers. The front page, which is classic and functional, shows the date, while the reverse side diplays the background info, designers and reference sources". I tried to buy it, but looks like it's sold out.

minimalist monopoly

"Monopoly, in spite being the classiest of all board games, unfortunately is packaged just as boringly and uncreatively as every other garbage board game on the shelves. So, I decided to repackage it... turning the class up to 11.

All of the boxes are made out of chocolate brown mat board and skinned in cream arches cover. The final package is just over 10" x 10" x 1.5" and includes smaller containers for all of the various pieces and cards and a laser-cut holder for all of the houses and hotels."

Beautifully designed by Andy Mangold.

[via]

yes, girls poop too

I found this today and it made me laugh so hard, because I spent about an hour last night with a group of friends talking about the hassle of having to poop when you're in a relasionshio. For some reason, a lot of women insist on pretending to their boyfriends and husbands that everything they ingest magically disapears in the stomach. "Intestins? Hmm, no, I don't believe I have that organ." Get over yourselves, women. YOU POOP AND YOU KNOW IT.

"Finally! We're acknowledging female poo!

Poo-Pourri is a discreet little bottle of spray that is composed of 'a natural blend of essential oils' that you're meant to spray in the toilet before you go-go. The spray creates a film on the top of the toilet water, which then apparently 'traps' the 'embarrassing odors'.

This nifty little bottle of anti-funk will come in handy in various situations. You know, like pooping at the office, pooping on vacation, pooping in a public toilet, pooping at your inlaws, etc, and it will fit right into your handbag." [via]

writing down the bones

"Our lives are at once ordinary and mythical. We live and die, age beautifully or full of wrinkles. We wake in the morning, buy yellow cheese, and hope we have enough money to pay for it. At the same instance we have these magnificent hearts that pump through all the sorrow and all winters we are alive on the earth. We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived..."

- Natalie Goldberg, "Writing Down the Bones"


[via the always inspired Tania Rochelle]

"Life is not orderly...

... No matter how we try to make life so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce.”


- Natalie Goldberg