January 2009

From NYTimes.com: Consumers of the World Unite

Saks Fifth Avenue, which has surely felt the recession’s sting, is taking just such a fist-raising stand with its spring marketing. The campaign is inspired by the bold graphic designs and propaganda spirit of Constructivist art — although it is intended to be tongue-in-cheek.

The store hired Shepard Fairey, the artist who created the stylized Hope poster of Barack Obama that became one of the most highly visible, though unofficial, images of the presidential campaign, to design its catalog covers and shopping bags. They bear a rather unsubtle allusion to advertisements made in the 1920s for state-run department stores in the Soviet Union.

Shepard Fairey is certainly cashing in on his newly found mainstream fame.  There are pictures of the design in the article.

It’ll be an interesting balancing act for Shepard Fairey to keep a level of “street credibility” while doing commercial projects.

I saw this while browsing Amazon for a book, a blog entry by creativity author Michael Michalko. 

A Different Perspective on Time
3:38 PM PDT, July 29, 2008

The Bank
 
Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent? Of course!

Each of us has such a bank. Its name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against  tomorrow.  You must live in the present on today’s deposits.

Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success! The clock is running. Make the most of today. To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade. To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby. To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper. To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet. To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who missed the train. To realize the value of ONE-SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the “present.”

It’s an interesting take on the concept of time.  We clearly don’t spend time as carefully we could.  That’s why a person can become President, have a family, and still workout and stay in shape.

From NYTimes.com: After the Zone Blitz, the Deadpan Defense

In between extremely successful stints as the Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator, Dick LeBeau was first defensive coordinator and later head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals.  It was three seasons of total futility, even with the Bengals defenses running the same zone blitz schemes that worked so well for the Steelers.  Probably more an indictment of the Bengals personnel department or lack thereof rather than Dick LeBeau’s coaching ability.  Sometimes, though it seems that certain coaches are more suited to being a defensive or offensive coordinator and not a head coach.

From Cincinnati.com: ‘Unheard of’ alcohol level draws jail time

Sass, 46, of Mount Healthy, went to jail Tuesday for drunken driving after Colerain Township police arrested him Oct. 28 in a Colerain Avenue store parking lot where his blood-alcohol content was .414 percent – more than five times Ohio’s legal limit of .08 percent.

“That’s the highest I’ve ever seen,” Hamilton County Municipal Judge Bernie Bouchard said Tuesday after sending Sass to jail for 180 days.

“Usually, people are in the hospital with alcohol poisoning at that level. A two-something (blood-alcohol content of .2 percent or higher) is a severe alcoholic. That’s unheard of.”

I was curious about what is the highest recorded blood-alcohol level.  Nothing definitive, but there is a news story about a man in Rhode Island arrested with a .491.

Drugrecognition.com lists 0.74 BAC as the highest recorded blood alcohol level by a US hospital.

My Mobile Me account was due for renewal at the beginning of 2009.  You can either  renew your account automatically through Apple for $99 or you can buy the Mobile Me Retail pack at Amazon for $69.
 
The Retail Pack contains a link and a code that you can use to create a new Mobile Me account, reactivate an expired account, or renew an account.  As an added bonus, not only do you save money, but you get two shiny white Apple stickers!

NPR.com: Retune the Body with a Partial Fast

Neufeld says most adults need about 2,000 calories a day. Those calories make energy, or glycogen. Neufeld says it doesn’t hurt — it might even help the body — to fast or stop eating for short periods of time, say 24 hours once a week, as long as you drink water.
…
Partial fasting may even extend lifespan because eating less sends a message to the cells of the body that they should conserve and use energy more efficiently.

I think it’s interesting to think about the frequency and timing of when we eat.  Do we really need to eat three times a day or is it something that we’ve trained our bodies to expect?

I might try fasting a day, but it’s one of those things that’s hard to get motivated to do.  I like most people enjoy eat food.

Thanks to Susana for sending me this link.

From USAToday: Obama’s ‘Hope’ portrait goes to national gallery

Even before he takes office, President-elect Barack Obama’s image will become part of the permanent collection at the U.S. National Portrait Gallery, the museum announced Wednesday.

The gallery acquired the iconic red, white and blue collage by Los Angeles street artist Shepard Fairey, depicting Obama with the word “Hope.” The image — later modified with the messages of “Change” and “Vote” for the Obama campaign — became one of the most memorable images from the 2008 election. The curators at the Smithsonian Institution museum plan to hang it by Inauguration Day.

Like Shepard Fairey’s Obama Hope needs any more validation as one of the more recognizable images in Presidential election history.  This particular version of the image is a stenciled mixed-media collage that stands 5 feet tall. 

There’s a new Shepard Fairey official Inauguration print for sale.  I’ll probably add this to my collection, but the one I would really want is a print using the image that was used for the Time Person of the Year.

If the prints appear to be sold out, keep trying.  It seems like they’re adding prints every so often and this is a pretty large print run.  Still, they should probably sell out within a few days.

From ChicagoTribune.com: Chicago schools’ espresso machines a waste of money, inspector reports

One Chicago Public Schools manager must have really been jonesing for a cup of coffee when officials say she spent nearly $70,000 of the district’s money to buy 30 cappuccino/espresso machines for a high school program.

But five months after the machines were purchased, 22 remained unopened, one disappeared and three were being used at two schools–though not in the culinary arts program for which they were intended, the district’s inspector general said Tuesday.

They teach making espresso in a Chicago Public Schools culinary arts program?  Won’t they just teach you that on day one at Starbucks?

I’m a big supporter of education, but every now and then you have to wonder how tax money is being spent.