oyayubizoku

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I happened to be looking through the 'other blogs with this template' link and found a big breasts porn site with the same dots template. I was both surprised and weirded out. At first I didnt believe it, but then it sank in. So, I decided to search for a newer and different blog template.

What I found was one by Michael Heilemann, called Kubrick. I had to dig around to find a Blogger template, since the one I saw was for WordPress. After a bit of googling, I finally found a converted template and added it in.

I of course had to do some additional tweaking to get it to look just right on my end. And, am still making some mods. One thing I am def. going to do is swap the content and nav columns. I just have not gotten into the template deep enough to find the CSS nugget to do that.

Hope you enjoy this new format as it progresses.

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While freelancing back in November of 2003 I had the honor to work with Architect, Michele Saee. His architectural designs are based on organic forms and natural surfaces. I worked on the architecture, design and visualization of his website (along with an amazing art director, Lisa Nugent a former ReverbStudio Partner; and a top notch flash engineer, Lucas Kuzma who graduated from the UCLA Multimedia Design Program), we opted to go with Flash as it enabled us to provide an interactive environment mimicking organic lines used so frequently in Michele's work.

Most recently Michele has completed the Template House in Beijing for the first Chinese Biennial. You can see more images from this project on the Michele Saee Blog.

View: Michele Saee Website Macromedia Flash required

I first saw these at a Design Within Reach showroom and was intrigued. Then the other day I received the Interface FLOR catalog in the mail. Ironic, as we have been trying to figure out our living room carpet/area rug situation now for quite some time. This seems to be a really good cheap alternative and its designer cool too! FLOR has a great selection of colors and materials to fit anyones space design needs.

Also, if your not sure about this whole modular carpeting thing, you can order 8 FLOR Samples from any of their collections for $5. I did this and am now waiting for my FLOR Samples in the mail.

Buy: Interface FLOR Modular Carpet Online Shop

I was driving to work this AM and out of the corner of my eye I see movement. Low and behold, its a field mouse in my windshield wiper storage well. Everytime the car comes to a stop light, the mouse pops its head out and tries to jump down, but just as it gets enough confidence, the light changes we have to move again, making the mouse dart for cover. It hitched a ride from Miracle Mile-Wilshire to Pasadena (thats a 16 mile commute)!

I just wanted to post on these awesome hand crafted shoes from Medium Footwear. I recently got another few pairs and the Surrealist style is my favorite. I have a pair of Black polished Leather (with white stitching) and a pair of Raw Brown distressed Leather (with leather strap shoe laces). They are comfortable and look stunning with denim and dress pants. I think that miu miu and costume nationale have some heavy competition, not only are these shoes made well, they are priced to be very competitive with many of the best shoe manufactures.

Medium have also just released a dwell Magazine Limited Edition set of two shoe styles, aptly named after Charles and Ray Eames.

View dwell Magazine x Medium Footwear Microsite
Buy: dwell Magazine Limited Edition Shoe Medium Footwear Online Shop

I just caught this link on a mac software newsletter and had to post it. If your a fan of Kubricks from Medicom Toy Japan, which I am, this is another brilliantly inspired product. A person going by the name of TOMI hand crafted 300 of these black LEGO figures with their own iPods. It comes with a small hand signed and numbered information card an backdrop.

Buy: PodBrix 1st Figure, Edition of 300 Sold Out!

This is something that I think everyone who owns a flash drive and maybe now an iPod Shuffle will want, a stylish utility clip. When I got the iPod Shuffle, I was surprised they did not include one (in trademark white plastic) as part of the kit, but maybe thats a future Apple accessory in the works?

Once again the Japanese product design fanatics have gone and done it (and in record time I might add). Tunewear in japan has a whole product range dedicated to Apple iPods... they just released this Aluminum clip for shuffle. I for one will get one when they are avail here. I checked their site and the retail sources listed dont have them in the US yet. I WANT one. Maybe they can send me one from Japan.

The Tunewear product is widely available at the Apple stores in Japan and Europe. A third party reseller carries their products for the US markets at the MCE Store (NO, they dont carry the Aluminum Clip).

Back in 1994 I used to work at a photo lab called A&I Color on La Brea Blvd in Los Angeles. There I helped people develop their transparency film (slides and 8x10s mostly). While there I bought a Contax 159M 35mm camera from one of my managers there. It came with 2 Zeiss Lenses a 28mm and 50mm. Since then I have been pretty interested in photography, mostly on the appreciation side, but I still take some of my quality control and technical knowledge with me.

Then one day I discovered the LOMO camera, and all its glory. I bought one on the spot! I don't know how many photos I shot with it, but I can tell you that I spent a lot on processing. It really made an impression on me, the colors are so vivid and saturated. I was a LOMO head! I tried to find a local Lomography group and to my surprise one of my friends was the representative, she was selling the cameras out of her home. Its funny now, the LOMO has this cult following, but at the same time you can go into any Urban Outfitters and get the Action Sampler and Colorsplash cameras for a mere $30 bucks.

The real meat of this post is the photoshop LOMO treatment technique; while browsing around for some sloppy photo edge alpha masks, I found the Kottke.org post on making your own LOMO-esq digital photos. So I HAD to check this out! Well, I tried the tutorial and my results were pretty stunning. I even added the Photo borders I found from my previous sloppy photo edge search.

View: Photo Comparison Left: Untouched / Right: LOMO Treatment
View: Photo Border with LOMO and Kodak 160NC treatment

Download: Borders A Polaroid-like sloppy borders
Download: Borders B Ektachrome and 6x6 Hasselblad-like borders
Download: Borders C Kodak 160 NC transparency film look

Buy: LOMO Lomography Shop