Author: cortjezter

Evidence that nothing is original

Post author By cortjezter
Post date 18 April, 2009

Since I don’t currently have television services at my apartment, any programs I want to watch must be seen from their network’s website. I actually prefer this method; can see it at my leisure, minimum ads, completely free…some of them are even available in HD (thanks ABC!!) What’s not to like?

As my luck would have it, ABC’s interstitial ads over the past two weeks during episodes of LOST have been about Honda’s new campaign for the Civic, called “Grooves” or “Musical Road”. It follows a team of creatives going about transforming a stretch of highway into something of an old time self-playing piano using the safety rumble strips in such a way that the spacing of grooves creates notes as drivers pass over.

A great idea to be sure, but it’s nothing new; not even close. The first I saw of the concept came a couple years ago via a car magazine or tv show, and featured some small countryside roads in Japan using the concept to draw tourists in for revenue. The first known use of such a musical road was in Denmark circa 1995, but used a slightly different approach and technology for the sound.

The thing that rubbed me the wrong way was the tone of the ad/video from Honda… it had some windbag (probably the Creative Director) explaining his genius concept to the rest of the team, as they all looked on in awe and disbelief of his sheer brilliance, and he basked in their glow the whole while, taking credit for an idea he clearly nicked elsewhere. Check it out:

Now that I’ve probably offended all of the potential creative offices/agencies I could work for out here in San Francisco, check out the “Melody Road” of Japan. Both the Honda and Melody Road of Japan concepts promote something commercial, but one seems like a fun idea to be proud of, the other is a disingenuous plot to try and be cool. First rule of being cool… don’t try to be.

listening to:
Silent Hill Zero Original Soundtrack CD (IMPORT)
Akira Yamaoka

miscellaneous thought of the day

4 reasons I have a newfound watch fetish

Post author By cortjezter
Post date 9 April, 2009
3 Comments on 4 reasons I have a newfound watch fetish

thought of the day: happiness is a flower that could not blossom without the existence of tears.

Click to embiggen it!

A couple years ago I was dumbstruck to discover the existence of peculiar, creative watches. Not surprised as there are always oddball versions of just about every product out there, but something about the attention to detail and geeky allure of this brand really caught my eye and never let go. I’ve always liked nice watches for whatever reason, but these elevated my taste to a new level entirely.

Among the first bunch to fry my noggin was the Eleeno Kion Elite (shown, right) in blue and black, a stunning gem that has since been discontinued and become hard to find. If you’re curious why it has but one time-telling hand, it’s because the striped pattern forms an arrow that also points. Originally selling for about 160$, I kick myself for not jumping on it then. If you found and bought one of these for me; I would gladly gestate your future babies.

Since then, I can’t help but froth all the way from the pleasure centre of my brain right out my mouth like a mammalian cappuccino machine as I browse the shops and online galleries like Tokyoflash. Pictured below are a few of their current darlings, a couple of them quite “cheap”, relatively speaking, so you could find yourself a surrogate for less than you’d think.

P.S.: This is what I’m currently sporting.

I’m particularly fond of the TiBiDa (centre) which also displays time in Binary. Sweet Geekus Derivis.

everyday minutae thought of the day

You’ll put your eye out

Post author By cortjezter
Post date 21 March, 2009

thought of the day: anyone who uses the phrase “eye-popping” should actually have to suffer getting their eyes popped. ugh… idioms. is there nothing they can’t doom?

After attending a media event hosted by EA Sports last week to check out some of their new, unreleased games, I came to realise that while most of the sports they had on display were within my realm of understanding, the number falling into the completely unknown far outnumber those that do.

That had me wonder if I couldn’t use that fact to some benefit as a feature here on my blog: to write and describe popular sports in as much detail as possible, except from my perspective… a sports half-wit using only my observational skills to deduce the rules and premise. Look for my first entry soon!

listening to:
Light Grenades
Incubus

everyday minutae

Swag for GDC ’09 goers…

thought of the day: is it any coincidence that the difference between “fitness” and “fatness” is one pot-bellied character?

Yes, that’s a wholly underwhelming thumbnail, but the mysteries of its cropping reveal the secrets of… well, not much. A peek at the business card design our outlet will be using from GDC 09 forward; until they run out or I do something better. Info side is matte, red side is a beautiful glossy finish. That’s all for today.

listening to:
Everything to Everyone
Barenaked Ladies

art & photography rants & reviews

Music for multiple senses

thought of the day: my body is the most expensive vehicle i will ever ride in.

Above you’ll see a little CD album cover I put together this afternoon (click to enlarge). It’s for the band Baoquan, titled The Loss of Sleep. That’s all fine and dandy, except it’s not real; the band is fake, and the album is doubly non-existent. It’s just a fun little exercise paired with a sub-cultural internet meme. I thought it quite a larf until all the pieces came together in either the wildest of profound coincidences or the most meaningless nonsense I’ve posted since some of my high school poetry appeared on this very site.

As for real bands, many followers of popular music—or at least those who begrudgingly endure my interests as I foist them about—will know that U2‘s new album, No Line on the Horizon, was released last week. Being my all-time favourite music-makers, it’s a momentous occasion for me; one that I embrace with nearly every waking thought in anticipation during the 2-3 months leading up to the street date.

Normally I am too pure of heart to even attempt listening to music from my choice bands before the release dates because the quality of such contraband is often an insult to both the bands’ efforts and my delicate/pretentious audiophile sensibilities, and also because as an artist, I respect the moment of unveiling; people cannot see my work until I’m damn good and ready to show it, so I grant the same courtesy to the two or three musical acts my conscience cannot transgress. However this time around I had access to a pristine, high-quality edition, and just couldn’t resist.

Maybe I jinxed it.

rants & reviews

R.I.P. I.E.

R.I.P. Internet Explorer. It died in its sleep. — It’s already dead to me.

it seems microsoft is hell bent on running it’s long-popular, long-dominating web browser, internet explorer, right into the ditch of the information superhighway.

the past few years has seen its market share eroding rather quickly by faster, more secure, more intuitive modern applications like mozilla firefox and google chrome. on the mac side, they even discontinued the application in favour of apple’s own safari. these other browsers, aside from enhanced user and usability features of the browsers themselves, the rendering engines have been far superior to explorer for quite some time, and its conformance to both ratified and emerging web standards has fallen so short that it’s laughably ridiculous and as a designer/developer, ridiculously infuriating.

enter internet explorer 8 beta. one would think considering all of its internal struggles and external pressures from competition that it would at least aim for parity on the basics of web standards and technology. yet it touts as a main feature being fully compliant with css 2.1. css version 2 has been around for over 10 years, and its revision, v2.1, has been waffling back and forth between draft and release candidate for about 5. because it’s still not finalised, firefox, safari, chrome, opera have all moved on to supporting the next full version of css, with varying levels of compatibility. internet explorer adds some basic, minimal support for version 3, but nothing even remotely close to its competitors.

one of the biggest challenges for web designers today is (on top of side-stepping ie6 and ie7 quirks) realising rounded-corners. css3 supports the concept, with its border-radius selector, and many of the other popular modern browsers support it in some fashion (although mysteriously, opera once did but removed the functionality in the most recent releases). given the opportunity with a new version, one would expect microsoft would do its very best to make great strides to catch up to these competing browsers, if not surpass them in some ways by being somewhat forward looking with it’s underhood tech. alas, the border-radius selector of css3 is not supported whatsoever, as are a lot of other now common css3 features. just one more nail in the coffin as far as i’m concerned.

reference their ie8 css chart 🙁

perhaps it’s laziness or pride, but all the hubris and self-indulgence has kept internet explorer from innovating, evolving, or it seems even adapting. the latest beta builds seem to break more things than fix them, which is and will be a major problem for both users and developers for at least a year into 8’s life. designers and developers may continue to provide basic support for legacy ie or even the newest iteration, but i have a feeling this browser won’t ever see a mainstream (read: popular) version 10.

listening to:
No Line On The Horizon (pre release)
U2

miscellaneous thought of the day

Objects in the mirror may be older than they appear

Post author By cortjezter
Post date 16 February, 2009
2 Comments on Objects in the mirror may be older than they appear

thought of the day: isn’t one’s first birthday technically the day they were born? much like recurring charitiable and recreational parties, an initial birthday should be called something like, “The First Annual I’m-going-to-be-alive-awhile Charity Event. Now give me presents.”

a couple more images from projects long-since passed. one is just a collection of strange iconography, the other is a group of gift card concepts for a digital music store. enjoy!

listening to:
Get On Your Boots
U2