Archive for August 2008

Yes Art Can Be Fun

In Art on Aug-31-2008 with
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A bus stop in London has installed a swing at a bus stop designed by Bruno Taylor as part of his “Playful Spaces” exhibit. Why can’t we have more of this kind of stuff in the United States?

[Found via Swissmiss]

Digg Dialog Launches

In Media, Social Networking on Aug-29-2008 with
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This is pretty darn cool. Digg has just launched a new service called Digg Dialog. The concept is pretty simple. It is announced that a specific person will attend, users submit questions, and people digg the questions just like normally do with news stories. Those that hit the stated requirements and receive the most diggs get asked. For the launch event they partnered with CNN iReport and Digg CEO Jay Adelson peppered Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi with a number of questions that you never hear addressed by the traditional media. Social networking and community involvement at its best.

Tiger Woods Putts A Rubik’s Cube

In Gaming, Video on Aug-28-2008 with
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Viral ad for EA sports just released (8/26) for Tiger Woods PGA Tour ‘09. Titled Square Peg, Round Hole. Great stuff.

Tiger Stadium Toughest Place To Play

In Sports on Aug-27-2008 with
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FOX Sports has named Tiger Stadium toughest place to play. The Tigers have some of the craziest fans in all of college sports and trying to play in Tiger Stadium, known as “Death Valley,” with 92,000-plus fans is one of the most intimidating things a college athlete can do.

Ouch, That Has Got To Hurt

In Humor, Politics on Aug-26-2008 with
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A Daily Show billboard on I-94 outside the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, home to the ‘08 Republican National Convention.

New ONE TV Ad

In Advertising, Politics, Video on Aug-26-2008 with
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LOL Funny Favre Church Sign

In Humor on Aug-24-2008 with
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McCain And The “Gates Of Hell”

In Politics on Aug-20-2008 with
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McCain likes to keep saying “I’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of hell.” Of course this is just a one-liner to show how “serious” he is about catching bin Laden. But the question I have is why won’t McCain follow bin Laden into Pakistan where, unlike the gates of hell, he actually is. I mean it is a pretty darn simple question.

Classic Apple Macintosh Commercial

In Advertising, Video on Aug-20-2008 with
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My 50 Favorite Books

In Books on Aug-20-2008 with
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I had some friends over last weekend and a few had never seen my library, where I have around 750 books. Most were stunned that (1) I had so many books that take up an entire room and (2) That I even read anything at all that isn’t online. As we started to talk about books, something I could do for hours and hours I had a thought. If I could only have 50 books which 50 would I choose?

Really no rules to how I choose, other than I stayed away from business books and autobiographies. I also could only include one book from each author (which made things both easier and harder). These are in no specific order, just how I wrote them down:

1. Hamlet, William Shakespeare.
2. Republic, Plato
3. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
4. Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs.
5. Ulysses, James Joyce.
6. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury.
7. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut.
8. Neuromancer, William Gibson.
9. The Metamorphosis, Frank Kafka.
10. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams.
11. The Stand, Stephen King.
12. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole.
13. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkein.
14. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera.
15. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
16. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger.
17. Creation, Gore Vidal.
18. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee.
19. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck.
20. Watership Down, Richard Adams.
21. Lolita, Vladamir Nobokov.
22. Life of Pi, Yann Martel.
23. Don Quixote, Miguel De Cervantes.
24. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
25. Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins.
26. In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead, James Lee Burke.
27. Founding Brothers, Joseph J. Ellis.
28. Red Storm Rising, Tom Clancy.
29. Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman.
30. The Hot Zone, Richard Preston.
31. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer.
32. Mody Dick, Herman Melville.
33. The Call of the Wild, Jack London.
34. Walden, Henry David Thoreau.
35. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley.
36. The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, Carlos Castaneda.
37. Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep, Philip K. Dick.
38. Snow Falling On Cedars, David Guterson.
39. The Infinite Plan, Isabel Allende.
40. The Tin Drum, Gunter Grass.
41. The Art of War, Sun Tzu.
42. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway.
43. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius.
44. The Third Policeman, Flann O’Brien.
45. My Stroke of Insight, Jill Bolte Taylor.
46. The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe.
47. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig.
48. Lamb, Christopher Moore.
49. Next Man Up, John Feinstein.
50. Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose.

Some other lists of books I’ve enjoyed recently:

• 100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library
• 30 Books Everyone Should Read Before Their 30th Birthday
• TIME magazine’s All-Time Greatest 100 Novel

So what did I miss? Share in the comments!