Friday Friday

Spend a lot of time online today, as the job hunt has been slowing down and becoming harder to find places to apply to. Kind of scary, but still in hopes of landing something. Anyways, here's a few Friday links for yous peoples.

-Geeky Pumpkin Faces (and some are fake, lame)
-Hollywood Directors take on McCain Campaign. The John Woo one is annoying, Kevin Smith is ok, but the Wes Anderson version is spot on.
-Pepsi's new logos. Downgrade.
-Mustache Pencils! Yes please!
-Poladroid. I suppose this is what we have to replace the dying breed of Polaroids. anyways, its a fun app to apply a Polaroid feel to your photos. Quite fun.
-Designers Designed Stamps

That was Quick.

-Tetris Party is mine. And it seems to be pretty fun, although I have no one to enjoy co-op Tetris with.
-Also, a couple new scenes from the Watchmen have popped up. I'm quite excited.

Five Albums Heavy on the Playlist

1. This Will Destroy You/Lymbyc System - Field Studies EP
2. M83 - Clouds of Thunder Bootleg
3. Aughra & Mosh Patrol - Is There Anyone Else Outside?
4. Copeland - You Are My Sunshine
5. A.Armada - Anam Cara

Uh Oh. Tetris Party has arrived.

Tetris Party has officially been released on WiiWare, which is frightening situation. Why? Because I still don't have a job and I could very well see myself investing time and money into this. I'll get back to you when I get this (there is no 'if' there).



-On the sidenote, I apologize to those who visit my blog and have had to put up with that Star Wars/Juno video automatically starting. I don't know how to fix that.

Avantcore + IE + Etsy + Cards = Greeting Cards Now Available

Well, after years of preparation, and by preparation, I mean mental anguish and months of this project being thrown on the back burner, I have finally released my greeting cards online. I decided to go with Etsy, as it pretty much sets up everything for you. I have 12 up right, with a few developing as well, and 2 sets (that are from the 12). As the Etsy stuff is still new to me, I've already encountered an issue with my shipping costs, but I believe I fixed it. Within 20 mins of me posting it, someone had already tried to make a transaction and he emailed me to let me know of the outrageous shipping (I changed it already). I was curious on how someone found it so quick, but then I typed in "greeting card" and realized that I was one of the first ones (because it's posted by date). So hopefully my transaction skills will smooth out.

For those of you who don't know, the Greeting Cards was an idea that spawned about 3 years ago. With the help of Ms (ahem, Mrs. now) Marianne Taylor, we had brainstormed a few ideas and how to market them. Some of those ideas I killed and some of those are still alive. The project kind of died off, but I still continued to make custom cards for people (I don't ever buy greeting cards.....ever), and developed a few generalized ones that I could see working to sell. This past month, I decided to revive the idea and printed, photographed what I had. It was actually more of a task than you would think.

I've added to the Avantcore Etsy store, which will probably seeing more than just cards, so keep your eyes peeled, I will be adding some buttons to the mix, and hopefully some shirts down the road.

Avantcore.Etsy.com

Madmen

I had a semi-eventful day, as I ventured out to the big city on my own, for the first time. I had a meeting with Creative Circle, a creative temp agency, that seems quite optimistic about helping me find a job here in the NW. I had quite a bit of issues working against me: birth certificate issues (which was needed to finalize paperwork), someone snaking me on the only parking spot in the parking garage at the bus station, parking in a sketch parking lot, having to stand up on the bus, not being able to find the offices where I had my meeting.....but you know, it worked out: my birth certificate arrived in the mail 15 mins prior to my leaving of the house, the parking lot ended being ok and my car wasn't towed (which had me nervous all day), and I ended up finding the offices (with ten mins to spare). But yes. the meeting went well, and it's giving me some hope in the job search.

After my meeting, I decided to waste some time in the downtown area, and ventured across to the Design Within Reach store (that Eames chair will be mine!), then over to Peter Miller Design Book store. I read about Peter Miller online, and was curious how it would deliver....well. it was awesome. I could easily throwdown $500 bucks on books. and discovered there is a new Los Logos book, that I need (along with several others). I made my way back up to Mike's work, stopped by a small toy store, Schmancy, which was a little disappointing (more plush than vinyl) and the giant Nordstrom (4 stories) and and chilled in Mike's offices for a bit. And then we (Me, Mike and his coworker Jeremy) discussed how we are going to make our way down to Astoria, OR sometime, which is apparently the hot spot for movies, including THE GOONIES, Free Willy, Short Circuit, Kindergarten Cop, Overboard, and to top it off, TMNT 3. Astoria, you're officially on my to do list. After Mike got off work, we grabbed some sandwiches over at the Honey Hole (I give it a B, the fries were pretty awesome). and then headed home.

In other news, I decided to give Madmen a try. I've been a bit curious about it, as the idea of watching a show about an Ad agency definately appeals to me. I will get back to you when I've reached a conclusion. I've just been seeing a lot of commentary regarding design decisions made on the show. Mostly regarding the misuse of typography, Yes, I'm a dork and I spot these things as well. Just ask my family.

All and all. Pretty successful day. Feels good to get out of the house every now and then.

A-HA, 1983 HBO Intro and The McPenguin

A-HA: Literal translation of the music video
HB Intro: Behind the scenes of the 1983 intro. Interesting to see where visual effects have come from...
McPenguin: John McCain appears to be the Penguin.

Cellphones and Star Wars

What an uneventful Friday evening, although that Whiskey River BBQ Burger from Red Robin was pretty awesome.

Regarding cellphone usage, Mike and I used our rollover minutes finally. Wait, let me rephrase that, Mike used our rollover minutes. Mike has officially shed his nickname of "Crabby Patty" from the move out here and now "Chatty Kathy," as he's been on the phone quite a bit with our good friend, Lindsay. By 'quite a bit,' I mean he's like a 13 year old girl. Got the cellphone bill for the past month, and decided to decipher the minutes. Let's break it down. Keep in mind, Mike and I share the same cellphone plan, with 700 anytime mins and unlimited night/weekends, so this is what's coming out this past month.

Total Mins:
Chris: 174
Mike: 2384

Anytime Mins:
Chris: 11
Mike: 689 +816 rollover

But we have 4,000 rollover minutes stashed away, so that's fine. Just a lot of minutes to be had.

Not much is going on tonight, so here is a couple fan made Star Wars videos. First (just saw it tonight): Juno + Star Wars. Second (Classic): Cops + Star wars. Have fun kiddies.

This is how it starts. This is how it ends.

The job search is a slow one. I think its starting to wear on me. Mostly due to the fact I haven't gotten bites since my first short interview, which I've failed to update everyone on: Rejected. Uhm, yep, got a rejection letter in the mail. Kind of felt like a college kid getting rejected by a back up school. All is well, been trying to keep my chin up in that area, and have been sending my work to studios on a daily basis now-at least one a day is my goal. Sent 8 out last week, 3 so far this week.

I've also been having a hard time figure out how to get a copy of my birth certificate, which is boring to you, I'm sure. But it's quite an extensive task if you're a born-abroad American citizen trying to get a copy of your FS-545 AND FS-240. Yeah, I'm speaking the code now. So why do I need to do this, you're wondering? Only to get to my passport in the future, and visit Canada.....So probably won't be seeing the great white north for another 2 months. Yay for slow government processing!

With that being said, I've taken it upon myself to revive a couple projects I have thrown to the side over the past months.....and years. I still have a couple things to print/photography/set up, but I should have some items up on Etsy here shortly. Mainly greeting cards and buttons. Yes, greeting cards. If you know me, that's been something that's been tossed around for over 2 years, maybe even 3. I think I have to actually market now though. I might be taking some feedback when I get them up, as far as cards that you might want to see in the future. Have to get it set up first though.

Anyone know of anyone looking for some design work? I could use some spare moneys, and definately have some time for it.

Also created a new wallpaper a couple weeks ago, it hasn't been updated to avantcore yet, but I'll let you download here.

Living Space

Here are a couple images of Mike and I's current living space, or sleeping space. Our friends have kindly allowed us to store our labyrinth of boxes and assorted items in the garage.

The Air is Getting Thin

October is here. The job search continues. It's been about 3 weeks here, 2 for the job hunt, considering the first week was spent being a tourist. It's been slow. I had one small interview last week, but that's about it. I haven't send out my work to as many places as I need to, haven't seen many decent job postings either. I feel like I'm not doing as much as I need to be doing. I'll get there. Eventually. Starting to feel a bit cramped lately as well, living in a 10X10 space with my brother, and 7/8 of my stuff still in boxes. It's frustrating when I can't find the smallest of things (i.e. my copy of short circuit and adventures in babysitting). With that being said, Mike got a job offer today, which is very exciting, considering the time we've been here. It's definately a blessing and an exciting opportunity. And with the time away from the house, will probably ease it up for me and my space.

Another thing that is starting to get to me, is the lack of socialability and friends in the area. No offense to the people I'm living with, Mike included, but it's always nice to get out. I feel like I'm 10 again and I just moved to a new place and having a hard time making friends. Only this time, I'm not in school. and I don't really participate any other sort of adult social situations, i.e. drinking, coffee shops, etc. Hopefully a job will help in that area. If and when that happens.

Pictural updates are still being made to the flickr. Yesterday I put a few shots I took around where Mike's possibly new work is at. I went to Seattle with him on his interview, and just walked around while he was in his interview. Two hours later, we met back up....I was walking in huge figure 8's. I still have a few more shots I need to upload.

I realize I haven't posted post moving statistics, as well as my thoughts on the new OKC NBA logo. I'll try to work on that soon.

On the sidenote, I totally missed Tycho playing in Seattle last weekend. Bummer.