I've got quite a bit of website building and overhauling coming up this week at work, so I thought I'd share one of my favorite tweets from the incomparable Veerle (who is always so polished in her professional product and so generous in sharing her wealth of design knowledge):

BTW, if you've never experienced the joy of trying to make a website look presentable in the piece of caca that is, well, pretty much any version of Internet Explorer (but especially 6), just know that the natural reaction to doing such is strings of expletives, wanting to throw things violently, and further deepening of one's belief that Bill Gates is in fact the anti-Christ.

Posted by Jonathan on 29 June, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm sure by the time I take this screen shot and post this post, Twitter will be back up. Then again, I also thought that Twitter would have restored my account their server ate, but now 3 weeks later, they haven't been able to yet. In fact, they had drop-shipped me a mens small Twitter t-shirt (emblazoned with "wearing my twitter t-shirt," cleverly enough) even before I had a personal acknowledgment that yes, my account had been eaten during a database update. (Through several e-mails from Twitter and other deleted users, and through much time spent on the Twitter forums and GetSatisfaction, the story is that this is happening to lots of people--it's still happening in fact, and no one has had a successful un-delete of their account yet. I do think Twitter is trying, they just haven't succeeded yet.)

My old account is still no more, and while I've set-up a new one, I have yet to re-find all my friends (including private accounts, like the wonderful SwissMiss!). I know it's a free service, but honestly, between my iPhone and times like the screen shot above, I'm experiencing less and less service.

C'mon, guys, pull through this! Twitter is a lot of fun, most especially when it works...

Posted by Jonathan on 26 June, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

As promised, a re-look at the thumb drive from my desk: Ninja Domo USB thumb drive, by Mimoco, from the Mimobot Domo series. Mimoco is a designer toy studio-meets-consumer electronics brand. Their mission is to "bring style and soul to personal tech devices and to inject interactivity into the underground Art Toy movement."

I picked up my Ninja Domo 2GB flash drive at SXSWi, but you can buy one from their site, and Ninja Domo is on sale at the moment.

And while I normally hate thumb drives that come pre-loaded with caca, but the Mimobot drive came preloaded with all sorts of fun icons and wallpapers and whatnot, that are just as fun as the little drives themselves.

If Ninja Domo isn't your style, check out the Star Wars and Halo flash drives.

Posted by Jonathan on 22 June, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

...and I don't just mean the Singer 4212 sewing machine pedal:

Lately, I have seen very little of my loverly wife. I most often am finding her with her head tucked under the sewing machine, needle and thread whirring away, working with clock-like precision...but on what?

I have a theory that she's about to open her much-rumored Etsy store, and is trying to make sure that she has enough stock to sustain the madhouse of a rush that is going to happen once she opens her electronic doors.

But that's just a guess. I only live with her, so I may be wrong... =^)

Posted by Jonathan on 10 June, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Disney / Pixar's Wall-e movie opens on June 27th, but we are ready for it now! Today, we're in to see Horton Hears a Who.

What are YOU doing this Memorial Day?

Posted by Jonathan on 26 May, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Who knew? Yet another compelling reason for us to install a soda fountain at work.

Posted by Jonathan on 20 May, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

by Veronica Belmont.

Apparently, Jenni and Sarah are not the only ones who knit.

Posted by Jonathan on 18 May, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you're stuck at work today and not able to run right out and immediately buy the much anticipated follow-up to Death Cab for Cutie's 2005 album Plans (cos you're not going to download this CD on iTunes, you're going to want the real thing), head over to music.aol.com and make sure you enjoy sucking up the entire bandwidth of the interweb pipes at your work, because The Narrow Staircase is one of this week's "Free Full CD Listening Parties."

And then, at 5:00, or right after they send you home for using the full T1 that they somehow still insist is good enough for 200 employees, swing by Target and pick up a real copy. Yeah, we're not album test-driving today, we're just tiding ourselves over until we can go to Target.

Posted by Jonathan on 13 May, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The stadium-packing Brit-rockers Coldplay are currently distributing the first single from their upcoming album for free on their website. An e-mail address is required, and you will receive a download link at the address you provide them.

The song, Violet Hill, is enough of a departure from the typical Coldplay sound to invite interest and enthusiasm for the new album, Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends, from more than just their die-hard fans (say, people who bought the Japanese import version of the single Talk--ough-cough, ME). The single will actually be up to buy Tuesday, May 5th, with the full album being released worldwide on June 12.

Welcome back, fellas! We're looking forward to hearing the whole thing.

Posted by Jonathan on 30 April, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, so here are all the pins I picked up at SXSW this year (with the disclaimer that I was not trying to pick up many pins):

1,000 points for each correct guess as to which pin goes with what Vendor/url. Make sure to provide the URL of the vendor/service/whatever that you think goes with the pin when you comment.

...winning answers will be revealed Friday. Have fun!

Posted by Jonathan on 1 April, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

My loverly wife made me an adorable pocket monster named Orwin as a surprise for SXSW, to carry around with me to remember how much she loves and misses me. Isn't my wife awesome?!

Anyhoo, I pinned him to my always-on badge so EVERYONE can see how much my wife loves me! Look for them soon on her Etsy shop...=^)

Posted by Jonathan on 9 March, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sonic: Drive-In for a Train!

Game Time, Baby!

Who's a Dallas Mavericks fan?

Heading Home...

Posted by Jonathan on 26 February, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Jonathan on 25 February, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

While I was blogging about Paul Frank iPhone covers, Apple was busy updating the store to include the new 16GB iPhone, the new 32GB iPod Touch, and $49 iPod Shuffles.

...which makes you wonder: when is the 32GB iPhone coming out?

Posted by Jonathan on 19 February, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Being the huge Paul Frank that I am, imagine my joy when I stumbled in to the Southlake Apple Store the other day only to find Paul Frank iPhone covers!

They had two versions, the one pictured ("Slap Bass") and a Scruvy, rainbow-colored one. I always love the Pirate Monkey, but I had to get the music-related one, particularly as I used to play the bass, and quite dreadfully at that.

It fits on snuggly, and seems to do a decent job of protecting the parts it covers. It does seem to attract a lot of dust and lint, though, being black rubbery plastic. So pretty much the first time it goes into your pocket, to comes out looking like a woolly mammoth.

Still, it's perfect for me, and for those of you that love Paul Frank or just want something different on your iPhone.

As the time of writing of this post, neither the Apple Store nor the (new!) online Paul Frank Store actually had the iPhone covers. And a quick Google search for the terms "Paul Frank iPhone cover" summarily returned no helpful results...

Related links:

• Paul Frank


• The Art of Vonster


• Ultra Groovy and Free iPhone Wallpaper from Von R. Glitschka


• 45 iPod Cases

Posted by Jonathan on 19 February, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Bubby had a small surprise coming his way as a result of several small victories and successes on his part, so our weekly Sunday afternoon trip to Target resulted in the purchase of Star Wars LEGO set 7667, The Imperial Dropship.

The best thing about this little set was that it came with the 4 LEGO men, being 3 Stormtroopers and one Darth Vader. Bubby's favorite part, though, was probably the tiny little blasters it came with.

Posted by Jonathan on 18 February, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

...as Bubby calls it. And I don't know why, cos this is all he does there:

Posted by Jonathan on 13 February, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Jonathan on 8 February, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Jonathan on 6 February, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

In case you haven't been traumatized by clowns lately:

Related Links:

• Don't Send in the Clowns: It's Bozology 101: Clowns scare kids
  They're "universally disliked by children," British researchers discover

Posted by Jonathan on 24 January, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, it's slow going, but we've got the plane done now:

And Bubby's take on the matter, using his Fisher-Price digital camera:

Posted by Jonathan on 22 January, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

After the purchase of our new HDTV and an early December trip to Disney World, Jenni and I decided to keep out Christmas spending budgets for each other to a minimum. As my ever-resourceful wife oft does, she made every penny count, scoring me two prints from artist Matte Stephens, via his Velocity store: Bavarian Bear Monster, and Moose Mombo.

Click photo to enlarge.

Like some others in the blogosphere, I used some Christmas money that I received to purchase frames for the prints. Now all I need is to take it all back to the frame shop for a couple of mats, and the bear and the moose will be set.

As I've said before, I love Matte Stephen's art: it whimsical and happy, and I can always use more happy. So thanks, baby!

Speaking of Matte Stephens, he is currently the featured 'Student of the Month' artist at ReForm School and just had new paintings and a new print featured at the ReForm School opening on January 19th. Matte's new print is an 11x17 entitled 'Fossil Fuel Fun,' and at only $40 is quite a steal. And as there are only 50 of them, I'd go get one now, if I were you.

(Fun side note: on August 23, 2007, I blogged how I wanted someone to buy me some of Matte Stephen's fun art, and noted that, as of that date, he had sold 715 items on his Etsy store. As of January 20th? Matte has sold 1,333 items...yowza...)

Keep up the great work, Matte!

Posted by Jonathan on 21 January, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Slowly but surely, we're making progress on the LEGO City Airport and Airplane:

As you can see, we now have a nosecone and windshield, so our little pilot doesn't have to sit exposed at 35,000 feet, going 400 miles an hour.

The wings are on, too. However, we've really slowed down, what with the competition from other cool toys Bubby got at Christmas, like the indoor tent thingy, all sorts of things Wii (Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, anyone?), another LEGO set, with a hard-to-put-together-if-you're-only-4 robot, all sorts of fun books, and Daddy's inability to stop buying new DVDs. (Latest: James and the Giant Peach.)

Oh, that and I just got a new prime lens, which I'm very excited about using more...like in all of the shots above.

Posted by Jonathan on 16 January, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Jonathan on 15 January, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)

After a long wait, my Paul Frank 'Julius' watch is back!

Why a long wait, you ask? Well, the battery was dead, and everywhere Jenni or I took the watch kept telling us they wouldn't let us buy a battery from them and pay them to change it since we didn't buy the watch from them. (No, we didn't buy it from you, we bought it at the Paul Frank Store in San Fran-flipping-cisco!)

Anyhoo, it finally got replaced, and I'm happy. I got this watch when I was working at a full-time job for which I was grateful, but which daily work did nothing more than simply fill empty hours in a day and generally bore me out of my mind. So I got this watch as a portable inspiration to keep pressing on for more creative endeavors, and to remind the starched shirts I worked with that I was taking life a bit easier than they. Also, Jenni has the women's version of this watch, so it was just another reminder of how I'm pressing forward with the full support and togetherness of my wife of almost 7 years.

So welcome back, Julius. Happy to see your smiling face around again. And props to Haltoms in downtown Fort Worth, not just for fixing my watch and replacing the battery, but for doing it for free.

Posted by Jonathan on 15 January, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

If your beard isn't growing in as well as you'd like, there are a variety of options available to you other than a Marks-a-Lot fill-in job.

My fave: the felt beard:

The old-school 'Moustache-on-a-stick':

This beard is NOT washable:

These beards ARE washable:

Even if you're a girl, you can still get in on the action!

Nods to Victoria, Elizabeth, and Chris.

Related Links:

• World Beard and Moustache Championships


• The Troubled History of Beards

Posted by Jonathan on 13 January, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've been wanting to make some iPhone wallpapers to distribute lately, but haven't had that much quality time to do so. I have made a couple, though, so here's the first for you, a textured background. It's actually part of an abandoned house I shot one day. Right-click it to "Save As..." and then drag it into iPhoto or My Pictures to sync it the next time you dock your iPhone.

Photo is copyright 2008, Unbottled Studio. All Rights Reserved.

Enjoy!

Posted by Jonathan on 11 January, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

...it's almost 1-18-08...

Posted by Jonathan on 8 January, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night was Game Night with Matty and Jennifer (thanks, Mom and Dad!), and we broke-in Matty's new Pirates of the Caribbean-themed Life game. It was fun, although I think I prefer the regular version. It's just so classic.

That, and the doctor gets paid more than the pirates do.

Posted by Jonathan on 28 December, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Jonathan on 26 December, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Jonathan on 25 December, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Jonathan on 25 December, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

FedEx does!

(Count 'em, that's 1-2-3 FedEx trucks in front of our office building!)

And thanks to our awesome FedEx lady, I know, too: after she discovered no one was home to sign for one of our last-minute packages, she brought it to my work, so we'd be sure to have it in time!

Posted by Jonathan on 21 December, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ah, what would a parent do without the valuable advice of those folks over at CNET, helping confused parents figure out whether Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games is more appropriate for their 4 year old than Halo 3 or BioShock...

Or Assassin's Creed: My favorite bit from their gaming advice:

The good: ... Creeds can help encourage strong work ethics.
The bad: The main character is a professional killer who had his finger cut off so he could fit a spring-loaded knife on his arm. He isn't exactly one of the Wiggles.

I was rolling. Which part of the title 'Assassin's Creed' didn't give away that this wasn't a kids game?

'I'm sorry, Bubby, we were going to get you a good first-person knifing game, but CNET says we shouldn't...'

(All this poked in good fun at the folks at CNET, whose reviews and recommendations--and price-checking--on all things IT/entertainment/electronic are quite valuable and most helpful.)

Posted by Jonathan on 18 December, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks, Amazon!

"We're incredibly excited to announce that Amazon has purchased J.K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard at an auction held by Sotheby's in London. The book of five wizarding fairy tales, referenced in the last book of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is one of only seven handmade copies in existence. The purchase price was £1,950,000, and Ms. Rowling is donating the proceeds to The Children's Voice campaign, a charity she co-founded to help improve the lives of institutionalized children across Europe.

Enjoy these first images of the book."

Posted by Jonathan on 15 December, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

"2. Poo-pooing Snowman"...if anyone buys that for Bubby... !=^(

Posted by Jonathan on 13 December, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Your Christmas shopping may already be totally done. You may have each gift wrapped and under the tree (punctual you!).

But if you're NOT a Christmas shopping miracle yourself, these little Christmas cheat sheets by Made In ENGLAND by Gentlemen are sure to come in handy. Simply print (for boy or girl), distribute, fill out with pertinent information (like brasserie size!), and then swap with the people buying you gifts.

Right gift, right size, right color, right person, right on!

(via Tina)

Posted by Jonathan on 12 December, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Tonight's seat treat is Lightning Boltz, basically, glowy boom-boom sticks.

Posted by Jonathan on 6 December, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Huge pats on the back to my brilliantly creative sister, Sarah, for her most recent creative accomplishment, having a knit design published by Knitty!

Sarah created a fabulous doggie-size shrug, which she calls 'Cables and Bits,' and which Knitty scooped right up!

Those are Sarah's dogs in the pictures: Don't they look great, and didn't they behave fabulously for the pictures?

Did I mention I was proud of my sister? Check out her bio at the bottom of the pattern page:

"Sarah Wilson is Not a Yarn Snob. She is also a Stunt Knitter for Stitch Diva Studios and the designer in residence for her LYS."

The girl stays busy! And it didn't even mention her incredible Etsy shop, 5*7*9 Jewelry, which has recently been remodeled, restocked with more fabulous handmade jewelry, and which still sells just about everything for $5, $7, or $9, and where shipping is always free!

I'm so proud of my sister!!! She is so talented and so creative and she is always challenging me to get off my duff and do something awesome. After you've checked out the Knitty Cables and Bits pattern, make sure you check out her blog (where she often offers free patterns) and zoom on over to her Etsy store, and make some Christmas purchases that will be sure to thrill the recipient!

Posted by Jonathan on 6 December, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

...that's a good sign, right: a naturally occuring heart reflection
on our master bedroom door!

Posted by Jonathan on 16 November, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

...a peppermint mocha latte, courtesy of my loverly wife!

Posted by Jonathan on 15 November, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Doesn't Matte Stephens playful and gorgeous art just make you happy looking at it? It does me!

Matte is introducing some new art at the moment, and is selling originals through Velocity Art and Design.

The original of NYC is still available:

Posted by Jonathan on 14 November, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now that we have my Grandmother's birthday party all planned, it's time to turn our attention to my dad, which begs the eternal question 'What do you get for a man who has everything who has every Xbox game and only plays Halo?'

I know quality time is really the best answer, but how to make it special? I think this year, we'll do an improv zombie attack:

Posted by Jonathan on 13 November, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

1000 points to whoever first correctly places the following quote:

"Father and son, together at last...who's better than us!"

Posted by Jonathan on 12 November, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The world is full of beautiful things, creative, fun things, and more
and more of them are winding up at our house (like the finger-painting
above by Bubby and Jenni).

Coming very soon will be posts on more of these exciting things, like:

• Bubby's first attempts at painting
• My first attempts at painting
• Fun new stuff by Jenni
• Groovy crafty stuff Sarah sent
• New art from Matte Stephens!

Posted by Jonathan on 8 November, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Jonathan on 5 November, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Jonathan on 5 November, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

...what else? =^)

(...on, and I'm totally about to kill whoever brought on the Burger
King Chicken Sandwich and fries and didn't bring me one...)

Posted by Jonathan on 5 November, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Jonathan on 5 November, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2)