Ihaven’t been blogging much of late and I haven’t been sleeping much either… But that’s all going to change because this is an amazing post and after I finish writing it I’m going to bed! I’ve been editing my video documentary of our successful completion of the CDT. So clear a couple of hours and check out my site - Cookie & Paul do America, use the links on the bottom to navigate between sections. If you haven’t been keeping up - The Continental Divide Trail is a 3000 mile walk from Mexico to Canada along the Rockie Mountains, we did it this year in five and a half mouths from May to October, it was epic.

It’s mostly set to music that I feel fits the mood of the section, with a little bit of chat in between. Nicky noted that most of the songs come from the 1970’s which seems quite fitting because as we make our way across America out beards get longer and longer (it’s a tradition or an old charter or something), eventually we look like we are in the 1970’s! The last finishing touch was to add in the Indiana Jones style map sequences the give each section a bit of context. Thanks to Google maps new terrian view for providing an excellent map source for me the screen grab and five million steps for plotting the route on to it :)

When I get back and finish up a few outstanding bits and pieces, I’m planning to hire a cinema/pub with a projector and have a big screening (and piss up). I’ll let you know details when I sort them out.

Well Merry Christmas internet folk, I’m off, I’ll be back in London and bloggin’ in the new year, have a good one.

Every year agencies up and down the country make themselves a Christmas card, they’re usually awful guff. But occasionally you get an agency that takes it that little step further and does something that really stands out, like firing a roast turkey at someones face while filming it in slow motion (skip to halfway for the good stuff). Nice work Boxer.

Ifound Art Brut(e) this morning after Jessie linked up my Christmas cheat sheets, 2 hours later I’ve just finnished digging through her archives… Anyhow, chock full of good stuff, I’ve cherry picked some of my favs here: Nicky had shown me Life magazines photo archive on google before, but I hadn’t seen these shots of musicians from the 70’s in their parents homes before, brilliant! Above is Frank Zappa at home with parents Francis and Rosemary. 

 
Ron English’s The Secret History of Kiss paintings.
 

Ladies, this will take the edge off your peroids…

Can’t be bothered to do any more pictures, here just some quick links: A lighthearted look at the relationships among marketing roles, Half a conversation t-shirts, Michael Gilletes Bond book covers and whatever you do, don’t miss Three Legged Legs‘ - Piece of Me, Piece of You - zombie puppet short.

Now that I’ve shaved mine off, I could re-live my former hirsute glories by drinking out of this moustache engraved pint glass ($15). I’m really liking the idea of augmenting someones face while they’re drinking a pint. If I worked for Guinness, I’d be designing a whole range of foamy moustache and beard variations to put on their branded glasses, maybe even some speech bubbles - ‘who’s round is next? I’m almost empty’ type thing.

Via: Uncrate | Cheers for the heads up Rafa.

You know I like to keep my readers up to date with the most important breaking news ;) Well just in, the world’s biggest potato has been found! It weighs in a whooping 11.3 kg, almost 3 times heavier than the previous world record holder. Found/grown by a southern Lebanese farmer, BBC News has the full story »

Hot on the heals of last weeks New Mexico section, here’s the highlights of the Colorado. Set to the beat of Rock and Roll, Part 2 by Gary Glitter (no comments about kiddy fiddling please).

As you’ll gather from the video, the defining aspect of Colorado was probably the snow. When we entered Colorado and crossed the San Juan Mountains (in June) you could barely follow any kind of footpath. It was mostly buried deep under snow so the map and compass were always at hand taking bearings and working out where over the next ridge we were supposed to aim. We had days where we’d hardly step foot on bare earth all day and it was a strugle to find anywhere to pitch our tent on the evening. But as June turned into July things started to melt and there was a bit more grass to laze about on at lunchtime, but this caused it’s own problems of water logged ground and swollen streams to cross…

Our favourite section of Colorado was the San Juan Mountains, you might notice a couple of extra people in the video - that’s Boston & Cubby, two fellow CDT’ers we helped through the start of this tricky section. It’s probably worth noting me & Paul were the only people out of the 11 northbounders to complete the San Juan’s, everyone else took the Creede cutoff. But probably the best singular highlight was climbing Mount Elbert, which is the highest mountain on the Continental Divide. The long panorama towards the end of the video is the awe-inspiring view from the top. But also for me, my girlfriend Nicky came out halway and walked with us for 2 weeks (we had to slow down a bit for her).

We had our best Steak of the CDT here, it was at the Back Street Steakhouse in Grand Lake. (probably our most expensive meal too…)

About a third of the way in there’s a shot of me in the tent during a lighting storm. This was probably the scaryest moment on the CDT, lightening was hitting the ground every 10-15 seconds and all round us in every direction… After crouching down in the trees for a while, we decided we couldn’t bare the sight of it anymore and had to just get in the tent, close and eyes and hope that we waked up in the morning! Well we did :) and we were at the Wyoming border a few days later, the halfway point of the CDT.

Imade these last year and they went down a storm, so here’s the new updated 2008 versions. What the hell is a Christmas cheat sheet? Well it’s my answer to age old problem of buying clothes for your better half at Christmas time. Get your boyfriend/girlfriend to fill in a one of these cheat sheets with their vital stats, then go out shopping with confidence that you’ll buy the right size and they’ll fit come Christmas day.

Dowload:
• Crispy clean pdf versions here: Girls & Boys
• Or get the more soulful jpg version here: Girls & Boys.

Happy shopping! Here’s a preview of the boys version:

Avaried selection of work Venezuelan designer Cerotreees, I was particularly drawn to this shiney moustache though :) More on his Behance page & Portfolio.

Via: Hunter-Gatherer.

Mt’s always good to see some crazy doodling and Alex Chiu is the master. Makes me want to fill up a blank page right now, be sure to check out his Commissions.

Via: ShareSomeCandy.