Charlie Brooker on Microsoft’s new campaign

Charlie Brooker on Microsoft's new campaign

Charlie Brooker is on form with this article about Microsoft’s new campaign and his disliking of Mac evangelists. You can see the ad he’s on about here »

“It’s so terrible, it induces an entirely new emotion: a blend of vertigo, disgust, anger and embarrassment which I like to call “shitasmia”. It not only creates this emotion: it defines it. It’s the most shitasmic cultural artefact in history.”

So many brilliant quotes:

“Everyone knows Windows is awful. Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it’s there, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

More awesome wedding invites

More awesome wedding invites

Stumbled onto Studio On Fire’s blog Beast Pieces. Plenty of gorgeous letterpress work, but particularly taken by the collection of wedding invites they’ve printed. Loving the ligatures on the invite above by (the groom) Jefferson Perky.

It’s interesting that they print a whole set of cards, invites, RSVP’s, thankyou cards etc all in one go – “One of the things that we do to make printing them affordable is run all of the pieces on the same press sheet. Our presses are big enough to run several different cards on the same press sheet, then trim them down to size. This represents a huge cost savings over printing individual cards, setting up the press for each form on each card”.

Lovemix Boombox:

Lovemix Boombox

Great old school boombox with the love dial set to max, designed by Adam Ramerth. This design is even available for customisation if you’re interested.

Lovely set:

Wedding invite

Loving all the colour combos and mix of paper stock & printing techniques. Great all together set with nice envelope labels, perforated RSVP’s and even tiny little envelope to send it back in. Designed by Erin Jang.

I love New Zealand

Mt. Cook Map

Haven’t actually been there, but I am planning to go next year, only fair since they’ve named a mountain after me ;). Linz (Land Information New Zealand) just released a new series of 1:50k today, so I headed over expecting it part with a fair amount of cash to buy all the maps I needed to walk the 1800 mile Te Araroa. Much to my delight you can download them all for free!

Good work New Zealand, I only wish more countries would make their maps available for free :)

Present & Correct

Present & Correct Store

Just found this lovely online store, the London based Present & Correct. “A long-term obsession with stationery has culminated in a constantly evolving store. A selection of P&C products mixed up with handmade goods, vintage items and work by designers from all over the world”.

I could of happily bought just about everything on there, but had to restrain myself! I did pick up this great vintage dymo machine, and this 1949 book on preserving (and a few secret other things). Most of their stuff is one off finds so get over there and have a look before it all gets snapped up.

The hangover is over

R.I.P - Keith Floyd

Dear Gastronaughts, extremely sad to hear the legendary Keith Floyd passed away on Monday, September 14 2009. I watched his cookery shows religously as kid, collected all his cook books to this day. If you’re not from the UK and don’t know who he is, Spitting Image’s 1987 parody should give you a good idea ;)

It’s no surprise really that he would die before his time, but he will be sorely missed.

Keith Floyd

He should be known for what he did best cooking & boozing so check out this clip of Mussels Mariniere, I think Me and Nicky will be cooking it in honor tonight.

I’ll leave you with a recipe from his hangover book – “probably the most famous moring-after reviver of all time”

The Prairie Oyster

1 measure of cognac
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Angostura Bitters
Pinch of cayenne
The yolk of 1 free-range egg

Mix together all the ingredients, apart from the cayenne and egg yolk, in a whiskey glass. Add a small pinch of cayenne and drop in the egg yolk. Drink in one without breaking the yolk.

Barrel Photo via: Dion Farrell.

Time Lapse Beard Action

Great time lapse video from German hiker Christoph Rehage growing his beard (and barnet) while walking back home from Beijing?! He didn’t make it all the way back to Germany, just across China (4646km), but he did keep a bloody good account of his hair growing.

I’ve seen a few facial hair time lapses over the years, none as good as this. Some times it’s the standard day by day frame by frame technique, but usually he mixes it up with multiple shots as he rotates showing more of the scenery, or people in the background and some great timely facial expressions.

Strange seeing him shave it all of at the end, looks a completely different person, character even, I think he looks like a nicer person with the beard, he’s kinda slightly sinister without? Anyhow I know when I shaved my beard off after the CDT it freaked me out and I grew it straight back to cover the person I didn’t recognised below. If think with the caption “was it really me?” at the end, he felt the same. Grow it back Christoph, beards are best!

Via: Swiss Miss.