long time no see and the world's safest car

so it's been a long time since i last posted.

a lot has happened since then. i went to new orleans for a bachelor party. went to wisconsin to play golf and hang out with the korean students before they all left for home. finished three final projects and one take-home exam, play back to back days of golf and drinking, and began packing to move out of my apartment.

unfortunately that didn't leave much time for posting blogs, but you haven't really missed out on a ton of stuff.

but this is a neat video on MB's take on the world's safest car... it's a lot of airbags but some pretty amazing tech if they get it to work. the seltbelt airbag is fascinating if not excessive.

photo of the day

good photographer
super hot photo
that'll be all for today

[via nejat talas]

would you like a green stairway, why yes i would!

this building has a great clean design. it's a box shell, but hides a grass stairway to a green roof. the back of the stairway is in the center of the photo above.


for some reason a beautiful curve like the one created by the bottom of the stairway that expands to meet the left wall is a nice juxtaposition to the strong angles of the box frame of the house. (that sounded nerdy than required... it's nice when curves and straight lines are mixed - there much better)


a awesome view from the staircase. the coolest thing is you can only access the roof from inside the house...


view from the roof.


view from inside, looking at the staircase.

[via contemporist, the architects are kwk promes]

are we all the same?

this is a pretty cool concept that this photographer came up with. from what i can tell i likes setting up for photos and loves photoshop. he takes photos from the same location, over and over again and compiles different people from different images to create a theme... i'm not sure if all the of the people in the image were taken at that location or if they were transplant from an entirely different location. but based on the lighting, i'm guessing they were... otherwise he's photoshop skills would be utterly insane.

cellphones

all in red

taking photos in times square

women

kids, kids, kids (i love this one... it's the same location as the top one)

[via v1 gallery]

i love simple things

so when i was in elementary school - i used to have an old braun travel alarm clock as my bedside clock. i don't remember how i got it, i definitely didn't buy it myself, but i remember it was very easy to use, just two simple dials in the back, one to adjust the time and another for the alarm. there was button on the top to set the alarm and that was it.

over the years, i lost the clock (probably between house moves we did as a family) but i remember trying to buy one a few years back, but couldn't find the one i wanted. i thought about getting it as a travel clock. but like most people i've switched to using my cellphone as an alarm clock, but there is something great about using a simple analog clock and leaving the cellphone on the other side of the table.

i'm not sure if i'll get one (maybe when i start working on the road a lot next year) in the meantime my cellphone seems to work alright, even if it seems i have to keep on living the digital lifestyle.

[reminded by valet]

best sushi deal in town

so M told me about this place that has good sushi (with an all you can eat option for $20) that was nearby. i scoffed at the idea since e-town doesn't have great sushi options (i don't think that chicago has great options as compared to bigger markets on the coasts (NYC, LA, SF, etc.) but this place was great... sure it's not going to be 5 star sushi, but it was fresh and very reasonably priced.

since it was lunchtime and went with the ramen (which is even harder to find than sushi, and it was good... not as great as the stuff in little tokyo in LA, but still - very good for what it was. it came with a side of california roll - nothing amazing but super fresh avocado which was nice.

all in it was 8 bucks which is good value. the decor looks more like a fish market than a restaurant which is probably why they don't have as much overhead. simple, white and clean. what's not to like? sure it's not fancy, but let's be fair, this is e-town anyway.

next time i'll have to go for dinner and get some real sushi.

Sea Ranch Fish Market
518 Dempster Street
Evanston, IL
847-492-8340

neoclassic: will it work?

so the whole neoclassic look is starting to surface... first it was olympus that came out with a concept that was pretty interesting - it was a mix of analog looks with digital guts and a nice fitted leather shell to round out the old school aesthetics. it looks like nikon has come out with a similar concept but this is aimed more downmarket (the olympus one had a classic rangefinder look which would have been in the 500+ range for sure. but my guess is that this one would be more mass market and in the 350+ range... since the guts of the camera would probably retail for around 250-300.

i definitely like the concept... the only probably with neoclassic design is that digital camera lifecycles are too short these days and cameras as an "investment" is no longer true. so getting a non-transferable nicely fitted leather case either built in or on top of the camera seem a bit of a waste.

but i guess we'll see... i am happy that cameras are coming out with some more innovative design.