The year’s best movie posters. Filed under “Careers That People Probably Have a Total Blast In”.

(via Coudal Partners’ Blended Feed.)



I’ve generally regarded the NY Times’ annual Buzzwords as a little goofy, but it’s still fun to peruse and recall the totally awesome ones (and scoff at the lame, only-used-by-people-trying-to-be-hip words).



I should remind you that I’m on The Twitter, which is even better than this website because I actually get around to updating it kinda sorta frequently.



And remember kids, this isn’t entirely untrue.



I don’t care whether you love or hate AC/DC, because few could honestly deny the awesomeness of their Donington performance:

(I like the shots of Angus, personally.)



Nanobama. Has political pop art ever been so popular that it pushes people to do [awesome] things like this?



October 31, 2008

Some Brief Thoughts on Voting

I can’t vote in the 2008 Presidential Election; I’m seventeen years old, and will not be eighteen until mid-April. That’s unfortunate for me1, but as a result of this, I feel an obligation to remind those who can vote to, well, go out and actually do it.

If there’s anything that bothers me more as a minor, it’s the idea of an adult sitting at home and consciously not voting, be it from laziness or a lack of interest. This is madness. The fact that some Americans don’t want to take advantage of one of their most fundamental rights as a citizen is such a gross travesty that I sometimes suspect that this group may be borderline retarded. That voting is not some universal human right that occurs in every country in the world — and that, as a United States citizen you have a voice in picking your country’s leader — should make many people feel very empowered.

Laziness can’t be excused. But what if you honestly don’t know about the candidates?

I’ve been to two political rallies this year — both at the University of Colorado in Boulder, a fairly-liberal institution in a very-liberal city — and the emphasis in both headlining speeches has been to get out and vote. Obviously, this has been in support of Barack Obama, so the real message isn’t “get out and vote” as much as it’s “get out and vote Democrat”, and that’s inspired the basic thesis of this post: vote for something.

The point of voting is not to just go out and cast your ballot arbitrarily or depending on which candidate had the better television presence before you went to bed on November 3rd; this is essentially worthless, as it just gives a disproportionate number of votes to a candidate where they might not deserve it. The real purpose of electing a leader is so, after a long period of debate and campaigning, the United States picks the candidate who demonstrates superior leadership skills. This requires scrutinizing candidates’ stances in your head countless times until you find the one whose political beliefs fall mostly in line with yours.

I imagine a good majority of my weblog’s readers (that’s right, all twelve of you!) understand this, but I think this idea becomes sub-conscious for many until one processes it visually (e.g., reading some nerd’s blog post). You might personally know that you’ve supported a candidate because of their political positions, but you may not know that, well, a lot don’t.

Thus, I offer two little tidbits for the two crowds I’ve talked about:

  1. If you are going to vote / already voted and actually care about the issues, encourage people to vote — and vote intelligently.
  2. If you don’t care, you better start. And if you plan to vote but don’t actually “care”, do yourself a favor and spend six hours reading about the candidates’ political views.

I’m not asking you to vote Republican, Democrat, Independent or Bull Moose — just have a sense that you know your stuff when you get to the booth on the 4th.

  1. That being said, I’m pretty happy seventeen year-olds-or-under can’t vote; it seems like, for every five friends I have who have a reasonable comprehension of the election, there are maybe ten to fifteen people who support Obama simply because of the immense liberal influence Boulder has. I support Barack Obama, but peer pressure isn’t how you vote for a President. ↩
  2. If the thesis of this post was so mind-numbingly obvious to you that you laughed or, to an extreme, hold it in regard as a load of tripe, then good for you for caring about the election.


I don’t get it. Adobe, a company with probably hundreds of graphic artists, can’t create Photoshop’s app icon for squat. Adam Betts, a 25 year-old freelance designer, has made two alternatives — one of which is nearly two years old — that makes the official one look like it was designed by a twelve year-old who just learned how to use layer styles.

Edit: He continues the trend with his just-released CS4 set, too.



The Brokers With Hands On Their Faces Blog.

(via Luis Sosa.)



Post of the day, if you ever watched Seinfeld. Reminds me of this shirt I saw earlier this week, which pretty much takes my vote for best shirt ever.