jon and i were pinging the other day about how remarkable it is that remnants of that horrible naming trend during the dot com boom still exists today. i think alot of you know what i am talking about. these are the names that were dreamed up by slightly off-the-mark marketing guys, with the awkward hopes of TRYING to conjure up coolness. their formula is textbook - combine some ingredients like a "shocking" word with "internet-cool" appeal, and add .com. we can all picture these jokers sitting around an expensive table, leaning back in their aeron chairs, convincing each other that by coming up with a hip and trendy name, they could sit back and take orders, and that they could spend their time planning their retirement at the age of 35.

though this trend bleeds into other areas, the small web design or ad agencies are are the worst offenders of this. we hypothesized that it may have started back with the brands of those hot sauces...lol, you have to check out this link...or with the micro brew industry that--quality of the beer aside--have brought us painful names like Rogue Dead Guy Ale and Fat Tire Ale.

i'd love to collaborate to build a scroll of shame of some of these company names...here are a few to start:

avenue a’s razorfish - razorfish.com (who's success may have caused the tipping point)
digidog studios -http://www.digidogstudios.com/
pilot fish studios - http://www.pilotfishseo.com/
blue wave solutions - http://www.ibluewave.com/
…and my personal favorite:
house of tears design - http://www.houseoftearsdesign.com/

its also fun to dream up new ones! like:
screaming-banchee-interactive.com
extremedia.com
chipotle-design.net
feelin-hot-hot-hot.com
Macarena-design.com
demi-glaze-orgy.com
punch-a-lady-in-the-face-web.com

if you share our ire, i encourage your posts to add to the "real" or "new" lists!

he writes "No joke...He's a Balanese pop-star." and attaches this pic:

turns out, according to this website, he has found his niche: "American bandleader Karsten Schroeer swapped a life in San Francisco for the cosmopolitan blend of Singapore culture and music, before making the next musical progression to Bali. The band's Bandung musicians—Bagja Subagja, Asep Sukmana and Gun Gun Permana — perform on traditional instruments."

i just walked outside my door in the west village to get a sandwich for lunch, and see i big dude with a zz top style beard sitting on the stoop next door. i do a double take as i catch a closer glimpse of his left ear. he has got a piercing - but not just any decorative earring hanging off. now, we've all seen those large "hole in the ear" piercings that, in my humble opinion, dont exactly look flattering nor particularly "edgy" anymore. as well, we are all guilty of screetching the remote to a halt while surfing past a PBS documentary showing african tribes with rocks hanging from their ears.

this dude had clearly outdone any punk or tribesman i've ever seen - he had a SMALL 6" FLASHLIGHT driven right through the hole in his ear. let me repeat that: he had a SMALL 6" FLASHLIGHT driven right through the hole in his ear. as i strolled by, i had a fleeting thought about how convenient that must be if he is on the job, and under a sink or something, but then i remembered what i was looking at: he had a SMALL 6" FLASHLIGHT driven right through the hole in his ear.

+

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WTF?

Keep an eye out for the forthcoming launch of Facade which is expected to be the most progressive interactive story game yet. Guided by artificial intelligence, 30-something characters within the game make decisions from themselves and have realistic emotions. Though i'm not ready to declare "tipping point", i think what this game is attempting to do could have huge impact not only in the gaming industry, but in software in general. to date, the most mainstream attempt at software trying to understand us and convey emotion has been the annoying paper clip guy. but there is a very engaging middle ground--between people and their machines--that lives somewhere between paper clip guy and where Facade is heading...

our friend gary chan, the reigning champion for entries in the "truth is stranger than fiction files", was somehow was called to be a MODEL in his local AM station's ad campaign in palo alto. he showed up at a photo shoot, and, sure enough, he was one of three people chosen. as twain put it, "to me, it would be less strange for [any of us] to be in a #$%$#% porn movie than GC to be in local print ads at the age of 37!" it is amazing, gary is a walking anomoly always surprising you when you least expect it - he embodies my favorite quote from ollie stone's jfk: "a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma!"

ottawa really is a cool city. very livable, green, and a real european feel to it. we checked out byward market, a great open air market. we checked out a cellar bar that had a fantastic beer menu, called vineyards. i also had a great "baseball steak" at the keg.

megs was hoping to run the marathon, her 2nd one, in sub-4 hours. i'm happy to report that we turned in a 3:51! yep, she made her man really proud, yup she did.

oh, and mike played some great defense.

i'm extremely excited for the bountiful (ok, as bountiful as can be given my 5' x 3' NYC terrace) fruits my herb garden will soon bear. nothing is better than fresh herbs to make any food taste better. i'm a card carrying memeber of the jamie oliver fanclub, and really enjoy studying his style of cooking--almost always advocating the use of fresh herbs.

i've had commitment issues in the past with respect to plants, but this is my breakout year to embrace the traditions of the great farmers that have speckled our nation's history. i am told that herbs are less tempermental than many plants, but now that i have begun reading more about them, just like anything else, seems like there is a good deal of complexities - soil pH, sunlight, water, containers, and more...alas, i'll learn the hard way what works and what doesn't.

read on:

so decided to pay a long overdue visit to alex and robbyn's blog to find out what was happening back on the old sod. you really must spend some time reading this, there is some priceless stuff there. some of my favorite recent entries are: observations about british signs. i also remember having this conversation one night with alex about how the ipod "random" is hardly that...he has done a brilliant job of articulating the behavior of the random feature. of course, who could leave out alex's never-ending rant about yankees hats in london.

this is an image that my friend jon keegan created for our buddy gweez in japan. jon, you will learn, was the original "buzz agent" for apple, decades before the notion of word-of-mouth advertising was even born. he was trying to convince him to buy a mac...gweez is the world's biggest (white) sumo fan. with this convincing sumo-style UI, and i'm sure will be a happy mac owner soon.