The League of Extraordinarily Affordable Tee Shirts

Ten Bills is one of the best shopping sites on the web because it offers tee shirts with original artwork for only ten dollars. Each week the site releases a new tee. This week's tee the League of Extraordinary Lovers is posted above. As much as I love the clothing at mooseshirts and No Mas there is no chance of finding anything on those sites as affordable as ten bills.

Also: 30GB Ipod video on woot for $99.99!

Kim Jong Il: "Stop Filming My Country"

After reading that the two American journalists who were detained in North Korea on Tuesday have yet to be released, I wanted to post this vbs.tv series The Vice Guide to North Korea. Having grown up in the U.S. it is surreal to consider experiencing the structure and suppression that is evidently present in North Korea. This series is the best insider’s account of North Korea that I have seen.

The journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were detained after straying into North Korea across the Chinese border on a shallow portion of the Tumen River, which is often frozen into April. Two male counterparts reportedly escaped back to China and are being held there.

One can’t help but empathize with the people of North Korea and anyone else in their custody after viewing these clips. It is evident that the North Korean officials are very sensitive to how journalists portray their country. After the posting of this series I cannot imagine that they have warmed much to the notion of Free Press. All of the episodes are enlightening but perhaps the most amusing is episode 14, in which our guide belts out a karaoke rendition of the Sex Pistols Anarchy in the U.K. to a room of stunned handlers. It seemed downright ridiculous that this tune made it into a karaoke set of North Korean anthems but maybe it was just a case of reverse Engrish Funny lost in translation.

The Wisdom in Routines

“Be regular and orderly in your life, like a good bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.''-Flaubert

As someone who is on an unending quest for greater personal efficiency the site Daily Routines has been an oasis in the desert of self-improvement sites on the net. Daily Routines posts little nuggets of info on the habits of successful people such as Barack Obama, Roald Dahl, and Charles Darwin. With this wealth of information all packed together on one site I decided to do a little number crunching to find out what an average day in the life of a genius might look like.

I tallied the available info on when these geniuses woke, began working, and went to sleep. I also recorded the hours each day that the subjects devoted to work and reading. Not all data points were available for each subject so this is far from being scientific or conclusive. Nevertheless, I figured that this would offer some insight on what makes these people special. The results are not particularly surprising because they lend credence to Ben Franklin’s proverb “Early to bed, Early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

A typical day in for these geniuses began by waking at 6:26 am. By 8:14 am the work-day began. Work lasted an average of just over seven hours but was often broken up by a long lunch. This supports the theories behind the slow food movement. The ideal subject was in bed by 10:09.

The average time spent reading was 5.75 hours a day but this number was skewed by Joseph Campbell’s practice of reading twelve hours a day when he was jobless during the Great Depression.

The Origins of Corporate Imagery

While snooping around instantshift I came across this new template, which I am hoping to tweak a little to my own preferences.

Among the many other interesting items on that site is a post on the evolution of brand logos. Of particular note are Apple’s wood engraving Newton logo, Volkswagen’s swaztikaesque logo, and BMW’s Bauhaus logo of the 70’s and 80’s. From the sample here it appears that logos are getting simpler (Apple, Shell, Nike, IBM, Canon, Pepsi) and making more prominent use of shading (Apple, Xerox, BMW, Google, VW, Firefox, Ford, Mercedes).

I like the shift towards simplicity but the shading is more difficult to swallow. In most cases shading a two dimensional logo just makes it appear like a cheaper version of something that is meant to exist in 3D. The current Apple, Google, and Firefox logos seem to work in spite of this. Perhaps their virtual presence creates a sense that their shaded logos are more real in print or on screen as opposed to the car companies whose products have a more physical existence. Mercedes gets a reprieve of judgment on this matter as they began shading their logo back in 1909.

The Circus Comes to Salt Lake

Traveling Circus - Episode 5 - Vegas to SLC from Line Skis on Vimeo.

Episode 5 of Traveling Circus is live and a must see. Check out what Will and Andy bring to SLC's famed rail garden.

Monster Thrash

On Monday the United States of America Snowboard Association (USASA) and Monster Energy announced a multi-year deal that will make Monster the official energy drink of the amateur organization. This is a great move for Monster because it builds credibility with the young athletes who are key influencers in the board sport culture. From the press release:

The 2009 USASA Nationals will be held at Copper Mountain, CO on April 6th-10th.The attendance expected to be over 1600 competitors and 10,000 spectators. In addition, the USASA Regional's season begins in November 2009 at 33 regions , and over 100 resorts and 500 events throughout the US.

This sponsorship highlights the differences in marketing between Monster and their rival Red Bull. And yes, it is now a rivalry. The Bull currently bests Monster’s market share by only 7% as opposed to 28% at the end of 2006. Red Bull’s approach is decidedly alternative in that it favors title sponsoring innovative events such as the Snow Scrapers, Buttercup Series, and the Cold Rush. They are the victims of their own hipness because this method gives them loads of street cred but it forsakes straight-ahead grassroots opportunities such as the USASA sponsorship. As time passes the proof will be in the profits but I think this is a large score for Monster.