This is my favorite page on Flickr. Occasional NSFW photos and far, far too many cat pictures (you freaking cat people… I swear you need help), but more often than not, a great place to see some beautiful photographs.

Amoeba Corp. has some cool digital scrapbooks to flip through.

New York City’s rising real estate prices are forcing the creative set out of the city. If artists leave, what happens to a city? “When a place gets boring, even the rich people leave.”

Just in time for New Year’s, skinnyCorp brings us ExtraTasty, a community-based, searchable database of drink recipes. Well-executed and stylish. (And who would have thought the domain extratasty.com would be available?)

As strange as it sounds (considering I play acoustic guitar everyday) I rarely enjoy or get into acoustic-guitar-based music. That being said, i’ve been a fan of Justin King for awhile now. It started with seeing this video and has grown as King signed with a major label and started doing the band/pop/signer-songwriter thing. He’s good. Enjoy.

Sean Kennedy Santos has an outstanding photography portfolio and a vibrant, well-edited short film of NYC moments. I’m inspired by his eye for things, especially space and cropping. (There are a few potentially NSFW images.)

It’s 2:41pm on Decmber 24th and I just got back from checking the last two items off my shopping list for the fam. I have approximately 2 hours to wrap all my presents and i’ll be ready for Christmas.

How does this always happen? (Don’t answer that.) It’s not like Christmas is sneaky and ambushes me… it’s the same day, every year. Procrastination is apparently imprinted into my genetic code.

I bought Publix Deli pumpkin pies today, too. Mmmmmm…. pumpkiny.

I’d wager that 77-89% of the people driving on I-85 northbound through GA and SC today should not be allowed to operate a motor vehicle. Ever. Ever again. (I stopped outside Atlanta and had a Publix Deli sub and IT WAS GLORIOUS and made my road rage go away.)

This Internet Monk article on bad language and what he refers to as “prissy Protestantism” is probably the single best thing i’ve read on the internet in 2005. Seriously.

Evangelicals became an offended group when they adopted ideas of “holiness�” and “worldliness�” that were an effort to preserve a particular kind of culture. When Christianity is identified with culture – anywhere – then deviation from the “good�” values of that culture is considered “unChristian,�” and Christians were then told by their leaders (and their mothers) that it was OK to get mad, to be offended, and to do whatever offended people have the right to do, which could be anything from turn around with your nose in the air to vote out the mayor or burn down the saloon.

[Christ's] followers were the overturners of an empire. They died with their eyes open. They conquered Ireland and gave us the strength of Celtic Christianity. Martin Luther would have beat up your prissy pastor and poured beer on him. The Reformers weren’t whiners. They were builders. A man wasn’t ashamed to be around the Puritans. These people didn’t need a men’s group at church to make them feel included in what was a women’s movement. It was their church. Their pastors and bishops weren’t chronically complaining about the shocking nudity down at the brothel. They were preaching the Gospel in the face and to the heart of that culture.

PARK(ing) is a temporary urban park that was set-up in a public parking space for two hours without incident or interference from any level of institutional authority. Fun.

JustWatchTheSky is non-operational but will return in early 2006. I’ll believe it when I see it, Simy.

10 things i’m really enjoying this month:

1. Flickr. My love for the world’s best online photo community has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few weeks as I get to know more people and find more great photography. The “get more interesting photos from the last 7 days” page has become my homepage.

2. Strawberry Twizzlers.

3. Painting.

4. Reading. I go through phases with reading books and I frustratingly hadn’t been able to finish a book in months, until recently. (Anne Rice’s Memnoch the Devil sort of won me over in a way I didn’t expect.)

5. Carrying a briefcase. I’ve tried various bags/backpacks and had minor successes with them, but finding an all-in-one ORGANIZED solution for carrying my stuff to and from work has always been an issue. When I was unpacking I realized I had my father’s old Samsonite briefcase (complete with vintage 70′s “Hugs Not Drugs” sticker on it) and i’ve been using it. It works. Wonderfully. But I do get strange looks from people.

6. Stretching the creative tendencies by coming up with photos for Whiskerino 2005 everyday. The beard contest and nice community there has been great, but it has (unexpectedly I might add) forced me to be a better photographer and I am thankful for that. Plus… BEARD.

7. Netflix. I forgot how much I enjoyed having movies waiting for me when I got home until I didn’t have the service (or a home) for almost two months. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

8. Dave Werner, who I met at cre824. Somebody hire him.

9. My two new pairs of New Balance 594s (in blue and beige.) I wasn’t sure that anything could top the 574s… but I really dig these shoes. I don’t even realize i’m wearing them, which is a big deal for an avowed flip flop aficionado.

10. Waiting. I’m usually terrible at it, but i’m trying to (begin to) enjoy the tension of it all. (This isn’t code for anything in particular, it really is an “in general” statement.)

Gothamist interviews New York photographer Lisa Whiteman. She has some very insightful things to say about making images and the interplay between photographer and subject. You can view more of her work at her site.

Apple puts on lots of free seminars on software, hardware, tech topics, and the like. Click on “events by location” and see what’s coming up near you.

The new LG SteamWasher has a water-less steam cycle. Nifty. Granted, it’s a $1500 washing machine… but how long does it take to run up that bill in dry cleaning fees?

Everybody’s gettin’ hitched. Congratulations to Meghan and Pudge. (Mainly congratulations to Pudge… I mean seriously…we all know The Chick is THE DEAL.) And nice photos, Lanna. This one’s my favorite.

From all of us at Tubatomic Studio to all of you in your cubicles, offices, coffeeshops, underwear, etc. WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS. Turn up your speakers, make sure you have Flash 8, and realize that it may be mildly offensive to various segments of society for various reasons. But it’s dang funny.

Props to M.A. Turner for doing the bulk of the work and being awesome,
Joshua

Chewbacca wants to wish you a merry Christmas… with a song.

Wow Coupons has dozens of printable coupons (Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Pier 1, etc.). Most of them expire on Christmas Eve on New Year’s Eve, so get busy printing and shopping.

Back in September I announced my intentions to start an online storefront to sell things like photography prints, posters, greeting cards, t-shirts, etc. I gave myself a late November deadline. I obviously missed it.

It wasn’t exactly intentional. I got this new job and moved to this new town and life’s been a little hectic. In addition to those decently valid excuses, there’s been a few thoughts running around in my head about how to deal with personal branding and this domain and with my design portfolio HRTWRK, especially in light of the other things I spend my time doing (alternating between personally and professionally) like photography and painting, and to a lesser extent poetry and music. Confused yet? Me too. My online life is feeling really chaotic and all over the place. I need some simplicity.

So here’s the deal: the new plan is to make this site homebase. And I mean homebase for everything. It just makes the most sense. In my head, i’m envisioning some variety of central splashpage with subpages for Blog, Work, Photography, Painting, etc. The options are fairly open to do anything I decide to be interested in at the time. (Not that such things EVER happen.) That settles this domain, and a solid (easy to market) personal brand. One business card, one email address, one domain. Simplicity at its best.

So what to do with these other domains? There’s no real need for HRTWRK to be a design portfolio anymore because i’ll want to move that over to this domain and a Work subpage. Additionally, there’s no need for me to do freelance design work (the little of it i’m doing these days) under an alias or studio name. But HRTWRK is a viable brand with a good mark and decently established identity… it would be a shame to waste it. I think i’ll make it an online storefront. Why not? HRTWRK sounds like a great brand name for the various creative goods I want to make and sell.

And that leaves Prom Night Fist Fight, which is already well on its way to becoming a playground for me to randomly post weird animated gifs. Check in there as often as you want, I have a pretty substantial library of oddities to post on there.

I think I feel better about everything now, and i’ll simply avoid mentioning a deadline for all of this to save myself the drama of missing it. Let’s say “eventually” to be on the safe side. Thanks for visiting, listening, reading, being curious, etc. I really do appreciate it.

My friend Tara who a little article for Relevant magazine called How To Dismantle An Idolized Bono and has, unsurprisingly, been publicly blasted by U2 fans online for the better part of the day. I thought it was a good, thought-provoking article, but I suppose that makes me a target, too.