Are there things that are posted to threadless that you are sick of?

• Robots?
• Hearts?
• Things using only Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow?

Sound off!

I've talked to a few people that have been submitting for awhile before I submitted mine, and they all seemed to agree that when it came to submissions, they didn't fully bring their vision to realization. I know this isn't speaking for everyone, but it saddened me a little bit to hear that they had to sacrifice their artistic vision just so they'd get a better score.

Getting printed is nice and all...but...shouldn't it be more about the designs? Shouldn't it be more about all of us growing as artists, instead of growing as capitalists?

You can have at that one, or any of the other submissions up for your voting pleasure in my profile.

Have at you, I say!

Roll your own iPod Dock that is!

As you can see, I've thrown my hat into the DIY iPod Dock creation ring, with my submission. Utilizing the interconnective powers of Legos, in classic Apple white, I have slaked my need for something that holds my iPod upright whilst charging it. Not to mention it's one fancy conversation piece. I've submitted some pictures as well as a link to this webpage to TUAW, Engadget, and Gizmodo, in hopes I may get a small blurb. Then again, perhaps they've grown tired of the ingenuity of the Mac users. So which is it? Only time will tell.


[That, and a batch of freshly-baked cookies.]

I was just given a little chuckle on the Type Tees page. At the bottom is the "Procrastinators: Leaders of Tomorrow" tee, and I just found it silly how there is a "Pics Coming Soon" banner over it.

Tee-Hee, indeed.

Lucky for all of you, I'm in a posting mood. Sorry that I don't have the 30-post-a-day frequency of Engadget, but then again, the posters at Engadget get paid to post. But I like knowing readers are getting the freshest, so here you go.

First things first. The September 12th Apple Event. What happened you ask? We'll I'll give it to you straight Mr. Lives Under A Rock.

• New iPods. They're being called Generation 5.5, mainly because of the lack of a jump of features over previous models. I wonder if they're trying to bump up the iPod as often as they bump up computer specs, but it's not such a bad model anyway. Nothing I'd pick up since I already have a 5G, but for those who have a 4G or earlier would be certainly pleased with it. And I'm sure the new high point of 80 Gigs is a good deal breaker. Or maker?

• New Nanos. No doubt you've seen the commercial already. On television (one's on right now!), Apple's Website, print ads, or even on espn.com. I like they direction they went, mostly because I always liked the look of the Minis. Not sure the best choice was to make the 8 Gig model black-only, but maybe it'll be a symbol of badassery. "Oh, look! A new Nano! It's black, he must be really cool!" Or something.

• New Shuffles. Can they make this thing any frickin' smaller? I submit that they can not. Well, maybe if they took the clip off, but I like the idea, because you might lose it or something. But at $79, it's one piece of Bubbalicious-sized awesome-ness.


And then, two days later, came the September 14th Nintendo Event. Wii pricing and release date abound!

• November 19th. All gasps about how it's two days after the PS3 launch aside, I guess it's better than being $600. Hell, it's a lot better!

• $250. This comes with Wii Sports, The Wii-mote, the nunchuk attatchment, as well as free Nintendo WiFi access, and all of the add-on trimmings.


The new iTunes is quite an improvement, though. I've heard some whinings about inconsistencies with album art, but I've had nothing but a sparkling experience with it. Guess what else you can buy from the iTunes Music Store? Games. Oh yes. Pac-Man, Tetris, Cubis, and a handful of others are hitting your 5G and up 'Pods now. They've been tweaked to work specifically with the click wheel. So download and enjoy.

Other than that? Not too much to report. Look for the big N at the Tokyo Games Show, and Apple on September 25th at/just before Photokina.

What's that? mc chris is on iTunes? Sweet.


[Your mom, you know?]

Story time, kids!

Now, I'm sure that most of you have gone to this magical place full of wondrous goods and devices. They call this place Wal-Mart. Sometimes there's a star between "Wal" and "Mart", but that's irrelevant. No one says "Let's go to Wal-Star-Mart" anyhow.

And I'm sure that at some point, you may have gotten in line behind someone who wasn't exactly paying attention to how fast the line was going, or perhaps they were half in the line, and half out. These can be tricky situations, and I'm sorry if you've ever had to deal with that. Really.

I'm also sure that you may have seen carts at different parts of the store loaded up with various and random items, seeming to have no correlation to each other whatsoever. These carts are usually for the Wal-Mart associates to take around and put back on the shelves, because the items were either placed in an incorrect place, or they were decided against at the last moment and given to the cashier to put in said cart.

Now, it was Tuesday evening, a little after 6:30, and Alaina and I were in the process of finding an aisle that looked somewhat vacant, so that we might not have to spend a long time in line. Lucky for us, one of those carts filled to the brim with odds and ends was parked at the mouth of an aisle, and only a few people further on, waiting to make their purchases.

We stepped into this aisle, and proceeded to wait patiently for about 5 minutes (perhaps longer), only having about 20 items or so ourselves, so we knew that once we got up to the counter, our transaction would be relatively short. It soon came the time for the man in front of us to start putting his items on the conveyor, and as he was, a raspy, hatred-rimmed voice boiled forth from behind us.

"So, you must've just gotten here, huh?" The large and seemingly upset woman ventured.

"There was no one at your cart." Alaina replied.

Oh. The cart. The Cart. That bastard lied to us, and pretended he was full of items for the associates to take back. But instead this impostor, this wolf in sheep's clothing, was nothing more than another customers fatted cart.

"I really hope you get something from this," the bulging ape of a woman continued, "I hope it was all worth it. And I also hope that this kind of shit happens to you. I hope someone does this exact thing to you. I wish that on you."

It is at this point that we both gave the woman (if you feel it necessary to call her that) our customary "Wha...?" stares, along with simple retorts of "Okay" and "That's nice". It is also at this point that we rewound our minds to when we first entered the aisle. Was she in the adjoining aisle? Was she several aisles away? Why was she gone so long, and why would she leave her cart there? She couldn't expect people to look at it and think "Oh, that must be someone's cart. They aren't around, but we'd better not go in front of it, because somehow, in the magical world they live in, their cart not only saves their spot, but represents them as a person." So she must have expected all the people in Wal-Mart to make an exception for her carelessness and laziness, so that she could wander off in whatever state she was in, and pick up more things for her already bloated cart, no matter how long she took or how many people the sight of her cart was supposed to drive away.

And finally, we were able to put our items on the conveyor and begin finishing our transaction. Alaina was even so civil as to put the little plastic dividing stick after our items so the seething demon behind us could set some of her items down. And wouldn't you know it, she had to do that in a childish manner as well. She managed to grab the heaviest items from her cart first, and slammed them down onto the conveyor, making as much noise as possible. I'm almost sure that she put on her biggest, whiniest "I didn't get what I want, I just pooped my pants" face that a 3-year old has down pat.

After a weird look from the cashier, a refreshing comment from the man in front of us - "You two have a good night", accompanied with a knowing wink - and the transaction of the money, we were on our way out. I suppose the woman just felt like she had to get one more snide remark in before letting the two people who wouldn't do things her way get loose, so she opted for "G'bye ladies." I thought that was interesting, and I couldn't help but beam a great big smile, and Alaina shot her a "Grow up." We were soon away from one of the meanest people we'd ever met, and it wasn't long before she turned to me and said "Those are the type of people you meet in Wal-Mart."


[I couldn't agree more.]

The 19th was my mother's birthday. She neglected to send me a picture of her glowing face, but I'll still be nice and stick her in this post. Alaina had the genius idea of getting my mother an engraved tennis bracelet, as all the other women in her family have one. Good idea. And I had the awesome idea of...uh...

In other news, We made a quick stop a Toys R' Us a few days ago just to be fun, and I saw a Lego Star Destroyer. It was over 1300 pieces, and it is a replica of an older Lego set that had over 3600 pieces. I drooled when I saw it. I was sad to find that after looking through a few reviews of the set online, it has a very weak bottom. That kind of irks me, because the Lego sets I had when I was younger - and there were many - they were all very structurally sound. It is just odd that they wouldn't add some more support and strength.

Continuing on the news train, apparently the reason the US can't get Jet Black or Noble Pink DS's is because they are Europe-only. So if you feel like paying 99£ (approximately $180) for a Jet Black - excluding S&H - then be my guest. White is a nice clean color and all...but...I'm sure the big N would sell even more units if they gave a few more color choices.

And in Apple news, it appears as though they may not be using the Conroe processor for their second revision of the Intel PowerMac. (That means the revision after they switch the PowerMac to Intel.) It would seem to be that they would use Intel's Kentsfield processor which has 4 (count 'em) cores per processor, and giving it dual processors would wield an 8-core monster this world has never seen.

*drool*

I've been taking in a lot of movies again. Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Click, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Lake House.

All of them I recommend. If you want a great story with plenty of action, see Princess Mononoke or Pirates; if you want to be taken away to a magical place, try Spirited Away. If you'd prefer something that makes your head hurt just a tiny bit, take in The Lake House. Or if you want to watch a comedy but secretly would love to have your heart broken with sadness, watch Click.

That's the odd thing about Click. It kept getting all these rave comedy reviews like "Funniest Movie of the Summer" and stuff, but once you leave, you just want to call a loved one while there's still time left before they pass on, or before you ruin your life away.

Also, I just started The Stand: Complete and Uncut by Stephen King. Apparently and unbeknownst to me he re-released the original with 500+ pages of story and character developments, along with a new beginning and ending. Good thing I never read the first one, because in the foreword he wrote that this was the way the book was meant to be. All 1141 pages of it. It's apparently my father's favorite full-length Stephen King book. I suppose I'll write my opinions of it here after I'm done.

I'm currently in the process of busting my ass looking for a graphic design job. And guess who's hiring? No one. But I do have a few leads on hot employers, so I might get lucky, we'll see.

If you're wondering what the picture is...that, my friends, is a Whoopie Pie. That's right. Normal whoopie pies are the size of a small hamburger, but I put a quarter next to this one so you could get the human scale reference to see just how big it really was. And for those of you who have never had a whoopie pie, imagine a hamburger where the buns are made of chocolate cake, and the innards are made from a sort of buttercream-type mixture.

So why is this one so abnormally large? Well in Maine there's this place called Big G's, and if anyone ever comes to visit me, I'll take you up there. It's a trip just getting the food. The cinnamon rolls are as big as your head, and a whole sandwich (god help you if you order one) is the size of 4 sandwiches. They have to bake their own bread because the stuff is so big. But the refills are free, and they have nearly everything imaginable...including slushees. And I love how the foods are named after famous things. I almost ordered the Guido Sarduchi just because I could.

["It's the tough black element that won't cop out when the heat's about!"]