Artistic Statement of the Day IV

I was just practicing using the gradient mesh tool in Illustrator, and voila! USB Boy was born!

Burning Questions

For some reason, I woke up this morning wondering why there are leap years. It seems kind of silly to have to remember that every year that is divisible by four that can NOT be evenly divided by 100 unless it CAN be divided by 400 is a leap year. I understand that we do that to keep the Gregorian Calendar we follow in sync with the Earth's revolution around the sun, but wouldn't it make more sense to just redefine the word "year" to mean 365.2425 days (the average year since the Gregorian Calendar was introduced) instead of 365? If you like whole numbers, there could still be the current 365 days a year, but a "day" would have to be redefined to be 24.016 hours. And if you want to keep that number at the current 24, of course, an "hour" would have to be redefined to be 60.04 minutes, etc.

Now I know there'd be some resistance from, oh say, the Timex company at first, since they'd have to redesign all their watches, but in the long run I think it would be a good thing.

I think about these things.

Magic Pretzels?

"GUARANTEED FRESH UNTIL SEP 18" boldly proclaims the label, but September 18 of what year? Do they magically regenerate every year? And what exactly happens on SEP 19? I have a lot of unanswered questions regarding these pretzels, and the weird, noseless little girl on the label ain't talkin'...

Redesigned Penny for Your Thoughts...

We keep hearing that pennies are going to be eliminated, that they cost more to produce than they're worth and that they just make people's purses heavier. So then yesterday I got this shiny beauty in change from my friendly (meant sarcastically, as they are NOT particularly friendly) neighborhood Walgreens (in fact, I'm pretty sure some of the employees there are on a work release program, but that's another blog post entirely). I guess that's a pretty clear sign that there are no immediate penny-discontinuation plans.

As for me, I'm all for keeping them around. Especially if they continue this "before they were President" series. The possibilities are endless; Martin Van Buren pouring drinks in Kinderhook, NY; James K. Polk felling trees along Tennessee's Duck River... That's good stuff!

Well, anyway, that's my two cents...

Not So Lucky (After the Lawsuit)...

Walking around our favorite "ethnic" grocery store the other day, I noticed this carton of Lucky Crown Broccoli and couldn't believe my eyes. Now, my goal is not to get the Lucky Crown Broccoli Company in trouble, but, as a graphic designer myself, I find stealing somebody's crown (pardon the pun) reprehensible. And if you ARE going to steal a logo, why on earth would you pick a nationally recognizable symbol like Budweiser? Just sayin'...

Artistic Statement of the Day III

I'm not sure, but it looks like she's doing a "pit check"...

Betcha Can't Tell the Difference

One day recently, we wanted to have hot dogs for lunch (I know, they're not good for you and they're made with questionable ingredients, but we can't help it; we LOVE them). But what's this? No mayonnaise? I reached into the pantry and grabbed a new bottle (jar? container?), and while trying to remove the plastic wrap around the flip-top lid thingy, I accidentally removed the entire label. Well, I wanted to remember what what was in that container, so I meticulously recreated the label with a Sharpie®, and if I do say so myself, you can't tell the difference! See for yourself...

What's Next?

Starbucks elevators? Now we can't even transition vertically between floors without needing a caffeine fix? I mean, I love my coffee as much as the next guy, but this is ridiculous!