Netflix Watch Instanatly: Gems

Ever since Netflix opened up its Watch Instantly feature to Macs two weeks ago, I have been sifting through the 10,000 titles looking for gems. Unfortunately, most of the movies are pulled from Showtime's B grade content. Just think Waterworld at 4:30 am on a Tuesday and you will get the idea. Here is a link to the an Engadget article describing how to sign up for the Beta. Here are some quality titles that have kept me from my work over the last two weeks...

Rushmore, No Country For Old Men, Ordinary People, and last but not least, Red Dawn.

Trip To Burton Factory: Part 2

As a recovering shoe addict, I head strait to the footwear section of any store I enter. The Burton store was no exception. Pulling multiple, "no thank you, I'm just looking," Heisman on salesmen, I headed strait to the shoe section to assess the situation. All of Gravis', Burton's street wear sub brand, looked disappointingly familiar...

Recognize this shoe?
Well maybe this will help...
This is a well worn, Nike SB Verona, purchased at Exit Real World in Portland Oregon in Spring of 2007, which Gravis photocopied. Note the red ascents and same sized cement print.

Burton has amazing design talent at their finger tips. This season, Burton teamed up with Futura to create limited edition outerwear and with Head Porter to create some beanes. Former veteran Burton designer, Hiroki Nakamura, has recently gained substantial following through the success of his brand Visvim. Why doesn't Burton leverage their knowledge of manufacturing, design, quality, and quality to create interesting footwear?

The Backwoodsman

I grew up spending a lot of time in the Columbia River Gorge area on the border of Oregon and Washington. To keep ourselves entertained, my brother and I turned to the woods. Books like The American Boys Handy Book and numerous stories by Ernest Thompson Seaton inspired us to build damns, bows and arrows, and forts in the woods surrounding our house. These activities kept me entertained and instilled an interest in survival and a desire to do things on my own that persists to this day.

Procrastinating in the library one day, I stumbled across an issue of the The Backwoodsman, "The Magazine for the Twenty First Century Frontiersmen." The magazine is an awesome composition of articles on topics ranging from survivalism to do-it-yourself shelter building. Here are some articles that piqued my interest.

New Order

I love new wave and the decade of decadence that they helped define. New Order is my favorite new wave band and contributes to my lifestyle. The spectacle their music creates makes any party more fun. As on ode to Patrick Batemen, "Their music combines an upbeat sound with complex lyrics." Here are some music videos and a clip from the dance scene from American Psycho.