purely awesome pencil crayon fence.

Sometimes I find things that make me so happy I’m not sure what to type. Oh wait… yes I do. When I die and go that personal utopia everyone goes to when they die – that place where all your dreams come true and everything looks exactly the way you want it to – the fences will all look like this:

I will next to the fence on a sunshiny day, finally reunited with Nancy (the goldfish I killed in Grade 5), and eat Mini Wheats from my Fernando Brizio rainbow bowl and plan all my angelic do-gooding.

Via Fabrica

pantone: blue is the new red.

The moment we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived. Today the New York Times unveiled Pantone’s choice for the colour of 2008. Say a big PFO to 2007’s Chili Pepper Red and welcome No. 18-3943 TCX (a.k.a. Blue Iris):

In a statement, Leatrice Eiseman, the executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, said: “Blue Iris brings together the dependable aspects of blue, underscored by a strong, soul-searching purple cast. Emotionally, it is anchoring and meditative with a touch of magic.”

At least we’re not over-thinking it.

Via Queerty

bluorange… no, i mean greeple… ah, shit.

Phillip Meyer Eberz over at ojohaven.com has set up this colour-based brain teaser at a school in Texas and he’s posted a refreshing-version on his site.

The idea is to speak aloud the colour you see, not the word of the colour. So if you saw BLUE you’d say “red”. Apparently it’s best to do this with someone because you won’t even realize when you’re doing it wrong.

Via Ojohaven

tori amos will kick your ass.

Tori Amos is the shit. She’s spent literal years touring and plays live music in a way that most people just don’t do anymore. That should command a certain respect from an audience.

Tori is my favourite human being on Earth. Most people I know also think she’s crazy. Not totally bat shit crazy like Björk, but still pretty special. I was hesitant to post this when I first found it because I was worried people would take it the wrong way. That lasted about half a second because this clip brings me happiness in a way I can’t fully express.

Play the vid and fast forward to 2:25. Basically, Tori kicks two girls out of her show in the middle of a song…

That’s right bitches. Up and out the door. In case you didn’t catch it, she said “Get the fuck out of my show! It’s a privilege to sit in the front row and I reserve those seats for people who appreciate music.” As someone who was lucky enough to sit front row at a Tori concert and not get kicked out, the only logical conclusion to come to is that Tori personally feels that I appreciate music. I always knew she understood me.

Via Dlisted

vischeck: shape + colourblind.

My obsession with colour takes many forms: design, emotion, and art are obvious. But I’m also fascinated with the science and history of colour and about how the lack of colour can affect us.

Paul Martin, a web designer in Orlando, Florida (not the former Canadian Prime Minister, though I’m sure he’s looking for something to talk about these days…), posted colour-sighted vs. colour-blind comparisons on his site at Critique Wall. Using a site called Vischeck, which approximates for the rest of us how people with various types of colourblindness see stuff out in the world, we get images like these:

Via Core 77

tobias wong: go for the gold.

The latest bling addition to the Indulgence range from independent fashion label Ju$t Another Rich Kid is Gold Pills. Filled with 24 karat gold leaf and created by Canadian born designer Tobias Wong, the pills are purported to “increase your self worth” (yucka yucka) for a mere $425 a pop. The main benefit appears to be that your shit turns golden. Ah, Midas. I’m sure there’s some kind of social commentary going on here, I just don’t know what it is. Somebody, somewhere, will buy these just to be cool. Actually, I think I just figured out what the commentary is…

Via Citizen-Citizen

mikontalo tetris.

This is triple awesomeness: I love bright coloured lights. I love Tetris. I love Scandinavia. So it’s almost too much for me to handle when some crazy Finnish dudes design a giant real-time game of Tetris on the side of a high rise.

Mikontalo is a big student housing complex at the Tampere University of Technology in Finland. In case you’re curious, its address is Insinöörinkatu 60, 33720 Tampere, Finland. The entertainment value of Finnish spellings aside, the students that live there are behind the Mikontalolights project – whose goal is to create the “world’s largest colored graphics platform by using the windows of Mikontalo’s D-staircase as light pixels”.

Basically, Finnish tech-geeks are rigging a big ass Tetris game on the side of their dorm. How freaking cool is that?

Via one of my fave sites – Wooster Collective

prepara + scandinavian details = roll some herb.

The more motorized and technical our metro-lives become, the more special it is when we get to connect (well, re-connect really…) with little pieces of nature. Beyond just going to the park or planting trees on top of a condo, I’m fascinated by forward thinkers who are finding new ways to connect the organic and the modern in ways that are not only good design but are also functional and thrillingly green.

I would like to say that I’m a great cook. A foodie? Yes. An epicurean? True ‘dat. A cook?… maybe not so much. But if I was I’m sure I would grow my own herbs and this is how I would look totally stylish while I did it:

Step One : Grow

Scandinavians are better than us at absolutely everything. That includes their creation of a self-watering plant pot. Whether absent-minded or just plain neglectful, the pot has a series of wicks that draw water from the bottom up into the plant – much like a real root system. Design inspired by nature… to grow more nature. Brilliant. Big ups to designers Henrik Holbæk & Claus Jensen at scandinavian details.

Step Two : Store

After all that hard work not watering your plants, you’ll want to keep them fresh. Or, in my case, whomever cooks for me will be happy that I kept them fresh. Either way, say hello to the Herb Savor from New York City’s kitchen gadget geniuses Prepara. Besides keeping the greens inside it fresh for longer, you’ll look extraordinarily culinary every time you pull it out of the fridge and casually say “oh, I just happen to have fresh grown Tarragon right here…”. Or, again in my case, while you sit there drinking Shiraz while someone else pulls it out of the fridge and gasps “Oh my! You’ve got freshly grown Tarragon right here!”

mcdonalds: get an A, get a big mac.

It’s a banner day for fast food. First KFC gets it’s advertising visible from space, and now McDonalds is advertising on report cards. I’m not making this up…

In return for paying the $1200 US fee for printing the cards, McDonald’s coupons appeared on all the report cards of kids who got A’s and B’s in Flordia’s Seminole County. Shouldn’t we be trying to fatten up the stupid kids instead? Shouldn’t we be giving the smart kids, oh I dunno… apples or something?

Via Ad Rants

momspit: but my mom swallows.

That’s right. It’s a “no-rinse cleaner”. It’s called Momspit. What a kick-ass example of taking something relatively mundane (hand sanitizer) and making it memorable / gross / nostalgic /interesting / Oedipal all with one l’il zinger of a name.

Although personally I remember my Mom’s spit tasting like vodka and Lithium, this stuff comes in pleasant, if completely unrealistic, flavours like Fig & Green Tea, Lemon & White Tea, and the ominously open-for-interpretation Unscented.

Via Ad Krispies.