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Friday Videos - Feb 3rd, 2012

The playlist this week doesn't have the Dishwasher destroying itself, Kristen Bell's Sloth Meltdown or Sh*t Cats Say (though it probably should) but I think you'll still find some quality within. Enjoy.

Jurassic Park Theme Song (Melodica Cover) - it's almost as good as the 20th Century Fox Flute.. almost.
Wes Anderson - From Above - a compilation of overhead shots featuring hands from the works of Wes Anderson. Not particularly zany but a delight to watch.
Old Spice - Bounce - I would be perfectly happy if Tim & Eric stopped doing any of their other projects and just directed commercials like this. It's just the right dose of their insanity.
Apple Scotland - Siri - plenty of NSFW cursing and a questionable Scottish accent but I love seeing Gavin McInnes rage.
Guitar Player Ripped Off Stage - so perfect. via Paige.
Megan Amram on Animal Cruelty - this may come across as in extremely poor taste to some but I couldn't help myself.. I laughed and laughed. Nothing is outside the realm of comedy fodder, right?
Space Stallions - I can not fully explain why I enjoy this. Obviously a bit of nostalgia for 80's cartoons but it stays right on that blurry line between mocking the genre and contributing to it. And the animation style is great.
Toast - you probably know Good Neighbor from their street interviews but they do other skits as well. I suggest sticking with this one because right when you can't bear the "toasting" anymore - they take it somewhere absurdly out of left field.
Heavy Panting - absolutely nothing special about this video except the fact that it features 45 Saint Bernard dogs out for a walk. I choose to believe they exist in the wild in this capacity.

Have a great weekend!

Letterboxd

Have you seen Letterboxd yet? It's basically the GoodReads / Readernaut for film - giving you the ability to create a personal catalog of movies into your choice of lists and sharing those selections with others. I'm going to try and use it to catalog what I watch in 2012, though I fear I'm already forgetting some things.

Anyway, it's a well designed site serving as a nice tool for people that love movies and and organizing things into lists. ~~If you want an invite, hit me up in the comments - I've got 3 left.~~

Out of invites for now. If I get more, I'll let you know.

Station Street Hot Dogs

This tweet says it all:

Introducing the Station Street Hot Dogs website. One page. Responsive. No music. No Flash. No PDFs. No muss. No fuss.

If you've ever browsed a restaurant's website you are probably familiar with how awful they can be. I think it's likely due to a lack of concern over web traffic when you're busy trying to run a kitchen. Regardless, these guys are doing it right (the pie charts describing the different hot dog styles are brilliant). It's a great design and a trend I'd love to see become more commonplace.

How am I supposed to title these nerd links?

dotjs - a Chrome extension that runs particular javascript files based on the domain you're visiting. i.e. it runs google.com.js when you visit google.com - giving you the ability to manipulate the DOM to your liking; including removing ads or even loading your own stylesheet. Seems like a handy, and particularly nerdy, thing to have at your disposal.
67Signals - Toke posted a link to this satirical burn on 37Signals the other day and it was totally new to me. I'm sure it's meant in a good ribbing nature but it really does seem perfectly scathing.
Leaving Old IE Behind with Media Queries - a clever and tasteful method for serving up sites to people still using older versions of IE. There are plenty of them out there and this tactic seems to combine the best of both worlds - allowing you full use of contemporary coding techniques and serving a perfectly functional no-frills site to those on a legacy browser.

Le Meurtre Teaser

Remember that Tribute to Drive that came out awhile back? Well, the same folks have a new project under development - Le Meurtre. I've no details on the release of the full short but I'm definitely curious to see it - love the art style and vibe of the unfolding story.

Drafthouse Bottle Of Wits

In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of The Princess Bride, the Alamo Drafthouse has unveiled two bottles of wine - "Inconceivable Cab" and "As You Wish White" - from their wine program "The Bottle of Wits." The bottle and packaging design from Helms Workshop is absolutely perfect. Be sure to check the detail screens to really get a sense of how well they incorporated concepts / quotes from the movie into the overall design. All and all, just another reason to be jealous that you don't have an Alamo Drafthouse in your town - I know that's how I feel.

The Wolf I Used To Be...

The folks at Nearly Normal have put together a 3-minute papercraft stop-motion animation that's worth having a peek at. The fable-esque story isn't really the key component as much as the amount of detail on the main character is. Plus, it involves a wolf transforming into a man and getting a job in an office - you wanna see that, right?

Paper Monsters

Has anyone played Paper Monsters from Crescent Moon Games yet? The reviews make it sound like a very traditional platformer - ala Super Mario Bros - that actually gives the mechanics of DS games a run for their money. I'm still not sure how any iOS / Android game could go up against a device with actual buttons but I'm glad to be seeing that more and more level style adventure games are coming out for mobile devices... as opposed to exclusively puzzle games or fixed screen realms. Long story short, my curiosity is piqued.

Feel Good Lost Showreel

Feel Good Lost is a video production company with a long list of quality videos on their belt. To celebrate their one year anniversary of creating such goodness they put together a compilation showreel showcasing all the work they've done in the past year. While you certainly don't get the cohesion you'd normally have with one of their videos you do get a smattering of beautiful and inspiring images. Have a look.

via the always quality Lions and Vultures.

Before Watchmen

The other day I read through this amusing story of how comic writer Chip Zdarsky was approached to write new additional materials for Alan Moore's Watchmen series of graphic novels and how he intentionally screwed it all up. It's a farce, of course, but it's amusing and shows how revered the series is.

Turns out, much to my surprise, DC Comics actually has planned a massive new series of prequels, sequels and mini-series based around the world created from Alan Moore's vision called Before Watchmen. Moore is not involved.

WIRED has an interview with Len Wein; original editor for Watchmen and now editor for Before Watchmen, defending the new series but I don't think there is any level of rationale that will settle the nerd ire around this one. It's easily the equivalent of Episode I - III for the comic book world, minus any level of actual anticipation.

I'm letting my nerd light shine a little heavily on this one but I am a huge fan of the original series - revisiting the world it created 25 years later just feels like a cash grab. I guess nothing is sacred but it'd be nice if something as visionary and impactful as Watchmen could just be left alone to exist as visionary and impactful; not just the jumping off point for a potential mediocre empire of books. That being said, I'm likely going to buy a few out of morbid curiosity...

Vintage Japanese Advertising

There is never any argument that advertising in Japan is off the wall but you have to wonder if it got there gradually or if something snapped along the way and it all hit at once. With this Vintage Japanese Advertising set on Flickr we can at least surmise that their more daring take on things has been around since at least the 1930's. Don't get me wrong, it's not an admonishment in the slightest - it's captivating and inspiring in so many ways.

via Falfa.

Seriously.js

If you ever needed an example of how Javascript and new browser technologies are taking over the web, look no further than Seriously JS. The site features realtime green screen video substitution (on an OK Go video) via WebGL and is one of the more impressive displays I've seen in awhile. At least worth a quick peek to click through the video filters.

Magnificent Ruin: 379

There is no shortage of compelling and inspiring photography in the photostream of Magnificent Ruin. Personally, I'm drawn to these chaotic poster rips and sign excerpts - of which there is an abundance of material to see. Seriously, dive into this stuff - you don't want to miss gems like this.

Distance: Tech Quarterly

If you're in the giving mood this morning you may want to check out this Kickstarter project for a proposed quarterly publication called Distance. Every three months three authors will tackle different tech based subjects and dig into a 3,000 - 5,000 word longform article about the "whys" of design, UI, UX, coding, etc. The project has actually already reached its intended goal but the first issue looks so compelling that you may want to go ahead and chip in a few dollars to pre-order it anyway. Go check it out.

Kitten Halftime Show

Yea, posting links to BuzzFeed isn't exactly the cutting edge of web discovery but their Behind the Scenes gallery on the Kitten Halftime Show from Animal Planet's yearly Puppy Bowl is too adorable of a treat to be missed.

Beautiful Web Type: Best of Google web fonts

Every time I hit up the Google Web Fonts repository I am overwhelmed with the choices - 90% of which feel incredibly amateur, sloppy or just too kitschy for their own good. Fortunately, Beautiful Web Type helps to clear up where some of the finest choices can stm from - Vollkorn, Lato, Gravitas One and Abril Fatface are among the beauties being showcased and you really can't deny how great they look in their context. Maybe it's time to revisit Google Web Fonts after all...

CSS3 Text Handling Progression

CSS3 Properties to Handle Text and Word Wrapping - forget what you think you know about "word-wrap" - it's out! Read through this article to find out all the great techniques associated with the forthcoming spec for "text-wrap." With Chrome, Firefox and (new) IE auto-updating these days it doesn't seem like we'll even have to wait that long before we can start deploying it.
New Web Typography - you heard of OpenType? Not quite sure what it means for the web? Well, this article clears that up for ya. Small Caps, Ligatures, Kerning, Fractions and more are all on the way to be standard.

Game Galaxy

Thanks to a handy heads up over at Country Life I went to check out the Arcade Museum at Game Galaxy. It's not often that I get a chance to visit a dying mall in the suburbs that just so happens to have an absolutely thriving arcade; much less two of them. Maybe I'm being over nostalgic but there's a rich history to arcades and it'd be a damn shame if they went extinct. As a bonus, I snapped this pic from the excursion and I can't stop staring at it. Score.

The Artist - See It

Had the pleasure of seeing The Artist over the weekend - somewhat due to its recent Oscar nomination but mostly out of curiosity if a modern day silent film could prove to be legitimately entertaining; not just novelty. If you're unfamiliar, go watch the trailer to get a sense of the melodramatic but whimsical tone of the film. I would think the lack of dialogue combined with contemporary short attention spans (thanks Internet!) would make this feel incredibly slow paced but, turns out, it had my full attention the entire time - possibly requiring more of me because it was silent. Obviously I'm not alone in my adoration of the film but it does no harm to chime in and throw one more recommendation in the ring - go see this.

And if you're a filmmaker; consider embracing something as outlandish as making a silent film in 2011 - maybe the Talkie didn't win out afterall.

Shillington School Poster

Pretty clever campaign over here for the Shillington School (of Graphic Design). I'm a sucker for hand drawn type - particularly depictions of familiar typefaces and the Comic Sans repetition is worth a small chuckle to get your day going.

Groupshot

While I can't personally attest to how well it actually works the mindset behind Groupshot is stellar. Basically it's an iOS photo merging app that lets you selectively choose faces from a number of photos to create the ultimate, perfectly posed, photo. I imagine anyone with a family, particularly small children, would find this to be a rather convenient way to create the perfect image... though there's something to be said for the amusement of a kid acting up in a photo when you look back at it 20 years later.