i've recently gotten WAY into mike giant's work and wanted to share.

MIKE GIANT'S SITE
MIKE GIANT'S BLOG

mike giant is a tattooist, graffitist, and artist originally from albuquerque who's lived in SF now for many years. he's an old skater, a current cyclist, and the talent behind the REBEL8 brand.

his art is bicycle-, skate-, and san francisco-centric, largely 2-color stuff with a tight, detail-oriented hand, and heavily influenced by latino culture.

currently, he's working on a series called LAS CHOLAS DE FRISCO. this project is a gangster-pinup photography/sharpie mashup in which he shoots multi-cultural grrls of all body shapes and sizes, then draws tattoos onto the photographs. VERY cool concept, and if you visit that link, you'll find three of the works there. really gorgeous stuff.

he opens the doors of his divisadero street studio on the first friday of every month for beer, cool people, and checking out art, so if you're in SF on 6 november, gimmee a call -- i'm SO going.

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1. new mike giant photo/sharpie mashup, featuring bikes
2. Giant Squid Schemes That Seem Unwise
3. Best Giant Robot Built By Girl Book Ever

Dude.
This REALLY pleases me.

http://store.shrimp-sauce.com/product/shrimp-knives-tee

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It's been awhile since I've posted micro-reviews, let alone full-fat reviews, but I'm trying to squeeze them in again, since I'm still taking furious notes while watching the shows, much to my wifebot(tm)s outrage. The Office continues at full steam in it's sixth season, which is pretty surprising when you think about it. I'm actually stunned we've had five years of the show already, since it still feels fresh. I will admit, I do lament the loss of some of the plotlines of years past, like the Jim/Pam pranking of Dwight, and Dwight and Angela's relationship. But while some things must inevitably change, the important stuff has remained consistent. And this season, they've already managed to pull off a TV landmine: marriage of the main romantic leads. I can't recall another show where the leads finally hooking up, let alone marrying, actually worked and didn't tank the chemistry. Partly this is so because the Jim/Pam thing was never the core of the show, though perhaps the emotional anchor. But partly also because the ensemble is strong enough to move other parts around and keep things interesting. I've read some negative reviews of the previous episode, where Jim and Pam were on honeymoon, decrying the lack of these two characters as flattening the dynamic of the cast. I disagreed. But anyway, onward!

Jim and Pam have ebulliently returned from their Costa Rican honeymoon, and the office is as they left it. Jim soon discovers a sobering buzzkill on their post-honeymoon goofy romantic cheesefest ("Frank annn Beeeans!"): Michael gleefully reveals he's taken a lover: Pam's Mom. Jim is incredulous at first, but immediately snaps into panic and crisis management mode when the truth of the claim is confirmed. The rest of the episode, Jim tries to discourage Michael from sharing this news with Pam (he already booked a dinner for four to break the big news to her, as 'more than anything, she just wants me to be happy!') and Pam from having pretty much any contact with Michael at all. Once the secret is out, we see Pam like never before: gloves off, pissed and intolerant of the entire office. It's like a fourth wall moment where a humorless, reasonable person is suddenly thrust into the narrative. Even Idris Elba's run as the temporary Manager wasn't this uncomfortably accurate. Pam calls out everything: Michael's ridiculous meetings (ironic, since the meeting in question, about giving back to the community, was actually part of a surreal PSA across several broadcasters celebrating and encouraging civic services in the community, sort of like product placement for public service) his selfish demands, the office's longstanding tradition of hypocrisy and the reactions of her co-workers. It's kind of thrilling. And in typical Office fashion, common sense goes out the window and no one sides with Pam at all. Ultimately, the matter is left awkwardly cold, with Michael leaving the office alone, and Jim comforting Pam in his own way, narrowly dodging certain doom as her husband, both in throttling range and culpable in the secret, even for only a few hours.

Highlights and Quotes:

- Pam's blatant double-take when she learns Jim knew about Michael and her Mom dating. It's an old-school cartoon blink and shudder. Brilliant.

- The entire community service meeting was great. I always enjoy the meetings because you see everyone interacting and playing off each other. However, I do admit these days I'm distracted. Anytime Erin is on-screen, I kind of get warm and fuzzy.



There's something about Ellie Kemper. I love her enthusiasm, timing, improvisation and physical comedy. Plus, I think she's very aesthetically pleasing. She actually has an improv background, and wrote for The Onion, so you see what I'm saying. Hot and sharp. Like a shrimp knife!

- Related to Erin, I loved how she denied Pam the option of putting the candy on the front desk. It was a great scene. Pam's shock and annoyance at this woman in her old position, the awesome subtle 'niceties' Erin used to get them off her desk like pushing them forward and going 'oops!' like Pam forgot them. It's like a delicious reduction of all of the annoying little mannerisms people use to politely blow you off. And when Michael approved the candy, she made Pam come bring it BACK. And she did.

- The last reveal with Dwight was awesome: I was totally expecting the duck to be a maguffin, especially after Dwight started to protest that he WAS good at espionage. The pen was such clever gun-on-the-mantle business... you completely forget he brought it in. And the best part to me: he then proceeded to follow up this clever reveal by settling down to LISTEN to 8 hours of paper selling. Also, in retrospect, it's pretty funny that he almost blew his scheme by defending himself. HA.

Quotery:

Dwight, on his concealed recording device in the belly of a wooden mallard: ...just like the Bavarian fairy tale, only this time the mallard skins the toad alive.
---
Of course you lose the whole critique of the kaiser thing...

Michael: I have a good thing going! She's on the way home from work!
Jim: TAKE A DIFFERENT ROUTE.
Michael: OK... I'll take... surface streets.

Michael: I expected that to go one of two ways. But I never expected her to be upset!

Oscar: Pam, just for the record, I think you're overreacting a little bit. Your mom's old enough to make her own decisions.
Pam: Oh, well, thanks Oscar. I was just wondering, how would you feel if Michael was sleeping with your mom?
Oscar: My mother's in a wheelchair.
Pam: Well, he could still—I'm sorry about that.

8/10 clicks

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1. The Office (US) Microreview – S.4, E.4 : Money
2. The Office – Season Premiere 2007
3. The Office (US Version)

Ok, so it isn't a true Blackberry IN a watch, but there's some value here I'd pay for, if i had a Blackberry: I LOVE the concept of data delivery on the watch, for times when the device isn't handy, ie. meetings, spousal lectures, bikery. Imagine getting that text message on the phone's display, updating you on the current location of the Mass when you're 6 blocks behind?
SICK!

http://gizmodo.com/5390097/behold-the-b ... n-february

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Last November, I wrote about Google's purchase of Grand Central and concluded that while GC's functionality was cool, I didn't see it having a place in my life. Common catch-basin number and email? MEH!

Well, a year later, under the Google Voice banner, I LOVE it. When it was first launched to beta users and early adopters like me, you had to pick a new number, and so on. Just like Grand Central. I did it, just to try it out, but again, I didn't want to use a new number.

As of this week, Google expanded the option to include the use of your existing cell number. WIN!
This allows you to use Google Voicemail, which is the component I most wanted. Using the freshly generated Google Voice number still gets you more features, but setting up Google Voicemail as your own cell's voicemail is key: you get to route your unanswered calls to your Google Voice number's voicemail, and from there, automated configuration allows you to do a lot with the info. Not only call back, caller ID and so on, but my favorite part: have it email or text, or BOTH, a TRANSCRIPT of the voicemail. Never check your voicemail again! I'm one of those guys tat goes to great lengths to communicate by text whenever possible. I've been craving voicemail transcripts for years.

As you can see, the transcription was pretty solid. 'What i TOLE you!' threw it for a loop, but it still worked out to be something relevant...

https://www.google.com/voice

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I'm pretty sure, when there's some bad Cthulu in your malted milk, it's best not to proceed.

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How to repair armored vehicles. With augmented reality goggles.
Welcome to cyberpunk!

http://gizmodo.com/5390409/augmented-re ... -mechanics

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Man, had i these kinds of skillz, both mad and displayable, I think I'd create wrong fake awesome mythical creature taxonomy as well. Sadly, no. But WANT.

http://alexcf.com/blog/?page_id=6 via io9!

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This looks gorgeous. Sweet as, even. I love genre mish-mash too. And samurai.
http://io9.com/5390647/hyper-stylized-s ... the-throat

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Man, there are 33 things I love about this pic. And only one that I don't: that i don't own it as a lower back tattoo.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/26/zo ... o-mas.html

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