A Very Terry Christmas

Here, TDUK, is your belated Christmas wish: images from the TDSF Christmas party!

Good food and even better cocktails were consumed in a private room at Bong Su by all TDSF employees and their significant others. With such a rapid growth of the company, it was a real surpise to see the sheer number of people in the room. In addition to dinner, Brittany and I hosted a TD quiz show and Rebecca handed our farewell to Rachel. Jonathan won the quiz show, and after much patience by the audience, he managed to open his prize: ceramic chicken feet-shaped salt and pepper shakers. Joanne shouted, clapped and nearly fell out of her chair from drinking one too many cranberry juices. Fortunately, David managed to stay clothed this year and not make an embarassing scene (no, I have not been fired yet).

Terry managed to capture all the action with his camera. Thanks, Ter-bear!

CG

Upon reflection

A friend of ours designs structural elements for America's cup yachts. He just sent these photos from Valencia where his team is based. The architecture is worth checking out. I love the way the reflecting pool is an integral part of the design. His boat looks pretty cool too.
DT

Googled Birthday: Ann Jordan

Looking at the picture above, some may assume that Ann Jordan is a dog. Yet, according to Google, Ann wouldn't think that to be that bad of an assumption – in fact, she would say she is pure bred! Ann Jordan is the founder and operator of BorderCollieCoach.com. When Ann is not disciplining Collies, she's chastising sinners in the footnotes of the Jordan Family Bible. Ann flexes her blessed literary skills by quoting the Bible during business discussions at the Clinton family's dinner parties. This socialite proves that no job is as rewarding or as up-and-coming as an Ann-job.

About Face

Ever wonder what David looks like as a woman? Well, unless you live in SF and are able to hit the Trannyshack on Saturday evenings, you may want to resort to this nifty online tool. The face transformer allows you to upload a straight-on shot of a face and then alter that person's gender, age, race, or species.

Images should be a clear straight-on shot, RGB, and a decently sized jpeg or gif.

Link: http://www-old.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~morph/Transformer/index.html

More Paper Art

For some reason, I am finding more and more artists utilizing solitary tools and canvases as artistic expressions versus their traditional peripheral usage. Well, if carving crayons are not your thing, then perhaps shifting stacks of paper could be. I first noticed Schleeh Design when they came out with the "bachelor pad" (pictured) which was mearly a cool way to tear paper (little do they know that tearing paper cannot get any cooler!). They updated the portfolio with art pieces that showcase only the paper and it's natural reaction with gravity.

Further interest porthole: http://www.schleehdesign.com/

CG

Art Imitating the Meduim Making Art, or the Medium Making Art Imitating Art?

Peter Goldlust apparently retired his previous sexual cravings for 14 carat yellow stones for a much more interesting career path: carving crayons.

Eye candy here: http://www.petegoldlust.com/carvedcrayons.html#

CG

Color: quick sorts

Studies have shown that the average mind can focus on only three objects (even less for conversations:) at once. However research using color shows that the average observer following a soccer game can accurately estimate, within half a second, the numbers of players on the field by a quick scan of color hits. In another experiment, by psychologist Justin Halberda, an array of up to 35 dots in several colors were decoded in half a second with an 87% average accuracy. This indicates that the brain is capable of parallel processing of sets at lighting speed. Size, shape, and brightness are also under study. For now, color is the quickest official decoder. This can be used to argue for color fields for branding purposes or more interestingly using different colors in 1 layout architecture to help consumers differentiate not only from the monotony of some monolithic brands but between products. You can further add to weary festivities this holiday season by waging to guess how many objects of certain colors are on colorful gift-wrap or Christmas tree.

Some Serious Coffee Time

The Yunessun Spa Resort in Hakone, Japan, has 25 specialized pools you can bathe in. Some, like the Roman Bath, Turkish Sauna, the Deep Sea Bath are fine and dandy. The more infamous pools allow you to bathe in your favorite beverage. There are pools of saké, coffee, tea, and wine.

Yes, good morning: the world is strange.

Link: http://www.yunessun.com/english/yunessun.html

CG

Michel de Broin

Michel de Broin's sculptures and installation pieces unabashadly explore the subliminal realm. His portfolio is worth a quick look.

Link: http://www.micheldebroin.org/projects/index.html

More Jonathan...

Brittany reminded me that this would have been a funnier image of Jonathan to post.

Googled Birthday: Jonathan Warner

We are getting our fill of cake this month.

In the pond of Turnerducklings, there is a gray goose in our midst. Jonathan Warner has been working for Turner Duckworth so long, that (according to Google) he owned slaves in Portsmouth back in 1718. No wonder Jonathan has been able to crank out so much work for Coke, Howling Monkey (wait... we don't work on that... we just REALLY like drawing it), and Sparks: he's had servants to help him! A little known fact about Jonathan: according to Google images, Jonathan is a 24yo Asian woman at the College of Arts and Sciences in Albany. And here we just thought you were pretendonesian from dating Herdah.

Peter Callesen has Papercuts

Peter Callesen blurs the line between 2-D and 3-D art with his papercuts which rise out of their A4 sheets of paper into full sculptures.

Check out his portfolio here: http://www.oncotton.co.uk/peter/index.html

CG

Googled Birthday: Josh Michels

Happy MotoBday 91S00V Josh,

When Josh isn't busy giving life contextural relevancy, Google says this 30-something year-old can be found in the Illinois Junior Government getting very comfotable with male pages. In the meantime, Laura in Michigan, an avid fan of Josh's, expressed a feeling of bitter cold from Josh's shoulder in her French blog. Ce qui la baise, Josh? I went to Narniafan.com to further investigate the Laura-Josh drama. Josh, a repeating contributor to the site, had this to say:

Q: I've read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe I practically have the whole thing memorized. When I saw the movie poster for LWW I thought it was so cool. I then noticed in the top right hand corner a scene with Peter, Susan and Lucy climbing a cliff. I wondered what this was as I don't remember it from the book and there was no scene like this in the move. Do you know if this was a scene cut from the movie and will it appear in the Extended Edition, or was it just created for the movie poster? Thanks, and great job keeping up the site.

-Josh Michels aka Curious Corn


PERCEPTIVE corn you are, Josh. Happy birthday!

More winners!

When I'm not selling real-estate, sometimes I submit work to competitions.

This morning, I found out that TaB Energy will be featured in Step. This is the annual that only takes 100 pieces, and does a page write up on each.

Recently, we also learned that in the San Francisco International Wine Competition, both Bottleg and Root: 1 were honored with gold and bronze metals accordingly. (Our client submitted this for us)

Congratulations, everyone!

Lisa

Googled Birthday: Lisa Bennett

Such a busy week this last one was. So much so, we almost forgot to celebrate Lisa Bennett's birthday last Thursday. According to Google, Lisa Bennett is one of the fourteen members of the British element of an international cocaine smuggling network (pictured upper right). When Lisa is not being a superstar account manager or being jailed for 27+yr without bail; Google says she enjoys pizza, ice cream, knitting, selling real estate for RE/MAx in Greensboro, NC, and taking pictures of American flags in Alabama. Our land WILL heal, as long as Lisa Bennet is in our midst!

A Consumer Based Society

The Barcode Building in Russia.

CG

Around the World

I found these images on Flickr.com, where a short Photoshop tutorial was given. You take a panoramic image, flip it 180 degrees, and then use the polarize filter. I call dibs on using this in a concept!

CG