Level Orange

One of the funniest moments in television history: Ed Ames’ hatchet throw on “The Tonight Show” (April 29, 1965). Johnny Carson at first humbly struggles to keep his composure, then proceeds to lose it.

After taking some time away due to a busy work schedule, I’ve come back around to the next step in our project. With the concept now established, the room cleared of junk and the inspiration in place, we added something new to the mix: a bassinet.

Pink, fluffy, your basic fru-fru. With lights and music and…a vibrator? Yeah, it vibrates. Loudly. That’ll need some adjusting…

It’s cute, though, especially with the Hello Kitty pillow we bought. This of course, won’t stay in this room. We just keep it here to keep Robbie from using it as some sort of raisin/Cheerio/sippy-cup storage unit.

Gather the elements

Looking over the calendar, I noticed that at least half of the artwork was seasonal in some way or another. Not much generic stuff to work with, but I found enough get me going. I had originally planned to just sketch the art ON THE WALL, and go back with paint and finalize it. As it turns out, that would’ve been the worst approach ever.

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With his second birthday coming up in one month, I’m amazed every day at how fast our son Robbie is growing up. It seems like he’s learning a new word every day now. He understands what we’re saying when we talk to him better. He’s certainly developing his own personality and turning out to be quite the ham.

Apparently, a lot of parents have trouble with their children forming straight teeth, whether it’s because of pacifiers, thumbs or bottles, but not our boy. Since so many other parents have remarked at how nice and straight his teeth are, I asked him one day to show them to me. You know, for the record. As you can see, there’s not a stray tooth in sight.

Now, if we could only get his face unstuck…

After reading Mike Davidson’s breakdown of Apple’s Macworld 2005 announcements, I started wondering about that “iHome” hoax that appeared last week. Even after I saw the fake photos, the excitement wore off in a matter of minutes. While the “media center” concept is all abuzz these days, with TiVo, Microsoft, and others already in the fray, does that really matter for Apple? At last week’s CES, it seemed like everyone had some sort of “digital lifestyle” device.

“Does Apple really want to jump into this arena?” I thought. Of course they do. Apple is the company that coined the phrase “digital lifestyle” just a few years ago. But aside from the product and UI design, I wondered what Apple could bring to the table that would really set them apart, really make people want this thing.

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Scariest. Headline. Ever.

Of all the products and announcements to come from last week’s CES, the most embarrassing and unintentionally hilarious was Bill Gate’s keynote address. With so much to be worked out concerning “media center” products and the DRM that will accompany them, it was truly fascinating to see every demo fall flat on its face.

The thing that gets me is how suddenly Bill Gates is once again being hailed as a “visionary” by the media. Even Conan O’Brien managed to whore himself out to take part in what I’m sure was a tediously staged and rehearsed keynote, all to celebrate his wonderfulness. In this interview with CNET, Gates manages to take swipes at just about everything under the sun, including the obligatory remarks about Apple, Sony (with which I surprising agree), Google, Mozilla and anyone who might have issues with copyrights and/or P2P. That’s a lot of talk for someone who only presented the public with ONE product.

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