Typecasting the Mayan Apocalypse in Style!

Just a reminder, the form of The Destructor was revealed on this very blog on December 15th.  I am happy to report that I have now gone through two boxes of frozen Thin Mints and a dozen chocolate iced crullers from Dunkin' Donuts.  Healthy?  Most likely not, but who cares when the world is coming to an end in five days!

Mayan Apocalypse: It's On!

Bad news, readers.  After snarkily dismissing the Mayan prediction that the world ends on December 21st, I have to eat a big helping of crow.  The National Geographic "B" team struck unfortunate pay dirt in another Guatemalan cave.

The world WILL END on December 21st, and the Mayans even showed the form of the Destructor back in the 5th Century B.C.

Sorry to bum you all out this close to Christmas.  But it doesn't appear Christmas is coming in any way we would have expected.  It will most likely look like this.

Have a great most-of-a-week-that's-left.  I'm going to sign off now and eat a few boxes of frozen Girl Scout Thin Mints.  I suggest you do the same.

12/12/12 : Scenes from the End Times

Once again, I must apologize for a hastily constructed blog entry.  However, it has been brought to my attention that today's date is full of awesome number orderliness.  It is a repetitive pattern that will never be repeated in our lifetimes!

This is especially true given that the Mayans said the world would end on December 21st.  Bummer.

Presumably, the end times will be interesting in a chaotic way until the Earth splits asunder and we are consumed by the inner fire.  Or something like that.  I've tried to imagine what December 21st might look like and have drawn from an ample inventory of photos taken in junk rest homes to share with you, the gentle reader.

So there you have it.  Apparently, only the strong will survive.  Mostly.

My Spousal Unit commented that perhaps this image collection had gone a bit too far.  To that I say we must face The End with as much mirth as we can muster!  I sincerely wish everyone of you a pleasant last week or so on this poor, doomed planet.

The Print Shop Saves the Day!

I have to confess to a bit of a blogging dry spell as of late.  I've had too much travel and more than a few kid events over the last two weeks.  I promise to arrange my thoughts into something vaguely coherent in the near future.  Until then, I present you with evidence of a (mostly) dead brand and a bit of quaint computing technology.

Not surprisingly, I found this early Mac detritus in a thrift store.  Today, we all take 300 DPI laser printed documents for granted.  In 1989, not so much.  Check out that super sexy mouse! 

My favorite bit of advertising puffery:  "You don't have to be an artist to use The Print Shop.  However, after just a few minutes, The Print Shop will unleash your creativity and make you look like an artist without even trying."

I am impressed at the grammatical accuracy exhibited on this box.  It appears that True Nerds were at the helm of the Broderbund empire.  You'll have to pretend that the "o" has a slash through it.

I kept the tractor feed paper for typing fun and recycled the box.  It was a semi-happy trip down memory lane.

Thoughts on Greenbuild 2012 and San Francisco

Welcome to my post Greenbuild 2012 blog entry!  Scroll on down for the typecast...

This is probably the most touristy thing I took a photo of other than looking back on the Ferry Building from an adjacent pier.

This hybrid Fisker Karma is about 3,000 times cooler than my hybrid Prius.  Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket.

This is USGBC Founder and CEO Rick Fedrizzi delivering a message to the anti-LEED lobby during the Opening Plenary session.  I work for a construction product company, but I also help write and maintain LEED.  Politics is a complicated beast.

Fast forward from Tuesday to Friday for the Closing Plenary.  That statistic on the screen is accurate: the entire number of volunteer hours that have gone into building and curating Wikipedia are equal to three weeks of Angry Birds play.  This statistic makes me a bit more prone to be focused on life and learning.

The Closing Plenary was a bit more dynamic than last year's, but they all tend to seem long after several days and nights of sessions and receptions.  The speaker, Jane McGonigal, is a TED favorite.  She presented a variation of her TED talk on harnessing the problem solving and creativity of gamers to crowd source solutions to difficult problems.

The next speaker is a prominent architect and proponent of regenerative design, William McDonough. Among others, his most widely known project is the redesign of the Ford Rouge Truck Plant.  From the perspective of moving towards a Net Zero future, he raised the fundamental question of "What's Next?"

William McDonough has very strong opinions on materials in design.  His consulting group has worked with a number of Fortune 500 companies.  His TED talk tracks many of the concepts brought forth at Greenbuild.

This cursive typeface is unique to Royal portables from the 1960s.  Mine is a grey on grey Futura 800/

And the last Greenbuild related photo below is the view from the Google Green Team lair.  The food was fabulous as well.

Here are a few scenes from around San Francisco.  For anyone who is curious, all shots were taken with a Sony NEX-3 with the kit lens or 16mm f2.8 pancake lens.  Many of the street photos were taken by pointing the camera in the right direction without looking at the view screen.  The auto-focus is quick enough to shoot from the hip and capture casual scenes.

Public skating rink at Union Square.  The sight of palm trees and a giant Christmas tree together was only a little disconcerting.

The homeless fleet massing across from the Ferry Building.  In my limited experience, I found the panhandlers to be far less aggressive here than in Atlanta, Chicago or Washington, D.C.

Public protest is a way of life in San Francisco.  This is across from the cordoned off entrance to the Federal Reserve building.

Again, public protest is a common event.  However, this guy was angry, loud and semi-intelligible.  Even the locals were giving him wide berth.

This much vacant sidewalk at midday is a rarity.

At the very end of Greenbuild week, I found myself with no meetings or working meals.  I hopped the bus to find the Super7 Store.  The fact that it is located in Haight-Ashbury was a happy coincidence.  The food was great and cheap.  The stores were great for browsing and I was able to bring home some Super7 merch straight from the source!

Yeah, it was sunny all week while I was in the convention center (sigh).  This gives a little bit of the flavor of the area.

One of the cool specialty stores.  Well, cool if you enjoy irony.  They even had an Underwood 3-bank portable for sale!

But the main reason I took the bus to Haight-Asbury is the one and only Super 7 Store!  Imagine, a store full of giant robot, Star Wars, giant monster and urban vinyl paraphernalia.  Nerd heaven!

Unexpected bonus:  the first Kid Robot store was just up the street!

And with one last awesome storefront, we shall bid the fair city of San Francisco adieu.

 Hmmm...let us see if I can think of something creatively snarky to say about my Copyright to the text and images contained herein this little blog of mine.  Well, I own it all!  Bwa, ha, ha.  Yes, so greedy of me in this open-source world; but that is just the way it is.  Images may be used for non-commercial purposes with attribution pointing back to this blog or to my Picasa collection.  They may not be utilized for commercial purposes without express permission from the owner - that being Dwayne F.  I know:  that which can be published digitally can be hacked.  Go ahead.  Just see what happens.  I happen to have a fleet of giant robots and monsters at my command.  Remember what happened to poor San Francisco in my last post.  I repeat:  bwa, ha, ha.

Off to San Francisco and Pre-travel Ramblings

Bad Godzilla!  Drop that rhino, right now!

Greetings, all!  I'm sorry for the scarcity of posts as of late, but life has been busy and complicated.  Tomorrow, I get on the plane for San Francisco!  In looking for maps and background information, I ran across this unfortunate story on Google news.  It appears that an undersea earthquake caused the usual awaking of giant monsters.  Poor San Francisco!

Thank goodness local emergency management officials planned ahead and built up their inventory of giant robots!  The battle of the titans will no doubt cause much damage and chaos.  However, this is a near montly event in the Bay Area.  I have faith that the BART will still be running on time.

As for this beautiful city, I probably won't see a lot of it.  I am attending Greenbuild; the main event for everything related to sustainable buildings.  The sessions will be great along with four evening receptions and a day spent with the third-party laboratory and certifier I work with.  Yes, pity me.  I will be trapped inside a convention center from sunup to sundown.

There is supposed to be a really nice typewriter shop in Berkeley.  I'll be within a mile or two of it during some Monday meetings, but probably won't make it there.  <sigh>  I most likely will make it to the Super7 store!  It is home to many amazing vinyl monsters and is pretty much Nerdvana.

It will be a week or two before the next entry.  The recent event summary goes like this:  My oldest daughter has been down with a migraine for several days.  We tried to deal with the swirling vortex of leafpocalypse today.  The wind is not helping.  I did a major garage cleaning and organizing binge last weekend and now have some great rolling racks.  The garage work bench is once again clear and I can work on my latest acquisition.  I'll blog it later, but here is a little preview.  No, you should not be worried - much.

As Claire noted, it is extremely beige.  I'm thinking it will need to be repainted dark gray.  Isn't this a nice look?

Source

OK, time for some truth in advertising:  I did not get the full size leviathan Adler.  It is a 1966 Adler Standard.  The only information I have found on this particular model comes from Richard Polt's blog. As for the San Francisco backdrop, that was a bit of amazing timing.  When I went out for lunch on Friday I found this lovely piece of black velvet art at my favorite thrift store for $2.00.

I look forward to sharing some pics from San Francisco and the Greenbuild Expo.  My employer is exhibiting, but I stopped working the booth a couple years ago to immerse myself in the education and networking activities.  This year I get to check out the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Google's Green Team lair.  Nice.

A Typogram Received! Election Avoidance on the Blog of the Beast

It's election night.  I am a serious political junkie and need a temporary distraction.  I have interrupted my MSN, CNN, Politico, Wonkette and Twitter feeds to bring forth a wondrous Typogram received from Ryan Adney of Magic Margin!

Behold, the envelope!  Yes, Ryan used his Royal Navy "radio mill" for the envelope.  As a typeface junkie, I very much appreciate this kind gesture.

The hand drawn desert landscape reminds me of warm, sunny places.  I love the actinic  glare of the Valley of the Sun.

This great greeting card was inserted in the envelope.  What a great graphic!

The real prize was tucked inside.  This postcard is pretty much awesome. Repeat after me... we must worship the Sholes.  It is mightier than mountains and cranks out words more potent than edged weapons.  Besides, according to Robert Messenger, Mark Twain got pretty ornery about the Sholes' offspring.

Ryan, thanks for the spiffy Typogram.  Thanks also to  Anna of A Machine for the End of the World for creating The International Correspondence Initiative. 

Here is the back of the postcard, also by way of the Royal Navy mill.  Sweet.

As for my oblique reference to the "Blog of the Beast", I was referring to the page count as it appeared when I opened my Blogger dashboard:  24,666.  Given that it is election night, there is a certain irony in the fact that my pageviews are equal to the last digits of a zip code in Topeka, Kansas.  This nearby hamlet is home to our state capitol and the infamous Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church.

So, from election avoidance central, I wish you all a pleasant evening.