Flying Wish Paper

via santa

“Think of a special wish. . . your fondest dream, your deepest desire, your ambitions, concerns or burdens—and write it down on the Flying Wish Paper®. Shape your paper into a tube and place it on the Wish Platform®. Light the top edge of the tube and watch it burn down in a small, beautiful flame. At the last moment your wish magically lifts off the platform and rises to the heavens!”

Santa discovered this present at The Nittany Quill, a fun little shop nestled in the heart of State College. Learn more about Flying Wish Paper on their site.

Toynbee Tiles: A Mysterious Puzzle that Spans the Globe

via wired

“Though these modern days of the 21st century are filled with many puzzles, there seem to be few true mysteries anymore. As a professional puzzle designer and follower of puzzle hunts, I have personally witnessed how drastically the connectivity and community of the internet, the power of Google, and the sheer volume of information readily available to all makes the solving of many brainteasers almost trivial. Throw in the fact that most puzzle memes, alternate reality games, and online mysteries invariably end up just being marketing campaigns for soon to be released (and too often forgotten) films or television series, and one begins to wonder if any modern day, genuine mysteries truly are left.

The existence of the “Toynbee Tiles” might be just such a mystery. This world-spanning puzzle does not involve a musty old map from a remote archeological find. It is not written in an ancient language that few can read. It is not trying to get you to by a ticket to an upcoming summer blockbuster. And it is not giving up its answers easily.

Rather, these linoleum plaques which have been embedded in the asphalt roadways of major cities throughout the world for over two decades are a true conundrum of the present day. They are written in English (though proper grammar and syntax is often lacking), they are fairly easy to access (if you know where to look), and they have attracted the attention of many puzzle enthusiasts in the age of the all-knowing World Wide Web. However, despite all of this, no one really knows what the hell is going on.”

Read the rest here. More on Toynbee Tiles can be found here, a NPR story here, and a trailer for the film “Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles” can be watched here.

The K Chronicles: Purple Wheelchair

Yet another example of why I love Keith Knight’s K Chronicles.

Jesus Chicken, Ethics, and Gay Rights

via CNN
Chick-fil-A controversy shines light on restaurant’s Christian DNA
“The ongoing Chick-fil-A flap—which has gay rights groups blasting the restaurant chain for donating food to an anti-gay marriage group—may be a fleeting controversy for a privately held company that is more accustomed to fiercely loyal patrons and generally positive press coverage. But Lake Lambert, author of the book Spirituality Inc., says the flap may be a sign of more turbulence ahead for Chick-fil-A as it attempts to hold onto its conservative Christian business culture while expanding its chain beyond the Bible Belt. “If you have a faith-based corporate identity and you want to function in the national marketplace, you’re going to continue to encounter resistance to those values because not everybody is going to share them,” says Lambert. “The only other option is some sort of secular identity and that’s not where Chick-fil-A is going.” Lambert says Chick-fil-A is the most visible example of an American corporation trying to foster a specifically Christian identity. The company is privately held and family-run, making that task somewhat easier. Lambert says Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy signed what Cathy describes as a “covenant” with his children when they took over the company, to help preserve its Christian DNA.”
Read the rest here.
. . .

via nytimes
A Chicken Chain’s Corporate Ethos Is Questioned by Gay Rights Advocates
“. . . Nicknamed “Jesus chicken” by jaded secular fans and embraced by Evangelical Christians, Chick-fil-A is among only a handful of large American companies with conservative religion built into its corporate ethos. But recently its ethos has run smack into the gay rights movement. A Pennsylvania outlet’s sponsorship of a February marriage seminar by one of that state’s most outspoken groups against homosexuality lit up gay blogs around the country. Students at some universities have also begun trying to get the chain removed from campuses.”
Read the rest here.
. . .


in Time
Controversial Chicken: Chick-fil-A’s Gay Rights Rumble
“Chick-fil-A has long-been transparent about its Christian values. They close their stores on Sundays, a practice that has helped the chain garner the nickname ‘Jesus Chicken,’ and have even gone so far as to consider a potential employee’s marital status and civic and church involvement in their hiring process. But while the company’s beliefs come as no surprise, in sponsoring the Art of Marriage Conference, some say the restaurant empire took its evangelizing to a new level.”
Read the entire article here.
. . .


from change.org
“Take a look at an event scheduled for February 2011, co-sponsored by Chick-fil-A and the Pennsylvania Family Institute, the leading anti-gay group in the Keystone State and a group that has worked hard to try and pass a constitutional amendment in Pennsylvania banning same-sex marriage. The February event co-sponsored by Chick-fil-A is called The Art of Marriage, and it’s intended to be a launching point for Pennsylvania to return to ‘the biblical definition of marriage.’ Given the work of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, it’s hard not to see where this event is going to go—straight for the jugular of anyone who supports marriage equality for same-sex couples.”
Rest of the article here.
 . . .


Pennsylvania Family Institute’s site here.
On February 11-12, 2011, Pennsylvania Family Institute is sponsoring 2 conferences happening in the South-Central Pennsylvania region: Harrisburg/Camp Hill: Christian Life Assembly, Reading: Glad Tidings Assembly of God Church.
. . .


More can be found on the Advocate's site here. Chik-fil-A has a location in State College and on the Penn State campus. So far, I have not heard of any local news or ramifications of their sponsorship of the Pennsylvania Family Institute’s conferences, which surprises me.

Why Are Barns Red?

via the daily heller

“In American Barns and Covered Bridges (Dover Publications, 2003), Eric Sloane notes  that weather was an important consideration in planning a barn. The early builder mapped routes of sunshine, wind and water drainage. He paid careful attention to the health and comfort of his animals, as well as to the protection and preservation of barn timbers and stored grain. Early 18th-century bridges and barns went unpainted. The right wood in the right place, it was discovered, needed no paint. Even houses in the earliest settlements were not painted. Until . . .

As Grit (the magazine you could make extra money selling in your spare time) points out: ‘By the late 1700s, the art of wood seasoning gave way to the art of artificial preservation. Virginia farmers were the first to become paint-conscious. In Pennsylvania, the Dutch settlements latched on to the custom of red bricks, red barns, red geraniums, even reddish-brown cows.’

Red paint combined with linseed oil was also used to prevent certain organisms from decaying the wood. But there is more lore…”

Read the rest here.

Business Cards: Page V

More paper samples, but nice use of foil stamping on the first two cards in the right column; the gold foil on the green marble has an air of sophistication.

Tea Fortune of the Day

Periodic Table of Typefaces Wall Decal

via scribbleoneverything


The Periodic Table of Typefaces Wall Decal, pretty darn geeky. Find out more about it here, and here.

“I wonder what drawing board manufacturers go back to...

via absurdoverheard 

“I wonder what drawing board manufacturers go back to if they fail.”
—Dr. J. Adam Moore

Absurd Overheard is Karen Kurycki’s “illustrated collection of absurd / funny / silly statements overheard . . . kind of like ‘Kids Say the Darndest Things’ for adults.” Visit her site here.

New Formulation Skittles™ are Gelatin-Free

via vgr news

“The VRG recently reported that Skittles™ candy contains gelatin. We were told this information in November 2010 by a customer service representative at Wrigley, the company that manufactures Skittles™. At that time, we were told that Starburst™ and Skittles™ candy, both manufactured by Wrigley, contained the same ingredients, including gelatin (in this case, non-Kosher, beef-derived gelatin). It was explained to us that different ingredient proportions and preparation techniques resulted in two distinct candies.

A reader wrote in stating that Skittles™ had changed its formulation in 2010 and was now gelatin-free. The VRG went back to Wrigley for confirmation. In December 2010, two other customer service representatives told us that at some unspecified date in ‘early’ 2009, Skittles™ underwent a recipe reformulation that removed the gelatin. Since the Skittles™ shelf life is seventy-two weeks, there may still be some old-formulation Skittles™ containing gelatin on store shelves. The company could not specify where nor how much older formulation Skittles™ remain on store shelves. ‘Gelatin’ would be listed on the label.”

Read the rest here.

Image of the Day: Crow

This is just one of the many friends, which included a raven, that came by today for breakfast.

I really appreciate the generous gift of peanuts from my in-laws so that pictures like this are possible. 

Love Knows No Bounding Box

A couple of years ago, I was made aware of the group To Write Love on Her Arms. It was encouraged [I think through either FaceBook or MySpace] to show support for people battling depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide by writing the word love on your own arm on Valentine’s Day 2008 and then posting photos of it online.

I decided to use an ambigram of the word love, so that it could be read in different orientations of my arm. I drew it on using a thin purple Sharpie. I think I freaked a few people in my department that day who thought it might be real. No one said a thing to me, but then again, I do wear a silver hoop earring, and for years had a ponytail.

Made up of 60 invisible points

Recently at work, I was using Adobe Illustrator to auto-trace scans of clients signatures in order to turn them into a font for use in multi-part project. As I was converting, adjusting, and fine-tuning the traced signatures, I found it interesting seeing all of the points and handles controlling the shape of the artwork. Then it occurred to me that the love ambigram might look neat — and extremely geeky — if the points and a few of the handles were shown as part of the final artwork. Love is an ongoing process of adjustments and fine-tuning as our lives unfold around us. And personally, I only share my invisible “points and handles” with a select few trusted friends.

Screenshot of bounding box

Point and handles of vector artwork are “behind the scenes” of the shape and are only visible when working on the original native file. So I manually added bigger blue boxes and lines to represent the exaggerated points and some of the handles [see larger image below]. In Illustrator, when you select one or more objects with the Selection tool [a black arrow], a bounding box displays around them. You then can use the bounding box to move, rotate, duplicate, and scale objects by dragging the object or a handle (one of the hollow squares along the bounding box).

I thought it might be interesting if the bounding box was broken open and reflected [and a working title became Love Breaking Bounding Boxes], but the design was getting too busy looking. So eliminating the bounding box from the design led to a simplified message, as well as title of the design. This year, rather than drawing the design onto my arm, I’m creating a temporary tattoo to apply. I’ll post a photo of the final applied image hopefully later this week.

So this year, I encourage you to show support for everyone everywhere battling the demons depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide by writing love on your arm. 

Earworm of the Day: Break on Through (to the other side)

Well, actually, any song by The Doors can become an earworm. For two years, starting in the summer of 1980, there was one student in most of my classes at the Art Institute who constantly talked about and played music by The Doors. Bill was quite the fanboy and would always be referring to their lyrics.

Some people believe that we only have a given number of breaths before we die. By the time I graduated, I came to believe that certain songs only need to be heard a given number of times in ones’ life. I have easily met that number and have my fill of any song by The Doors. I wish that there was a membership card or something that would exempt me from hearing Light My Fire, Riders On The Storm, Hello I Love You, The End, L.A. Woman, When You’re Strange, Love Her Madly, Love Me Two Times, and Roadhouse Blues. Been there, heard that, never need to hear it again.

Listen to Roadhouse Blues here, if you must.

February Wood Type of the Month: Kaufmann

via International Printing Museum

“Read this month’s wood-type of the month [here] to learn which typeface is featured in the title of 42 TV shows around the world.

Business Cards: Page IV

Lots on blind embossing on this page, but the lower left corner is probably my favorite—blind embossing the lampshade is a perfect design solution.

Hex & RGB values for Crayola colors

via boing boing

“The Wikipedia entry on Crayola colors includes a marvelous reference: the hexadecimal equivalents for all your favorite crayons.”

Tea Fortune of the Day

Alphabet Animation

spotted on green chair press

“A nifty animation by Allesandro Novelli shows letters in various typefaces melting together and reforming.”


The Alphabet from n9ve on Vimeo.

Greenwich Locksmiths’ Facade

via scoutingny

Greenwich Locksmiths occupies a small storefront just south of Commerce Street. And though it’s been in business since 1968, it really hasn’t changed all that much. But take a closer look at the building, as something had changed. The new facade was designed and installed entirely by owner Phil Mortillaro back in October.

Read more and see some amazing photos of the Greenwich Locksmiths building here.

Naveen Chandru’s En Origami

via green chair press

“If you’ve ever folded a paper crane, you’ll immediately recognize the inspiration behind this display font. Angled lines cut back and forth, giving characters the illusion that they are made from thin ribbons of paper. Mountain and Valley folds reverse course to complete M’s, N’s, and W’s. Other letters make use of a different illusion: layering one form over another to create a doubling-up effect found in paper chains made of tightly folded gum wrappers.”

Read more about the font here. A good titling font; download it here.