Taking things apart

Thermoelectric Boots!

Voted as one of Time Magazine's Top 50 Inventions of 2010, these rubber boots capture the heat from your feet and turn it into power that can re-charge your phone!


I probably wouldn't want to strap my phone to the outside of my boots in the rain, but at least it'll be charged! (albeit wet)

More information behind the thermoelectric wellies via Ecouterre and Orange.

Trophy Head

I've recently had an infatuation with plastic animal figurines. Shortly after completing the Henrietta album cover concept, I came across Steph Mantis' Pack Rack - so cool! Now that I have a couple dozen white animal figurines on hand from the album photoshoot, this gives me a few ideas as to what to do with them. (Side note: I think Steph should make an animal derriere version of the pack rack! From plastic snout to plastic tail, even animal figurines can be used with minimal waste.)

the end of: too much time on my hands?

Click for vid.

I was sitting on the subway today on my way home when this song started playing on my headphones. As I sat there during rush hour, I couldn't help but think what the video for this song looked like, and lo and behold, it was exactly how I imagined it would be (especially the special effect motion-trailing during the intro....amazing!)

marking your territory

From No One You Know

Fun bedsheets hailing from Australia! Available in reverse configuration (for those that sleep on the other side of the bed) and in miscellaneous configurations.

I want one where there's an outline of a cat (or dog) hogging half the bed, causing the girl + boy to squish to one side of the bed. Ooooh, a silkscreening project coming up, perhaps?

I CALLED the ULTRA-WIIIIIDE!

Going through my early morning ritual of blog-news, I came across something new and upcoming that made my jaw drop on Engadget.


That looks familiar.....

Lenovo is introducing a new UMPC called the Pocket Yoga. Looking uncannily similar to my thesis project from last year, the Pocket Yoga is a pocket-internet device with touch screen capabilities, covered in a leather (faux?) casing.


ADA appearance model.

Ultra-wiiiiiiiide! I so called it in 2008. Who knew?

"Fit for the Pit"

Three inferior items that I came across in the last week:


Canadian Tire Eames Lounger @ Yonge and Dundas

Canadian Tire now sells the Barcelona chair and the Eames Lounger. A sales associate asked me if I were a "hardcore gamer" as he pretended he had an invisible remote inbetween his hands. Apparently a lot of people were purchasing the Lounger for gaming because it had a good lean back. Sorry Eames and Mies.......so so sorry.

Up close these chairs were really, really, poor quality reproductions. The bent plywood was chipped everywhere on the Eames, and the "leather" piping was everywhere except where it was supposed to meet on the Barcelona chair.

I heard a rumour that the Maple Leafs emblazoned Eames chair are to arrive in the store next week. (kidding, but if it does happen, I called it first!)




Another Canadian Tire find: a 10-cup Stainless Steel Coffee Maker with.....CONCEALED HIGH-TECH CONTROLS.
Who knew that concealed controls were a selling point for coffee makers?


And finally the best for last.....for the martini lover that is either far too busy, or far too inebriated to bother wasting calories/time shaking and stirring:

For a low, low price of $75.99 (or just three low easy payments of $25.33), you can be the proud owner of this beautiful 20oz electric martini shaker!

Seriously, who would buy this? Whose idea was it to put this thing to market? And how many martinis would one have to drink in a day to warrant "martini-elbow" to justify this item?
Remember the PIT in Street Cents back on CBC back in the 90's? The Electric Martini Shaker is clearly fit for the PIT.

Tenori-on! (aka kickass LiteBrite)

I came across the Tenori-on about a year ago but never thought that it would really take flight until today when I came across (somewhat unshamedly from the urbanoutfittersblog) an actually impressive and fun use for the thousand dollar plus synth-lite brite.

Such a good cover, I'm going to make a mental note to learn this on guitar tomorrow....maybe I can rig up some Value Village LiteBrites on some timers and foot pedals to emulate the same effect?

NDFDA-TFS

Not-Designed-for-Disassembly, That's for Sure.
The need for urban living space and curiosity killed the printer. After being moved around from apartment to apartment and between three cities four times, it was time for my seven year old printer to go. But to go where? The thing still worked (unfortunately), but a free-ad on craigslist showed that nobody wanted a perfectly good printer. Where square foot in my Toronto apartment is about 4 or 5 dollars a square foot, it was actually costing me money and space to hang on to the beast. So what do you do with a decent printer that you no longer need? You take it apart!

It took me about 3 hours over 2 nights to fully take the bastard apart. I found a few interesting things inside the printer, but I think the most ridiculous was a huge 1/2" felt pad on the bottom of the housing whose sole job was to soak up excess ink that arrived via a tube. No wonder I always ran out of ink so quickly!

So THAT's were all my ink went!

I also salvaged a few freebies from the inside, including 4 motors, a really shiny inanimate steel rod, and some gears. Random? yeah......it is.

There were a few parts that I just couldn't take apart no matter how hard I pulled and smashed. Ultimately I found an approximate 38 screws, 50+ plastic parts, 30+ metal parts, 6 parts that I just couldn't figure out how to disassemble/destroy, and 4 motors that I will probably fashion into another robot in the near future.

Printer carnage.

first post - lam + kam kam!

Finally got my replacement camera today! My last camera busted out on me back in April and was totally unreliable and deadweight during my HK, China, and Thailand adventures over the summer (don't even get me started on how much of a deadweight my Thinkpad became when it copped out on me one week into my travels). Unfortunately, Fuji Film decided that it was more economical to get me to pay for a recert. camera than to fix the one I sent for repair. Unfortunately again, the model that they sent me - although supposedly the next model up from mine, is very plastic-y and feels like it could break any minute.

One of my theories is that when Fuji was working on the J10 (the one they sent to replace my last Finepix 460), they accidentally sent phase one CAD files to manufacturing - hence the shoddy finished and fitting plastic parts. My second theory is that they got cheap and figured that glamour shots for marketing are taken from the front, and thus that is where the only quality piece of brushed metal is located.......oh well, good job Fuji for at least "attempting" to fix my last one.

In any case, I'm pretty excited that I at least have a camera now. To break it out, I took a picture of ZAK. I made ZAK tonight after a few glasses of wine and a potent margarita. It was sort of a stupor, improv craft session that I had on the floor in the middle of my apartment.

ZAK is short for muZAK (and Zak Morris) and holds my tunes. The industrial felt that I used kind of looks and feels like rat fur, which I think gives ZAK a bit of ratty character.

ZAK keeps the tunes hawt.

I wonder what my next stupor, improve craft session will make me?