I am. And I’m pretty excited to find a Taga-Q.C. as a blog so specific yet so close to home.
The content’s surprisingly good. I would love to see more posts like the Timbooktu bookstore, or even Ateneo’s real world rendition of Frank Warren’s Post Secret, one great filterblog.
You’ll notice the posts I mentioned are a bit Katipunan-centric. Maybe I’m waxing nostalgic over Gayuma or craving for Banapple that I’d love to see posts about them soon. And I hope that the author of this blog (as it doesn’t seem to be a group blog right now) has enough time to scour more streets of this really big, chaotic city and write about it, or at least have more people pitch in. It need not be in-depth, PinoyCentric style, but hopefully something vast and refreshing. This could be the start of something.
Manila may be the capital of the Philippines, and the Philippines as a whole needs more loyalty than its scattered islands and cities, but I’ve done many important things in Quezon City. I’ll dread the day when I have to part ways from it.
An upgrade to the once funkily-working Gravatars was promptly released a few months after. I may have failed to write a follow-up post on it, but I did mention in the comments that the idea ought to be acquired by some big company like the big G.
Gravatar wasn’t scooped up by Google (Jaiku was, though), but by Automattic, the guys behind WordPress. Like the way Google acquired Feedburner and made its PRO features free, Automattic also turned Gravatar’s paid features free.
Avatars are everywhere. LinkedIn only recently offered this feature to put a “face” behind every professional profile. With Automattic now backing one of the first serious attempts to put more meaning into every webapp’s personalizing feature, I hope the state of avatars, particularly gravatars, moves forward. Are you using a gravatar yet?
My mom chuckled when she saw me amused over an article about fonts in the local newspaper. She never really saw what was so interesting about “fonts”—which she’d probably refer to the ones she’d choose from a drop-down menu in Microsoft Word—much less the abomination that is Comic Sans MS.
(Okay, I’ll admit this once and for all: I did use said font when I knew no better. It was in grade six, for an amateur desktop publishing project in Computer class. And I am mightily proud of what I had accomplished back then, despite my design crime. I make amends by declaring war against it every opportunity I get: whether it’s the letters inside comic strips or car advertisements, do not use Comic Sans MS. It does not make words look cute, comic-y, or friendly.)
Anyway, my mom was someone who laid out publications manually during her time. I guess not everyone who had the privilege of arranging metal letters side by side at the printing press grows enamored with typography.
I’m not going to delve into why the whole business of type is so damn sexy. You just get defensive and disappointed when people close to you don’t fully appreciate the things you’re interested in.
Maybe they never had the chance to understand those things. But in this day and age of hyperspeed, there’s no reason not to.
…does more psychological damage than one would expect. People who spend their lifetime learning to communicate through written and spoken word have encountered another obstacle to deal with.
It could be the vocabulary (txtspeak, l33t, or LOLcat). It could be the software (how do you communicate with a computer?). It could be the hardware (ergonomics, specs, physics, economics). Sometimes it’s the novice in us that’s in the way; most of the time, it’s not.
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This story begins with a debt. And then a book launch: Lawrence Weschler’s Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences. And then a contest to celebrate that launch: A Convergence of Convergences. And among the finalists for the contest—too many to mention—I got a surprise.
The Antipodes by Chris Zic asserts that the United Kingdom and the Philippines look alike.
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Two weeks ago I tagged along with my mom on an international conference, the ICAS5 or International Convention of Asia Scholars, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She read two papers and was chair for one of the panels.
Since I finally finished school (I’m not the type who skips school for any leisure traveling) and can work anywhere Risk has an internet connection, nothing was stopping me from finally stepping out of the country.
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It started with the color I wanted to paint the walls of my room with. Of course I wanted blue. But something not too blue. I ended up choosing a very icy aquamarine (as noted by the man who did the painting), but continued to be fascinated by the remote regions of cyan.
Then I discovered Tiffany Blue and its reputation of all things luxurious and romantic. It is Tiffany & Co.‘s official color (Pantone Matching System number 1837, the founding year of the company!), whose petite boxes contain strands of silver and drops of diamonds. Though for me, having the cute boxes would be enough.
More than that, Tiffany Blue is unlike other colors associated with famous companies. Coca-Cola red is just plain old red; it could very well be the same red of McDonald’s, Lego, or Ferrari. Tiffany’s ability to build a brand around a color was so successful that American Express more or less imitated it:
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“Piece of Crap”
A phrase I’ve never heard to describe a Mac Book Pro. Outraged? Don’t look at me, go comment there. At least I got to discover Neil Young’s great song.
“You still deserve to die.”
Have a look at the Lawyer Client’s Manifesto at Gaping Void. I always take a jab at lawyers, often at my dad (don’t ask), and I’m pretty jaded about them. Sorry, but I don’t really admire a large portion of them.
Regardless of the topic, though, Hugh McLeod never fails to amuse (“how DARE you love me… i must punish you…”) and inspire (learn how to be creative; it’s where you can find the famous Sex and Cash Theory).
“Is/Was That You?”
Like Gaping Void, I always admire how Information Aesthetics always serves up good stuff (maybe because you won’t usually find things like a color-by-numbers tower in this time zone)—together with Information Architecture, it’s one of those awesome topics I dream of learning and applying in real life someday. Exempli gratia: Age Maps are photos manipulations by Bobby Neel Adams that merge, through a torn effect in the middle of the face, a person’s young and old face.
Tinily eerie to look at, but it’s quite a revelation how one’s physical features—even the look and pose—remain, despite many decades of change.
