I love a good cutaway!

I just ran across these retro cutaways and I think they're really cool. I have the book Incredible Cross-sections which is really well done and looks great, although the artists fascination with bathrooms is a little odd... Anyways I just love to get lost in the details of these kind of drawings, and these old ones illustrated by Frank Soltesz are the bees knees! To see how a 1940's department store operated back then is really interesting to me. I mean I'm pretty sure Nordstroms doesn't have a "fur Vault" above their bakery, and I had no idea that frozen orange juice was "...made by a fascinating new process that removes water without affecting taste or vitamins."

I was also absolutely unaware that Armstrongs Corkboard and fiberglas* was so incredibly important to just about every industry in this great nation of ours. Armstrong, I salute you!



Also in the photo set is this random picture Soltesz did. I think it's great! As a man I hate it when I'm scuba diving and taking pictures of the tropical fish when a giant squid comes up and attacks me! Curse them! Luckily like the man pictured I carry a knife for just such an occasion. It'll be calamari for dinner tonight!

*OCFCorp.

Modern Stupidity

I always get a kick out of high end pet toys or furniture. Paying an exorbitant amount of money for something your cat or dog is going to destroy is hilarious to me. Spending over $250 on an item they're meant to destroy...even better. I found this on a Modern Contemporary design(aka: snooty) blog. For those of you who don't know much about cat accessories let me explain. Cats like to claw, particularly nice expensive furniture. I have a theory that where some animals in the wild kingdom can smell fear, cats can smell money. This is a game to them. They have a running tally in their heads of the gross retail value which they've maimed and/or utterly destroyed (more points for the latter of course). After destroying an item or items they go hang out with their cat friends and compare to see who has done the most destruction that week. I'm not sure if the winner gets a prize or if its purely ceremonial but never the less a winner is chosen and that cat can hold their head even higher for that one week. Dogs have a similar game but typically aren't allowed in the cat's league for obvious reasons. At any rate because cats like to claw furniture someone came up with the great, environmentally friendly, and semi-inexpensive alternative to a wood or carpet scratching post by gluing cardboard strips together to form a nice flat scratching surface. You can find these at pretty much any pet store and they're relatively cheap, although for the materials they should be cheaper. Cats love them! The moment they step onto the cardboard they start scratching like mad, it's great! They're happy, your furniture is happy, its a win win. Within a couple weeks to a month however(depending on how many cats you have and how often they use it) the board starts to become worn and gross looking. The cat(s) have attacked it with all the fervor of an Italian leather ottoman and it shows. Gaping craters are all that remains of once uniform cardboard strips and brown confetti shrapnel litters the floor in the surrounding blast zone. Which is where the idea of spending forty plus dollars on any cardboard-esk cat item becomes ridiculous. The Cat Cocoon as I believe its called retails for $298. $298!!! It's cardboard! Granted it's lazercut cardboard and it does look pretty cool but it's still cardboard and any cat that receives this hip little item will go Edward Scissorhands on it not only because its made out of cardboard but because they can smell the retail price, and this potent combo will send them into a contact high that even Cheech and Chong would admire. So to the people out there who actually purchased this item I laugh at you and your Modern Contemporary Stupidity, but at least your cat was the winner for that week...

You know my name...

So I finally saw the latest 007 movie and I have to say its probably my favorite new one, and when I say new I mean post-Connery. The new one does do away with a lot of the typical Bond shtick but the cool thing is that you don't really miss them. The gadgets were always cool but this Bond doesn't need gadgets...although I'm sure a set of armored undies would have been nice. The one liners that would make just about everyone gag are gone and have been replaced with intelligent and witty banter.

Daniel Craig does a great job as Bond. I'll admit that when I first heard about him being selected as the new Bond I was less than enthusiastic. He didn't look at all like what I thought Bond was supposed to look like! He had blond hair, blue eyes and I didn't think he was all that attractive looking. Well I'm man enough to admit that I was wrong. Craig acts the part by being debonair and smooth when he needs to be and cold and calculating when in danger. His physique is pretty nice too. Its good to see a bond who is in shape, which is probably why there are so many scenes with him running at top speed instead of jumping into his Aston Martin to chase people down.

Vesper Lynd. I really liked this Bond Girl. I don't think you once see her in a bikini or skimpy outfit, in fact I think you see more of Craig then you see of her. This isn't exactly a good thing but it is very different from all the other Bond flicks. What I liked about Vesper was that she was supposed to be an intelligent accountant and what with Eva Green's acting ability and her well written dialog it makes you think that this is actually possible, unlike Denise Richards playing an American nuclear physicist in The World is Not Enough. I mean come on! She's not physicist! She probably can't even spell physicist! I really enjoyed how Vesper played off of Bond and from time to time got the better of him.

So what didn't I like. I didn't like how it felt like there were multiple endings to the movie. At least two times you think, "Oh now everything is good, they're safe, they won!" but no... Something else happens and everything revs back up. The only other thing I didn't like was that about a 3/4 of the way through the movie kind of goes chick flick on you. Luckily this doesn't last too long and its back to the bullets flying and people dying motif that I enjoy.

The only other thing I'll mention is that in the film Bond has to endure one of the most painful torture methods I've ever seen. Now its not that there's blood or that its graphics in any way because its not, you don't see anything at all really. Its just the method that is used that is just painful to watch. For me anyways...

In any event I recommend this movie. Good story, good action sequences, good acting and a sweet theme song by Chris Cornell.

first post!

Well it will have to do but I don't like it. I wanted my blog to have a different style but as my html skills aren't the best this will have to hold me for the time being.