I love these pencils, hand-stamped with catch phrases from The Big Lebowski. But I love even more that there are multiple sets of pop-culture pencils at this Etsy store — including classic rap, The Goonies, mostly dead wrestlers and mid-century designers.

And I love ever MORE that you can order custom sets as well!

Words to live by, indeed.

(via @rhondalmartens)

Falconry AND paragliding? Oh, why oh why aren’t I part of the idle rich

Joe Forkan’s paintings of characters and scenes from The Big Lebowski are also based on classic works of art. The one above, for example, is based on Caravaggio’s 1601 painting, Supper at Emmaus. Writes Forkan:

[Supper at Emmaus] illustrates a dramatic moment from the story of Jesus’ resurrection. I was interested in Caravaggio’s take on the story because of his depiction of the moment of discovery, when the disciple’s “eyes were opened”, and for his symbolic use of the still life to reinforce the central idea of his painting.

(snip)

In my painting, I was looking to create a kind of visual and narrative tension between the figures, the dramatic space, and the still life, one that is suggestive of a larger narrative, and that hopefully moves beyond the specifics of the Jesus story, the Lebowski story, or the Caravaggio story, but retains a shifting, if uneasy relationship between all three, in addition to where I am trying to go with the content and the formal elements.

This is just one of a “cycle” of paintings that he’s done, and I urge you to check out his blog for more — including details of an exhibition that he had. And, for about $30, you can get a limited edition print of the exhibition’s poster.

Come on — $30 is like five White Russians, max.

I was absolutely delighted to find a few recipes for Gin Fizzes over at Gilt Taste. I’ve been developing a bit of a taste for revived vintage cocktails lately, but I haven’t yet gotten around to a Fizz.

From Gilt Taste:

What is a Fizz exactly? Once cited by legendary bartender Trader Vic as “an early-morning drink with a definite purpose – a panacea for hang-overs,” the Fizz includes the following ingredients: liquor, lemon or lime juice, and sugar, which are shaken with ice, strained into a cocktail or Collins glass, and topped off with fizzing seltzer or Champagne. Eggs are often added, cutting the sharp taste of the gin and citrus, and endowing the Fizz with a unique velvety-yet-light texture. A “Silver Fizz” uses only egg whites; a “Golden Fizz” includes an egg yolk; and a “Royal Fizz” greedily incorporates a whole egg.

I’m saddened by our culture’s insistence that alcohol must be served in the afternoon or, preferably, evening. It’s intoxicating, sure, but it’s also an ingredient that can be used or abused. And, when used properly, a nice beverage that includes alcohol can be a wonderful way to start the day. I’m looking at you, mimosas.

I believe that Bloody Marys were originally devised as morning drinks as well.

A Gin Fizz sounds like a delightful way to expand my morning drink repertoire. I think I like their Lavender-Lemon Silver Fizz. Here’s the recipe:

The Lavender-Lemon Silver Fizz

A wonderful front-porch drink, this grown-up lemonade is best adorned with a deep wicker chair and hand-held fan. It would also make a lovely tea-time libation, served with macaroons.

2 ounces gin
1 teaspoon simple syrup (they suggest Royal Rose Lavender-Lemon syrup)
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 egg white
1 tablespoon seltzer

1. Shake with plenty of crushed ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass or Champagne coupe, and top with a tablespoon of seltzer. Grate a bit of lemon zest over the top. If too sweet, temper with more lemon juice.

They have four more! Try ‘em: Five Recipes For A Gin Fizz.

Because it freaking floats!

It’s surprisingly power-efficient, using just 3W to float and 15W when the LED array is fully lit, at least according to the specs at the store. Oh, and technically, I guess the lamp is only €980, but when you consider taxes, shipping and a North American adapter for the plug, you’re well up into four digits, even in terms of Euros.

I estimate you could do both of these projects with about $20 and in two or three hours. This is exactly what a weekend afternoon is for, especially with Halloween on Monday.

Thanks to YouTube user HouseholdHacker for the instructions.

If you’ve got a minute, give this Globe and Mail piece a read, too. “Halloween is a time to invest in social capital,” writes Frances Woolley. Fantastic way to look at it.

Oh, you like this? Oh, you want to build your own? Here’s a step-by-step guide.

Source: Here’s a clever way to deal with tailgaters | Wheels.ca.

This is all over the news today, but it took a little bit of Googling before I found their actual website.

It’s called the Nest — and it’s basically the Dyson vacuum of thermostats. That is, it’s a sleek, well-designed a gadget that promises to be an order of magnitude better than a consumer appliance we’d all thought was basically done evolving.

The Nest is plugged as the first user-friendly programmable thermostat. As the owner of a very nice programmable thermostat already, I didn’t think that I would be interested in buying a new one. After all, mine can do just about everything I would want it to do.

But it’s so very, very hard.

Okay, first world problem. But the “program” part of my thermostat really isn’t intuitive, and therefore, I don’t use it. I turn up the thermostat in the morning when I get up, turn it down again when I leave for work, up when I get home, and down again when I go to bed. (Okay, pretty much Amy does all that.)

The Nest thermostat will remember my habits and program itself for me. So I don’t have to get up and turn it to a warm morning temperature, it’ll do that for me so it’s warm when I get up. And I don’t have to worry about forgetting to turn it down when I’m gone.

Three things give me pause before clicking the “pre-order” button. First, it’s $250, although that’s not a ridiculous amount of money for a gadget that could pay for itself in a Manitoba winter. And also that looks cool.

Secondly, though, it’s pretty online-based, and I’m not too sure how much I want to rely on an unknown third-party for my thermostat. Especially given that it auto-updates. So, the theoretical worst-case scenario sees a hacker get into their site and push out a malicious update. And maybe they just mess with the thermostat controls. But maybe they turn my heat off in February. While I’m away for the weekend. And my pipes freeze and burst.

Or maybe, they use my trusted thermostat’s access to my secured wifi and somehow get into my actual computer …

Thirdly, and this is one of the most frustrating things, I have scoured their website (seriously, scoured it) and I can’t find anything that says whether it will do Celsius. Everything’s given in Fahrenheit. Ugh. Talk about your American blind spot.

I mean I’m pretty sure it will? But I can’t be sure sure.

It’s almost as bad as their insistence that, after giving them my country of residence, that I give them my zip code.

I’m not sure why these were designed to look so much like Pokémon balls, but these Christmas ornaments are in official Pantone colours.

That’s important to us design-y types, especially of the print variety.

But I suspect if you put these on your Christmas tree, you’d better be prepared for a whole lot of weird looks from your family.

Find out how to buy ‘em here: Benvenuti in Seletti.

[Edit 1: Boo-runs, the video can't be embedded -- check it out here, or at Wired, below.]

[[Edit 2: And now it can. Huzzah!]]

Oh my this is hilarious. And I’ll bet if you were a maker, you could make your own for a few hundred bucks. Anyone want to make me one?

More info at Wired: Interactive Periodic Table of Swearing Extends Your Rude Vocabulary | Underwire | Wired.com.

I see no reason why this couldn’t easily be adapted to a a bottle of vodka or rum, if wine isn’t your style.

And, best of all, since it probably won’t fit on swoopy, faux-retro, single-gear cruiser bikes, it is FULLY HIPSTER-PROOF!

Buy one here — only $30, plus shipping. Via here. All I need now is a leather cheese holster….

(Thanks, Colleen!)

I am thinking about buying this T-shirt, which makes me hahaha. But also feel righteous. Because I like vinyl, I really do, even if my last turntable got left behind in my last house and all my most favourite records are actually framed in record frames instead of being played.

But the shirt’s like $20, and that’s pretty awesome and if you do go out and buy it, you should also add this 7″ to your order which, I kid you not, features a Zach Galifinakis track on the A-side, and Ted Leo on the B-side. Oh, there was something about Jon Brion and Fiona Apple on there, too, but you won’t spend $5 on Ted Leo, then Jon Brion’s not going to make you crack your wallet.

(via Draplin)

I was absolutely entranced by this post on Quad Royal – a Vintage Poster Blog, taking a look at something they found rolled up in an old tube.

They found two posters — one white, one black; one full of an upper-case alphabet, the other, lower-case. What were they? As it turned out, instructions — spacing rules, to be exact. Or, kerning.

[T]hese instructions are by the great graphic designer Jock Kinneir. He’s best known for designing the template and typeface for Britain’s road signage along with Margaret Calvert (the Design museum have written an interesting piece about it if you want to know more). But in 1964 they also designed Rail Alphabet, as part of the Design Research Unit‘s rebranding of British Railways.

So that’s what I think this is, particularly as the posters came as part of an assorted lot from the Malcolm Guest sale. I imagine that, given their battered and used state, they were up on the walls of a design office somewhere in the British Railways system.

Now of course rendered obsolete by the computer. But a rather a fascinating bit of graphic design history nonetheless.

What I’ve also discovered in the course of writing this post is that Rail Alphabet wasn’t just used by British Railways, but also by Gatwick Airport and the NHS too, right up until the mid 1990s.  So it’s more than just a typeface, it’s the written identity of the post-war British state.

So, not just a really cool-looking poster (click over to the full post, where they’ve got photos of the full things), but also an important historical artifact. The blog says they will be donated to a museum.

I would love to have them re-printed.

(via @Coudal)

One sheet of plywood, some clever cutting, and little bit of screwing or gluing? Sounds awesome.

Cover it with old carpet, of which I have loads, and the result is cat heaven. Which my cat needs.

Full instructions here.

(via Boing Boing)