Fashion in a “Blue” Mood for Spring 2006. Pantone released their spring 2006 colors.

Source: "Blue Skies Ahead" on pantone.com

Pantone also released a 24 page pdf with suggested color palettes by famous designers. Here's a quick image with all the palettes summarized.

And I made an illustrator file with the swatches if you want to import it into Adobe Illustrator. spring-2006-pantone-colors.zip

One of my goals this summer is to sit in Steve Bartman's infamous seat at Wrigley Field. The seat that on October 14, 2003, the Cubs were just 5 outs from winning the National League playoffs and going to the World Series. But then Steve Bartman interferred.

I was there that day, standing in the streets beyond left field with the masses of people. Just a mere 141 feet away from the incident.

In 2005, I looked at "What type of Chicago Cubs tickets sell out first" and made a few observations:
1) August sells out faster than September.
2) Saturday sells faster than Sunday.
3) "Sold out" doesn't always mean sold out

Here's some more observations to tack on from 2006:

4. White Sox, Cardinals, Astros?
The White Sox opponent tickets sell out first, and then the Cardinals. It's rather amusing that the Astros are the National League Champions, and they haven't sold out any tickets at Wrigley Field. Chicago should totally know that the Astros won the NL, cuz they played the White Sox in the World Series!

5. Night games don't sell out THAT fast
It's also interesting that of the 28 games that are sold out in one day, only two are night games--both against the Cardinals.

6. Top Rivals
Other than White Sox and Cardinals, what are the most popular rivals of the Cubs? Here's a list of the Saturday sellouts in order:
1. Cubs vs. White Sox 7/1/2006-Saturday 12:20pm
1. Cubs vs. Cardinals 7/29/2006-Saturday 3:05pm
2. Cubs vs. Cardinals 8/19/2006-Saturday 12:20pm
3. Cubs vs. Cardinals 4/8/2006-Saturday 1:20pm
3. Cubs vs. Tigers 6/17/2006-Saturday 3:05pm
3. Cubs vs. Mets 7/15/2006-Saturday 3:05pm
4. Cubs vs. Braves 5/27/2006-Saturday 12:20pm
6. Cubs vs. Pirates 8/5/2006-Saturday 3:05pm
6. Cubs vs. Giants 9/2/2006-Saturday 1:20pm
7. Cubs vs. Brewers 4/29/2006-Saturday 1:20pm
7. Cubs vs. Padres 5/13/2006-Saturday 1:20pm

I have a feeling that the Pirates are only in there, because it's an August game. The only Saturday game that has not sold yet is:
---Cubs vs. Rockies 9/30/2006-Saturday 3:05pm
Which seems odd to me, because it's the second to last game of the season, if any season records are to be broken, it could be that day. That also could be the day the Cubs clinch their division or a wild card spot.

Shawon Dunston of the Chicago Cubs and Ozzie Guillen of the Chicago White Sox both started their major league careers at shortshop in 1985. Both were mainstays at their position in Chicago for over 10 years.

Who was better Shawon Dunston or Ozzie Guillen? Let's look at their stats:

	Career		G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	IBB	SO
Shawon Dunston	18 Years		1,814	5,927	736	1,597	292	62	150	668	203	44	1,000
Ozzie Guillen	16 Years		1,993	6,686	773	1,764	275	69	28	619	239	25	511
					AB/R	AB/H	AB/2B	AB/3B	AB/HR	AB/RBI	AB/BB	AB/IBB	AB/SO
Shawon Dunston: Averages					8.1	3.7	20.3	95.6	39.5	8.9	29.2	134.7	5.9
Ozzie Guillen: Averages					8.6	3.8	24.3	96.9	238.8	10.8	28.0	267.4	13.1

	GS	SH	SF	HBP	GIDP	SB	CS	SB%	Errors	AVG	OBP	SLG
Shawon Dunston	5	56	49	41	98	212	82	.721	215	.269	.296	.416
Ozzie Guillen	1	141	60	7	114	169	108	.610	222	.264	.287	.338

(the bold items are the one who has the better stats)
The main stat that sticks out most to me is that Shawon beats out Ozzie in career batting average, on-base average, and slugging percentage. Shawon has more homeruns, but Ozzie has fewer strikeouts. But Shawon has more homeruns.

One might point out that Ozzie has more runs, triples and hits. But let's compare the averages. Who has the better averages in each category?

Shawon:
• Runs
• Hits
• Doubles
• Triples
• RBI
• Intentional Walks
• Hit by Pitch
• Ground into double plays
• Stolen Bases
• Caught Stealing

Ozzie:
• Walks
• Strikeouts
• Sacrifice Hits
• Sacrifice Flies

TEN categories for Shawon. Just four for Ozzie. Hit by pitch should count, because it shows how willing you are willing to sacrifice yourself to get on base. Guillen had been hit by a pitch seven times? Surely those were times that Guillen couldn't get out of the way.

Oh, don't even try to pull fielding over on Shawon either. Who has less errors? Dunston. Who has the better arm, Shawon or Ozzie? Please. Shawon Dunston was said to have the fastest arm in baseball--including all the pitchers.

There's a new action figure set of Star Wars Astromech Droids.

Which droid is the coolest? (leave your vote in the comments, please)

| |	two skaters starting out
| |	moving closer
| |	and closer
||	now they skate as a couple
||	skating around
||	around
||	around
||	picking up speed!
||	look at them go!
|-	now he is holding her horizontally!
&	And they are doing a pretzel move!
()	now they bend to each other
)(	and bend away
$	and now she wraps herself around him
T	He holds her up in the air
^ |	And tosses her up in the air!
^ |	Oh no, he moves out of the way!
__ |	And she falls down!
__|	Here he comes to see what happened
/|	And he picks her up
||	Hooray! Gold medal! wait...
°||°	there's the gold medals!

(from an IM conversation with Elle Wells)

Weasel coffee has been eaten and regurgitated by rare Vietnamese weasels! Honestly!

A stronger, smoother, heady flavoured coffee that will appeal to serious connoisseurs of the mighty bean.

So don't try weaselling out of it, order yours today! It's totally safe, totally sterilised and totally delicious. Weasel Coffee £15.95

These well cared for monkeys are famous in their native China and are specially trained by their owners to pick rare, wild tea plants in inaccessible places, such as cliff faces. The monkey-picked leaves produce a pale, golden tea that's so fragrant and delicious it's best served without milk. Monkey Picked Tea £9.95

It's 3:00am right now and I just happen to be listening to "3 a.m. Eternal" by KLF.

When I design, I approach it as that I am playing. There are some designers that don't like to say that they "play" when they design, because it gives the wrong impression that belittles what designers do. For example that designers are kids with crayons and it's art time in grade school. Yes, we do need to show clients that what we do is important and serious work that can truly have an impact.

However, in my own personal vernacular of how I approach my design work, it will always be play. It's what I enjoy and I enjoy to play.

Here's an interesting clipping from a paper by Peter Presic that fully supports the importance of play in the arts:

"Plato considered play as fundamental to art, and the leap as the primoridal form of play. Among Mozart's near contemporaries, the philosophers Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, Christian Gottfried Körner, and Hans-Georg Nögeli reflected on the importance of play in art. Though he does not mention Mozart explicitly, Schiller's description of the play-impulse is particularly important and has not before been fully mined for the insights it can give into musical practice. The concept of 'deep play' discussed by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz in the context of Balinese gambling is also helpful in this musical context. Play is dynamic and must "deepen" itself or cease. These insights are the starting point of a close discussion of the finale of Mozart's Piano Sonata in B-, K. 570."

Thanks to Bernie DeKoven for finding this clipping.

This color palette of brown and light blue is really nice in the bathroom. (the source article called it "Rich Browns teamed with Aqua") The key is the white toilet, white shower, and white furniture. The white really goes nicely with this palette. But if you try to mix something else in, that would just throw it all off.

It's really amazing that they can get away with brown in a bathroom, because brown equals poo.

Don't even tell me that they are serious about building this.

It will thrust 61 stories into the sky, a trio of towers that will dominate Louisville's skyline.

It will feature an acre-sized "island," open to the public, that will hover 22 stories in the air. (Courier-Journal and Architecture Chicago)

I feel bad for Louisville.

This Zoids Mega Model Kit 1 Gravity Saix looks a lot like one of the Voltron cat things. Hence, that makes this cool. Oh wait. It also has walking action, sword missile, opening cockpit, rotating cannon assembly and the sword missile can be held in the mouth. That makes it ULTRA-cool.

A real life eleven-foot tall robot roaming the streets of Japan saving stranded motorists! Just imagine being stranded and seeing this big robot come to save you. Autobot or Decepticon?

In the news "Ohio bowler rolls perfect 900 series."

Billiter, 24, of Colerain Township, rolled three consecutive 300 games Monday night to achieve a perfect 900 series sanctioned by the United States Bowling Congress.(CBS News)

The interesting thing is that let's say you bowled a perfect 300 game. You would be so incredibly overwhelmed that you would just celebrate.

But you might say, "Well, if I'm this hot, maybe i can get 600." Then you do get 600! Incredible. Celebrate. No. Try to get NINE HUNDRED.

And you do get 900. Why stop there? Just eight people in the history of the bowling have a "U.S. Bowling Congress-certified 900 series"
• Jeremy Sonnenfeld, Lincoln, Neb., Feb. 2, 1997
• Tony Roventini, Milwaukee, Nov. 9, 1998
• Vince Wood, Moreno Valley, Calif., Sept. 29, 1999
• Robby Portalatin, Jackson, Mich., Dec. 28, 2000
• James Hylton, Salem, Ore., May 2, 2001
• Jeff Campbell II, New Castle, Pa., June 12, 2004
• Darren Pomije, New Prague, Minn., Dec. 9, 2004
• Lonnie Billiter Jr., Cincinnati, Ohio, Feb. 13, 2005

But how many people have bowled a 1200 series? Probably none. But congratulations to Lonnie. Incredible!

USA Olympic luge athlete, Tony Benshoof, has a blog at: www.tonybenshoof.com. Wouldn't it be cool to have a list of olympic athlete blogs? I was going to compile such a list, but then came across this Kyodo article, "Blogs by Olympics participants to be banned. It states:

The Japanese Olympic Committee is telling athletes competing at the Turin Winter Olympic Games not to open web logs because the Olympic Charter bans athletes' journalist activities when the games are on, and violators will be disqualified.

That sucks.

Ok, the last post has a ton of comments about the opening dancing, and then the country outfits. So i'm starting a new post for the next part of the ceremony.

Click on the comments below to read my live comments about the opening ceremony for the 2006 winder olympics in Torino Italy.

Storm Troopers are so cool. I want to be a storm trooper. Maybe instead I'll just settle for buying this ultra-neat set of stormtropper figures. Oh I guess this package also has clone troopers. For some reason clone trooper doesn't sound as cool.

Who would win if a storm tropper battled a clone trooper?

When a baby turns 11 days old, it will be ONE MILLION seconds old. 1,000,000 seconds sounds like a lot for a newborn. But you turn ONE BILLION seconds old when you are 31 years and 8 months old.

It's amazing the difference between the number of one million and one billion.

Now excuse my extreme ignorance here, but here's a conversation my friends and I had while Stevie Wonder performed in the pregame concert of 2006 Super Bowl XL.
-- "isn't he dead?"
-- "yeah, i thought so"
-- "no that's Ray Charles who's dead"
-- "oh, RAY CHARLES... and this is STEVIE WONDER. They are both blind. Oh. right."
-- "so, uh who did what songs?"
-- "i dunno"

So feeling embarrassed that we had no idea, here's some research I just did on them:

-------------------------------------------------
Stevie Wonder
--Born: 5/13/1950

Top Songs on iTunes:
--Superstition
--Isn't She Lovely
--I Just Called to Say I Love You
--Ribbon in the Sky
--You Are the Sunshine of My Life

Appeared in:
--We Are the World: The Video Event (1985)
--Cosby Show (1986)

Trivia from IMDB:
--His first #1 hit was the half-improvised "Fingertips - Part 2", recorded live in concert (The first live pop single to ever reach #1). It topped the Pop Music and R&B charts in 1963 when Stevie Wonder was only 12.
--Has won 21 Grammy awards (a record for most Grammy awards)
--In addition to his being blind, he also has loss of smell due to a 1973 car crash in North Carolina from which he also has a sca
-------------------------------------------------
Ray Charles
--Born: 9/23/1930
--Dead: 6/10/2004

Top Songs on iTunes:
--Georgia On My Mind
--I Got a Woman
--Crazy Love
--What I'd Say
--Mess Around

Appeared in:
--Blues Brothers (1980)
--Wrestlemania 2 (1986)
--Diet Pepsi Ads ("You Got the Right One, Baby, Uh-huh!")

Trivia from IMDB:
--His best known hit in America was his 1962 pop hit "I Can't Stop Loving You," which spent five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 charts.
--Had three #1 pop hits with "Georgia On My Mind" (1960), "Hit the Road Jack" (1961), and "I Can't Stop Loving You" (1962).
-------------------------------------------------
The grudge match between Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles:
http://www.grudge-match.com/History/stevie-ray.shtml

"CRTs contain 4 to 6 pounds of lead plus other toxic materials that leach into the soil and water if not properly disposed of. At this point, most LCDs contain lead and nearly all contain mercury." source: PC World.

Wow. The boxes we stare at all day long have so much lead in them. What does the lead in a monitor do?

Does drinking hot tea or coffee make you warm?

I never felt any warmer after a hot drink. Same thing with ice cream, never noticed feeling any colder.

But then a couple days ago I moved my tempearature reader by my computer to monitor the temperature of my apartment, because I often feel cold. It was around 69 degrees, so I turned up the heat and found 75° to be quite pleasant.

And then I had some ice cream.

And I felt cold. But it was 73 degrees, not enough to really feel cold. So it must be the ice cream. That's why I often feel cold in my apartment, cuz I eat ice cream a lot.

The most rad Xevox figure has to be: Xevoz Infil-Traitor - Biomecha. This IS the coolest Xevox toy. Check out the rest of the Xevoz figure and tell me if you think there is a cooler one.

When I say the word "penguin," what do you think of?

Four years ago today on 02/02/02 the comic strip Groundhog Croquet was launched. It only featured two comic strips total, but it was a huge fan favorite. Now just a few days ago Dreamworks released a video game called "Over the Hedge." According to Activision, gamers assume the role of characters including RJ the raccoon, Verne the turtle, Hammy the squirrel and Stella the skunk, and explore a suburban neighborhood filled with traps and various other obstacles.

These animals pick up various backyard elements to use as weapons--plungers, shovels, golf clubs, and, hockey sticks. There weren't any croquet mallets in the screenshots at IGN, but I sooooo hope they include croquet equipment in this game. And to think if the groundhog in this game actually picks up a croquet mallet, I would be soooo entirely geeked out!!!

My brother Erik posted on his blog that the Chicago Cubs are offering fans the opportunity to get their very own 4" x 8" personalized brick to be placed somewhere around Wrigley Field. Erik wants to get a brick that says:

RUB THIS BRICK
AND THE CUBS
WILL WIN TODAY

But it costs $160 to get a brick. Now if anyone wants to split the cost of the brick, please leave your name in the comments below. So far Erik and I are in on it. Please join us and get the chance to leave your mark on the coolest brick at Wrigley Field. I'll tell ya what, you can even donate as much as you want. One dollar. Five dollars. Anything will be appreciated.

Yesterday I burned my top of my mouth eating some very hot pizza. I still have a blister there now, and it makes food less tasty.

Perhaps the top of your mouth helps you to distinquish the texture of the food, not the taste.