So THAT'S what the sun looks like.

I wouldn't know. The weather's been very weird 'round these here parts.

Not to mention the ginormous migraine that I like to call the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill Clusterfrench is giving me high blood pressure.

So I need calm down and focus on something beautiful and awe-inspiring. Like this:

The big yellow thing is the Sun. But look at the upper right section. See those two dark blips? The one on the left is the Shuttle Orbiter Atlantis and on the right is the International Space Station! Incredibly, Thierry caught them as they passed directly in front of the Sun! To give you an idea of how talented Thierry is, the entire transit lasted just over half a second.

... Mind you, Atlantis had just started its pitch maneuver, designed to show its belly to the crew on the ISS so they can inspect it for heat tile damage. That means this image was taken shortly before the Orbiter docked with the station, on May 16th. Thierry was in Madrid specifically to get this shot.

Get a good look. This is the last mission of Atlantis (unless it’s needed as a rescue mission later this year), so we won’t get too many more views like this.

Aaaah. I feel better now.

(link)

Spam cracks me up.

I've been out of the office for the last two weeks, and today is my first day back.

Our company e-mail system does this thing where they filter out all your junk e-mails and sends you a daily list of junk e-mail that it's intercepted for you. You can then review the list and unjunk any legit e-mails.

Sometimes, spam still manages to hit my inbox. What's more disturbing, though, is that the sender appears to be my own work e-mail address.

Over the last two weeks, I've received quite a few e-mails with somewhat interesting subject lines. Here's a sample:

• "Stiff, long and hard rod"
• "I'm so thick now she says it hurts"
• "Never be flaccid again"
• "Don't wait to be huge"
• "Proven to work in male subjects"
• "Re: Scarlett [Johansen?] did it for cash"
• "Fit perfectly between her jugs"
• "Women will flock like bees to honey"

And my personal favorite, "With 9 inches everything is possible."

Indeed.

Branding: Obama vs. McCain

John Tepper Marlin at The Huffington Post today gives a high-level analysis behind the branding of the Obama and McCain campaigns. Check it out if you're into iconography, brand identity, that kind of stuff. I thought it was pretty interesting.

Milestones

Lately, my life has been ALL about milestones, key dates and deliverables, so it's a wonder that I missed this semi-significant one: My humble corner of the blogosphere has surpassed the 100,000 visits mark. As of right now, I'm at 105,527 visits.

And counting, bitches.


I know I've been a little, how do you say, lax on the postings. I've just not been feeling inspired as of late. And yeah, I've been sorta keeping tabs on the whole Democratic primary and presidential campaign thang (Obama!), but I've also been working out, dancing lots and lots of flamenco, traveling, getting promoted and, in general, getting my groove on.

Doin' my thang, as they say.

I have been keeping close tabs, however, on all of my favorite blogs, and discovering new ones. Food blogs and blogs by chefs are my new guilty pleasure. Especially Eric Ripert's new blog, Avec Eric. God, I love that man. He is slowly encroaching on my total lust for Anthony Bourdain, I'll have you know. And that's saying something.

You'd think all of this food-blog-reading would inspire me to re-invigorate my own food blog, but no. I've been forcing myself to eat more salad lately that I haven't even really been doing any Filipino cooking in my own kitchen.

But that's neither here nor there. I'm officially at the 100K+ blog hits point.

Viva You Forgot Poland! Ole!

Nietzsche Family Circus

As a kid, I totally hated that Family Circus comic. I found it utterly corny and trite. But this, courtesy of LosAnjealous, makes the whole thing way more palatable. Here's an example:

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

Props to Scott for the link.

New obsession

I've been in downtown Los Angeles for the last 24 hours and have discovered a new obsession: Pinkberry.

Pinkberry, Silver Lake.

To some, it's just another Fro-Yo place. Others might question whether there's any yogurt actually in it. Still, some others line up around the block for a cup of it's creamy, sweet/tart goodness, with that clean finish that my palate loves oh, so much.

Now I know why. Yum. I have plans to visit the Silver Lake location today.

I leave SoCal early tomorrow and am already plotting to get a fix in before boarding the plane. Do they have one at LAX? I'm just saying.



UPDATE, 2/8: I'm going to NYC in March. I just found out they have nine locations there. I am as happy as a little girl.

Helvetica, the movie

Don't confuse legibility with communication. Just because something is legible, doesn't mean it communicates. And, more importantly, [it] doesn't mean it communicates the right thing. ---David Carson

I finally got around to watching Gary Huswit's documentary about your favorite font and mine, Helvetica. I know I'm late. I didn't hear about the SF screening until after it was over. So sue me. Anyway. From the film's web site:

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives.

Forgive this ultra-geeky episode of mine, but if you appreciate fonts at all, you'll love this movie.

Update your Netflix queues now. Trust. It's such a great discussion about this font, graphic design, and typography in general. Interview subjects include the guy who did the signs for the NYC subway, the guy who designed the fonts Georgia and Verdana, the guy who designed the Meta typeface (a font of a previous employer), the art director for the now-defunct Ray Gun magazine, and industry people with famous last names like Hoefler and Zapf.

Aww yeah. One word for font enthusiasts: Fontgasm. I'm just saying.


Photo: "Helvetica as Metallica," Yann Serandour. Lifted from here. Why not go for the obvious helvetica-font picture? Because it's a font. Someone made a movie about it. If that's not fucking hardcore, I don't know what is, man.