Twitter My Life Away

I may have just bought a minivan, I may have started to wear socks to bed, I may have only sent three text messages in my life, and I may have mistakenly believed that I was a year older than I actually am, but I'm not old enough yet to miss jumping on the Twitter bandwagon.

While I'm approaching level 5 on the "5 Stages of Twitter Acceptance" chart, I still realize the insanity of it all, which is magnificently lampooned in this animated short.



You can drop by and tweet hello: @nickfruhling

Dinosaur Comics

I have been reading Dinosaur Comics for months now, and have been enjoying it immensely. So much so, however, that I haven't been a good friend by not recommending it sooner. In fact, ever since my favourite web comic, Perry Bible Fellowship went off the air (more about that here), this has been my favourite daily funny.

Now before you write off a web comic about dinosaurs, you should know of the storied history of Dinosaur Comics. Namely, that this Canadian guy uses the exact same computer-retro, clip art-inspired, bitmapped artwork for every single comic, with only the dialogue changing. This may sound like the cheapest comic ever, but within those six panels, it explores "a wide variety of topics, including ethical relativism, the nature of happiness, the secret to being loved, and more." Besides the three main characters (T-Rex, Utahraptor, and Dromiceiomimus), you can also expect guest appearances by Edgar Allan Poe, Patick Stewart, God, the Devil, and mirror universe versions of the regular cast, but with goatees.

The thing that brings me back to Dinosaur Comics, and the reason I so miss PBF, is that both comics are consistently enjoyable while simultaneously being intelligent, thought-provoking, relatable, witty, informative, philosophical, outrageous, irreverent, tragic, bizarre, truthful, and more often than not, all of these and hilariously inappropriate at the same time.

As you can see, it is extremely hard to choose the perfect example of a Dinosaur Comic, so start with those links and I think you'll be frigorific in no time.

Reach Out and iPod Touch

Apple has a really cool "out-of-the-box" banner ad playing right now at Yahoo! Games. I've included the video here for posterity, but you should go now and experience it for yourself while it's still there.

Elf Yourself 3: The Legend of Curly's Gold

It's that most wonderful time of the year again, and it's becoming quite the Christmas tradition to Elf Yourself here at work. Once you've seen all five of us doing our classic dance, enjoy the country and charleston versions, and end with my personal favourite, Christmas disco.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Is Obama President?

If you're not quite sure, you can check isobamapresident.com. If you're on the other side of the fence, why not check ismccainpresident.com instead.

Calvin and Jobs

These comics combine five of my loves into one.

Thanks to my brother Spence for this one.

Amazing Game Footage

Even if you are not the type to watch gameplay footage from video games, you will enjoy this.

I'm A Super Sucker

Two days in a row with these vanity virals, I know, but I just can't resist. That must be my superhero weakness...

High School Dance

Somehow this movie from my high school has been leaked onto the internet. How embarrassing...

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?

If you've heard about the Large Hadron Collider or seen the YouTube rap about it, you might be wondering, along with many people, if it has destroyed the world yet. Good thing that you can go to www.hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com and check.

At press time the answer was "Nope", but if you want to know what it will feel like if it does create a gigantic black hole, you can read about it in comically graphic detail here.

A Blog You Don't Want to Be On

Despite the name, the Sexy People blog is a place you don't want to find your picture. Don't worry, it's completely safe for work, unless you consider laughing out loud, or being unable to stop scrolling through the pictures, dangerous office activities.

Election Finally Gets Interesting

I'm finally interested in political coverage after seeing this...

GDMA Degree Show

The grads from my work are strutting their stuff tonight at the GDMA Degree Show 2008. If you'd like to see their work (and some expertly setup computers, displays and projectors, if I do say so myself...), come on down to the Roundhouse sometime in the next 3 weeks. For more information on the rest of the events, including the Graphex 08 exhibition, a night with Stefan Sagmeister, and a screening of my favourite font movie, Helvetica, head over to the Kwantlen Centre for Design and Communications page (and check out that beautiful logo while you're there...)

Photoshop Disasters

My brother just pointed to me to the hilarious Photoshop Disasters, which is like keeping up with celebrity gossip, but the celebrities are designers and the paparazzi is nerds.

My favourites so far are this, this, this and this.

St. Patrick's Day

All the fun of St. Patrick's day without having a drink: check out these cool optical illusions set to music, and then put your beer goggles on (and get completely creeped out) by viewing this.

What Should You Read Next?

Just type in a book and What Should I Read Next tells you what you think it might, based on what other people like. Nice and simple.

New Diamond Shreddies

This is extremely awesome, and when you get into the videos section, extremely awkward. I would never have expected Shreddies to think outside of the box, so to speak.

Valentine's Insanity

Here's a crazy Zune ad to get you in the mood, though for what I'm not exactly sure. And if you're having trouble coming up with the right words for your loved one, the Bureau of Communication guys have got your back.

Santattoos

If you have a strong stomach (pun fully intended), then you should check out this Christmas wish from me to all of you.

Seriously Free Music

The Vancouver Sun is giving away a free Christmas sampler download for the next 48 hours, and it has got some nice tunes on it. You don't even have to be a subscriber...

Thanks Norm for the heads up!

Elf Yourself, Again

It's that time of year again to go Elf Yourself. This year, you can elf up to 4 people, and even call a toll-free number and record your voice and make it elfy. Elftastic.

Alternatively, you can also Scrooge Yourself, which turns out to be a little bit more Broadway than you might expect.

Vancouver 2010 Mascots

Today the official mascots for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games were announced, and they are cute.

They were designed by half-local/half-Los Angles design company Meomi Design, are rendered wonderfully and speak like Pokemon. As far as I can tell, Miga is a sea bear who turns from a whale into a little bear, Sumi is what I thought was a bear but has the wings of an eagle and apparently wears a whale hat, and Quatchi is a regular old Sasquatch, and is obviously the coolest. Those are the 3 main ones, but there's also Mukmuk the marmot, who sports an oversized "We're number one" hand and is awesome.

On the website, you can watch a really nicely animated video, download some desktops, and even take a quiz to see which mascot you are (I was pleased to find out that I am Quatchi).

Overall, they might be criticized for being super cute but they are really just mascots and anything is better than our friend Izzy the Whatzit here. I really like them and look forward to seeing them around.

My Brother the Hero

My brother Spence finally got his genius recognized on Threadless, and you can now buy his "Music Snob" shirt before it sells out, which I predict will be soon.

Hot Juicy Burger

For some reason, I haven't yet grown tired of the singing, dancing, corporate-schilling avatar trend. Enjoy!


Find out Why - Join the Cause

World's Creepiest Dog

I've spent way more time than I should making this dog smile in the most unsettling manner you can imagine.

Podcast the Podcast

They are the Siskel and Ebert of Podcasting, which would be a good comparison if either of those two were still reviewing things. Anyway, these guys take the time to review podcasts so you don't have to waste any time or space doing it yourself. Informative, useful and yet, surprisingly, fun.

Subscribe at iTunes or check out their website.

Lollapaloser

This is actually a really nice implementation of the dancing-body-human-head genre of viral advertising, especially how you get to post your nerdy self on your own website...


Create Your Own PaloozaHead - Visit Lollapalooza.com