What a strange coincidence. yesterday I received the best LinkedIn invitation I’ve ever received and then this morning, the best Facebook invitation. Here it is:

Emily added you as a friend on Facebook. We need to confirm that you know Emily in order for you to be friends on Facebook.

Emily says, “Hey Chris! Holy mackerel– finding all sorts of old folks from NY advertising days on here tonight. Did I ever send you a note after your ‘cunt examination’ was linked on gawker- i meant to. not sure if you say ‘congrats’ for such a thing or what… hi!”.

To confirm this friend request, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?reqs.php

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

She’s talking about this Engrish OBGYN sign.

I received this email from LinkedIn this morning:

Jay XXXX, a Friend, requested to add you as a connection on LinkedIn:

Chris, i don’t know if you remember me as a friend of XXXX and XXXX. I remember you instigated a game of naked make-out twister at one of XXXX’s parties.

I’m also working with your old pals XXXX and XXXX.

What are you up to these days?

-Jay

No idea who this is, but all I can say is, “ACCEPT.”

Tiger Woods won the ESPY Award for Best Athlete or something. Will Farrell makes his acceptance speech for him and it is fucking brilliant.

[thanks jason.]

Effing hilarious. Richard Dawkins, famed brilliant atheist, reads some hate mail out loud and they bleep the expletives. Rather like typical YouTube comments I would say.

“No punctuation in that one at’all>”

[via boingboing.]

This animated short is amazing. Stop motion animation using nothing but household items to cook the perfect dish of spaghetti and tomato sauce. It is so clever and so well done you won’t believe it. I love this.

[via apartment therapy.]

I have to admit I’ve always thought the acrobatic, Brazilian martial art of Capoeira was beautiful but not very practical. We’ve never seen a Capoeira master in the UFC for example, and I don’t think we ever will. Case in point, this guy. He appears to be a very talented practitioner and he is certainly acrobatic, athletic, and intimidation.

But as you can see, it’s not all that practical. This is seriously one of my all-time favorite things I’ve ever watched.

[thanks rob.]

These inflatable street art “exhibitions” by Joshua Allen Harris (here too) are absolutely amazing.

[via laughingsquid.]

I haven’ posted any personal updates in a while so I thought I’d check in while I watch more CBS EliteXC Primetime MMA fighting. There’s some news.

My long, amazing, vacation where I’ve been pretending to be a millionaire playboy is finally over. That’s right, I have a job. I won’t go into details, because I don’t do that here, but I’ll be working with friends for some clients, at a good, smallish, digital agency in SoHo. The location is perfect for me. The people are great. I feel like I am going to throw up. It’s like the worst ever end of summer vacation stomach palpitations. But don’t feel too sorry. I haven’t worked for 7 fucking months.

In the meantime I’ve been squeezing in a little too much drinking, a few great meals, some snowboard shopping (Burton’s 40% off summer sale is awesome), and some canoeing and camping.

The camping was amazing. I’ve never really camped properly with a tent a whole in the ground for shitting. I loved it, and have been looking into buying some of my own gear now because I want to do more of it. Some friend’s did all the real heavy lifting and organized a 3-day trip where we camped along the banks of the Delaware River by night and paddled canoes for miles and miles during the day. Thanks to Heath we had some amazing food including steaks, marinaded shrimp, chicken cutlets, bacon and eggs, and on and on. The scenery was great, the workout was good, and the people were great. I only took a few picts with the Canon G7 so here is the Flickr set.

In addition, I’ve been working on a complete ground-up redesign and rebuild of this site. New host, new theme, latest Wordpress, Flickr integration, etc. I am lazy, technically incompetent and out of practice, and not capable of putting together a real design. So, I am using free templates, free icons, free plugins, and as little customization possible to make it happen. There may be some glitches around here for next week or two. Bare with me. The whole goal is to make it easier to post more often and with a bigger variety of stuff.

OK, that’s it for now. Vacation’s over. Back to work. Fuck.

This amazing short video is a fun, insightful, and frustratingly pretentious interview with Charles Eames in 1956. There are a few great quotes in there about Charles’ and Ray’s design philosphy, but more importantly to me, it appears to be one of the first times the iconic Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman was revealed to the public. I bought one of these chairs from Design Within Reach about a month and a half ago, and I love it. The design is virtually unchanged since this 1956 version, and is still just as modern looking and comfortable, though I do hope it has become a little more classic and a lot less pretentious. (For the record, I bought a sample from the closing SoHo showroom and got a SIGNIFICANT discount with only minor minor imperfections on the back wood panel.)

[via drawn.]

Jimmy Kimmel is a F*CKING genius, even though he is a no longer with Sarah Silverman (who might still be fucking Matt Damon). This segment of Unnecessary Censorship “The Come and Play” Edition is funnier than I can even explain. I am seriously sitting here crying like an asshole. Can’t Stop. Laughing.

[via yonkfook.]

Spiegel online had a beautiful video of shrew mating rituals online today in a short Bitfilm titled, “Our Wonderful Nature.” Trust me, watch this now.

[thanks witold.]

As a kid I always wanted to be able to reach inside of that fucking claw machine in the arcade and take the good toy or stuffed animal right out. I don’t think I ever once came out with anything decent. In fact, I don’t think I ever came out with anything at all. Miserable.

Now that most of my friends have children, it seems appropriate that I post this amazing security video of a little girl with a dream. A dream, like mine, to get the good prize from the claw. Only she’s a lot smaller than I was at the time. Enjoy the cutest thing ever…

[via chaseoros.]