Trotz.com

So my old pal Heidi Klum is gonna marry Seal (via CNN.com). So, let me clarify that. Heidi and I shared a hot tub (along with her then-husband and a bunch of other folks) in Mexico a few years back when I was on assignment for a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit shoot. She’s really down to earth, and was most fascinated by the IPIX technology we were using, including getting into the spirit of things and posing on both side of the picture, as IPIX VRs are two 180-degree images spliced together. So ’snap’ Heidi poses on one side, Heidi moves to the other, and presto! Two Heidis, one panorama. I’d link to one of these, but SI.com has put most of the old Swimsuit content behind a subscription wall.

UPDATE: You can still see the VR! Here is one, courtesy of MSN Search’s cache. LINK.

Now I think Seal is a great musician. Although he has become quite a commercial success, and some of his stuff is a bit too pop for my taste, I think his first disc from the early 90s is great, and remind me of some Peter Gabriel stuff.

Anyway, Mazel Tov to the happy couple!

Link: Heidi Gallery at SI.com
Link: CNN.com story

Tags: Miscellaneous

Frank Boosman points out that, according to a report from the Chicago Sun-Times, the war in Iraq has cost $130 billion to date or $198M per day. That makes the amount committed to date by the U.S. to tsnuami relief ($350M) equal to 42.27 hours of Iraq war costs. Hmmmmm.

Tags: Miscellaneous

Just back in Atlanta from a holiday trip to Florida. I’ll resume posting shortly. Gosh, this page looks blank without any posts for the past week! Sorry.

Tags: Miscellaneous

Salon.com has a roundup on the recent hullaballoo (pay subscription or brief commercial viewing required for access) around the AP photographer who captured that brazen daylight execution of several Iraqi poll workers last week. Conservative bloggers (e.g. “Wretchard” of the Belmont Blog Club, whatever that is) have suggested AP’s complicity in these events. Perhaps, they say, the photographer knew what was going to happen. Huh? How do they jump to this conclusion. Unlike my earlier post surrounding Kevin Sites catching the apparent execution of a wounded combatant, this case could be more questionable - but the facts don’t really support this speculation. Rather than point a finger at the old leftist media, this case shows how unstable Iraq remains. Cold blooded daylight assasination in the middle of public streets - looks like we have a ways to go with this whole ‘democracy’ thing over there.

Tags: Miscellaneous

The website of the Ephemera Society of America discusses the newly active American poster market, resurgent in the past ten years. The number of poster auctions conducted in the United States increased from two in 1990 to at least eight in 2002. There are now vintage poster fairs in several major U.S. cities, and collectors worldwide are seeing new value in American creations in this category, especially American posters produced between the two World Wars. World War pieces, such as Norman Rockwell’s patriotic World War II quartet shown in my mom’s poster retrospective at Savannah’s Telfair Museum in 2002, The Four Freedoms, fetches over $3,000. Read more here.

Tags: Miscellaneous

Face it. For a certain type of kid, Santa is a horrifying character. Huge boots. A beard hiding most of his face. A huge, angry, red suit. Questionable breath. Well, with some Santas. Anyway, the Orlando Sun-Sentinel has published the results of a reader contest for the best photos of children scared of Santa. Click here to see the gallery.

Tags: Miscellaneous

The JibJab.com guys are at it a gain - now they have released ‘Grumpy Santa’, another of their Flash-based animations. Instead of skewering the American political process, they highlight Santa’s tough times. Striking a deal with Yahoo.com, JibJab has made this into more of an industry - including a book, premium downloads, etc. - but for balance, do promote a program to give toys to childeren in Iraq. Click here to see the movie.

Tags: Miscellaneous

In an unprecendented effort for an open-source project, Mozilla.org placed a two-page advocacy ad in the New York Times on Thursday, December 16th. I have been using Firefox for at least six months now, and find that it behaves much more reliably for me on the Mac - other browsers seem to be crushed by various Flash animations. Link to a full-size image and the press release here.

Tags: Miscellaneous

CNNfn, the Financial News Network and sister to CNN, CNN Headline News, CNN espanol and CNN International, is signing off at 2pm ET today. The network suffered from the same issues that doomed CNN/SI, my old employer - the turn around in how distributors paid for programming, and the slower-than-expected rollout of digital capacity to take on niche networks like this. CNNMoney.com will, however, continue to publish online. Managing editor Allen Wastler has this retrospective. But Myron Kandell summed it up best as he signed off on behalf of all the staff — ‘It was just one of those things.”

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Those wacky folks at the ad agency Porter + Bogusky (creators of Burger King’s Subservient Chicken) have a new campaign, this time for Method Soap. This site features a confessional of sorts, and users can view others confessions. User-submitted confessions can also be streamed to a downloadable screen saver. Nice stuff, and awfully quirky - but in a good way. Visit the site.

Tags: Miscellaneous