Despite the calendar indicating it’s still the depths of winter, Sports Illustrated has it’s annual respite for all of us. The annual Swimsuit Issue launched today on SI.com. 2005 is the first year since 1997 that I haven’t worked on the production of the online version of the American icon, but it’s great to see the issue without getting sick of all the photos weeks in advance of the public release. The magazine blessed the release of close to double the number of photos in past years, although some are for magazine subscribers only. But there are tons of free video clips (it was pay-only in past years), and a smattering of VR photography by my friend Bruce Kaufman. And my friend Chris Gibbons created some very slick Flash features for the Rate-a-Photo section. Another new feature this year is a digital edition of the magazine available for download for $4.99. The application from company OliveSoftware uses their ‘ActivePaper’ technology, basically serving the assets to registered users via Flash. An interesting model, so to speak. Anyway, start clicking!
Woe and 28
My hometown of Savannah, GA is in the news today, but not for a terribly positive reason. Savannah State University, one of the country’s historically African-American colleges, achieved the dubious honor of going 0-28 this season with a loss to Florida A&M 49-44 on Monday night. In 50 years, only one other Division 1-A team has lost every game. Head coach Edward Daniels’ explained to the Savannah Morning News that his former coach Al McGuire taught him to ‘keep a sense of humor…You can’t let things get you down so far that you’re a Grim Reaper-type guy.’ Well, maybe going 0-28 gives you reason to be just a little bit down…Read coverage at SI.com here, and at the Savannah Morning News site here.
Photograph by Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News
Infographics Gone Wild
I stumbled on this while wandering through Restoration Hardware yesterday. The Firefly Visual Dictionary ($33.97 at Amazon) is chock full of infographics breaking down, for example, all the parts in a power transformer pole outside your home. Or the innards of a windmill. You name it, it’s in here. Close to 1,000 pages with over 6,000 illustrations, this is the kind of book I loved to read all the time as a kid. I’m going to have to pick this up sometime soon.
Getting Ready
The last several weekends have been a blur of activity. Several hours of breastfeeding classes, followed by trips hither and yon to seemingly every baby store in the Greater Atlanta Metro area. There is just so much to buy in preparation for a baby, and the military-industrial complex (by that, I mean Babies-R-Us) makes you think you need to buy two of everything in their stores. But if Baby Trotz arrived tomorrow, we’d be just about ready – just need to buy the 600 diapers the books suggest we have on hand at the outset. I’m most excited about the gadgets (read the extended entry) and the print we selected for the nursery. We’re going with an Animal/Zoo theme, and this retro/mod print from Carousel Designs is cute without being annoying. What do you think?
Continue reading Getting Ready