Georg Pedersen

You know what the internet needs more of? T-shirts. Simply not enough out there. I have decided to do my part to combat this issue.

I have a few designs up on MySoti.  You can check them out at http://www.mysoti.com/mysoti/designer/georg/

MySoti uses “Direct To Garment” printing, which is most decidedly NOT screen printing, but by all account I’ve read, it’s pretty high quality.  I’m going to order a couple and see how they look. If you are scared of such newfangled ways of printing, but still like the designs, email me and let me know.  The plan is to silkscreen these if there’s enough interest.

Okay! Great!

I’ve been following Wimbledon on the internet the past couple of days and just noticed this graphic on top of ESPNs score tracker.  

Tennis is X-TREME!

What are they trying to say, exactly?  That tennis players are made of fire? Or that when they play too hard they will burst into flames, a la Buffy? Maybe it is just a sly advertisement for fire-resistant clothing.  We may never know!

I was walking down the street earlier today when a rogue soccer ball went flying past me.  It belonged to a group of Caribbean guys in front of me on the sidewalk.  Being a little spacey still from too much computer time, I pick it up and toss it over instead of kicking it like most anyone who’s ever been around a soccer ball would do. They good-naturedly invite me to play which I decline, explaining I’m more of a baseball guy.  

They look a little puzzled for a moment and then one of them says, “Yeah, you’re American. You don’t know how to play, right?”  And then it was kind of an odd moment when I thought for a second that I should know how to play soccer because I live in Crown Heights, and then I remembered that Crown Heights is actually in New York City. I forget this sometimes, which is kind of cool.

Something I am maybe working on. Might just ditch it.

I could have made this twenty-some panels of me wasting time, but it would have gotten very depressing.  Oddly, I haven’t yet wasted time on Wikipedia reading about internet addiction disorder or computer addiction, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

From Scotland — land of the Kings of 90s Sad Bastard Music, Belle & Sebastian — comes another strong entrant for Saddest Band of the 21st Century: Camera Obscura. Since 2001 they’ve cranked out four solid albums of completely depressing, yet still toe-tappingly catchy indie pop music.  

Lead singer Tracyanne Campbell probably isn’t quite in Edith Piaf territory so far as making people cry by singing the phone book, but she’ll probably make you think that everyone from Aaron Aardsman to Zachary Zavracky broke her heart in the last three months.

An example from the new album:

What? Not sad enough for you? Okay, you asked for it:

You would do well to grab some chamomile tea and stare wistfully out the window for awhile… Otherwise we will all see you cry!

Been working on this the past few days.  There’s a LOT of pencil and acrylic paint in here, and it’s now proving very difficult to photograph.  This is a slightly Photoshopped approximation of how it should look.  I’ll try again maybe tomorrow.

You may not know this about me, but I am a man of many hobbies. Fantasy baseball, bike riding, ping pong, tennis, crossword puzzles, connect four, boggle, scrabble, innovative drinking games, the list goes on. One hobby I especially enjoy is collecting domain names. I think at the height of my craze I owned around 40. Why? I DON’T KNOW. Well another, related hobby I enjoy is letting those same domains expire.  (13 in the past 9 months!) Sometimes in my frenzy I let one that I like slip through the cracks. Such is the case for oragainstus.com, which apparently had enough traffic to become a billboard for some girl with a backpack.

Not a site I made. I don't even know this girl!

Luckily I own the far superior youareagainstus.com, which should be up and working in the next day or so. In the meantime, if you’re seriously jones-ing for some wordless comics about fear and politics you can check them out at http://ytorf.com/oragainstus, which will always be there.

So update your bookmarks please!

Last week I ran in the James Joyce Ramble in Dedham, MA. It’s a 10K race with the twist that all along the course costumed actors read passages from Joyce’s various works. It was my first “race” since high school and the stars were not aligning for me: I had a severly tight hamstring and it was 90 degrees and sunny. Not fun running conditions. Regardless, I didn’t finish well, but I DID finish. (How slow was I going? I ran the same distance today 20 minutes faster. Wow!)

Anyway, road races are awesome because you sign up for like twenty bucks and you get a free t-shirt, some other swag with ads on it, free food and drink (and beer!). They also put this little timer on your shoe AND they take photos of everyone so that you can commemorate the event.

Look at me here! Proud, focused, graceful. Dropdead handsome.

Truly, an athlete in his element

And now look at me just a camera click later. Exhausted, defeated, on the verge of collapse.

Uh... did I mention it was 90? That's HOT

How is it possible that I look so different just moments apart? The magic of still photography, ladies and gentlemen!

Ever wonder what the difference is between a curve and a slider? How about a splitter and a change-up? Well wonder no more! Lokesh Dhakar explains it all for you. Now when you listen to Tim McCarver announce the Fox game of the week, you’ll still get infuriated, but for slightly more informed reasons.

http://www.lokeshdhakar.com/2007/09/20/baseball-pitches/

A couple of new posters I recently finished for the Harvard Square Business Association. Neither of these are the final versions, but the ones I WISH were the finals. If you live in the Boston area stop by Harvard Square and check out the printed versions (and the events themselves…) to compare and contrast.

Romanteek and Lady Magma are playing at the Cake Shop Wednesday April 1st, along with Dynasty Handbag and DJ Stache Master.

Romanteek is part of the Olympia, WA DIY rock scene and its “infectious hooks and driving beats sound somewhere between “Remain in Light” era Talking Heads and the funky stylings of Prince, and convey one solid message: all of life’s problems can be worked out on the dance floor.” (from their website)

Lady Magma describe themselves as “scrap rock” and that’s probably a pretty accurate description.  It should make for a pretty memorable night

http://www.myspace.com/romanteek
http://www.myspace.com/ladymagma
http://www.myspace.com/dynastyhandbag

Romanteek plays two other shows in New York: Thursday at Zebulon, and Friday at Secret Faggot.

Over the past year or so I’ve been slowly revisiting my Or Against Us project. My original idea was to experiment with form a bit, see how different presentations affected the message. So in kind of a cop-out way I’ve done that.

Paginated versions

Or Against Us (just realized that my page count is off for this. Oops!)

youareagainstus

Annotated Rwanda

rwandapages

Poster-sized versions (a less success but more fun experiment)

Or Against Us

Reichstag

Rwanda

UPDATE: I am lazy and let the URL expire. The project now resides as http://youareagainstus.com

Nerd baseball is a mix of really geeky baseball talk about WARP and such, and posting of really geeky looking baseball players.  I mean, look at this guy:

Pretty much guaranteed that this guy heard of BALCO the same time you did

Can you believe that he was really a Major League Baseball player? 

Anyway, I made their logo! They are great guys! Geek out and read their site!

http://nerdbaseball.com

Some of my favorite coins from around the world.  Notice a theme? More on this later.

Mike Briggs and I have started a new comic about our friend K-Ya! We take turns drawing and then the other person tries to write something that goes with it. It is very fun. For us. Check it out!

http://partywithkya.com

Jason and I just made this kickass coffee table from stuff we found out for trash day. I’m totally enamored of it. We found the type drawers probably a year ago and just found the legs last night. Totally sweet!

Can you believe we found these awesome type drawers ON THE STREET?

Seriously, someone threw them out!

They must feel SO STUPID right now! Ha!

This is maybe the coolest thing of the year. Sorry everything to show up after February, you are superfluous. http://gamu-toys.info/sonota/sw/obama/obama.html

Samurai Obama

Jedi Obama

Storyboarding is just about done for the animation segments for What’s Organic About Organic? They’re planning on submitting to a few festivals before they’ll all be done, however, so I had to do some placeholder illustrations.

Here are a few.  As always, you can learn more about the film here: http://whatsorganicmovie.org

Found these from the vault.  The first is of St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin.  The other is outside of Donegal, I’m pretty sure (it’s been a while).

I love this.  Via The Pirate Bay.

Like this, but with rum

The Pedersen family: innovators in the exciting new field of conceptual drinking. Since New Year’s Eve we’ve been experimenting with event-based drinks: The Mexican Firedrill (everyone does a shot of tequila and runs around the block), The Kentucky Derby (the same, but with bourbon), The Russian Relay Race (the same, but with vodka, and turn-based). You might see a theme.

Last night we continued research and broke new ground with possibly our best drink yet. The Jamaican Bobsled consists taking a shot of rum, running down and then back up a flight of stairs (or vice versa), and then tagging the next person who then repeats the process. It is a race and there are only winners with this game.

Actually, pretty much EXACTLY like this

A fun visualization of recent browser marker shares [via Cool Infographics]

Wish it had more historical data, though.  Feel like we’re missing half the story. From Wikipedia:

No disrespect meant, but their designer needs to work on his icons more, I have no idea what those silhouettes are doing

Yup, this is my neighborhood. Apparently “Mitzvah Tanks” are common (at least according to whomever wrote the Wikipedia entry), but this is the first one I’ve ever seen. Seeing this R.V. drive down an extremely Caribbean stretch of Nostrand Ave gave me my fill of culture shock for the day.  Brooklyn rules!

In case it’s not clear, the poster toward the front of the RV is of the Lubavitch messiah, who’s headquarters is about half a mile from me. You have most likely seen his flyers on the subway at some point. This brings me to another point: This messiah guy has been DEAD for over fourteen years.  What! I just found this out, and honestly, felt a little cheated.  But maybe that’s HOW he became messiah?  I don’t really know how this stuff works, I gotta do some research.  I will fill you in!

(click on the image for a full size view)

Horror Vacui It's a two-player strategy game for your iPhone! By Shaun!

Unfortunately, I don’t have an iPhone or iPod touch (yet) to test this out on, but Shaun’s a pretty talented guy, so I have faith that it’s kickass.  Check out his site for more.

During the last snow storm I looked out my kitchen window to see this:

Seems innocuous enough...

Totally weird footprints.  At first I thought it was just the stray cat that hangs out in that area, but as I looked closer:

But actually totally nocuous to my mental health!

Definitely NOT animal footprints.  The ones closest to the access ladder look to have clear heel/toe indentations. But what’s up with the weird duckstep?  Was this person leaping from spot to spot? All the way down the ladder?  Or maybe doing the marriage walk, bringing one foot up to meet the other?  I DON’T GET IT.

We have some neighbors right below us with a pair of boys.  Could the older brother made the younger march to his death! Probably not since I saw him yesterday.  Completely driving me crazy.

This is lots of fun. Make the world miniature.
http://tiltshiftmaker.com/

Found via rach.tumblr.com

A very cool discussion of the photographic record of former President George W. Bush.  Errol Morris asked the photo editors of the three major wire services to select a series of photographs that “captured the character of the man and of his administration.”

The collection serves as a preview of how history might remember his presidency. It also shows enough range of character to serve as a reminder that no matter how well we feel we know a public figure, his or her true self remains largely a mystery.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Was is it with Swedish songwriters?  Maybe something about socialized medicine and six months of darkness gives you ample time to turn the sadder aspects of love and life into art.

Maple Leaves is terribly sad and oddly funny:

A very intimate version of Pocketful of Money:

They even depress themselves!

Do you like to feel badly about yourself?  Do you enjoy passing afternoons, lying in bed, sighing?  Then the Weeping Willows is the band for you!  They are the perfect soundtrack for depressing moments that need to be made MORE depressing, and are making some of the finest Sad Bastard music since Morrissey was in his prime.

Check them out if you can gather the strength to get out of bed and click a button.

www.myspace.com/weepingwillowsfansite

So glad this exists.  I walked out of the theater after seeing Benjamin Button feeling like it was all too familiar.  Glad I’m not the only one who saw the Gumpian parallels. [via Boingboing]

The Curious Case of Forrest Gump

Also of note is Time Out’s rundown of the popular musician biopic formula sweeping Hollywood, most recently with Notorious.

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/articles/film/70658/life-after-death

If only formulas weren’t so profitable, huh?

Ever wonder about the plight of mimes in the business world? Or if there is soap that is edible, delicious, and still creates a fine lather when used? Fear not, Eric Ericson is here and asking the hard questions.  Brev till utlandet (Letters to Foreign Countries) is a collection of letters written to various companies around the world, and it is fairly hilarious.

Check out the website for a sneak peak (don’t be scared by all the Swedish, the letters and audio are all in English)

That Charles Schultz was apparently a kind of talented cartoonist:

When Schroeder pounded on his piano, his eyes clenched in a trance, the notes floating above his head were no random ink spots dropped into the key of G. Schulz carefully chose each snatch of music he drew and transcribed the notes from the score. More than an illustration, the music was a soundtrack to the strip, introducing the characters’ state of emotion, prompting one of them to ask a question or punctuating an interaction.

You can read the whole article here.

My sister makes some fantastic stuffed animals. You should buy some, or contact her to make you a personalized one.

The Ideabox is a new website whose goal is to develop and support creative community building projects.  It’s still a work in progress, so be sure to check back for all the bells and whistles in the coming weeks. In the meantime, check out the site and vote for them at Change.org

Just (finally) finished setting up a separate site for Discount Soap. Check it out: http://discountsoapopera.com

We just launched new Harry and the Potters site.  There are still updates and Easter eggs to come, so keep a lookout.

Also, as a rare treat, you can buy their t-shirts online until the end of the year (which is cool for me, since I designed five of the eight up there).

http://harryandthepotters.com/shirts/

For years now, I have followed Jon’s food misadventures in Japan with utter disbelief.  Can any of this really be appealing to anyone?  Today’s is probably my favorite/most disturbing yet.  Of course, the beauty of New York is that almost every neighborhood has its own culture and unusual delicacies, you just have to know where to look.

Here’s a taste of what Crown Heights has to offer:

As someone who eats mainly pasta, this is pretty amazing to see

This would be pretty high on my list of neighborhood delicacies to try.  Maybe this weekend!

You know it's probably homemade and really really good. Strangely tempting...

Today was the first day of the trial.  I’m not allowed to talk about it at all, so some general observations:

1. The line for the metal detectors in the court house is much longer at 9:30 than 8:30

2. The people in the know at the court house call the metal detectors “magnetizers” (though maybe I’m already getting it wrong)

3. At one point or another everyone in the court room gets noticeably tired

4. It’s also fairly amazing to me how much the proceedings of the trial are geared toward the jury, which makes sense since we’re the ones everyone wants to win over — and we know so little about what the hell is going on.  Like every five seconds something is being explained to us.  Do the judges and lawyers and bailiffs really need to do all this explaining every time a new case starts?  That’d drive me crazy. It’s fascinating how procedural the system is and how much the outcome depends on twelve randomly selected individuals who know next to nothing about the procedures involved.  I guess that can be said for a lot of our representative democracy? Maybe I will make an effort to learn more about it… or maybe I will goof around on the internet more!