“whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. boldness has genious, power and magic to it. begin it now.”

goethe

snuznluz (to be read “snooze and lose”) is an alarm clock that connects via WiFi to your online bank account, and donates YOUR real money to an organization you HATE when you decide to snooze.

the people at thinkgeek have finally found out a way to make you want to wake up on time. with the snuznluz, everytime you press snooze when the alarm goes off, you donate a minimum of $10 to a charity you hate.

the clock is connected via wifi (or cable) and comes with an embedded configuration browser utility, that lets you set your bank details and to which charity you’d like to donate.

for example they say, if you’re a butcher you might want to donate to PETA, and vice-versa.

i’m more of a morning person, so snoozing doesn’t happen all that often… but how efficient would this be to you?

seen on bb-blog. shame on me that i’m so late on this april fool’s joke… but it would be such a great item! :)

there was a time when i had to make up all sorts of games and tricks to keep my cousin quiet for a bit (and for my own sanity). i’m sure these cute camions-bidons, by martine camillieri would have made quite a success.
check out her website for an overload of color and creativity, as well as many ideas to entertain children - and yourself!

“every year on the small dutch island ‘texel’ there is a poetry competition, the best two poems are carved into truck tyres (by hand) and the poems are then written in letterpress all over the beach during the summer…”

the image and text are from mestudio.info and you can check out the rest of the pictures there. the whole idea is so cool!
the last few days the sky has actually been pretty blue for most of the time, making me dream of nivea, a sunny beach and my tanned skin a bit salty by the end of the day.
probably, the nightmare of any chinese girl. eheh… speaking of seaside…

threadless has teamed with blik to transform a few of their winning designs into wall graphics. they are looking mighty good. i guess that’s the bad side of this life of rented houses - not much creativity ends up on the walls. maybe one day, we can buy a lighthouse in new zealand and use this pirate infested waters print on the bedroom. that would be neat!

After his impassioned defense of aid, an African man in the audience asked Bono, “Where do you place the African person as a thinker, a creator of wealth?”

Bono, in his awkward defense of his “Africa credo,” also represents our fundamental failure to listen.

an excellent ted article on the path to the future of africa. the classical fish vs. fishing cane problem.

saturday night we went to a pecha kucha night here in shanghai. it was the first such event i attended, but the 6th that sinocities organized here.

pecha kucha is a night for designers or creative people to meet and share their ideas, portfolio and projects. each is given a precise amount of time to speak of whatever they want.

the place where it was held is called “Yangshupu Factories” and is a bit far from the city center, but worth a visit. a subtle maze of trees and lakes, with slippery dark stone paths and plants hanging on bamboo branches. when we got there (almost an hour in advance), we had time to delight ourselves in a slow coffee, relaxing on an outside patio beside a pound. the bushes around had some sort of xmas lamps on them, as if sprinkled by fireflies. :)
in the back there is a coffeehouse, hidden in a two-story building, where the organization had spread some chairs that were clearly insufficient for the number of people that decided to show up.

despite never having attended one such event before, i had high hopes for the it, but the end result was just so-so. photographers and architects showcased their recent works in succession, but most lacked the skills on how to present it right.

that was exactly the problem for me, especially because we saw too many photographers eager to show their portfolio, which turned out to be either plain uninteresting (but that’s just a matter of taste perhaps) or a mess of unrelated (best) photographs.

i tend to think that you always need a story. you need to convey something to people through your photographs. there needs to be a sequence, fictional, emotional or factual circumstances, an explanation or a connection, no matter how irrational.
but there wasn’t and in the end i thought, although some of them had good pictures, they had just wasted the opportunity to explain themselves. the why, the how, what sparkled their interest, what had they felt when portraying those people or places.

nonetheless, i liked some of the architectural projects that their authors explained. innovative with simple details, and very real.

my favorites? a presentation by Olympia Kazi on critical mass and a surreal presentation by a mechanical engineering student on herself, life and poetry. very non-sense, fresh and yet daring, engaging and amusing.

check out the pecha kucha website to see if there’s one happening near you!

i’m currently in love with so many threadless tshirts that it’s going to be hard to pick a few to order. there’s sounds of the sea, and camouflage, and bobshopping… good thing the dolar is so low these days!
plus i found a website that gather coupons for using on thousands of online stores - now isn’t that a great idea? if you’re thinking of buying anything on an online shop, make sure you pay retailmenot.com a visit first and check if they have any promotions, such as free shipping or a discount. uncle scrooge would be proud. :)

speaking of sounds of the sea, the other day i found this page about a sea organ built in croatia… strange concept: there are some steps by the sea, carved in stone, with pipes underneath. the waves come and blow the air through the pipes, producing a variety of sounds (you can hear them on their website). the chords are harmonious in their own way and make this place by the adriatic sea a special spot for locals and visitors. if only croatia was closer…