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Dijital Fix L.E.S. Opening x Hipstamatic

Photos from the grand opening of Dijital Fix’s Lower East Side location. The space is pretty amazing – store upstairs, cafe downstairs, gallery in the back.

This is so adorable.

Those aren’t manakins – that’s actually Weileen and Walice.

Creepy photo of me thanks to Eileen. Eyes very non-Asian here.

Dijital Fix founder David Auerbach.

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Starcraft II Commercial Has Me Giddy

Here’s something I never thought I’d see… a Starcraft II commercial on TV. Awesome spot. Am excited. Unfortunately didn’t have any time to play the game in the past two weeks before the first beta phase ended – but I’m pumped! After playing multiplayer the past few months, this trailer makes me excited for what’s coming in the single-player campaign – finally, Starcraft II is here!

Starcraft 2 will be released July 27th, 2010.

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A Close Look at the Nooka Zaz & Zem

Treating myself to birthday gifts the other week, I picked up two timepieces from Nooka – a ZAZ and a ZEM. I had the pleasure of meeting Nooka founder Matthew Waldman at the ICFF Offsite ‘Sounds Like’ opening and he’s an awesome dude. He was wearing a black Zem and asked if I had one yet – and now I do! These new high-end Nookas come in sleek gem-cut cases and are beautiful. Peep the photos below.

The Zaz features an off-set translucent Zen-V face. The time is told through 4 vertical bars over a backdrop of the wearer’s skin. This is maybe my favorite among favorites in my ever-growing Nooka collection. When I wear it I feel like time is hovering over my wrist. The Zaz is available in three different band options, silver mesh, black leather or white leather. I chose the silver mesh so I could capitalize on shine. Tell me this is not one of the coolest watches you’ve ever seen.

The Zem is a fun new watch that brings a new feel to wearing the future. The Zem features a gem-cut minteral crystal lens and in-person, these things look borderline computer-generated. I had a hard time picking out the color and the Zem is available in a few different forms. You can get the Zem with four different face styles (zot, zen-v, zen-h, and zoo), ‘night’ or silver face, and a black or silver high-gauge stainless steel bracelet or smooth black leather band. After a long time of mulling it over, I decided to opt for a little contrast with a Zen-H silver face and a smooth leather band. This watch is badass.

What’s next up for my collection? I’m eyeing a Pink Zub Zirc….

Here are the watches actually being rocked.

http://www.nooka.com/

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ICFF Offsite: Sounds Like x DDC Lab

I went to the ICFF Offsite opening of Sounds Like at DDC Lab this past Friday. The exhibition is curated by Joey Roth who released his Ceramic Speakers earlier this year. The speakers were given to nine of his favorite artists and designers to “modify and reshame using their own visual languages.” The exhibition features designers Srull Recht, John Pomp, David Lynch, Stanley Ruiz, Toblas Wong, Sougwen Chung, Matthew Waldman, Savania Davies – Keiller and Roberto Crivello and music from Miho Hatori, Matmos, Ben Frost, Sepalcure (collab between Machinedrum x Praveen & Benoît!), and Gunung Sari.

It amazes me the power of social media. I got to meet one of my favorite designers, Matthew Waldman, founder of Nooka, at the event, and from our previous contact through twitter and facebook it felt like we already knew each other. He didn’t even realize we hadn’t met in person before. Matt was (and is) super friendly and nice enough to introduce me to a bunch of cool people like Miho Hatori, Shinya Nakamura, Sherwood Forlee and Mihoko Ouchi from The. and many more. I got caught up talking to amazing people and only later realized I should’ve taken more photos! Alas.

w/ Matthew Waldman of Nooka

w/ Sherwood and Miho of the.

Matt modeling his piece which featured music by Miho Hatori.

http://soundslike.org/

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ICFF Offsite – 400 Square Feet Later: Cite Goes America

Some photos from the ICFF opening of 400 Square Feet Later: Cite Goes America curated by Alissia Melka-Teichroew and Jan Habraken.

http://www.citegoesamerica.com/

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On the Other Side of the Michelada

I never had a Michelada until I was intrigued by somebody drinking one while I was at Caracas’ Williamsburg location. For those of you that don’t know, a michelada is a beer cocktail composed of (obviously) beer, lime juice and assorted spices, salts, peppers, sauces served in a salt-rimmed glass. A seemingly bizarre concoction but it sounded interesting so we decided to try it out. Caracas‘ variety of the michelada is made with pacifo beer, lemon, home-made spicy panela and salt. I don’t know who came up with this random ass idea, but micheladas are damn good!

The above photos were taken at Barrio Chino while playing around with the camera. In each photo you see the other’s drink! Barrio Chino’s Michelada is made with a beer of your choice, Worcestershire, lime juice, and a salt crusted rim. I went for a Negra Modelo and Gao Di shot for Sol. The Negra Modelo version was awesome- I wasn’t sure what to expect from a michelada with a dark beer but it was super tasty. Gao Di was a little less pleased with the Sol. Barrio Chino also has really good food that I’ll be posting about later on….

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KAWS Coming to the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

This is pretty cool, KAWS has an upcoming exhibit slated for June at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT just a bit of a train ride away. You’d probably recognize KAWS iconic skull-and-crossbones in his work ranging from graffiti, paintings, toys, clothing, statues, accessories, footwear, etc. etc. I’m hoping there’ll be some KAWS merch here, because for anyone that knows anything about KAWS, the minute something is released on his website it is almost always instantly sold out. I hope I make it out to this when it happens!

via Highsnobiety via Arrested Motion with photo via DDJ

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Leather Sperry Slip-ons + Montana Gold = Success

This is what I call ‘Turning a Bad Purchase into a Good Purchase.’ As you may have noticed I have been going nuts on our good friend Gilt Groupe. Now, honestly, I have loved pretty much everything I’ve bought on there, but online shopping does not always go according to plan. I purchased a pair of brown Sperry Leather Slip-ons, that looked great in the photo, but when I received them I just decided I hated them. The only time I ever wore the damn things was when I had to go do laundry. Anyway – it was finally time to right a serious wrong.

These are the shoes, not bad… I guess, but really… not for me. I tried to like these but I really couldn’t wear them with any sense of pride. I like the style of the shoe, but the colors are just kind of bleh. The other day I played a show at Glasslands (of which there are amazing photos) and Samer of Berzerkulosis gave me a great idea to simply spray paint the things. Yesterday I went and picked up a can of Montana Gold Spray Paint at Artist and Craftsman Supply in Williamsburg in hopes to turn these shoes into something wearable.

I got a can of metallic gold and after struggling with the damn spray can and realizing that I hadn’t removed the ring under the cap, we were good to go. The results are pretty awesome.

Tell me you don’t want a pair of these gold babies! These things rock now! The spray painting was super easy and relatively even, I went a little overboard on the left shoe but it’s fine for a first go.

I particularly like how the little Sperry logo came out. I’ve got newfound love for these kicks now. Wooop!

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Nooka x DDG – Diamond Watch Bad-Assery

By now it’s become ever apparent that I am in love with all things Nooka. Here is a custom collab with luxury jewelry designer Deviant Design Group. This is a blinged out nooka zot with a 12k gold face plate with 4 carat diamonds all across the rim and a white leather band. The beautiful watch comes in at a price tag of $12,000 – just a bit over my price range. I WANT. Would feel like a badass rocking this, but in the meantime my ever growing collection of nookas will do.

EDIT: Kate over at Nooka was kind enough to e-mail me to let me know that the featured watch comes to $12,000. Customization with DDG starts at $2,500. Thanks, Kate!

Nooka | DDG (via the Nooka blog)

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Starcraft 2 Mac Beta Woo!

This is an amazing thing to see on your computer screen. After months of waiting… the Starcraft 2 Mac Beta Client ready to launch!

Okay, we’re all suited up and ready for some 2v2’s! It’s really an amazing thing to be playing the Starcraft 2 beta on a Mac… the game runs flawlessly on a Macbook Pro with medium to high settings at 1280 x 800… it looks really nice and runs really smooth! I’m impressed, Blizzard!

Nothing like spamming tons of hydralisks. Look at those pretty explosions!

And more hydra destruction!

Lonely zealot wanders around early on in a match.

Anyway, after only playing Starcraft 2 for about 4 games I think it’s safe to say this game is going to rock. For any Starcraft nerd the gameplay will be super familiar, but there are some new shortcuts and different units and buildings that are confusing me a bit. I love that you can zoom in and out of the battlefield, it really helps when it starts to look like your base is getting ridiculously cluttered.

With the SC2 mac beta and the imminent May 12 release of Valve’s Steam for mac, I do believe Mac gaming is going to take off in a direction that it hasn’t for what… 15 years? Woooo!!

The game is beautiful and the amount of detail in each unit is pretty cool. I’m happy to see that the game runs great on my Macbook Pro and am looking forward to playing the single player campaign!

EDIT: I added links to the screenshots – these screens were taken at medium quality textures and terrain, etc. – I later upped a bunch of the options to high and the game still ran great… but I got lost in playing the damn thing. Later on I’ll get some nicer screens!

http://www.starcraft2.com

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Gizmodo x iPhone Saga Flowchart

Sheryl Sulistiawan and Tyler Gray over at Fast Company have created a pretty hilarious flow chart detailing the many possibilities of how the messy Gizmodo/iPhone saga went down. I’m loving this graphic!

Check out the article at Fast Company

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Hifana + Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo + Kicks = Sweet Nike Spot

I saw Hifana, I think, back in 2006 at a New York x Tokyo Hip-Hop NYC Summerstage event. This Japanese breakbeat duo put together one of the coolest live shows I’ve ever seen, attaching all of their gear to animations and video clips on so many screens that the power went out and Summerstage went black for a good 10 minutes while they had to get everything up and running again. The visual audio experience was so intense  I copped their debut album Fresh Push Breakin’ shortly after the show but nothing can compare to seeing them kick it live.

Cool to see them here working with Wieden+Kennedy for an awesome Nike Free spot called “Music Shoe” that features some… well… music + sneakers. This reminds me of just how creative and interesting these guys are. Ah, memories!

Hifana has a third album coming out soon – I suggest you check them out! (thanks to Gao Di for finding this ad!)

Wieden+Kennedy | Hifana

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ALIVESHOES = Fashion + Art + Sustainability

Here is an awesome project called ALIVESHOES (not to be confused with ALIFE) that brings together ideas of high fashion, sustainability and artistic expression. Each shoe is beautifully hand-crafted and numbered in Italy with sustainable materials like untreated and organic natural cotton, leather and cork, ecologically scented foam rubber and fully biodegradable TPU polyurethane. Each shoe is also individually hand-colored. These shoes also feature the original sketch of the installment stitched into the tongue. As ALIVESHOES says on their own site, “wearing ALIVESHOES is like wearing nature itself.”

These shoes are then used as the medium to create sculptures and art installations. Above is a photo from Steve Siegel’s Beach Blocks, an installation of a large number of shoes on a beautiful landscape in Srolo, Italy. The shoes used in the installation are now available for purchase for a base level of 150 EUROS, which covers the material costs, and the option to build up your contribution to charitable partners and future art projects. The purchase page is super cool as well and let’s you pick the individual shoe you want. Tons of monochrome color options!

These are some seriously beautiful shoes and I am yearning for a pair myself. You can tell a lot of love went into each shoe. There are more projects to come from ALIVESHOES and they look awesome so I recommend you go check them out. The price is a bit steep but hopefully, one day I’ll get my hands on a pair! My birthday is coming up, friends & family… I would like light blue.. size 43….

Check out ALIVESHOES (via Thrillist)

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DesignNotes – Michael Surtees’ Parsons Design IV Presentation

For a while now I have been following Michael Surtees’ DesignNotes blog. Really like this presentation he did for Parsons’ Design IV class. In his presentation he talks about the publishing of his blog, why he does it and the types of things he chooses to write about, goes through some projects he’s worked on, and then discusses Agile Design. I particularly like his ‘Why I Blog’ slide. Go check out the presentation.

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Matt McInerney’s ‘The Trustworthiness of Beards’ Graphic is Awesome

This is an amazing graphic from Matt McInerney that shows the Trustworthiness of Beards on a gradient from “Very Trustworthy” to “Disastrous.”

Check out Matt McInerney’s page at http://www.pixelspread.com