Take half a head of lettuce and chop, wash, dry, and place in a large bowl. Add diced red peppers, white onions, celery and pre-cooked chicken strips. Add a handful of your favorite shredded cheese blend and enough bleu cheese dressing to your liking. Toss. Serve chilled on toasted flatbread. Feeds two to three people. Eat it like a salad! Eat it like a pizza! Eat it like a taco! Good to enjoy among friends on the porch. Great alongside a favorite Portuguese red wine. Excellent as midnight leftovers.
Instead of shelling-out top dollar for a shiny new Sony PSP, I recently acquired a slim and sexy Sony PS2. Years ago, I enjoyed my share of hopping marsupial madness and anti-gravity death races on the original Sony Playstation. But, it’s taken me this long to want to get back in front of those glowing, dancing rasters of gamespace. This redesigned console reminds me of a mystical Ono-Sendai deck from Neuromancer; irresistible.
Now, I can finally trip on the surreal, mindbending lunacy of Katamari Damacy. The premise: your father, The King of the Cosmos, has accidentally destroyed all the stars in the sky. Oops. As the Prince, you must roll a ball around collecting objects until you’ve amassed enough to send your bundle up into the sky. Why? To replace those missing stars, silly! Words cannot begin to describe this rolling, psychedelic non-sequitur of a game: Excellent.
It’s like I always say, “Springtime is the right time to discover new wines.” Actually, I just made that up, because last night I enjoyed sitting on my back step and discovering various pinot noir and Chilean reds over some good conversation. I’ve yet to find any nutty-buttery-chocolatey-oakey flavors with hints of flowers and cheese, though.
During an unplanned week of vacation, I was able to finish reading several design and marketing books I’ve had on my ‘To Read’ pile.
The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design by Marty Neumeier. With its brilliant ideas, concise writing, abundant illustrations, modest dimensions and length, this book was nearly perfect for me; wonderful concepts, writing and execution: Excellent.
Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices by Christopher Locke. This book is a continuation of ideas from the seminal Cluetrain Manifesto, which Locke co-authored. In a nutshell: in this internet age, organizations need to take cues from gonzo journalism (which defies the convention of ‘objectivity’); they must connect with their audiences by using real voices to tell real stories, which come from real people: Great.
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout. This marketing classic makes a number of important points about the art of positioning your brand in the mind of your audience; many of the companies and examples seem outdated to me, but the general ideas still ring true: Great.
The Art of Innovation : Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm by Tom Kelley. Filled with anecdotal evidence of IDEO’s greatness but short on any groundbreaking details, this book reads more like a vanity project than a springboard to innovation. An enjoyable, casual read: Good.
