(01.19.09) Recommends:

Ericailcane.

We learned about Ericailcane this weekend while we were walking down LaBrea. If you've been around LaBrea and Melrose lately perhaps you've seen this giant [some type of animal(1)] eating a car:

Further research revealed that this mural went up as part of Ericailcane's new show Man Is The Bastard at the nearby Carmichael Gallery. The gallery has a nice, er, gallery of photos from the show up on the website, if you can't see it in person.

But lovers of whimsical ink on paper work should give Ericailane a try.




(1) We use the term 'animal' with some trepidation since it appears to be wearing a very civilized pair of shoes.

(01.02.09) Recommends:

New Year's Resolutions (Written on, and From the Prosepective of, My Blackberry Curve).

1. Lose the smudges. I want to come standard with a protective cover that prevents unsightly smudges and tiny micro-fractures in the screen. I'm becoming the Tammy Faye Baker of mobile devices. Ugh.

2. Flash people more often. I want to come with a web-browser that supports mutliple tabs and Flash (and a media player that can be easily minimized).

3. Become a sharp shooter. In a world under the reign of Web 2.0, convenience is increasingly valued over quality. But If I marginally increase the quality of my camera, I'll be Panglossian.

4. Learn to speak in tongues. When users are riding on the metro and publish blog posts to, e.g., Mobile Blogger, html tags should be recognized. (In reality, this is probably more of a Gmail issue. But, alas, the unexamined life is not worth living.)

5. Get fatter. My keys should be a little bigger, so even novices can confidently type with the meaty part of their thumbs rather than tentatively peck with the nail portion of their thumbs. (The BB Bold -- that tramp -- has the perfect sized keys, but I have the perfect amount of "clickiness")

6. Get braces. The F and J key -- or some appropriate combination -- should come with little notches, like on a standard keyboard, so even novices will be able to type while looking at the screen rather than looking at the keyboard.

7. Get timed. Changes in time zones and day light saving should occur automatically. Does this really not already happen?? Don't think it does. There's both a BB and "network" source for time and date, but nobody wants to take they time to figure out the difference.

8. Be nicer to friends. Texting a number not already in the address book takes too long. You have to scroll all the way up to the Use One Time (or whatever) option. As a result people never use me to text and everybody thinks I hate them. Sad face. (Of course, if my friends were really friends, they'd have BBM and this resolution would be mooted. Hint, hint ppl. Srsly.)

9. Get Logged. My call log feature is laughable. I know I'm a mobile computing device first and a phone second, but really, c'mon.

That's my 949 suckas!