When promising your friends and family that you’ll blog every day about TypeCon, it’s easy to overlook the fact that to do so you’ll need to stop having fun and immersing yourself in type and actually sit down and write the damn thing.

I promise, very soon, stuff on my experience at TypeCon in Buffalo. I was up until about 4am last night, so I predict a bit more sedentary activity for me today.

By popular demand, we here at Current Configuration have set our scientists and design professionals to work creating an effective and elegant method of delivering our findings to those that may not yet know what a computer is. For three long years, millions of R&D dollars have been spent and thousands of prototypes have been created to bring you the Overhanging Public Service Hanger Brochure (PDF).

And for those who would insist that there are “reasons” to hang the toilet paper in the underhung fashion of despots and savages: our cat doesn’t have a problem with it.

If you’re willing to accept that current TV shows seem to have a strangely limited shelf-life and a few ads (usually 3 or 4 per episode/film), Hulu is a great spot for finding full-length content.

I’ve recently been working my way through the two seasons of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, a great precursor to the Twilight Zone. If you’re not familiar with Hitchcock’s work, you owe it to yourself to check it out, at the very least for his introductions and closing monologues. His humor is very devilish, and his distinct dry delivery makes it twice as effective.

To digress for moment, this got me thinking about :

Looking at these, I suddenly realized where the designers for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button likely got their inspiration (partly, at least) for the title design. I’m quite enamored with the consciously awkward type and typesetting. It feels right for many reasons. I even like the low hook of the J, which serves no purpose but to add an oddly foreboding form to the design. I’m not sure what the typeface is, but it’s complimented by the titling italic of Hoefler & Frere-Jones’ exquisite Requiem, a celebration of 16th-century Renaissance humanist forms. An interesting pairing, to be sure.

C’est la vie.

At least now I can post some new items I’ve been thinking about. Thanks again to my site mechanic, Steve, who promises to herald a new age for Current Config in the near future.

Every time you refer to someone changing their mind as a "flip-flopper," you continue to act out the script set for you by the Bush campaign back in 2004.

Are you not tired yet of being manipulated so easily and baldly by mudslinging campaign strategists? Are you so simple-minded that you sincerely believe this phrase is of any value to anyone thinking critically about issues of national and international import?

It is 2008 now. Please grow up. Thinking, intelligent adults change their minds. It's part of being informed and realistic about the world around you, so stop treating it like a weakness, you fools.

Sincerely,
Chris Rugen

I’ve been remiss in my monthly Blackbird updating this month. I admit it! But now I’m posting about my daughter on Father’s Day, so I think it all evens out. As Blackbird, in her traveling chapeau and sling, might say if she could say anything at all: “Onward!”

What’s craziest to me, at this point, is how much she’s changed from month 3 to month 4. Alisa and I both have the strong feeling that we’ve been doing this for years now. Not in a bad way, mind you. It’s just that this much change is hard to mentally frame in the span of 4.5 months. What hasn’t changed, however, is Blackbird’s boundless energy. You can see that here, as Blackbird’s feet break the sound barrier.

Blackbird loves Uncle Brian. Grandma K looks on as they share a moment.

In the morning and often when we’re cooking dinner, Blackbird holds court in her throne. Occasionally she finds herself overwhelmed with the toys she’s amassed during our efforts to keep her entertained. Her solution is to either surrender to the deluge, or fling them all to the ground. Guess which one happens more often.

Bathtime is an evolving event. Now that she’s smiling and squealing so often, it’s a lot of fun. Of course, her tendency to try and splash the water and roll over adds an additional layer of “fun”. So at least we’re all having fun. We get back at her through the ancient art of baby shampoo-hairstyling.

Blackbird can’t quite sit up on her own yet, but she loves to play while supported in a sitting position. She’s developed grabbing skills and loves to interact with her toys and environment now. Her reach is limited, so her desire to lunge forward has to be offset by our grip. I’ve let her ever so gently, ever so slowly plant her face on the rug between her legs, in an attempt to encourage some self-determination, but it resulted in her crying into the floor and me feeling like a heel.

I really do have other expressions. Really. It’s just something about Blackbird.

Blackbird’s first rainbow!

Blackbird, ignoring the hell out of it! You try pointing a baby’s attention to something in the sky.

In the mornings, I usually take Blackbird for an hour after she gets breakfast, to allow Mom to catch some more Zs. We hang out on the couch, I drink coffee and act like a goof. She lays on her fluffy oval and dances to the dulcet tones of NPR.

The previous images, now in JocieVision!

Momma and baby, looking hip on the Hill. Blackbird provides oversight on the construction. I think she’s displeased with the frequent extensions of the timeline. She’s a stern foreman.

Blackbird’s secret love: the polka dot side of her pillow. Making her cross-eyed from day one.

My ladies.

Jocie attends her first Art Star Craft Bazaar down on Penn's Landing in Old(e) City. She was a big hit.

It’s not all hipster craft shows and cool hats. Every so often, we are driven by early-morning delirium and dire laundry situations to create fashion collisions that need to be... hurriedly undone. Here we see Alisa dismantling a particularly peculiar combo in favor of something less schizophrenic.

Blackbird’s hair is a source of endless amusement, but will need to be cut in the next month or so. Until then, we’ll get to enjoy photos like this one.

In a flash of light and a blur of color, Blackbird kicks off her burp cloth blanket with the frenetic energy of three Earth babies.

Somebody’s been packing on the pounds. This photo exaggerates it a bit, but after an alteration in our feeding technique, she’s been plumping up quite a bit. I think we’re at about 10.5 lbs as of this post.

Blackbird hangs out with her pals at the weekly Mom’s Play Group.

She makes her move. I’m not sure what the end result was meant to be, as we moved her before she started climbing over her friend’s head, or began grabbing at his scalp.

Another relaxing morning, playing with her elephant as Daddy tries to wake up with some coffee.

Post-bath baby salon madness! Only the freakiest of avant-garde creations is permitted to grace the head of Blackbird. She has yet to adjust to the paparazzi’s attention.

Wiped out after a long hot day, hanging out with her pals burp cloth and duck blanket.

Happy Father’s Day.

On the eve of Apple’s expected announcement of the 2nd gen iPhone, the launch of the applications store, and a host of other rumored tidbits, I thought I’d address the iPhone’s less famous sister device. The gadget blogs and Apple rumor sites have been in a frenzy over this year’s iPhone-centric WWDC. Other companies would pay to have this kind of foaming, fanatical conjecture about single features of their devices. In addition to the better data capabilities of the new iPhone (3G), the rollout of true enterprise software support will make the iPhone a true player in the PDA phone market.

Unfortunately, the iPhone is AT&T-exclusive until 2012. This was the biggest roadblock for me even considering one. So when Apple announced the iPod Touch, designed for those who want an iPhone minus the phone, I was unable to resist. Well, actually, I did resist for a while. But once Blackbird was born, my need for a PDA to keep schedules straight became undeniable. After expressing my determination to Alisa and accepting the associated brownie point withdrawal, I gave in to the long-suppressed urge and bought the product I’d been longing for ever since I wrestled with my Palm Vx in OS 9: an Apple-centric PDA.

So, for those of you wondering about the Touch, here are some thoughts formed during my own experience with it over the last four months. There are a lot of reviews out there from critics and pundits, who had advance access, playing with the device (or the iPhone) for a week or so. But what really matters is how a device stands up to real life and real-world expectations. Hence my “late” review. There’s no question about whether I’m a big Apple fan or not, but in the end my preferences are all about my goals and whether a given device helps or hinders me in attaining them. Given all of the hype and silly fanboy arguing (mainly about iPhone vs. Blackberry), it’s hard to be objective, so consider this a statement made not from a seat of authority, but from a position of experience. Hopefully, this will give you a bit of clarity before the next Apple-yte PR frenzy over the next few weeks.

For context, it’s good to note that I sync my 8 GB Touch with a 15" PowerBook G4 (1.5GHz), currently running Mac OS X (10.4.11). Many of the impressions here also apply to the iPhone, but I didn’t take the time to label each one. I recommend checking out Apple.com tomorrow evening to get the latest news on each device.

Let’s be clear about one thing right away: I’ve never gotten as much gratification and utility out of a PDA as I have from the Touch. From the first time I used it until I sat down to write this, it’s been the best user experience I’ve ever had on a portable device. The most succinct way to describe my experience with the Touch is that when criticizing it, I measure the experiences against comparable ones on full-featured computers rather than other mobile devices. It’s been said that the iPhone and Touch are the first pillars in Apple’s creation of a mobile wifi platform, a class of devices that will (they hope) consume the current mobile market. Having seen this first generation of technology, I believe it.

The entire Touch experience is built on Apple’s multi-touch interface, which handles like no other device I've ever used, and already has imitators lined up to compete with it (including the exciting and potentially more important Google Android).

The most exciting aspect of the Touch, for me, isn’t just the pleasurable organic responsiveness of the multi-touch screen, it's that the Touch itself has only two physical buttons: Home Screen and Sleep/Power. This changes the nature of electronic devices, and is a triumphant manifestation of Apple’s (i.e., Steve Jobs’) software-centric philosophy. Apple has always maintained that their first priority is making great software. The hardware exists to run it and act as the user's point of physical interaction (hence their push for absolute control over their hardware). The multi-touch technology takes away many of the limitations of physical elements such as the thumb wheel or pearl of a blackberry, or the stylus of other PDAs. And because the screen differentiates multiple points of contact, as well as gestures, the limitations of a single interaction are loosened up dramatically. Developers have the pieces for building some of the most intuitive and elegant interfaces on these devices.

But the multi-touch interface brings its own quirks, and requires some getting used to after the initial shine of simplicity. For instance, an errant finger, or an absentminded touch will trigger the interface, as the screen is touch-sensitive, not pressure sensitive. If you grip the Touch too fully around the edges, you can accidentally trigger elements, particularly on web pages. If you put a finger down on a page, then lift off after deciding not to scroll, you may trigger a link or button that you weren’t even thinking about. It's a different way of thinking that has occasionally leapt ahead of me.

Another wrinkle comes from the combination of a non-physical interface and using the human body as the input device. Put simply: fingers come in different sizes and with different levels of control. I have a pretty easy time poking compact buttons and small links, but others may find their error rate higher than my own. The Touch is pretty good at detecting intent (this is actually a variable you can adjust), but all feedback is visual, so it’s easy to drift out of alignment with the interface and not realize it until you’ve skipped a full key off of the target.

But all-in-all, I’ve found the Touch interface to be an ideal method of interaction, as well as an enjoyable one.

Staying Connected

The biggest drawback to the Touch comes from two big limitations, one of which will become irrelevant on Monday, so let’s focus on the second: it’s not a phone. The Touch lacks a data connection that taps into cellular networks, so you can’t rely on ‘always on’ online data access. However, the Touch has wifi capabilities, so any open wifi network is fair game. Once on a wifi network, data-based services such as web browsing and email are fully available. In both of these areas, the Touch is fantastic.

On the email front, I’ve got multiple Gmail accounts set up using IMAP through Apple’s Mail, which was very easy. I won’t bury you with details, except to say that it’s the best mobile email I’ve used yet. From the interface to the typeface, I prefer it. But there are three key features I miss. First is email threading, which Gmail does very well and I’ve come to prefer over the traditional list of individual emails. You can get threaded emails on Google’s iPhone-centric version of Gmail via Safari (the web browser), but it has other flaws that make it unusable in my opinion. The second is a lack of any ability to copy and paste. This is actually a system-wide omission that I find very annoying. I understand that it would be a complicated thing, but it’s just unacceptable to me that this is missing. This is a UI problem that Apple needs to solve. The multi-touch interface makes it hard to achieve, but I’m sure there’s a way. To get around this issue, Apple allows you to access an “Email this link” function in Safari, but the downside is that you can only include one link per email. Workable, but hardly ideal. The third is a broader issue but boils down to multiple attachments being unfeasible, because the Touch does not store files to a desktop or directory that you can navigate. You can’t download a PDF, then navigate to that PDF as a file on your Touch later on. It’s associated with the email you received it in, and can’t be separated. This is the kind of feature that isn’t a big deal until you need it. Then you just wonder why they didn’t try to make it work. We'll see what happens at the WWDC tomorrow.

Other than these annoyances, it’s a smart system that works well with my email client. One crucial element in this is the multi-touch keyboard, a feature I’m very happy with. Some people, particularly those with big fingers or a love of the Blackberry thumb board, chafe at the thought of a keyboard with no physical feedback. I have no experience with the full Blackberry keyboard. For me, the Touch keyboard blows the double-tap Pearl and multi-tap cell phone keyboards right out of the water. Plus, there’s no stress on your thumbs. All it takes is a light tap, and the keyboard registers your input. The interface is full of subtle methods for adding accents and confirming that you're hitting the right keys. I’m very impressed.

On top of this, Apple has designed a predictive text system that puts all others I’ve used to shame. I have always hated the predictive text of cell phones and other devices, as they’re confusing and often wrong, creating more problems than solutions. I shut them all off. Whereas on the Touch, the predictive text is a device-saving feature. I think the keyboard would have been unworkable if the OS weren’t so damn good at predicting my typing and made it so easy to kill an incorrect prediction. Combine this with other little optimizations, such as a double spacebar tap for a period followed by a space to end your sentences, and my typing just flies. It’s not as good as a full-size keyboard, but I’m perfectly happy writing lengthy emails on my Touch. And re-inserting the cursor in text is very easy, as you can place your finger where you want the cursor, and a magnifying circle appears, showing you precisely where the cursor rests. This is so much easier and faster than having to use the damn Pearl to scroll around, I don't ever want to go back.

But the fundamental reason I got the Touch was for the address book and calendar. Fortunately, these apps are both clean and easy to use. Plus, they sync with Address Book and iCal on my Mac, so I have backups as well as the ability to key in entries with a full keyboard.

Calendar is a great mobile calendar app. Appointments are easy to set up and the alarm will give you a nudge at the chosen interval leading up to the event. It lacks some of the features of iCal, including labels for different calendars (such as Home, Work, Baby, etc.) and fully customizable alert times, but it’s quick and easy to use. I can enter appointments while on the phone and in a meeting with no problems or delays.

Address Book is nicely integrated with mail, offering a nice auto-complete option that narrows a list of possible contacts as you enter an email address or name, as well as allowing you to bounce into Address Book to pick a contact directly. It lacks a search function, which is just silly, but that complaint will be gone with the 2.0 software update.

These two apps, combined with the Mail app, make the Touch exactly what I was looking for in a PDA that truly works with my Mac. While these apps are great, they are arguably not much more robust or flexible than any other competing app on other devices, once you look past the interface. Where the Touch really shines is the web. Or, more specifically, the multi-touch version of Safari, Apple’s web browser. Safari on the Touch is a work of inspired minds. Designed to accommodate the web as you see it on your PC or Mac, instead of mashing it into an ugly, ridiculous version of itself like most devices do, web browsing on the Touch is so good, I’ll often pick it up instead of taking my laptop downstairs with me.

I won’t go on about the specifics too much, but one feature that deserves a bit of attention is the multi-touch zooming for the web. My problem with going online via mobile devices is the weird, broken, text-based-but-not version of the web as we now know it. The Touch doesn’t do that. It takes you online with a regular browser and looks at regular web pages. However, on a small device, you need the ability to isolate and zoom in on a particular area of a page to bring it up to a legible size. The Touch presents two methods for zooming. The first is the pinch/spread method, involving two fingers on the glass, spread to zoom in and pinched to zoom out. This is fine, but it isn’t particularly precise when you’re zooming in past a certain degree. Apple overcame this with a double-tap zoom that doesn’t zoom in where you tap, it zooms in on the structural element that you've double-tapped. It must be HTML aware (or some variation). The first time I did it I was thrown, but now I rely on it. Double-tap a column and the viewable area will zoom to the edges of the column. Double-tap an image and the same thing occurs. It’s pretty reliable. Occasionally it is either thrown by some exotic code, or is just not as robust as it appears. Either way, it works exactly like you expect 8 out of 10 times, leaving the pinch/spread method for the other two.

Right now, besides the lack of copy-pasting, the biggest problem with the taking the Touch online is the lack of Flash support. This is a complex subject involving a mix of technological and political conjecture. But for you and me it means one thing: lots of missing content. No portable PDA-like devices feature full Flash support, so Apple’s not losing the battle, but Flash is a big part of the web and lacking support for it means that significant sections of the web are missing. Apple ameliorated this gap by adding a custom YouTube application that kicks in whenever a YouTube link is activated. However, this ignores the in-line YouTube movies that don’t provide any link to the YouTube page, as the link is in the Flash. Again, not a deal breaker for me, but certainly an annoyance that should be addressed in the future, be it through deal-making or technology upgrading. This is one area where a software upgrade may not be enough to bring functionality.

Odds and Ends

There are a number of other apps for the Touch, but once Apple opens up the 3rd Party Apps store, it really won’t matter. The whole playing field will open up, and I’m sure they’ll all be updated or made obsolete. Currently, the Weather app is the same as the weather widget. The Notes app is fine, but not robust. The Maps application is a impressive bit of software and is probably a life-saver on the iPhone (hard to get wifi on the road with the Touch). The customizable Home Screen is a great feature, particularly once we can fill it with apps we’ve purchased. The ability to drop web bookmarks on the Home Screen as buttons is pretty great, too.

The music, photo, and video functions of the Touch are solid, with lots of elegant navigational elements. The 3.5" screen at 163 ppi is very nice, and its high resolution mitigates the effects of a using a small screen. However, the Touch falls short of the actual click wheel iPods when it comes to, well, being an iPod. While it can do some very cool stuff, the wheel is the best interface I’ve seen for navigating one’s music. The circular design allows you to scroll as much or as little as you want without breaking your movement. A vertical or horizontal list forces you to continually move, reposition, repeat, effectively doubling your efforts while slowing you down. The interface makes up for it in other ways, to be sure, but the iPod was built on that click wheel interface. I hope they at least create a touch version.

Initially, I was very frustrated with how long it took to access the music controls until I found out that double-clicking the Home Screen button will take you to an instant music interface, even on a locked Touch. Not the most intuitive solution, and it still won't allow you to blind-navigate, but they did address the issue.

Generally speaking, this is the Apple way. On more than one occasion, all I had to do was think “OK, what’s the logical way to solve this problem?” and that was usually it. Another example is scrolling on web pages. Because all scrolling is done with your fingers, a long web page can become a real hassle on the way back up. Their solution is a single tap on the system bar across the top of the screen: it will rocket you back to the top of the page. I can’t tell you how many web pages I scrolled up and up and up until I thought to try this trick.

In the End

I could go on and on (which Alisa will vouch for), but I won’t. Devices with high-resolution multi-touch screens are a new class of device, in my eyes, and I suspect that Apple simply fired off the starting pistol a bit quicker than the rest. The Touch is a great device that fulfills my needs very elegantly and allows me to take care of email, scheduling, surfing the web, and other compact tasks while keeping one hand free, with minimal concessions to the device’s limitations. The Touch has its problems, some very small (the Now Playing button is fugly and cramped), to the annoyingly persistent (Safari crashes and recovers very elegantly, which is good as it does so every few days, sometimes more. PDFs with unsupported but embedded fonts will not display properly at all.), to the befuddlingly aggravating (Why can’t I download, store and access documents? Why can’t I copy and paste?), to the worrisome (something is wonky with syncing tracks from the wireless iTunes store, and I’ve lost music because of it). But in spite of these problems, I’m happy with the Touch. 95% of the time, it’s doing exactly what I want in an elegant way, and is 100% Mac-compatible. Unfortunately, I have no experience with the PC side of things when it comes to the Touch, but if it’s anything like the Mac experience it’s worth the price.

Ultimately, the Touch and the iPhone are about possibilities. With a virtual interface and an active 3rd party developer community (and given the market share, I expect one), the future of these devices excites me. I will be working hard to keep my wallet from opening tomorrow.

The best way to spend a warm spring holiday: barbecuing meat and veggies with friends on their back porch. Thanks to Mike and Jenny for hosting us this year.

Our desire to own a grill has both increased and diminished. We want to have BBQs on our own porch, but after such a great time it’s hard to do anything that would give a reason to not repeat it.

That’s right. Bacon. Chocolate. A merging of two holy substances brought to earth by god-kings of culinary alchemical magnificence.

Well, kind of.

As we slid the contents out of the box, contained in its sheath of chrome, I admit I was a bit disappointed. I had anticipated thick cuts of crispy bacon dipped in chocolate, presenting us a mad symphony of breakfast and dessert (dekfast? breakert?). However, I would not be kept from this amalgam, described in the most holy, and yet unholy, gastronimicons.

Snapping the bar into more polite proportions, we all eagerly bit into our first fragments of the Chocolate Bacon Promised Land.

The milk chocolate was pretty standard stuff, but the sensation of sweet softening chocolate was punctuated with spots of salty bacon pieces. The chocolate was the primary flavor, with the bacon acting as an accent.

The group was split on the experience. Alisa was weirded out, but Rebecca and I enjoyed it. However, I think there are two ways in which it fell short of being the genius creation we all hoped it would be. There are two ways in which the Vosges Haut Chocolat's Mo's Bacon Bar could be made perfect:

1) More bacon.

2) Dark chocolate.

The miscalculation of ingredient proportions is understandable, particularly by a chocolate maker. They forgot the one fundamental rule when making a salty sweet chocolate confectione: coat with the chocolate and always use more salty than sweet. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are good example of this, as well as chocolate-covered pretzels. However, I wonder if bacon being meat had anything to do with this configuration.

As for the chocolate, I am a dark chocolate lover. There’s something so much more satisfying about its taste (at least for me). I think the contrast would’ve been better, particularly given the complex flavor of a good cut of bacon.

So, a dream has been realized and found wanting (though still delicious). But this also creates an opportunity for improvement, and new bacon vistas to gaze out upon. I stand ready and willing to do my part.

::pats stomach full of bacon from brunch::

This is probably my favorite photo of Blackbird so far. In many photos, she looks kind of freaked out. Honestly, most of the time she does. Here she has the appraising look that I’m fascinated by. I suspect this look will come out quite a bit when she’s older. Also, notice the KISS t-shirt. Add all that to the great sunlight in her room and you get prime photo-taking situations.

The rest of this post contains quite a few photos, so if you’re on a low-bandwidth connection, beware.

While she does have her moments of looking older and wiser, most of the time my little Blackbird has a sprite-like liveliness and big, bright eyes. This photo is blurry, but there’s something about it that captures her curious energy.

Of course, anyone with that much energy requires a recharge.

She loves the changing table. Here she is in her now-too-small PJs, loving it.

Her expressive range is much wider now, but I assure you, that stuffed animal is kept there by gravity alone. She’s not much into toys yet.

I love the shape of her little head. Children’s faces and heads have so many lovely curves. Her little lips peeking out past her cheeks get me every time.

Blackbird at rest.

We’re encouraging her to play and figure out her hands and arms with these little rattles. She... is ambivalent about them. But the cat seems to like the one we’ve surrendered to the dust bunny armies that lurk in our home.

Bathtime is now a pretty pleasant experience, but being dried off is still an affront to babies everywhere. I’m always taken aback by how different she looks when her wet hair is all curly.

Blackbird loves that changing table. When she’s feeling playful, she can melt you in minutes with her smiles. No laughs yet, but she has these wonderful little gasps that tell you she’s reached maximum smiles. She has such a coy smile, like she’s thinking, “Isn’t this so great? I am hilariously cute. Which is, in itself, kind of hilariously cute. Don’t you think?”

Blackbird loves to be read to (but has recently started to feel some animosity towards the camera, hence the expression), but not necessarily from children’s books. Here Alisa reads her a bit of M.F.K. Fisher. I’ve read to her from the New York Times Magazine with equal success. She seems to like watching adult conversation and listening to people read aloud in a normal voice. It’s not the key to quieting her when she’s crying, but she will sit and watch you for pages-worth of reading. Perhaps it’s this quiet erudition that makes her look so much older in this photo.

Or is it the black Baby Legs? One never knows.

My second favorite photo of Blackbird. Teething toys: not a success. In fact, quite possibly the worst thing to ever have in one’s mouth ever. Even worse than a mouthful of spit-up, from the look of it. Mind you, she is the one controlling how far the toy goes in there.

One of Alisa’s favorites. Blackbird mesmerized by polka dots on her little pillow. Practically cross-eyed for polka dots, that kid.

Blackbird’s favorite new pose: wrapping her entire body around my thumb while gnawing on it.

The hair continues to grow in its magnificence.

Blackbird knows how to show off an outfit. Nothing says adorable like a wide-eyed stare and rigid board pose.

Dressed for a day out with Mom. Sporting sweater made by Mom.

Alisa’s washcloth technique has resulted in completely cry-free baths, even when she’s getting her hair shampooed and rinsed.

Carried off to face the new day.

Strapped in, wrapped up, and ready to roll. Blackbird likes her stroller, which is good ’cause we like it too. We got her a Mutsy Spider which has been great so far, particularly on our very uneven sidewalks and cobblestone streets.

Blackbird getting a taste for the neighborhood at the Mt Airy Day festival this past weekend. She loves big events like this, with all of the new things to see and people to meet. By the way, it’s confirmed: Blackbird is the cutest baby ever. All who see her fall under her spell.

Three months under her belt, full meal in her belly, orange monkey under her arm.

Look at those logos. If someone presented you a logo design that looked like these (a typeset word), you might scoff. In fact, looking at them now, I’d tear into the Chanel logotype pretty hard myself, as some of those letterforms could use some help. But these logotypes, for most viewers, are bulletproof. In fact, some of them elicit feelings of desire and envy. Why? Because you’re not seeing a logo design, you’re seeing a brand. These are successful brands. Their logos are virtually content-free. The type communicates some aspects, but for most people, the visual designs are too muddled by their associations.

How does Chanel’s type choice look now? Looks more like a shipping company logo than a highly regarded fashion house. (To be fair, for most fonts some letter combinations look good and others look a bit off, so that contributes to the perception. However, in this case I think the point holds.) And remember, all of these logos are existing away from the storefront and the fancy clothing. What that indicates is that the form of the logotype is linked with the word “Chanel” which is linked with the reality of Chanel’s stores, clothes, reputation, service, history, etc. In a way, when a logo is most effective as an iconic symbol of a brand, you don’t even see the logo, you feel it as a set of sensations and images in your head.

But logos are visual marks and must be designed as such. Sometimes, a clever designer or team of designers will insert extra layers of meaning, as in Lindon Leader’s FedEx logo, seen here.

Once you see the arrow created in the negative space between the letters of Ex, you find yourself unable to push it back down. The negative space, the ‘nothing’ of the logo becomes the foreground, the ‘something’ of the logo. That shimmering of perception of foreground to background and back again creates a tension that hooks your mind’s eye. It is a bit of extra info that once you’ve seen it, you notice almost every subsequent time. But how many of you had to have me or someone else point it out to you? It’s not something most people would see, and it’s not meant to be seen immediately, or even at all. But it’s there, and once you see it, you can’t un-see it.

Unfortunately, this sort of second layer of meaning isn’t always intentional. The human mind, by its nature, seeks order and pattern to exert meaning on the world around it. Often, a team of designers and even the clients will work together on a logo for months and see it for what they intend it to be. But sometimes all it takes is one person, who has no preconceived notions about the design to say, “Hey, are you guys seeing what I’m seeing...?”

So when a London design firm creates a logo for the Office of Government Commerce, unveils its logo, and someone in the office says, “Hey, when it’s on its side, it kind of looks like a man masturbating,” cut the firm and the client some slack. Would you have seen it if they hadn't pointed it out? Probably not. Particularly since 99% of the time these logos are oriented in one direction, which does not favor that interpretation. But the human mind is a pattern-making machine, and all it takes is one person to say it. Then everyone sees it. Then they repeat it. And you know what they say...

You can’t un-see it.

Thanks to Joep and the many others who pointed this out to me. I was going to laugh it off without comment, but it seems to have become the latest undying meme.

This past week was all about the cost of things. The cost of health. The cost of luxury. The cost of living. Fortunately, for all its annoyances, it wasn’t such a big deal. When counting what you’ve paid, it’s always good to be mindful of what you’ve received in return.

Subject: Your car

Hi Chris
Not sure if you are up yet, I believe your car was broken into last night. I think it is your car.

Sorry
Jaime

I looked out our bedroom window and saw that he was correct. My passenger side front window was smashed and... nothing was stolen. An attempt to take my iPod charger was thwarted by my unbreakable counter-measure: it was connected to a tape adapter in my tape deck.

Clearly, these were criminals who hadn’t quite gotten up the nerve or brains to properly pull off a smash and grab. They also went into my glovebox for... more nothing. A stupid criminal truly is the best form of security. I’ve now taken all visible possessions out of my car, and will probably keep my charger in my glovebox from now on. I think the bright white charger drew the lazy eyes of the scofflaws. I suppose that’s the biggest downside to having luxury items: having to protect them. It’s a good argument for controlled consumption, simply to keep life simple. Having a car is sometimes a wonderful convenience. Mostly I find it a hassle. Perhaps one day I can be rid of it, and then I won’t ever have to worry about it again.

Speaking of being robbed, we also filed our taxes this week.

::rimshot::

I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your server.

Seriously, though. This year was no biggie. Our returns offset our payments quite nicely, so we came out ahead by a little bit. Having a small business makes tax time a bit more complex than it would otherwise be, but our accountant does a superb job of taking our mess of papers and turning them into a nice stack of forms with clear instructions and addressed envelopes. I don’t mind paying taxes (I’m a filthy pinko liberal, after all), but I mind the act of paying them. It’s such a complex and opaque process. My mind quite literally locks up just looking at those terrible forms. It seems such a shame that the IRS has no motivation to stop using forms that are so bureaucratically worded as to be completely impenetrable.

But the sting of taxes is nothing compared to those of baby’s first inoculation. Blackbird got a quick and easy oral dose before getting four jabs to her legs. What impressed me the most was how little she cried afterwards. Honestly, the whole thing probably got me more worked up than her. Alisa and I agreed that she did better than most kids years older than she is. But inoculation is a team effort, and Blackbird has been pretty wiped for the last day or so. Her immune system is clearly on high alert, and she’s getting a taste of what it’s like to be sick. Nothing major, just a raised temp, some crankiness, and a bit more sleep than usual. When she’s being entertained, it’s all smiles, so I’m trying to put all of my overbearing, protective dad instincts to the side. I think my mother’s fretfulness is coming out in me now. We’ll see how that develops with time.

But in spite of all these little costs that life extracts, we’re doing well. My car is fixed, mom and Blackbird are enjoying our summery weather, and we’ll be able to pay our bills. I think Blackbird has the right idea for dealing with situations like these: if you can’t get the boob you’re looking for, any old hand will get the job done until you do.

As I learn more and more about the corporation named Monsanto (which began as a chemical company, not an agricultural company, by the way), I become more disgusted and confused by the people behind the name. What do these people think is the inevitable result of something like this? What do they tell themselves to make the destruction of lives (both professionally and literally) seem acceptable? The worst part is that I’m sure sitting down with them would only yield groomed PR doublespeak. But I would love to have a frank conversation with one of them.

Pointed out to me by Steve 'I'm so buff from working out my last name should be Maniel' Laniel.

I’ve seen this view many times since Jocie was born. The light on the stairs as they ascend into the darkened second floor always struck me, so I decided to capture and share this little slice of my late-night traversing.