I can't wait to unveil this project.

I've been working on this pirate themed site and I'm loving it!

Tools of the Trade

found via (giedonothersbible) // source (w00t)

The Great Easter Showdown 2011

click for larger version

As kids growing up we were always told not to eat too much candy and lots of sugar because it was bad for your teeth. We were also told that the tooth fairy loved cavity free teeth, so we should keep them clean.

At the same time we're given tons of candy on Easter...
Watching all my siblings and the neighborhood kids eat lots and lots of candy this week, I couldn't help but wonder if there is an epic throw down on Easter night between the clean, cavity free tooth loving tooth fairy and the sugar induced jelly bean popping Easter Bunny.

My guess is there was no epic throw down, but part of me wishes there was. One can only hope right?

Dear Trojan Vibrating Massager Commercial,

see youtubed commercial here

At the end of the commercial, the bride-to-be tells her groom, “Remember the Trojan Vibrating massagers we wanted? We got THREE!” Next, the groom excitedly screams “SWEET!”
Thank you for this. I laugh every time, as I immediately imagine the groom personally enjoying the three vibrating massagers. Alone.
I think the groom has some things to work out before his wedding.
Thanks again - mike



found via google (source)

Dear Mr. President

Please find below my suggestion for fixing America 's economy.

Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan.

You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force.

Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.

2) They MUST buy a new American CAR. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed. 

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed. 

4) They MUST buy their own health insurance. - Health Plan for seniors just fixed.

It can't get any easier than that! If more money is needed, have all members of Congress and their constituents pay their taxes... If you think this would work, please tell everyone you know.

If not, please disregard. Then shoot yourself!!!! - 1 job opening

God Bless America.

found via "fun stuff to see"

Train of Thoughts

   I love taking the NJtransit from 30th Street Ttation in Philadelphia rather than catching the patco (semi-subway) and meeting up with the train a couple of stops down the line. I never realized why. Logically I should take the patco and meet up with the NJtransit later, its usually slightly cheaper and its more convenient, but recently I've been purposely going to 30th Street. I didn't know why. Now I do.   The ride from Philadelphia to where the two trains meet is so peaceful, specially at night, it gives my mind time to decompress and relax.  There's usually a few people in each car, no one is loud* or shuffling around. We're all just there.  A few stops down the line is where the two trains join is where the majority of the people board the train, and the ride is no longer peaceful.  I'm sitting here on the train decompressing, reflecting and appreciating the week that this past one was.
   I have so many thoughts that I want to write, but I haven't fleshed them out enough to write a cohesive story, so I'm going to list them out (some will be fairly large bullet points; and thats okay!
- People change, I've changed, friends have changed and thats okay, Its not bad. It's just different. Even though they and I have changed, that bond that was formed between us is not broken, after the time and distance, the people creating the bond are just different.

- God is doing something, a lot of things in a lot of peoples life is changing showing that a season is changing and I'm not talking about the winter to spring season change; but life and death of things in peoples lives.

- I think its no coincidence that I forgot that this week was holy week and this is also the week that I got to spend with friends I love, worship and fellowship with.  While I didn't spend anytime in "corporate" worship with them, I did spend time discussing how awesome, confusing and all knowingly wonderful God is.  While I don't get to spend one of the holiest and most revered Christian holidays with them but rather my family, It reminds me that I do have to in-fact remember that family is family for a reason.

- God answers questions with in-your-face answers, specially when those questions you try to hide from yourself and definitely ones you hide from others.

- As i just tweeted, I wanted to say "Oh my dear. I just forgot how stunningly beautiful you are.  I think you get more and more beautiful each day!"  There is more to that statement but I think for now... I'll leave it at that.

- I got to spend every morning walking in the energetic energy of commute, grabbing coffee and a bagel with tons of anonymous people and sitting on a stoop enjoying the morning everyday. This just reaffirms that I am meant to be an urban dweller.

- I am meant to work, nothing felt as good as waking up at 7/8am, getting ready, going to work, taking lunch (or in some cases working through lunch) and "clocking out" at 6. It was so rewarding (and mentally draining).

- I still know how to be a pleasant person, make friends with random people I don't know and carry on a successful conversation on a variety of topics with a bunch of educated people.  While I was temp working I was introduce to other people, from different backgrounds and current place yet we all conversed, shared and laughed.

- I forgot how good good coffee, good beer and good food tasted.

- A city park is a beautiful example of how life ideally should exist. People from different backgrounds, current situations and extreme opposite social and economical situations co-inhabiting the same place with virtually no problems.

- I miss the scenes of the city. From the crazy jesus end-of-days people handing out pamphlets to the monks marching to the beat of their own drum, literally down the street to the drunk man who stopped to watch a bird fly over his head and almost fell backwards.

- my zodiac sign (if i fully embraced it) would be the end of me. All I care about are secrets, sex, domination and money. Thank God (literally!) that I am not without good friend and Christ to keep me from living up to (or down to?) my Scorpio tendencies.

Thats not all, but the train demographic is changing, my mind is buzzing and I'm having a hard time concentrating, so thus is the end for now.  This week was everything I needed to continue through this season of my life. Philadelphia and its inhabitants (friends and strangers alike) have my heart and you're not letting go anytime soon. Thank You.

*of course as I write this a very loud and flamboyantly gay man decides it is time to discuss something in an extremely exited manner.

I was pretty pimp at 4 years old.

I just ordered these bad boys

from moocards (moo.com)  You know you love them!

Sex is No Accident :: MTV:Sexidents

Brilliant advertizing for MTV. With a good message questionmark

 

Source: Grey \ Found imjustcreative.co.uk

im truckin' along!

I wish I could show you but I recently designed my cousins wedding invitation and basically the whole stationary package. here is a @dribbble-esc preview. I'm really pumped about it! Soon I'll be showing my most recent projects as they come to a close.

Its good to be busy...

One would think after completing, literally five projects in three days, I wouldn't want to look at graphics, but I made this for fun.
(typography is fun?!)

If you could go back five years & tell yourself something...

What would those five things be? A twitter friend of mine asked this on her blog and this is what I commented;

“01. Grow some balls kid! Kiss the girl! (or at least let her know you like her)

02. Don’t get woo’ed by the fancy fine arts department of your school! Keep to your guns and go into graphic design or illustration

03. Minor in Art Therapy, I know you want to focus on your art, but this will help you in the 2nd semester of senior year when you realize you want to go to grad school for this!

04. Keep up with the vegetarian eating, you’re losing tons of weight and the family is actually supporting your diet. Keep it up. (i have severely slacked in this department lately)

05. Push yourself to the limit with networking, jobbing and interning, the socialization can happen in class and at night, make those connections, don’t focus solely on friendships.”

I always say I don't have regrets, because quite frankly I don't like to think of making the "wrong" decision because having not gone into sculpture, and ultimately printmaking (i switched majors my Jr. year) I wouldn't have met and formed awesome relationships with the people I did. I mean they say hindsight is 20/20 so its easy to see where decisions could have been made different and the ultimate outcome would have left me in, not necessarily better, but a different place. Who knows for a fact but I'd like to think that I made the right decisions in the moment.

If you could have gone back and told the five years ago "you" five things, what would they be? Either comment here or write your own post about them! ( and send me a link to your post). I'd love to hear them!

The Valedvictorian from VBS.

damn... I was proud of my little "Bible in 50 Words Book", this kid has me beat before he reaches puberty!

[ via: the resurgance | source: youtube ]

I do think a girl in glasses is cute!

[found @ Shmitten' Kitten via I'm Not A Genius]
I also hate that I'm feeding into the "hipster" trend...

projectLOVE: Kristina

What is projectLOVE: Kristina? Well its fully explained right here; but the quick run down is, Rogie made an awesome site called dribbble.com; which is a place for designers to show little (no bigger than 400x300px) snippets of what they're working on.  But last night his sisters house burned down, completely and now they're homeless, essentially, so in order to raise money, he asked the community to make a little ditty for her and help spread the word about helping out with a little donation, if you can.  If not, go here and look at all the awesome projects (or rebounds, as the site calls them) people have made!

"Lord..." (reposted)

It's amazing how over two years ago I wrote this prayer and it still rings true to this very day. This was originally written (published 10.29.09) for a friend's online magazine, it has since gone under but remains online as to not break links or lose the articles written for it.
(I found my prayer on a community on livejournal, I had no clue that it was found let alone posted. Its amazing how God can use our words to help people that we may never know)

“your image is not done when you're done drawing it.
Your image is done when people see it. ”

-Pascal Campion

Oh youtube...

I normally don't get caught up on youtube... click, watch, laugh, click watch, laugh; doesn't happen, but this one made me laugh, and so did the other 10 videos I watched after this one.

(found via steve lutz)

here are some others that made me crack up; "Greetings: Don't Be this Guy","PB & J All Day" and "How To Plant a Church"

the undead love too!

Each year people give candy, cards and flowers as ways to show that they love their boo (whatever that means) and that they have their "heart" but I think the zombies have it right!

If you're like a great majority of people, you haven't bought your significant others card yet, so print this out and voila! One of a kinda card (unless your s.o. did the same thing! Whoops!)

Oh yeah... if you're single and you don't have a significant other to give one of my epic drawings too tomorrow, just click the link and commiserate with the little fellow (you'll see what I mean!

oh crud...

So... I installed the fancy new (atleast new to me) commenting system disqus, and it apparently hides all of my old blog comments :( I'm trying to figure out how to add them back, I promise I'm not moderating comments!

thankfulTHURSDAY #2

   With being unemployed and being sequestered from my friends for about two years now, I have to admit that, its hard for me to remember that I do have things to be thankful for; its easy to lament on how i haven't had any constant source of income, that I haven't had time with friends in months (this is a side effect of no income, it takes money to go see them) or that I'm not exactly happy to be living where I am. In reality I do have things to be thankful for.  While last week I didn't post this week I am going to (even though its technically not thursday anymore.)

001. That I'm fortunate enough to be sitting on a couch, in a heated house, with electricity to type on this computer.

002. Thankful for the weird, semi accepting community that I live in, they all humor me and talk to me when I'm there to watch my little brothers sports games, or when we run into each other when I pop into Wawa

003. I got to goto my first real ice hockey game this past week! Sure it wasn't an NHL game, but it was with their minors (a half of step below the big league)

004. My knee left knee is back to normal completely (i guess my right one is the slower more retarded one... he takes after me!)

005. I got a new client this week and he loved the first round of logos I designed for him.

006. My friends meg and cat who are pretty much always there for me to show a design and they will tell me which parts suck, or which parts are good and sometimes that i should ust start over again!

007. I finally beat the game "Saints Row" and I'm now onto "Saints Row II"

008. My aunt and cousin(and he now fiance) they let me come up and escape to their house and work with them to get my out of the terrible state of Jersey. Its always a good time when I'm with them.

009. I'm thankful for my friend Amy ("met" her through twitter!) for offering to send me some of her text books on Psychology and such, even if I can't afford to goto school who says I can't read about what I wish I could goto school for?!


010. the family ordered pizza for dinner tonight... I know this sounds silly but I haven't had the money to order pizza in a while and I've REALLY been wanting some unhealthy, greasy, amazing pizza recently. Its strange, I don't know why, but... I have been.

Now, I leave you with two pictures that I'm stealing from tumblr...

sometimes i really think the burbs' are...

I live on a freakin island... I forget this people!

mmmmm cheese.

Today was the day that everyone who owns a TV waits for... Super Bowl Sunday. Oh? Whats that? You don't like football, I know. I was accounting for you too with... commercials. This is the one televised sporting event that people dont frantically sprint from the tv, during a commercial break to grab another beer, a slice of pizza or to pee because as interested (or disinterested) in the game everyone look forward to the commercials during the game! Advertisers know this, as does the NFL and in this case FOX broadcasting.

For a 30 second spot, advertisers were paying a whopping $2.9million!! And thats just for the air time, not the budget of the commercial itself (which for a super bowl commercial is usually thousands, hundreds of thousands.) Why though? Is a commercial only good (and memorable) if you can throw tons and tons of money at a production crew? um... negative.

Take a look at this commercial and tell me you don't think this is one you will be telling people about?!

see, now didnt that gross you out strike you as memorable? I know it did me, for the sheer fact of how awkward and, frankly, gross it was. But hey, most importantly, next time you sit down with a bag of doritos (or any other residue leaving chip like snack) chances are you will remember that commercial, an the fact that it was for doritos. SUCCESS! The best part? The budget was something like $82!!  This just proves that success doesn't = pouring lots of money into a project! creativityFTW!

Which commercials were your favorite? If you didn't get to see them (were you under a rock?!) you can catch them all here.

The other thing I was happy to see about the commercials this year? Not everyone thought "sex sells" there wasn't T&A all over the screen... except lots of moobs(man boobs) spandex'd manass on the field! But more on that later.

this is what love looks like...

image from los @ ragamuffinsoul

We can learn so much from this group of Egyptian Christians forming a human barrier around muslims praying during the protests in Egypt. We're not called to hate on other religions we're called to love people.

thankfulTHURSDAY #1

one of these days I'll do this. I contrary to popular opinion (and by popular opinion I mean mine) I do have thing to be thankful for. For all I know I might come back and edit this later. Who knows.

late night lulz

"1bourbon, 1scotch, 1beer" (via c'mon bro)

why i love don miller

“My most recent faith struggle is not one of intellect. I don’t really do that anymore. Sooner or later, you just figure out there are some guys who don’t believe in God and they can prove He doesn’t exist, and some other guys who do believe in God and they can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it’s about who is smarter, and honestly I don’t care.“

- Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz


(via jaycalle)