RobotSkirts

Last night we celebrated my birthday at Hacker Drinkup. It was a massive turnout with a lot of fun surprises. I quipped on Twitter, “Things that should be denim: jeans. Things that shouldn’t: everything else. #denimbustiersrsly?!” Pictured above is the denim hat Pinguino made me in response (my mannequin is wearing it now). You may remember that this isn’t the first time a tweet has generated an unexpected gift. Erin and Pinguino decorated cupcakes with fondant so they looked like our crew (they’ve made hacker cookies before). The final treat was a pair of functional frosted laser boobs inspired by my flyer. In addition, I got a new tshirt, some ALF trading cards, and some sweet socks.

Like last year, I recorded a short podcast for my birthday. I’ve been sick lately so there’s a lot of weird breathyness from me trying not to cough.

I’m not running out of topics but more couldn’t hurt. UPDATE: Here’s the Reddit link.

I only recently found out how common my friend Chris Nelson’s name was, so I wrote him an all encompassing eulogy.

Dear Mr. Nelson,

It is with profound regret that I inform you of your recent death. On Saturday, January 9, 2010, you passed away unexpectedly at Iredell Memorial Hospital in Statesville, North Carolina at the age of 41. You, Johnny “Chris” Nelson, were born in 1968 to your parents Elmer and Louise. Your father was in the furniture business and a member of the Baptist church. You’ve been survived by your wife Kristain and sons Joshua and Noah. You will be interred this coming Friday at the United Methodist Church in Boone.

I wish to offer you my condolences. You died, yet again, that same Saturday, January 9, 2010 at the Van Dyke Hospice in Toms River, New Jersey. You, Christopher J. Nelson were 43 at the time and are survived by your wife of 21 years Sharlene and your children Julia and Eric. Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, you settled in Jackson Township a mere 12 years ago where you were the co-owner of Executive Relocation Services in Piscataway, New Jersey.

These recent deaths came as a shock to us for we were still reeling from your untimely demise in December. You, Christopher Alan Nelson, died December 14, 2009 at the age of 24. Born in 1985, you were employed most recently as the assistant manager of a Casey’s General Store in Byron, Michigan and lived in Mount Morris for the past 12 years. You will be mourned by your parents and your brothers James and Brandon. As instructed, we directed our donation to a favorite charity in lieu of flowers.

It is with great sadness that we learned of your previous death in Leland, IA on November 23, 2009. You, Chris A. Nelson, died in your home at the ripe old age 77. You were born June 16, 1932 on a farm near Forest City and have been a farmer all your life raising both cows and crops. You will be missed by your wife of 56 years, Donna, along with your many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Sir, this rash of recent deaths over the last two months can only lead us to believe that you will die multiple times before your next birthday. We look forward to these events and can only assume that one day you will either be decapitated by Christopher Lambert or murdered by Jet Li to absorb your dimensional power becoming the one true Chris Nelson.

Sincerely,
Eliot Phillips, Esq.
Executor to your Estate

Gizmodo posted about The Flexy today, an eco-friendly cardboard Slinky type thing. It reminded me of something I had seen in the early 90s. (more…)

I turned 28 today and recorded a short podcast. I thought I had been doing it every year, but apparently skipped last year.

Sometimes people ask me about my twitter handle @sweetums. It’s not from the muppet, but I did make this connection today: Sweetums was performed by Richard Hunt, who performed Statler, who was named after the Statler Hotel, which was renamed Hotel Pennsylvania, which was where HOPE was held, which was covered by Sweetums for Hack a Day. Woo 5 degrees!

The name actually comes from a one-liner I used once: “I was thinking of calling my motorcycle ‘Sweetums’… or is that too butch?”

It’s just a silly contrast joke, but I throughly enjoy people calling me sweetums. When you introduce yourself as ’sweetums’, it’s disarming and when people address you as ’sweetums’, it’s endearing.

UPDATE: Added image based on Frosty’s comment.

Merlin Mann has an excellent/painful post on real advice; it’s not necessarily what you want to hear.

It made me think of some of my favorite distilled advice: Just do it. Many people ask Ze Frank how he is so creative. It’s because he tries to execute on an idea as soon as possible. He puts it into working form instead of mulling about and shaping it into the perfect idea in his head. This is same reason he never really talked about what camera he used or his editing process; he didn’t want people to get hung up equipment when all they should be concerned about is the content of their videos.

I’m still working on pushing out ideas. That’s actually why I use Skitch so much. It’s me shoving a joke out the door instead of just pondering “well that could be funny”. I could get hung up on trying to learn Photoshop and making a perfectly rendered image. Deviating from the original goal: yak shaving (only now realizing I learned that from another Mann column). Instead, I put in the appropriate amount of energy and move on. I get the satisfaction of creating something and hopefully someone gets a chuckle out of it. I may have purchased a domain or two with similar motivation. The majority of these images are hosted in private on Skitch because I never intended them to have the general audience of Flickr.

I hope this gives a little insight into what makes me tick. Apologies if it doesn’t quite make sense; I kinda wanted to get it out there.

Selected Skitch stupidity: CK the broker, Maker Faire Arrakis, arm transplant, twitter bird failure, the Stones, crypto humor, the cup, another word for pirate treasure.

[Thanks to Chris Miller for the original link.]

My grandmother on my mother’s side passed away today (My grandma Phillips died in April). A recent letter from my mother mentioned that she had helped my grandparents with their absentee ballots on the 21st. Does my grandmother’s vote count? According to this Slate Explainer, the rules, like all election law, vary from state to state. Some allow the votes to stay and some demand they be pulled. I called the county election commissioner and asked what the laws were in Nebraska. She said that if they had the ballot already, it would be in the system and counted. Now this is not a definitive statement on the law, since if there was a law it would be hard to enforce. I’m not going to be an alarmist about dead people voting, but I did find this quote from a 2004 USA TODAY article interesting:

How many of those voters won’t be alive on Election Day? Considering that an average of 455 voting-age people die in Florida every day, and that the 2000 presidential election was decided by a mere 537 votes, dead votes that slip through the cracks could become a meaningful bloc.

At long last you are to have a report from the Curtis Phillips family! We wish for each of you the very best in this coming year. We really mean that invitation on the map we designed and are sending: “Won’t you come visit us?” We love company! We’ve had a lot during this first year here and it’s made our move easier, because we’ve seen folks from home often, and new neighbors here have made us feel welcome.
(more…)