Celebrate Swedish Lifestyle Month in Los Angeles… and this great poster should be popping up around the state. Love the perfect blonde hair cut out on the Swedish blue (does remind me of the Debbies from the Oblongs though, which is a tad disturbing). But beyond the fun poster, some sweet events popping up all month including singer-songwriter José Gonzales performing in SF and LA (he’s the genius behind the music to the Sony Bravia Bouncing Balls commercial)… and a nordic walk at Santa Monica Beach… as well as music, art, and film screenings!

Ciao* playing with css this weekend, so consider this the soft launch of redesign… still working on all the details that crop up while actually using the site. Categories are simplified and more accessible. Comments (now notes!) can be made in the top right corner of posts. Top two birds will lead you places. Strands down the sides are showcasing products/art we love, and will link you to them… if you have great designs or products to show, space can be *rented to show them off. Also inserted floater text ads/announcement space between the first few posts. And overall cleaned things up a little… after all NOTCOT turns 1 sometime in March.

ok HELP - since you are the ones leaving notes, where do you like having the link to leave them? is it too obscure in the top corner? I also had it as a bigger comment flag graphic in the bottom right, but it seemed to bloat the posts. So, what do you want? and then balance that with what looks nice?

Hey here’s my present to you for the moment, a took a quick picture of it, but it’s now big enough to print out and cut out and try it out. So tempt fate and see what life has in store for you… with Wheel 1: we have the simple yes/no and a number to carry over to wheel 2. Wheel 2: first letter of your future spouses name (giving that apple stem/soda can top method a run for its money). Wheel 3: spouse’s profession, ok now i just can’t get over these icons. esp handicraft and engineer. Wheel 4: best of all how many KIDS you will have… scares me that it goes up to 12, in ADDITION to the twins and triplets. Anyhow, here’s a postcard i found. Ahhh 1810 people, lets just say i’m glad its 2006.

Quickie reader request - not so involved with charles and marie anymore, since people have been asking lately… was just helping out with writing while josh spear was a main player in it, but pretty much dropped out when he did as he talked about here a while back. It was also making me stretch+sacrifice some of the better content… and as it grew, my tastes and those of the fictitous charles and marie parted ways as well. So i’m all notcot all the time these days.

Shade Elaine was telling me about this anti-valentine’s day pillow fight flash mobbing that happened in SF - i wish i was there - Perhaps the most amusing thing to us though, was not the concept of the pillow fight so much, as the number of people still using down pillows… or does synthetic really float and fluff like that as well? Either way, pillow fights - they aren’t just for fantasies of slumber parties anymore. We need more of them and frequently - can you imagine how much stress reduction could come of this? Read more about it here in the SF Gate. Also a flash napping occured in the center of this pillow fight at one point. And i am also amazed that the fighters also helped clean up all the debris post-pillow-war. My faith in humanity is slightly heightened today.

Part of my “asia is so asian” series - i just found this on the treo - totally forgot… i think i saw it in Takashimaya. It cracked me up. Enjoy.

:: Not to mention DOH-dough makes me think of homer for some reason. and click for a bigger image…

This was at the Bukit Timah Reserve near the house - MONKEYS. i hate monkeys - freaking scary. We watched them attack this plastic bag with (unopened vacuum packed) peanuts in it that was hanging from a stroller as soon as the parents left the kids unattended to go to the bathroom… VICIOUS. And yes i have traumatic monkey experiences from the crazy monkeys at an indonesian temple as a young child. But here this is “cute” click to see it close up, i have a whole series of this shot as the baby and parents turn towards me - and the no monkey feeding out of car windows sign is such a trip.

So - a random peek of more amusements in Singapore… on my dragon fruit theme, this “capri sonne MYSTIC dragon” juice made me giggle. The asianified Guinness Chinese New Year packaging was quite nice. And S$40 for lego star wars guys!!! INSANITY. Click for bigger pic if you want…

Gung Hey Fat Choi (or however you bastardize that into english these days) - but its my year! (so i’ll be 24 this year) - i’m a water dog - this is the year of the fire dog… so welcome to another chance at another fresh start. This is an image of the feast we put out for the ancestors on this occaision… figured it was a nice way to welcome you all into the new year as well. So enjoy, be merry, and best of luck for the new year.

This is today’s inspiring texture/pattern i found - at the market mayhem of many stalls i wandered across a dragon fruit and had to try it - it was just such a gorgeous fruit - low and behold i fell in love with the black and white fleshy interior when i sliced it open - the taste was not so interesting but the design of this incredible fruit is just beautiful - imagine flash frozen slices as coasters? or duplicating that pattern for a wallpaper? i might have to get some high quality scans of thin slices of this sometime this trip. Read more about dragon fruits here - its part of the cactus family.

Hello jetlag? Sorry for the delay in posts - just landed over in Singapore for the next 2.5 weeks (will be here till the 6th of Feb)… So i’ll be back on posts later tonight - but just wanted to post a quick message for any idea on things to check out here - or designers to meet up with! More to come…

LA Auto Show was the last two weekends - nothing rocked my world so hard i wanted to post it. But there were some great displays as always, especially by Porsche and VW… there is an incredible flocked black and red poster for the GTI that VW was giving out i will have to get a good shot of to share with you soon. But for now, here’s my favorite pic of the entrance wall of Porsche.

So that’s what a cat’s tongue looks like up close, eh? It freaked me out a bit. So naturally, i had to post it. Also apparently people are attacking my server. Stop! Stop spamming it so badly, just leave it be. And to readers, sorry it’s been slow… we’re working on it. So be patient, or help fix! Thanks. And i will never feel the same when a cat licks me again.

AdBrite has an interesting system set up that you have probably see on other sites as well - and in my curious state tonight i signed up to see how the system and interface worked… It allows me to set prices and have people post ads on the site and they manage the cost and timing of display. Also a nice feature is the ability to create promo offers… so for readers i set up “cotnot” as a passcode you can enter at the bottom of this link if you want to try out an ad on Notcot for a week! Or if there is interest for shorter ones/longer ones/etc just drop me an email, i’m dying for excuses to mess with the system more and see what we can do with it.

On CES… a major theme certainly was the “My PLASMA is bigger than your PLASMA”… and the hands down winner was definitely the Panasonic 103” World’s Largest… and while you all may have heard from those boys of Gizmodo and Engadget and such… it is HUGE, but i just have to tell you all that it is a work of art. As for the mine is bigger than yours (oh and the worlds biggest isn’t even 1080p - another one of the big competitions between booths)… nothing smaller than a 60 catches my eye anymore. CES has left me jaded on what is considered a large TV.