*NOTCOT in nature - 10.21.08 -

California Academy of Sciences at Night

NOTCOT Note: SO, jealous that linhchi (shade elaine) had a chance to get into the California Academy of Sciences! But luckily she took some gorgeous pics to share her experience with us!

I’d been waiting for the new California Academy of Sciences to open in Golden Gate Park for over a year, and when opening weekend finally rolled around late in September, I wasn’t willing to combat the crowds. Luckily the company I work for was invited to a party there (hosted by AOL) this past Monday evening, and though we didn’t get to check out the entire place, it was awesome being able to wander around the rain forest dome (I missed the planetarium show!) and get a glimpse of the other parts without enormous amounts of people, and to get a unique view of the place at night! My favorite pic (you’ll see it after the jump) is from inside the rain forest dome looking up at the ceiling & lights. I’ll definitely have to go back and check out the entire place for real. See a lot more pics after the jump!

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*NOTCOT in home+decor -

Chuck at The Viceroy Santa Monica

chuck0.jpg I was watching Chuck tonight - the one where the best buy (“buy more”) geek squad (“nerd herd”) like guy has all the nations secrets downloaded into his brain and he has to run around and have crazy adventures playing spy, as created by the OC guy (josh schwartz) - and while it was as amusing as usual (with bizarre special guests nicole richie and ben savage) - the interiors of Sarah’s apt/hotel room were terribly distracting! The wallpaper, the green chair, headboard, and door, the lamps, the side table, the punching bag hanging from the ceiling. So, i took some mediocre shots of the TV to post here before it drove me nuts trying to track down tonight’s episode online… maybe i’ll update it the screenshots when the online versions are ready. How gorgeous is that green?

UPDATEs: So i have swapped out all the pics of my tv screen for some better ones (and even more on the next page now too!) ~ and thanks to Andrea, we’ve figured out that its the Viceroy right down the street in santa monica! Wonder if they would ever let us go wander around and take pics of rooms… or now i feel like getting a room there just to see it (which seems silly living so near by) - So Sarah apparently lives in Room 832 of the Viceroy.

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*NOTCOT in design - 10.20.08 -

BACKYARD: Pancho Tolchinsky and Catalina Estrada

estrada1.jpg BACKYARD - Pancho Tolchinsky and Catalina Estrada is coming up on Oct 29th at Galeria Ras in Barcelona. Since i can’t make it out there ~ Cati was nice enough to send over a sneak preview of some of her collaborations for us to take a look at!

While her magical digital worlds have always mesmerized me, its incredible to see how well they layer on the backyard photographs of Pancho Tolchinsky. If you’re in Barcelona, please mark your calendar for the 29th, and don’t forget to grab your camera! See the works on the next page, with some close ups too!

The full description:
“Gardens, flowers and gnomes become small pieces of heaven constructed at human scale.
The photographer Pancho Tolchinsky takes us on a trip through his characteristic colors to visit small fragments of heaven in locations as disparate as Scotland, Venice Beach or Jerusalem. In line with his photography, Tolchinsky finds the way to connect reality with imagination, the material world of experience with the ideal world of our memories.

Backyard is the first exhibition in which Tolchinsky collaborates with hi wife, the excellent illustrator Catalina Estrada, known for creating magical worlds field with colors. This couple of artists propose a refine synergy between photography and illustration, creating an aesthetical trip that pulls the viewer from reality into wonderland”

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*NOTCOT in design -

Banksy’s Village Petstore and Charcoal Grill


First super pretty NOTCOT Video… in HD even! I’m sure you’ve heard about Banksy’s Village Petstore and Charcoal Grill by now ~ we haven’t been able to stop envying those who have seen it in person, and we have posted the best photosets we can find on .org… even been debating flying out just to go see it! For those catching up, Banksy (the subversive, cheeky, street artist known for stencil art, adding art to museums, pink elephants and more) branched out into animatronics with his Banksy’s Village Petstore and Charcoal Grill

It has been so painful to see so many terrible youtube videos floating around, when i could only guess what the experience must be like in person. Since this is something that deserved to be well documented before it disappeared at the end of Oct, i commissioned filmmaker, Seth Brau, to capture the experience (especially the details!) for those of us too far to visit in the flesh… and when i got back from SF, seth had this incredible video (that i can’t stop watching!) waiting for me! He even found music that closely matched that which is playing in the actual store! Huge thanks to our friend, Daniel Holter of the Burst Collective for helping with the music.

After this incredible piece, i think we may have to see more of Seth’s work on NOTCOT soon… maybe we will have NOTCOT videos more regularly yet… and for comparison (and incase they disappear someday) on the next page you can see screenshots of the official Banksy’s Village Petstore and Charcoal Grill, as well as the Banksy vids (shot in cages/rooms other than the actual petstore).

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*NOTCOT in food+drink - 10.19.08 -

Liqurious: Bee Cool

rachels0.jpgSo i’m sure by now you’ve seen some of the many Rachel’s Yogurt ads we’ve had running on the sites… this is going to sound bizarre, but initially i thought it was crazy that a yogurt company wanted to work with NOTCOT… i actually told them that maybe after seeing/tasting it i’d consider it… and then three boxes of yogurt showed up… yes, 36 little tubs of yogurt… that’s like a fridge full! Long story short, the packaging was gorgeous (handwriting on black? love the style)… i am actually still buying the Calm “Lavender Plum Honey” flavor… and as you can see the ads look so pretty and so NOTCOT!

On a really random sidetrack, when joking around with one of our FM sales guys about Rachel’s we were so amused that a yogurt company would have Cocktail recipes on their site (their Yogatini cracked me up!), and somehow it turned into a silly dare about how Liqurious should have yogurt inspired recipes… i passed the dare on to the amazing Anita Crotty (of Married with Dinner fame) ~ and low an behold, she came up with three delicious and beautiful drink recipes! Turns our Rachel’s legal team wasn’t ready to add our drinks to their site, and after all the fun we had, i’ve decided to share them with you anyhow! Anita takes the prettiest pictures of drinks, and the ingredients that go into them! So for today, i wanted to kick off Monday with Bee Cool. See more pics and the drink recipe on the next page!

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*NOTCOT in design -

On Notebooks and Pens

notebook1.jpg On random inspiration ~ i was unpacking my bags from freshly getting back to LA ~ and realized being at a conference and sitting in talks was much like being back in school… flowing out of my bags come notebooks, pens, conference packets, scraps of paper, and more covered in scribbles and notes and doodles of an abundance of ideas!

On an even sillier note ~ i realized i’m totally obsessed with the DWR Tools for Living Press Kit that doubles as a super functional notebook that has nice stark white pages and fun super thick cardboard covers! And the Federated Media pen from the CM Summit has been great as well - both visually and functionally (so much, that i even stole dan’s). Both have been ending up in my purse repeatedly enough that i thought they warranted a random sunday post! And while i was showing you that… my “speaker’s gift” from FM was a nice and subtly branded Moleskine! Which is awesome, except playing with it during the summit, made me realize - i find a blank white piece of paper amazingly inspiring… but RULED PAPER, kind of freaks me out. I think there’s something about lined paper that is just too rigid for me - definitely a big fan of the free form. Take a look at closeups of them all on the next page!

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*NOTCOT in tech - 10.16.08 -

FM CM Summit + Macbook Pro!

mac1.jpgHi. So. I don’t even know where to start right now, in a nutshell ~ who was i kidding (maybe pretty much myself) that i would be able to work during an the all day FM Conversational Marketing Summit that our Federated Media family is putting on? I think i’ve been running around since early this morning - all day through the summit, getting to know the advertising/marketing world, meeting the people behind the campaigns we love and admire, then drinks… then dinner… then… well finally home to linhchi’s at like 12:30? Only to supposedly be up and do it again tomorrow? And be on a panel at 2?

Well you know me. I’m about to pass out (and sorry this post is a bit ramblier than usual, SO tired) ~ but i had to find SOMETHING to post and share with you! It just feels too wrong to be running around chatting with people who love our sites, and not post to do so! So, for anyone at the summit, yes, that was me… in the grass outside the cocktail reception, in that perfect sunset lighting, sprawled across the grass in a little black dress shooting pictures of our new macbook pro and macbook that dan and i might have ducked out of an afternoon session to run over to the marina to pick up. And while i am embarrassed to say that i have not actually booted either machine yet, and may not get to do the inaugural booting/transferring/notcot loading until AFTER tomorrow (how wrong is that?)… i did take a bunch of pics of the packaging and details in the grass in the presidio before getting back to “work” ~ meeting some incredibly insightful agency creatives, marketers, sales people that i’ve probably swapped far too much email with. So, take a peek at the pics on the next page, and more to come after i try to survive tomorrow…

For those at the CM Summit, come say hi at the 2pm panel i’m on? I’m so nervous! And for those not here ~ one of my biggest goals here as a publisher, is to get to know some of the people behind the ads and campaigns, and ultimately see what it will take to turn advertising on NOTCOT into as much fun as the content (really, we all know there’s no excuse for ugly, useless creative) ~ and how we can convince advertisers to support what the readers want to see more of! (On one thing i can leak… sounds like a really exciting competition with Adobe for CS4 is in the works, so get those creative juices flowing! And it just shipped today! I totally spaced on getting a copy while i was at the apple store…) As readers, any and all ideas you have on what you’d love to see more of ~ please leave a comment and i’ll do what i can to make it happen.

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*NOTCOT in design - 10.14.08 -

NOTCOT.org Roundup

notcotorg #14768 notcotorg #14869 notcotorg #14599 notcotorg #14735 notcotorg #14769 notcotorg #14602 notcotorg #14883 notcotorg #14638 notcotorg #14866 notcotorg #14743 notcotorg #14780 notcotorg #14598 notcotorg #14611 notcotorg #14832 notcotorg #14796 notcotorg #14731 notcotorg #14595 notcotorg #14621 notcotorg #14786 notcotorg #14851 notcotorg #14601 notcotorg #14757 notcotorg #14607 notcotorg #14594 notcotorg #14597 Up in SF ~ wedding this weekend, tried to take a little break, now presentation thing today, conference next two days ~ agh! Basically running around a little too crazed at the moment, so wanted to give you a roundup of the best of the last week and a half over at NOTCOT.org! You know the drill, click whatever interests you to find out more up there!

*NOTCOT in home+decor - 10.12.08 -

Venus - Natural Crystal Chair

sugar1.jpg Tokujin Yoshioka’s Venus - “Natural Crystal Chair” ~ is an incredible chair that is crystallized over time on a polyester elastomer skeleton (says Today and Tomorrow). “Second Nature” directed by Tokujin Yoshioka at 21_21 Design Sight fron Oct 17 - Jan 18. See more images on the next page!

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*NOTCOT in playful - 10.11.08 -

IKEA Mini Blue Bags

ikeabag0.jpg On silly discoveries i was probably far too excited about today ~ IKEA now has minis of those giant blue bags! The big blue ones are still 59 cents, and perfect for everything from laundry, gardening, costco, moving and more… and these new mini totes also have the double straps (long shoulder length and short handles). These little ones are only 49 cents ~ and although they weren’t actually out with the other big blue ones, asking the check out woman, she had some in her station in a drawer! Unfortunately i didn’t have my big camera with me, but here are a few quick snapshots from the IKEA Emeryville store today, and a few more to give you some context about the size (its base is pretty much about the size of a dinner plate) ~ see the rest of the pics on the next page!

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*NOTCOT in design - 10.08.08 -

APAK

1008apak1.jpg I have long been a fan of APAK, the husband and wife team of Aaron and Ayumi K. Piland. They create fantastic, colorful worlds in their work, filled with little forest creatures and quiet narratives. They live in Portland now and in Japan in the past and I imagine that their environments and cultural heritage very much influence their work. APAK’s artist statement: “They create artwork together as a way exploring the beauty, mystery, and magic of life as well as expressing their love for life and each other. They are known in particular for creating rich and colorful gouache/acrylic paintings on wood featuring the utopian lives and adventures of curious little beings living in lush fantastic environments surrounded by friendly little animals, the landscapes are familiar yet surreal, hinting at a fantastic narrative while suggesting truths about the real world at the same time.” Their work can be found here, and purchased here.

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*NOTCOT in tech - 10.07.08 -

Incase Messenger Bag

incasemain.jpg Incase Nylon Messenger Bag may be THE perfect messenger bag, their designers have figured out every tiny detail! I’ve gone through so many messenger bags (from Chrome, Timbuk2, Ordning & Reda, Tumi, a leather old J.Crew, Jack Spade, and more…) ~ but i’m totally impressed with how sleek, lightweight, and detailed this new Incase Nylon Messenger Bag is. As a 5’4” girl, it actually holds my 15” mcp and a lot of other stuff without making me look like a turtle (which is the case with my huge chrome one!) ~ the shoulder strap is sooo nicely cushioned, and brilliant detail to have the padded handle on the bag double as a key ring (good spare key stash?) ~ lots of pockets of varying depths and openings all around ~ and the biggest mystery to me when i first read about this… “plush faux fur” ~ turns out its a velvety soft lush black material to keep your iphone and laptop from being scratched! Nice that the stabilizer strap is completely detachable as well, and its a nice touch to have the large velcro pocket on the front, and that the clips on the main flap are sewn flat (not sure why that matters, but just a detail i really liked - aesthetically sleeker?). Anyhow, enough rambling from me, i took a bunch of pictures of the details for you to get a feel for it yourself on the next page!

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*NOTCOT in design -

History of Labels: Veuve Clicquot

label2.jpgHere’s another one from the plethora of pics that have been waiting to become posts ~ while traveling with Veuve Clicquot in Reims, we had a special tour in the VCP Maison de Patrimoine (think: amazing archives of the history of Veuve since the 1800’s in one room) by Fabienne Huttaux, the Historical Resource Manager. And amongst the many things she showed us (like the originals of the first shipment ever made, which was to Venice, and the first invoice to the USA, including some as movie props…) ~ i was most fascinated by the evolution of the labels! With full white glove treatment, we were shown this little book that housed every label variation since the beginning, long before the signature yellow label was even yellow… personally my favorites are the oldest ones, with elephants from the trading company logos distributing them. In addition to label imagery, you can also get a peek at the shelves and shelves of resources, as well as closer looks at some of the documents i mentioned, the typography not only on the documents but the spines of the archives were stunning, and make me wish we were still trained as thoroughly to have perfect cursive handwriting.

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*NOTCOT in nature - 10.06.08 -

Manado, Nudibranchs, and Doubilet

manado.jpg Remember those amazing photographs of nudibranchs David Doubilet shot for National Geographic where i couldn’t stop gushing about how amazing they were on pure white, like a model or product? Well in our ever shrinking world, i get an email from my globetrotting explorer of a dad, who happened to be in Manado at the Lembeh Strait on North Sulawesi, Indonesia at the Kungkungan Bay Resort scuba diving ~ with pictures of him holding the mini underwater studio setups David Doubilet used for those shoots! He even said that the resort folks were encouraging him to use them, but he decided they were too much of a hassle, but thankfully he took some pics to indulge my curiosity about the set up.

On the next page you can see more pics of the mini studio, as well as some of his scuba diving discoveries i loved ~ i’ve picked out my favorites of my dad’s nudibranchs and frog fish pics!

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*NOTCOT in me -

NOTCOT in Lucky Magazine Nov 08

luckypost.jpgIt is a total trip (for me) to open a magazine or website and see myself on it ~ i am definitely a behind the camera kind of girl? Remember that photoshoot i showed you back in august at A+R? Well the Lucky Magazine Nov 2008 issue is now out, and i’m in the Webpages section on page 54! Also on the main Lucky website and the Sites We Love section. Scans and screenshots on the next page for those who want to see! It’s awesome to be featured in a magazine i’ve actually read since inception, and has inevitably influenced NOTCOT throughout the years.

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