MINNEAPOLIS: Where Important Things Fall Down

So apparently, the class of civil engineer that we had working the beat back in the 70s and 80s was not the type you'd care to have building, say, interstate freeway bridges and 65,000 seat domed stadiums.



On a personal note though, if this is, in fact, the death of the 'dome, it's a sad day for me. The World Series in 1987 and 1991, a couple Final Fours, four years of Gopher football mediocrity, and the 1998 NFC Championship loss of the 15-1 Minnesota Vikings to the underdog Atlanta Falcons. When I think about it that way, let it burn.

Tron Imposter Helm

This Les Ateliers Ruby motorcycle/scooter helmet is a passable aesthetic knockoff when it comes to the paint job, but let's be real honest here: any legitimate TRON helmet must begin and end with its scion: the legendary Cooper SK 2000, pictured below.

Made famous by the evergreen Mark Messier in his
professional playing career with both the Edmonton Oilers and New York Rangers, the SK 2000 was the DeLorean of hockey helmets throughout the 1980s and 90s. Still utilized by goalkeepers such as Chris Osgood of the Detroit Red Wings, the helmet's main selling point was that you could adjust the length for a better fit. A real marvel of helmet engineering.

Anyway, hopefully you can grasp what I'm getting at here, which is that the perfectly-round Spaceball model on top really doesn't look like a TRON helmet at all, which is a silly thing to get caught up in an argument about, especially when I'm sure the French designers would be all "Oh ho! Well of course we did not want to copy ze helmet exzactly. Zere is more left to ze imagination, as well as better performance and safety from a motorbiking perspecteeve." Whatever. I've made my point and educated you all about an industrial design masterpiece from the 80s.

Also, the helmet will be available from colette at some point in the future, which means it will be expensive.

Finally, you may remember that we have previously discussed some proper motorbike helmet designs by Ateliers Ruby here.

The elusive object of this post comes via hypebeast.

Tron Legacy Posters 대한민국 Style

Swagger Soccer Series Winter 2010

Some nice looking balls.





What?

via highsnobiety

Daft Punk in 3D: Dazed & Confused Mag

via hypebeast

RIP Andy Irons

Andy Irons was a three-time ASP world champion surfer. He was born in 1978 on Kuai, Hawaii. He briefly retired from the sport before rejoining the ASP World Tour this year. After a slow start to 2010, he picked up a win at the Billabong Pro Teahupoo and looked to be making his way back before disappointing finishes at the European ASP events in France and Portugal.

While waiting for swell at the current ASP event in Puerto Rico, Irons apparently contracted dengue fever and was on his way back to Hawaii when he was deemed too ill to travel after a layover in Dallas. He was later found dead in his hotel room. Currently police are investigating whether an adverse reaction to medication was partially to blame, as there were prescription drugs in his room.

I don't really have much more to say about his professional career or anything; he was a great surfer who was respected for his powerful style and competitive fire, and there's a ton of tributes in words, video, and pictures at places like Surfer Magazine and the ASP tour site.

I always found myself fascinated more by his well-documented 'dark side.' He famously walked away from the lucrative professional tour last year for what were widely suspected to be drug-related reasons. Irons himself, however, told a story of competitive burnout and lack of desire, which is the story I bought into.

Drugs are easy to blame, and the human mind is a far more complex and changeful thing than we will ever fathom--not unlike the ocean itself. Some people are at the mercy of their own mind in ways that could never be explained in words to someone who doesn't endure the same torment; the same battering swell every day of their lives. For people like that, drugs are an end, not a beginning.

Anyway, I remember reading an interview with him last spring where he discussed his decision to leave the sport, and it resonated with me for a number of reasons, not the least of which was a recent step away from my own professional field. His story interested me on a personal level, and that was moving, in a way, since I had always admired him as a surfer. I felt engaged by his ordeal.

I kept tabs on him, and found myself pleased when he decided to come out for the tour again. It is a hard enough decision to walk away from the job that makes your name, but it must be torture when you decide to come back--especially given the media focus one attracts as a professional athlete. The video I posted above is pretty much all you need to know about how he was handling his return to competition.

Andy is survived by his wife, unborn child, parents, and brother Bruce who is also a pro surfer. I offer them my condolences, and for myself, I really hope it wasn't drugs.

Out of Print

Here's a sample from a really amazing line of shirts by Out of Print, a graphic design company that re-imagines out of print book covers on t-shirts and sweatshirts.

The really exceptional part of what they do, however, is their partnership with Books for Africa, which is a charity that collects books and sends them to...Africa. Right. Anyway, the sentiment and execution combine to make a truly fantastic opportunity to sport your literary pedigree, acquire a 100% distressed cotton tee, and give children in Africa access to great literature all in one fell swoop.

Tees are $28 ($22 for kids) and sweatshirts are $38 here.


via coolhunting

Boracay: a Brief Travelogue (Part 3)

[ED: This is part 3 of an indeterminable-part series on the island of Boracay.]

In order to get from the noisy jetty port at the southern tip of Boracay to the air-conditioned bungalows on White Beach, a traveler such as myself must either brave the sweltering backwoods roads on foot, hike around the rocky shore to the southern tip of the beach, or secure a licensed Filipino to drive him. A traveler such as myself will choose the third option.

The only mode of land transport for a true backpacking impostor is the tricycle. This is basically an aluminum cart/sidecar welded on to a 50cc dirt bike running on bald street tires and watered down petrol. Top speed ranges from 2 to 15 miles per hour depending on the grade, and if you’re taller than 5’2” you’ll want to diligently brace your arm against the tin canopy and iron support frame or you could find yourself unconscious after a downhill pothole or flat on your ass in the street if you’re going up.

While you attempt to find someone to drive you, you will be accosted by people who want to sell you a place to stay. If you don’t have a place and have a knack for bargaining, you might want to try this out. If nothing else, you will have your interests zealously pursued by the man/woman who has attached him/herself to you in a way that, metaphorically speaking, is not dissimilar to an anaconda attaching itself to a capybara. If this sounds unpleasant to you, or you’d rather just find your own place to stay, say “no, thank you” frequently and vigorously to anyone who asks you anything on the quay, or just make reservations ahead of time.

For myself, I braved the cold embrace of the anaconda, and was rewarded: I wanted a quaint, simple place at the shore. With air-conditioning, of course, and a mini bar; anaconda wrestling is thirsty work in the heat of a Boracay afternoon. Also it was Tuesday, and the Red Devils of Manchester United would be facing off against mighty Scunthorpe in the League Cup. Satellite cable would be essential, as the premier sport in the Philippines is basketball, and I was sure that all the sets on the island would be tuned in to the perpetual reruns of the Seattle Storm and Atlanta Dream facing off in the WNBA finals. “Quaint and simple,” I said to the anaconda, “no need to fuss,” and the anaconda obliged.

After the jarring ride down the main road and up the narrow, winding ravine of an alley that ran between the faded pastel walls of deserted and padlocked shanties that would be packed to the gills come December, we arrived at my suite. After a quick analysis of the situation revealed my room to be almost, but not quite, the exact opposite of what I had asked for, I made my way back into the street where the anaconda swept me to and fro over the uniformly sandy and uneven cobbles to shithole after miserable shithole until, finally and without fanfare, we arrived at the final destination; the last shack on the block.

On the beach. Second floor. Satellite television. Mini bar. No fuss…? Had I been able to stomach the presence of that wretched woman for thirty more seconds, I would have attempted to explain to her, with measured words, that she had just wasted a disgusting amount of my time. After all the nonsense, I was just happy to be able to set my pack down, change my shirt, and drink all the cold beer from the minibar as quickly as possibe.

Boracay: a Brief Travelogue (Part 2)

[ED: This is part 2 of an indeterminable-part series on the island of Boracay.]

Whether by design or fortune, the descent from the clouds on a flight to Boracay from Manila will bring you suddenly out of the majestic tropical cloudscapes generated by the fluctuations of heated water and cool land and out over the blazing cobalt of the Sibuyan Sea. It is a breathtaking sight, an awesome view; a view which will suddenly be interrupted by a flash of white and brown and then a narrow stretch of green palms and jungle-covered hills before you burst out over the sea again. Then the coup des grace: The plane will bank hard to the left, and the port side of the plane, who all have their faces glued to the portholes like Augustus Gloop at the fudge shop, will have a brief, face-melting sight of White Beach, Boracay: the legendary Pearl of the Pacific. I will admit that it briefly blew my mind.

Then, my intrepid traveler, my backpacking impostor, before your grin can fade, the plane will level out, drop like a stone, and you’ll watch that soup of deep blue, sea foam, and jagged limestone teeth rise up to kiss you hello, and you may very well be a little frightened as you slam into the asphalt and gravel runway that is the dusty business end of the Caticlan airport.

Also known as the Paliparang Godfredo P. Ramos after a former congressman and native Malay (which is one of the numerous and baffling cornucopia of ethnic groups that form the population of the Philippine archipelago), this airport is something to behold. In fact, it’s not so much an airport as it is an airstrip. A very short airstrip. An airstrip which, according to my calculations and vast personal experience, is exactly long enough to avert certain disaster while landing a plane in ideal conditions.

This was not merely a case of a rough landing; the pilot was skilled and had probably made the run several hundred times. No, this was simply a case of the runway being too goddamned short for any sort of sensible use by any plane that weighed even one stowaway more than whatever it was we were toting that day. The plane stopped 20 yards from the jungle at the end of the strip and began the long (200 yard) taxi back to the “terminal.” Arrival.

The Philippines are not, by any standard, a wealthy nation. They do, however, like most tropical destinations throughout the world, attract a large number of foreign fatcats who want to soak up their sun, drink up their booze, and sex up their women (or men: Boracay has one of the largest populations of transvestites per capita in the world). It stands to reason, then, that someone somewhere would think to themselves, “Taxes. We need some fucking taxes,” and so they have.

Upon leaving Manila I was charged 250 pesos as an airport terminal fee. Upon attempting to leave the island of Panay for the nearby island of Boracay, I was charged 25 pesos for a terminal fee, 75 pesos as an environmental fee, and finally 100 pesos as my fare to actually take the banca across the channel. I paid the same terminal fees on the way back to Manila, plus another 750 pesos airport fee to leave the country. You must quickly become accustomed to the role of “rich tourist,” even if you are absolutely not, by any conceivable stretch of the imagination, rich. It’s just business baby, and you’re going to pay, somehow, some way.

Let’s be realistic though: all of that amounts to a paltry sum when you consider that similar accommodations in the Caribbean, the Med, or even Brazil will cost you a far greater chunk of cheddar. Boracay is a steal, pure and simple. 50 pesos for a cold San Miguel? Gracias, mahalo, kansahamnida. It’s all relative, and relatively speaking, it does not get better than this Pinoy wonderland. Boots on the ground.

Boracay: a Brief Travelogue (Part 1)

The week of September 19^th, 2010 was Chuseok (I think that if you say chew followed very quickly by suck, you’ll be in the correct ballpark as far as pronunciation), the Korean version of Thanksgiving. If I choose to flesh this out more at some point, I suppose I’d better look it up, but for now it is adequate to say that this holiday netted me a 4 day vacation from the unrelenting pain of working for a company that is slowly making it's turns around an emptying commode. To celebrate, I booked passage to the island of Boracay in the Philippines—a country that I admittedly know little about (and knew even less before my exploratory venture).

I know that back when Japan was King Shit they tossed MacArthur out of those islands and onto his ass, and also that there was some intense fighting that took place there as we slowly climbed back up from the bottom of the Pacific around that great fat equatorial girdle and all the way to Okinawa, just before we killed off Japanese resolve; along with several hundred thousand civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I know that Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier for the Heavyweight Championship of the World in 1975 in Quezon City, Manila. The fight could be called Ali v. Frazier III, but is more popularly known as the Thrilla in Manila. Ali and Frazier pummeled each other for fourteen rounds in that epic tilt; two great burly behemoths—both past their prime—scrapping like beachmaster elephant seals on some rocky spit of shore with nothing but their harems looking on and barking in wonder and terror. ESPN’s SportsCentury series declared the bout the biggest sporting event of the twentieth century. Who am I to disagree?

I know that there are a large proportion of Filipinos who are pretty unhappy with the political situation in their country pretty much all of the time. In fact, some of them have taken to violence if you’d believe it, and nearly every foreign ministry, state department, or foreign affairs bureau in the world will warn their respective citizenry to avoid the dicey terrorist hotspots of mainland Mindanao, where kidnapping and other less savory felonies are commonplace.

I also know that Imelda Marcos, the former First Lady, once famously declared, “I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty.”

I arrived in Manila in the sweaty morning on September 21, 2010, only to find that the Ninoy Aquino International Airport is cooled almost uniformly to around 52° Fahrenheit. I had to be nimble with my clothing adjustments as I weaved indoors and outdoors while making my way from the monolithic PAL international terminal to the slightly less austere—and far newer—terminal 2.

Here followed three of the longest hours of my life as I was told repeatedly not to leave the gate where the plane I was to have boarded x­ amount of minutes/hours ago was still clearly not present, and therefore unlikely to begin boarding in a few short minutes as the gate attendant repeatedly claimed. I was hungry and more disgruntled than usual when the ATR 42-500 turboprop finally roared up above the gritty blacktop and tin roofs of Taguig and out over Laguna de Bay. En route.

AMURRICA: The new Police State

The above image is an Orion Guardian ST820 tracking device made by an electronics company called Cobham, which sells the device only to law enforcement. The law enforcement agency to which this particular ST820 belongs is the FBI. The man holding it is not with the FBI. He is 20-year old Yasir Afifi of Santa Clara, California.

Yasir is a business student at Mission College and was born in the United States, and the details of why exactly he is being tracked by the FBI are sadly unsurprising: his father was active in the Islamic community in the Bay Area before his return to Egypt, and he's not white. Even more sadly unsurprising is the behavior of the FBI agents who came to reclaim the device after faulty installation allowed Yasir to discover it at a mechanic's shop about a week ago. From wired.com:

He [Afifi] was in his apartment Tuesday afternoon when a roommate told him “two sneaky-looking people” were near his car. Afifi, already heading out for an appointment, encountered a man and woman looking his vehicle outside. The man asked if Afifi knew his registration tag was expired. When Afifi asked if it bothered him, the man just smiled. Afifi got into his car and headed for the parking lot exit when two SUVs pulled up with flashing lights carrying four police officers in bullet-proof vests.

The agent who initially spoke with Afifi identified himself then as Vincent and told Afifi, “We’re here to recover the device you found on your vehicle. It’s federal property. It’s an expensive piece, and we need it right now.”

Afifi asked, “Are you the guys that put it there?” and the agent replied, “Yeah, I put it there.” He told Afifi, “We’re going to make this much more difficult for you if you don’t cooperate.”
...

The female agent, who handed Afifi a card, identified herself as Jennifer Kanaan and said she was Lebanese. She spoke some Arabic to Afifi and through the course of her comments indicated she knew what restaurants he and his girlfriend frequented. She also congratulated him on his new job. Afifi got laid off from his job a couple of days ago, but on the same day was hired as an international sales manager of laptops and computers for Cal Micro in San Jose.

The agents also knew he was planning a short business trip to Dubai in a few weeks.

I'm not really a tinfoil hat kind of guy, but this is clearly an insane level of surveillance for a college kid who just happens to travel to the UAE from time to time for business.

The article above references a 9th Circuit Court ruling which allows federal agents to attach tracking devices such as these to the vehicles of private citizens without a warrant. The implications of this type of surveillance are terrifying, and seem to pave the way for personal monitoring at some point in the future. American freedom has become a farce.

I encourage you to read the rest of the article at wired.com, and the 9th Circuit opinion in US v. Pineda-Moreno here.

Cité A Docks Student Housing

Great aesthetic appeal in these repurposed cargo containers near the docks in Le Havre, France. The apartments look as though they're cargo ready to be loaded on a freighter. Quite a brilliant bit of luck to find such a fitting location.

I've seen a similar structure (PLATOON Kunsthalle Seoul) up close, and aside from the obvious 'green' appeal such buildings may have, they are also quite beautiful if you're a fan of contemporary architecture.

Designed by Cattani Architects.


via contemporist

Takashi Murakami at Versailles

Japanese artist Takashi Murakami is opening his exhibition at the Palace of Versailles this week, and of course everyone and their French maid is all upset about it because his work is, well, rather the opposite of Baroque. I think you'd be an idiot to say his art belongs in the palace, but isn't it the fact that it's there anyway the fun part?

Lighten up.

Oh, also, there's a bit in this article by the Guardian which states that Royalist Activists are planning a protest. Are you serious? Royalists? The French Revolution culminated in the beheading of Louis XVI in 1793, and while there was that Napoleon fellow and a few other pretenders in the intervening years, the Third Republic was formed all the way back in 1871. Point being: get over it.

They're not burning the place down, they're just making it more fun.


images via the guardian
thx dano

The Realm of Awesome Questions

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest particle accelerator and the machine named "most likely to create a black hole just below the surface of the Earth, devouring our planet and all mankind." The LHC accelerates particles (protons, if you must know) in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light, in order to simulate the conditions in the universe around the time of the notorious Big Bang.

Heretofore, the results of these collisions have been the scientific documentation of fomerly theoretical "dark matter," a sort of counterpart to the matter we see and touch every day, and total confirmation that the badly drunk person waving a sock full of billiard balls over his head and screaming about taxes at the bar the other night was not me, but my dark matter twin.

The real question, however, the One and Only Awesome question, the Question from the Realm of Awesome Questions, is what would happen if you stuck your hand in there? Please watch the first four minutes of the video to find out.


via io9

And We're Back

After a summer to remember, Newrosis returns just in time for fall fashion, art openings, the Premier and Champions' Leagues, and random excitement galore. We missed you.

Anyway, to celebrate, here is a short film by German artist pilpop titled Little Big Berlin.

From Hypebeast:

Filmmaker pilpop channels his love and appreciation for the city of Berlin with a video titled “Little Big Berlin”. Having spent 19 years in the German capital, the city’s allure comes not only from the architecture that pilpop deems “stunningly beautiful, only its inhabitants make Berlin the unique city that it is.” The video was shot with a Sony HC9 tilt-shift lens.

Music: “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2” by Franz Liszt

In pictures: The DR Congo at 50

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) is 50 years old, and to mark the occasion, Congolese photographer Stefan Vanfleteren has "produced a series of 50 portraits that examine the state of a troubled nation." Check out some of the images at the BBC. The captions are heart-rending and reflect the impossible living conditions in the war-torn central African nation, a former Belgian colony.

KAWS at Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

A great video review of the KAWS exhibit which recently opened at Connecticut's Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Aside from Shepard Fairey, KAWS, aka Brian Donnelly, is probably the most accomplished and widely known street artist of his generation. His work has made him both comercially and artistically successful, and this exhibition, while featuring new artwork, is also a bit of a retrospective.

The video is worth the 3 minutes of your life you will spend watching it.

via highsnobiety

Nike SB Dunk High “Born In The U.S.A.”

If I still lived in the States, I'd probably never blog about something this Amurrican, but I just spent my first 4th of July abroad and I'm nostalgic and homesick, so here they are: Nike SB Dunk Highs made with denim, canvas, and victory. My country 'tis the best at summer holidays.

via hypebeast

Why I Love Football

When I was young, my grandfather and I would play football in the living room. My goal was a long, low table crowned with little blue ceramic tiles which stood against the wall under two huge plate glass windows the overlooked Crystal Bay on Lake Minnetonka. His goal was between two potted plants on the opposite side of the living room. I loved the skill of putting the ball into tight spaces with my foot, and my grandfather, the greatest teacher a boy could ask for, nurtured that love and that skill until the game became, well and truly, a deeply rooted part of my life and who I am.

In elementary school I played soccer every day that there wasn't snow on the ground. There were no nets, just six foot high by ten foot wide wooden frames out on the field behind the playground. I was lucky to learn the game along with some other children who were truly gifted athletes. At that time, organized games on my youth league team were nothing compared to these pitched playground battles. I relished the competition and camaraderie that sports created, and football especially. I learned how to dribble around a team. To pass through them. To shoot over them. I learned everything I needed to know about football on that field, and I can still picture a few magical performances on warm spring days in my mind like they happened yesterday.

After high school, I gave up playing competitively. It was probably one of the things I regret most in my life. I became unmotivated, unhealthy, uninterested, and unhappy. It took a long time for me to realize what I am writing here, and how important the game really is to me.

I never completely quit the habit, of course. I watched like a fiend during the World Cup and club football seasons. I remember screaming at the top of my lungs after Landon Donovan scored the second goal that sealed the United States' win over Mexico in the 2002 World Cup (a game which, with all due respect to the recent victory over Algeria, was the most important in our history). I remember beating the floor of my parents' living room in agony when Gregg Berhalter's last ditch effort was cleared off the line against Germany in the following game, and I remember the crushing disappointment of 2006 when we failed to qualify for the knockout stages.

The point is, I am an American, and I love football. I have loved it for almost my whole life, and the bonds that it forms between people who care about it deeply have blessed me with some of the greatest friends I have ever had, and some of the fiercest rivals one could imagine. With that said, the life of an American who loves football can be a lonely one. No one was there with me to watch the Yanks' improbable march to the 2002 quarterfinals at 3:30 on a Tuesday morning. There were no takers when I ditched studying for the bar exam to watch the Oranje dominate the 2006 group stages, and nobody was interested in blowing off work to watch the 2008 European Championships. I was actually okay with being alone though. I didn't know what I was missing. Until now.

This American team has more guts and more belief than almost any other I can remember. After the disastrous opening four minutes against England, our defense stood up and were counted against a side with some of the finest attackers in the world. After giving up early goals again versus Slovenia, we battled back to tie the game and take another point. Two points from two games where the team could easily have folded, but they didn't. They wouldn't quit.

While there was talk about draws, points, goal difference, and other lamentable necessities of breaking ties, to me the math last night was simple: beat Algeria or go home. For 91 minutes I watched in a wretched purgatory as chance after chance from the US went wide, high, off the post, or into the keeper's arms. That is when Landon Donovan, the best player on our team, showed his quality by burning down the length of the field and finishing with calm precision to secure a 1-0 win and a first place finish in Group C.

Last night I was not alone. I was with hundreds of fellow Americans who, while probably not as emotionally invested as I am, were still there and giving it their vociferous best (even if all they could muster were sporadic chants of USA! USA!). When the deadlock was broken, it was as if a dam burst. I have never experienced a reaction like that for a US game, and as absolutely corny as it sounds, it made me proud. The result was great, but the best part was, quite simply, that I was not alone any more.

Saturday may bring a win or a loss for the United States, but last night was like one of those spring days on the playground, or the afternoons with my grandfather: it is a moment that will never fade when I see it in my mind's eye. I am thankful for that.

NOW GO ON YOU YANKS! USA!

La Disgrâce Français

After behaving like petulent children for most of the World Cup, the French national team was mercifully sent home today, but not in quite the fashion in which they arrived: the disgraced team was ordered to fly economy class from South Africa back to Paris.

The move came at the request of the French FA (FFF), which has been rocked by the scandalous behavior of Les Bleus over the course of the tournament. The furor began when several French players were upset over French manager Raymond Domenech's decision on the starting lineups for the first two games.

The situation grew worse when the always-classy Nicolas Anelka referred to Domenech as a "son of a whore" at halftime during their loss to Mexico (after which he was summarily dismissed from the team).

The final crepe burst over the weekend when, after a dispute with the head trainer, France captain Patrice Evra refused to practice, as did the rest of the squad. After this last display of disunity, the managing director of the FFF resigned and left the team to return to Paris.

After a stern dressing down by the French minister of sport, Les Bleus rallied for the French people, getting embarassed by hosts South Africa 2-1 in their final tournament game. The FFF then ordered the team straight onto the bus which took them directly to the airport and out of the country.

What a selfish bunch of assholes. These people (players AND staff) are clearly incapable of seeing pictures of anything larger than themselves. I feel very sorry for French football fans who wanted to see the best players from their country put on a good show at the greatest stage one can play the sport on. You were cheated out of your World Cup experience by a bunch of arrogant, self-serving, egomaniacal jerk-offs who can't swallow their pride for four fucking weeks in order to represent their country. What a shame.

Uffie feat. Pharell Williams: ADD SUV

Somewhat inexplicably, I love this.

via hypebeast

Guillaume Nery Underwater Base Jump

A truly magical four minutes of video. Beautiful score and camera work, and oh yeah, Guillaume Nery jumps down into the world's deepest underwater sink hole. Without oxygen. Because why wouldn't he?

via hypebeast

England 1-1 USA

In a game which could have been a disaster for the US after an early Steven Gerrard strike, England goalkeeper Rob Green fumbled away two points for his side after allowing an innocuous Clint Dempsey effort to slide through his hands.

The English media have predictably crucified Green, completely glossing the fact that he kept the Americans from claiming all three points in the group match with a fine save from a Jozy Altidore effort, turning his strike off the post.

Also, I'm pretty sure its inappropriate to make comparisons between an oil geyser that is going to ruin the gulf coast of our country along with millions of lives who depend on it for their livelihood and a clumsy mistake in a football match.

Or maybe I'm just irritated I didn't think of it first.

Hawaii Makes Surfbreaks Historic Landmarks

Governor Linda Lingle signed a law into effect on June 2nd making portions of Oahu's North and South shores into historical landmarks. The measure was defeated in the legislature by what state Senator Fred Hemmings describes as partisan politics, but it was resurrected by the Governor in the form of an executive order.

The actual benefits of this seem fairly minimal, and it is more a symbolic recognition of Hawaii's breaks being deeply rooted in the traditions of surfing. I'm really not actually sure what the purpose of this is, to be honest.

According to Surfer.com, "Hemmings hopes this executive order will bring back recognition and prominence to Hawai‘i in the international surf community."

I'm no expert on the international surf community, but I'm pretty sure the North Shore is still, by far, the most famous, recognizable, and prominent series of waves in the world. But hey, way to be proactive?

via surfer

My Favorite Things

This video crams a fairly sizeable portion of my favorite things into one clip: the Mos Eisley cantina, Daft Punk, Liam Gallagher, Sir Alec Guinness as the one true Obi Wan, and Greedo getting shot (first).

A Daft Punk remix of the cantina track would've been epic, but at this point that's just being greedy, because there is a whole bunch of stuff about this World Cup spot that makes me feel warm and, if not fuzzy, at least a little less prickly than usual.

via pitchfork

Kid Cudi v. LCD Soundsystem

The Seafarer Residence by Jared Poole

Great seaside home by Jared Poole. This amazing building is located in Surfer's Paradise, Queensland Australia. The particulars:

The Seafarer Residence by Jared Poole

Location : Surfers Paradise, Queensland, Australia.
Site Area : 1390m2
Building Area : 1880m2

The composition and massing of this 3 level plus basement carpark residence was a response to the shape and constraints of it’s site. Located in Surfers Paradise, Australia, the site tapers out from a street frontage of 10m, to a water frontage of almost 60m capturing views from the hinterland to the ocean, this delivered opportunities from most off the house to provide an outlook, whilst maintaining privacy from neighbours, influencing the planning of the house.

Strongly expressed lines and flowing forms emphasize a strong relationship with the site. A balanced application of horizontal and vertical elements complement the use of framed elements to provide relief to the visual bulk of the building.

via contemporist

31 Days...

New Banksy Pieces in Toronto

"Icon" is a word that gets thrown around alot these days, and "gets thrown around alot these days" does too. Anyway, Banksy is a street art icon, and some of his work has popped up in Toronto just around the time his film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, debuted up thar. For my Minneapolis peeps, you can still catch it at the Uptown. For my Korean peeps... well, wait for the bootleg?


via juxtapoz

There's a Hole in the Bucket

Sweet pics of spillways, which are drains built into reservoirs to control flooding and erosion. I've had dreams about shit like this. They are some impressive pics, check them all out over at twistedsifter.com.


via i09

If Illustrators Designed Football Shirts...

As some of you may know, there is nothing in this world as near and dear to my heart as the game of football. As most of you probably know, football's crown jewel, the world cup, will be played in South Africa this summer. Umbro and Anomaly have collaborated with designers to reimagine seven countries' football crests.

The seven in question are the only nations ever to lift the prestigious Jules Rimet Trophy: England, France, Germany, Italy, Brasil, Argentina and Uruguay.

If you need help distinguishing what from what, at the top you have my favorite in Brasil, followed by Argentina, Uruguay, Italy, Germany, France, and England below.

Nike has a similar project that doesn't really measure up to the class and intricacy of the Umbro creations in my opinion, but they might be worth a look: go here.

via creative review

SEXY UPDATE: Video with models from each of the 7 countries. Worth your time