Dane and I were brainstorming the other day, and something pee-inducingly exciting occurred to us. The best job in the world, if you’re a creative, would probably be writing/producing Sesame Street. Bear with me.
Sesame Street is like Saturday Night Live in almost every regard, except people don’t judge you as harshly, and you get to teach kids things.
But it’s exactly like SNL in that you have nearly unlimited access to any actor, politician, or public figure; and you can make them do almost anything. You could actually probably get away with more on SS. Picture Dame Judi Dench dressed up as a talking tree on SNL. Doesn’t work, does it? But she’d do it on SS without batting an eyelash.
And I imagine the writer’s room at SS being filled with Macs, toys, candy, and poster of Nelson Mandela on the wall. How much of a freaking dream come true would that setup be?
A sampling of what you can get away with as a writer/producer on Sesame Street (I want in):
This entry was written by , posted on October 21, 2008 at 2:13 PM, filed under Aspirations. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
No words. No words. They should have sent a poet.
Download them here.
Via Better Living Through Design.
This entry was written by , posted on October 18, 2008 at 3:30 PM, filed under Excitology. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
These guys could be father and son.
Something I noticed last night while watching the debate is that if Bill Paxton were about 20 years older, a little fatter, and ran himself through a meat processor, he’d look a lot like John McCain.
Has anyone heard of any intentions on casting Paxton in a biopic?
Compare these youtube videos:
McCain’s most recent ad (as of this writing)
This entry was written by , posted on October 16, 2008 at 12:24 PM, filed under Excitology, Film, Politics. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
This guy knows how to get excited. I want to be Nathan Myhrvold, but with a different voice.
This entry was written by , posted on October 7, 2008 at 9:00 AM, filed under Excitology, TED. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
photo by gabo2
When I turned 21, I vowed I would make a journey to a foreign land at least once a year. And while I’ve gotten older and poorer, I’ve managed to keep that promise. Today, I leave for Barcelona, and am beyond enthused about my inaugural trip to Spain.
Anyone have any recommendations? I’ll be checking the email, so you can comment on this thread.
And I’ll keep posting while I’m gone.
Much Love, N.
This entry was written by , posted on October 5, 2008 at 12:00 PM, filed under Travel. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
INAUGURAL SERIES: E2 Blogs will be an occasional celebration of great blogs around the blogosphere. Some you will have undoubtedly heard of (others, not). I won’t let that daunt me in my desire to spread excitement.
You know when you read a really cool magazine article that has a radical sabbatical concept car, or nose hair trimmer, or dog leash? And you’re like, “I want it, but it’s locked away in a bunker somewhere and costs $700B.”
Yanko Design is a non-stop kaleidoscope of these things. Some featured items are conceptual, others are ready for market. But Yanko does a great job of reviewing and highlighting one of mankind’s greatest pursuits: hot ass design.
Like this cooking appliance. Or this teapot. Or this prosthetic leg.
Visit the blog. Get excited.
This entry was written by , posted on October 4, 2008 at 10:15 AM, filed under Design. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
image by Robert F. W. Whitlock
There’s a lot to be said for people who take on massive projects, barrel forward, ignore criticism and uncertainty, and change the world. But they sometimes fail. I’m not just talking huge life saving projects-this can be applied to simple, everyday objects and industries.
So while Al Gore’s Apollo-style mission to get the US off fossil fuels in 10 years is wonderful, there are often softer, simpler, cheaper, and surprisingly effective ways of making change by thinking outside the box.
Like the fact that painting every roof in the United States white would reflect solar energy, decrease energy consumption and carbon emissions, and save “$1 Billion USD” annually.
Globally, roofs account for 25% of the surface of most cities, and pavement accounts for about 35%. If all were switched to reflective material in 100 major urban areas, it would offset 44 metric gigatons of greenhouse gases, which have been trapping heat in the atmosphere and altering the climate on a potentially dangerous scale.
That’s exciting.
Via Treehugger
This entry was written by , posted on October 3, 2008 at 7:07 PM, filed under Green, Simplify. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
If you don’t like TED talks, then don’t read this blog. TED is like centralized pixy magic meets Steve McQueen. If you don’t know about TED, find out more here.
Moving on, I’d like to post some of my favorites to help inspire you, and this talk by Benjamin Zander on music and passion is the just the right 20 minute antidote to fatigue and ennui.
This entry was written by , posted on October 2, 2008 at 5:00 PM, filed under Music, TED. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Yes we 101001010111
When you mix two of my favorite things together, like say democracy and technology, I piddle on the carpet like a hyper chihuahua. I love it. And technology is doing things for democracy that would make Thomas Jefferson join me in my pee.
Today, an iPhone app (don’t even get me started now on the iPhone, I’ll spend a month on it) debuted that shows Barack Obama’s campaign really gets this technology thing.
Obama ‘08 is your official, comprehensive connection to the heart of Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s campaign, giving you the tools you need to make an impact and stay in the know…
Oh, and you can make donations from your iPhone as well. This might kill my checking account in the same way the iTunes store did.
UPDATE: There is a feature that lets you organize calls to your contacts. It takes their area codes and breaks them down by state. Swing states first in order, of course. How hot is that?
This entry was written by , posted on at 11:31 AM, filed under Politics, Technology. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Dear everyone,
Sh*t is going down. Is it not? I mean wild, knuckle whitening, I-want-to-do-shots-of-Listerine-if-only-it-were-to-mean-I-didn’t-have-to-pay-attention-to-what-is-going-on-in-the-world sh*t.
I find it easy to get angry when I look at the world right now.
This blog is dedicated to the pursuit of remembering that there is a whole helluva lot to be excited about. I find it easy to get over-excited. That’s just me.
So join me while I try to help myself remember all the wonderful things there are to be excited about.
-Nick
This entry was written by , posted on October 1, 2008 at 5:57 PM, filed under Letters. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.