Farewellcome

A Summers Day, originally uploaded by Haggis Chick.

I think I might abandon this place and leave it to naturally decay and grow weeds between the cracks. My life has changed away drastically from the original intention: from law student to bicycle commuter to craft show tycoon. I need a new space to sprawl out in, not fraught with the gravity that has accrued around the Sui Generis brand name, and disconnected from my other more public undertakings.

This blog I leave for the world and random Google searches.

But, there is another! I have started a blog elsewhere to chronicle my perilous journey into parenthood. For my family, acquaintances, and Internet friends (you know who you are) I extend an invitation: contact me, and I will send you the URL to my new webjournalspace, where you will be welcomed with open arms to the next chapter of my life. See you on the other side.

Nerd News: Spore is coming to the Mac

At MacWorld '08, EA announced that Spore will be simultaneously released on Mac and PC. That would be great news for me, because the computer I built two years ago (when some folks first thought Spore would come out) is looking less and less capable with the new generation of games that has been released since then.

Unfortunately, they're using Cider to port the game, so it's only going to run on the newer, Intel-based Macs. Which means that the G5 we bought less than two years ago is already obsolete. Oh well, that's why our family has a Mac and a PC. To play games on.

Somebody filmed an extremely short clip of the game running on Macs, but that's not exciting. What is fun to watch is this half-hour video of Will Wright speaking at NASA in January.

Wine is good

¿Nos tomamos algo?, originally uploaded by alfonstr.

In 2006, I won a box of wine from Crush, via a contest at Dr. Vino. To pay it forward, so to speak, I promised to review each of those six bottles as I drank them. But there was a problem. This wine was out of my league.

I'm excellent at enjoying wine, but ill-equipped to quantify or define the experience. The cheap wine that I'm more likely to pick up is relatively easy to differentiate: "tastes like jet fuel" for example, or "smells like feet." In contrast, I lack the breadth of experience to distinguish the nuances of fine wine.

Simply put, I knew that it was good, but I was hard-pressed to explain why it was good. And so, with apologies to the good doctor, I will happily remain an amateur appreciator and leave the reviews to a pro.

Cotton Monster

Jennifer Strunge sews colorful plush creatures "made of old recycled sheets, blankets and p.j.'s... without a pattern, so no two are exactly alike." She incorporates excellent details on these fantastic animals, like contrasting fabric textures, that make them pop. My favorite Cotton Monster species is the Bottomfeeders, like the one shown here (with mutant third eye).

Link to Cotton Monster website (found at BoingBoing).

How's your drink? (SG book review)

I like to have a martini, originally uploaded by KatColorado.

It's time to restock my bar. At about the same time I was getting bored with my strict beer and wine diet, Dr. Vino recommended an excellent little book on cocktails by Eric Felten. I used my Christmas money to buy a copy, and reading through it has made me very thirsty indeed.

Way better than a dry list of recipes, How's Your Drink? is primarily a collection of stories that highlight the origins of fifty classic cocktails. It is chock-full of interesting anecdotes, conflicting histories, and alternative recipes for mixed drinks. Now if only I had the ingredients to create tasting samples, so that I would have something to sip while I read!

Cars painted by stencil artist John Grider

1948 Cadillac Hearse. Dallas., originally uploaded by broken crow.

John Grider is an incredible artist based in Minneapolis who I've written about before, tangentially. I first saw his work on canvas, and then he branched out to huge murals on house walls. I was looking through his Flickr photostream this week, and found that lately he's been decorating cars... like this '48 Hearse, bedecked in a pile of red skulls.

If you like that, he also used his trademark goat design to embellish vans and cars, including a Saturn that looks like my old car! Except that if my car had featured a paint job by John G., I would not have sold it.

SF Zero: a reality game

beautiful photos by BlueberryMascarpone

SF0 is a web-based, collaborative, not-for-profit project. It's like an Alternate Reality Game, except that they're not trying to sell you anything and there's no overarching narrative other than the one you create yourself. It is a game that takes place in the real world and pushes the limits of the possible.

Players participate in "tasks," which are interesting actions you might not normally do. You get a set amount of points for posting your completion, and additional points are awarded in the form of "votes" cast by other players. So a particularly clever proof will gather a higher number of votes, and a correspondingly higher score. Earn enough points and ascend to the next level, where you can sign up for higher-ranking tasks, and continue to move up on the scoreboard.

Those are the mechanics of the game. But what is it really "about?" That's up to each individual player. For me it's community, creativity, imagination, beauty, art. Take a look for yourself. All scores were recently reset to zero for the start of a new Era, so it's the perfect time to join. See you in the Praxis!