Petjafied

The venerable Something Awful has an occasional feature called Fashion SWAT, which began as two guys riffing on ridiculous haute couture and has morphed into two guys riffing on "street fashion" sites like The Sartorialist:

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/fashion-swat/

Yeah, a lot of it is shooting fish in a barrel, but their snark can be pretty quotable ("I would have to define this look as timeless. There is no time where looking like this has ever been appropriate.") and in general it's a lot smarter than one would expect from an SA product.

Recommended If You: used to love Vice's Do's and Don'ts, but feel like they've become lazy and inscrutable. [Vice recently ran a Do that was just a picture from one of their own fashion spreads...what the hell?]

Anyway, recently they took on Hel-Looks, a street fashion site chronicling the looks on the street of Helsinki:

http://www.hel-looks.com/

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/fashion-swat/hel-looks-swat.php?page=1

Anyway, I told you all that to point out their take on Petja, "the most awesome motherfucker I have ever seen" who designs and makes his own clothes:

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/fashion-swat/hel-looks-swat.php?page=11

Everything about this--from the guy himself to the hilarious commentary--blows me away.

[Thanks, Molly!]

Affluenza: February 20

Unrelated: there's a total eclipse of the moon happening in a couple hours:

http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/LEmono/TLE2008Feb21/TLE2008Feb21.html

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An alarm clock that gives money to your enemies every time you hit snooze:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/snuznluz.shtml

(Thanks, Ben!)

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A very clever Murphy bed set-up:

http://www.clei.co.uk/clei/atoll.htm

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Bocina Watering Can:

http://www.roadsidescholar.com/2008/02/18/bocina-watering-can/

I like this, but the more I look at it, the more it looks like one of those things hippies use to clean out their sinuses.

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OMG WTF:

http://www.mossonline.com/product-exec/product_id/42972

Two candles in the shape of Classical sculptures, wearing sunglasses for some reason, and only...eight hundred dollars!

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Hamburger-shaped lunchbox, with three compartments:

http://www.shophappytrails.com/Hamburger_Shaped_Lunch_Box_p/burger.htm

Elian

There are lots of invented writing systems out there. They replace our Latin letters with letters of the inventor's own design, creating a simple cypher:

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/conscripts.htm#english

Most of them, as you can see, are impractical or, worse, ugly.

Elian, however, is a shorthand that's quick to learn, easy to write, and simple to remember. Even better, it was designed to be beautiful:

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/elianscript.htm

Its simplicity also allows it to be incredibly versatile, resulting in gorgeous calligraphy that's also easy to read:

http://www.ccelian.com/concepca.html

(Study these two links well...beginning tomorrow, Baby Ruthless will be exclusively written in Elian.)

The Voice Of Music

The Danish composer Carl Nielsen, writing as the voice of Music:

"I live tenfold more intensely than any living thing, and die a thousandfold deeper. I love the vast surface of silence; and it is my chief delight to break it."

Just Fucking Google It

One of the more useful websites I've seen lately:

http://www.justfuckinggoogleit.com/

"Using http://www.justfuckinggoogleit.com/search.pl?query=foo+bar will show this page and then redirect users to the Google page for searching on 'foo bar', as will many other variants on that idea."

God, engineers are terrible writers. What he's trying to say with that 'foo bar' nonsense is, if someone asks you the difference between i.e. and e.g., send them the above URL, but replace 'foo+bar' with 'ie+eg'.

Stuff White People Like

This might be my favorite website of all time:

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.org/

A good criteria for Baby Ruthless: is the website Johnny wants to link to so well done and funny that it makes him angry and depressed? It is? Then post it on the blog!

Affluenza: February 13

Get out the smelling salts, these two-tone boot are about to knock you right the fuck out:

http://www.notcouture.com/post/1576?goto#1576

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Roman Candles:

http://www.worldwidefred.com/romancandles.htm

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John Denver's dresser now for sale:

http://www.bobbyberkhome.com/product/occasional-tables-bookcases/9792/bobby-berk-home%99-rustic-3-drawr-dresser.html

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It's A Log You Idiots, part of a continuing series:

http://www.iloveuma.com/detail.aspx?ID=1107

http://www.stlloftstyle.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=969

(I actually really like this second one. Massive!)

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Affluenza, definition of: mattresses from Vera Wang...

http://www.serta.com/vw/index.php

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Drop dead gorgeous suitcases from Alstermo Bruks:

http://www.belowtheclouds.com/2008/02/08/klassiska-vaskor-fran-alstermo-bruk/

I could not want these more.

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I'm not sure if making the front slanty counts as a "toaster concept," but here's GE Houseware's attempt:

http://www.contemporist.com/2008/02/05/slanted-toaster/

Hey, GE! *This* is how you fuck up a toaster:

http://www.madeindesign.co.uk/prod-Toaster-Virages-refb2244n.html

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CoutureLabs' cool leather coat rest:

http://www.couturelab.com/products/product-2166-127.html

The Slide No. 5

Miuccia Prada has a slide in her office that whisks her to her car:

"It's hard to tell from the outside of the Milan-based headquarters that Prada is one of the world's most successful luxury brands. You enter Prada through an anonymous portal-like oak door—there is no name, no plaque, nothing—and are greeted by a security guard dressed in gray. Everything is gray: the security office, the cobblestone courtyard, the various factory-like buildings surrounding it, and many of the cars parked in it. The only thing that gives the place away is the guard's uniform: it is not the typical formless security garb but tailored Prada with its stark—some would say neofascist—lines.

"I was taken to a room I had read about often. It is officially Miuccia Prada's office, and it is as stark and contrived as her designs: poured concrete, a slew of orange and yellow molded plastic Eames chairs; and, sticking up in the center of the floor, a metal tube slide—by artist Carsten Holler—that runs three floors down to the parking lot and is titled The Slide No. 5. Prada has whizzed down it when asked to by reporters."

from DELUXE: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, by Dana Thomas

Affluenza: February 6

GumDesign's cool Swing wine glass:

http://www.dezeen.com/2008/01/31/swing-and-shadow-by-gumdesign/

(That Shadow wine glass on the same page is fucking retarded, however.)

Wouldn't a better name have been Swirl?

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Not quite a Toaster Concept, but close enough:

http://www.mcphee.com/items/11806.html

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The Go-One enclosed recumbant tricycle:

http://www.go-one.us/index.html

Eleven large!

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Keyaki Wood Tea Cups

http://www.raredevice.net/item.php?item_id=207&page=1&category_id=19#

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The Nestt (sic) car seat, from Think Thing:

http://thinkthing.net/products.html

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Great photos of the Thomas Pink shirt-making process:

http://www.debonairmag.com/luxuries_exposed_-_custom_shirts_by_thomas_pink.htm

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Why?

http://nickpapageorgia.blogspot.com/2008/01/karine-arabian.html

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WHY!?

http://www.virtualshoemuseum.com/vsm/o.php?id=138&col=person&sub=54

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Octopus Studios' "Silverfish Aquarium:"

http://www.octopusstudios.com/aquagallery.htm

Pretty cool, but as Joel Johnson rightfully points out over on BB Gadgets, I'd feel a lot better about paying three large for an aquarium if the base didn't look like something you'd get at Wal-Mart...

Hemingway's Six Word Short Story

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.