August 2008 Thirty-two posts

The Pain of Paying; Decline of Credit

Worth a read, via Paul Kedrosky: The Death of the Credit Card Economy:

This shock to the system may further damage the already-fragile psychology of the consumer. Writing a check or deducting the price of a pair of shoes directly from your bank account packs a much more potent emotional punch than charging the pair of Allen Edmonds loafers on your American Express platinum card. Chalk it up to a concept called “the pain of paying,” said Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational. (It’s a concept the parents of his students at Duke University feel every semester.) Imagine that a restaurant, rather than charging $30 per meal, charged 50 cents per bite, with a waiter standing tableside collecting after each chomp. That would be an extremely unpleasant meal. But credit puts a safe distance between the ecstasy of consumption and the agony of payment, and thus makes us feel better. Said Ariely: “If it’s more difficult to get credit, it might make people feel more pain of paying and therefore spend less.”

Nice to see this talked about. The concept that paying cash hurts more should be familiar to Dave Ramsey fans.

Rollerskating Ninjas

Perfect.

via Japan Probe.

Chris and Pensacola

(I explain the title of this entry at the end of the post–in case you were wondering)

Yesterday I drove to Union Station to see my friend Chris Greazel. Chris I’ve known for over 20 years, ever since he was the artist and I was sort of the cartoonist at my high school. He’s still quite talented, see Greazel.com.

Anyway, I had a great time. Here are some random photos from short trip to Orange County:

Here’s me entering at the transit center end of Union Station in downtown. I took Metrolink to Irvine to see him. One of my favorite places in the world is Union Station downtown. Also, I love trains. Also, it was nice to avoid traffic altogether for my trip to see Chris. Usually we meet somewhere in the middle — but time constraints for Chris have been more significant lately, so I made the trek south.

He picked me up and we headed to have some dinner. We had wonderful bento-style box dinner. I had some particularly good teriyaki beef. I don’t have photos of that, sorry. We talked about all the things we usually talk about — everything from life, kids, money, health, everything. The completeness of our communication is something I cherish. We are good counsel and ears for each other. Again, no photos of that. After the meal, we hit a Jo-Ann Fabrics store I saw on the way to the restaurant. I was itching to buy some ink, but they did not have the ink I wanted. They did, however, have these Obama and McCain masks (not pictured: H. Clinton and Bush masks):

Obama and McCain Masks at Jo-Ann Fabrics

I also nabbed a photo of Chris in front of the pens. The lighting is harsh and fluorescent, but as he said “that is how I look.” I owe him a better photo than that. Maybe next time.

After that, he showed me where he works, they have lasers there! It must be the future:

The company he works for does excellent work in laser-etching products, and he’s their chief designer. It’s impressive stuff.

After that, he dropped me at the Fullerton train station on the way home. I nabbed this spooky self-shot of me as the train north was arriving. I kind of like it.

Me with Northbound Amtrak arriving Fullerton Station

The train home was uneventful but comfortable. Before I knew it I was back at Union Station, and getting my car:

I paid my $6 parking fee, and headed home, though I did first stop at World Book & News in Hollywood to look at magazines. I am so unimpressed with how parking on Cahuenga at Hollywood Blvd has gotten harder over the years. There are many clubs and bars down there now, and you can scarcely park. That was frustrating, but the newsstand had some interesting items. After that, I headed home. All-in-all, an excellent capper on a month of vacationing.

…

Postscript: Also, Chris and Pensacola should have been “Chris and Pens” — but my terrible replacement phone, a Razr, did predictive insertion and decided I must want “Chris and pens” to be “Chris and Pensacola.”

Digital Breast Reduction in Pixar’s Knick Knack

jwz has all the details on the breast reduction that took place in the re-release of Knick Knack. I remember seeing Knick-Knack at a computer animation festival and at other animation tournees in San Diego and I do remember the original version. In fact, I think I have a VHS tape with the original versions from a Pixar short release.

How much of a breast reduction did the toys get? The screen captures tell the story best:

Before:

After:

Again, the full details are available via jwz.

Animation: Initial energy lost in final product

This is a problem in all the arts, I think. The energy of a a musician’s demo is higher than the final recorded song. A sketch is more fun than a final drawing. It’s acute here in the storyboard and the final rendering from the new film Bolt: Funny commentary from Cartoon Brew:

Vote for Abigail for Southwest Blog-o-spondant

Abigail, who runs a pretty great blog, is trying to blog for Southwest Airlines. She’d be great at this:

Here’s what she just posted:

I have submitted a video application for the Southwest Airlines Blog-o-spondant. It’s a really cool blogging gig and I really, really want it. I kind of think it’s perfect for me, too.

But head on over HERE! to vote!

So get over there and vote!

Site Launch: The Prosser Group

I worked with Ron Prosser, CEO of The Prosser Group to get this site built this week. It’s a relatively straightforward site. It’s a rare occasion that I do design these days, but this was a fun one to build, and a nice piece of freelance work. Nice when a site can come together quickly.

Image hosted on Flickr

Penetrators: Shopping Bag

Another piece of culture I’d never seen, via PCL Linkdump. I had heard of the band Penetrators but I’d never heard anything by them that I was aware of. The video is nearly perfect in its chaotic silliness. The song has a perfect hook too.

Web Anthropology, particularly YouTube

Anthropologist Dr. Michael Wesch talks about Digital Ethnography. He puts YouTube in perspective and reminds me I love it despite the fact that one needs a tool like Comment Snob sometimes to appreciate it.