I recently spent a lovely evening in with Adobe, Google and Wordpress and Firefox, where we toiled endlessly, working together to finally settle on a few lines of simple code that we could all agree with.

Internet Explorer couldn’t make it, but although it wasn’t outwardly spoken, I think we were all quite glad.

The result was simple usage of Wordpress Custom Fields to display a link/word/sentence/tweet/image/article/whatever of the day. Not the worlds greatest truimph, but a real demonstration of Wordpress’s versatility. I plan to experiment a bit further with these, so I’ll be writing a quick & easy tutorial at some point in the future.

From now on I’ll be attaching these tidbits to blogposts where I can,  I hope they will be of some interest/use.

Meanwhile, I also added a new design to urban breakdown:

Natural Born Chiller!

I’m told that @missandrealuise is most embarrassed about the phrase being her former hotmail address, but I insist that this made her the coolest 13 y/o I have ever heard of.

I’ll be buying one in hood form to lounge about watching pretentious subtitled films in.

Gotta go, there’s a week ahead.

C.

Happened across this yesterday via Mashable; productivity tips for freelancers and web workers.

It’s inspired!

A supreme, mind focusing notepad which is really satisfying to use.

I’m using Q10 for Windoze, but a near-identical Mac alternative is available here.

C.

Chillin'

An alien subtance has infected our pavements. What is this stuff? It’s so quaint, friendly, pretty and pleasing but plaguing. Quickly, someone press the pause button before the world breaks.

Where are my cosmic boots, I need to float. There is nothing else for it, Polly…

Marvellous isn’t it.

There is not an atmospheric phenomenon embraced so gleefully as a hefty snowfall. Everyone loves getting their cosy hats out and throwing a cheeky snowball. There is also nothing as satisfying as landing that snowball precisely in your friends face.

But.. Our entire country has been swallowed by fluffy white stuff.

Unbelievable “chaos”.

Birds going hungry. Itching punters devastated as bookies slash the odds against a record temperal low this month.  Gordon Brown gets hit in his good eye by God’s snowball. Shock as 4×4’s become useful. Severe delays, suspensions and closures on the London Underground.

I didn’t know it snowed underground. Although as one twitterer pointed out, not everyone was so panicked. No fuss in Albert Square.

We don’t want to learn. We’ve seen snow - and the accompanying headlines - many times before.

“£3billion cost of shambles in the snow”

Gloom. The media are only bitter because while the world around them conspires to boycott work, dig out sledges and make igloos, they’re sat admonishing their existence, reeling at photos of revellers and their snowmen, cursing away at a keyboard ‘cos the presses don’t stop. Somebody needs to galantly struggle through adversity to point out that we, and our possessions, are under attack from an evil cold dust.

I hope it does continue all week.

They did manage to outfox some of it though, I’m on a train homebound. Unfortunately all I could find was the Daily Mail, albeit containing this chilled out snow-dude.

My only bugbear is that I’ve been so suitably nested elsewhere for the past three days that I didn’t have my DSLR handy. Bleh.

Tschus.

C.

/iphone

Views on hip-hop are quite steeply polarised. Either you happily embrace and stroll with a moderate-to-excessive swagger, or you bemoan the “gangsta sh*t” and cower at youths rocking hoodies. Listen/detest.

I don’t disagree with either, though arguably one side of the story may be more fundamentally flawed more than the other. I won’t go into that now, but I’m not hinting at the detesters.

Anyhow, since almost every hiphop artist in existence sold out to the mainstream and spoilt our music channels, there hasn’t been too much considered content, or quality, or booming from the ghettoblasters.

However.. I can’t express in how high regard I hold CYNE. Ask my last.fm.

Cultivating Your New Experience.

They can cultivate yours too, whichever side of the fench you sit on..

Four members; two producer and two emcees, their music is a modern, personal and ultimately original take on the real essence of the genre. Glorious to my soundwave.

Talented poets and musicians, hiphop is just a medium.

Without further ado, ladies and gentleman, please welcome to the stage…

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Five choices. That was not easy.

_

P.S. “do you really see what I really am or just what I project to be?” (-Fuzzy Logic)

Oh…. Damnit.

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The YouTube clip-frame on her homepage looks like the beginning of a womens tennis interview, but this is Jen Stark, goddess of colour.

Really digging her work. It must be devastatingly painstaking, but such innovative use of materials, creating some beautifully balanced, hypnotising colour compositions.

I love the abstract, twisting shapes, the use of the negative space, and the vibrant energy of her work. I even like the, err, Stark contrast of her website which frames the portfolio so aptly.

Here are a few examples. Go check her out.

Artwork

Sculpture

C.