+ Kenji Miyazaki’s alligator-themed EAT wallet for Erect helps keep the environment clean by swallowing up all those filthy cigarette butts.

+ Nousaku’s versatile Flower tray acts as plate or saucer.

+ Osaka-based interior design unit Truck are holding an exhibition, “Trucking Truck #2,” at LimArt in Tokyo. Runs until February 22. JS

My husband is really enjoying being a Dad. He loves to buy our son unusual toys. Look what he found on BoingBoing today.

Attack of the 50 ft baby stacking blocks. These blocks are certainly fitting for a boy named Grayson Danger. He can pretend he is a giant baby knocking down a tall building. Wow!

Attack of the 50 ft. Baby Stacking Blocks $25.99 Target.com

One of my Name That Film pals, The Junk Monkey, has compiled a helpful, and humorous set of rules that explain how to extricate yourself from a variety of terrifying B-movie scenarios. He’s got them broken up into multiple posts, so I’ve compiled them here into a single list for all of your brief-attention span Internet needs.

1. Never Trust A Disembodied Brain. Honest, they are not to be trusted. All Brains in Jars are evil – or about to become so very very soon. And don’t think because they are in a glass jar in a laboratory they can’t come after you. It’s a well known fact that, freed from the rigours of having to do all the dumb stuff we all have to do every day, even the most kindly and beneficent of human beings will become an raving egomaniacal monster with superhuman mental powers within minutes of having their brain plonked in a jar of vaguely murky nutrient solution.
2. If You Hear A Theremin – Run! That’s all, just run. The first bit of electronicy ooooeeeeeoooooooooo! you hear, you GTF out of there. Don’t stop and look over your shoulder, don’t explore any further into the strange, still warm to to the touch, thing that landed with a pulsing light in the next door field, just run. But above all do not keep on petting in an open topped car. For some reason Theremin playing bug-eyed monsters just love hetrosexuals making out in open topped cars.
3. Make Sure People are What They Say They Are – If your husband has stopped blinking, forgets your middle name, and has to turn his whole upper body to look at you, get used to the idea that he is no longer your husband but merely an empty husk, animated by some gelatinous blob with three eyes – and get used to it fast because you’re next (after he kills the dog).
4. Throw Things At Monsters – Throw anything. When you are faced with a giant rampaging radioactive monster tearing up the commercial district, throw everything you’ve got at it. Not just the usual massive amounts of high explosives and air strikes by stock footage, or even the hastily rigged devices that deliver the entire output of the Hoover Dam through a convenient railway track; you’ll only annoy it and probably make it bigger. No, the thing to do is rush into the nearest grocery store and start throwing things at the beasty. Anything that comes to hand. Bread, salt, Cheesy Wotsits, anything. I guarantee you that within minutes you and your surviving scientist chums will be looking down at its smouldering remains saying things like: “With all the knowledge of science we were powerless. Who would have guessed that the answer lay in a simple salami sandwich…?”
5. It’s in the Old Mine Just Outside of Town! – Whatever it is, it’s in the old mine just outside of town. No need to look in the mine to check, it’s in there, just blow the bugger up.
6. Never Trust a Scientist – even if you fancy the tits off his daughter. Scientists are either mad, frustrated, would-be despots driven insane by years of scornful dismissal of their ‘life’s work’, or blinkered idealists, unable to see the inevitable consequences of their actions. Either way they end up fiddling with things ‘man is not meant to know’* and are best avoided. Especially if the conversation ever gets round to keeping brains alive in jars (qv).
7. Never Have Anything to Do With a Scientist’s Beautiful Daughter – I know this is a total no brainer but it does need saying. It’s just asking for trouble. If, on the other hand, you find you are the beautiful daughter of an ageing scientist, move to Australia (or Wales if he’s Australian). Do not, under any circumstances, accompany him on expeditions up obscure Central African or South American rivers, or anywhere else where there is even the remotest chance of encountering a gorilla.
8. Don’t Go Looking For The Cat – It will live, you won’t.
9. Always Bear in Mind That No Matter How Slowly the Shambling Thing Following You is Moving – it Will Outrun You – The actual time it will take to catch you is a complicated calculation of an inverse square law in which you have to take into account the available number of small twigs the female members of your party will trip over in inappropriately high-heeled shoes.
10. Don’t Let Caucasians Near Volcanoes – White people have an inexplicable but definite catalytic effect on long dormant volcanoes. Enter white people – exit ancient civilisation and/or dinosaurs happily living on its slopes.

Feel free to contribute your own guidelines in the comments.

[Link: The Junk Monkey Institute for Wayward Blogs]

Just got back from the UK last night. I had an interesting visit, to say the least.

Highlights included watching the entire south of England grind to a halt early this week, due to less than 2-inches of snow, the heaviest fall of the white stuff for 18 years. Lucky for me, it cleared up just in time for me to catch my flight out of Heathrow on Saturday morning. As a hardy Wisconsinite, I can only laugh at the wimpitude of this former world empire, brought to its knees by such tiny amounts of frozen water.

Unfortunately, I was unable to hook up with the Cartoonist this trip, thanks to my dodgy mobile phone not relaying his messages to meet him last Sunday, but I did manage to meet up with Tiki Chris and quaff several cocktails at the London Trader Vic’s, including an authentic London Sour, shown here complete with Union Jack and a 3-sheets-to-the-wind Mr. Bali Hai mugging for the camera. It was good, but I prefer my version in the previous post.

More photos of TV at Tiki Chris’ joint.

Blink Series II: “stripes, patches, dots & whiskers”
Original photography through the modern lens of Blinkdecor co-founder, Connie Dirvin. Organically inspired artwork, offers whimsical wall decor for children’s rooms. Limited edition color photographs presented on matte stretched canvas with gallery wrapped edges. Available with or without text.

canvas size: 20 [...]

Blink Series I: “skins in black & white”
Original photography through the modern lens of Blinkdecor co-founder, Connie Dirvin. Dramatically scaled animal photographs showcased in black & white.
Oversized stretched canvas with gallery wrapped edges. (24 x 36)

Priced individually $500, series of three $1,300.
To place order, email connie@blinkdecor.com.

[...]

Target has got another Good Buy for you. Dwell Studio has teamed up with Fisher Price to create 2 new items for your retro modern baby.

Fisher-Price DwellStudio 3-in-1 High Chair $84.00

Fisher-Price DwellStudio Bouncer $64.99

Both are at Target.com. Get ‘em while the gettins good. Free shipping too!

We escaped the NYC cold and went to visit our family and friends in sunny Orlando Florida. My mom works at Disney, as my belated Christmas present she took us to Disney World. We stayed at the Polynesian Resort Hotel.

I have been to the Polynesian before to see the luau, which is really fun. The food is ok, but the show is pretty amazing. I have always wanted to stay at the Polynesian. I love Hawaiian tiki style. When you drive up to the Polynesian you come upon this amazing waterfall pond with big coy fish and you are greeted by tikis of course. You are given a traditional Hawaiian lei as well.

more after the jump[...] Read more!

No, this is not a reflection on what we look like after a holiday season of eating our weight in dark truffles, but rather cute wall decals that somehow caught our fancy. Available in 9 color palettes, (though we prefer the B&W) each packet contains two Fatty Birds for 12€.

I collect tea lights. When entertaining, they create a festival of dancing lights in every room. Even with dozens of them that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped buying them though, and this is my latest purchase, the “Fire” tea light from Unison designed by Nathalie Lahdenmäki, it immitates the light and atmosphere of traditional Finnish [...]