Atomic Arts will be staging the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Amok Time” in the Woodlawn Park amphitheater during six dates in July. Check the Woodlawn neighborhood blog for when.
Phasers will be checked at the entryway.
Technorati Tags: Star Trek, Trek in the Park, Woodlawn Park, PDX WIN, Woodlawn Nabe
Regardless of what you think of Nigeria, Russia, corporate monoliths, or petroleum, this is a canny move from all sides. Ideally, the Russians will Get Paid™, Nigeria will get petroleum reserves further developed and also Get Paid™. Win-win.
But if you were putting together a combine such as this, what would you call it? Would you take the first syllable of “Nigeria” and the first syllable of “Gazprom” and make a new word out of it? No? That would make you a laughing stock and leave a lot of people scratching their heads, yes? Talk about a tin ear. And Twitter users worldwide laughing at you, yes?
That is, amazingly what they actually did. The Partnership of NNPC and GAZPROM are to be called …
NIGAZ, which sounds similar to a word that a lot of english-speakers consider to be derogatory and offensive, is now being spread across the web as a memorable PR blunder. Users on Twitter are reported to have first highlighted the negative connotations of the word “Nigaz”.
Although the origin of the name is obvious– from the words “Nigeria” and “gaz” — the word when written down has different connotations to English-speakers.
People are still wondering why the Nigerian govenment would allow such an offensive word to be used and also speculate that the Russians allowed or ignored it because the offensive word is still widely used in Russia.
Oh, my.
This reminds me of that time that Google launched Gmail without finding out that a British financial firm already had the name which is something they could have found out with … well … a web search.
No, we aren’t making it up: here’s the BBC (as pointed to by Slate) on it.
Technorati Tags: Brand FAIL, Brand EPIC FAIL, NiGaz, Gazprom
What really strikes me at this point is the way Firefox has taken over the center spot in my web usage. Of all the browsers available to me, only the Firefox community offers the readily available tools to get the most out of my web life. I absolutely depend on the ScribeFire plugin to do my blogging, and the Fox has fewer problems with websites than any other browser that I use (I’ve used Opera and Safari – and both are nifty, but they don’t have it all. And even Safari 4 has problems displaying some content that Firefox doesn’t trouble with at all).
About the only thing I’d like to see in Firefox that it don’t have now is a PDF plugin. Having it in the browser instead of downloading and opening Acrobat is so much nicer.
I’m just a small fish but I’d sure recommend downloading this. Don’t miss out!
And dig the downloads in real-time here. Now approaching 2 Millions as this is being written.
Technorati Tags: Firefox, Firefox 3.5
Find them at 22 Free Seamless Vector Pattern Resources Perfect For Web Design on the 1stWebDesigner site: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/resources/22-free-seamless-vector-pattern-resources-perfect-for-web-design/
A nota bene: this and the last posting were inspired by Twitter users; I have misplaced exactly whose tweets I got them from. If you stumble by here and think I got them from you, just shoot me an email and I’ll give credit. Mea culpa.
Technorati Tags: vector design, web design, free vector resources
Made by designer Emma Alvarez, they are warm and friendly, using earth tones reminiscent of adobe, umbers, and cut brown summer grass. The patterns are free for non-commercial and commercial use, and it behooves to completely read the licensing terms before downloading and using.
They are .PAT files, meaning you use them as fill with tools such as the paint bucket tool. To use, unzip the file and move the .PAT file to (if you’re on a MAC) /Applications/PhotoshopCS3/Presets/Patterns (for PCs reverse thes slashes and say “Program Files” where I said “Applications”, and for the Photoshop version it’s whatever you’re running, of course). To use, select “pattern” in the fill tool you’re using, open the pattern chooser, and from the flyout menu choose “Load Pattern … “, then navigate to the Pattern folder and select the file.
Download them via the Emma Alvarez site: Summer Seamless Patters V.1, http://www.emmaalvarez.com/2009/06/summer-seamless-patterns-vol1.html, which also has complete installation instructions.
Technorati Tags: Photoshop, free design goodies, Emma Alvarez, photoshop patterns
I’m betting this is just what someone, somewhere, is waiting for.
You can read all about it (if you understand Korean) here. I love the awkward verbiage. I understand it’s in poor taste to mock non-Americans with shaky command of the English language, but I just read things like this ad saying that the cup has a hole which prevents most people from using it (just most people?) and it’s off to the races with me. I mean, should I fear the subset of people who can circumvent the hole? Which, additionally, just sounds wrong.
I admit its a weakness.
Technorati Tags: design, product design, strange products, lunchroom secruity
Todays not-victim? Rick Astley. Sure, he’s never gonna give us up, but was life giving him up? A handful of sites reported the demise of the RickRoller using, more or less, this verbiage, with a dateline of Berlin, Germany:
Known for his 80’s pop hit “Never Gonna Give You Up,” the 43-year-old Rick Astley has been pronounced dead today. Astley’s body was found at the Angleterre Hotel in Berlin after an ambulance responded to an emergency call from his hotel room.
Astley was found unconscious in his hotel bedroom and was unable to be resuscitated. He was pronounced dead on the scene.
Astley was in the middle of a concert tour that would have ended in late August of 2009. He was to return to the United Kingdom at that time.
The word apparently came from this site, a CNN stringer site called iReport. The Inquisitr explains iReport to us:
Unlike previous fake celebrity deaths, the use of CNN’s iReport gives this a little more legitimacy up front, at least if you don’t know how iReport works. iReport is open to all submissions without pre-publication review: I could submit a story saying Rick Astley is dead at the hands of an advanced civilization of alien music lovers and it would be published until such time CNN pulled it it.
(update 0115 30 Jun) The original story reffed above has been pulled. It’s now at http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-287981, and the illustration has been replaced with a video file of the opening of The Fresh Prince of BelAir. Seriously.
Another giveaway might be that the story (allegedly by AP writer Liz Sidoti) was filed at 0100 on Monday 30 June 2009. 30 June is actually today – a Tuesday.
At this point it’s almost anti-climatic to note that the surname of the writer, SIDOTI, is an anagram of the word IDIOTS.
With Rickrolling and this to his credit, Rick Astly has finally, arguably, become more famous than he deserves to be. And so it goes.
Technorati Tags: meme, celebrity death hoaxes, rick astley, rickroll
Stop the world, I want to get off. We got this one verified three ways: TMZ, Tampa Bay Online, and MSNBC.
Someone let Vince (the ShamWow Guy) know he’s king of the heap now. And who knew that Billy Mays was just as old as Michael Jackson?
Can someone shut off the Celebrity Death Ray now? It’s begun to swing wild.
This is, without a doubt, the weirdest week ever.
Technorati Tags: Billy Mays, OxiClean, Celebrity Death Ray, Celebrity casualties
It’ll be the perfect storm.
(PS: Kenny Loggins isn’t dying as far as we know)
Technorati Tags: Kenny Loggins, Michael Jackson, Mild Sarcasm, Biting Insights, Lame Humor, Kenny Loggins Is Not Dead
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