Mena accidentally sent me this clip this morning and I had to share it. It's about a two classrooms of young students whose teachers originally met as pen pals. The teachers set up a pen pal program for the students and their reactions are great:
Continuing this week's theme of posts about some of the art that will soon be hung on the walls in my new home
When I started working at V2 Records in New York City back in the fall of 1999, we had a roster of talented artists but no clear superstars. One of those artists was this electro guy named Moby, who supposedly had shopped his last record around and gotten rejected by almost every big label before Kate Hyman signed him to V2.
His album Play had been released the summer before I started working there, and by the end of the year it had started garnering some momentum with film and TV placements and critical acclaim. He was definitely one of our priority artists, but the explosion of Play wouldn't happen until some time in 2000. Moby was smart, funny and personable, and never threw around any attitude or ego when he came by the office.
In December of '99, as a thank you/holiday gift to the record label staff, Moby drew a version of his character "the little idiot" for each one of us. Most of the drawings looked pretty similar to each other, but he personalized mine and signed it with a heart. I'd like to think he did that because I had a little extra bond with him, but who knows.
Each staffer treated their drawing differently. I saw one assistant in the radio department had hers tacked by a corner onto her corkboard, half obscured by a magazine photo of Derek Jeter. I won't venture to guess what the execs did with theirs. I had mine framed, partly because I knew it would be a nice reminder of that time of my life and I wanted to protect it from getting lost or destroyed. And partly because it's always great to have someone I like and respect draw something just for me!
In the following months, someone at the label had the grand idea to remix the version of the song "South Side" that Moby had recorded with Gwen Stefani that hadn't made it onto the original record. A pricey video was made and people loved it. Play was re-released with that single, and almost 10 million copies of the record have sold worldwide to this date.
For a holiday gift the following year, after the explosion of his success in 2000, Moby gave us each a very nice bottle of champagne. The champagne was great, but it's the drawing that will always stay with me.
Garth Versus Peppermint Patty Dispenser from nick o'neill on Vimeo.
At first I thought the Peppermint Patty dispenser was created through the magic of video editing, but I just walked into the kitchen here in the office and experienced it for myself. It actually works! My coworkers crack me up.
Today is my birfday!
I started the morning off right with Cut Copy:
I arrived to work to find cards and a treat on my desk. I had a delicious lunch with some of my coworkers, and have eaten two desserts already today. I got many nice birthday wishes via Twitter, and was spontaneously serenaded in English and in French. Tonight, libations will be consumed. I love my friends and coworkers.
Check out the frosting-to-cupcake ratio here:
I'm interrupting my usual stream of music ramblings and dog photos to tell you a little bit about what's going on at my job.
Over here at 6A HQ lots of folks have been hard at work on the creation and launch of the new Facebook application Blog It Powered By TypePad. In fact, I wrote this while I was logged into Facebook, and was able to post it to my Vox, my TypePad and my Twitter all at once. Pretty neat.
Read all about it: http://www.typepad.com/features/blogit.html
Being back in the full time working world is quite a change! I need to dust off my rusty time management skills to juggle SFist duties, other writing gigs, shows, KB/dance, socializing, and everything else. Let's see how my new schedule affects how often I blog.
The holiday weekend was dedicated to BBQs -- Penn had one on Sunday at his house with tons of food and lots of cool people. My upstairs neighbors hosted yesterday's BBQ, with more great food and lots of nice new people to meet. I was chatting with Penny and fellow SFist Sam's name came up (via her Becks & Posh blog) and Blakely's name came up while talking to Jen. She must have heard us, because a little while later she and Xav showed up, which was a treat (even though we'd been to the Diamond Nights show together the night before). Jen has a line of fantastic t-shirts called Lacquer (sp?) that should be available at RAG soon. We watched the fireworks from Crystal and Emmett's cozy living room -- we've got quite a view here.
You have to check out the world's ugliest dog! [via SFist MattyMatt] This devil dog is unbelievably ugly.
Blagg strikes again: No Admitted Hipsters Found at 'Total Hipster Party'. It's funny because it's true.
Finally, in a gross self-referential display, I'm going to link to one of my own posts, but for good reason. I want you to scroll to the bottom of the comments to read about the idea that kind commenter Uncle Wendy shared about doing the Record Club online. Genius idea Uncle W, thanks for sharing!
