So ever since I moved to southern California after the dot-com crash, I’ve (had to) make some changes. I modified the hairstyle a bit, changed favorite watch brands (needed the surfer feel), revised the wardrobe and also gained taste in different artists. Two artists that I was introduced to were Dave Kinsey of Kinsey Visual and BLK/MRKT and Shepard Fairey of Obey.

Long story short, I finally acquired a print I’d been searching for over the past few years. It’s the 2002 Lebowskifest print that was designed to promote the (2002) annual gathering and celebration of the 1998 movie The Big Lewboski featuring Jeff Bridges (which has has rather large cult following). The print by Shepard Fairey is based on the Oliver Atkins 1970 photograph of Richard Nixon. A copy of the newest edition to my collection is below.

2002 Obey Lebowski Fest (mission finally accomplished, great way to end 2007!)

Another favorite picee of my collection is the 2005 Monkey Pod. This print is based on a tree in Hawaii and was commissioned by The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu.

Lastly, I can’t get enough of my 2006 Guns and Roses print. Not only a great band, but a great political statement. This print is based on a 1970’s propaganda piece put out by the Chinese Central Art Academy that included text which translates in English to “Government is Established Through Guns!”

Adriaan Pienaar a Design Strategist (and Wordpress Rockstar) down in Cape Town, South Africa has voted my blog as #26 in his 53 Top Blog Designs of 2007. Look for a mini interview with me on Adriaan’s site in early 2008.

Markdown is a “text to HTML conversion tool” developed by Jon Gruber. In 2004 Milan Negovan originally ported Markdown to ASP.NET (c#), however there hasn’t been much movement on the project since then. When recently implementing the library in a new content management system I noticed there was an issue with generating hyperlinks (anchors) targeted to new windows (target=”_blank”). I made some updates to the library so it now works with external links as well as giving it a boost to the .NET 2.0 Framework. Feel free to download the revised library here.

Below is an example of the syntax to capture both internal and external links:
[This would link to the contact page of my site](/contact)
[This opens a new window to Google](http://www.google.com)+

Friday night I had the pleasure of seeing cake at the Orpheum in Los Angeles. My good pal Victor celebrated his last day at Juxt Interactive so we thought it would be a good way to celebrate new beginnings. I have to say the acoustics and sound at the venue was by far the best I’ve heard in years. If you haven’t picked up their latest release of B-Sides do so, and catch the Unlimited Sunshine tour in a town near you.