On Saturday Mrs. Kyality and I went on a double date with the older two Kyality Kids… dinner and a movie. After we snagged some pork barbacoa and kid’s quesadillas at the Rio, we rolled in the Clubman—sunroof open—over to the District to see Pixar’s tenth full-length feature: Up. The District is rad because you can pre-purchase your actual seat so I snagged four front and center seats for a Digital 3D screening and we got there just as the previews began, which are apparently also shown in 3D. Did not know that.
I’ll just say it. Up is a straight up gem. It is an utterly original story that is literally unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, though it properly ties in subtle allusions to flicks like Star Wars and Indiana Jones. The most amazing thing about Up is the insane amount of trust it has in the audience. The doods at Pixar truly leave it up to you to connect all the dots, write your own back-story and fill in all the blanks, which are many—but that’s a good thing.
By leaving a vast majority of the exposition up to us, they were able to focus all their efforts on developing rich, amazing, original characters. These characters are an unlikely bunch that endear you through a mind-bogging amount of on-screen chemistry. Up is the ultimate example of show, don’t tell. Never once do you feel talked down to or hit over the head—Up simply invites you along for the ride and trusts you to keep up.
Technically, there’s yet another level of richness in respect to the characters. Up takes the “plastic doll” character design style pioneered by The Incredibles to the next level and strikes the perfect balance between life-like detail and surrealistic caricature. Just watch the details in Muntz’s face as Russell slides across the airship’s window while clinging to a garden hose—it’s seriously amazing.
So see this one on the big screen for sure, but in all honesty, no need for the Digital 3D version. It isn't U23D. This movie is as rich as it needs to be without things constantly jumping off the screen.
So in the quest for the perfect bike for Mrs. Kyality, which is looking more and more like an Electra Townie, I've stumbled upon a slew of beyond hip retro bicycles. The two that have stood out the most are both from European companies: Retrovelo (above) from Germany and Pashley (below) based in the UK.
I'm not really sure what it is, but these bikes are totally inspiring to me. I dunno if it's their retro-modernism, their pure, classy simplicity or maybe it's just that they're ultra photogenic. It's prolly just good design. What I do know is that if money was no object, the Mrs. and I would surely be rolling on these bikes and we'd prolly need a full-time nanny for the kids so we could ride them and we'd obviously have flats in both London and Munich by little markets—we'd need to ride them somewhere, right? Oh, and we'd need a Learjet so we could go back and forth between continents with our Euro-hipster-velos... again, if money was no object : )
Mrs. Kyality and the Kyality Kids outdid themselves for Father's Day this year. Check out the goods they delivered. I was fully covered with everything from duds to reading material from music to a movie... another holiday in true Kyality style. They scored me the handy dandy How Tie™, which I can't wait to wear (instructions included). As for reading material, I got Frank Miller's classic graphic novel: Batman: Year One, the prequel to his legendary take on the Caped Crusader. And finally, I scored the rockumentary: I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, which obviously counts as both music and a movie. This amazing black and white doc, directed by Sam Jones and produced by Helvetica and Objectified director Gary Hustwit, chronicles the beyond-eventful creation of Wilco's amazing Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album. It is a must-see for any music or doc junkie. Click here to see them up close.
So, will somebody please help me convince Mrs. Kyality that she should get this bike? We've been investigating ladies bikes for a few months now and we've hit a bit of a brick wall. Growing up in a bike family, you kind of know that a decent bike is definitely gonna be in the $400+ range. Otherwise, you’re relegated to a big box solution at the Targets of the world. But when searching out a stylish women’s bike for a gal/mamma who hasn’t ridden for a long time and isn’t so sure if a new bike would even be ridden for more than a few times a month, a $400 - $700 price tag can be a definite barrier of entry. I just think this Electra Townie Euro 8D in Cadet Blue would be a rad rod for the Mrs. to cruise on despite it being bucks deluxe.
MINI just released this Limited Edition JCW celebrating 50 years of the Cooper Company winning the F1 Championship. I'm totally digging this true British racing green and blacked-out rims. I could rock this car for sure and... man, do I miss my bi-xenons.
Earlier this week Mrs. Kyality successfully guilted me into finally building the new IKEA dining room table I’ve left sitting in its box for the last 3 months—there were just so many screws! But it turned out to be a great thing—not only did we end up with a sexy new table for the Kyality Kids to trash, it gave me the chance resurrect the multi-talented 90’s indie rock band Grant Lee Buffalo and stream them back into my regular listening rotation.
Lead and voiced by the instrumental wizard Grant Lee Phillips, The Buff—as I like to call them—apparently ruled much of the underground LA music scene throughout the 90’s under then careful tutelage of the Godfather of Alternative Music: Michael Stipe. Their sound is defined by a combo of heavy-duty electric and steely 12-strings and a rich mix of other diverse instruments like rockin’ accordions and a deep dark upright bass.
Upto12 introduced me to GLB jut over ten years ago and when the powerful and haunting opening chords to the anthemic “Jupiter and Teardrop” (thanks m.) from their debut album Fuzzy lit up our little JBL On Stage speakers, a flood of memories and awesomeness came rushing back. The album rocked so hard, and the table took so long, that I ended up nearly listing to their entire discography including: Mighty Joe Moon (amazing title track by the way), Copperopolis (apparently not on iTunes) and Jubilee. Check them out, you won’t be disappointed.
A somewhat terrifying red-headed co-worker of mine forwarded me this awesome Flickr stream of Star Wars ABC flash cards! The artist is Michael Fleming (a.k.a. tweedlebop). These classically designed illustrations feature some of the more obscure characters of the Star Wars universe including cards such as: P is for Porkins and B is for Bantha. Enjoy!
When I was in fourth grade, I was watching cartoons one afternoon and caught a commercial for an all-new Star Trek series called: The Next Generation. I vividly remember trying to convince my parents to leave Shop Rite quickly one Saturday afternoon so I could get home and catch the full two-hour pilot episode. We made it just in time and I was hooked. Okay, I’ll admit it. For the next decade I was a frequent watcher of the various Star Trek series. I can easily say that they totally inspired me to eventually go to film school.
However, ever since high school, I just haven’t been interested in Star Trek much and let’s face it, nothing too exciting has been happening with the franchise… until now. Last summer, when the first Star Trek teaser hit the big screen prefaced by the Bad Robot bumper, you had to know something special was about to happen. Imagine, the Star Trek universe skillfully wielded in the hands of one of today’s modern mystery masters.
Well, Mrs. Kyality and I caught it last night and of course, JJ’s take on Star Trek was nothing less than spectacular. It was a tight narrative that was emotionally compelling but didn’t take itself too seriously. Even the parts that were a bit cheesy were cheesy in a good way. But every detail was considered, casting was spot on and the film was just straight up beautiful. In all honesty, I’m ready to see it again right now. Now stop reading here if you haven’t seen it yet!
The most amazing aspect of this flick is that it was utterly Abrams. Within the opening seconds, JJ pulls an epic Alias Season 2-style twist with a bit of LOST-ian (yes, it’s a term) time travel, which immediately skews the entire film into an alternate timeline from The Original Series that we know and love. What’s simply brilliant about this move is that all of a sudden JJ isn’t required to be bound by the dogmatic Trekkies who demand strict and constant adherence to the holy canon of Trekness. JJ frees himself to play with these classic characters in completely new and intriguing ways. Like I said, fa-reaking brilliant.
So this now beckons the question: do the LOST-ian rules of time travel apply in JJ’s version of Star Trek? I mean, if you’ve been following the radical dialog between Hurley and Miles in this season of LOST, we already know that the classic Back to the Future rules don’t apply. So again the question is, do JJ’s rules of time travel apply across the entire Bad Robot spectrum? If so, according to Miles’ explanation, JJ’s Star Trek is actually a sequel rather than a prequel. Whoa, just blew your mind, didn’t I!
So MINIspace.com recently launched a competition. Now they host competitions all the time, but they're usually contests to design cool background pics for their site or something like that. This one however was different, this competition has Kyality written all over it. Here's gist: write a story about your adventure in the new MINI Clubman + Airstream concept in 250 words or less and at the end of the month you could win a set of four Fritz Hansen Series Seven Chairs.
I watched carefully and after seven lame-o entries were posted, I posted mine:
Camped last night at the Seven Sacred Pools just outside Hāna, HI on the far side of Maui. Went spear fishing this morning, caught a big one. We loaded the custom Airstream, strapped our gear to the rack and fired up the matching Clubman, taking the Hāna Highway back to Upcountry Maui. We’re gonna watch the sunset from Haleakalā Crater.
The Clubman handles the Hāna Highway‘s 620 bends and curves with flawless precision, powering through even the tightest of hairpins. The Airstream follows close in harmonious synchronization. Though they are two entities, they travel as one. Together they pass distracted tourists in cheap rental cars with ease. We catch momentary glimpses of about a dozen waterfalls, but let’s face it—they’d only slow us down.
Once we exit the rainforest, we begin the trek up all 10,000 vertical feet of Maui’s grand Haleakalā Crater. Switchback after switchback is quickly chewed up by the fine-tuned turbo lurking beneath the Clubman’s bonnet stripes. We dodge downhill cyclists with sharp and immediate feedback from both the Clubman and its load. We reach the summit and pop the Airstream’s hatch to lounge in our “Fritz’s” just as the sun begins to dip itself into the Pacific.
We’re surfing Pāʻia in the morn. A cold wind picks up. We grab our fleeces; damn I’m hungry. I think about the fish we speared this morning. Luckily I brought some seaweed, sticky rice and my Kasumi knives. Sushi anyone?
As soon as mine was posted about 20 more went up quick—ALL of them in a narrative format. Blimey. Freaking copycats! Come up with your own format. Sheesh. And Upto12, if you post something better than mine, so help me...
Sorry D-mode. That's not a camper. Now THIS is a camper!
As of this past January TV season, Mrs. Kyality and I have completely switched over to watching shows online. Yes, we’re still dual-wielding our Bluetooth Might Mouse and Apple Remote from the couch. But other than LOST, which is exclusively shown through ABC’s very nice Full Episode Player, we watch ALL of our shows on Hulu. These currently include: The Office, 30Rock, 24, our guilty pleasure Chuck and of course FNL—or for the uninitiated—Friday Night Lights.
Though I love the quality picture of the ABC Player, I’ve gotta admit that I just feel cool watching shows on Hulu. The interface is extremely well designed, the ads are pretty unobtrusive and don’t require me to initiate the show or choose fullscreen when they’re done and best of all they apparently take requests!
Yep, that’s right. Hulu staffs a very cool, approachable and quick-to-reply customer service team. Over the Christmas break I was stoked to watch a ton of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe with the Kyality Kids. They totally loved it so it got me thinking about the afternoon cartoons I loved as a kid, classics such as Thundercats, Robotech, Galaxy Rangers (not Power Rangers mind you), The Bionic Six and of course Voltron: Defender of the Universe. So I fired off an email to feedback@hulu.com and let’s just say that now the Kyality Kids totally love to get their “Boltron” on.
Just the other night as Mrs. Kyality and I sat down to watch our weekly installment of Friday Night Lights—which as Upto12 has skillfully noted is beyond exceptional this season—I instinctively typed “FNL” into Hulu’s search field… I got nuthin. Now I knew that if I typed in “SNL” it’d quickly connect me to their ample supply of Saturday Night Live content. I fired an email off to my good ol’ friends at the feedback desk asking them to index FNL so I can get my Riggins fix as fast humanly possible. The very next day I got a personal response:
Hi Kyality,
Good call--I have asked our search team to index that abbreviation. Should be
active in the next day or so.
Thanks,
Eugene
Hulu
The result… just last week as we went to watch the Dillon Panthers’ season closer, without thinking I once again instinctively typed “FNL” into the Hulu search field and to my surprise and delight it instantly brought me to their full Friday Night Lights line-up. Booyah. Yeah, feel free to thank me for that one. Bottom line, if Hulu’s planning to take over the world, go ahead and count me in. Now if only they could somehow make Parks and Recreation a way cooler show, I’d be set. Maybe I’ll email them that… “Dear Hulu-ers, Can you please make Parks and Recreation as awesome as we all thought it would be? Love, Kyality” Okay, it’s sent!
So I suited up yesterday and attended the Governor’s Economic Summit—yep, it sounds totally boring. However the keynote speaker was of definite interest and I was stoked to have a sponsor seat squarely in the center of the overly ornate ballroom of the Grand America. The keynote address was given by none other than Dr. Ed Catmull, UofU grad, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios and President of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. Needless to say this dood is el hombre.
His speech was entitled “Building a Sustained Creative Community” and I’m telling you right now, it couldn’t have been a more pertinent or timely message. Here are some of his thoughts, paraphrased by my poor note taking skills.
Pixar’s goal was to make story the most important thing. But then they realized everybody said that, even if what they produced was dribble. So they stopped saying it and just showed it. While other studios look for ideas to make movies, Pixar chooses to find simple, human truths that can that everyone can relate to. They began to test potential feature directors on animated shorts, in his words: “Better to have a train wreck with miniature trains rather than real ones.”
His recommendations for creative shops included things like: Don’t have two different standards of quality. Trust the process. Decide whether or not you’re in it for the long haul. You must realize that everything changes so a lot of the things you learned in the past may not apply any more. You’ll get stuck every time you try to solve an issue by yourself. Technical people are not different than artists.
Create a trusting space and show work daily, as early as possible—even in its roughest form. Don’t wait until it’s “ready to show.” There’s a force for human safety and control: it’s called fear. Everybody’s afraid of something, don’t let it stop you. Ride through the fears. Honesty depends on trust and trust must be earned. Never threaten the trust… sure, people want to be polite, or respectful, or don’t want to embarrass themselves, but teach your people to be genuinely honest. Argue over a project, but never make it personal. Make sure it’s truly is a safe place.
Feel free to check out all my Pixar-related posts, here.
When Mrs. Kyality and I were just married, one of the first really big things we did was buy a car. We were still in school, so we were definitely relegated to an entry-level vehicle. We looked at used Hondas and Toyotas, even Fords (barf). But everywhere we went—we felt accosted and pressured by slimy, desperate, greedy salesmen who blatantly didn’t care about us or our situation, whatsoever.
At that same time, I was pretty into wagons and I happened to have a thing for little Saturn wagons. Granted Mrs. Kyality wasn’t into them, but it at least got us into the Saturn dealer. It was like night and day! The salesmen weren’t salesmen at all! They were basically young guys who were just like us. Saturn has always employed a no-haggle policy and I cannot even tell you how refreshing that was. Needless to say, we drove a 1999 Saturn SL2 sedan for seven years without any major issues. And now, this once innovative brand is in serious danger of getting whipped off the face of this planet.
Yesterday, GM announced that within two years, they will no longer manufacture Saturn automobiles. What’s significant about this move is that Saturn isn’t a stale GM brand like Oldsmobile or Pontiac. Saturn dealerships were actually set up as independent, standalone businesses. There are 400 Saturn dealerships nationwide and together they out sell a majority of the GM sub-brands.
So can GM afford to lose this spectacular sales channel? Probably not a good idea. Technically, Saturn could simply use GM as a manufacturer and become their own car company. But that requires tons of capital that obviously isn’t available. So the future of Saturn is totally up in the air, the question: what’s next for Saturn?
Well, I’ve got an idea. By comparison, Saturn dealerships are much newer than the typical GM dealership and Saturn has always been a “different” kind of car company. Saturns are known for being lower budget, entry-level cars that are relatively light weight (a.k.a. plastic). In my opinion it’s the perfect launching platform for a line of electric vehicles, whether they’re manufactured by GM or some other company, perhaps even Tesla. You take cars like the Sky Roadster pictured above or the new Astra Coupe, slap torque-happy electric engines in them and Saturn is good to go! In my opinion, the new Saturn should equal no-haggle EV’s for the masses. Wow, who'd of thunk I could write a post about American cars!
Rumors are flying on the interweb about a new MINI concept called the SpaceBox. Speculations range from a MINI-styled roof box or trailer to MINI-branded prefab home designed by BMW Group's DesignworksUSA to—an actual MINIvan. Crazy. So, I dunno? Whaddya think? What exactly is the MINI SpaceBox? Sound off.
I knew I liked MINIs for a reason! I was stoked to get a little package from MINI this week called the MINI Adventure Field Kit. It was chock full of MINI goodies such as stickers, a mouse pad, a pen and a rad, little notebook. The funniest thing was the MINI Clubman Handbook. One section of the handbook is called: Know Your Foes. It explains that there are three foes that a MINI driver should always beware of: the ex-girlfriend, your boss, and of course clowns. To be a bit more specific—clowns on unicycles.
Cuz let’s face it, anyone who rides unicycles, clown or not, is really just a show-off. Sorry Marcus, it’s true. And apparently this clown even has red hair.
Yesterday I took the Clubman into Wheelwerks located here in good ol’ SLC for a fitting. Yes, like a tailor-made suit, the Clubman got to try on its running shoes in preparation for spring! They are 18” Primax rims with a matte-black powder coat wrapped in some Nexen high-performance tires. And the good news is, they fit like a glove. In case you didn’t catch that, I just compared my new wheels to three different types of apparel—talk about mixing metaphors, sheesh.
On Saturday Mrs. Kyality and I went on a double date with the older two Kyality Kids… dinner and a movie. After we snagged some pork barbacoa and kid’s quesadillas at the Rio, we rolled in the Clubman—sunroof open—over to the District to see Pixar’s tenth full-length feature: Up. The District is rad because you can pre-purchase your actual seat so I snagged four front and center seats for a Digital 3D screening and we got there just as the previews began, which are apparently also shown in 3D. Did not know that.
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