Father's Day Haul

It's always fun to see what Mrs. Kyality and the Kyality Kids drum up for Father's Day gifting. This year, it all started with some TRON: Legacy goodness: a model of Kevin Flynn's light cycle and a die cast light jet. Then more Jeff Bridges awesomeness in the form of a Crazy Heart DVD and things rounded out with a Voltron tee shirt and a baseball glove to play catch with the boy. Apparently, there's one more goodie on the way. I'll keep you all posted.

UPDATE: This just in... the rest of my haul. Click the pic to check it out:

Batmobile Live

The latest Batmobile on one of my fave blog, BatmobileHistory.com, is pretty fresh design by Gordon Murray. Apparently DC had it created for is foray into stage events with Batman Live. It's no Tumbler, but absolutely says Batmobile. Apparently Motor Authority dismissed it as "awful."



It's definitely not the worst Batmobile ever. I mean seriously, have you SEEN Batman Forever?

Celebrity Sunday

I've been working an image-a-day Tumblr experiment for a while now and I've settled into the tradition/habit of posting a cool celebrity photo every Sunday. I'll be honest, it's tough to find decent ones the fit the Kyality style. But this week I came across this awesome photo shoot with Jude Law for the the fashion brand Dunhill. Cool stuff.

Denver Dining, Steuben's Style

Last weekend Mrs. Kyality and I got to visit the Mile High City to see a U2 concert that we'd purchased tickets for nearly 18 months ago. The concert was good, but the urban exploring was fantastic. Based on a tip from my friends at Changethethought™—we hit up a great place called Steuben's.

Steuben's was a classic old stomp in Boston and was reopened recently in Denver with amazing environmental design, a fantastic menu and a delicious brand. Korn Design delivered exhaustive, consistent branding with a perfect balance of both modern and retro vibes. And seriously, their Cubano is probably the best sandwich I've ever had ever. Period.

Scion City Safari

No, you don't see too many Japanese cars on this blog. But I came across this Scion xB pickup concept a couple of years ago by designer Sage Vaughn. And I'm amazed just how often I think back to it. I totally dig the tan/black motif. And if for some strange reason I ever find myself needing a utility vehicle of some kind, I'll be sure to sport some minimalist vector graphics on it.

The New New Beetle

For the last few weeks, I've been getting a ton of questions about my thoughts on the design of the newest version of The Beetle. Though I've kind of dodged the question, I haven't meant to seem evasive. I've merely been gathering my thoughts and some interesting questions have arisen.

First and foremost. I dig the new design. Yes, I was a big fan of the original New Beetle, especially the Turbo S. I loved its iconic, minimalist geometry and UFO-like stance. I also totally get where VW is going with this new design and its serious hearkening back to Dr. Ferdinand Porsche's first "peoples' car."

I really like its lines, the fact that it can graceful accommodate 19-inch rims and its sporty retro vibe. But these design choices come with some repercussions. This is a decidedly more masculine car than the New Beetle, which beckons the question: Who is VW targeting with this one?

I think we can all agree that despite some cool trim options over the years, the New Beetle has been come somewhat of a chick car with the Golf/GTI platform becoming VW's bromobile. This newest version of The Beetle is more of a man machine and for the most part, I think VW is targeting, well… me. I mean here I am, driving a sporty retro racer. If this is VW's attempt to win me over then I'm confused, isn't the GTI already meant to do just that?

Though I can totally geek out over VW's design choices with The Beetle, I just can't see myself behind the wheel of one. There are just too many hot hatches and cool cars in line before I'd ever consider The Beetle. This list consists of multiple MINIs, the BMW 1-Series, the Fiat 500, the Audi A3, and even the Mazdaspeed3 for heaven's sake. We'll have to see what accouterments The Beetle R brings (a move which I question as well), but I suspect my feelings won't change dramatically.

The bottom line is that In a hyper-competitive small car market, VW needs to focus on who's really driving their cars and stop adding to its own competition.

A Fixie Out of Water

The Kyality Clan made a weekend trek down south to Zion National Park and I snapped this pic of this fantastic fixie. Love the geometry of this whip and even though you'd think this rod belongs in the urban jungle, it seemed to fit just fine among the red rocks. Click here to enlarge.

Arcade Fire in Our Lovely Deseret

As of last Monday, I've had the pleasure of seeing Arcade Fire live for the fourth time. The first two were on the Neon Bible tour, Red Rocks in Denver and in Lehi, UT. Last year, I saw them in Portland and finally in Orem, UT last week.

At first glance, you'd think that the Portland and Red Rocks shows would be amazing—and they were. But for some reason, the Utah shows have been absolutely outstanding. In fact, the Lehi show from a couple of years ago still ranks among one of my favorite concerts of all time. I kinda thought it was just a fluke. However last week's performance proved that Arcade Fire rocks a little bit harder in the Beehive State.

At both Utah shows, frontman Win Butler has mentioned that he'd often visited his Grandfather in Sandy, UT growing up. Yeah, Sandy—talk about the suburbs. There's definitely an air of nostalgia and even excitement as he reminisces. And other than a handful of d-bags making a ruckus near the front of the stage, the concert-going crowd at these shows have been way into it. Not too many peeps who are too cool to completely rock out and sing-a-long sans inebriation. I just hope Arcade Fire keeps coming back to the Crossroads of the West and that I'm around to see 'em.

Land Rover Defender X-Tech

Land Rover is re-releasing the classic Defender as the X-Tech Limited Edition.

Simple, timeless design starting in the mid $30k's. Not bad. Hopefully some other manufacturers follow suit.

Album Review: The Dodos' No Color

What do you look for an a band's third major album? I'm going to go with refinement. All bands have those first random little records that you discover after the fact. It's typically their first label album that piques our interest. It's their second big album that hopefully takes their style, expands it and melts our faces. Now it's the third that we expect a certain level of cleanliness, polish and yes, refinement.

The Dodos' latest major album No Color is the perfect third installment. It takes the band's energetic, experimental sound and applies a degree of tightness that still manages to capture their driving, frenetic sound. The real power and pleasure of the the album comes in the form of grace notes supplied by none other than Ms. Neko Case. There's wisdom and pose there that's a perfect juxtaposition to Meric Long's pseudo naivety.

The track that proves this theory the most is without a doubt Don't Try and Hide It. This song, like many others on the album, gets stuck in your head in a good way. You enjoy waking up in the morning with this song still ringing in your ears. Bottom line: Go try it, don't fight it.

The 5-Series GT Never Looked So Good

The Italian fashion house Trussardi gave the at times awkward-looking BMW 5-Series Gran Turismo a much-needed make-over for their 100th year anniversary. Complete with designer luggage, custom leather driving gloves and tad-too-serious driver, this Hot Chocolate grand tourer is actually looking like quite the canyon carver. See additional pics here.

Color Scheming: In Practice

Last year, I did a little blog project throughout the year that I called called Color Scheming. The concept was to match cool objects of desire with MINI Cooper factory colors. It was way fun to put together the compositions and yesterday my co-worker g.lock turned me on to this fantastic example of color scheming in practice. It comes to us from high-end golf glove manufacturer G/FORE. Check out some of their colorful collections. Feel free to click the pics to enlarge.

TRON: Uprising Trailer

Digging the trailer for the new Disney animated series TRON: Uprising starring voice talents of Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore and none other than Paul Rubens! Looks like a great combo CGI and some traditional character animation.

MINI Rocketman Concept

This just in... sketches and renderings of MINI's forthcoming Rocketman microcar concept:

The King of Cool Commercial

Even the King of Cool did commercials. Awesome music by the way.
(via Monoscope)

May the Force Vee-Dub You.

Thanks to @darthvader I was lucky enough to catch this vid just as it hit triple digit views. The Kyality Kids have probably watched this a dozen times already. I just can't get over how well this little actor nailed the emotions—I can't not envision my little Kyality Kid under that helmet.

UPDATE: Not does this kid act like my boy—he totally LOOKS like him when unmasked.

Sundancing 2011

Thanks to an amazing selection of documentaries this year, Mrs. Kyality and I had an excellent Sundance 2011. No, we didn't manage catch Hobo with a Shotgun… or any other narratives for that matter.

Senna
We were way lucky to catch Senna—the story of Ayrton Senna, perhaps the greatest race car driver who ever lived. This doc was told solely through archival footage and had the perfect cast of characters, the ultimate hero, the ideal villain and an ensemble that you couldn't even begin to write. It played out as though it was unfolding before your eyes. This is definitely a must-Netflix-kind-of-movie.

New Frontier
StruckAxiom was the main sponsor for Sundance's New Frontier interactive installation exhibit at the Salt Lake Art Center. There were some pretty amazing installation pieces including Arcade Fire's The Wilderness Downtown, James Franco's Three's Company: The Drama (complete with your very own can of Tab) and StruckAxiom had an installation of our own—a touchscreen display that aggregates Tweets and Gowalla check-ins from all the Sundance venues.

These Amazing Shadows
We wrapped up our 2011 Sundancing with another doc called These Amazing Shadows—the history of the National Film Registry. Since 1989 the Library of Congress has been archiving 25 films a year. They range from award-winning features to music videos, experimental films to home movies. Each registry selection reflects a truth of its time or a standout artistic vision. Definitely a movie-lovers movie. The great news is that you can vote here for your favorite films each and every year!