Hmm. The line isn’t so l-… wait, w-what the hell?

A lesson I learned: Never opt for in-store pick up. The week before the launch of the iPhone 4, I went ahead a pre-ordered the phone online on Apple’s site. Needless to say, it was the pain in the ass to actually get a reserve to go through because their site was being hammered by everyone and their mom. I timed out a couple of times but I managed to reserve one for myself.

I get an email a few days prior to launch, stating that I can pick up the phone at the local Apple store at 7:00 AM. I knew people will be camping out there but I underestimated on how many. On launch day, I left at around 8:00AM. I assumed it wouldn’t be that bad because I reserved mine and was guaranteed to get a phone that day. So, I get there and saw a loooong line… for reserves! The line stretched at least 6-7 stores down in addition to a typical walkway in between 2 stores. The walkway itself can accommodate 2 stores on its own. There was also the “walk-in” line for those who don’t have a reserve. That line was also long. I go to the end of the reserve line and waited… and waited… and waited. I found out they were letting in around 7 reserved to 1 walk-in. It took forever. The whole time I waited, I didn’t eat or drink anything. It wasn’t until I was fairly close to the front that the Apple employees gave out some chips and water.

At around 2:00 PM, I got my phone.

Oh yeah, I’m gonna drop some graphic design knowledge bombs here: “dpi” stands for “dots per inch”. It can also be referred to as “ppi” or “pixels per inch”. The more pixels you have packed in a certain area, the sharper and more filled out it looks. What you view on your computer is typically at 72dpi. Stuff that are printed are typically around 300dpi or otherwise, it will look blurry and pixelated. So when I set up something to be printed (for example, flyers or magazine ads), I usually set the file at 300dpi (along with the color mode set to CMYK). When I heard the iPhone 4 will have a resolution of 640×960 at 326dpi, my head exploded. Print quality on a phone? That’s just nuts. The industrial design is also amazing. Didn’t expect anything less from Apple.

Oh right, I don’t really have any issues with the phone even with all the hoopla about the antenna. It’s been working fairly good to me. I haven’t had any dropped calls… yet. I’m also not using any sort of case either. I don’t really need one but if Apple is giving away those bumpers for free, I’ll take them. Also, I loaded up the phone from a back up and it still shows “Donkey” as my carrier haha. Not sure why it didn’t wipe that out.

The Great Oil Leak Poster Project

A few months ago, there was a call for entries for a poster project involving the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Before I heard about that, however, I already made an illustration relating to the oil spill (You can view the original artwork in my DeviantArt page). To my surprise, the artwork made its rounds around the internet. Namely, io9 and The Huffington Post. The message got a little skewed (come on… Transformer? Really?) but it’s still a bit unusual to see my artwork on other outlets. Even more surprising was when I was walking to a client’s office, I saw it attached to a door of a small local shop. Check it out below:

Hey, this looks familiar!

At first, I just glanced at it and didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. I went to get a closer look at it during lunch time and noticed a few things different. Firstly, any text I had on there was stamped out. The copyright info was cropped out and my logo was edited out. If you look closely, they tried to redraw some of the elements of the robot’s left arm. “BP” was also edited into the robot’s chest. I talked to one of the employees there and told them that they couldn’t do this. I wasn’t too forceful about it and offered them an official print of it when I come back around (which I did).  The employee said he saw it on io9. Go figure. Weird to see this at a local level.

Anyway, there was a call for entries for a poster project, and I submitted my illustration. 140+ entries were submitted and among the 40+ that were chosen, mine was picked =) You can view the other entries and details on shows at The Great Oil Leak‘s site.

Electronic soul at its best

Samantha James’ new album, Subconscious,  came out last month and its awesome. I sent her a reply on twitter that her new album was “electronic soul at its best” and she actually replied back! Sometimes its hard to top your first album but damn, she pulled through on her second album. Great tracks and definitely sets the mood. Production is top notch. Definitely check it out.

I think I rambled on enough. Love, peace, and grease.

New Shinichi Osawa track. Totally awesome.
“If you see me around, you gotta let me know.”

Reflecting back after graduating college
When I was in my physics class during my high school years (which was exactly 10 years ago!), I recall a big print of the last Calvin & Hobbes comic strip that hung above the blackboard (See above). I don’t remember the speech exactly, but my physics teacher talked about the content of the comic in relation to our upcoming graduation and our future. It didn’t really hit me at the time. Until recently that is. I reread this particular comic strip after I graduated college, and yeah, it totally makes sense now. This is the beginning of a new chapter in my life. And no matter how grim, the world is a magical place. Gonna do some explorin’.

Anyway, my resume has been updated and I will update my portfolio soon with some new stuff.

Shameless plug: Calvin & Hobbes is good reading material. I suggest picking up the compilation books.

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