President Obama doing his voice-over for his addition to the Disney Hall of Presidents

freshkicks:

Your shoes are usually the first thing I notice before learning your name. If we’ve spent any time together, we’ve discussed your footwear. I love me some fresh kicks. And that’s my problem.

I love the story of the find. Mostly, I like the unique thought process you went through in picking that pair. I check each story into my long term memory and recall it every time I hunt new shoes.

Picking the right shoes is the thing that stresses me out the most before leaving the house and the one thing I spend any time shopping for. I’ll study the tech specs of athletic shoes, examine the craftsmanship of casual or dressy foot garb and the design of just about any pair of kicks.

Some people obsess about fonts, cars or food. For me, it’s gotta be the shoes.

To be clear: I’m not a shoe expert, I have a problem but I’m willing to share what I’ve learned and what I find. This is why I only concern myself with men’s shoes. Sorry ladies, this is for the guys. Feel free, however to stop by if you want gift ideas for that big lug in your life.

Speaking of gifts; unless otherwise noted, many links in original Fresh Kicks posts are Amazon affiliate links. Any purchases you make help me (help you.) I’ll add other online retailers if I feel comfortable with their service and reputation. All reblogged content will not contain affiliate links.

Over the next few weeks I’ll highlight types of shoes that I call the standards (sneaker, casual, dress) starting with sneakers. Within each standard I’ll highlight a few iconic shoes within the respective category.

From time to time, I’ll try to post hints and tips on things like how to try on shoes and care and feeding of your footwarez.

So with that, welcome to Fresh Kicks. Feel free to e-mail me at freshkicks.tumblr AT gmail dot corn, anytime.

Lates.

Albert is going to help us look a little more fly. 

Is that the right word? Fly? Or is it rad?

Internet Explorer 8 - Nickelback edition

As best I can tell, this is a real thing. A hilariously stupid, real thing.

Sputnik observatory, the latest Jonathan Harris joint, looks predictably great

Very nice, application-like use of Flash. The save-able, linkable paths look interesting but my favorite flourish is the logo.

Birdfeed, a very nice Twitter client

mrgan:

Hi there! You - yes, you with the Twitter account. Check this - Birdfeed is a brand new Twitter client for your iPhone. It’s fast; it keeps a local store of your friends’ tweets so you can catch up on the twittergeist while you’re on the, err, elevator; it does all the usual fun shopwork of uploading pics, switching between multiple accounts, etc.; it’s as uncluttered as a Scandinavian rumpus room.

Birdfeed was designed by signed below and imagineered & engineered by that Jarvis Cocker of the indie Mac community, Buzz Andersen. Thanks for the memories, Buzz. And thank you for your time, gentle reader.

Feed the bird!

I’ve been a Birdfeed tester since beta 2 and it quickly became my favorite Twitter client, beta quirks and all. Now it’s a one-point-oh and full of the polish and attention to detail one would expect from Buzz and sidekick Neven. A steal at $10, get it now for $5 before Buzz comes to his senses.

I recognize that I am something of a vox clamans in terris in this area, but enough is enough. The Office of Presidential Correspondence is not yet an adjunct of Michael Jackson’s PR firm. “Billboard” can quite adequately cover the event by reproducing the award citation and/or reporting the President’s remarks. (As you know, there is very little to report about Mr. Jackson’s remarks.) There is absolutely no need for an additional presidential message. A memorandum for Presidential Correspondence objecting to the letter is attached for your review and signature.

—John Roberts, whitest man on earth. [via kellydeal]

The Michael Jackson sample map [via kellydeal]

The Favored Ones

It was an honor just to be, um, honorably mentioned.

My dad has a knack for betting on the wrong technological horse. Our first VCR was a betamax, which he proudly brought home, (correctly) assessing it as far superior to VHS. He only gave up that ghost when we eventually couldn’t find a single store in town that rented beta. A Commodore 64 would be next, followed years later by a very cool, almost instantly obsolete LaserDisc player.

I mention this only on background for my earliest memory of Michael. My parents had a faux wood paneled stereo in their bedroom, featuring a turntable and another loser on the media landscape, an 8-track player. I would sit in front of that behemoth for hours, in ill-fitting cans collapsed over my ears, a cassette to 8-track adapter, playing and rewinding ‘Thriller’ over and again.

Later, in that same house, my younger brother and I would play ‘Bad’ on the new Sony boombox we somehow convinced a doting family member to gift to us. Anyone who had that cassette knows included in the liner notes were Michael sanctioned dance moves that aspiring pop stars, even unlikely white boys in the deep South, could practice. We put together more than a few routines that my mother patiently and lovingly edndured, crotch grabs and all. Later, I would squander otherwise beautiful summer days waiting for new video premiers and all day Michael marathons on MTV.

Eventually, I’d become culturally aware enough to realize that Michael Jackson was a phenomenon everyone knew about, pervasive as air, obvious if I hadn’t been blissfully ignorant to the fact that Mobile, Alabama wasn’t exactly cool. Coming of age, as I did, almost exactly as Michael was making headlines more for his personal life, I still loved the music, confused though I was about what kind of “statement” that made about an awkward teenager. At the same time I was discovering The Pixies, Nirvana and Dr. Dre, I was also listening to ‘Dangerous’ and even bought the HIStory double album, despite snearing looks from friends and too cool record store clerks. Even though I’ll laugh at the jokes at the man’s expense, and have to own up to the fact that ‘Bad’ is probably his last album worth listening to, I still dance (badly) to ‘Beat It’ and sing ‘PYT’ (badly) in the shower more than a grown man should. Because despite the fact that I will never, ever be cool, Michael helped me fake it.

I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light - but hey, that would be going into sexual details

—Governor Mark Sanford is quite the poet.