The site made me think of one of my favorite photos of all time. This is a photo of my grandpa Zimdars looking every bit like a Chicago gangster posing with his car in Wisconsin. I don’t know the year, or what kind of car, or the occasion; but I’ve always thought that this photo just dripped cool.

Here’s a scan of the image:

Grandpa Zimdars, impossibly cool

Update: Michael Farley suggests the car is a 1931 Pontiac 6. Beautiful car.

“I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”

Actor, Michael Caine describing Jaws: The Revenge— a movie he’s supposed to be ashamed of.

I found that quote, and the entire CNN interview with Caine very charming. Great perspective from a guy who’s been doing what he loves for a very long time.

I think many of us—especially those with an artistic or creative bent— can appreciate his sentiments about taking jobs “because I thought no one was ever going to offer me another one”. We all face doubts in our work and may have to pay our dues, so it’s encouraging to see how he has reached a level where he takes jobs only when they interest him; when “they’re so good they interrupt my life”. When you find a project like that, work isn’t work anymore and that’s where the interesting things start to happen.

Jason’s ideas about business are fresh and almost too obvious (as I believe the best ideas are). His thoughts about how to run a business, productivity, and creativity are often at the front of my mind as I work and refine my own work/life balance.

Beached from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

All I know right now is that I want to do all of it better. Everything better. Better, better.

I don’t know how else to say it: Merlin Mann inspires the living shit out of me. His recent post, Better, incapsulates so much of my feelings about the web, my passions, and why I do what I do. He is right in so many ways; it is all about getting better.

Getting better is what drives me. I pray to be better daily. I am in a constant state of analysis — always trying to figure out what it is I’m doing, seeing, experiencing, making, building watching, drawing, listening to, whatever… and how it can be better.

Getting better is fucking hard. I can do a good job. I can make my client/boss/wife/kids happy, but it can always be better. And not everyone wants to be better. You wife doesn’t want to hear that dinner could be better. Your kids don’t care to hear that obviously their grades could be better. Your boss doesn’t want to know that his decisions could be better. But I won’t stop trying.

Merlin’s post is all about the bullshit that we can all easily fall into when we let others tell us what is important and feel the need to do everything. If you ever read anything I share, read this.

And when you’re done, read the brilliant getting started page on 43folders. And when you’re done reading that, go make something. Something fucking awesome.

Wasting time and being inefficient are the way to discovery. The Web is being run by 20-year-olds because they can afford to waste the 50 hours it takes to become proficient in exploring the Web. While 40-year-old boomers can’t take a vacation without thinking how they’ll justify the trip as being productive in some sense, the young can follow hunches and create seemingly mindless novelties on the Web without worrying about whether they are being efficient. Out of these inefficient tinkerings will come the future.

Everything we know about productivity and what it is to be productive seems wrong. Ideas are the currency of the future. Measuring them by the metrics of the past is only holding us back.

Just spotted ShoeGuru, an online shoe store that has one of the nicest interfaces I have seen for shopping online. The site features a beautiful, subtle backdrop for really nice images of the products. The list view has only the essential information: the image of the shoe, the price, and the name of the model. The display isn’t burdened with categories, item numbers, reviews, ratings, “digg this”, and all of the other things that typically compete for your shopping attention.

The individual product detail page is even better showing a large photo of the shoe. The description, pricing and cart tools fade into the background, though still readable, making the shoe image really stand out.

Sure, this solution might not work for a company with significantly more or diverse products. But it is a great solution for what it is and a compelling offering of a great looking line of shoes.

As I wrote previously, ESPN page 2 writer, Paul Lukas, recently proposed a contest to design the uniforms for Oklahoma City’s yet unnamed NBA basketball franchise. I immedially whipped up a concept based on a little spoof piece I had done a few days earlier. The results were posted to ESPN.com today along with a nice mention of my entry. You can see it and the full list here in Lukas’s column:

Meet the Oklahoma City uni finalists

I found these great vintage Christmas cards in some things my dad sent me when he moved out of his house in Wisconsin.

They are in a neat decorative box, complete with envelopes. The set features a few different designs of wintry scenes in a watercolor style complete with a shiny gold stripe at the bottom. The message inside wishes the recipient an “old fashioned Merry Christmas…”. I think it’s cool that these were meant to look old fashioned years ago when they were made.

I’m going to try to convince Holly to let us sent some of these out next Christmas — I think they’re wonderful.

That’s right the new team will be called the “Oklahoma City I Love this Basketball Team!”s. In a snippet from the press release leaked with the image, I Love this Basketball Team owner, Clay Bennett commented on the selection of Oklahoma celebrity Toby Keith as the team’s mascot:

“Toby is a local legend. With his love of chest hair and barbeque, Toby represents the hopes and dreams of Oklahomans and, indeed all Americans. I can’t think of a more meaty face to represent what is sure to be America’s team.”Clay Bennett, owner, Oklahoma City I Love this Basketball Team!