District 9 (2009) puts us in Johannesburg, South Africa, some two decades since an alien race landed and took up residence in the city. The aliens have been marginalized by the humans and have taken up residence in a federally controlled area called District 9. They share this squalid locale with other unwelcome guests including a group of Nigerian refugees – although we are unclear as to how or why the Nigerians are in South Africa.
I found the film very enjoyable, not the least of which stemming from the irony of South Africa once again being placed in a position where they are placing entities within defined locations to cordon them off from the general population like they did during Apartheid. The bureaucratic machinery of institutionalized racism is the real star of this movie as is the parastatal multinational corporation charged with implementing the state’s plans.
The 2009 Champs Sports Bowl features two very evenly matched opponents: The University of Miami Hurricanes and the University of Wisconsin Badgers.Below, find various statistics and graphical representations of for each team.
POINTS FOR & POINTS AGAINST – 2009 SEASON
YARDS ACCRUED PER GAME – 2009 SEASON AVERAGE
Wisconsin brings a much more balanced offence to the game. Miami’s success is inexorably tied to the success of its Sophomore quarterback, Jacory Harris.
NATIONAL RANKINGS – CURRENT
Note the massive disparity in the ‘Strength of Schedule’ which seeks to provide a visual representation of how tough a school’s schedule is.
(Miami-Dade County, FL) — Today, Miami-Dade County Mayor, Carlos Alvarez, enacted public legislation aimed at abating the public scourge of badger infestation with a first of its kind open hunting season.
Badgers, are short-legged, heavy-set sausage-a-vores in the weasel family.
“They are an unwanted vermin and spread pestilence among the masses. They should be shot on sight and disposed of promptly.” remarked Mayor Alvarez.
PS – Yes, I know I suck at photoshop. But I had fun doing it.
Roughly 32% of the world’s population celebrate a holiday called Christmas which celebrates the birth of the son of God. This son’s name was Jesus and in honor of his birthday, I get a couple days off from work!! And I write this with very little actual sarcasm, I can’t think of a better way to spend a nice rainy Thursday morning than tweaking my blog’s taxonomy! For an information architect like me, that’s a pretty good way to start the day.
OnePegGenius has been operational for about two years now. Over the next couple days, I will be going through the archives, post by post, and comparing each post’s taxonomy with search log data. My hope is to create a shared taxonomy for all the content on the site that will provide augmented relational content opportunities and improve the visibility for selected keyword phrases on search engines. Fun indeed.
At preset, Onepeggenius.com content is structured into the following taxonomy:
- 287 Posts
- 113 Tags
- 010 Categories
The big job I fear will be in creating the 301 redirects for posts that will in essence ‘move’ once their taxonomy changes. That’s one of the drawbacks to employing a custom permalink structure comprised of category and tag slugs for directories I guess…
In my work as an Interactive Director / Web Producer / Information Architect at Mad Genius, I am often responsible for managing 15 or more simultaneous projects all at various stages of development. After dropping the ball a couple times in trying to keep the big picture delivery dates on target across 18 projects earlier this year, I decided I needed to take a step back and invest some time into creating a master project tracking document. I choose a simple Google Docs spreadsheet that enables me to quickly add projects and preliminary timelines along with man hours on a week by week basis. The result is a pretty nifty snapshot of how much effort will be required on any given week and has proven to be very helpful in providing me rationale when I tell someone in client relations WHY we simply can’t deliver XYZ in 6 weeks.
Despite my efforts, I have found that many of the internal stakeholders have a penchant for forgetting how ’slammed’ we may be at any given time.
CPB (Crispin, Porter & Bogusky) is probably the top interactive agency in the U.S. It’s based in Miami (Coconut Grove) and I always had a desire to work with them. They are the folks behind VW’s ads and most notably bringing back The King for Burger King. My friend Kala used to work for them – she worked on Zo’s Summer Groove and the TRUTH accounts.
Alex Bogusky posted recently on his company-wide job tracking app that is displayed FOR ALL to see. I really dig how this is so open in the office. It doesn’t let projects hide and assigns responsibility for all to see.
Here is a slice of the above photo which shows a more granular view. It shows the following columns/categories: Live Date, Client, Job Name, % Complete, Type, Producer, Content, and Creative. I like how they have a dedicated Content owner.
If you’re anything like me, when you were a kid you probably wanted some sort of theme bed. I always had an affinity for the race car bed they had on Silver Spoons.
While the utility of such a sleeping apparatus may be lacking – the fun factor is definitely up. Add in the Star Wars component and what you have is geek sleep heaven.
More pics and a write up can be found at the unplggd.com site.
The Saab 900 SPG was a car I lusted for during my high school years. Saab is a polarizing brand. For years it lived on the fringes of the american consumer’s option list. For a die-hard few, Saab represented the ultimate in understated, somewhat quirky, but wholly solid Scandinavian design. Saab was one of the first to integrate Turbo into their mainstream lineup – mixing 4 cylinder engines with powerful turbo injectors gave the car modest pep.
I bought myself a Saab back in 2000 or 2001. It was the last year they made the 9-3 – Saab’s iconic 3 door (two doors and a big-ass hatch) sedan. It was a 4 speed automatic. It was silver with carbon grey interior leather, a sunroof and other amenities. It also had a turbo. And while not the fastest car by any means, I totally enjoyed the Saab turbo lag to the 10th power. I enjoyed the pronounced whirling noise that crept up from the engine as the turbo gauge went into the red zone. It was a quirky yet utilitarian ride
Alas – Saab discontinued the hatchbacks that helped them carve out a niche. The hatch space was so Gi-normous I could fit most of my windsurfing gear, a bazooka sub-woofer and tons of other stuff w/out every dirtying up the inside compartment. When purchased by GM, their designs were homogenized into a global automotive sourcing apparatus. Subarus and Opels were rebadged as Saabs and sold in the U.S.
Good bye Saab. I enjoyed you for many years and it was nice to have known you.
Some folks at work told me about this great video created for St. Jude in the past few days. Whoever did the video clearly are Geniuses of the Mad variety…
Here’s the new University of Miami Hurricanes song performed by Uncle Luke & Honor Roll music. Luke led 2 Live Crew and is a devout Canes supporter. This song accompanied the ESPN 30 for 30 movie, The U.
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I was sick this past weekend and didn’t have a chance to check the film I’ve been hyping w/ friends and family. The guys over at http://canespace.com however, managed to attend the film’s premier in Miami and provide the following write up:
“Amongst the crowd, I saw members of the family who I had only seen in pictures or on television: Melvin Bratton, Tolbert Bain, and Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell, amongst others. I had a warm feeling in my heart before the film even rolled, because I knew I was with people who shared the same passion as me, people who are all about this ‘U.”
…Overall, I think fellow Miami Hurricane Billy Corben did a spectacular job and delivered a moving portrayal of the team we love. I had no doubt he would – it’s a “U” thing.”
OnePegGenius is the personal website of Rob Rubinoff, an Interactive Director and Information Architect who currently plies his trade at the premier Jackson, MS advertising and branding agency. A greatly enhanced archives page provides a variety of means to browse the site's content library.
Roughly 
Rob lives and works in the town of Jackson, MS where he leads the interactive department at an awesome advertising and branding agency. Life is slower than most places in Mississippi, and Rob tends to like it that way. Some of his favorite life experiences include sailing across the Atlantic Ocean in a 44ft sloop, learning to speak Swahili while living along the lower slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, and zipping along the curviest of Mississippi country roads in his VW Rabbit.