try drugs

This educational site about the dangers of drug use is very clever. Titled 'try drugs' the site is split into three areas exploring marijuana, cocaine and heroin effects. But the way the site works is to present you with a seemingly static page featuring an animation, some copy and a piece of music but turn things on their head by hijacking the controls. So for the marijuana section your cursor is sluggish and the copy blurred (until you rollover it) and at the end a pop-up warning window appears from the Norwegian crime unit saying that illegal activity has occurred with your IP address and country. For the cocaine section the cursor is hyper and over responsive and keeps taking lines of coke making the screen flash brightly with an email pop-up window saying that illegal activity has been spotted on this machine and the email getting sent to the authorities (although not for real obviously). And finally the heroin section is surreal with the copy exploding inwards and being generally illegible and lots of pop-up internet pages dealing with death and bankrupcy appearing. It is a clever way to highlight the effects of drugs on the user as for those who have never tried the drug you can get a feeling of what it is like to be on them.

Don't forget to vote for your favourite city break (right column)...

stop go tokyo

So am now back in London after an excellent time in NYC. But I'm still in that big city state of mind so I thought I'd share this dramatic piece of time-lapse video exploring the Tokyo cityscape. Set to a piece of music each scene matches perfectly to the pace of the sounds. A great reflection of an incredible city, this video really illustrates the hustle and bustle of the urban expanse.

I am tired and jet-lagged I think it's back to bed for me (yawn)....

nyc

You've gotta love New York. Here's our evening from last night.

1. Grabbed a slice of pizza from one of those great New York pizzerias just round the corner from the hotel

2. Met Jonathan and his friends at the Hudson Hotel. OMG the place is amazing. Intricately designed to incredible detail. From the stark exterior which we walked past. To the beautiful 'chartreuse' staircase. They have a beautiful library with thousands of books on the high walls overlooking pool tables with huge semi-sphere lights hanging over. The chandelier by reception had tens of holograms of light bulbs. The bathrooms were immaculate in white with gothic mirrors adourning the walls. We sat outside on their terrace being dwarfed by huge skyscrapers either side of us.

3. Then off to some random margarita place for nachos etc.

4. Then to a bar called Vlada where the uber cool New York urbanites hang out. We were entertained by the lovely Edie who sang and told us tales. Then bought us an Edietini at the bar afterwards.

5. Followed by an unnecessary nightcap at BARacuda.

Only in New York!!!

Vote for your favourite city break (right) and I'll see you back in London tomorrow ;)

the big apple

You gotta love the portions that New Yorkers serve for breakfast and lunch. We found this awesome diner on 33rd and 9th which is totally authentic. In the UK this would be a themed restaurant but this was the real deal. Complete with counter with cake, moody waitresses and chintzy Americana on the walls. Brilliant. I wandered by myself yesterday as Michael had work to finish up and so got to finally see the Apple store cube on 5th avenue and the Abercrombie and Fitch store. The glass cube that is the Apple store is just incredible. It is a feat of engineering and is perfectly designed. Glass and steel cube sides welcome you to the store below as you wind down a glass staircase or take the glass tube elevator. A&F was lots of fun too set on four floors and very lush inside. It is really dark there and the music is pumping. The boys and girls who work there are unfeasably stunning and the clothes are...well they are abercrombie of course.

At night Jonathan took us to Bombay Talkie. We have been before but I don't know the food just seemed even better this time. It is Indian classics done in a contemporary way. The style of the restaurant is far from your usual Indian spot. Their martinis are divine and the food is so incredibly tasty. Definitely worth a look if you are in the city.

Check out my latest photoset here

In a New York state of mind

It's amazing the things that you see at night. This bit of graffiti art was drawn on the metal shields that get pulled down in front of a shop window. It was right by our hotel but you could only see it at night. I really liked it. The kid is licking his PSP like it is a lollypop. And the eyes are spaced out like he is high. Kewl.

Had a blast yesterday. Shopping all afternoon after the stationary show, then we were off to musical monday's at Splash. I know, it sounds like a nightmare but was actually loads of fun. This song by Jennifer Holiday from the original Dreamgirls played us out :)

New York city

So I'm up at the crack of dawn here being still on UK time. Checked into our hotel yesterday afternoon after a lovely time at Jonathan and Nick's apartment in Brooklyn. We are at the Chelsea Star hotel in their Wizard of Oz themed room! How gay. The rooms are tiny but then again this is New York. Spent the morning and first part of the afternoon at the National Stationery show which is the reason we are here. Michael needs to meet some people and potentially buy and sell Cath Tate cards there. It's great because I am put to work trawling the stands posing as a buyer and have found some really lovely designs that could be used. And some of the artists I have met there are brilliant. The place is huge though so it's a bit daunting. The afternoon was spent browsing a few shops and seeing what we may or may not buy. God the exchange is so good at the moment for us Brits. It's like one big two for one sale :)

Anyway here's my photoset from the first day.

new york, new york

So this is coming at you from New York, New York. Arrived yesterday after a hellish day of travelling. The UK part was ok despite overestimating how long it would take to get there and arriving a fair bit early. So we were travelling Air India which was unto itself an experience. It seemed that the ground control were used to certain behaviours and so as they announced that boarding was to be done 'strictly' by seat number and then EVERYONE getting up to board, totally ignoring what had just been said, the staff took charge. Once we got on the plane, which incidently was a huge double decker of a plane, we got settled into our seat. Our movie selection looked set to be a kid's movie starring Abigail Breslin and some Bollywood movies. Fun. But the only problem was that our projector only showed the first line of the three lines of subtitles. So some educated guessing was in order! Food was actually quite yummy and we both had an Indian chicken curry (although it was obviously just a chicken curry when ordering). And the service was great. Our middle-aged gent of a steward was the pinnacle of polite as he handed out drinks with a white glove worn. The problems occurred when our lovely co-companions started getting sick. One woman lost bowel control and another lost her lunch. And feeding everyone a curry for lunch produces some funky smells about half an hour later. Nice. The people also totally ignored all requests by the cabin crew so we saw several people going to the loo while just about to land and everyone undoing their belts immediately after touch down and seeing to their bags.

But the worst part of the journey had to be our treatment by staff at JFK airport. We arrived into the new wing at the airport already an hour late having taken off late to face a queue of around five hundred people going through customs. The only problem was that they had 3 staff on to deal with visitors and 3 for citizens: no queue on one side and hundreds on the other. Oh and the queue took forever as each person is checked in VERY thoroughly. Eventually, after an hour and a half, we reached the front of the queue and noticed about 2000 people now behind us. And so we reached the lovely customs official WANG. I approached him with Michael.

WANG "Are you related?"

ME "No we're travelling together"

WANG "Go and stand over there" (nasty tone)

The US Visit scheme pledges for their staff to greet people and welcome them to the country, to deal with people in a friendly and courteous manner and to hear the requests and questions of all. Well WANG didn't even look at me. He was rude and unfriendly. Oh I didn't mention but we were first in line for his queue as he started work. I'm not joking when I say he spent 10 minutes cleaning his screen, obviously knowing it was pissing off the line of people who were all watching him. Talk about power trip. So I had my biometrics taken (both index fingers scanned and a photo taken) and finally got through to collect my bags. All in all I was tired, grumpy and dishevelled. Both of us vowed this was our last trip to the USofA after the harsh reception we received.

Left our flat at 9.40 UK time. Arrived at Jonathan and Nick's apartment at 8.00 pm US time. 15 hours travel time.

wwf

This is truely a remarkable and inspired billboard ad from the World Wildlife Fund. Using the sun and a specially designed screen, the shadow cast on the ad creates the illusion of the seas rising over the course of the day. This stop-motion video shows how the ad looks over time. This is genius and just shows how if you think a little laterally you can produce stuff of meaning for the real world. The link takes you to a Save Our Climate microsite.

beats shadow puppets

I was emailed these very cool pictures today at work and as you know I love shadow puppets. But this was an email of 5 pictures so how am I supposed to share these gems with you. Yes I could publish a small thumbnail to my blog but I really wanted to share the files with you. Oh I have no idea who made them and if I am infringing on anyones copyright I apologise and will take them down. If I knew who did them I would just link to their site. But here's an idea. Box.net make a widget from which you can share files with each other. So you get a great preview of what I am going on about in the form of an image viewer. How cool is that. Check out my other half's way of sharing music over at his blog My Stuff and Cr*p

christian aid week

So it's Christian Aid Week this week and as they are one of our clients at GT we have produced a really nice microsite for them. A really cool idea taking the metaphor of the envelope and showing exactly what your small donation can mean. Visually realized with a cool 3D model and some nice animation all lead to a very effective little campaign. Nice work guys! Oh and please give generously if you can. It's a GREAT cause ;) Check out the microsite