In the summer of 1992, I came across this book, The Rolling Stones Complete Recording Sessions, in a bookstore on University Ave. in Palo Alto. Flipping the pages, I discovered the existence of an entire universe of Rolling Stones music that existed, albeit underground, beyond what was on the existing set of albums. Beyond recordings of live concerts, there are dozens and dozens of other songs, alternate versions, etc. This absolutely blew my mind, in an On Beyond Zebra! fashion.

From this book, I was inspired to launch an online community for Rolling Stones fans, Undercover, that still runs today. That was 1992, twenty years ago! I’ve met fans and made friends from around the world, including the author of the book, now in its 3rd edition!

Whether wistful or purely parodic, the notion of extending a closed set of content into new ones continues to fascinate me. While fan-fiction (including fan films) is extensively documented and discussed, I find these micro-forms quite cool and curious; in Martin Elliot’s book, he didn’t provide the actual Stones songs, just the library abstract that points to their existence, tantalizing the reader to experience them – somehow, somewhere – in a more complete form.

HEIGLR is a blog with fictional advertisements for fictional Katherine Heigl films that just might come out some day.

Seinfelt is a blog with plot synopses for Seinfeld episodes that never happened – but could have!

The Substitute

Kramer takes on a substitute teaching position, primarily because he already owns a pipe and a tweed jacket with padded elbows. He becomes frustrated when Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason is incomprehensible to his class of third graders. George’s girlfriend takes him to see a foreign film, which he finds so abhorrently pretentious that he decides to become a rabid football fan, deeming it “the lowest common denominator of popular entertainment.” An endangered species of eagle nests upon Elaine’s windowsill, disgusting her daily by bringing back enormous rats for its chicks to feast upon. When she calls 311 to ask if they can dispose of the birds, she gets a follow-up from the EPA, who say that her apartment is now a wildlife refuge and she must vacate. In a dusty old shoebox, Jerry discovers explicit photographs from his parents’ honeymoon.

TNG Season 8 is a Twitter feed with “plots from the unaired 8th season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

Picard must rescue solar miners trapped on a plasma rig. Worf ruins every movie by yelling who he thinks is “dishonorable” at the screen.

— TNG Season 8 (@TNG_S8) August 7, 2012

• [from julienorvaisas] Google Voice Now Available to Everyone in the U.S. [Fast Company] – [Spend a few minutes with this fun, fascinating, rich infographic describing A Modern History of Human Communication] Google Voice, which began as an app called GrandCentral before Google bought it back in 2007, is a difficult beast to explain. It's sort of like a phone management system–it gives users one number which, when called, rings however many devices that user wants (cellphones, landlines, work phones, whatever). It provides an alternate web-based voice mail system which transcribes voice (sometimes well, sometimes with odd and hilarious mistakes) and pops the messages into your email for listening or reading. It's also a mobile app for Android and web (that web app can be used by the iPhone and Palm's WebOS phones) that can place outgoing calls.
• [from steve_portigal] A Moleskine Cover for your Kindle? [Design Sojourn] – [Associating your analog experience with a digital product: sometimes it evokes relevance, sometimes it screams desperation. Moleskine?] The interesting question with this Kindle cover is whether people associate the Moleskine brand with the design of its product/cover and or associate the brand with the product’s function i.e. sketchbooks? Whether this Kindle cover makes sense or not, it is always interesting to see how brands with strong design languages leverage it on product extensions. They even have a cool design justification that does make sense: "The very idea of this new cover came from the Moleskine “notebook hackers”, who create their own custom-made accessories weaving together paper pages and digital tools. Throughout the web, hundreds of communities and discussions can be found where such Moleskine “hackers” publish their inventions. Dedicated blogs, Flickr pages, and even YouTube videos highlight the power and vitality of the Moleskine digital-analog connection."

• Excellent Rob Walker "Consumed" on Lululemon Athletica and the idea of a "lifestyle brand" – Anybody who is honest about consumer behavior knows that often what we buy is not simply some thing but some idea that is embodied by that thing. “Conceptual consumption” is the name given to this practice in a recent paper with that title by Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University (and author of the book “Predictably Irrational”), and Michael Norton, an assistant professor of marketing at the Harvard Business School, in The Annual Review of Psychology. Their notion has various subsets, one of which is the consumption of goals.

• Airwalk footwear – In the mid-90's, Mann left the company. After his departure, the decision was made to "go mainstream" and focus on a more general audience rather than just creating shoes for sport enthusiasts. There was a brief rise in sales, but some people loyal to the brand found the mainstream designs questionable.
• What happens when underground brands go mainstream – Wharton marketing professors David Reibstein and John Zhang have been exploring how early adopters react when a product goes mass-market. When is there a backlash? When do early adopters switch to new products and when do they stick with the brand?
• Personas for Firefox | Dress up your web browser – Finally, a definition I can live with: Personas are lightweight, easy-to-install and easy-to-change "skins" for your Firefox web browser.

I saw this sign earlier this week in Colorado Springs. Turns out that yes, it’s a real place.

What are the two things people don’t like doing on a regular basis? Why, washing their Vehicle and washing their Dog of course. Both are time consuming and messy. So I created a professional, clean and fun environment where you can bring your vehicle, dog or both and get them clean.