Things I Think Are Kinda Cool

This homeless dude’s creativity deserves a buck or two…if you can find him.

-via Boing Boing

Designer Christopher Niemann doesn’t need 5000 legos and 50 hours of painstaking work to build his NYC-inspired creations.  The former New Yorker’s refreshingly simple vignettes were originally dreamed up using his son’s toys during a bleak winter in Berlin.  Whether it was homesickness or boredom that sparked Niemann’s creativity, there’s something undeniably charming about the images that fill up his book, “I Lego NY“.  Here are some of my favorites:

-Grab a copy of  “I Lego NY” on Amazon.

Graffiti artist Tony Quan was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease in 2003, which paralyzed almost every muscle in his body except his eyes.  But thanks to a new device invented by Zach Lieberman and a group of artists, he’s able to draw again just by moving his eyes.  The possibilities for communication, art, and design are endless…check out the inspiring story and watch Quan in action:

-Link via @LESN1

There’s a special place in my geeky heart for stop-motion videos…not just because of their creative and technical accomplishments, but also because I’m incredibly jealous of the amount of time the creators have to make the vids.  I barely have 15 free minutes a day – probably not even enough time to make a crappy 1 second stop-motion sequence.

Here are 7 impressive videos that I absolutely love.  Sit back & enjoy:

“Roof Sex” – An oldie, but definitely my all-time favorite:

-via PES

“T-Shirt War”

-via Rhett & Link

“Michael Jackson vs. Mr. Bean”

Jackson vs Bean from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.

“Bad Apple” – extra bonus:  crazy J-pop music by Nomico

-via Neatorama

“The Fastest Yellow & Red” – a car chase that starts out slow and then gets INSANE

-via Video Sift

“A Brief History of Pretty Much Everything”

-via Gamma Squad

“Her Morning Elegance”

-via Oren Lavie

It was impossible to avoid today’s news of this infamous and bizarre billboard plastered smack dab in the middle of Times Square.  Here’s the quick background:  the image is of Oracle CEO Charles Phillips and his former mistress of 8 years, YaVaughnie Wilkins (wow, what a name).  Apparently Wilkins was pissed off because Philips promised he would leave his wife for her if she waited around for him…according to Philips, his divorce proceedings began in 2008, but his relationship with Wilkins also ended.  So, what better way for Wilkins to get revenge than to buy huge billboards in NYC, Atlanta, and San Fran with an image of the canoodling ex-couple and a web address of an online photo album filled with romantic photos from the past 8 years…Phillips must feel the alimony amount skyrocketing by the second…

This will definitely go down in history as one of the most memorable billboards, but Weburbanist has compiled a list of some other unforgettable head-turning billboards from around the world.  Here are some of my favorites:

Bic Shavers

Cingular

Heineken

Thorntons – the world’s first edible billboard:  860-lbs containing 10 chocolate bunnies, 72 giant chocolate eggs, & 128 chocolate panels.  The billboard was devoured by shoppers within 3 hours of going up!

Economist – when people walked underneath the lightbulb, it would light up!

Adidas

Martor Solingen Razors – to show how sharp their razors are, Martor Solingen put rubber pigeons sliced in half underneath the billboard.

Nationwide Insurance created a fictional paint company and then created this “accident”

-via Weburbanist

I’m a sucker for Post-It Notes… admittedly, I use them for lame things (like my neurotic to-do list) – but randomly over the past few days, I’ve stumbled on photos and videos of wildly creative ways that people are using Post-Its. They obviously have a LOT of free time.

-Flickr via Weburbanist

-Link via Weburbanist

-Rebecca Murtaugh via Weburbanist

-Flipbook Animation music video for “Here Come the Guns” by Choo Choo la Rouge

-via Neatorama

-”Deadline” stop-motion video

-By Youtube user Bunliu

-Cool Post-It Note Waterfall

-via Weburbanist