0484 MOTORSPORTS

Happy Halloween.

These aren't actually our Halloween costumes - Matt and I are both under the impression that we're too cool for Halloween.

PRODUCTION STILL

From the video shoot we did yesterday in Long Beach.

Photos like this remind me, especially after a long day - or a month full of long days, of why I choose to drag myself back in front of the computer in the middle of the night and chip away at the work that everyone's waiting for from us.

Images like this one remind me of how far Matt and I have come and how incredibly things have gone for us. This year's been a blur in the best way possible, and we're now simultaneously working on and pitching several of the biggest projects of our careers thus far. And when I pause, even for a second, and let it sink in and appreciate the opportunities that we've been able to create for ourselves, it makes it a little easier to get back to work and continue this crazy, hectic, sleep-deprived pace just a little longer.

More images from this shoot soon. In the meantime, I've got to get back work.

NBA AUTOGRAPHS PART I

The 64th NBA season tipped off tonight.

Matt and I used to go to a lot of games and we still manage to make it to a few nowadays. Back in college, through an artful manipulation of both Ticketmaster practices and Staples Center security lapses, we were able to meet quite a few NBA players. At the time, I started collecting most of their autographs. At one point I started framing all of these, but it sort of became quite a project and I've yet to properly enframe and display the whole collection. Hopefully I'll someday get around to it.

Anyway, here are a few for now that have yet to make it into frames...


Carmelo Anthony. Team USA Summer Camp. Las Vegas, 2006.


Joe Johnson


Andre Igoudala. We met him at a game his sophomore season. This kid has been killing it under the radar for so long. If he ever escapes Philly he'd be a beast on another squad.


Kevin Durant. Every expert and analyst thinks this guy is going to run the league for the next decade. Unbelievable scorer and he's super humble, which is pretty much unheard of amongst guys at his level in the NBA. This was from another Team USA scrimmage in Vegas - also on here, Tyson Chandler, Deron Williams and J Kidd.


Mike Bibby and Peja Stojakovic. Met these guys at the Palms hotel a few years back when they were both still with the Kings. This is actually signed on a Jack in the Box hiring flier. Long story, maybe we'll get into that on another future blog post.


Gilbert Arenas. Before the knee surgeries and before the gun charges.


Carlos Boozer. Back in 03 when he was still with the Cavs.


Richard Jefferson. This was actually signed on my ticket from NBA All Star practice. My boy Sam and I literally snuck into Saturday's practice session and when security tried to kick us out someone handed us these comped tickets in order to let us stay. Anyway, later that day we ran into Jefferson and Luke Walton out in Culver City - another long story...


And of course, the one and only, Yao Ming. Back from foot surgery this season and ready to take the league back over. I feel sorry for everyone who counted him out - you'd think they'd know better than to underestimate the Chinese.

FINALLY

We finally copped an iPad this weekend.

We're late - I know. It feels like I'm telling you that we just swapped out our VCR for a DVD player.



We should've bought one when they first dropped, but we didn't, and ever since the internet rumors started talking about the next iPad coming with built-in cameras I figured it'd be better to just wait until that one's released.



But in the past couple months we've had a ton of past clients and new pitches specify that they want sites optimized for mobile devices - in fact we didn't even actually pay for this one, a client bought it for us to develop and test some projects on.



So, the good news is that we have a new toy to play with. The bad news is that we now have to start the process of updating and revamping all the flash sites we've built in the past 4 years and re-programming them to display and function properly on tablets and mobile phones. Thanks a lot Steve Jobs.

BIZ CARDS

Ordered the guys their own business cards recently.



Ryan
As all you stalkers already know, Ryan's been working with us for awhile now so we finally got around to printing him some cards of his own. Ryan basically handles photo stuff, video stuff and a random assortment of all else. This week he's working on some vehicle wraps, orchestrating the delivery of video footage from a kid up in Seattle and helping us start the unenviable process of hiring some design interns. For as much as Matt and I complain about him, Ryan's done a really good job handling whatever we've thrown at him and maintaining a decent attitude through it all.

Besides handling most of the photo and video work, we're still a small company so Ryan sometimes also has to take care of some fairly random tasks. When I forget to return the second set of keys to the rental car, Ryan mails them back to Enterprise and includes a handwritten note apologizing for my boneheaded behavior. You can't beat that.



Spellman
Unlike Ryan, whose mugshot ends up on this blog all the time, you kids have never seen Spellman before. To tell you the truth, I've barely ever seen him myself. He's been working with us for about 3 years but Matt and I have only met up with him only once, for about 15 minutes a few months ago up in LA.

Long story short - we found Spellman on CraigsList way back when we were trying to program the e-mail forms underneath Eviction Notice and knew fairly little about how websites worked, let alone how to code PHP forms. Spellman was like a teenager at the time and stepped in and helped us out. He told us he'd taught himself how to code by setting up his mom's eBay store for Beanie Babies.

Three years later this kid programs everything for us. He has no formal computer programming education, no legit work experience and yet he's basically a self taught computer savant. Anyway, I can't overstate how incredibly capable and efficient this guy is. He literally rides his bike and does random errands during the day, codes for us for a few hours in the afternoon and then spends his nights inside crazy internet forums and places that you and I have never heard of.

Anyway, now you guys know who does all the real work while Matt and I surf and nap.

FLICKR

Random shots from the past week and some stream of consciousness captions.


Contrary to popular belief, Krispy Kreme is indeed, still in business.


Had a dinner meeting Wednesday in Irvine. Couldn't get a guaranteed reservation at Houston's on such late notice so I bit the bullet and held the thing across the street at Daily Grill. Worked out alright anyway.


Picked up this Virgin Mobile portable Wi-Fi Hotspot this week. Have yet to test it but we think it should save us a small fortune in hotel internet fees every year - we'll see.


Pizzamania. Best pizza in Southern California. (By the way, I'm not sure why but Matt hates it when I post food photos on the blog)


Storyboards for a web vid we're helping produce. Had to spend extra time on these because they're more so for client approval than actual practical production use. Still crazy to me that you can pay rent from pencil drawings.


And finally, spent a couple days with the boys.


Shot from golf on Saturday. I know it looks like we're wading through a peat bog - we're just looking for a couple errant tee shots. Don't act like you guys keep it in the fairway on every hole.

LUNCH WITH KYLE

Got to grab lunch with Kyle Busch and his fiancée Samantha Sarcinella last week.



Super busy week - ended up at a lunch meeting out in Fontana on Thursday with the two of them and a couple other folks. Both Kyle and Samantha were really friendly, very down to earth. Spent the past week name dropping and talking about the lunch - unfortunately I don't know many NASCAR fans and no one I mention this to seems to be nearly as impressed as they should be.

Anyway, meeting went well. May do some things with them in the future. Stay tuned.



Meanwhile Kyle went out and won Saturday's race in Fontana. Picked up around $88,000 for the win. No big deal.

I have no 'actual' pictures from the lunch. Matt requested that I refrain from taking photos for the blog, in the interest of what he likes to call 'acting professional'. I told him 'Fine, but you're not punishing me, the only people that are really losing out are the readers of our blog.'

Luckily for you guys I know my way around the computer a little bit and using Google Image Search and a little program called Adobe Photoshop I was able to piece together this hyper-realistic recreation of Kyle, Samantha and I at the restaurant.


Hint: Although it's nearly impossible to distinguish that this photo is a re-enactment of sorts, one way you can tell that it's likely not real is my bow tie - I seldom dress formally at lunch meetings.

MORE MAIL

Week in the life of the 0484 mailbox.


Recent LA Times ad we put together and ran for Michael Louis Kelly.


New issue of Fit Preg.


Besides the highly anticipated outcome of their 'Top Maternity Jeans Test', this issue also features the half page spread we recently did for Recaro along with The ID Agency.


New leatherman. First of all, this thing comes in handy way more than you'd think. Secondly, don't act like you never get bored and buy random things on Amazon.


Collecting checks like it's a hobby. (Just kidding. We're still broke)


Strangely I never caught this while it was airing on ESPN. Another Amazon purchase.


Virgin America sent me a new card. Not crazy about the purple-hologram color scheme but whatever.


NASCAR Hall of Fame Magazine; market research.

Who else do you know that gets all the latest design, business, sneaker, basketball, NASCAR and pregnancy magazines? Nobody.

BEST OF LA

You can't beat LA.

Laker tickets went on sale last week. Prices were even more absurd than usual - but what do you expect when they're coming off back to back championships, right? The amount we spent in Ticketmaster fees alone was sort of ridiculous. Not sure who is behind Ticketmaster but it seems like that dude should be richer than Mark Zuckerberg at this point.


Matt and I went to a meeting Downtown on Monday. As you can see, the weather was as beautiful as always.


Grabbed dinner from the legendary Los Angeles Kogi BBQ Truck tonight. Yes, this is the food truck of all food trucks. This is the one in Time magazine and The Wall Street Journal and everywhere else. Anyway, not bad at all. My hands still smell like marinated spare ribs at the moment but it was definitely worth it.


And finally, the new issue of The Hundreds Magazine showed up today.






And really, what's more Los Angeles than The Hundreds, right?