Here's my NFL playoff predictions:

wild card
Colts over Chargers
Dolphins over Ravens
Cards over Falcons
Vikings over Eagles

conference championship
Panthers over Cards
Steelers over Titans

Super Bowl
Panthers over Steelers 20-17

I was googling for the Panthers logo for this blog post and came across the logo above. I really like the addition of the body. (The standard logo is just the head). The illustration reminds me of ancient Egypt or Greece for some reason. Maybe it's the curved chest.

Many thanks to Matt of spudart for pulling the data and giving me the idea for this post. Check out his top ten most-read posts in 2008.

The number in parenthesis is the number of hits the post received in 2008.

1. best General Grievous costume (1,670)
   I am happy to be a part of the Star Wars universe.
   #2 on Google for: best General Grievous costume.
   
   
   
2. 2008 Fantasy Baseball Talk (1,643)
   This is the ongoing conversation my brother and I had about our 2008 fantasy baseball season. We had a a couple guest commentators and hundreds of visits from others checking out the chat.
   
   
   
3. best keychain toy novelty video/still camera (803)
   I'm a sucker for affordable novelty cameras and apparently so are 800 other people.
   #1 on Google for: best keychain toy novelty camera.
   
   
   
4. Give southern Illinois to Missouri (781)
   Probably my favorite post of the year. The title of the post says it all.
   #3 on Google for: Give southern Illinois to Missouri. Funnily enough spudart's link to this post is #1.
   
   
   
5. Olympic athletes must compete in one foreign sport (659)
   I hope Olympic officials were among the 659 hits to this post. Though my Michael Phelps weightlifting photo is probably the real reason for all the visits.
   
   
   
6. white house ant farm (654)
   What's really below the white house? I like to think it's an ant farm.
   #1 on Google for: white house ant farm.
   
   
   
7. iPass goofiness (646)
   Clearly Blago had left his mark on Illinois iPass given the discovery I made in this post.
   #1 on Google for: iPass goofiness.
   
   
   
8. Bud Light Lime commerical song music (620)
   600 other people were curious who sings this song. I'm glad I could help them.
   I wudda got more hits if I spelled "commercial" properly. sheesh. (The post is now correctly spelled.)
   
   
   
9. cake frosting 596
   People like cake frosting. I like cake frosting.
   
   
   
10. Super Bowl L (578)
    Super Bowl 50 will be Super Bowl L in roman numerals. very Lame.
    #3 on Google for: Super Bowl L.
    

It's advertised as a hand warmer. But anyone who photographs in the cold of winter will appreciate how this device will keep their camera equipment warm and not frozen. $65 (and it's from the great nation of Japan).

It's a chore, but I do rather enjoy slicing up cardboard boxes with a fresh mat knife after Christmas. I feel like Samurai Santa. If anyone knows where I can purchase the comic book, Samurai Santa, please let me know.

I bought the McFarlane Sandberg figure many months ago and never took it out of the package. I had ideas of just selling it on ebay. Last night I found a reason to take it out of the package. The collage didn't quite have the impact I planned for it to have, but an interesting exercise nonetheless.

Larger version of the photo can be viewed at Flickr.

Aston Martin and Foster + Partners won a competition for a new bus design for London, but their bus isn't as nice as the 2nd place bus by miñarro garcía, héctor serrano studio and javier esteba (more photos here). Most of the design blogs I check seem to agree and are featuring the garcia/serrano/esteba bus.

Visit my Flickr page to see outtakes from my 2008 Christmas card. The actual card that was mailed out is shown above.

This year's card features the little known Christmas Lights Monster. He's the one that makes it impossible for you to straighten out your Christmas lights when they are tangled up in twisted up knots (did I just pull that line from The Grinch?). It's quite rare to see this creature in person. He's amongst the ranks of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Chupacabra. So it's quite a treat to see an actual photograph of him doing his work.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! And if you see the Christmas Lights Monster, say, "hello there" and maybe he won't tangle up your lights too much after Christmas. I hear he likes peppermint hot chocolate.

Andrew Colunga's Monster Claus via gizmodo.

Christmas is just about upon us. Chances are you had to deal with some crazy crowds while shopping. Have I got some great advice for you. Do your shopping on the 23rd at 8:00 a.m. Seriously. I was at Oak Brook Center (the outdoor mall) at 8:10 a.m. and there was ALMOST NO ONE there! I'm not a morning person, so I wasn't crazy about getting to the mall that early, but it was so worth it. I have never seen the mall that empty at any time during the year and this was freakin' December 23!

I went to Borders at about 9:00 a.m. and it wasn't bad either. If you've been to Borders any time in December you know how bad it gets. My wife was there Monday night (the 22nd) and the line went almost around the entire store. And this is one of the largest Borders in all of Chicagoland. However, the crowd was simply average the next morning at 9:00. I was happy.

photo courtesy of El_Sol (of Flickr) via Creative Commons license to to copy, distribute and transmit the work

Did you know that the Borders Oak Brook is the first Borders in the Chicago area? It opened in August 1989. That's my Borders! I worked for 10 years in an office building about a block away. It was nice going there during lunch.

I can't leave this blog post without linking to how Borders' exchange policy is manipulative.

photo from vincentjohnson via flickr. That is indeed a storm trooper outside the Oak Brook Borders.

Oh oh oh! I am so incredibly geeked out by this video. It's incredible. The sound effects, the felt Prime, the voice, the quote, the environment, everything is so incredibly awesome. I love it, love it, love it.

mad props to Matt Maldre for sharing this video with me via Facebook

Last weekend I was at my nephew's birthday party. I was playing Play-Doh with a bunch of 3 year-olds. First of, I can't tell you how much fun it is playing Play-Doh with 3 year-olds. However, the point of this blog post is a certain discovery I made. Actually, it was a discovery that one of the kids made. Mix all the colors together and you get GREEN. I thought for sure it would be a nasty shade of brown, but no, it is green.

It's in Madrid of all places. Madrid just got that much cooler.

My wife and I had tacos for dinner. While I was cleaning up, I took a quarter piece of one of the tomatoes (not sure what kind of tomato i was) and popped it in my mouth. It was a taste explosion. I suggest you try it with a nice, ripe tomato some time soon.

I'm not a beer drinker. I'll have one if I'm at a BBQ with friends, out with co-workers or when I'm in the rare mood to have one at a restaurant. The only beer I enjoy drinking is Guinness, so I guess that's part of the reason why I like this hat. And it's a clever idea having the bottle opener in the cap.

There's other Guinness bottle opener hats on the market, but this one is clearly the best. It features the classic logo in patch form. I'm not so sure about the white stitching, but I guess it ties in with the mesh back which I like. You can't beat a hat with built-in air conditioning.

Though I'm really, really not much of a hat guy. And I'm one of the last guys you'll consider to be a frat boy which is the demographic that this hat certainly targets. And any fan of Guinness certainly knows it tastes much better from the tap than from the bottle. Nonetheless it's still fun.

And then there's this hat (you'll have to punch in your birthdate to get to the page on Guinness' webstore) if you want to look like a completely drunken idiot wherever you go.

There's been a number of things that this blog has been a sucker for. Innovative bookshelves is one of them. Here's another brilliant piece. It's the REK bookcase by Reinier de Jong.

Surely the aesthetics is something to behold. The shelf completely closed is striking. However, the functionality of the REK in its "closed" stage is certainly lacking. Yet, when the shelf is expanded to its fullest, it can be quite functional. The open spaces accomodate books of all different heights.

I was checking out the geekdad blog over at wired.com and I was floored to see this photograph of stuffed teddy bears wearing space suits actually floating in space.

Well, actually they weren't really in space. They were 30 kilometers (18.6 miles or 98,425 feet) above ground attached to high altitude balloons. 11-13 year old students from SPARKS science club at Parkside Community College and Coleridge Community College in Great Britain designed the suits for the teddy bears. Accompanying the bears for the 2 hour 9 minute journey was a flight computer, a GPS, a radio, and parachute packs.

They say they were testing the suits against the -53 degrees C temperatures. I think it's just an awesome excuse to get pictures of teddy bears high above the earth.

I admire the work of the likes of Walker Evans and Robert Frank. But I always feel awkward taking photographs of strangers in public. Enter the "Super-Secret Spy Lens". Yea, that's the name. kinda dorky. I'm a little suspect of how this attachment will effect quality. But in the end, it may be a truly great solution if you're like me and shy away from photojournalism.

There's even a video on the site showing the "lens" in action. The more I think about it, the more this seems to be a great device. It "swivels 360 degrees to let you take 90° candid shots in any direction".

It "fits most thread sizes. Including 37mm, 49mm, 52mm, 55mm, 58mm, 62mm, 67mm, 72mm, and 77mm."

lens plus one adapter to fit the lens of your choice is $50.
Buy all the adapters to fit any and all of your non-wide angle non-fisheye lenses for $80.
not a bad price at all.

Hey, hey! I just made my 100th sale on Etsy.com. (The 100th sale item is shown above. It's Massachusetts.) I joined Etsy almost 18 months ago. In the last month I've sold 26 paintings and 3 prints. Not bad.

My maps on a stick series is gaining good momentum. Of course this spike in sales is expected during the holiday season. January and February and even the next couple weeks certainly will see considerable drops in sales.

I have bigger plans for the maps series. I haven't maximized what I could do on Etsy. And certainly there's great potential beyond the storefront on Etsy.

Yes, I've fallen victim to backblogging quite a bit in the past few months. Rest assured I have new posts scheduled for at least the remainder of the week and even going into next week. So if you're a faithful follower, you can look forward to new posts popping up on time each weekday.

incredibly absolutely edible Nikon D700 red velvet cake.

How does 4,000 gummi bears sound? 30 pounds of Christmas joy waiting to be shared. Only $95.63. gulp.

I wonder what a pile of 4,000 gummi bears looks like.

This idea was inspired from core77's link to 2,340 lollipops for 54 bucks.

Yesterday's blog post was about a pair of $19 chinese throwing stars. Today's post features another $19 gadget. It's a camera level that attaches to cameras that have hot shoe ports. It's super nice that it has levels for all the different angles. Though $19 seems a bit steep for this. If it were $12 I'd put it on my wish list.

btw, these items have been pulled from core77's 77 design gifts for under $77.

I have a certain brother who I think would love these throwing star magnets. Alas, they are sold out until 2009. $19 seems a bit pricey for two magnets anyways.

More great stuff from Japan. This time it's Christmas lights mania.

It's hard to believe that I can't find 11/16" screw eyes for less than 6 cents each online. Menards sells packs of 14 for $0.82. I use 11/16" screw eyes for my 8x10" paintings.

I don't have the numbers to back it up, but I believe Menards' 11/16" screw eyes are far cheaper than at Home Depot or Ace Hardware. I don't have a Lowe's near me so I can't attest to their prices.

Just because I know you wanted it. Above is the Menards favicon blown up to 350 by 350 pixels. Enjoy and Merry early Christmas to you... from MENARDS!

Visit menards.com and take a gander at Menards' favicon next to their url. It's the Menards guy! I love it! "MENARDS! MENARDS!"

Watch this video and you'll learn that chickens can keep their heads perfectly still in the same spot even if they move around.

He's 6' 8" tall. He's blue. He's a bear. And he's all yours for 200 bucks. He'd be perfect to bring as a companion to Cubs games next season. I'm not sure if the happy old man comes with him.

Hit the "click to enlarge" link on the page and you see about a dozen photos of the happy old man with the 6' 8" bear. Most of the photos feature the happy old man holding the bear really high. I think he's trying to give a sensation for the extreme height of the bear. "Look! He's like 3 feet taller than me!" But such tactics have the opposite effect on me. I see through his height deception practices. I wish there was a photo of the bear simply standing on the ground next to the happy old man.