Doesn't bite

Welcome to Idealog Weekly, the free email newsletter for New Zealand commercial creatives, entrepreneurs and anyone rich with ideas.

Doesn’t bite

Eagle vs Shark, the Disney licensed movie about two misfits, is shaping up to be our own revenge of the nerds. Read about the success story behind Taika Waititi’s ‘practice film’—the one he made “so I didn’t screw up the next one”—on our website. Then dig out your eagle head costume and go and see the flick: I was gonna come as a shark but then I realised an eagle is slightly better.

The big old days

Now that Ford and General Motors have threatened to pack their kits and leave Detroit, everyone’s getting a bit misty-eyed about the days when cars had no de-misters. The huge, cumbersome and exquisitely beautiful muscle car is being celebrated in a show in the US called ‘Designing an Icon, Creativity and the American Automobile’—but there’s even more nostalgia to be had in the back story, courtesy of The New York Times.

Well done

Mark Weldon didn’t play any music at last week’s AUT-Idealog Innovation Series, but he had us all nodding along anyway in an inspirational talk about whether New Zealand will take the high road or the road to nowhere. Here’s the clip of his directions.

That’s an idea

Not every employer condones drinking at work, so for those of you who don’t work in an advertising agency here’s something to spark some random thoughts. The Special Projects Ideas Generator will give you endless three-word brain-sparking combinations at the press of a button. My first hit yielded ‘erotic musical furniture’—clearly an idea in itself.

Be brutal and win some sweet sounds

We want your opinion. We want it so badly that we have some shiny new Apple hi-fi kit to give away to our opinionated readers. Fill out the readers’ survey on our website and you’re in the draw to win an awesome iPod Hi-Fi worth $599 and an AirPort Express to stream music around your home. The survey will take about 10 minutes, is mainly multi-choice and we do pay attention to what people tell us! So get clicking.

iPod Hi-Fi

Fill your home with sound, not stereo components. Keep your music collection at your fingertips, not in countless CD cases. Change the way you experience digital music. For $599, iPod Hi-Fi delivers crystal-clear, high-quality sound in a clean, compact design. Hear, hear.

AirPort Express

Enjoy your iTunes music library in virtually any room of your house or several rooms at once. Share a single broadband Internet connection and USB printer without inconvenient and obtrusive cables. Create an instant wireless network on the go. Extend the range of your current wireless network. How many devices do you need to do all this? Just one: the Airport Express. Featuring AirTunes for playing your iTunes music wirelessly on your home stereo or powered speakers, AirPort Express (retail value $169) brings not only the Internet but your music to wherever in your home you like to enjoy them most, whether you use a Mac or PC.

Fun with spoons

YouTube time. I don’t know if Hannes Coetzee is making much money playing his guitar with his spoon, but listening to this catchy little tune could well inspire you to take up a new hobby. Before you say, “phh, playing a guitar with a spoon, I could do that”, you should know that this guy operates the spoon with his teeth. And he’s 74—could you make people dance with your dentures?

Hanging out for …

Okay, so you have the Tio chair and the under-floor sound system, but what are you doing to impress the dog? The Clothline Clip will do it—raising your designer status a good eight feet in the air by hanging your designer clothes on the line in designer style. No word yet as to why they are better than regular pegs except this: they can clip with both ends without crimping clothes. Sure to save you tons of time in turning the pegs around the right way.

The grey house

When is a green house not green? Always, says BLGDBLOG.The blog makes the very good point that a steel-intensive luxury eco-tower with three rooftop wind turbines—such as the much-publicised Castle House—is a lot less green than a conservatively constructed, similar-sized building. Unless a building breathes in carbon dioxide like a tree, says the blog, it’s not green, it’s just “not as bad as it could have been”. Hope someone builds a real green house soon; I can’t wait to live in a tree house.

Messages up mixed

Speaking of green … who isn’t these days? Even mainstream talkshows are spouting the long-term benefits of recycling (staying alive etc, etc). It seems the only ones disagreeing now that Augie Auer has passed, bless him, are the manufacturers. While Ellen Degeneres is telling us we have to go green, recycle and live better, Wendy Meyer is interrupting with: go metallic, throw away, Better Living Everyone. How long will it take before public and private thinking is on the same channel?

Don’t miss …

The Clean were awesome on their tour earlier this year. If you missed it, don’t repeat your grievous error when David Kilgour tours nationwide with White Swan Black Swan from September 13. He’s playing from Dunedin to Russell so Tally Ho.

And Alastair Fuad-Luke, author of The Eco-Design Handbook, speaks at the DINZ Business of Sustainable Design next Friday. He’ll set you straight on all the latest shades of corporate green.

Check out Idealog’s events guide, Agenda, online and in print. Anyone can add an event to Agenda—just fill out the form on our website.

Quote of the week

“They basically gave me the money and left me alone. I’d be the first to admit that’s probably not a good idea with most directors.”

—Taika Waititi on his relationship with the New Zealand Film Commission

More at Idealog online

Read more on our website: web exclusives, opinion, Idealog IP, the Idealog blogs and the Idealog podcast. See you at idealog.co.nz.

  Gena  Tuffery
  Senior writer

Idealog Weekly is sent to friends, subscribers and registered website users of Idealog magazine.