Graphic designer, Julien Mercier, created a typeface that combines both serif and san serif font details to create a really interesting and elegant approach to typography. It’s called Otsuki-Sama and you can check it out here.

Came across this Slate article outlining Apple’s knack for teasing us with with its small slice of the color wheel. White? Black? Chrome? White again? You love it.

I’m going to give you a little peak into the email chain about blogging that occurred recently…

(Names shortened to protect the not-so-innocent.)

Team,
I’ve fallen behind on the blog reminders. I’ve decided to blame this on M for whatever reason. Anyway… Help!
Can I count on three of you to post yours by end of week? This would be so cool of you.
M and Julian, can I count on yours by next Wednesday?
High five,
D

From Julian:

You can count on me. I’m all in!

From M:

Wow. Well, D, because you blamed me, I don’t feel like you can “count” on me. Also, you typed “count” three times in your e-mail. It made me want to go “postal.”

From D:

M,

It’s cute that you decided to count the amount of “counts” I used in my email. This is a good sign that you’re paying attention in class. You might find this Youtube video right up your alley if you’re interested in some more advanced count theory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJxKvwMIVtA

From M:

Proper punctuation and capitalization are important things to consider when writing business related e-mails.

Please review the following URL and consider it a handy resource: http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/capital.asp

From Joe:

Corrected: “Proper punctuation and capitalization is an important thing to consider when writing…”

And it continued. As you can see, we might not be the best about remembering our blog posts, but we sure do have a fun time encouraging each other in the process! So, take this as a little nudge from your friends over at JLB to schedule time to post to your blog. It can be as important as your next business meeting.

Every month, Google seems to unveil a new service, or at the least, an improvement to an existing product. This year, we’ve seen improvements with things like Google’s Advanced G-mail sign-in security, Think Insights, various upgrades to Google Translate, the development of Google Correlate, the emergence of Google Offers, Google Apps transmorphing into Google Accounts, the iriver Story HD e-reader, and the unveiling of +1.

The latest? Sitelinks.

If you’ve been “Googling” this week, then you’ve no doubt noticed the updated and expanded sitelinks below search results. These sitelinks are direct hypertext links into various sections within a given website, and they are included in Google’s normal SERPs. In the past, SERP sitelinks might include a column of links — two to four to six to eight. The latest “upgrade” to SERP sitelinks “full-size links with a URL and one line of snippet text—similar to regular results.”

According to Google, these updated sitelinks are aimed at “making it even easier to find the section of the site you want.” They are also increasing the maximum number of sitelinks per query from eight to 12.

Want to learn more about the expanded sitelinks? Check out Google’s Blog post / press release, here.

The newly opened Franklin Theatre will be showing Mary Poppins this weekend. My favorite. Naturally, I’ve been blasting the soundtrack throughout the office this week while Micah, Julian and Joseph roll their eyes, and sometimes, involuntarily begin singing along.

After about the third time through, Julian turned to Micah and asked a very good question about me: “What’s with this guy?”

Julian was kidding, but it’s a serious and interesting question. Why does the magic of Disney still compel me and other adults I know? Here are a few of my desperate qualifiers in my attempt to justify myself and maybe even you.

1. The Art of it all!

This argument sort of works and there’s plenty to say. The animation was all hand-drawn and untouched by digital effects, of course. Even the non-cartoonish London backdrop in Mary Poppins is crafted by hand and tactfully integrated. There is a classic charm to all of it, not to mention a lost technique.

We could riff on this a while, but it still doesn’t justify the kind of affection I’m talking about.

2. The music of it all!

This hardly needs explaining. If I found myself at a table of hip, Nashville musicians, I could argue that the effect Disney music has had on the world is as powerful as the music of the Beatles and could even outlast it.

That’s an essay for another time, but the music argument, while convincing, can’t really stand alone without the other elements of visual and story.

3. The theme of it all!

Here we go. Disney offers the quality I look for most in film: Escapism. Films that were larger than life. Looking way back, film found it’s great awakening in wartime as a distraction from the chaos and a shelter from the storm of bloodshed, rationing and economic unrest. The song-and-dance men and women of WWII come to mind or Lucas and Spielberg on the heels of Vietnam. “Critically acclaimed” film nowadays has strayed from it’s first calling, valuing a “realism” or “disasterism” that is often depressing, self-loathing and fatalistic. We may find a certain sad hope in some of these movies to cling to, but nothing like the pure, epic fun we found in the Disney classics like Peter Pan, Robin Hood etc.

To be fair, these movies didn’t ignore what was going on in history, they actually latched on to current events in most cases, using them as a springboard to tell a bigger narrative of magic, friendship, love and adventure. Think Robin Hood over the backdrop of the Crusades, Peter Pan and its inherent theatrical appeal to the stuffy aristocracy of London’s “grown-up” population. Mary Poppins even tried to tackle feminism at the turn of the century — a back-seat theme to the “real” story of a magic nanny, children growing up and parents growing down to meet them.

This option is the most fun and allows us to deconstruct these stories to fit whatever psychological or socio-political interpretation we like. No doubt these themes are actually there to deal with, but we almost have to go behind the children’s story to find these adult themes and separate them out from the whole narrative. In the end we have a kids fairy tail and an adult reality, cleverly coexisting in one film to please two separate demographics at the same time.

So…

Film should always be picked apart and talked about for its uses of art, music and theme, but it should also be allowed to be what it is as a whole. Each piece we examine needs to be placed back in the larger puzzle when we’re done with it, if it’s to be fully appreciated.

Many of us get excited about what we like and want to put it in words (like I am doing now). But as much as we ramble, we usually fail to get to the bottom of anything and only end up making a few bonus points on a rabbit trail — far away from the main point. Why? The real answer is simple and frustrating. The things we find beautiful are always the things we find mysterious. I know sometimes why I like a certain song, and could describe it in essay form, but you would never get the full effect from my descriptions as you would by simply listening for yourself and engaging with the beauty and mystery.

This may sound obvious, but it’s something I and many others wrestle with, especially when we’re still hung up on the kids movies of our childhood. I guess I see it like this: We always talk about what we learned in our teen years, college years, young adult years etc. No one really talks about what they learned in their childhood years — only what they saw or experienced. As kids, we were all too young to process everything and could only stare in the face of the things that compelled or petrified us and marvel at them. As an adult, I find that I always have to relearn this technique over and over. Maybe Disney helps me do that. And maybe Mary Poppins was right. There are certain feeling we can’t put into words and what comes out instead is something you’d be more likely to find at a pentecostal revival than in a lecture hall. If you say it loud enough you’ll always sound precocious…

(For further reading, enjoy this feminist take on Mary Poppins)

80′s Tang Pops
These remind me of hot September days in California.

6 tablespoons Tang
2 cups water

Mix together until the Tang is dissolved. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze.

Watermelon Popsicles

These were so delicious last summer–before I discovered I’m allergic to watermelon! My kids still love them!

3 cups seedless watermelon
1 cup strawberries
2 tablespoons Sugar
1-2 tablespoons lemon or lime juice

Put all ingredients into the blender and blend well.

Pour into popsicle molds. Freeze.

Yogurt Pops

1 cup vanilla yogurt
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries, strawberries or raspberries
1 tablespoon sugar (to taste, if berries are sour)

Put all ingredients in the blender. Blend.

Pour into popsicle molds. Freeze.

The Franklin Theatre officially kicked off this past weekend with a VIP variety show for local donors followed by an inaugural showing of “Gone With the Wind.” Main street was blocked to cars, packed with happy, sweaty people and made for my most memorable Franklin experience in a long time.

We Franklinites are a lot like Hobbits in Tolkien’s fictional village of Hobbiton.  We jump at the chance to come together and celebrate things like beer, wine, produce and many other seasonal holidays, so it wasn’t as if seeing the town come together this time and celebrate in such numbers was a surprise. It just seemed more exciting than usual. Something new in the air.
I’ll give credit to the Heritage Foundation for their incredible marketing, but I’d wager that the word-of-mouth campaign was equally (if not more) influential. People are excited about movies, class, art and entertainment. The Franklin Theatre’s introductory run had it all.

It’s a venue like no other and a hot spot for culture that Franklin’s needed for a while.

The Rodeo Parade kicks off the start of the Rodeo, and it courses through the heart of Franklin, serving as the clarion call that the cowpokes are coming to town.

I remember attending Rodeo Parades as a school kid, watching the “shoot out” in the Square, listening to the marching bands, and encouraging the folks on horseback to throw more candy.

The past couple of years, I’ve taken my children to the Parade.  I’m reminded what a unique town Franklin really is — events like the Rodeo Parade are lines in the fabric of small town America that bind together memories and generations. Sometimes there is comfort in the old adage: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

The weekend of April 30-May 1 is my favorite–Main Street Festival! It’s so much fun to shop and eat and visit with all the friends you meet walking down the street. It is expanding this year with over 200 vendors, three stages for entertainment and two carnivals!

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo at SOL and join in a tequila toast to benefit a great cause. The toast is in effort to break a Guinness Book Record for the Largest Tequila Toast in the world. (I know you remember reading all through that book as a kid. You really used to know who had the longest toenails in the world!) The festivities begin at 5 with live musical entertainment.

Opening night for the Franklin Theatre is June 3 with a movie-themed street party featuring Gone with the Wind! Much of Main Street will be closed down to celebrate. After the opening, movies will be $5 for the first three months. Sounds like a great date night or girls’ night out. Rumor has it they will also have matinees for kids and live music performances too!

Remember to check out the calendar on Franklinis.com before you make plans!

Understand, Final Draft is THE software for screen writing and hasn’t caught up with cloud technology? Even while most of its clients – at some point in the writing process – will be writing with a partner from a distance! Sorry, this is just so unbelievable to me. So I called Final Draft and explained this glaring problem. Here’s the answer I got: Final Draft is already getting started on a program using cloud technology (oh cool) that should launch in 2013! (What?!) In TWO YEARS!? We could all be transferring data via telepathy by then!

Anyway, this article in the NYTimes reminded me just how far behind many large technology corporations are on cloud technology. An innovation that has become so obvious and so helpful.