Ivy Esquero

Magic Carpets est une installation interactive pensée par l’artiste Miguel Chevalier. Cette installation est, comme son nom l’indique, un tapis magique situé au sein de la cour intérieure du château del Monte en Italie. Tapissant le sol de motifs kaléidoscopiques et psychédéliques en mouvement, cette idée fabuleuse plonge les visiteurs dans une dimension nouvelle. À découvrir en vidéo.

"When your supplier hates your guts, it's kind of hard to do business."

Canada is a vast, wondrous country with many interesting and beautiful things. A Trader Joe's store is not one of those things. When Michael Hallatt moved from California to Vancouver, only to realize that there was a shop just close enough in Bellingham, Washington, where Canadians regularly stocked up on Speculoos cookie butter, Inner Peas, cocoa-almond spread, and Cat Cookies for People, Hallatt figured he could save people the hassle of crossing the border and dealing with customs agents — while adding a few dollars to the prices of products — and make a small profit.

So about two years ago, he opened a retail location that soon became known as "Pirate Joe's," an "unaffiliated, unauthorized re-seller of Trader Joe's products." If it sounds shady, know that Hallatt has played by the rules, legally speaking, and won two lawsuits against the corporation. Currently, Hallatt is in lawsuit round three (Trader Joe's has appealed to the 9th Circuit), and his store has now come to represent some much larger ideas about small business, market forces, and demand, even if Hallatt's main goal is simply to convince the chain to expand into Canada.

Do you remember your first Trader Joe's experience?
I was living in Emeryville, but I was a Whole Foods person. You go in there, and there's somebody elegantly serving you samples of organic blood oranges and you're like, "Oh yeah." You can't shake that easily. But I found myself pinching pennies while building a house, so I decided to give Trader Joe's another look. Once it gets in your DNA, you kind of go, "Oh yeah, TJ. That's the stuff."

And then you moved to Canada, where there are no Trader Joe's stores.
I opened the shop as a response to being in Bellingham, which is this portal to freedom that Canadians use. It's just close enough that you can grind your way over the border. I was in the Trader Joe's in Bellingham, and it was full of Canadians, just grabbing the stuff. The parking lot was pandemonium.

I was looking for a retail gig, and I wanted to be in Vancouver. So I looked into it, and just on the logistics side, it was pretty much impossible. The Canadian import system is tuned for the status quo, which is big trailers full of stuff from Costco. So even though these prices are tantalizingly low, the logistics of getting things over the border legally are a barrier to entry that dissuade a lot of people from bothering.

How did you get across the border with a truck full of shopping bags? Didn't that look shady?
You look in the van at any given time, and there are 150 bags of groceries jammed in a white panel van. I don't put them in boxes. The first time, there was a big guy in a bulletproof vest. He's looking at me, and he's got all my paperwork, and I'm nervous. I'm an adult and I'm sweating. He's looking at all the papers, and he looks up and he says, "You got those peanut butter cups? Those little ones?" And I'm just like, "Are you kidding me?" With a big smile, he goes, "Yeah, yeah, come on, come on." He shows me the computer and gets me dialed in, and I haven't looked back. Now the customs agents know who I am. They love the story. As long as I do the paperwork, they're good.

What's your markup on the food?
I thought, Well, I'll just mark everything up, you know, $1.00. We'll see what happens. And I lost a lot of money — I mean, $3000 or $4000 in the first month. So then I went up to $1.50. My prices are still cheaper than, or comparable to, Safeway or Whole Foods. Definitely cheaper than Whole Foods.

So let's talk about the legal nightmare. I can imagine it hasn't been easy.
It wasn't lost on me that I might get in a bit of trouble. A lawyer said, "Whatever you do, you've got to come up to the line" — he had just described where the line was, from a trademark-infringement point of view — "and step back from it." I said, "Well, what if it was disguised as a Romanian bakery?" The building we rented was a Romanian bakery that had gone out of business. And he goes, "That's perfect." So we opened up, and all we had was Trader Joe's stuff in the window and a sign I inherited that said "Transylvania Trading." I made a banner that said "I

How did you spread the word?
People would come in, and I would say, "Don't tell anybody." And, of course, they would tell — that's like rocket fuel for word of mouth. Obviously, I'm not going to advertise. Canadians are very rules-y, so they would come in and go, "Well, this can't be legal." And I'd say, "Well, tell me which law it is I'm breaking. They'd respond, "It says right on the back of the box, 'Exclusively Distributed.'" "Yeah, but that's not a law. You can't legislate on the back of a cereal box."

So there's a place in Brooklyn that only sells Nutella products. It was called Nutelleria, and then they opened with the name to Nuteria. Strange, but is it illegal?
So companies have trademark laws at their disposal. Basically, what you'e trying to do is not confuse customers. If you've got a trademark for Nutella, and you're in the marketplace, everyone wants to know what the authentic Nutella thing is — that's it. If some place called Nutelleria shows up, that's shorthand for a place that sells Nutella. Are customers confused? Nutella would argue, "Well, yeah, because they're using Nutella in the name. They are implying that this business is authorized or affiliated with us, when they're not." It's a gray area.

There's this place called Charbucks. It's a riff on how Starbucks is known as Charbucks because they burn the hell out of their coffee. It has nothing to do with Starbucks, and Starbucks freaks out and sues them, and these guys choose to fight. They won, because Starbucks went out and did a survey, and like 60 percent of the people thought maybe it might be affiliated with Starbucks, but maybe not — it was kind of gray. People are smarter, so they sided with Charbucks. Charbucks is open.

When did you first hear from Trader Joe's?
They sent me a cease-and-desist letter saying I had to close within seven days. The first thing I did was put the thing in the window. It was actually some pretty brisk business because everyone thought I was going to close, so they were getting their stuff while they could. And I was like, "That's designed to scare us. You ignore that." And then a whole year went by, after that letter arrived, where there was radio silence from Trader Joe's for about a year. Until the first lawsuit hit.

What happened?
We moved to a new location and put a sign in the window that said "Pirate Joe's." A journalist has given us the nickname, and my lawyers — well, when I say my lawyers, these are people I call up randomly and ask for free advice — were like, "Yeah, that's going to be trouble." So it wasn't long before that happened that Trader Joe's got pretty upset, and then they sued me. So we started out as this bizarre top-secret place disguised as a Romanian bakery. And I didn't really predict the rest of it, like winning the lawsuit.

For me, the problem is that Trader Joe's will not discuss anything. There was one opportunity early in the litigation where, after we won the first round, there was a request for mediation. Their lawyers said, "Can you come up with any ways to solve this?" and I said, "Sure, how about if I turn this into a Trader Joe's café, where everything in the café is concoctions made out of Trader Joe's stuff?" They said, "Great idea, but we won't supply you."

Were you surprised by your success?
I didn't ever want to be this guy sneaking around. But the shift in people's perceptions really cemented after Trader Joe's lost the first round of the lawsuit. People were taking my word for it that this was indeed legal, but when it was affirmed by the courts, everybody who was on the fence jumped on our side. One of our little slogans is we're unauthorized, unaffiliated, and unafraid. People love that. It's like one part Occupy Grocery and one part David versus Goliath.

And we'll admit everything: Yeah, we're buying it from you full retail. Here are all of our receipts. What is wrong with that exactly? And this idea that there's brand harm — I don't see how you get there. We're introducing new people to Trader Joe's every day. When Trader Joe's comes up here, everyone's all set.

How has it progressed? Are you still embattled in lawsuits?
We won the first two rounds. I knew legally that I was fine, and that it was always going to be about whether I could afford to fight. But it's all paid for by Wawanesa [an insurance company]. So $120,000 later, I haven't paid a bill. And Trader Joe's is probably well north of $300,000 at this point. I'd prefer if they took the money and put it into a new store, but hey, that's the way it goes. If it went to the Supreme Court, I'm covered all the way up there. It never will, but it's pretty amazing.

We're on round three at this point. They've appealed it to the 9th Circuit, which is based out of San Francisco. And we don't know what's going to happen there. If they uphold the dismissal of this lower court, then it's established law, and Trader Joe's has basically set themselves on fire with this one.

Can you actually show your face in Trader Joe's stores?
They got a picture of me from some press thing, so a year ago, I'd go into a Trader Joe&'s, and within ten minutes, someone would be tapping me on the shoulders saying, "We're not going to sell to you." Now I hire shoppers off Craigslist. It sounds sketchy: "So, you've got to sneak into Trader Joe's for me and buy groceries." I ended up with this little crew: I've got a couple of farmers with two kids, and they don't make enough money growing organic stuff. I've got a gal who is a divorcée from Boston, who looks kind of like Olivia Newton John, and she's always in Spandex, and she just loves doing it. I've got stoners and they smell like pot. I pay them either by the hour or on commission, depending.

How much do you buy at a time?
Well, just one-sies, two-sies. We don't want them to have any way of detecting that we're doing it, and we don't want to clear out the shelves. That wouldn't be fair. If I go shop in L.A. — I've done that once to see how that would work — I'll just tell people that I'm shopping for Tom Cruise. L.A. is so crazy that people go, "Of course you are." I can get anything I want out of L.A.

But I bought $15,000 worth of stuff in one trip, rented a van, and then I forgot about the heat wave. That was just a disaster. So I ended up having to check into a motel, hire a guy to help me with all the groceries, and put them in the air-conditioned hotel room, until it cooled down and I could drive through the night.

What are your best-selling items?
The dark-chocolate-covered peanut butter cups, and the dark-chocolate-covered almonds with sea salt and Turbinado sugar. If you come into the store and you're not sure what's going on, we give you one of those and then you start paying attention. We chase people around and give them those things. Believe it or not, the Inner Peas — the salted peas; they're like snap peas that are basically just a lot of salt — can't keep those in. I say we can tell when we've got the right product when people grab it and then immediately pull it to their chest.

How would you like to see this play out?
What Trader Joe's should do is open in Vancouver. It's just not fair that they set up this business in Bellingham. It would absolutely put me out of business, and rightly so. We're just a market response. And if Trader Joe's comes up here, those all go away, and my rationale completely goes out the window — which is fantastic, because this isn't a business that I intended to last this long. When your supplier hates your guts, it's kind of hard to do business.

I've never worked harder for less money in my life. But I've never had more fun, either. Part of my rationale for sticking with this, despite all the adversity, is this could establish a law for the next kid that goes, "Hey, I want to do something." You read about that kid in Cornell that was buying books in Thailand and then reselling them? That's the same thing, but I'm buying it retail from the official people — the full Monty — and then just taking it away and selling it to people that have no Trader Joe's. There's no legal argument for those guys to make. But they're pressing on. The problem is that I'm suddenly in the grocery business. Now, who the hell wants to be in the grocery business? I've got myself into a bit of a pickle.

Are you still a Whole Foods person?
I'm not a TJ's diehard. I'm more of a Whole Foods person. Like, there's a Whole Foods across the street, that's where I ... I don't eat that much of the stuff in my store. It's incongruous for me to be Trader Joe's best customer. This has really become more about saying, "Don't push me around."

Read more posts by Sierra Tishgart

Filed Under: interviews, pirate joe's, trader joe's

(Photo: Eric Hart)

Eric Hart is a professional prop maker in Burlington, North Carolina. His infant son is hospitalized. Hart wanted his boy to experience Halloween and to have “a costume that would help him feel brave.” Iron Man was a natural choice. Hart created a pattern with paper, then cut the pieces out of red and yellow foam.

(Video Link)

-via Technabob

La créatrice néerlandaise Iris van Herpen, fidèle à son style, a proposé pour sa collection Printemps/Été 2015 une série de robes créées à partir de nouveaux matériaux. De nouvelles matières issues de procédés tels que impression 3D, moulage par injection et découpe au laser mis au point avec l’aide d’architectes et de scientifiques. À découvrir.

Comme Christian Stoll qui a mis des couleurs sur la psychologie et les émotions, le designer Patrick Smith a réussi à mettre des symboles graphiques sur des troubles mentaux complexes. A travers 7 posters minimalistes et respectant des codes couleurs précis, nous pouvons décrypter les sentiments d’incompréhension, de dédoublement et d’isolement de certaines maladies psychologiques.

Après un premier jet de Truth Facts, le site Kind Of Normal continue de nous faire sourire avec ses infographies et ses petites vérités sur les choses du quotidien auxquelles tout le monde peut s’identifier; comme par exemple le mauvais quart d’heure passé à démêler des écouteurs… Une sélection à découvrir.

Bad movies. That’s in essence what caused weak revenues at Redbox during the third quarter, with the movie rental service’s parent company Outerwall disclosing financial results today. Redbox, the biggest part of Bellevue-based Outerwall, said its revenues declined 11 percent during the third quarter due to “a weak release schedule in the second quarter of 2014 and the unfavorable timing and mix of content released in the third quarter of 2014.” Redbox posted revenue of $438 million, down from $491.7 million for the same period last year. Overall, Outerwall — which also operates Coinstar and ecoATM kiosks — posted revenue … Read More on GeekWire

Tout le monde a besoin de faire ses besoins, et il n’y a aucune raison que les personnages imaginaires ne dérogent à la règle. De cette affirmation humoristique, le directeur artistique Lucas Savelli en a fait une série mettant en scène des personnages de dessins animés aisément mais discrètement assis sur le trône. De Mickey à Bugs Bunny en passant par Kermit ou encore la Panthère Rose.

(Photo: Annalee)

Tom Schutt, a high school math teacher in Washington, D.C., received treatments for cancer. As a result of his chemotherapy, he lost his hair and a lot of weight. So while in a Starfleet uniform, he looked a lot like Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation. After his cancer went into remission and his chemotherapy ended, Schutt regrew his hair. Remove one rank insignia pip and he looks like Commander Will Riker!

-via Fashionably Geek

“I want to be a hematologist. That’s a blood doctor. Well not a blood doctor, exactly. But a doctor that finds cures for blood diseases.”
“How’d you decide on that?”
“We were dissecting frogs in class and learning about how the blood flows through the body. And I went home that night and wrote an essay. And it wasn’t like any other essay I’d ever done. Normally when I write essays, it takes me a long time, but this was the fastest essay I ever wrote. So the next day I was asking the teacher mad questions, and she was like, ‘You know you can get a job in this.’ And she pulled it up on the internet, and was showing me all about hematologists.”

Talk about "Double Stuf."

It's getting increasingly difficult to tell real Oreos from the fake ones these days. Sherbet and candy cane are genuine; red velvet and fried chicken, not so much. There's an active Oreo fan community that loves making mock-up packaging for unreal Oreos, and compounding the problem of sussing out the truth is Mondelez International's habit of changing the conversation to its miniatures line, or just issuing blanket denials, like how Tom Cruise's spy bosses in Mission Impossible disavow any knowledge of his existence whenever he blows up the wrong people. Anyhow, all of that is to say that soft Oreo churros are real.

J&J Snack Foods, makers of everything from food-service funnel cakes to giant lumps of sugar-free cookie dough. The Oreo churro, produced with the blessings of the famous cookie's corporate honchos, is actually three churros — regular, "double twisted," and bite-size. Shipments are already headed out, apparently, anywhere your standard jalapeño-ranch-topped soft pretzels are served, meaning, stadiums, fast-casual restaurants, and other institutional settings, such as particularly festive DMV offices. Best of all, the manufacturer notes they can be served with a "cookie creme dip," conveniently made by the same folks. Here are some spotted in the wild:

Oreo Churros. Available now. pic.twitter.com/BJ4mqWxm3h

— Karl Kuehling (@karlk_jjsnack) November 5, 2014

The Oreo churro is a lot smaller than regular churros. Taste wise it's okay, nothing spectacular. pic.twitter.com/AZFV4Nw1NO

— Inside Universal (@insideuniversal) October 18, 2014

Churro/cookie people: Send any reports our way.

[First We Feast]

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: innovations, cookies, oreo churros, oreos

« Halloween Countdown » est une série de figurines réalisés par les studios d’animation anglais A Large Evil Corporation. De Shining à Orange mécanique en passant par Freddy, ces modèles tombent à point nommé à l’approche du jour où se sème la terreur, Halloween.

Thriller.

Carrie.

Don’t Look Now.

E.T.

The Shining.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

A Clockwork Orange.

Model from The Mighty Boosh.

Freddy.

Now that Dunkin' Donuts has gone wide with its fake Cronuts — "Come back at 2 a.m. when we get ten delivered," we were told earlier this week at a Brooklyn store — at $2.49 a pop, Red Robin has seized the moment and introduced its own version, which come in the form of eight pastry things pre-threaded on a metal spoke, which also holds a cup of fudge and some berry dipping sauce.

"Doh! Why didn't we think of it before?" they write, and if it all seems a little precarious, it is. Like Dunkin' and Jack in the Box before them, the chain goes out of its way to not give their hybrid fried pastry a portmanteau name that might end up in a lawsuit. Maybe they shouldn't have gone with a "Doh!" though: We all know Homer Simpson loves doughnuts, and owner 20th Century Fox sued a brewer over Duff beer, after all.

[Eater]

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: the chain gang, cronuts, doh rings, dominique ansel, red robin

Dans cette série nommée Skitchen, l’artiste Benoit Jammes nous invite à découvrir la vie cachée des fruits et des légumes en cuisine. On y voit des kiwis et des bananes qui réalisent de superbes prouesses en skateboard entre les casseroles et les conserves. Un travail humoristique à découvrir en images.

Reiulf Ramstad a conçu plusieurs cabanes en bois au design très épuré à la demande d’un client qui désirait loger sa famille, mais dans une unité divisée en trois structures individuelles. La disposition et l’orientation des cabanes offrent une superbe vue sur le paysage et permettent aux habitants de bénéficier d’un micro-climat. Plus de détails dans la suite.

Back when I was taking math classes, the bane of my existence was always the one homework question that I couldn’t figure out, despite my best efforts. For whatever reason, I got tangled up in some fraction or calculation that I missed, eating up a massive chunk of my time if I wasn’t careful. Enter PhotoMath, a new app that offers people an easy way to figure out a math problem by just holding their iPhone or Windows Phone handset over the offending equation. Once users open the app, they can hover the camera over a typed out math problem. … Read More on GeekWire

Cet automne, Gareth Pugh a dévoilé sa collection de prêt-à-porter pour le printemps 2015. Comme inspiré des tenues folkloriques lors des rituels sorciers, le créateur a conçu des costumes déroutants : des coupes droites, géométriques, des motifs hypnotiques et des couleurs toujours neutres. une sélection de la collection est à découvrir en images.

Don't call it a Cronut.

Dunkin' Donuts has finally figured out how to bring its definitely-not-a-Cronut Croissant Donut to American stores on November 3, roughly 15 months after introducing it across South Korean franchises, for some reason, as the "New York Pie Donut." The delay was just natural, explains the company; Dunkin' plans to be "selling a lot more of them than a single shop bakery" — one owned by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named — "so it was important to do it right." They were a big hit upon launch in Korea, so who knows?

Dunkin' says this novel pastry concept will sell for $2.49 and be covered in its Glazed Donut glaze, à la this:

Going cro-nuts over @DunkinDonuts NEW croissant donuts... "Hi, I'll take them all!" #cronut #mydunkin pic.twitter.com/eNeLmmqiyF

— Dinopoulos (@cdinopoulos) October 27, 2014

For future versions, the chain says it's "looking at" fillings and toppings — who knows, they could even rotate them on a monthly basis? No specific flavors mentioned yet, but chocolate is among those already tested in Korea:

In an interview, John Costello, the doughnut chain's president of global marketing and innovation, schools the AP on the "at least 20 years" bakers have been making doughnuts out of croissants, or vice versa, which is a paltry form of proof that Dunkin' isn't "copying a specific bakery in New York." The companywide name avoidance does start to border on parody, though: Asked how the Croissant Donut and Cronut differ, Dunkin's CEO Jeff Miller would only tell the AP he's "tried the product that you mention" and likes theirs better.

So yeah, cue the 31 Ways Dunkin' Donuts Went Out of Its Way Not to Say the Word Dunkin’ Donuts’ Korean ‘Cronut’ listicles. And not that they'd know this or anything, but the timing was pretty smart. The guy who makes that other "product" is kicking off his book tour for The Secret Recipes right now.

Related: The Official Cronut Recipe Is Out
Related: Dunkin' Donuts Figured Out How to Make Cronuts
[AP]

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: knockoffs, croissant donut, cronut, dominique ansel bakery, dunkin' donuts

Jeff Bezos and Amazon have been taking it on the chin on Wall Street and elsewhere over the company’s lack of profits. But a new ranking from the elite Harvard Business Review offers a completely different perspective, crunching nearly two decades of financial data and naming Bezos the best-performing CEO in the world. How is that possible? The ranking looked not at profits, specifically, but at the broader measure of shareholder return, which includes the increase in the company’s market value, driven by its share price. Through that lens, this is what Amazon looks like over the past decade. Writes HBR’s Daniel McGinn, “The … Read More on GeekWire

Diplômée de la Rhode Island School of Design et basée en Alaska, la photographe Acacia Johnson capture de très beaux paysages scandinaves, d’Islande mais aussi de son pays. Dans des teintes bleutées et à travers son regard délicat, elle nous fait découvrir la nature de ces pays qui la passionnent. A découvrir.

Dans cette série de photos signée par le photographe Max Rive, on voit un homme se tenant fièrement à la pointe des sommets qu’il vient de gravir en dominant le paysage qui apparaît alors en face de lui. Ces clichés d’une qualité exceptionnelle semblent alors faire écho au mythe de David et Goliath, la montagne géante venant d’être vaincu par le petit homme.

“I think if we were all being honest with ourselves, very few of us ever meet The One. The vast majority of people just marry because they’re ready. I never really felt like I met The One. I don’t think my wife is The One. I mean, she’s a nice lady. But I don’t think she’s The One for me. And I don’t think she’d mind me saying that, because if she was being honest, I don’t think she’d say I am The One for her either.”

“I think I was angriest when my father died. The saddest and the angriest. The saddest because he was gone, and I selfishly wanted him back. Angriest because it made me think about how we all have to die and that really made me angry.”
“Angry at what?”
“God, The Spirit, whatever it is that brought us here. I do believe in something. I don’t know what. But I don’t think we’re here because of some accidental chemical reaction. But life is like some toy, or some piece of candy, that God hands to the baby just to snatch it away. I mean, c’mon, did you really have to make us suffer to achieve salvation? Did Eve have to eat the apple? Did Jesus have to suffer on a cross so that we could be forgiven for our sins? You could have just snapped your fingers and forgiven our sins. You’re God. You could have cut out the whole middle part. But you chose to make us suffer. And that makes me angry.”

 

The hit HBO series Game of Thrones films in Belfast, Northern Ireland and Dubrovnik, Croatia. For the show’s upcoming fifth season, scenes are also being shot in Spain, which is a stand-in for the kingdom of Dorne, the homeland of House Martell. Filming began at Alcázar palace near Seville, then moved to Osuna where a large battle will be staged. The opportunity to be an extra led to a response that shows how popular the production is in Spain.

When the local production company Fresco Film put out a casting call for roughly 600 extras for a key battle Thrones scene, fans responded with an incredible 86,000 applications. The company needed to add more server space to accommodate the load. Many applicants needed the work, but one hired extra told the production he took a vacation from his high-level banking job to be on the show.

Meanwhile, others have clamored to get a glimpse of the show’s cast, with one even asking a random production staffer to post for a photo merely because he was wearing a Thrones badge.

Learn more at Entertainment Weekly, but be aware there are spoilers if you’re not current on the series through season four. -via Warming Glow

Turkey, cranberry sauce, and gravy, all wrapped up in a neat package of celery salt croissant dough.

Momofuku Milk Bar's most genius hybrid pastry ever, the Thanksgiving croissant, is cooling on bakery counters right this very minute. The flakey celery salt dough wrapped around dark and light meat, cranberry sauce and gravy typically debuts on November 1, so this is like Christmas come early in the world of holiday-themed foods. It's here just in time for that cold snap we're about to get, so grab one, or two, or three if you're already stretching your stomach for Thanksgiving dinner, and say a word of thanks. The pastries will disappear at the end of November.

The only way to eat turkey: @momomilkbar thanksgiving croissant: stuffed w turkey, stuffing, gravy & cranberry jelly pic.twitter.com/TWNqBuyjZG

— Dave Chang (@davidchang) October 30, 2014

In the highly competitive world of absurd concession foods, this item released just in time for the Charlotte Hornets season opener at Time Warner Cable Arena may take the metaphorical cake.

New @Hornets games: Hugo's Boss Burger -- 8 lbs of meat w/cheddar, bacon, lettuce & mushrooms ($70) pic.twitter.com/fT6cZYduHw

— darren rovell (@darrenrovell) October 29, 2014

Called Hugo's Boss Burger (presumably not a sartorial pun so much as a coincidence of literal description — Hugo the mascot's burger is unstoppable), it's a double-decker weighing in at eight pounds, it's the brainchild of concessionaire Levy Restaurants' executive chef and Charlotte native Aaron Cox, and its Swiss cheese, cheddar cheese, melted cheese, bacon, mushrooms, et cetera, sets you back $70.

A photo posted by Chrissie | Off the Eaten Path (@chrissie_beth) on Oct 10, 2014 at 8:03am PDT

The fans may be rooting for the Hornets, but eating this burger means you root for 'Merica. All signs point to fries on the side, regardless.

[@darrenrovell/Twitter]

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: like a boss, charlotte hornets, concessions, hugo's boss burger, nba

L’agence de web design Aptitude a voulu se révolter contre l’industrie de la musique digitale qui tue de plus en plus l’importance des couvertures d’albums. Ils ont donc imaginé une série intitulée « The Bigger Picture » : des images drôles qui illustrent l’ensemble du décor de célèbres pochettes d’albums. A découvrir.

Parfaits pour des occasions comme Halloween, ces petits moules donneront une forme de crâne aux oeufs cuits. Une manière originale de déguster ses oeufs, qu’ils soient au plat ou à la coque. Des objets initiés par Think Geek et Fred and Friends, à découvrir dans la galerie.

This one's called the "Epihany." It does sort of jump out at you.

When your bar program name-drops Monet, entails fancy things like Martini Rosato pressure-infused strawberries, and includes five-figure Champagne options, a vinyl menu holder with a slip of paper banged out on the old ink-jet printer probably just isn't going to cut it. So the Beaufort Bar at the Savoy in London has rolled out a new, custom-made cocktail menu — it's a book, really — where every signature drink has its own pop-up page. The "Blue Angel" is inspired by Marlene Dietrich and has gin, Cointreau, Dom Perignon, sorbet, and gold dust, of course; an image of the movie star herself watches you as you make your decision. Cocktails can end up costing more then $40 apiece, so after a couple of rounds you may as well take one home — it costs $80.

Here's a video on the process and inspiration behind the menu, of which only 1,000 copies were made.

Check out some more over here.

[Fast Co.Design]

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: pop-ups, bars, cocktails, drinks, the savoy