LMNT

I usually skip out on all parades when I go to Disneyland. But I was with friends who love them, so I saw a three different parades today: Harmony in Color, The Villains’ Halloween: Into the Frenzy (not pictured), and the Tokyo Disneyland Elecrical Parade. What made the first parade a little more interesting than usual is that it was a little rainy, so characters were in transparent raincoats! The Electrical Parade is an all-time classic, and I’ve not seen it in its entirety in a while. It is…

Spent a sunny Friday at DisneySea taking photos, starting by wandering down the pier that leads to Aquatopia, but now that it’s closed, no one walks down there. It's really quiet. On my walk back into the main area of Port Discovery, I saw Mount Prometheius reflected in the mirrored windows at the Marine Life Institute. The DisneySea Electric Railway is—I think— the shortest Disney rail line in any park. It runs just between two areas, back and forth, rather than in a loop. Both stations are…

I must interrupt my regularly scheduled programming to bring you what must be the most inspired piece of art I’ve seen in a long time. Bullet Time! by Eddie Alcazar is remarkable. It is completely unhinged, unbelievably detailed, spectacularly retro, and drop-dead gorgeous. Every frame is incredible. I can’t stop looking at it. Even though nothing happens, everything is happening. I don’t know how I missed this. The style, the animation, the music (Danny Elfman!), the sound effects, the…

It was a rainy day, but Ayano and I went out to do a little shopping. We had lunch at this cute Italian place, with just the perfect colors: blue and white stripes, pink and green glassware, cute logo, blue-rimmed bowls, and that golden, eggy, cheesy pasta.

I thought I knew these flowers, kinmokusei. I drew them before. But they’re a lot smaller in person than I ever even considered they could be. Honestly, it was their sweet scent that stopped me, and made me turn back.

After work, I’ve been making Liquid Glass app icons for fun. Tonight was an interpretation of Panic’s Nova, one of my most favorite apps. This involved not just creating visible shapes from the original icon, but the extension of those shapes that interleave with each other behind each major component. The glass has a small refraction, which gives a clean edge treatment everywhere, and the bright spot in the center has some layers both above and below, which produces a nice warm glow in those…

I swear to god… no matter where my attention wanders, the world around me seems hellbent on reminding me that the industry doesn’t value the craft of making software, all because of AI-assisted coding. Apparently, “everyone” is using LLMs to write and debug their apps. It’s big companies. It’s small companies. It’s individual people. I bet it’s absolutely obliterating careers. Thankfully, my values are not tied to whatever the industry values. And since I value my own skill of making things,…

As a designer, I see lots of little problems in the world. I look at something in search of its flaws. I will be bothered that things have to be the way they are. And then I channel that negative energy into finding solutions to those problems. But as an artist, I almost see the exact opposite. Instead, I see lots of little beautiful things, often despite their flaws. I look at the world and appreciate the way things are. And I channel that positive energy into creating something new. I need…

Look, I don’t buy LEGO sets that much anymore. I fawn over them, look at photos of them, but resist the urge to buy them. But this one got me. I could not resist. One hour ago, I didn't know this set existed, and now I’m going to start building it. This is the one absurd LEGO set I’ll allow myself to buy. LEGO Main Street, U.S.A. is my LEGO Millennium Falcon.

Headed onto my roof before 5am (thank you, early sunrise) for a few minutes to catch this color.

Tonight I left my apartment, walked down to the station, tapped my phone at the gates, went down some more stairs and stood in front of train car 4 door 3. I took the train to Nihonbashi, walked through the station, weaving through people and shopping areas, through a business tower, up an escalator in a book store, and out the front door onto the street. I walked a couple blocks, took a right, and signed my name on the waiting list for Philly, one of my favorite places here in Tokyo.…

Japan has very different fruit preferences when it comes to flavored soda. Melon is a super popular flavor, despite being completely uncommon in America. Cherry soda, on the other hand, which is pretty popular in America can be found virtually nowhere in Japan. I don’t think much about plums, which is probably dumb. But recently I discovered that ume soda has almost the same flavor profile as the cherry soda that I’ve been missing all these years. And though it’s seasonal and fleeting, I’m very…

It’s inevitable. Whenever I meet someone for the first time, it will come up that I love Disneyland and visit the parks at least once a month. And their question is always about when it all began for me. So I show them this photo. That’s me, as a baby. The answer is that it’s always been a thing. I think my mom made sure of it! When I recently asked her for some more photos from my birthday trip in 1992, one thing really stood out. It’s this shot of me standing in the doorway of Goofy’s Clip…

When I woke up on Saturday at 4am to use the toilet, I made the mistake of picking up my phone. Instead than sleeping, I opened a conversation from the day before. I clicked a link to Parakeet only to find the website wasn’t loading. I went to this blog’s URL and found it similarly did not load. And then all the rest of my websites, none of which would load. I threw off my covers and headed downstairs to my desk. I love websites. I love making them, and I want everyone to do it. But whenever I…

App icons that conform to the bounds of a squircle are no different from the millions of constraints that define the macOS and iOS platforms we design and develop in. Of course it is an Apple-defined constraint. Most platform guidance we follow to make apps are Apple-defined constraints. Do not forget: we design and develop apps within the macOS container. We have to acknowledge that space when we design and develop apps. There was a term from an old Human Interface Guidelines document I love:…

I’ve lived in Japan for three years now, and today is the first time I’ve had a tamago sando from 7-Eleven. I go to 7-Eleven often. Maybe a few times every week. That's a lot more than I used to go to my local convenience store in Portland, even though it was the same proximity from home. 7-Eleven is where I buy milk, bread, and eggs. When I moved here, I went to 7-Eleven nearly every morning to get a sandwich for breakfast. I didn’t do it because their sandwiches were incredible. I did it…

Back on my bullshit. This guava soda is good, maybe too sweet? But these “New” (new to Japan) Flamin’ Hot Cheetos? Guys, these are not “Flamin’ Hot.” They are barely spicy. Also, they’re not even red! So I guess that is “New.”

Went up to Asakusa on a shopping mission, but the shop was closed. Yoshikami turned out to be a worthwhile consolation prize, because hayashi rice was available! I asked the guy behind the counter if I could stick my senjafuda to the wall, and he took out rag to wipe down a spot for me. Given the shadows of stickers from days past, I assume mine will one day get removed too, but I guess it’ll stick around for now!

Just passing by on my way to get jerk chicken from a nice friend.

Slop is gaining ground. Low-quality content, including AI-generated trash, is advancing on all fronts for attention. Whether it’s encouraged competitive behavior on social media or regurgitated content gobbled back up and spit back out via LLMs, we’re reaching a point very quickly where our attention is being spent on shit we never should’ve seen in our entire lives. I’ve long-held a belief that “discovery” features on social media only serve to elevate content I don’t want to see. The work…

In The Mandalorian and Grogu film, there’s a food pod where Martin Scorsese’s character serves up sandwiches, and just knowing it was a Jon Favreau film, I figured he brought in Roy Choi to help. Roy was his culinary advisor for another Favreau film, Chef, one of my favorite films. Sure enough, in the end credits, he was listed as a culinary advisor. The pair put up a video about making this sandwich that felt like a special episode of The Chef Show. All of this to say that today, we cooked up…

Last week, the neighborhood started preparing for 鳥越祭り (Torigoe Matsuri), setting out 新鮮 (shinsen, offering) in front of the 浅三 (Asakusabashi san-chōme) mikoshi. When the weekend finally came, we put on our matsuri clothes and headed to the shrine. This is Ayano’s first time participating in a local matsuri that required matsuri clothes, which we got in Nihonbashi for her last week, including matching pastel rainbow 帯 (obi, sash) for the both of us. Then we did the next-most important thing: we…

Went to see Laufey in concert, which was super fun. But the truth is that I was there to see my friend Xanthe playing in the string quartet portion of the band. Sometimes, I’m genuinely amazed with what people I know do.

My friend Xanthe was in town just for a couple days, so we did what anyone would do: eat blueberry shave ice.

Download icons from LMNT An expansion pack of 17 new Datatapes, featuring sigils and symbols ranging from mercenaries and criminal syndicates to scientific research labs and commercial spacelines found throughout the galaxy. Represent your data with marks seen in Star Wars stories, printed on the surface of ancient datatapes.

Take a moment to appreciate this cute car. Don’t you want to take a road trip in this thing?

Well, it’s time for that annual blog post. I’ve been in Japan for three years now. In short, I love living here, and I’m continuing to embrace living in my own unique way. §New Opportunities Actually, just recently I had my first proper Japanese client. Even if it came by way of Italy, I had a meeting out in Yoyogi, did the work, and everyone’s happy. I hope there will be more opportunities to work with people locally, because I really enjoy being able to communicate more closely. Also, a…

These simple wall panels have been embedded in my mind since childhood. With the addition of a darker variant from Scarif and a “green lights” version inspired by the tractor beam console shaft, these three styles can seamlessly transition throughout the day as a dynamic wallpaper or switch automatically with light and dark UI. These go great with datatape hard drive icons. Download wallpapers from LMNT

Download icons from LMNT The Imperial data vault on Scarif contained thousands of datatapes, one of them being the plans for the Death Star. After the plans were broadcast to the Rebel fleet, they were transferred to a small datacard. Now you can represent your disks and servers using these same data formats from Star Wars, including datatapes that feature faction symbols emblazoned on the surface. These icons are color-matched with all twelve Star Wars faction wallpapers I made last year.

It’s time! Here they are! Just look at these!