…a very small art chair.

In 1917, Dutch designer Gerrit Rietveld created his Red Blue Chair. 90 years later, reac JAPAN made a 1/12 scale replica of Rietveld’s work. On Saturday, I bought one (of the reac JAPAN replicas).

Two more pics:

(At $8, the reac JAPAN Red Blue Chair is a lot more economical than a larger-than-life version made of Legos.)

…DHARMA Initiative Cubeecraft.

The fine folks at Cubeecraft have applied their paper-cutifying technology to the realm of DHARMA Initiative labels. The result, as downloaded, printed, cut out, and folded, is pictured above.

Three advantages of the DI Cubeecraft vs. Max Pictures’ DI product labels:

• Cubeecraft requires no tape or glue; everything tabs together
• Cubeecraft requires no product to attach to; Cubeecraft is its own self-labeling product
• Cubeecraft is DHARMA Initiative utilitarian AND cute

Head over to Cubeecraft for the DHARMA Initiative Cubeecraft and a ton of other pop-culture papercraft projects.

…at the mall.

Miss T and I happened to stop by Arden Fair Mall last Sunday—I wanted to see the new MacBook, MacBook Pro, and LED Cinema DIsplay at the Apple Store (they’re all very, very nice, by the way)—and we ended up wandering around for about three hours. We hadn’t been to Arden Fair (or any mall, for that matter) in a long while so we spent some time taking in the mall sights: roving bands of tween– and teenyboppers; fleets of parents and baby strollers; chain stores devoted entirely to ball caps or calendars or adjustable beds. Nothing particularly new; just the same strange mall stuff.

But, between marveling at KB Toys’ continued existence and wondering how Frederick’s of Hollywood pays their lease, a commotion in the mall’s atrium court caught my attention—some sort of LEGO® event was underway. An 8-foot-tall LEGO R2-D2 was at the center of the affair, and kids (and parents) waited in line to get LEGO t-shirts and have their picture taken with the giant R2. “That’s interesting,” I said. “I wonder why they’re having a LEGO Star Wars event here?” A few minutes later Miss T and I had our answer: a LEGO store had just opened at the mall.

I haven’t played with LEGOs in a decade or more (with the exception of LEGO Star Wars on PS3), but I was still excited to see this new shop. The store is done up as LEGO-ey as possible, with the brick and studs motif everywhere. There are tons of LEGO sets available for purchase (with a heavy emphasis on licensed sets: Star Wars®, Batman®, Indiana Jones®, Thomas the Tank Engine®) and a whole wall of bins with à la carte parts that you can buy by the pound. It’s almost enough to make me want to pull my old LEGO sets out storage. Almost.

Hmm… where did I put those old LEGOs?

…giant, cute microbes.

Some time ago, Miss T discovered the anime Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture (もやしもん). The show, set in Japan, follows a university ag-student with the ability to see microbes without aid of a microscope. The kicker—and what probably caught Miss T’s attention in the first place—is that the microorganisms our ag-student sees aren’t like this:

They’re like this:

You can see CG versions of the Moyashimon microbes in action in the show’s opening titles and closing credits.

And, you can see our own photos of three of Moyashimon’s star microbes—P. chrysogenum, A. oryzae, and E. coli O157—at 20 Microbe (Moyashimon) photos. (Once we saw the critters on the show we knew that they were a merchandising opportunity that couldn’t be passed up.)

Here’s to hoping they make more microbes!

Those of you familiar with the anime Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (GitS:SAC for short) will recognize the friendly, blue, soul-searching critter above as a Tachikoma. Those of you not familiar with the 26-episode series should rent and watch the whole thing right now, it’ll save me some explaining and will be more entertaining for you.

Miss T and I picked up our Tachikoma (Wave’s 1/24 scale W.H.A.M.! Tachikoma) at last year’s Anime Expo. The figure is one of four (yes, we eventually picked up the other three) and sits in one of our bookcases at the Hut.

You can view more of our Tachikoma photos at Picasa Web albums—including several with a 1/24 scale car so you can see how much room a Tachikoma would take up in your driveway.

I picked up this reac JAPAN Design Interior Collection replica after last year’s Anime Expo. The Designers Chair replicas come randomly packaged, so you don’t know which of the six chair designs you’re going to get. I was quite pleased to land Eero Aarnio’s Ball Chair (ca. 1963)—almost as pleased as Eero looks in the picture below.