• “It’s Our Thing” Thorsby Tees
• Cow Books

You can read all of my Gridskipper posts here (or even subscribe to a feed).

Event info for the “It’s Our Thing” exhibition is now up on TAB. And remember to come see us during the party Saturday night (from 19:00)!

This is a rather nice collection of covers to protect your DS Lite. I like that it’s very simple, sort of like a book cover. If anyone has seen them in stores, please let me know where in the comment thread.

Time to join the Bar Code Revolution! Link via Yuki.

Since, you know, “the super-techno cyberpunk Shinto Japanese like speed” so much, it’s only fitting that they would distribute their products in a fitting manner. See what Marxy has to say on the subject.

I forgot to give my regular heads-up for my monthly “On Design” column, which appeared in yesterday’s edition of THE JAPAN TIMES. In it, I covered the SmartCaddie compact PC, the Bird shears from Kai, the An notebook series from KOKUYO and Dainippon Type Organization, and the Towering Pastel dishes from Nussha Japanware. You can read it online here (free registration required after a week).

PingMag takes you on a tour of the recently re-opened ICC.

Starting today, we have an exhibition at Cafe Pause of Swedish designer PMKFA’s new line of t-shirts, “It’s Our Thing.” All tees, as well as sweatshirts and bags, are for sale at the cafe, and we will be celebrating with a party this coming Saturday, July 1, 19:00-22:00. All drinks and snacks will be 500 yen, and expect some PMKFA visuals to be projected, so come join us! Here’s a small photoset of a few pics taken today at the cafe.

Here are a bunch of magazines I picked up earlier today for Cafe Pause. Go, read!

Remember that Sanshin building in Hibiya scheduled for demolition later this year? Here’s a stitched photo of the facade.

I’m not quite sure who Hanakengo are and what they do, except that they’re two Japanese girls, they were at Design Festa last month, and are now in Montreal and were recently featured on the cover of THE MONTREAL MIRROR, one of the city’s weekly guides.

Want to know what you can find in Japan’s convenience stores? The Konbini Life blog has got you covered, with its writer chronicling everything he buys in them.

• Just in time for summer, BRUTUS (596) presents its guide to “Ice Cream & Summer Treats.” You get plenty of lists featuring all the best Japanese entries in various sweets categories (fruit-based, popsicles, traditional tastes, etc.) as well as special rankings and polls. It’s quite exhaustive, and they even include a list of Muji’s 12 top-selling sweets, topped by their version of the baum.
• The latest issue of PEN (178) sure made me want to travel with their “Best of Favorite Hotels” feature. The awkward sounding title refers to the fact that all included hotels are picks from various celebrities (mostly creators). There’s also a survey of luxury watches, if that sort of thing interests you.
• AERA DESIGN has launched a second issue, this time featuring “Great Masters Who Designed in Japan.” It’s a rather nice guide to some of the great Japanese creators in various fields (architecture, graphics, interior design, etc.), and acts as a terrific reference tool with plenty of examples given for each designer. Worth picking up by anyone with an interest in Japanese design.
• I have mentioned LIFE WITH CAMERA (KAMERA BIYORI) in the past, but it’s not a magazine I regularly go through. I was leafing through last month’s issue (Vol. 6) recently while having lunch at Cafe Add+Ress in Ikebukuro, and again, I’ll say that it’s a nice little photography magazine. That issue covered travel photography, and I like the way they approach the topic, which has more to do with what to do with your pictures after the trip, rather than focusing on the actual shoot, with all sorts of craft ideas on creating nice journals and the like.

My wife has been wanting a Neon pretty much ever since I got mine, and every time she’s asked around when at stores they’ve always come up with the same reply: currently sold out, or available only to new subscribers (but the former much more frequently than the latter). As her old phone is in pretty bad shape (no cover on the back), she ended up calling AU to find out about Neon availability, and the response was that the Neon is no longer in production. Huh? Is this official? Was the Neon always planned as a limited-time-only product? Doesn’t seem to make much sense, especially considering how popular it’s been, with stores not being able to keep them in stock (or limiting sales to new subscribers). Definitely makes me feel lucky that I was able to get my hands on one.

I finally got a hold of this week’s issue of TIME, that has the piece I wrote on Cow Books (”Brain Fodder“), and was surprised to see they ended up printing photos I had sent them. When I saw the piece online it didn’t include any images, so I just figured they had run the piece without any. The cow was cut out from another picture I had sent them. I’m including a scan of the page it appears on.