Tuesday, September 20, 2005

It's Just Old Dammit

I swear to God if I hear one more reference to something being "retro" I'm gonna snap. Laugh all you want but this is starting to seriously annoy me. Instead of having an original thought we just seem to be revisiting old ideas under and passing it all off as "retro".

Cars, furniture, clothing, architecture, sporting goods, fashion accessories... hell even food have all come under the designers' pen and been re-un-styled as "retro".

It's getting boring.

The new term for retro is "old school"; made popular and annoying by the Teutel family of Orange County Chopper fame. I'm nearly at the edge with this one as well.

I think the shoe company Vans started this one. About 7 years ago I had a pair of Vans New School and Vans OldSchool. They were basically the same shoe with a different application of the Vans graphic. That was almost a decade ago. Let it go people.

What's the alternative? I don't know. Maybe a new word that we can toss about for a couple of years? Or, even better, give up this need to pull out the old blueprints and make a brand new 30 year-old item. Shoe some creativity and push some bourndaries. Nostalgia is great but it doesn't drive the future of design.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Mom Can Swim Right?

By now we've all seen this story about the nursing home owners who left their patients to ride out the flooding associated with Katrina by themselves.

They are being charged with involuntary homicide. Good. Abandoning people in your care to save your own skin is abhorrent.

This post is not to rant about that. The courts will do what they will do.

No, this post is to rant about the victims' loved ones. Where were the sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, grandchildren of these seniors? If a giant wave of water was coming at your parents, living in a nursing home, wouldn't you do everything in your power to ensure they were moved to safety? Wouldn't you, as you were driving the SUV to higher ground, stop off and pick up Grandma just to make sure she made it our alive??!!

The families of these saddest of victims have just as much responsibility to bear as the owners that decided to leave.

O.K. maybe some live out of state. Maybe that cuts them a little slack. But come on people. Some of you left the people that raised you to drown or suffocate, alone and terrified. You deserve the same treatment as the caretakers.

Once again it has been proven: People are crap.