Troy Paiva (Night Vision)

lol look @ this mug
If you're familiar with "UrbEx" then you've probably heard this name. He did the coffee table book Night Vision which I like a lot. His photography is not notable in my lay opinion, but I personally like it a lot. He ain't no Brassaï but that's not what he's trying to be. I envy him for being in deserted areas of the Southwest. One of my dream vacations is to ride a crotch rocket or cafe racer on highways out there and not see a car for miles. But enough about me check his photos and his site out: Troy Paiva

Ervell air jacket...

Finally bought one. Not quite as good as the space metal gold one, but I like the Missoni-esque stripe jawn just as well.

TJ Combo / KI

Fighting games are over the top by nature, or at least it seems that way. The arcade format really fuels excess in all fields, probably due to the need to attract customers with some sort of gimmick. I'm not hating on it, because sometimes it really produces hilarious and entertaining results. Street Fighter, for example is 100% based on stereotypes (e.g. El Fuerte, a Mexican cook/lucha libre whose moves are all named after mexican food; Sodom, a caricature of American "otaku"; Rufus, an obese American). I just want to discuss really quickly one of my favorite stereotypes: African-American Boxer. Of course there's Balrog ("my fight money!!!") and Jax, but their lovechild TJ Combo is undeniably the most ridiculous. He mixes that Apollo Creed style with 1990s hip hop style and let's just leave some of this up to the video...



That's right, he takes out a submachine gun and shoots his enemy to death. Also note the sneakers. this is actually where Bernhard Willhelm stole the idea for his space metal Roys and Liner sneakers from.

pfd - Phil Frank Design

If you've ever seen a Saleen from the '90s til today, you've seen a product of pfd. Phil Frank's designs are some of the best in the automotive industry, but I wanted to call attention to some of his less hyped work. If you are a Gran Turismo 4 fan, you'll recognize that he designed the 2022 Nike ONE concept car in the game. If you're a huge GT4 fan, you'll recognize that he actually registered and posted a ton of information about the concept on GTP Forums. Anyways he worked with Nike design team for quite a while, and made what I think are some real hits. Check his site out for some pics: Phil Frank Design - PFD


Nike VTS LED concept, best watch design I've ever seen

The New Addams Family Electric Shock Machine

Saw this at my local arcade, and was curious about it so I decided to youtube it before I played a game. The results are funny.



Shit doesn't even shock you, it just vibrates real fast.

Arcade, Aurcade, and more links

I've already covered my Jet Set Radio obsession, and touched on my obsession with Escape from New York, so now I have to talk about the other things I yell about to strangers: arcades and Hackers.

I went to Flipper McCoys in VA Beach on Friday, nothing short of amazing. My only complaints are that the games aren't all in perfect condition, in fact some will steal yer money, and the cost is much higher than University Pinball. UP is still my favorite place to just play games for the fun of it, while CTF is definitely the best place to hang around and play games with the best on earth. Flipper McCoys really excels at games many arcades don't have: skeeball, pinball, real old school style western light gun shooting gallery, pool, air hockey, and even an FMV game. I think every arcade should have pinball but unfortunately most do not. Go Karts Plus, which is far nearer to my house, doesn't have a single pinball machine or fighting game cabinet. Everything is either a light gun shooter, or hands-on racing game. I think CTF got the right idea when it comes to building video game customers, by having so many competitive games, but could improve by having some pins. A lot of space is wasted there by inoperative or seldom-used machines that hang out in the back past the DDRs.

Anyways this brings me to my point, you should visit Aurcade.com to find an arcade near you. Founded by a Hampton Roads native, so I've got to support it. I've been editing lots of arcade info trying to help the community or whatever whatever and you should too.

On Hackers, the movie is the best of the 90s. The set design was so amazing I still wish Cyberdelia were a real place, so I could go there and hang out. Unfortunately it isn't. And there is no pay phone in Chinatown with a pagoda on top. Just off the strength, I highly recommend anyone who bothers reading this shit site to visit Robert Pepperell's page. He was responsible for some of the Cyberdelia set, the robots to be exact: Robots, Cyborgs, and Androids. While you're at it, check out Dianne Harris's site. She worked on Hackers as well as other films, creating some of the dopest photos and robot shit I've seen.

Interview with Chris from Sifr

Self-explanatory

PoPplWGtTH: typical question, who is Sifr?

Chris/Sifr: Well Sifr was founded by myself and my partner Suraj. We also have Daryl, who helps a lot with graphics and branding. We outsource our pattern making/sampling and we have interns execute our flat sketches, other than that almost everything else is done in-house.


Cutting Patterns

PoPplWGtTH: Suraj is the guy behind know it nothing right?
Chris/Sifr: Yeah Suraj is behind the store Know it Nothing.

PoPplWGtTH: Aight, so through your blog, you guys give out a lot of info on the manufacturing process, why is that? Recently I've seen a lot of "behind the scenes" for every industry on things like twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc. is that a product of Web 2.0 "all sharing all the time" mentality or do u do it as part of advertising like they did in the early 1900s continuing on til today (e.g. "we use triple blah blahs to make our widgets, making them the best yet!").

Chris/Sifr: Well we thought it'd be cool to let people in on certain things that are involved with the process. We figured we really don't have anything to hide, so why hide it. In a sense it can be looked at as advertising and branding but it's the reason for deciding to blog and write about what we're doing. In fact I regret not blogging/recording the process from the very start. There are a lot of memories that have slipped away. It's also pretty fresh and original content from us. What else would we blog about? So many blogs are blogs about other blogs through another filter of another filter haha.

PoPplWGtTH: were cop
Chris/Sifr: KIN [Know It Nothing, Singapore]I've pushed the store into a more niche market, more of a menswear store that targets an older demographic. The upstairs is a temporary office which we hope will turn into the first sifr flagship. We're in discussion with a few very good retail departments in Singapore, we're doing more market research at the moment because during the meeting with one of the buyers whose brought labels like Spring Court [France] and Lad Musician [Japan] to Singaporean retail stores is saying labels that focus on quality and subtle design tend to do a lot worse versus more obvious and generally shittier quality brands.