Even though I have a hard time imagining Andy Warhol drop into a half-pipe, I’m a huge fan of all the Warhol fashion collaborations we’ve seen coming out over the past few months. The latest in the Warhol-celebration-epedemic is the 2008 line from Burton, no cows, Marilyn Monroe or cans of tomato soup here– polka-dotted pants and jacket have inner lining that read “In the future everyone will be world famous for fifteen minutes.” Via Yo Diary

A great find when it comes to simple ingredients, incomparable taste and a product with personality is CMB Sweets. CMB Sweets is all natural, all Californian and is “made with nothing but fruit (organic as often as possible), sugar, lemon juice and spice.” One of the best things about CMB Sweets, beyond the amazing fusion of flavors is that Carolina (The C, M, and B of CMB Sweets), adds a lot of her personality that we adore so much to her products. She takes a sharpie to the fruit to add graphic fun, adds a creative touch with naming and product descriptions, and well…the flavors happen to be out of this world. My favorite is red juicy blood orange marmalade; dubbed as “true Transylvanian gourmet” since I’ve always been a sucker for anything with blood oranges. We do have to give a standing ovation for CMB Sweet’s new release, kiwi-lime-ginger preserves for mastering great flavor that is a perfect accompaniment with just about anything.

Food, sweets

My good friend Jeff sent this trailer out to our ‘college buddy’ email list this morning and I felt compelled to share it with you all. Blades of Glory is shaping up to be one hilarious movie. It stars Will Farrell, John Heder (Napoleon Dynamite himself), and even our favorite ‘Coach’ (Craig T. Nelson) pops up in the trailer. The premise of the story is as amusing as it is asinine: Ferrell and Heder’s characters get stripped of Olympic figure skating medals and re-unite as a pairs figure skating duo thanks to a loophole in the rules. The result is obvious: they cause the blades of their ice skates to perform glorious feats of athleticism for our viewing pleasure. Put Ferrell and Heder in a movie together, and at the very least you’ll have people like me rolling over laughing– no matter how stupid the plot is. I can’t wait to see this gem!

We've seen a lot of maranading – bbqing shortcuts. We're talking row after row of them at the Fancy Foods Show in San Francisco. After seeing all of the flavored skewers, grilling planks, scented papers, and other products – one stands out. Flavor Magic lends strong blends of flavor to the protein of your choice, in 20 minutes, with no muss and no fuss. The Flavor Magic "cheat sheet" of seasoning is jam-packed with flavor (we sampled Asian Citrus-Ginger at the show) and offers healthy and easy alternatives to the flavors of your favorite foods like Zesty Buffalo Wings.

O.N.E. made its American debut with their coconut water from Brazil. They have now introduced their sensation number two, Amazon Acai juice. Most people have at least heard of Acai; it will be one of 2007's top new superfoods. Although many products now have Acai in them, many use berries that were shipped frozen from Brazil. O.N.E. makes and bottles their Amazon Acai at the source, in Brazil. The taste and packaging alone will make this product turn heads... and so will the people that drink it– thanks to the antioxidants that help combat premature aging.

We’d like to offer a hearty congratulations to our friend Jean Aw at NOTCOT for launching her new food site, Tastespotting. Tastespotting is basically like NOTCOT.org which compiles great finds contributed by readers, but deals exclusively with food and food accessories. As avid food people ourselves, we will definitely be checking back often to see what kind of picks Jean and her food finders have come up with. There’s definitely a hunger out there in cyberspace for this kind of content, and we’re glad Jean has applied the food genre to her ‘.org’ template.

It’s been more than a year since our last survey– and traffic has basically tripled since that time. While we think we have some idea about who you (our readers) are, we’re all sort of scratching our heads in bewilderment wondering what the truth is. Please, dear readers, fill out the survey. It should take you around 5 minutes and your input is extremely valuable– all we’re asking is for 5 minutes of your time in exchange for another year of superb content. As an incentive, filling out this survey automatically enters you to win a Vaja iPod Case, a Nooka Zub Watch or a set of Star Wars Mimobots! Go, Survey Go!

The boys from Thrillist are heading West! The daily newsletter for food, drinks, services, gadgets, gear, sports and travel recently launched their first West coast title. If you’re in the LA area be sure to head over and join for the scoop on all things Hollywood and La La land– gangster rap, Paris Hilton jokes and smog not included.

Gore Design Co. has made a name for itself since its 2004 inception by creating design-forward, environmentally responsible products for residential and commercial application. Today I earmarked Gore’s Erosion Sink for when I build my first house. It may be the digital cartographer in me coming out (that was a former job of mine), but I love how Gore uses contour lines to step down the elevation of this sink into the off-set drain area. The sink is made of concrete — as are many of Gore’s designs — which is “organic, timeless, a true reflection of nature’s beauty.” I find myself falling for concrete more and more as a sustainable and aesthetically pleasing building ingredient– it’s a material for which the possibilities are endless.

Via Apartment Therapy

We see a lot of great design work coming from students, and the Olive Martini Glass is a prime example. Beth Fuller designed it this past Fall for one of her grad school industrial design classes at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Because students are best at describing their own work, I’ll let Beth tell you about the design: “The Olive Martini Glass is inspired by the martini’s iconic counterpart: the olive. Both the form and function of the glass showcase the olive. Its base is reminiscent of the shape of an olive and is designed to be held comfortably in the palm of the hand, while there is a hole in the lip of the glass to accomodate olives on a toothpick, as both a garnish and a unique decorative element.” Beth… I know you probably aren’t mass producing these yet, but you must let me know when that day comes! Can I pre-order some?

As Josh mentioned earlier today, The Sundance Film Festival is going on in Utah right now. Yes, it’s hyped beyond belief, and yes, you can see a lot of the action online. But I thought it’s also worth mentioning that the X-Dance Action Sports Film Festival is going on along side Sundance this year, from January 19-22. I am a huge fan of action sports films of any type– I get excited to see athletes pushing their boundaries to the utmost, regardless of what sport they’re in. I especially recommend viewing snow-sports titles ‘Slednecks’ and ‘Push‘ if you are in Park City this Saturday (schedule here).

Many of you know about Tom Judd’s successful quest to illustrate one page per day for an entire year. Well, Jeremiah Palecek had the same goal, but he is a Czech painter specializing in nerd art. To Jeremiah, ‘nerd art’ means pixelated paintings, 80’s video game art, and other nerdy forays. I have to admit, I really enjoyed browsing his work– I came across a wealth of familiar portrayals– things like the Gmail log-in box (which I see 97 times a day), and the Konami cheat code for Contra (both pictured here). Jeremiah’s paintings will make you chuckle and feel nostalgic– all good art doesn’t have to be prolific, does it? As long as it creates a favorable feeling in my gut, I’m all about it. As an added bonus, on Jeremiah’s blog, each painting is accompanied by an entry written by Jeremiah that explains what each painting means to him; he gets pretty personal in his descriptions. If you are interested in purchasing some of Jeremiah’s paintings, email him from his blog. I may have to outfit my little nerd den (a.k.a. home office) at home with some of his work!

I have been looking forward to the launch of Hello Delicious for some time, and want to congratulate Lilly and Jose for creating a great site with great goals and lots of promise. Hello Delicious is not just an online gourmet food store– it’s on the cutting edge of what’s new and what’s next in food. You will find novel and quality food, beverage, and kitchenware products, handpicked by the Hello Delicious crew and their loyal food-hunters. If you have ideas for them, leave your ideas on their blog, ‘The Dish,’ and who knows, maybe your food find will make it onto their ’shelves.’ Lilly and Jose will be at Fancy Foods Show in San Francisco from January 21-23 looking for the newest and best products, so if you make it to the show, keep an eye out for Hello Delicious and let them know I sent you.

Sundance Film Festival kicked off last night in Park City, Utah– swarms of people head to one of the coldest, most conservative and lack-luster cities in the world (minus the skiing, but there isn’t even snow there yet). They all pile into make-shift movie theaters, bump elbows trying to get into the hot parties and bump their head jumping up and down trying to get a better peek at Natalie Portman in a crowd. But wait! The entire film part of the festival is available for you to watch and download as they become available online! I kid you not, you can go watch Sophie Barthes film Happiness, right now– ticket stubs not included.

The idea of using clothing as a storytelling vehicle is not new. Neither is charity through clothing. But you combine the two, invite guest artists (James Hancock is the first) to participate, and have full disclosure of your business costs and profit margin and you have me listening. I recently received the first of a monthly series of t-shirts from the Swami Safari line from Australia. Each shirt tells a story (both visually in the design and with words printed on the inside) of a spiritual man named Swami and his adventures while he takes a much needed vacation after teaching his disciples in the Himalayas. Not surprisingly, a child from India is supported by the project and a dollar from each shirt is donated to help the efforts. The shirt is extremely soft to the touch and the front design is printed in what feels like a quality process. The printing inside is done with a silver ink that reminds me of a Sharpie used for autographs. It features a Norse Mythology story. It is a bit difficult to read so I am hoping they’ll have the story online or optionally will send it in a nicely formatted email to their subscribers. It’s refreshing to see such forward thinking in an otherwise boring fashion segment. I applaud them for their candidness, originality in execution, and for choosing India as a focus for aid. If you are interested in buying the first shirt (one per month), subscribing (have them sent to you automatically), or checking out their accessories (none at the moment, but they’ll produce one quarterly), head on over to Swami Safari today.