Cool Hunting
| 07 November 2007view entries from: this week | this month | view previous day | view next day |
Mink Chocolate Café
by Jonah Samson
Opened earlier this year in downtown Vancouver, the very delightful Mink Chocolate Café offers a full espresso and fondue bar along with a line of over 30 different handmade chocolate bars.
After researching some of the world’s best chocolatiers in San Francisco, Montreal, New York and Tokyo, owner Marc Liebermann set out to showcase dark chocolate, which mostly fuses the taste and flavors of ganache-filled bonbons—but the focus here is on the chocolate bar form.
Each beautifully-packaged bar is made in Vancouver and uses local, organic ingredients whenever possible. Because there are no added preservatives to extend shelf-life, you’ll have to eat them soon after purchase. But with quirky names and irresistible flavors like “Open in Case of Emergency” (fresh mint and Kentucky bourbon) and “Ginger or Maryanne” (candied ginger), no amount of willpower will allow them to sit around for long anyway!
Mink Chocolate Café
863 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, British Columbia BC V6C
map
tel. +1 604 633 6451
Nat Russell T-Shirts
by Letizia Rossi
Oakland-based artist Nat Russell's t-shirts for Mollusk Surf Shop showcase his increasingly recognizable style. My favorites include "Sea Kat" featuring his signature pipe-smoking lion motif, the "Kyle" shirt which has a wavy-bearded man that bears an unintentional resemblance to musician Kyle Field of Little Wings and "Totally Stoked" one of three new designs for women available in two colors.
All shirts are printed on the highest quality soft t-shirts from Article.1 organic collection.
Russell also recently created a skateboard design which is available from Rad Distro ( image after the jump) and his band Birds of America is recording a new album. You can follow his various projects via his blog Crooked Arm.
The Nat Russell tees are available for $24 online from Mollusk Surf Shop and at their stores in San Francisco, New York and Venice Beach.
Eight Favorite iPhone Applications
by Josh Rubin
While Apple will not condone installing third-party applications on an iPhone, we're totally game. The process for doing this has gotten easier and easier, but is still not for the faint-of-heart. And with their recent announcement that there will be official support for third-party Applications in February, it's not too long to wait if you're risk-adverse.
For the impatient, we culled our favorites. Once you follow the instructions to get the Installer app on your phone you can browse that directory to find these fun and useful additions:
Apollo IM A simple, but functional AIM client.
SendPics A utility to email full size images taken with your iPhone camera (they're shrunken to 640x480 by default).
Navizon Not sure where you are? Navizon shows your position on Google Maps by sniffing information from active WiFi networks.
Summerboard This utility lets you install different themes to customize the main menu (Springboard) of the iPhone. Be warned, putting a wallpaper behind your application menu seems to cause lots of crashing.
Labyrinth A virtual version of the the old wood maze and silver marble game, the one uses the tilt sensors in the iPhone so you can control the marble's movement.
Search Why Apple still hasn't added Spotlight to the iPhone is beyond me. This app is a lifesaver when needing to look someone up whose full name you don't know.
Sketches A simple drawing app that let's you draw on a blank screen or over a photo. You can email your drawings just like from the Photos application. The best part is that you shake it like an etch-a-sketch to erase.
VNotes One of the very first iPhone apps—a basic tool for recording, saving and sending voice notes.
Florian Maier-Achen
by Lost At E Minor
Florian Maier-Achen is a young landscape photographer born in Cologne, Germany, and now residing in Los Angeles. Maier-Achen's ability to convey dark, apocalyptic feelings in his work transform earthy landscapes and sweeping terrains into things of beauty and terror. His photos are featured in several important public collections including the Denver Art Museum, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the Saatchi Gallery in London.
