The Little Details

Today's Specials

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:23:00 -0500

Some wisdom is like coffee -- you have to consider where it's grown and how it was harvested to know if it's really good. [More]

Half-Caff

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:57:00 -0500

Bits of wisdom are like different blends of coffee. Sometimes they shouldn't be mixed together. [More]

Business Is Slow

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:01:00 -0500

Sometimes caffeine provides that little burst of energy that gets you through a sleepy morning. And sometimes it just turns you into a blathering idiot. [More]

Oddsmosis

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 07:53:00 -0500

Every year I spend four days in Indianapolis, walking amongst my fellow nerds and saying things like "Do you really want to attack the troll?" and "Your charm person spell does not seem to have an effect on the zombie minotaur." And I indulge in ludicrous pursuits like trying to get the best picture I can of the steampunk Boba Fett -- i.e., one without a "Cinnabon" sign in the background. It's Gen Con, the annual event where I soak in the geekery of 40,000 people descending on a single city to try out board games, play Dungeons & Dragons, and compare notes on which World of Warcraft costume is most accurate. It's a process I call "oddsmosis." [More]

BREAKING: iPhone 4 Self-Bricking!!!

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:52:00 -0500

In our June 24th review of the iPhone 4 we noted a few extremely minor technical issues with the handset. Like, for instance, the fact that we couldn't actually complete a call. As it turns out, many other people have been experiencing loss of signal or dropped calls when they hold the phone in a particular way. (We couldn't connect to AT&T's notoriously awful service no matter how we positioned the unit in our hand, but we assume we were just holding it wrong.) After weeks of silence and denial about the issue, Apple will be holding a press conference today to address the problem. What we don't expect them to address, however, is an even more insidious design element which our eagle-eyed team of tech experts has recently uncovered. Deep within the circuits of that beefy A4 processor, generous 512MB of eDRAM, and incomparably-responsive touchscreen lies a to-date unreported feature which threatens to completely brick your phone: [More]

Can I Get A Tray For That?

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:01:00 -0500

Two men enter Starbucks, one man leaves. [More]

Harmlessly Adorable Experiments With Babies

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:45:00 -0500

Last week my friends were out here in LA, scouting for apartments and potentially a new house as part of their grand adventure here in the Great State of California. (We are legally mandated to call it that because we don't want the tourists to know we're broke.) I was happy to put them up while they pursued their quest. For whatever reason, they brought their 16-month-old daughter. (School's out? Daycare gets expensive after the first 78 hours? They are responsible, loving parents? -Don't ask me. This whole parenting thing is like quantum physics: I just put the elements together in a room and indirectly observe the resulting collisions.) Fortunately, despite being a two-legged physics experiment, their daughter is the most adorable baby in the world.* *With the exception of YOUR baby. Your baby is super-cute. Like, unnaturally so. So amazingly cute, it's really transcended all normal baby-dom and attained a class-of-its-own level of cuteness that makes it unfair to compare other babies. It's like comparing Rod Carew to Mary Steenburgen. They're both great at what they do, but your baby is in a whole different line of work when it comes to cuteness. Plus, your baby is probably not going to marry Ted Danson. (That's not a knock against Rod Carew. He was, like, an important sports guy. Or something.) After five days of intensive research, here is what I have learned about babies: [More]

iPhone 4 - Unboxing And Review

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 09:07:00 -0500

If you're an fan of Apple's iPhone, today is the day you've been waiting for since... well, last year when the iPhone 3GS came out. But the iPhone 4 marks some significant differences from the (now outmoded, and basically obsolete) 3GS and previous models. Fortunately, we here at The Little Details have gotten our hands on the latest wonder from Cupertino and done an exhaustive breakdown of this (and trust us when we say we've given our word choice here painstakingly careful thought) life-transforming miracle of technology. Full review -- with photos AND UNBOXING! -- after the cut. [More]

The Very Short List Of Things I Have Broken

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:29:00 -0500

Count, count, count them up. Break, break, break them down. These are: The Little Details. [More]

Ad Takedown, Episode V: The Internet Continues To Frighten Me

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 06:19:00 -0500

The great thing about advertising on the web is that it's really cheap to run an online ad and there are almost no barriers to entry. (Do you have a copy of Photoshop? Can you write 18 words or less? YOU CAN RUN AN AD!) The worst thing about advertising on the web is that it's really cheap and there are almost no barriers to entry. (Are you a 14 year-old boy with stunted English skills and one-dimensional ideas of feminine beauty? YOU CAN RUN AN AD!) Sometimes, people make an ad so bad, it's genius. These are not those ads. [More]

Hollywood Punch-Up: The Greatest American Hero

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:28:00 -0500

Today marks the release of the re-imagined A-Team, which stars Liam Neeson and a bunch of guys you've never heard of. (Sorry Bradley Cooper, but if I say that one dude from The Hangover is in it, everyone will go "They got Zach Galifinakis to play Murdock??" Which would have been BRILLIANT.) Hollywood has done a stellar job of repackaging 80s tv into big blockbuster actions films: The Dukes of Hazzard, Transformers, The A-Team... even Thundercats is in the works for a feature. So I've taken it upon myself to punch up one series that's been woefully overlooked: The Greatest American Hero. In my role as Big Time Hollywood Screenwriter, I've also taken it upon myself to swear a lot. Like, really a lot. Because that's what Big Time Hollywood Screenwriters do, people! Drop f-bombs! So if you don't like f-bombs, this may not be the entry for you. [More]

Iron Extra Redux

Fri, 07 May 2010 01:30:00 -0500

Iron Man 2 comes out today and even though I'm travelling in Europe and have intermittent time/wifi access, I couldn't help but think about the fact that eleven months ago I was busy working background on a key scene for Iron Man 2. It's not glamorous work and it wasn't easy, but it was very, very interesting for what it was. Check out:

This post I wrote about a day in the life of an extra.
This entry about what it was like to be on set.
This blog post about some of the other people I worked with.
And here's a quick entry about working background.

-Tom, who doesn't expect to be recognizable, but is geeked about the movie nonetheless.

I Am A Hamburger

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 03:59:00 -0500

Back in the day (which is shorthand for "many, many years ago") I was an exchange student in northern Germany. Now (which is shorthand for "yesterday") I'm back to catch up with old friends and brush up on my rusty, rusty German. 24 hours in: so far, so good. Das sind... die kleine Einzelheiten. [More]

The Complete Novice's Guide To Dim Sum

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:47:00 -0500

I once heard someone refer to directing as "death by a thousand questions." Dim Sum is like that, but with food. [More]

Notes From A Vegas Bachelor Party

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:43:00 -0500

Wow, what a boring weekend. Stayed home, vacuumed under the entertainment center, thought about adopting a dog from the pound, and made my signature sweet potato pancakes. SO domestic. I had coffee with a buddy this morning though and he just got back from a bachelor party in Vegas. WILD! These are the highlights, as he told them to me at the Coffee Bean this morning. Names have been changed to protect the innocent. [More]