[BONUS] Bent Objects The Book

OK so this is not particularly skull-themed, but I have to give a shout out to my friend Terry Border, who is the mastermind behind the fantastic Bent Objects blog. I've been a fan of his for several years and even managed to do a collaborative piece with him before my year of skull-making was over. I'm delighted to say that a book of his work, titled appropriately enough Bent Objects, is finally out! This lovely little hardcover volume, is filled with his deliciously clever bent wire & common object constructions that make you appreciate the little things that we normally take for granted in our daily lives. With just a little bit of wire and a brilliant imagination he manages to give such incredible range of emotion to everything from cheese doodles to Chapstick. There's a chuckle or two to be found on every page and a wow thrown every so often for good measure. Not only does the book feature several never-before-seen works, but there's even a handy DIY section in the back to get you started on your own bent art making frenzy. I can't recommend this enough, pick-up a copy in person and I promise you won't want to put it down without looking at every page. Ask for it at your local independent bookstore today!

[BONUS] Ruffian Skull Headphones Review

When the nice folks at Subjekt offered to give away a set of their Ruffian Skull Headphones they also kindly sent me a set to review myself! I'm not an expert on headphones, but I do use them when I travel (which I do fairly frequently), so I was glad to be offered the opportunity...

(thanks to my intern Gina for modelling them!)

The first thing I noticed about them is that they are heavy. Not fall out of your ear heavy, but rather "this is definitely not cheaply made crap" heavy. The second thing I noticed, which explained point one, is that they're really made of metal. Yep, this is not metal-ish foil over plastic, which I have to admit is what I expected, but honest-to-goodness cast metal! Even the packaging says quality: a small velvet bag, which came with an extra set of the color-coded rubber tips for your ears (in two-sizes no less!).

Of course the only thing that really matters is how they work. The large tips fit my ear easily and comfortably on first try and they really blocked out a good deal of outside noise right away.

Listening to a variety of styles of music on my computer the sound is clean and distinct, nothing's muffled and I could hear plenty of quiet details. There's a good balance of treble and bass, with perhaps a bit more emphasis on the bass than I use on my regular speakers (which have a separate subwoofer), but I think that's not uncommon for headphones and I didn't mind. Turning the volume up to even uncomfortably loud levels didn't seem to distort the sound, though at comfortably loud levels a small amount of sound does leak out, but in most environments (or at lower levels) that would probably not be an issue.

So what's the verdict? I will definitely be using the Ruffian's as my everyday headpones from here on out! Kudos to Radius for making a product that both sounds good and looks good!

Don't forget you have just under a week to enter our contest to try to win a set of these bad boys for yourself. And of course you don't have to wait, you can always go to the Subjekt website to buy some right now.