Oh, the Reebok Freestyle– one of the only shoes to be worn by teenagers and their grandmothers during the same year. At the beginning of this month, Reebok released the first of a series of special edition Freestyles to celebrate this retro hightop’s 25th birthday, and I’ve been high off of the sound of Velcro ever since. This is the first of the series, which is being rabidly pursued by ex-dance aerobics instructors and sneaker collectors alike, and I’m feeling pretty giddy about it. I had quite a relationship with these in elementary school. Of course, I’m not the only one; in 1984, the Freestyle made up more than half of Reebok’s entire sales, and it continues to hold the rank of one of the best selling shoes of all time. The advertising for the shoes is also partially credited for the women’s fitness craze of the early eighties (good ankle support for that strenuous step-aerobics, hah). Darn it, Reebok, hurry up and give us some more!!

If you’re a regular reader of the Wired blogs (like I am), you may have noticed the series of redesigns throughout the past few weeks on Wired.com. A site redesign is a big decision for a widely read blog (or family of blogs) to make. You want to keep moving forward with creative and user-friedly additions, but you don’t want to alienate your readership by trying to get too fancy or by adding extraneous features. Looks like Wired is bouncing back from a recent redesign that provoked some pretty “frank reader reviews.” Some of the highlights of their most recent redesign from their first redesign: A ‘River of News‘ aggregator; tabs for most e-mailed stories and real time updates to the web’s hottest links from Reddit; and variable headline font sizes so you can distinguish ‘big news’ from, well, ‘news.’ I think they’ve improved on their old design with some thoughtful, intuitive additions. What do you think?

ROJO, the Barcelona-based artist and designer consortium responsible for those lovable little design books, are at it again. They just launched their first ever International Outdoor Urban Art Exhibition. Ten artists were selected to create specific back-lit billboards across Barcelona streets– the results are fantastic. Be sure to check out the site where they show both the original artwork and the back-lit billboard. Also, if you find yourself in Istanbul, Berlin, Barcelona, Hamburg, London or a handful of other cities this next month, be sure to stop by a good party and raise a glass for ROJO’s 6th anniversary.

You all have seen this iPhone ad that aired during the Oscars a few weeks ago (at least you better have seen it). It’s surely among few others in a short list of truly great TV ads from the past year. While you were most likely mesmerized by all of the “hellos” from memorable film moments over the years, you may also still have the background music “Inside Your Head.” Puns aside, that track came from Icelandic musician Eberg (real name Einar Tonsberg), who has been chipping away at a new album up in Iceland, and I can’t wait to hear it. Some of you may have heard tracks off of his last album VoffVoff, which Eberg released in June of 2006 (incidentally, “Inside Your Head,” which is on Voff Voff, was on an episode of TV show The O.C. a few months ago as well). To refresh your memory, you can purchase the album from iTunes, or listen to some snippets on Eberg’s website. Just a little music FYI from an Icelandic source of mine that I thought you all would enjoy.

Our friends at Owl Movement just launched Series 5 of their quirky and inventive t-shirt line. This series is entitled Occasional Intruders and features work by Eleanor Grosh, Shara DeWitt, Huskworks and Brazilian designers MOPA. One of my faves is Grosh’s Scuba Platypus– an instantly-fun classic. As usual, all Owl Movement t-shirts are made on American Apparel, sweatshop free fine jersey cotton and available for a steal-of-a-deal at $20.

I’m not going to lie– the paper version of “America’s Finest News Source,” The Onion, got me (and many of my friends) through college. The university made the mistake of stocking the lobbies of all the lecture halls with the rag, and at the end of late afternoon classes, the entire area of the floor would be covered with smart and satirical Onion headlines. I sure didn’t mind; probably covered up some gnarly half-eaten burritos that would have gotten stuck in the sole of my Vans. We still, to this day, recite side-cramping Onion stories we read when we were in college. Today The Onion is taking a jump forward, following the likes of John Stewart and Steven Colbert, with The Onion News Network. This morning, I learned through its maiden newscast that President Bush is calling up Civil War Re-enactors for Iraq duty. That’s a scoop not even Fox News had picked up on yet! We’re talking timely and relevant news here. Here’s what the “real news” has to say about Onion’s foray into live (mmm err taped) broadcast news. Please join me in raising a glass for the new Onion News Network!

Last fall I gave a listen to The Sunshine Underground, an intensely energetic indie- rock/funk outfit out of the U.K. I was a little apprehensive over paying the import fee to get my hands on the full CD– because I suspected it would be released in the U.S. soon thereafter– but my impulsivenenss thankfully got the better of me. Months later, I’m still pumped on the bold sounds in Raise the Alarm, their debut album, and so are the kids in England, where The Sunshine Underground is currently touring extensively. TSU just played SXSW (something I would love to hear about if any of you caught it), but that was the first I’ve heard of their playing any U.S. shows. Their full album is still only available to us with an import fee via Amazon– though I imagine that may change soon– but that may be the only bummer about this band, because their sound (which is a little bit Bloc Party, a little bit The Rapture, and a lot of their own) is incredible and addictive. Check them out on Myspace (start with “Commercial Breakdown” or “Borders”), and be converted.

Format, the ahead of the curve magazine out of Toronto, just dropped issue #12 of their online urban art/fashion focused publication. In celebration of Women’s History Month, Format Mag has honed in on some amazing women artists and designers, both emerging and established, that are truly thriving in the heavily male-dominated area of urban culture. Issue #12 features several proper interviews with well known ladies (like Claw Money and Joslyn Rose Lyons), and soon-to-be well known ladies (like EGR, a Toronto street artist). I love the subscription-less concept behind Format Mag; how rad to be able to access this quality of content without having to pay the five to twenty bucks (dang imports) that I normally shell out for culture magazines?

Juicy Couture’s e-commerce site just got a little love from Spear Collective’s own jp33 (Jeremy Prasatik). It makes sense to me– if you’re a brand going for that spring time feel, who better to have add that aesthetic to your website than jp33? He’s certainly not afraid of bright colors, and while the floral designs for Juicy are a slight aberration from his trees I’ve grown so fond of, they fall into his design repertoire quite well I think. Jeremy’s a guy who has managed to stay insanely busy with his design work and is always updating his site with his most recent projects. Have a look for yourself.