Getting Back to Normal

Jenna sent me a link to an US Weekly slide show of pictures of celebrities on Sesame Street (if you didn't know, I love Jim Henson). She originally sent me to this Jonah Hill one, which is awesome, but I just love Bert's expression in the picture above. He looks so shocked and honoured to have Brian Williams interviewing him about his bottle cap collection.

I wish there was a way to just see the celebrity appearances on Sesame Street. There's just something about when you surround a celebrity with puppets. It's always interesting to see how their interaction works, and it can be so cute! Like when Feist was on!
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Been a busy week, with lots of work at work, as we printed the film guide this week, and then some poster and ad making at home when I was not at work. But I'm starting to feel back to normal, so I should be back to regular posting. I've barely kept up with my blog reading, let alone my posting! By the way, if you ever feel like seeing what I do at work, just pick up a Princess Cinemas film guide, or check out posters I've made here.
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This here's a pretty great shopping bag. It's a great idea to create one with an attached pouch, for sure. And the grenade styling, well, I do enjoy that!
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There's been a lot of stuff going around lately about sweet business cards, and I'm sure I'll post one later, but this one for a divorce lawyer is so clever! Of course, the pertinent details are on both sides too, so each soon to be ex can have their own copy.
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The Canadian Design Resource is an excellent blog to check out for fine examples of Canadian design smarts, like that card above. It can really make a fella proud to be a Canadian.
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Been meaning to post this one for a bit: A robot that is controlled by living brain tissue! Crazy!
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Plans for this year's DIY Not? zine fair are well under way. I need to get a poster done by the end of the weekend, and the event itself is on October 25 & 26. Should be a good time. My goal for it (aside from showing people how to do cheap and easy "screenprinting") is to set up a screening of Beautiful Losers at the Twin on the Sunday evening. That would make me real happy.

I totally forgot about this marketing campaign until about a week ago, but I love it. I've even kept the two newspaper ads I've found (one from over a year ago), and wish there was a way to see everything they've put out. Seems that guy's always up to something new. And the advertising works! On me at least, the next time I go to Halifax I might have to fly Porter to see if that adorable Raccoon pops up anywhere else.
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Always cool to see the apartment/studios of people you find interesting. Grain Edit's studio just got covered by More Ways to Waste Your Time (with a name like that, there's a blog I've gotta be checking out...). Inspiring, and a little disheartening. I'll never have a place as beautiful as this, or Something's Hiding in Here's studio.
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But then, at the same time, it is a little heartening that Sweathog Living has popped up. And nice to know that one of the House Industries folks is writing for them too. So not all design related people live in bright, clean, modern homes. Me, I'd like to sit right in the middle between Sweathog, and Mid-Century Modern. Maybe it's more that I'd love to live the Mid-Century Modern life, but my tendencies will never allow that beautiful clean and sparseness.

While on the This American Life website at work today (have I mentioned I'm currently in the middle of 12 straight days at work? That's film guide time for you), I decided to check out the "On The Road" heading. I am so glad I did! Turns out David Sedaris is going to be in New Haven CT on October 3rd, exactly around when I figured we'd be in CT. Not a half hour later, after some mad confusion over the phone with Jenna about the theatre's seating chart, tickets were bought. Another part of the trip planned! Now all we have to do is book some hotels...
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All things considered, a good weekend, and something else to look forward to, but not enough time spent online to have anything else to share with you, just my excitement. Sorry!

"His memory's admissible as evidence"

Apparently they've printed a new 35mm copy of RoboCop. I tried to convince John that it would be a good idea to run it, but I'm pretty sure I'll get back to work down there and see that it is not on the calendar. I had no idea that there was a new one in the works, to be directed by Darren Aronofsky... Interesting
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We do have Wall•E on calendar at the Orig for a few days though, which is a great idea. I haven't really talked about it, but I think Wall•E, and it's subsequent, not beating you over the head, but being being very artistic and clever marketing and aftermarket campaigns is awesome. This review of it is pretty much bang on to how I feel about the film itself, and I used a pared down version of it in the quide, to try to attract the crowd I think we should try to attract. As to the marketing/aftermarket campaigns, check out these promo post cards, and this book. Oh, and this Little Golden Book, done, more or less, in Little Golden Book style too!
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Society in Decline - Awesome roadside signage on flickr (via Draplin)
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Katamari baby! (via Northern Nests)
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EA Sports responds to YouTube video about glitch in Tiger Woods game with: YouTube video with Tiger Woods? Awesome. (Via Mike Reed [whose Mailer came today, which I have to say, is awesome])
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Turntable watch.
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I should probably get down to work now...

What a fine set of wheels! That right there is circa 1920, via Shorpy, which , if you've never been heard of it, is "The 100 Year-Old Photo Blog." It's chock full of amazing pictures from days gone by. Some are user submitted, and some are from national archives. My favourite photographer on the site? Jack Delano. Hands down.
(Not sure where I first heard about Shorpy. I'm betting Draplin.)
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I can't ever find Readymade at the Zehrs near my house anymore, and I always forget to go elsewhere to pick it up, but I was pleased when I grabbed it this week and saw there was a feature about Somthing's Hiding in Here's super cute apartment.
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Some real nice things from Grain Edit today:
M is for Modern: Alphabet Flashcards - really nice stuff. Yes, yet another thing I wouldn't mind owning.
So Much Pileup - A new blog by one of the guys behind Burlesque of North America. Definitely immediately subscribed to that one and am eagerly awaiting future posts.
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Something I kind of forgot about until a conversation with Josh last night: In car turntables. And, a slot loading one. Genius, those.

Another Day...

Nardwuar and former PM Jean Chretien by the awesome Mitch Clem. Mitch rose to fame with "the world's first online punk comic," but also illustrates album covers, show posters, magazine articles, probably some other things, and My Stupid Life, which is his current (awesome) webcomic about his life. Been a fan for awhile. Highly recommended. Definitely going to have to buy this one when it comes out.
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Something you may know about me, or will come to know about me if you continue to read this, is that there are MANY things out there that I would like to own, and I will not hesitate to tell everyone and anyone who will listen that I would like to own it.
Like this shirt, that is apparently going to stop being made. Been wanting it for awhile. Might need to buy it.
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No need to buy this one, but it is awesome. So is the whole blog that posted it. Focusing on faux bois = creating pretty much one of the best blogs ever. So much good stuff.
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This here is a pretty sweet flickr set of old ephemera. It comes via Draplin, who I'm sure I'll mention a lot around here, as I've been a big fan of his work and blog for a long time now. I go so far as to buy magazines about a sport I've never participated in, just because he does the layout. Gross, no?
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Made a BIG purchase today, but you'll find out more about that later...

Today was Marc & Celene's "baby fiesta." That's the poster I made for it up above. Definitely an enjoyable time. Celene's mom got me to dump a big pail of ice water on Marc. I ended up bonking him on the head too though, resulting in a playful scolding from Marc's mom.
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Managed to squeeze in the viewing of a couple of doc's this weekend.
The Tri-City Roller Girls are hosting a special screening of Hell on Wheels at the Twin this Thursday, but the dvd came in on Friday, so I borrowed it to run a "test screening." Good movie. Interesting stuff about the rebirth of the roller derby. Gotta love the Texans for that (amongst other things). The derby seems to be a great thing for a lot of the girls who play it, and you can't go wrong with that.
Yesterday and today I watched Punk's Not Dead, which was pretty good too. It never really judges about just what punk is or is not these days. Some people in it do, but the film seems to give respect to what the newer bands are doing.
2 films in one weekend! a far better showing than the 3 weeks or so it took me to get through Crumb. Which was not because it wasn't good, but moreso that I just didn't seem to have the time to really sit down with it, or when I tried to, I was too tired. The movie is really interesting in that it almost becomes more so about the mental states of his two brothers than about Robert Crumb himself.
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Might have to buy this one. Jenna found it. I already own basically the same model in black, but it doesn't have the clip, or the staple remover. Looks real nice in green too. I think I paid $.50 for the one I currently have 'cause it was jammed when I found it at ValueVillage and I convinced them it was broken. Love the fact that it locks shut for travelling. Clever.
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Finally did some planning for our New England trip. Gotta make sure I can get the days off. Oh, and finish planning. And book some rooms.
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Seems to be some pretty great ingenuity behind this bike is pretty sweet. Solar panel wheels, genius. (via The Canadian Design Resource)
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Well, I was hoping for daily on this, but I missed two. Still better than my livejournal has been for a long time...

Another one from Jenna. My number one source of neat internet things outside of blogs. She always hunts for things on her own, while I spend all my time looking at things other people tell me to.

By the way, she's getting wayyy too good at Circus Atari. I can't even come near her scores.
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Here's one that's been making the blog rounds that I thought I'd kick in in case you missed it: Hotel Door Hangers
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A little late on this one, but I keep meaning to mention it: for once "America" got something right and voted Iliza Shlesinger the winner of Last Comic Standing. Funny and hot.
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If you've got nothing to do tomorrow night, I'll be dj'ing by myself again tomorrow night at the Jane Bond, 'cause Shane's been "called up to the majors" to fill in for DJ Charless.

So lately I've gotten into This American Life (late, I know). The weird thing is that I actually got into it through the tv show (well, not so weird considering how much I love tv). Not that I hadn't heard of the radio show before, in fact, I'd been meaning to listen to it forever. But then one day Jenna downloaded one episode of the tv show, and I was like "oh yeah!" And then a little while later I started downloading some more, and then we were hooked. The bad part about it is, there's only so many episodes of the tv show (12, actually). But the good part is, there's about a million episodes of the radio show to listen to.

This came in handy the last two days at work. The boss is at his cottage, and I was all pumped to listen to music while working yesterday. I remembered my ipod, but forgot the cord, and just as I was cursing myself, I remembered that you can stream T.A.L. on their website. And so work has been good this week, if a little stressful for other reasons.

I have listened to and recommend:
Notes on Camp - I love stories about camp. I always wish I had gone, but I totally would have hated it if I had.
Prom - Gee, is it obvious that I love portrayals of the experiences of youth?
Superpowers - Chris Ware talks about his own superhero obsession in this one!
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Jenna found the website of the designer behind our favourite Keds shoes: Eleanor Grosch. At times she seems pretty obviously inspired by Charley Harper, and there ain't nothin' wrong with that. She also designed a raccoon pillow that I've thought about buying before at Urban Outfitters without knowing it was hers. I can't remember why I never did buy it. She also has some pretty great stuff available here.
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And, while I'm to things to decorate your home with, and even though I'm often not the biggest fan of wall stickers, there's something about this set that I quite like.
Of course there's all kinds of things from veer that I quite like, but I'll probably never own any of it. Especially since, as much as I love that mug, it's $18!
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And finally: this one's for the Qatalyst folks, if they take my invitation and stop by.

Oh, taco tuesday. Both renowned and reviled as "my favourite day of the week." Looks like a great day out for patio sitting and beer sipping though. And what day isn't a good day for tacos?

<< This, of course, is a costume that I think I need, or at least to make my own variation on. Marc and I discussed a whole set: Taco, ramekin of sour cream, ramekin of salsa, bottle of hot sauce. That would be awesome.
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Here's a movie I've got to tell John to try and get. That's if/when it gets Canadian theatrical distribution. Great collection of artists in that one. The trailer's on the main page, so be sure to check it out. (via Wooster Collective)
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Jenna had a good point last night, I totally have to stop looking at t-shirts on the internet that I could totally make myself, and get back into totally making t-shirts myself. It's not even that I don't have the ideas, it's just the straight laziness and not wanting to do more work when I'm done work. That's something I need to work on...
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This is a pretty great shirt from Threadless that I could not make myself, and wouldn't mind owning though.
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And finally, a big thanks to AceJet170 for talking about Mike Reed yesterday. A quick glance through Mr. Reed's site, and particularly his miscellany resulted in seeing a ton of cool stuff. Like this, which describes how a Large Hadron Collider works via hip hop. And he's super nice too! Apparently there will soon be one of these in the mail for me. Looking forward to getting that one, and you can believe you'll hear about it when I do.

Do Work!

Been watching Top Chef lately with Jenna (don't read too much of the entry if you're interested in the show, it might give away the winner, I'm not sure). A pretty good show, but it's still sometimes one of those shows that I like, but never really feel like watching until it's on.

The sweet logo above is the logo for one of the chefs' home restaurant. I often wonder when watching shows like that, or like Hells Kitchen, or what have you, just where these people come from. If they're an executive chef, wouldn't be interesting to see their menu? I think so. And if you do too, check out Good Stuff Eatery's website. Definitely a place I could see myself eating were I nearby. Classy diner food. If the interior design is anything like the graphic design, I'm pretty sure I'd feel pretty comfortable too. (via death by kerning)
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Haven't had the time to get into this yet, (had to work for Starlight when I got home from work) but I'm loving the Archie look. And lord knows I love a good re-imaging of classic stories, particularly when they involve the bible. I hope it doesn't disappoint. (via butternutsquash)
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Definitely intrigued by Oliver Stone's new one. The imdb boards are rife with people talking about how he sucks now, and how this is going to suck, and yadda yadda yadda, suck suck suck, but then the imdb boards are always full of shit (though you will notice that that will never stop me from reading them, even if I always disagree with the "this person looks like____" thread, 'cause there's always someone who the person clearly looks like who never gets mentioned). edit: In french speaking countries, will they call this movie "double vé"? I think I'll have to walk into the theatre and ask for "Dubya."
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If you get Rogers on Demand (or any other on demand service that carries MTV...) go to MTV2 and watch season 3 episode of 5 of Rob & Big. Rob sets 22 Guinness World Records in one day, and Big sets 2 (*spoiler!* most bananas peeled and eaten in 1 minute, and most sugar donuts eaten in 3 minutes). Ignoring the fact that I think that the two of them so cute and wicked hilarious together, it's a pretty impressive ep.
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Jenna's kicking some ass at Circus Atari beside me right now, so I better go and practice up.

New Things.

Today, aside from becoming the proud owner of a new blog, I also became the proud owner of one of these. It's not the sweet woodgrain one that I would really have liked, but it was the first person to actually get back to me when they posted one for sale on kijiji. It came with 22 games, though not California Games, or Asteroids, so I've still got some things to hunt for. And there were some games, like Circus Atari, that I had never played before but am already a big fan of.

It got me to thinking about the packaging for Atari games though. Take the Asteroids cartridge above. As you probably know, Asteroids is a game where the player mans a triangle shaped "spaceship," flying around and trying to blow up large, blocky "asteroids." It's really not unlike a number of other games for the system, which really follow some pretty standard archetypes. You've got your shooting games, and games where you collect things, and a couple of other variations, but, as Jenna is discovering, a lot of them are very similar, and very annoying. So you've got Asteroids, a triangle and some blocks, and you need to market it. So you give the cover a really sweet illustration that really has nothing to do with the actual look of the gameplay, and then you throw it on the shelf, and then the kids eat it up. That's genius marketing, the games images may be boring, but the box images certainly are not. And it lead to some really cool covers for sure, like the sweet, dreamy sci-fi scene from Defender which is, of course, just another game with a spaceship blowing shit up.

It's beautiful really. They would give basically the same thing a new story, an awesome illustration, and throw it on the shelves. It makes me think of old school sci-fi novel covers as discussed in Fortress of Solitude. I'm not going to explain what I'm talking about because you should just go out and read the book anyway, a definite top 3 for this guy, maybe, maybe even a number 1. So much stuff going on in that one.

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From Neatorama: Scary Science That Humans Have Follishly Embraced including mass marketed Opium and Heroin. That includes Heroin lozenges, awesome.

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Was listening to Rancid's Let's Go on my way to Elmira to pick up the Atari earlier. Came upon the song "Burn" which includes the line "We don't need no water let the motherfucker burn," and got to wondering just where that line originated, since you hear it around a fair bit. Turns out it comes from a 1984 single by Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three, called, not surprisingly, "The Roof is on Fire"

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Oh yeah, and this is awesome.

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