Have I mentioned before how I love google? Right now I am loving google for google reader, and the ability it gives my friends to share things. My friends have good tastes, and read blogs that I don't. (that's not to say that the blogs I read are bad, please read those clauses as two seperate things.

Thanks to the wonder of sharing via google reader I now know about 2 things I may not have known about (I think both thanks to Josh Chong, so thanks Josh Chong!):

1. Seth has designed a float, and it, and the City of Dominion, will be on display at a gallery in St. Catherines. I've seen Dominion before, but Jenna hasn't, and I just finally made the time to read George Sprott (The cumbersome dimensions of the book have had me putting off reading it. Which is sad, really, because I do love the look and feel of the size of the book...), and would enjoy seeing the landmarks of the book in person again, as much as that can be accomplished by seeing carboard models of a fictional city. We kind of need to go to an Ikea anyway (so I can finally get some stuff on some walls, including some promotional materials from when I saw Dominion here), so maybe we'll combine the two and go. Kind of a long drive to see it, but if Jenna's up for it, I'm in!

2. Miranda July impersonates extras in classic movies. Now I'm not really a Miranda July fan, but the idea behind these pictures is hilarious, and the execution is really quite good too. The Grease one is probably my favourite.

So thank you google, and thank you Josh!
And sorry for all of the brackets in that first point. I just had a lot to say!

One stress in our life is done, now we just need to get the kitchen worked out. Which, actually, I think might happen. Even if the manufacturer still has to make the floor we want...

I've been hoping to come back with something unique and exciting, but instead it's more purging of my reader. Which does yield some exciting stuff, but somehow feels less than exciting, you know? Hopefully it's just me.
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Department of Eagles video designed and co-directed by Marcel Dzama. I started listening to Department of Eagles this summer, and definitely enjoy it. This track is a stand out for sure. And I've loved what I've seen by Dzama in the past.

Truth be told, I only watched about a minute of this and then had to share it. I suck at watching videos that other people post. I will leave this one unread and then take forever to go back and fully watch it. The funny part of that is, I have a bunch of videos I've seen that I'll be sharing with you soon, and expecting you to not do what I always do, and actually watch them.
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Cutest headphone jack splitter ever? I think so.
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Periodic Table of Typefaces? I'll take one! (okay, really, I'll think about taking one... do I really want to pay $22+ for it, and do I have anywhere to put a largish poster? I think I might, and I think I do. So maybe I will take one... We'll see.)

Lino-cut printing with a steamroller? Yes! (Seriously, watch the video. It's pretty impressive!)

(These were both from FPO [For Print Only] which is a pretty awesome blog about, not surprisingly, printed materials. I love it because they break down the cost, materials, etc. Quite interesting.)
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Cool bird prints. These are probably making the rounds pretty good. I saw them on Grain Edit and LOVE them. There's a whole lot of Charley Harper influence in there it looks like. Some highlights for me: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4. A few of them together would make a nice little collection of prints somewhere. Where's the red-winged black bird though? Give me one of those, and I'm in.
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The classic CBC logo gets ripped off! Not once, but twice!
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Beautiful abstract tattoos. I can't believe how much they look like actual paint. Interesting idea, bridging the "real art" vs. body art gap. I'm also the birds in the chest piece in the "modern" section of the artist's website. (Sorry, I'd link direct, but it's flash...) Really nice stuff.
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So, I have to admit, I never was a massive fan of Where the Wild Things are. That's not to say that I didn't like it, just that I wasn't huge into it. I never owned it. I bet if I had I would have loved it, but I never did. I did love the Little Monster books, and other weird stuff by Mercer Meyer.

So anyway, I had to admit that, in order to say that I am really excited about the upcoming movie version of Where The Wild Things Are. Everything about it looks awesome, exciting, and magical. I've been reading the blog connected to the film, and that's become a part my excitement too. It really highlights the tastes and ideas of the filmmakers and what has influenced them and their movie.

As an example, here's what they think of people tagging their billboard: "A better shot of our new favourite billboard" & "Billboard". I love the text in the second one (which was actually the first one), posted by Spike: "Finally! I’ve been waiting to see one customized. We should have a contest for the best altered billboard…" They really appreciate that that is someone else's art and work interacting with their own.

Anyway, great blog, great seeming filmmakers, hopefully great movie.
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I guess that's it for now. Still 36 unread items in my reader, but better...

I'm loving this weather lately. Though it's making me wish we were back in New England, since we were there this time last year, and it was super grey and rainy the whole time (as you can see it was when we visited the top of Mt. Washington in the picture above). I miss it for sure.

The bad part about the weather? We were hoping to get in a game of disc golf today...

Pretty much the best thing that publishing companies keep doing is releasing new and impressive covers for books I already own. Sometimes, a cover redesign is actually pretty terrible (also, covers based on the movie based on the book), but much more often lately, I have been impressed by companies' choices to work with great designers and illustrators. This whole series really rises to the occasion in that regard.

Seriously, this kind of thing makes me want to re-purchase books I already own. At one point, if you had asked me what my favourite book was, I would have said White Noise, without a second's pause. It's been awhile now, and it's time for a re-read to see where it sits, but I'd so much rather read the version above than the one I currently own (actually, I probably wouldn't want to read the new version, because I wouldn't want to hurt it). I've actually been tempted for years to trade it in for this one, which was already clearly better, but this new one takes the cake!

I've been tempted by this one in store before for sure too.

And this is a book I've always questioned Jenna's ownership of, but now I want to run out and buy this version!

This one would be hard to pass up too...
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This was super-exciting for me the other day. When I started into that post I was thinking "Hey, I made a packaging related show poster, I should send it in!" And then BANG, there it was, on a blog I really enjoy. Really made me feel good. Even if I'm not that proud of that poster anymore...
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This is an impressive little piece of focused self-promotion. Seeing it inspired me in a poster I had to make recently. Not that I hadn't seen the multi-media background, colour cut out overlay before, but I kept looking at that piece and couldn't resist making this:
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This barbershop/railway museum might be just the thing that would get me to go back to having someone else cut my hair. You know, if it wasn't in Northern Ireland...
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Font memory game? Yes. I feel like I've seen something like this before, but I don't know where. I do believe that it was someone's self-promotional piece though.

See what I'm saying about self-promotion? Awesome stuff lately, I'm always talking about someone's work for themselves!
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Adorable and clever pet food packaging. Seriously, adorable.
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Here's an interesting idea that I've actually kind of thought of before. For the right price, I might consider buying one. The question is, how different is it from just having a plant in your room?
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If anyone in Toronto can get me one of these posters, I would be super grateful. Seriously. I wonder if you can get them from the zoo? You know I like my bears...
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After yet another purge, my pile of things to share is getting smaller. Too bad it also tends to get bigger every day or so...

Round-Up!

Another Shorpy round up here, 'cause my google reader is overloaded with things marked 'unread' and it's stressing me out. A big part of that is always the beautiful images on Shorpy, so here's another batch I've been wanting to share with you...
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High School Confidential. Here's the big version of the picture above. There's just something extremely striking about it to me. It's so simple, but weird. I guess it was a test shot? I don't know, but it's one of those ones where I have to wonder just who that girl was, and what was going on in her life, and even in her mind, as she presumably waited to get her portrait taken and the photographer fired this one off.
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Roundhouse. A classic Delano. This was almost the picture I used above. He always has great shots. Beautiful depth. Working with trains he always has so many lines going on, and I love them. Of course, it probably helps that I just love trains too...
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He Sleeps Where he Lies. Wow. This one almost was the post picture too, but I figured a picture of a dead soldier was a little weird/depressing. I still had to share it though. It's interesting to me as he is so frozen in his final moment, and doubly so as he is frozen by the act of the photograph. In those terms of course, you can always think of a person in a photograph as dead, as they have continued on and stopped being that person after the photo has been taken. But really, why would you want to get into that? Interesting photo regardless.
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End of the Line. Took me way too long to figure out what this meant by "house of streetcars," but there you go. Make me thinking of all of the shipping container buildings that keep popping up lately. Ahead of it's time!
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The Tax Clock. There's something about the fact that this guy is so well dressed, while pasting up a large billboard, that really made this stick out for me. Not that people didn't regularly dress like that, but this seems like a job for a guy in overalls or something, you know? The billboard is pretty nice too...
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More to come some time soon, I hope. Finally made it to the Chicopee disc golf course this weekend, and made up our own urban disc golf course. Maybe you'll get to hear about that. Probably not though.

Fall is almost here and I am excited, and listening to Nick Drake for the first time in much too long.

Excited.

New poster. Can't wait to see it up around town.
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The main reason I decided to post right now is that I just bought this, and I couldn't wait to share it with you all. I can't wait for it to show up in my mailbox! Letterpress, beautiful, great colours, super cute, woodgrain. So much good going on! Could potentially go well in a number of spots around the house.

Seriously? Seriously:

SO CUTE. CAN'T WAIT.
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Here's something else I've been eyeing over and over again on etsy recently. Great colours. Must be a split fountain from what I know of this kind of thing. Which to me seems tricky to do with consistency. I don't even really know how to explain why I like the colours so much, but I just feel like they're perfect. The only reason I haven't bought it yet is because I have problems with wearing off-white shirts, so I'm afraid I wouldn't wear it much. Beautifully done though.
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Made of Myth. The construction of vintage video games. Clever, witty, and very impressive in scope and production.
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Here's something I keep forgetting to share with you, and I can't believe it, because it is one of my favourite images that I have seen on the internet for the last few weeks. In fact, since I've already broken from my usual 1 pic per post, and I love it so much, I'm putting the pic up here:
SERIOUSLY. How could I not love that? It does make me a little sad, as my friends' Boler was ruined this week, but overall, everything about this picture makes me happy. I tried starting to list them, but it would have gotten ridiculous. Even the shadows in the trailer!

I would LOVE a print of this. Apparently it's from a book, which I, of course, now need. (from design*sponge)
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Speaking of books, I was in Words Worth today for the first time in far too long, to pick up two books I won from Mandy over at Edge of Seventeen. Always exciting to win something. Mandy left a note on the front of the one, with it's cheesy, model-photo based cover that said "Insert way better cover," which is a note I definitely appreciated (aside from the books!)

Thanks Mandy! I feel kind of bad for taking them from potential teen blog reader winners, but I do really want to read them!

That right there is the front of our house. I love the flower box Jenna's dad built for us, and the plants Jenna's mom picked out to go in it. As soon as it went up, our house got a lot cuter.

This weekend I finally got around to painting the eaves around the porch, so we took some pictures of the front of our house. I uploaded them, as well as the pictures that were up on the realtor's website, to flickr so I could show them off. Two sets: Before & After

The kitchen has been pushed back to "earliest October," ie. as soon in October as they can have the cabinets built, and I can't wait for that. Obviously there will be more pictures to come then.
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At one point on our mini road trip, Jenna made a comment about a Holiday Inn Express sign. I believe it was about the colouring (H.I.Express being blue, vs. the typical H.I. green), and how the new logo just doesn't feel right. The whole Holiday Inn overhaul came at least a year ago, and it's still bothersome to me too. The old one wasn't perfect, but when you get to see it on this classic sign here, how could you ever want anything else? (via the DDC)
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The other day I looked at my feet and imagined what it would be like to have a pair of Jack Purcell's that were made of grey wool. I decided it would be awesome. Simple and classy, it would suit the shoe. These, shoes have confirmed that for me. Now if I just knew who to talk to at converse to get this done...
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I've often enjoyed the different ways Google plays with their logo for special events, achievements, birthdays and whatnot, and I've often wondered if they have archived copies of all of the different things they have done sitting around somewhere. If they haven't been archiving them, someone has, and you can see a bunch of them here. It's aways nice to see people taking the time to add that extra little touch. Even when by "people" you mean "giant company". What can I say though, I do love Google.
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While I am not much of a baseball fan at all, these here are some clever/witty infographics.
This one, in particular, is great. Something important for the kids to learn, for sure. (via the DDC)
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I really want to try these chips! I've been keeping an eye out for them, but have not stumbled across any yet, sadly...