Since I linked to videos of one of my other heroes the other day, I thought I'd pass along this picture and this video of Jim Henson that We Love You So linked to. I love Jim Henson. I think he was a great person who did great things. Pictures like the one above always make me both happy and sad. Such a tender looking moment between a man and his puppet. Such a talented, special individual. I wonder what he would have gotten up to if he hadn't died when he did?
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To jump gears completely, how awesome does this antique lighting store look? I'd love to shop there! Except I bet I wouldn't be able to afford anything.
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Here's another video for you; a featurette on Studio on Fire.
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I keep going back to look at these business cards. Clever work there for sure.
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I've often thought about this classic hat style, and wondered why someone wasn't putting a version of it out. I guess now New Era is, but of course, like many awesome things, you can only get it in Japan. Not that I think I'd be able to pull it off, but still, nice to know it's out there.
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At home for kitchen related reasons. Cleaning out the ol' google reader, some work, and some house work. It's Halloween tomorrow, lots of prep to do. Why do I always leave costume details to the last minute?

We finally went out and bought pumpkins yesterday. 6 of them. Yes, 6. I have plans for 4 of them; one big themed pumpkin set. Let's hope it works out. The thing I'm not looking forward to? Cleaning them all out. Definitely the worst part of pumpkin carving.

Gotta do some costume shopping tonight. I do love me some Halloween.
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Spotted the new version of the Youth in Revolt poster today. Blah.
Original version.
New version.
On the surface, they don't really look that much different, I know, but they really are. With it's more painterly style, the original version had so much more character. The new version is clearly a little more mainstream. The painting style is pretty much totally gone, in favour of just a softening of the image, and the girl, of course, highlights the love story aspect. Small changes, but big. You know?
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Jenna showed me these salt & paper shakers, and they are awesome. If they weren't so dang expensive, I would totally buy them. I've see a couple shaker sets lately that stick together to form a larger whole. Smart thinking for sure.
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Jessica Hagy hit 'good design' right on the nose with this one. Her blog, Indexed is frequently clever and entertaining (and sometimes confusing if you don't always understand graphs...).
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Here's another one Jenna sent me today. I saw the video on MTV this morning, but am very glad to know the woman got charged. Bad driving really bugs me. I get irritated if someone in front of me turns without signaling. Ever since my accident last year, I am also very aware of when people's headlights aren't on, which really bothers me too. Particularly if it is grey out at all. If your car doesn't have daytime running lights, you should be aware of that, and turn your lights on!

Safety people!

(Now, I'm not saying I'm a perfect driver, but I like to think I'm better than some people.)

Believe me, poster, I wish...

It seems like my favourite two months are just slipping past my eyes. With one stress after another, time just keeps trucking past me. Lots of good things are happening though, so I can't really complain. I just love fall, but keep feeling too tired or busy to appreciate it. Oh well, there are many more autumn's to come (and still November too!) (image from Absolute Sellout)
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This past weekend, thanks to Sue and Ron's friends, I got to drive an Olympia Ice Resurfacer. Pretty awesome.

We had a tour of the factory in Elmira, where most of each machine is hand built from the frame up. Impressive stuff. It's unfortunate that the name Zamboni is so prominent, as Olympia probably does bigger business, and is a home-grown Canadian product. Their machines are used all around the world. Definitely something to be proud of.

Resurfice is actually providing all of the ice resurfacers that will be used at the Vancouver olympics. The machine I drove is one of the ones being sent out there, one of their new electric powered machines (it was so quiet!).
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Loving these skateboard decks. Just the right amount of dark/creepy-ness. And nice patterns to boot.
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The grey version of these shoes look pretty nice! I'm not sure how they'd look in person, or on (especially on big feet like mine), but I'm loving the concept. Like a pea coat for your feet.
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This guy doesn't go by the name Andy Awesome for nothing. Such cute art!
Charlie Brown and Linus!
Batman and Robin!
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Bacon jam! My favourite Top Chef chef, ever, Kevin made Bacon jam to go with something else he made and I freaked out. I had no idea I might be able to buy bacon jam...
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Did I mention that Kevin is my favourite Top Chef chef ever? Look at him! Isn't it obvious that I would like him? And he gets so excited and happy when he wins! He seems to just cook for the love of cooking, not like those Voltaggio brothers, who may be awesome chefs, but are way too serious about it. Oh right, that's the other thing, Kevin also makes amazing looking food that I would love to eat.

Top 4 prediction for this season's Top Chef: KEVIN, Jennifer, Voltaggio brothers.

(sorry for the tv tangent. I do it surprisingly little considering how much I love tv. Top Chef is a great show, and you should totally watch it if you don't.)
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The colours in these photographs of Russia in the early 1900's is pretty great. It gives such an added 'realness' to the images. Though I love black & white, the colour makes these feel more like these places still exist. Though at the same time I don't have that desire to walk into them like I do with old black & white images...
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More Chip Kidd:
Chip Kidd's Halloween Memories. Short and cute. If you didn't watch the other ones, try this one.

Film guide = uploaded to the printer. There'll probably be some changes, but for all intents and purposes, done. As John said on the phone "Another 2 years of our lives. I mean 2 months." Not that it takes us 2 months, but that's what it covers. Living life 2 months at a time.
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My hero.
Chip Kidd & Elmore Leonard: A mutual appreciation.
Chip Kidd Dwell designers video.
Chip Kidd insights lecture. At an hour and a half I bet this is amazing, but I don't know if I'll ever get through it!
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You know how my blog is always all over the place, because I am all over the place? Here's a blog that is amazingly curated: A Continuous Lean. Maybe his tastes are just amazingly curated, I don't know, but everything he posts just goes together so well. His style is nice to look around in.

Classic (CLASSIC.) IBM ThinkPad.
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The good thing about the convergence of film guide production and hundreds of kids in the building daily? It gives me an excuse to listen to my ipod all day. One of the bands I keep going back to this week are The Evens. I only got Get Evens at the beginning of summer, but really liked it right away, and keep liking it more. The song that got me hooked was 'Cut From the Cloth', but today I woke up with 'Get Even' stuck in my head, and realized that it may now be my favourite. Check it out: Get Even

Finally got around to uploading some newer posters onto gigposters. You can see them here. I'm definitely happy with some of what I've done lately, some in a different style than I'm used to.
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Speaking of gigposters, browsing around today helped me put two and two together and realize that I really love the work of Jay Ryan. I've seen it before, even posted a link to one of his posters before, but never really realized it was all the same person. I loved his illustrations in the Chabon book. His lettering style and colour choices are great. I love that he leaves in bits and pieces of his workflow in places, like his scratchy lines and things like the little box in this poster that he used to figure out the flow of the banner. Nice stuff. Check out his gigposters page here.

Cute.
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Here's something fashion-wise that's got my interest piqued: Levi's x Obey. Looking forward to seeing what comes out of that. Definite possibilities for good or bad.
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Not looking forward to work tomorrow. The stress of film guide production deadline at the end of the week meets the craziness/business of the Quantum to Cosmos festival taking over the theatres with stuff for kids all day = not fun. I love the idea of the festival, I just wish it wasn't this week...

Another new Timber shirt! This one is on it's way to me now, along with this one that I finally ordered. That puts my Timber shirt count at 7. Did I mention that I really like his shirts? Now I'm just waiting for this one to come out in a colour I like more...
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Here's a new ad to the want list from Penguin. Love the classic covers, as a lot of people do, so I think it's a great idea for them to basically just give you 100 of them. It would make it a lot easier to display the ones you really love rather than having to prop a few books up on the shelf.
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Back when I mentioned this picture that I love, I mentioned Boler trailers. This little Scamp trailer reminds me of a Boler, and has been beautifully re-done inside! I would love to own something like that. Not that we camp, but I can always dream (both about camping, and about owning a camper...)
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A quick trip to the Globe & Mail.com today to find a review yielded some interesting news:
A-Ha are still together (but not for long). Who knew??
Seriously, they have 9 albums, 4 of them released in the 2000's? Wow. I really had no idea.
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Since I got on the topic of music I like in my last post, I thought I'd let you know that lately I cannot stop listening to The Acorn. Since I first heard them on a sleepy morning at track & field a few years back I've been a fan, but lately it's like I don't want to listen to anything else. Sometimes I force myself to, but really, my first instinct lately is always to go for The Acorn. They are perfect for this time of year. I wish their current tour had come the the Starlight and I had gotten to make them a poster (though that also would have been somewhat scary to do...)

Been thinking a lot about Halloween lately. Still no idea for a costume, but every time we're out shopping, I always get lured in by the decorations. I've kind of always wanted to be the people on the street who go over the top for Halloween... We definitely won't be this year, but maybe once all the decorations go on sale after the fact, we might have to stock up...
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I spotted those Goodwill face variations up there in a banner ad the other day, and I have to say I love it. I'm already a fan of the original logo, and these variations are cute and fun, and the whole thing looks pretty well executed. The colour, the lines, cute, weird. I like it. There's a short commercial too apparently. Love that they got Jason in there.
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Just saw this optical illusion yesterday. Pretty weird. Hard to trust them ol' eyes sometimes, eh?
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Back on the Muppets train, here's one I sent myself awhile ago but I don't think I've posted. With last night's premiere, I guess now the timing is more apt anyway: 30 Rock is a rip-off of The Muppet Show. Well played Brian Lynch. Fitting that Jenna Maroney is Miss Piggy? Well, I do hate them both, so yes.
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Stairporn? Okay. (It's really not at all dirty, trust me) Seriously, there's some pretty neat stuff.
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Racoon Wedding. (yes, that is how they spell Raccoon, one 'c'.) I love this band. They finally have an album out. Wavering on ordering it from them over the internets, or impatiently waiting for their Halloween show at 130 King. I think I can make it that long...

It's taco day! It's a good thing I'm not religious because apparently some religions ONLY let you eat tacos on Tuesday. My personal beliefs are that while you can eat tacos any day, you really should eat tacos on Tuesday. (Thank you Jeffrey Rowland for another great taco related laugh)
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I've always liked this logo. Sad to see it go. While Armin laments it's loss, identifying that "it’s crystal clear that the world in which Rand created identities is not the same world they exist in now and most are reaching their expiry date," what makes me the most sad is that that world is gone. Also, with this one, I don't think the updated logo is really much of an update. I mean, it ties in with the University now, but it's not like the simple "Yale" is really all that much, considering the current world of logos, you know?
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Toronto: The New World Capitol For Homos, Draft Dodgers and Degenerates. Nice.
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How much do you want to bet that this was the UK cover? (A continued complaint from here)
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Disc golf Thursday was great. It's tiring going up and down those hills though! Missed out going this weekend though due to sickness...

Kitchen is moving along. Can't wait for it to be done!!

Yay!

After a number of tentative plans cancelled due to weather, Shane and I are finally (hopefully) heading back out to the Chicopee Disc Golf course. Not a lot of time to fit it in before sundown, but still totally happy.

Still have tentative plans to hit it up on Saturday too. Here's hoping!

(pic from great course Jenna and I played in Maine last year.)

Street View!

So the big news of today is that google street view for Canadian cities (including K-W) went live today. I was always disappointed that we didn't have street view in Canada, and it's exciting that now we do!

What's the first thing you looked up?

Mine was our house, of course. Too bad it wasn't our house yet... Then work, then I found our car in the parking lot, and then checked out which posters were up. Hard to see at the Starlight, but two of my favourites, NOMEANSNO and C'Mon/Pride Tiger were both up in the window at the Jane Bond.

Fun!

That right there is what our kitchen looked like when we went to bed on Sunday. It's a little different now, but more or less the same. Actually, the opening the picture is looking through is now smaller, and arched on top. This is all moving towards new cabinets going in on Friday. Can't wait.
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It seems to me that whenever I see the American version of a book cover, and the UK version, I always prefer the UK edition. What's with that? Why do they get better, punchier covers?

A prime example is the book that I generally refer to as my favourite, Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem.
Here's the North American cover.
And here's the UK. (the circle is actually a cut out hole, by the way)

Thankfully I own the UK version, and actually, if I had never seen it, I might not have ever read the book. The cover totally drew me in. Why wasn't this the NA cover as well though? It could have reached more readers perhaps, although maybe it also would have turned more away...

I'd love to own this orange version of it too (did I mention I do own both of the other covers? The NA version is my reading/loaning copy now, saving the UK version from any more wear). Oh, there's also this cover, which I kind of want at some point to complete the collection.

I'm thinking about this today because I just saw the covers for Lethem's latest, Chronic City:
North American. Boring.
UK. Awesome. The colours are even fluorescent! (which won't display on a computer, sadly)

Seriously! What's up with this?
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Sometimes, when a new comic from A Softer World shows up in my reader, I wonder 'Why do I keep reading A Softer World?' This was not one of those times. Sometimes, they hit it right on, and that is why I keep reading it.
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Jenna sent me this one: Sesame Street does Mad Men. I do love my muppets.
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Along those lines, and more from the WTWTA blog, here's a magazine I wish was still being made. Those covers are pretty amazing. Actually, it looks like every cover can be found here. Definitely something to keep an eye out for back issues of. Or even this.