Finished that poster last night. For some DJ nights my friend Frank has coming up. It seems hard to tell on here, but 'coolest' is in an icy blue. Aside from being a DJ, Frank also runs the UW Weather Station, so I figured that if you combined that, 'coolness' and 'love,' you get a thermometer with a heart on the bottom... Fitting?
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The subject matter of this Christmas song is one I am definitely familiar with. Gift Card by Thao. Well dealt with. Totally feel the sentiment. 
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A sad/sweet christmas wish from Patches. Poor Glasses.
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Fonts in Use. This is my kind of blog. Doing film guide layout involves its fair share of font identification on posters. I can do a fair bit of it on my own, or at least throw up a close facsimile, but I also do my fair share of googling 'moviename poster font' for the tough nuts. Hoping this blog will be entertaining and helpful.
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In this essay by Ricky Gervais he says some things I have said almost exactly many times:
'As an atheist, I see nothing “wrong” in believing in a god. I don’t think there is a god, but belief in him does no harm. If it helps you in any way, then that’s fine with me. It’s when belief starts infringing on other people’s rights when it worries me. I would never deny your right to believe in a god. I would just rather you didn’t kill people who believe in a different god, say. Or stone someone to death because your rulebook says their sexuality is immoral.'


'“Do unto others…” is a good rule of thumb. I live by that. Forgiveness is probably the greatest virtue there is. But that’s exactly what it is -­‐ a virtue. Not just a Christian virtue. No one owns being good. I’m good. I just don’t believe I’ll be rewarded for it in heaven. My reward is here and now. It’s knowing that I try to do the right thing. That I lived a good life. And that’s where spirituality really lost its way. When it became a stick to beat people with. “Do this or you’ll burn in hell."'


It's a little long winded, but still a good read.
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I'm sure this is making the rounds pretty heavily, but I gotta link it here anyway: You're A Comic Sans Criminal. You tell 'em!

Lots of Conan love going on on the internet today, and that makes me real happy.
Here's a bit of Dave talking about it.
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Jenna and I have finally started watching season 2 of Parks and Recreation, and I have to say, they are killing it over there! There have been a few down spots, but mostly, a lot of just straight awesome. I've heard ?uestlove has been loving it too, calling it the Wu-Tang of comedy. Check out this video here for proof!
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More TV! TV TV TV! (sorry about all the TV...)

I started watching Sons of Anarchy today, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with it, two episodes in. Weird to see Charlie Hunnam grown up and not on Undeclared. Awesome to see Ron Perlman being a somewhat normal dude, albeit the head of a biker gang...
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If you are interested in the weather at all, and live in KW, I highly recommend checking out the UW Weather Station online. I have been putting off reading this year end summary blog post, because it is so dense with interesting info about the weather in the region over the past year, and I wanted to give it its due. All kinds of interesting tidbits over there. I have their Mac application running on my work computer, and love being able to glance at the time, and also get an accurate report of how cold it feels out (it gives either actual temp, or feels like) at the same time. Maybe I'm just a nerd, but I do find this stuff pretty interesting.
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Finally, don't forget to vote on what cities should be included in Monopoly Canada. I guess Waterloo doesn't warrant being on there itself, and has to be written in. I guess its small mention in the Kitchener entry is supposed to be enough?

Yesterday we celebrated Jenna's dad's birthday by sending him off on his bike to parks all over town. I made the logo up there to adorn his shirt, and the sheets that each of us handed him at each park to tell him what to do and where to go. Amazingly the rain held off until the end. Good day.

Tomorrow is another event I did some design work for, the Jane Bond disc golf tournament (aka the best party of the year). There's something I hope we get good weather for. If the weather works out real good I'll be heading up there and camping out tonight. Can't wait!
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The other day I received an invitation to join this facebook group, protesting the new UW logo. I was expecting to click on it and see crap. What I saw was something I actually kind of liked. The other thing I saw was thousands of people up in arms about change.

A quick search for a group supporting the change has yeilded nothing, but, thankfully, one of my favourite blogs has posted some great insight on the matter. This paragraph in particular really summed up what I was thinking about it wayyy better than I ever could have:

"The main complaint throughout is that the new logo is not dignified enough and it does not represent the school. But somehow, a crest, like thousands of other crests — who the majority of people don’t know what they stand for anyway — does. Unfortunately this is antiquated thinking. Universities can not get by with traditional crests in today’s über branded environment and, if you look around, most large universities operate with a “marketing” logo and use a traditional seal for boring things like diplomas or the back covers of their catalogues."

And while he does admit that there are some problems with the logo, he also says this:

"But, in application this logo and its extended identity could be very interesting. However, this post and the controversy around it doesn’t have as much to do with whether the logo is good or bad — it’s neither really — but the propensity of students and faculty to cry foul with any change that has been carried out thoroughly by a range of committees. If they respect their university and its values they need to trust their leadership. Not whine about how 12-year-olds could do a better logo. Because they can’t.

Dear Waterloo-people-in-charge: Stick to your plan. Don’t succumb."

Straight up.
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Here's a cross merchandising idea for the TCRG: Rise n' Shiner coffee from the Minnesota Roller Girls. Real nice package design there. Makes me really want that coffee!
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I really hate how much shipping can be. I'd love to buy this print, but the shipping cost is only $1 less than the print itself (actually, you even get two for that price, which is really good for Obey stuff...).

For that matter, this poster, which I would also LOVE to have, combined with shipping puts the price high enough that I just straight up decided not to buy it. So sad.
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I guess that's it for now. Lots of stuff to do. New windows are supposed to go in tomorrow (sadly while I am away, so Jenna has to deal with it), and I've got a bunch of stuff to get ready for that before I leave (whenever that is...)