Still finding it hard to get creative lately, but I'm working on it. When I was originally thinking about doing a Plants and Animals poster, I went to the obvious place and thought about doing something with plants, and animals. In the end I started thinking about Montreal, where both bands on the bill are from. I always forget that Montreal has a subway system (maybe because I've never been there...), but it seems like something distinctive about the city. Since I love trains and subways, and maps, I thought that might be a good place to go for their poster. I hope they like it!

Actual Montreal subway (metro) map for reference.
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If you haven't heard anything about Vivian Maier yet, you should check her out. You should start by watching the video here. Really cool story that's making the rounds. Thanks so much to Sheila for sharing it with my in a comment the other day. Beautiful images.
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That's it. Time to get on to my to do list. Tonight is birthday dinner with some good friends, and viewing of Back to the Future, one of my all-time favourites, on 35mm at the Original Princess tonight. Looking forward to it!

Dying for Christmas to be here. Need a few extra days off work, and an excuse to do nothing and not feel bad about it. I just spent a little over around 2 hours clearing our my Reader (only 27 unread items!!) and linking stuff here, and now I feel like I've wasted too much time... Oh well.
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Just realized I haven't posted pictures of our table at Stitch 'n' Kitsch yet. There's one up above. Click it to see it big. Sorry for the ugly background, there was stuff going on behind us, AND we were freaking out and making a mess of our own stuff trying to set up.
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It was weird and exciting to start viewing this beautiful video that I came to from a link by Coudal, and hear music made by friends of mine as the soundtrack. Same thing happens every time I hear them in a Ford commercial too...
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Olly Moss totally killed it on these Star Wars posters, as he often does.
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Czech postage stamps. Some pretty awesome stuff in there. Highlights for me come all in row: Anniversary of TV broadcasting;  Anniversary of Radio broadcasting; Workers and banner; Factories and Rising Sun.
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I haven't bought into the whole selvedge jeans thing, but I love this guy, Roy, and his one-man made jeans. That's hard work and commitment. I can respect a $275 price tag on a pair of jeans that one guy put that much work and soul into. I think I'll stick with my 50-ish dollars a pair Levi's at the rate of about 1.5 pairs a year though. I don't make $275 jeans money, yet.
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I wish I was into playing guitar enough to justify spending $45 on a strap. I would definitely buy this Couch x Timber one. A guitar strap with bearded dudes, tree stumps and crossed axes? Yes, please!
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A little creepy but an interesting development. BMW uses afterimage to brand their logo in viewer's minds.
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Frequently I wish we had a fireplace or wood stove, for the warmth, and smell, but also for the excuse to chop wood. Now I specifically wish we could have this stove, because it looks awesome, and is super efficient.
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I wish I was friends with Matt Stevens, so I could have a copy of this limited run Air Max 1 a day book. I love this series of illustrations, and it looks pretty sweet in book form.
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I don't think I've linked to this yet, and I can't believe. This Delorean external hard drive could just be the best thing ever to store your Time Machine back-ups on. Seriously. Amazing. Clever. Detailed. Awesome.

I'm really holding it down with being inconsistent with my blogging. Honestly, I've been pretty busy all around. Lots of work being done outside of work lately, like those two posters up above, and printing items for brfc.etsy.com and the upcoming Stitch 'n' Kitsch show on December 4. The posters each reference something different that I'm a big fan of; Saul Bass & toggle switches. I have been tweeting a fair bit lately, so if you want to know what's going up with me personally, check out the feed up there on the right.

If you've been looking for links to stuff I like, sorry! Here are some for you now though.
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It Would Have Been Cooler as a Van. Classic movie vehicles re-imagined as vans. Awesome. So hard to pick a favourite, but I pretty much have to pick the Back to the Future Delorean any time I get the chance.
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History of video game consoles. Thorough. Seriously. Like, so thorough I've barely even started to look at it. Excited to slog through the whole thing when I have some time (so, never?).
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Apple: Their tablet computer history. More thorough, nerdy chronicling of techno-history. Another thing I'm excited to read through...
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Heroes of Folk. Love these. Love the classic American folk hero stories.
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Jack Purcell mids in melton wool? Yes please!
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10 reasons to grow a beard. As if you needed one.
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CBC 75th anniversary logo. Nice.
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The evolution of the geek.
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That's enough for now! Maybe more sometime?

Stumbled across this one today, to which I say bullshit. If they every try to remake Back to the Future, someone will have to die. We finally got Eileen to watch Back to the Future on New Years Eve, and she liked it. Of course she would, it's actually a good movie. I guess the Karate Kid, and Footloose for that matter, aren't really what I would call 'actually good,' but I still hate to see childhood favourites remade. Footloose, perhaps surprisingly, I would have been more okay with if Zac Efron was still going to be in it...
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Speaking of movies, in case you were wondering, Youth in Revolt on Thursday was pretty great, and the promo screening was pretty poorly attended, which made me sad for the movie, but happy for me because I hate crowds.

This weekend we also watched Post-Grad, because Alexis Bledel was in it (and Matt Saracen... Now that I think of it, the fact that he was in it turned out to be its only redeeming factor). Turns out it was SO MUCH WORSE than I ever expected. And I expected bad. There were so many parts that were just unnecessary. Who decided that the family storyline bits were a good idea? That's what we wanted to know.

Tonight it's a family affair as Jenna, her parents, and I are going to check out The Blind Side. I'm not expecting too much in depth, but I am expecting to enjoy it for what it is.
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On to the Hip Hop portion of this post:

Lloyd Banks was arrested in Kitchener (!?) - The big question that this news raises is: Brantford has a dance club big enough to host G Unit members? Seriously though, what they did is pretty messed up. Follow the link in the Record article to see a picture of the victim (Thanks to Hilary for the heads on that one)

Diddy's Wad Infiltrated by One Dollar Bill - I find the incredulous look on his face hilarious. (Thanks to Ben Ong for sharing that gem on google [and for sharing some memory gems on Friday night])
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Big and Little. One of the things that we enjoy around our house is big and little counterparts. For example, I always enjoy seeing stuffed animals who have their own, smaller, stuffed animals. These two separate Box Vox posts are perfect for me. I fell for the packaging signs right away. The bread at first, and then the Crayola box especially once I spotted it. Then when he threw down the dollhouse stuff this morning, all I could think of was 'damn, this guy knows how to get to me!' Tiny bacon? And is that tiny Vegemite?

Who loves packaging more than Randy Ludacer? I do not know.
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I want this book!!! Yet another vintage kids book to keep an eye out for.

I'm not really one to order prints (for a variety of reasons that include knowing Jenna already has a tonne, not knowing how/when/where I will display them and the fact that I have a tonne of showposters around [would it be inappropriate to put my own work up on my own walls?]), but Jenna sent me the one above, and after staring at it over and over again, I just had to have it.

You know what did it? Values • Integrity • Pickles. I don't even like pickles and I have to say that's a killer platform to run on. I mean, I love the mayor, but that part killed it for me. Must have. (honestly though, it came the other day, and I was a little disappointed to find that it's printed on glossy paper. Not a big fan of glossy.)

Another quick etsy gem for you: Kern ring set. Pretty great.
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I've recently gotten into a new webcomic whose characters, I think, would be the perfect companions for my absolute favourite webcomic characters of Glasses and Suspenders from Patches.

Meet Reginald and Beartato. That one just killed me. Even the title is perfect. Think about that.

So tragi-dorable. (I think I just made that up, and I think it's a pretty good description of many things I love, like the Patches guys and, obviously, Grumpy bear). Like tragi-comic, but, you know, tragic and adorable. Killer combination.

Adorable little Beartato poem. I love his commentary. That's the way tragi-dorable animals talk in my head too.
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BACK TO THE FUTURE SECTION.

Welcome to the Back to the Future section of this post.
Here you will find:
An awesome model of the DeLorean. Awesome.
A skateboard whose graphics are based on the hoverboard graphics. Pretty awesome.

Thus concludes the Back to the Future section of this post.
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Teddy bear natural history.

I am loving these imagined teddy bear skulls. So cute, and macabre. I love this concept so much. Her sketches in which she takes the bear and then imagines what the bone structure of that given bear would be like before she crafts the skull were enlightening.

Seriously, I would love to own one of those. Probably this one, or this one.

Did you notice that they are needle felted?

(Did I find those while looking for a bear skull shape to use while drawing bear skull and crossbones to go on teddy bear pirate hats? Maybe. Will you see the adorable pictures I took after crafting them? Probably not.)
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Did you know that there are about 8 million Ukulele song covers on YouTube? I found that out recently, and will now share some with you:
Sleepwalk - really great version.
Sleepwalk - pretty good version. (I absolutely love Sleepwalk these days, and as a result, Sleepwalking has also become my favourite Modest Mouse song of late)
I Will Follow You Into the Dark - One of the only newer Death Cab songs that I really like. Nice cover.
Such Great Heights - Found this while looking for a cover of the Iron and Wine version to learn. This one was pretty impressive. I still would rather learn the I&W version though, I think.
Baby Got Back - Just for some ridiculousness (okay, it's also a song I love...)