Random Thoughts For Sh*t Someone Says Tuesday January 31, 2012

Alright, I’m sure everyone has seen the Shit Someone Says meme. If you haven’t well, I’m just sorry for you. It’s been all over the internet.

But unlike many people, who are completely burning out on the meme, I personally love it. And the main reason I enjoy it is, that unlike other image based meme where all you need is MS Paint or Photoshop. To create a really good SPS video, you’ve got to put some real time and energy into it. Film it yourself and then edit it perfectly.

Sorta like my favourite example, the Sh!t DC People Say video below.

BTW, have you heard? That place has got an amazing brunch.

First – Hey! Speaking of memes, how about a little Silicon Valley Ryan Gosling. Girl, I know you want to.

Second – Prometheus essentially looks like Ridley Scott’s Alien 2.0… but it still looks freaking stunning.

Three – One of our favourite spots in DC/VA is Northside Social Coffee House. It’s a quaint little coffeeshop that we frequent quite regularly. One of the things they do is promote local artists, by adorning their walls with art. Over the past few months, they’ve had the paintings of local Arlington artist, Chris Bishop all over their walls.

There’s something about his work that I just adore. The combination of the aesthetic and bright colours, catches my eyes everytime we walk. Anyways, it’s one of my favourite local artists and I’m hoping to pick up a print before we leave the district.

Fourth – If you haven’t heard, Twitter is now going to work with governments to block and censor some select tweets and accounts. While on the face value it’s a some what daunting development, here’s an interesting read on why it’s not that bad of a policy.

Fifth – I’ve been holding on to this for quite sometime, but this article from Eric Francis is just another example of why he’s a hack writer. I understand the hatred for this kid, but it’s clear that Francis knows nothing about Ovi… nothing… nothing.

Sixth – A couple of weeks ago, Kanye West crawled out of his online fortress of solitude to embark on one of the most talked about Twitter rants in recent history. Luckily for everyone, the sports blog Grantland has transcribed the entire rants.

Seventh – Did you know that Dungeons and Dragons is being redone? No, not the horrible Jeremy Irons movie. I mean the actual ten-side dice, playing with little figurines board game. Yeah and it’s being built through crowdsourcing. Please insert ten sided dice joke … here

Eighth – Awesome overload, AT-AT Dog eating a birthday Treat.

Ninth – A full retro-redesign of all 32 NFL logos. (via @Brennancreative)

(Even though I still despise Teebow, I’ve got to say Denver has the best redesign.)

Tenth – An interesting essay on how PRINT design, yes I just said print design, is going to be the future of the internet.

I feel dirty just agreeing with that statement.

Eleventh – Remember my little post on the Calgary food scene? No! Well then, scroll down a bit.

Anyways, it turns out that it got featured in Calgary Open file last month.

Twelfth – Reason #224 why Obama is going to win re-election in 2012, he looks far cooler as the incredible Hulk than Mitt or Newt.

Thirteenth – I’ll say this once and I’ll say this again, Detroit is easily one of the most facinating places on earth at the moment. Delapitated, desolate and depressed… Hell and that’s only the Pistons current record.

Okay, okay. Here is what looks to be a fascinating documentary on the dystopia that is Detroit

Categories: The-Random, The-Blogosphere, The ArtWorld, The Calgary Vibe, The D.C. vibe, The Football, The Humourous, The Inane, The Pop-Culture, The Ravens, The Redskins, The Social Media, The Southern Neighbours

The Original Grey Fox Owns Thursday September 30, 2010

Without question D.C. is a wonderful and vibrant city. But one of the inherent downfalls of this place is the Political rhetoric. It’s impossible to escape and over time it seeps into every train of thought. Over the past 6 months, I’ve become incredibly politically motivated and polarized. My tolerance for ridiculous and intolerant political campaigns is at an all time low.

So when the great silver fox – Anderson Cooper – crushes Michigan’s assistant attorney general over his web attacks on a gay student. All I want to do is drive up to New York and give him a high five for being awesome.

P.S. Anyone notice that of the two of these guys, clearly one of them needs to come out of the closet. And I’m not talking about the Silver Fox

Categories: The-Blogosphere, the-dc,

Random Thoughts For MuralLocator.org Friday September 24, 2010

On Wednesday evening, my wife and I took in our first DC Media Makers meet-up. It was a talk called Maps and Story Telling. It was incredibly nerdy, but at the same time incredibly informative. The talk revolved around the crazy mapping projects the DevelopmentSeed.org was doing in regards to events in Haiti and Afghanistan. (My wife has a great little write up on the various open source tools on Techchange.org, so check that out if you want more information).

But one of the coolest little tidbits from the talk was in regards to artistic project from one of the attendees called MuralLocator.org.

Mural Locator is a user generated project to document all of the fantastic murals in the world. It stared out as a humble little project in Philadelphia and has morphed into a full blown project. If you’ve got some time, please have a look at the site and get involved.

A quick look of the Mural Map reveals not a single image in the province of Alberta.

So get involved and help show some of the great work being done in Alberta.

First – Buzz Bishop has an interesting post on why Justin Bieber doesn’t suck, it’s just his fans.

Maybe because I don’t ever listen to popular music, but I don’t get the hate on for this kid. I understand his haircut is annoying, but the all out hatred… Come on why can’t we all just get along. Why Do Haters Gotta Hate?

Second – El Vetica (via. jeffreypriebe)

Third – As much as people probably want to slam The Social Network as nothing more than opportunistic trash. The first set of reviews are in and some extremely heavy hitters are calling it movie of the year.

With David Fischer directing (Alien 3, Se7en, Fight Club) and Aaron Sorkin writing (The West Wing), you knew it had to be something special.

Fourth – Max Brooks, son of the legendary Mel Brooks and author of World War Z, has a blog.

Which on it’s own is great, but news regarding the film adaption of World War Z and Zombie Hunting in Afghanistan is incredibly interesting. But the big news is that Max Brooks has penned a few G.I.Joe Comics...

Fifth – My new man crush Anthony Bourdain, on why you are wasting your time going to Culinary School.

I ironically feel the same way about Business School.

Sixth – The Washington Wizards are changing their jersey during the 2011 season. It appears that now the Wizards are owned by Ted Leonis, who also owns the Caps, they will taking on a new Red look.

Seventh – Young kids these days are so lucky.

Apparently, Katy Perry’s recent Sesame street segment was pull because she was too boobie.

Eighth – Considering the rotten egg of a product launch in Canada and their old rival Blockbuster filling for bankruptcy protection, calling your client-base self-absorbed is probably a horrible idea.

Ha, Ha, Ha Stupid Netflix

Ninth – And solely because it’s the best hotdog place in the entire world. (Ben’s you’re a close second). Here’s a clip of the upcoming Tubby Dawg documentary.

Tubby Doc trailer from Sara Hughes on Vimeo.

Categories: The-Random, The-Blogosphere, The Adventures, The Calgary Vibe, The Capitals, The Craziness, The D.C. vibe, The Humourous, The Inane, The Pop-Culture, The T-Shirts, The Twitter-verse

Designing Obama Wednesday September 22, 2010

This is one of my favorite posters from the Obama campaign of 2008.

Luckily, it’s now featured in the amazing design anthology Designing Obama. The anthology can now be read online and of particular interest is the section describing the evolution of the iconic Obama Logo. Great stuff.

Categories: The-ArtWorld, The-Blogosphere, The Books, The Southern Neighbours

Back on The RSS Bandwagon Wednesday September 1, 2010

A couple of years ago, just went Twitter was starting to really transform the tech industry, I did something pretty bold. Well, not really bold, but in the Web Nerd industry, it’s quite bold.

I abandoned my RSS Feed Account.

By the way for those not familiar with RSS and RSS Feeds, it’s essentially a handy way to get the most recent posts or updates from a particular web site directly to your computer, you know without actually visiting the site. I know it’s a bit more complicated than that, but for those uninitiated that’s a bit of a laymen’s breakdown.

Back on track. Two years ago, with Twitter acting as my personal industry watercooler (thanks to Andy for that term), I started to get incredibly overwhelmed by the 40 or so RSS feeds I had.

I found that my RSS Feedreader was nothing more than a reminder of all the articles I didn’t have time to read. Then with Twitter, it really started to feel like an obsolete tool. All the most interesting posts were already being relayed and I found myself launching my RSS feed only to hit the Mark All Read button.

So I deleted my RSS feeds, abandoned the Reader and felt a huge sigh of relief.

Fast forward to now and I’ve found myself in an incredibly odd predicament.

Over saturated by the constant barrage of Twitter posts and Facebook links, I’ve been feeling incredibly overwhelmed by information. Generally disconnected from the small group of sites which make the internet awesome I set about the nerdy quest of reviving my RSS collection.

But unlike the first time, I’ve decreed that I am aiming to limit my RSS Feeds to just 15 subscriptions. And if I add a new site appears it’s gotta be worthy enough to replace another feed. I am also aiming to keep this list of feeds to sites that I want to stay informed on. Sure the golden staples of the web are on the list Kottke.org, Dooce.com, Poploser.org, Kanye West (come on this is a designers dream) and Airbag Industries.

But for this new list, I’ve also added a couple of new sites that I think are worthy enough to share.

• Trenddown – Run by local designer Adam Goetz, trenddown is an eclectic collection of everything tech and design. Always a great source of fantastic articles.
• DCist – DC and to an extent Arlington is my new adopted home, so of course I need to find something that shows what’s really going on in the District. Sure it’s apart of the Gothamist network, but for a daily blog it’s incredibly informative. From stories on what’s going on to coverage of the latest DC crazy, it really is a gem of a site. (Plus the daily photo is always stunning)
• CalgaryisAwesome – Albeit very similar to the concept behind the DCist (and the overall ist network). Calgary is Awesome is a great way to keep my other foot planted in to the hear of what’s going on in Calgary and all the great things the city has to offer. Consider it a focused online version of FastForward.
• Fuck Yeah YYC – If CIA is the site you go to find out all the good and amazing things going on in Calgary, Fuck Yeah YYC is the site for everything surreal and ultimately quirky about our beloved city. With contributions from poploser, splorp and myownbiggestfan you know the content is going to be hilarious.
• The Big Caption – all the beauty of Boston’s The Big Caption but with witty commentary. Yes, I’ve already linked to it multiple times in the past, but you really have to add it.

So there you have it. If you’ve got a solid suggestion feel free to leave it in the comments.

Categories: The-Blogosphere, The-Soapbox,