John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

Just checking on you

Happy new year, belatedly (but with style)

Is it too late for a Happy New Year greeting? I came across this illustration today by designer Frank Chimero; I love its sentiment.

Check out Frank's blog here.

A business card holder with a wooden touch

On my to-do list this week is a new set of business cards. (Right up there with getting a few pounds of coffee, to keep the home office fully percolated - there are, after all, two of us working here now.)

I spotted this item, a wooden card holder, on Dwell, which ranks among the too-cool things that I really shouldn't pull my credit card out for. It's just over $80 US, to boot, but it certainly would be the conversation piece. And hopefully not a splinter generator.

Bits and pieces

Miscellaneous bits, with the morning coffee.

True Blood starts its new season in June. Given that the missus has a Fangtasia T-shirt, this kind of casting news is much appreciated.

Martha Stewart: Even her bloody dogs get book deals.

If you're going to quit your job with Google, to go work with Twitter, do it with panache.

Paul Wells writes on the Obama-Harper relationship. Such as it is.

Andres, my cousin-in-law (if such a thing exists) must be delighted with this: one of the twin Starbucks at Astor Place, a block or two from his place in Manhattan, is closing. (He's not a Starbucks fan, to say the least. Martha and I avoided arriving home with tell-tale white containers.)

Richard Simmons can swear like a &%^#@* sailor. Who knew?

From Rolling Stone, a Depeche Mode clip from 1982, with Dave Gahan resembling "the singer of a high school Gary Numan cover band." (Ouch.)

Daily math tricks

Five things you can actually use all the time, from tire pressure to quickly figuring out an annual salary. From Primer.

That Monday morning feeling

At least it passes, in time. As seen here, on Rob Sheridan's Sketchblog.

Cubism, or the weird appeal of the Nissan Cube

Is it just me, or is the forthcoming Nissan Cube ... just weird? Lots of buzz, and now a site hyping the launch next spring in the U.S. I know the boxy look has been popular among car designers, but the Cube is boxalicious. I'm curious to see what young, eco-affinity types make of it in the marketplace.

Who knew that shoelaces could be so interesting?

There are things I'm willing to spend a little extra time on; tying up my shoelaces is, um, not one of them. A feature on this site, Sneaker Freaker, suggests maybe I should change.

Beneath that sweater-and-shirt combo

This Kyle Cummings piece had some resonance for me. A teensy bit. More of his stuff here.

How do you get through winter?

I originally posted this on Saturday; I'm nudging it along to keep the debate going.

As I type, a snowstorm is blowing outside; not a blizzard, but enough to disrupt our plans for the day, and then some, and too stormy to go outside.

We're managing, of course; we'll put on a fire, a movie, and make something decent for dinner. And hope that it ends.

Which made me think: What gets you through winter? A song? A type of food? Some wine? An activity? A book? Leave a comment below.

Pop graffiti art

Banksy is the name of a graffiti artist in Bristol, England, who thinks differently, to say the least, from the usual lot. More here.

Honest greeting cards

Greeting cards come in only a few emotional sets (saccarine-sweet, just-this-touch-of-tasteless, self-help-lite), so I was struck by the candour of ones like this:

More like them here, at Bald Guy Greetings. (A caution: some of these really are meant for adults, and are/or more than just a touch tasteless.)

Welcome, Blowy

Today is the first day of October. To mark the shift of one month to the next, here's a clever poem that has been passed along the generations, composed by George Ellis (1753-1815), to describe each of the 12 months:

Snowy, Flowy, Blowy,
Showery, Flowery, Bowery,
Hoppy, Croppy, Droppy,
Breezy, Sneezy, Freezy.

By Dickens (or not)

Later this week, Dickens World will open up, after a few delays. It sounds like Disney World, but no, it's Dickens World - a theme park built around the literary universe conceived by Charles Dickens. I found it amusing to hear the place as being described as being authentic to child-friendly; even a scant reading of Oliver Twist tells you all need to know that mid-Victorian was anything but child friendly. In any event, the company is ready for the criticism it knows it will get. From a recent AP piece:

"You can't Disney-fy Dickens," said managing director Kevin Christie, "because he was better and he was first."

Well, that's a good argument. Then again, here's a passage from a critique on the BBC website:

Its recreation of the world of Dickens is decked out in hand-painted, brick-effect plaster fascia and promises to smell just as his world would. It doesn't yet. Solvent aromas fill the nostrils as the building work continues, ahead of the delayed opening at the end of May.

Dickens World is faithful to the London of the period in the same way that Disney's Cinderella Castle is faithful to gothic chateau architecture. Ish.

Scott Simms 'scopes out a birthday wish

Head to David Akin for a straight-outta-Hansard birthday greeting/ horoscope reading that Liberal MP Scott Simms gave Monday to the prime minister.

The grass is always greener ... when it's ripped up like carpet

I doubt I'm the only person in St. John's to wake up each morning in a snit, cursing the ongoing frigid weather we've been having. Saturday, at least, had sunny skies - even if you could feel your flesh harden with frost. It's especially hard when you hear from others in warmer places. Colleagues in Toronto, for instance, were basking in mid-20s sunshine, with one planning his first ride home aboard a motorcycle. Then again, it's bracing to realize others have it worse, as this storm-tossed picture from Maine (as seen, by my wife, on Soule Mama) shows:

Count your blessings, I suppose.

A noun called Alice

I've been cleaning up my desk, etc., lately, and came across this gem from Alice Cooper's visit to St. John's last May. The gent on the left is Mark Cumby, whose voice will be familiar to CBC Radio listeners. Mark is not on air much at the moment - he's working on an archives project - but he shows a healthy habit of adopting, umm, a submissive role while interviewing rock stars.

Spring, it is

My wife snapped this a few days ago, of a simple tulip arrangement she had picked up. Sure looks like spring - even the bit of snow in soft-focus in the background. Expats and maybe some others may be curious to know that we've had a big, big melt over the last week or so; there's a large swath of grass to be seen on our front yard. That said, the forecast for tonight is not pleasant:

Sigh. We don't really get spring here in St. John's, anyway, but it's always hard getting through the most disappointing months of the year.

Out of fizz

Remember Surge? I barely do. It was a Coke product, intended to put Mountain Dew (a Pepsi product) on notice. Didn't quite work; Coke pulled it off the market a few years ago. It's featured here, on a list called Dead Sodas. I was surprised (but not too much, given what else you'll find online) there's a web community of Surge lovers hoping for a comeback.

March, break

I'm not working this week - I'm burning off a couple of days of decaying annual leave, and using up some other time to make a week of it. Will still be blogging, of course ... although I'm really going to try to stay away from my computer. (Yes. Really.)

Weekend reads

Some of the things I've come across the last few days:

The Chicago Tribune has a rich multimedia section; among the items is a feature called Footworkin', about a propulsive dance style that feels like a workout, just for those watching it.

I can't say I'm surprised, but archaeologists working with stone-age bones found in Britain have concluded some of them died violently. More on the National Geographic site.

A Newsweek.com essay looks into the Google-YouTube tangle, with this salient point about the shortcomings of digital rights laws:

The DMCA was designed to bring copyright law into the 21st century. And that clearly hasn’t happened. The notification—and—takedown requirements of the DMCA can’t possibly work effectively for a technology and user base that at YouTube alone is posting 65,000 uploads a day.

Speaking of digital rights management ... BBC's Click poked at the DRM beast with a pointy stick this week. Here's what they found.

Scope interviews Dave Sullivan, one of the members of Dance Party of Newfoundland. A sample exchange:

Where, other than Newfoundland, would you like to live?
Berlin. Looks just like Pouch Cove.

Oh, those kids ...

In a piece in the Toronto Star, Brad MacKay notes the unsettling dilemma of comic books: blockbuster movies are going gangbusters, but the comic books themselves are not selling well at all.

Being cynical, I expected this video on athletes making art to be a bit daft; it's actually kind of uplifting. (And, basically, is a five-minute ad for Adidas.)

A glimpse of Petra

If you've seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, you may be familiar with at least a little of Petra, the ancient Near East city in what is now Jordan, which was one of the key locations at the finale. The website built to accompany an American Museum of Natural History exhibition is still up and running; it's well worth spending a few minutes to learn more.

A downhome shout-out

A belated shout of thanks to Downhome; this blog was cited in the January issue's list of things that caught the editors' interests. Cheers.

Loot dee loo

Witold Rybczynski (who wrote Home, one of my favourite books) writes the text accompanying a slide show on Slate, all about our fascination with luxury bathrooms.

Pre-Christmas roundup

Thanks for the memories: I'll be appearing later today on the Performance Hour on CBC Radio in Newfoundland and Labrador; a number of us CBC types were asked for a Christmas memory and/or the tune that goes with it. I was struck by how listening to Dean Martin, Jack Jones, et al., takes me right back to, say, 1971, and the era of orange pants, purple sweaters and shag carpet. Fortunately, I brought along a much vintage tune to play. The show is on at 11:35 on Radio Two and at 5:35 (a half hour earlier in most of Labrador) on Radio One.

Mix it up: Maybe the iPod isn't as hot a gift as it has been in past years, but I suspect plenty of people will be opening one on Christmas Day. Show them this video to see how well an iPod mixes with a blender.

HRH drops a download: It's not often the Queen shows up on Engadget, is it? News of the Christmas address heading out as a podcast seems inevitable, and pretty smart, to boot.

Were they expecting bouquets? Jon Stewart makes no bones about wearing his liberal heart on his sleeve, although a review of Daily Show jibes shows the show rips both Dems and Republicans to shreds with near-universal consistency.

Get your suds in order: Alan has a story that would make you go cry in your beer - were there beer left to drink. (Chalk up another virtual pint on my order, Alan, to make you feel better.)

Mouse rage: Getting cheesed waiting for sites to load? You're not only not alone ... you've got a fancy diagnosis!