designthinkers

spent thursday and friday in downtown toronto attending designthinkers2004. i came away from it quite inspired and thrilled to be reminded that i design for a living and the potential that career can have. then i spent the next two days being depressed because my current job does not afford me (very often) the opportunity to be creative. so now what?

yay

sox won. i still hate the yankees.

damn

sox lost. i hate the yankees.

wow

um, the sox are coming back. 8-5 in the 8th. sorry, this is basically a note to prove in the future that i watched this game.

oktoberfest parade

took the kids to the oktoberfest parade on monday. cold as all get out. but they managed through it without complaining too much. and i got to see the 2nd float that i have ever designed. so it was fun. 2 hours long. but fun.

what the hell to the british drink

ok, i didn't watch any uk childrens programming while growing up, i was too busy with the ambiguous relationship of casey and finnegan, the decidedly non ambiguous relationship of bert and ernie, and wondering why doobee from romper room always looked so relaxed. so it was with great laughter and shock when i saw this. for the first time. go and watch it, i'll wait. wait for the little tv screen to load and click the button.

ok, done that, now for the explanation. seems the brits like to make what they call "christmas shows", where the editing department of a show will tape "episodes" that are only meant to be viewed by staff at get togethers like christmas parties. this was one such "episode". never meant to air. still, thats some funny shit.

screw with your eyes

i love shit like this. makes your eyes go all wonky. i seem to remember this from a while back but have recently been enlightened again.

this can't be true

there is no way a man, no matter his age, can cut off his own penis and not realize it. no frickin' way.

can i do it?

nanowrimo. can you write a 50k word novel in a month? can i? i am thinking about trying it. see details here

expos

so the montreal expos are done in la belle provance. and the big question out there is, should the washington group buying the team, keep the expos name? yes by god they should. they won't, but they should and heres why. for a franchise to create a history, they should keep the original name of the franchise even if it doesn't sound right to begin with. that is how a team and therefore the league, creates a visible link to their past. don't believe me? the los angeles lakers. perhaps the most storied franchise in the nba. pick out one lake that exists in that area. there are none, but when the team started in minneapolis, there were a couple (like, a 1000) and the name made sense. people, when the team moved probably thought that keeping the name was a dumb idea, but no one questions it now. staying with the nba, how about the utah jazz? a franchise with a ton of history, but the mormons aren't really the jazzy type of people. but new orleans, where the team started, yeah, they play a little jazz there.

lets move to baseball. the brooklyn dodgers were so named due to the people of brooklyn having to dodge trolley cars. so when the team moved to los angeles, there were no tolley cars. but the dodgers name stuck and a historic franchise continued.

hockey is worst one. you have the calgary flames (originally atlanta), and the dallas stars (originally minnesota north stars) and thats it. a grave injustice was down years ago when the new jersey devils changed the name of the team from the rockies (originally colorado and if you want to get technical, the colorado based team should have been called the scouts in the first place from when they were in Kansas City).

its gone downhill since then. the new colorado francise coming from quebec became the avalanche, the carolina team went from the (hartford) whalers to hurricanes and phoenix became the coyotes instead of keeping the (winnipeg) jets nickname.

so yes, in my world, we should have colorado nordiques, carolina whalers, new jersey scouts and phoenix jets hockey teams playing right now in the nhl. they names may sound strange to begin with, but you would get used to them. really, can it be any worse then the mighty ducks of anahiem?

and heres why they wont. money. marketing groups pick a name to sell the most merchandise. done and done. being in the field, i understand the concept, but being a sports fan, i would rather build the legacy of the franchise and the sport. so instead of the washington dc expos, which is who should be playing in the league next year (did i hear someone say in the al?) it will be the washington burn or thunder or some other crap like that. or if i am lucky, it will be the senators which was the name of the original washington franchise. that i could live with.

plastered coworkers

had a little team building event with my workers today. played mini golf. we had teams and it was fun and competitive and it was a good experience for us to go through. i had to leave at 5 to get home as my wife had to work. just now, 11:30ish, my phone rang. it was my coworkers, still at the bar i left them at (5 hours later). wow. wasn't really expecting that. but they seemed like they were having a good time. kinda wish i could have stayed actually.

debates

ok, watched the first of the three presidential debates last night. wtf? is it because i am canadian that i can see bush for the moron that he is? why can't more than half of the seemingly intelligent americans see this and vote this bastard out? he's an arrogant bastard who enjoys bullying and ridiculing instead of making intelligent informed decisions. can his "aw shucks, we gunna hunt them bastards down" demeanor really convince you people that he knows what he is doing? admittedly, kerry is no clinton. he is too smart and i can see how he can confuse some people. BUT COME ON!!!! how is this a worse option that what you have? kerry could easily repair some of the relationships that bush has disintegrated. he could make the world remember that america is a powerful friend and not the all powerful jerk that bush has turned it into. to be honest, my least favourite part of the entire night, was on the daily show. john (all hail!) got to do a brief interview with rudy giuliani. ok , i thought, here is an intelligent man, although a republican, still, he knows a thing or two and can give john a good interview without turning into a parrot and spouting all the typical republican nonsense. boy was i wrong. that interview could have been done with a tape recorder. it was the same thing over and over. kerry changes position, he flips, he flops. all this right after he saw the same debate everyone else did where kerry clearly stated his position. its like the republicans sat down afterwards and said, "ok, he took a solid, informed position, but if we just keep harping on how he changes positions, no one wil;l notice". so it basically has come down to the republicans making shit up about kerry now. even after he states a position clearly, the republicans harp about his flip-flopping. just making shit up. arrrggg.