HGTV WANTS YOU

Do you love design? Think you could handle being on camera?

WestWind Pictures, producer of hit design series Designer Guys, The Style Dept., and Home to Flip has joined forces with HGTV to find Canada’s next big design star. We’re looking for talented designers that have what it takes. You must be outgoing, energetic, fun, and of course, supremely talented. Male or female. Singles or duos. Even a whole design studio. It doesn’t matter. Show us what you’ve got!

Here’s how it works…

Create a video that displays your design savvy. It must be no longer than 2 minutes. First up, tell us who you are: name, where you live, and a bit about your experience. Then dazzle us! Maybe a quick DIY project. Or match fabric to paint swatches. Show us design on a budget. Or build a piece of furniture. We’re not looking for any specific format. Just 2 minutes…and no more.

Shoot the video yourself, compress it down to a few megabytes, and email it to us. You must also include in your email a signed and scanned copy of the release form.

Feel free to comment with your questions or concerns.

Good Luck!

Bake Sale

If you are, by chance, on the hunt for the most divine chocolate cake out there... Look no further than The Bake Sale on Bloor.





The left overs from yesterdays birthday treat for our camera man are currently taunting me from the next room. Yes it is 9:50 am but it is never too early for this kind of divinity. Trust me.

Sidenote

A second side note:

"Sex, Drugs and Cocopuffs" is a terribly embarrassing "lost item" to be asking for at the Union Station lost and found. 

Wheres your book Beck?

I just don't know Chuck...

Sex Drugs and Cocopuffs

I have to vent my deep passionate love for a brilliant man after my own MIT soaked heart.

Chuck Klosterman.

Any man who can begin a book by relating (and justifying) the story of how he burned the exact same CD for two different women, then segue into a serious discussion of the lamentable sitcom Saved By Bell deserves my respect. It is this gift that makes his book Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs my perfect summer read.

Klosterman, a senior writer for Spin, (among other reputable things) has a gift for taking seemingly disposable culture (Billy Joel albums, The Real World, The Sims, and Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape) and giving them a cultural heft and importance.

In fact, reading, Klosterman’s meditations on such topics as how the creation of cereal was a Victorian attempt to cool sexual urges, or how the failed relationships of today’s twenty-and-thirty-somethings can be blamed either on John Cusack (uhh..no thanks) or Nora Ephron are so insightful and enlightening, it seems baffling that no one has written on these topics before (has anyone?). 


Of course, he also manages to be absolutely hilarious. Klosterman is one of the select few writers (and men) who can make me laugh out loud in public (generally GO train, or subway) without thought of embarrassment. Take this nugget, from an essay deconstructing the Star Wars trilogy: “I once knew a girl who claimed to have a recurring dream about a polar bear that mauled Ewoks; it made me love her.”

As previously discussed at the office last week, my production manager, and I, came to the conclusion that all women desire nerds. Not exactly a full fledged dork. Just someone who is passionate about something, anything, in a terribly geeky way.

Klosterman has his hilarious analysis of life as compared to pop culture.

Underneath all the glib remarks and seemingly bizarre claims, Klosterman has a genuine appreciation of popular culture. Though he makes clear that he doesn’t always love it, he never seems to doubt its power, or its ability to reflect a society or our ability to reflect it (The Real World). His clearest message seems to be that just because a movie or a television show or a piece of music isn’t art, that doesn’t mean it isn't influential or meaningful. It may, in fact, matter more than something artful. It’s a compelling idea, executed by Klosterman with a fabulous mind for witty humor. 

I pinkie swear you will love it. 

Side note: If you happened to have found said book on the Lakshore Train...Please return it. I miss it dearly.

Désireux

Because if you can’t love someone irrationally and openly when there is nothing to lose, when can you?

-Morgan Chapman

CUBE.. Vote Please :)

Hey All,

So I am sure many of you have heard about this contest to win a new Nissan CUBE. Fabulously futuristic. Tres neat.
Well, my friend Chris has a very sweet poster (one of the best, in my opinion) that I am asking you ALL to vote on. He would really appreciate it. :)

OKAY, here is what you have to do: Go to the site, sign up in the top right hand corner (Petey, I know it's confusing) and then click VOTE.

WAIT.. there is more! You can vote everyday, once a day (Its good for you, trust me)

Right now his ranking is 134, and he needs to get up to #50 at least.. We've got to hook it up.

Thank you! You're the best. (Only if you voted)

Click Hurrrr:

http://www.hypercube.ca/en/Canvas.aspx?id=75a7d705-bc98-40f5-96e6-7593459ba96a&lang=en

Quotable

Some..helpful.. quotes:

Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.
- Leonardo da Vinci

Thank you Leo, but right now, I am leaning towards this one:

Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.
- James M. Barrie

I would rather be on the beach. This is work.

Skrew Earth Day

I agree (at least in principle) with the idea that our collective responsibility is a 24/7/365 commitment, not just a day. Same goes for Earth Hour, which, although impressive with respect to its results, in my mind can engender the idea that it’s enough to do it just for an hour, rather than making a permanent practice of reducing our energy consumption. The neo-eco movement can feel at times like a form of cultural greenwashing, what with all the new dubiously “green” products and marketing campaigns that seem to be cropping up everywhere one turns these days.

Cynical? Perhaps... (sounds like someone describing any relationship advice I have to offer). But why Rebecca, SOMETHING is far better than NOTHING. And I agree. For me, in the end it all comes back to personal responsibility. Am I an eco-perfectionist? Hellz no. But I also believe that we can all put in a little more effort, it will make a great difference.

Oh Page...

This blurring of the typical dichotomies gives this poem...gives my life...a layered depth, a metaphysical aura.

Catch my "drift?"

Inside the Actors Studio--My steeze

I have found the most perfect little distraction. Rather, the most perfect break to work towards. I am currently quite obsessed with Inside the Actors Studio. Conveniently found on YouTube, James Lipton interviews a ton of the greatest celebrities.

This show has seen the likes of Johnny Depp, Ben Affleck, Angelina Jolie (my favourtie one), Halle Berry, Daniel Radcliff to name a few.

It is currently taped at the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University's New York City campus, and it is the shiz.

At the end of each interview, James Lipton reads out the same short questionnaire for each celebrity before he hands them off to audience questions.

Because I will be famous some day, I figure, why not fill that bad boy out myself. Practice round, you know? :

What is/are your favourite word(s): Insatiable, Verbose

What is/are your least favourite word(s): Masticate, pregnant

What turns you on: Confidence, motivation

What turns you off: Arrogance –there is a fine line

What sound or noise do you love: Fire crackling –on the beach at my cottage

What sound or noise do you hate: Sirens –especially when I’m driving

What is your favourite curse word: Fuck –it's just so darn versatile

What profession other than yours would you like to attempt: Film Production, Law

What profession would you not like to attempt: Pearl Diving

If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates: You look great in white, honey.

I think you should fill out your own in the comment box...

Start here, and get addicted with me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5llPy1ZS8Vs

Baywatch Scuba Queen: Giving Water a Chance

There are so many reasons to loathe public pools that I hardly know where to begin. For starters, everyone knows they're an unhygienic, watery mishmash of loose Band-Aids and body hairs of every length and color, swirling around like a giant vat of people soup. Sound appealing? Not even a little bit.

Public pool swimmers have long accepted the reality that the water flowing past someone else's bikini line, will end up in their face. To me, children in pools spells out one fine equation that I am simply not interested in: 2 parts pee, one part chlorine.

I have something against water as a whole: lakes, oceans, ponds, all freak me out. I am that kid who LOVED tubing, but if I fell off, I was dragging YOU in with me.

I had one close call with drowning a few years back. Huge crashing waves + swimming from sand bar to sand bar had taken its tole on this beach babe, and I went under for good. Luckily I had a fit crew of Baywatch bitties (whom I still love) with me that literally saved my life.




SO, my experience with water is less than glamorous. BUT I have decided to face my fear, stir the pot, and enrol in a scuba diving course.

One weekend of tests and in-pool dives + 4 real open water dives. Pretty legit, pretty effing' scary.

When is the last time you've done something you're scared of?

Wish me luck, and check er' out: http://www.thediveshopcanada.com/openwater.htm

Free Food

I happened upon an exhibit, I suppose a final project for an MIT course, in North Campus Building. While they were all very neat, one in particular struck my fancy.

Freeganism. Free-gan-wha?

Freeganism: is an anti-consumerist lifestyle whereby people employ alternative living strategies based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. Freegans choose to embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation, and sharing in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity, and greed.

This lifestyle involves salvaging discarded, unspoiled food from supermarket dumpsters, known as dumpster diving. Freegans salvage the food as a political statement, rather than out of need.

Apparently, these students conducted a dumpster dive of their own at a Whole Foods, and uncovered a ridiculous amount of perfectly edible food . What a waste.

A truly interesting video you MUST check out:

CupCaKE

A symbol of North American nourishment, indulgence. Tempting, charming, cunning, decorated, delicious, lavish, initially satisfying, supported by a foundation of connotations, ideologies and clever, seething marketing. Initially satisfying, and ultimately regrettable. When you pierce through all of that...

What is that cupcake, ultimately? What are its contributions, and how does it assist you? Is it a true friend, or a charming and poorly influential superficial party hound, ready to bring you down with a smile on her face and a tequila shot in his palm?


Illusions make the world an intricate place. Like a sheer diamond faceted with sharp claws, truth is found amongst layers of distraction. Eat the cupcake, shoot the shot, Enjoy your life and its beautiful Illusions and fabricated foundations, but don't be "Punk'd".

Evil speaks with trickery, and it wins when you're naive and dazzled, awestruck at its paradoxical beauty, and left a diseased fool. Consciousness of both sides of the coin, and nothing can touch you. Have your cake, and eat it.

Blogworthy Meat?

So I am currently doing a project that involves advertisement analysis. Looking critically at ads relying on the method of semotics to uncover methods of signification —on my search, I happened upon a little ditty by Oscar Meyer. An ad that announces their meats as “Blogworthy”

My first reaction was—half a year ago, I hardly understood what blogging consisted of. My spell check doesn’t even detect “blog” as an English word. Who is their target market? Is the mainstream media ready for web 2.0 term dropping just yet?

Personally, I don’t think they are, but I have a bit of a soft spot for this ad. Perhaps because I am that target market. Announcing blogging, as a form of expressing emotion—obviously delight at this supposedly delicious meat? Delicious, and meat are not words that often leave this vegetarians mouth.

I did a little O.Meyer Google search and discovered that they actually have a pretty interesting “Hotdogger” blog of their own. Impressive.

The blog is written by the guys and gals who drive the Wienermobile, criss-crossing the country, looking for bridges that are high enough to drive under (so they don’t get stuck). They provide a little insight into travelling experiences in the Wienermobile –Hence, the blog.

Check er’ out. http://hotdoggerblog.com/index.php