T'was the week before Christmas and all through our space,
Our staff was preparing to meet clients face to face.
Pictures of stockings were hung above the "fire" with care,
In hopes that guests would arrive, and they'd stop, and they'd stare.
And they'd notice how much time and attention it took,
For us to decorate every cranny and nook.
We chopped, and we sawed, and we cut, and we pasted,
We really hoped all this work wasn't time wasted.
There was last minute prep, and we worked and we scurried,
We set off the fire alarm, and got firemen there in a hurry.
Was it worth it, this work? This Primp and this prep?
We'd soon see as off the elevator guests stepped.
They came and they ate, and they drank and we chatted,
They had a good time, they didn't leave empty handed.
After hours of fun, food, beer and wine,
Everyone left feeling warm, welcome and fine.
There's something to be said for getting together with friends,
During this holiday season, the fun never ends.
So thank you to all of you who came,
And for those who didn't, thanks all the same,
For making this year, one of the best ones yet,
Here's to the New Year, and making it better than best.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

(sorry for the bad poem)

We've just finished a commercial for the Sheps Hair Restoration Clinic and we couldn't be more pleased with the results. Thanks to Stephen, Mark and Chris at At First Sight for the great videography and editing. It's always a pleasure to work with such a great team of people. And a special thanks to Larry Kirouac, an actual patient of Sheps', who took time out of his busy schedule to tell us a little about how passionately he feels about Dr Sheps and his team of amazing people. You can watch out for the spot airing on Hockey Night in Canada on CBC.

 

I love movie trailers that get me all excited inside. I love movie trailers even more when they can get me excited about something I never, in a million years, thought I'd get excited about. For example, when my wife Catharine and I started dating, I took her to see Spellbound, a documentary about spelling bees. I thought the trailer looked really interesting and I wanted to show her that I had some varied interests. She laughed throughout the whole thing, not because it was funny (which it was) but because she couldn't believe I'd take her to a documentary about spelling bees. What really should have been a relationship killer turned into what I like to think was the catalyst for a fantastic relationship, a fulfilling marriage and a beautiful family that I never imagined I could have. Who would have thought anyone could make a movie about spelling bees so compelling, dramatic and entertaining?

Documentaries as of late have been experiencing a surge of popularity, being adopted by mainstream audiences (much to the chagrin of some hipsters I know). I'm not sure why this is but I have a theory. Three in fact: first - the quality of dramas/comedies have declined in recent years. It's harder to come up with original stories and movie studios are relying on the quick buck that sequels tend to bring in. They are essentially dumbing down movies and unfortunately many audiences buy into it regardless. Second - with the creation of "The Internet", YouTube, Vimeo, and Reality TV, people are really digging "fact"-based stories over fiction. Real is the new fake. Third - Documentaries are just better than they used to be. Maybe that's because of the filmmakers, maybe it's because of the technology they're using or maybe it's because the topics are more varied and engaging. Who knows? Maybe it's all of it. Maybe I'm way off base.

Anyway, this brings us to "Indie Game". I don't know how the entire movie is going to turn out but if it's anything like the trailer, I say "game on". I'm not a big gamer myself. I've got a PS3 and some games but as much as I've tried, I've never gotten into any of them. The great thing about the trailer is that in a matter of minutes, it draws you in to the world of game development from the points of view of the developers. It shows just how much of themselves they put into their work and how much is riding on their work's success. Winnipeggers, Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky have obviously put a lot of passion into this film and I for one can't wait to see it.

I'll start off by saying that I'm as far from organized religion as you can get (I'm still spiritual). Almost everyone I know celebrates Christmas and it's pretty hard to avoid the commercialism in general, what with Scotiabank in Winnipeg Square putting it's tree up in September, for example. I truly want to believe that Christmas is a time to come together, to decorate with blinking lights, and Irish coffee season, but today's news out of America regarding Black Friday "Christmas" shopping is just ridiculous. Here's a small overview: someone pepper sprayed 20 other shoppers at Walmart in numerous departments, 2 people have been shot and 3 people have been robbed. This gives "Macy's" a whole new connotation. There's also been reports of crippled websites, with one person commenting on a forum "screw them. I'm not ordering jack if they can't get their system to work properly. Sent off a nasty email which I'm sure they'll ignore." EARTH TO AMERICA: I'm pretty sure you're doing this Christmas thing wrong. I'd be incredibly embarrassed about this international news, just as I was for Canada with the Vancouver riots. I'm well aware Christmas has nothing to do with it's roots anymore—that's not the point of this post. The point is that in an overly-communicated society, this behaviour becomes more common place and sets an example for younger people. Christmas now dominates 3 months of the year and cheap plastic crap will ALWAYS be available on store shelves. At the very least, could we try to be nicer to each other? It really doesn't take much, nowhere near as much as it does to premeditate a pepper-spray attack; it actually feels kind of good. Forgive me for skipping gifts this year. I'll be with my family, in my house-coat enjoying Irish coffee.

I have to admit, I'd never heard of Steampunk prior to coming across Tom Banwell's apocalyptic creations. I'm not going to get into the whole Steampunk history or origins because a) you can read it for yourself and b) I'm actually not that interested in learning enough about it to sound like I know what I'm talking about. I will say this though, without knowing diddly or squat about this sub-culture, I'd say these guys have a pretty active collective imagination. I guess it must be comforting knowing what you are going to dress up as for every single Halloween. Guaranteed, none of these crackers are deciding between Thor or Iron Man this October. Unless of course it's some kind of messed up Steampunk Thor or Steampunk Iron Man. Sweet dreams.

It’s Friday. The end of the week. I’m exhausted. We’ve had a lot of things happening around here lately. Things-are-a-brewing. Needless to say we are looking forward to a long weekend of good times and good friends. To kick it off, we’ve decided to start a new Friday tradition. This tradition revolves around playing songs of a similar theme BUT for 30 seconds only. We’ve wittily titled this event (in all of our creative genius) the 30 Second DJ. So whilst we work away... we may be whistling too. Today we pulled out the power ballads or well basically anything that was a memorable moment from our past. Hits like Paradise City, Every Rose has its Thorn,  I Want You to Want Me, and Sweet Child of Mine all made an appearance along with classic boy band one-offs like Take That’s, I Want You Back. Ahhh... I can almost picture those long weekends of yore. There is nothing like a musical tour of the 80’s and 90’s to set the stage for making many new memories.

The DJ is in the house so if you have requests please send them our way. Keep those tunes turned high and enjoy your long weekend!

Folklorama? There's an app for that. So you're sitting at the Scotish pavilion at Folklorama eating your haggis and savouring your second three finger scotch and thinking to yourself, "Rrrright. I wish I could tell all ma frrrriends aboot the grrreet time ahm a havin'." when two things dawn on you. Number one, you can now rate your Folklorama experience with this nifty new iPhone app. And number two, you wonder why you're affecting a terrible Scottish accent (a la Mike Myers in So I Married and Axe Murderer) while you're neither Scottish or actually talking.

That's right. Now you too can think and speak in horribly put-on accents while rating your favourite pavilions on the brand new Folklorama app developed by the fine folks at Honest Agency. The app gives the user the ability to look up show times and descriptions, get directions to pavilions, view ratings from other people, as well as post experiences to Facebook. It's so good it makes me want to yell "OPA!" and smash a plate across my monitor.



 

It's back! After many long months, Typographic Thursdays makes it's triumphant return. Today's quote brought to you by an Honest employee while ordering from a Spanish menu.

My wife and I were down in Minneapolis the other weekend on a good ol' fashion "working holiday". That is, under the guise of a holiday, we spent a good portion of four days at IKEA and other stores purchasing furniture for our new office. It was less a holiday as it was an exercise in patience, what with the multiple trips to the checkout, driving through the city's first snow storm of the year and missing pretty much every exit on the freeway. All that, however, I can handle. What I can't handle is not being able to get a single good cup of coffee when you need it the most. Case in point: I like McDonald's coffee. And for those who are sitting there saying to themselves "McDonald's coffee sucks", check again mr(s) negative, it's actually pretty much on par with Tim Hortons. And for those who are saying to themselves "Well Tim Hortons sucks too", while I neither agree or disagree with you, billions of coffees sold per minute says you're wrong. Anyhoo, my point was, every time we stopped for coffee, we were punched in the face with a giant handful of disappointment. Whether it was McDonald's (undrinkable), our Hotel room (upsetting), our Hotel's restaurant (disturbingly unsettling), or IKEA (curiously flavourful, just not the flavour of coffee) we could not for the life of us find a good cup of coffee. And yes, we could have tracked down a Starbucks but surprisingly, there wasn't one near our hotel. So, on to the point of this post. On our last day, just before we were about to leave the city, we decided to stop off at this breakfast joint called the Bad Waitress. For me it was the culinary highlight of the trip. I was half expecting bad service given the name (and would willingly accept if they would just give me a good cup of coffee). To my delight, the service and the coffee were both excellent. Not as excellent, however, as the restaurant itself. Every table was "numbered" with superhero or monster cards, there were campy movie posters on the wall, and the theme was both simple and consistently presented throughout the restaurant, right through to the washrooms. Kudos to you, Bad Waitress. You saved my taste buds.

This past weekend our car got broken into, and by broken into I mean Sean accidentally left the car unlocked and someone took it upon themselves to rifle through the entire vehicle. Some of the items that were in the car: GPS, money, CD's, tools, clothing, various paper work and a few other miscellaneous items. The perpetrator even had the time to pop the hood and have a look to see if there was anything interesting under there that he/she would like to help themselves to. Now, as aggravating as it is to know that someone had the audacity to go through our personal items, we definitely consider ourselves lucky. There was no damage to the vehicle and only one thing was taken. Not the GPS, not the money, not the expensive tools... just a jacket. Well, not just any jacket, a Tough Duck Jacket. We did a photoshoot for the 2011 Richlu catalogue a couple weeks ago and ended up just leaving the Tough Duck jacket and some Work King shirts in the trunk for the next photoshoot. I hope our friends over at Richlu will forgive us... maybe knowing that their Tough Duck Soft Shell jacket is such a hot commodity will help to smooth things over.