Monday, April 26, 2010

Chale Ashley is A.OK

Thanks to everyone who helped out, Chale is safe and sound and in touch with her family. :)

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Please help find CHALE ASHLEY







Chale Ashley is a friend of a friend of mine and she's gone missing in the southern U.S. (see the article from the Citrus Daily.) Chale was last heard from on Sunday, 18 April 2010 in Citrus County, Florida


What's most important right now is that everybody knows somebody; between the local police, media, communities and all of the people online, someone should be able to tap a contact in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee and Texas who either has or can help find the information needed to bring Chale home.

Please, if you can help in any way, get in touch asap - timing is everything!

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Introducing...Amanda Crawford, Illustrator and Entrepreneuse Extraordinaire!

Who doesn't love storybook illustrations, right?  It just so happens that this is Amanda's area of expertise, so I thought I'd share her fantastically brilliant work with all of you!

Quick rundown: Originally from Windsor, Ontario (although Montreal is her current base of operations), Amanda entered the world of illustration art via her self-published zine, Horror Vacui, which one used to be able to find in bookshops around town here in Windsor (in fact, I discovered a copy in the graphic arts section of the university bookstore as recently as last year!) Now she's working freelance and putting together her very own children's book. You can see some of those images to be included at her blog (http://amandacrawfordart.com). 

Of course, thanks to the wonders of technology and the persistence of time, you can now find her artwork with much greater ease (and significantly less legwork than I had to resort to) online.  See her blog as well: "The Wondrous Wonder, The Marvelous Marvel" (http://wondrouswonder.blogspot.com/), which is rapidly becoming an incredible archive of historical children's book illustrations, hand-picked by Miss Crawford and definitely worth a peek in my humble opinion, 4 STARS!!!

Oh, and don't be shy - like any former zinester, she loves reader comments and email!



Amusement at 4 a.m.

I wish the new "3D-security feature" for the U.S. $100 bill could be this much fun. Why the hell do heads of state always get stamped on money, anyway? I would have loved a commemorative 20th anniversary E.T. $20 bill, for instance.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

If your house was on fire and you could only grab three things, what would they be?

Fire extinguisher, flour, phone: only way all my stuff's gonna burn is over my barbecued body.

(Why the hell am I still awake?)

Do you believe in God?

If there's proof of a g*d who believes in *me*, I'll consider it.

(Why the hell am I still awake?)

Monday, April 19, 2010

AFP: 'Rats ate your exams,' Nepal students told

AFP: 'Rats ate your exams,' Nepal students told
For some peculiar reason, I found this really funny.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Virtual Perambulations

A brief glimpse at the meandering path of my curiosity:

  1. Followed up on last night's tweets regarding band stranded by volcanic ash in Geneva, which led me to a reply from Quebecois grindcore band Fuck the Facts' on their Facebook fan page.
  2. Followed a link from FTF to their new "Unnamed EP" download site (unrelated to stranded band and/or volcanoes, obviously) curious to see if it was a PWYC deal; unfortunately for me, no.
  3. Ended up on MySpace somehow, maybe via a return to FTF@Facebook (?) My activity feed noted a "free live recording" from Phantoms of the SS but after clicking to their profile, turns out that meant, "free with download of any PotSS album". Listened to their MySpace player instead as soundtrack to my browsing - "Sleeping Green" is particularly good, reminiscent of Angelo Badalamenti's work on Twin Peaks.
  4. Followed notification of Flickr update to a page I follow which introduced me to model/actress Verushka, who I had never heard of previously (not that I recall anyway.) Wikipedia says she was in Antonioni's Blowup - one of my favourite films, in fact - so checked the Wiki entry for that film, confirming Verushka's appearance. Now I want to see it again - and Zabriskie Point as well (another favourite film of mine.) Maybe there are excerpts on Movieclips.com.
  5. I have, thus far, neglected to mention that while the above points denote the main browsing path, this was abandoned repeatedly in favour of persistent detours along tangential lines including visits to:  Twitter; Gmail; Tumblr; various forums; Hotmail; local newspaper's website; Gnews; etc. In this regard, the "Session Manager" extension for Chrome is a godsend - it allows me to save all of my open tabs as a session for later reference. Without it and the use of various bookmarking services I would be lost - and horribly disorganized!
No wonder I spend whole days in front of my laptop. :S




Friday, April 16, 2010

Who's the most famous person you've met?

Clive Barker, unless I've met someone *more famous* and forgotten it.

(Anyone there?)

The Work of Avelina De Moray - Skin & Ink Interview (and me, quoted)

Me, quoted in the April 2010 issue of Skin & Ink magazine (UK edition) regarding the artwork of Avelina De Moray. Sometimes it's kinda cool to be me.

(Uploaded 16 April 2010)

formspring.me

(Anyone there?) http://formspring.me/b00jUm

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Do you believe there's intelligent life on other planets?

I sure as hell hope so; it's not looking too promising here on Earth.

Does this get interesting at some point?

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Biting a restrained bear makes your dog tough?

World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA): the latest news on animal welfare and animal cruelty issues
There are some stupid sports in the world and this is one of them. “Bear Baiting” is a gladiatorial-style test of combat prowess for “tough dogs” that requires bears be tethered to one spot while dogs are set upon them, sort of like dodgeball with teeth - but it sure as hell isn’t funny.

Help WSPA end this pointless sport by donating what you can today.

formspring.me

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/b00jUm

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either) - Boing Boing

Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either) - Boing Boing

I'm so glad someone passed this along, I can't believe I would've missed it otherwise!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Do you use browser extensions?

I love browser tweaks. Maybe it's a guy thing, always tinkering with some new gadget - although my inner obsessive-compulsive is secretly grateful that all of my new toys don't take up any physical space (I wonder how much of my stuff I could store "in the cloud"?) - but the joy that browser extensions give me knows no bounds.

Right now I'm particularly fond of the "Beautify Facebook" app, because it limits page-scrolling to posts only AND it filters out all of those annoying sidebar ads. I'd forgotten how much I couldn't stand those things until I made the mistake of changing my relationship status to "single", at which point I was overwhelmed by online dating service ads on EVERY page I visited (and thank you so much Facebook for insinuating that I need online help to manage that offline aspect of my life.)

What I'd really like to discover is whether or not anyone ELSE I know is using browser extensions, and if so, which ones? At some point I seem to have turned into a netgeek without realizing it - I'm really, really curious to hear what people have to say on the subject.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Darth Dinner?

It is so irritating when one encounters yet another blatant crime of grammar in the daily onslaught of illiterate atrocities - particularly when the culprit's first language is, ostensibly, English - that one cannot stand to endure the madness any longer.

One must therefore respond in kind with the sort of mockery that others can and should enjoy for its own sake - even as the original perpetrator remains oblivious to his or her error - if only to admonish other lexical miscreants to consult a f*cking dictionary once in a while. :P
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