Grandpa
Pirate
Lumberjack
and Viking
Monday, February 23, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
White Winter Hymnal/A Matter of Loaf and Death
Firstly, a fun stop motion video for the Fleet Foxes song "White Winter Hymnal".
White Winter Hymnal from Grandchildren on Vimeo.
Plus! Since we're on the subject of stop motion, I thought I would include this Wallace and Gromit video that I have recently discovered. It's long but ultimately hilarious.
Wallace & Gromit in A Matter Of Loaf And Death.2008 from thecontext on Vimeo.
White Winter Hymnal from Grandchildren on Vimeo.
Plus! Since we're on the subject of stop motion, I thought I would include this Wallace and Gromit video that I have recently discovered. It's long but ultimately hilarious.
Wallace & Gromit in A Matter Of Loaf And Death.2008 from thecontext on Vimeo.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Version 5.0: Everything
I've given my blog a face-lift! Super cool! I also embedded a CBC radio 3 player on the left so that I can showcase a few tuneskies that I'm currently into.
Google Earth 5.0 is out and available for download. What's new, you ask?
Well, this time, they've mapped the OCEAN!
Just watch this very convenient (but very lame) guide:
Cheers,
Kaelan
Google Earth 5.0 is out and available for download. What's new, you ask?
Well, this time, they've mapped the OCEAN!
Just watch this very convenient (but very lame) guide:
Cheers,
Kaelan
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Freitruck
I recently caved and bought a Freitag messenger bag. These bags are the shiz-nit (the bees-knees, if you will), they make them out of used truck tarpaulins, used bicycle inner tubes, and used car seatbelts. It'll basically last me forever, and it looks cool. On the website, it says: "Trucks are tough. That's why your FREITAG product is tough. It used to be one."I wish more things were made out of trucks!
The confirmation and shipping emails they sent me are what I really wanted to share. They are truly hysterical!
"Dear Kaelan of idyllic Ottawa your Ordernumber is: [Mr. Blank]
We‘re honered to announce that you soon will be proud F12 DRAGNET owner. We do everything within and beyond our power to make sure that in no time a charming delivery man will ring your bell to hand over your personal piece of FREITAG!
Later this evening we‘re going to celebrate your shopping skills till dawn and we will drink at least 17 times to you. Therefore again, thank you very much!
Best regards
Your FREITAG Online Team"
and
"Hello Kaelan
Finally!! Your F-product has been successfully packed and is now about to leave our F-factory. We all gathered one last time in the factory hall to wave goodbye with scattered emotions.
We wish you and your FREITAG‘s the best of health in future. May you live in harmonic and eternal friendship!
To track the shipment of your beloved F-item please visit: http://www.ups.com/
Your tracking number is: [Mrs. Blank]
Once again, thanks heaps and we‘d love to welcome you back soon in our online store.
Your FREITAG Online Team"
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Motorist Minded
I don't think I could ever own a car. After nearly being run-over for the upteenth time by a car turning right onto Bank street yesterday, I feel it is time to speak out.
Of course, I say this now while I am still young and naive (perhaps). But the idea of saving money to eventually purchase a four-wheeled status symbol that runs on limited and expensive resources (insurance excluded) bothers me. The car, van, or SUV of today is a stark reminder of how evident class biases are still around. Improving on transit is a cleaner, more dependable way of displacing yourself around town, but I am still skeptical about how most cities will force people out of their hard earned and space-wasting vehicles.
The best way to sum this up is with a list of pros and cons, as with most dilemmas.
Pros (?): Getting places quickly, bringing groceries (and other consumer goods) home with ease, travelling to places that are difficult to get to (this is half a pro, most places can be easily reached with a reliable transit system. Or trains, buses and, one day, teleportation!).
Cons (!): Becoming lazy, paying obscene amounts of coin for insurance, gas, parking, the car itself, mufflers that make you sound really fast, becoming oblivious to the world around you (pedestrians), contributing to a growing environmental catastrophe, occasionally getting into horrific accidents. I could go on but listing these is not the real purpose of this post.
The act of driving itself gives birth to a whole range of bad behaviour. This is the part that really gets under my skin. There is a reason why we all take those extensive driving courses where we learn to basically look everywhere before doing anything that involves moving a vehicle. It is also truly astonishing how easy it is to forget that pedestrians have the right of way, ALWAYS, and that cyclists are to be considered equal vehicles on the road (although most drivers don't know or refuse to understand this). Nevertheless, as I discovered after getting my G license, all you have to do is avoid speeding and running reds, and you're all set! The small rules don't matter.
If something displeases you during your comfortable drive home, whether it be a fellow commuter or a small child in your way, just press on your obnoxiously loud horn! Don't worry, no one can harm you so long as you are safely seated behind locked doors. The outside world doesn't matter, it's what's inside the vehilce that counts: you and your desire to go wherever as quickly as possible with minimal effort.
Those in charge of infrastructure and public spending seem to encourage this truly revolting and rude behaviour. When there's a snow storm, sidewalks get second-hand treatment. The roads will get cleared, no problem. For people who do not own a car, however, this is a massive conundrum, one that perplexes me greatly. How is it that those who are the most efficient get preferential treatment? If they are able to get to their destination more quickly, why should those who move more slowly have to struggle? Not to mention the billions of dollars spent on repairing roads and clearing disgustingly massive spaces for people to park.
Society even encourages us to buy a car. Owning a car is, indeed, a ridiculous status symbol, especially in the city. It is expected to be acheived in our middle-class long term plans, along with owning a house and having a family. The mass production of cars inflates the situation to astronomical levels. Vehicles are widely available but still expensive. Everyone wants one, and can get one with relative ease. But at the same time it is expensive enough for us to claim that we "earned" this car, and that we can go where we want with it with relatively few consequences. We are essentially being made available with these devices that can, if used irresponsibly, kill people. And the amount of irresponsible people driving cars (admittedly, I was one of these people when I first started to drive) does not put me at ease. In many ways, it parrallels owning a gun in the United States. They may be fun to own, feeling like a big man and all, but the results of misuse are truly devastating.
We should all be like this old lady, she knows what the deal is:
Why I would want or be expected to contribute to this seemingly selfish behaviour baffles me. Once you see past the obvious benefits of driving, the negative consequences seem endless and horrendous.
Of course, I say this now while I am still young and naive (perhaps). But the idea of saving money to eventually purchase a four-wheeled status symbol that runs on limited and expensive resources (insurance excluded) bothers me. The car, van, or SUV of today is a stark reminder of how evident class biases are still around. Improving on transit is a cleaner, more dependable way of displacing yourself around town, but I am still skeptical about how most cities will force people out of their hard earned and space-wasting vehicles.
The best way to sum this up is with a list of pros and cons, as with most dilemmas.
Pros (?): Getting places quickly, bringing groceries (and other consumer goods) home with ease, travelling to places that are difficult to get to (this is half a pro, most places can be easily reached with a reliable transit system. Or trains, buses and, one day, teleportation!).
Cons (!): Becoming lazy, paying obscene amounts of coin for insurance, gas, parking, the car itself, mufflers that make you sound really fast, becoming oblivious to the world around you (pedestrians), contributing to a growing environmental catastrophe, occasionally getting into horrific accidents. I could go on but listing these is not the real purpose of this post.
The act of driving itself gives birth to a whole range of bad behaviour. This is the part that really gets under my skin. There is a reason why we all take those extensive driving courses where we learn to basically look everywhere before doing anything that involves moving a vehicle. It is also truly astonishing how easy it is to forget that pedestrians have the right of way, ALWAYS, and that cyclists are to be considered equal vehicles on the road (although most drivers don't know or refuse to understand this). Nevertheless, as I discovered after getting my G license, all you have to do is avoid speeding and running reds, and you're all set! The small rules don't matter.
If something displeases you during your comfortable drive home, whether it be a fellow commuter or a small child in your way, just press on your obnoxiously loud horn! Don't worry, no one can harm you so long as you are safely seated behind locked doors. The outside world doesn't matter, it's what's inside the vehilce that counts: you and your desire to go wherever as quickly as possible with minimal effort.
Those in charge of infrastructure and public spending seem to encourage this truly revolting and rude behaviour. When there's a snow storm, sidewalks get second-hand treatment. The roads will get cleared, no problem. For people who do not own a car, however, this is a massive conundrum, one that perplexes me greatly. How is it that those who are the most efficient get preferential treatment? If they are able to get to their destination more quickly, why should those who move more slowly have to struggle? Not to mention the billions of dollars spent on repairing roads and clearing disgustingly massive spaces for people to park.Society even encourages us to buy a car. Owning a car is, indeed, a ridiculous status symbol, especially in the city. It is expected to be acheived in our middle-class long term plans, along with owning a house and having a family. The mass production of cars inflates the situation to astronomical levels. Vehicles are widely available but still expensive. Everyone wants one, and can get one with relative ease. But at the same time it is expensive enough for us to claim that we "earned" this car, and that we can go where we want with it with relatively few consequences. We are essentially being made available with these devices that can, if used irresponsibly, kill people. And the amount of irresponsible people driving cars (admittedly, I was one of these people when I first started to drive) does not put me at ease. In many ways, it parrallels owning a gun in the United States. They may be fun to own, feeling like a big man and all, but the results of misuse are truly devastating.
We should all be like this old lady, she knows what the deal is:
Why I would want or be expected to contribute to this seemingly selfish behaviour baffles me. Once you see past the obvious benefits of driving, the negative consequences seem endless and horrendous.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Anytime is Adventure Time!
I recently came across this excellent animated short called "Adventure Time". Apparently it's going to premiere in late 2009 or early 2010, I'm just happy to see that psychedelic kids shows are still around.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Alcoholic Anecdotes
Since I have been spending inordinate amounts of time with the book "Booze: A Distilled History" by Craig Heron, I thought I would share with you some amusing instances from the history of alcohol consumption in Canada and elsewhere.
Most religions in history (except Islam) have been tolerant of moderate alcohol consumption, even at times supportive, as exemplified by Martin Luther in this statement:
"Who loves not women, wine and song/Remains a fool his whole life long."
Alcohol had great medicinal value in pre-industrial life. One cholera remedy, called Huxham's Tincture, contained two ounces of Peruvian bark, a half-ounce of Virginia snake root, and three and a half PINTS of whiskey.
Maybe people just became so drunk they forgot they had cholera. Cured!
Taverns and drinking were the centre of 19th century life in Canada. The first Parliament of Upper Canada met in a tavern on Niagara on the Lake in 1792.
Sir John A. was certainly known for his bouts of drunkenness. He once told an audience: "I know enough of the feeling of this meeting to know that you would rather have John A. Macdonald drunk than George Brown sober."
During WWI officers distributed rations of rum at dawn and dusk. One soldier claimed that "under the spell of this all-powerful stuff, one almost felt that he could eat a German, dead or alive steel helmet and all."
In response to the newly legislated prohibition laws, those who opposed it would sometimes pursue acts in guerilla warfare to get their message across. In one particular instance, a temperance advocate's home in Sarnia had his home dynamited!
That's right, fucking dynamited!
The oppositional movement to prohibiton was largely ambivalent. William Lyon Mackenzie King, after voting against the importation of liquor, wrote in his diary, dated April 1921: "the two boxes of whiskey that I had asked Lemieux to purchase for me in Montreal came today."
After drinking a bottle of illegal moonshine on a Saturday with some friends during prohibition, one farmer remembered the effects quite well. "About an hour later all of us were paralyzed to a certain degree, and by Sunday noon the ends of my fingers were still numb."
And now, my two favourite pictures:
This is an ad from 1961, when brewers were diversifying their products and dispersing them in "stubby" bottles for home consumption in order to satisfy consumers' needs.
The woman in this picture appears to be creepily happy about this trend...
Apparently by "sleeping" and not endorsing prohibition, people on the streets were:
-leaving babies on the ground.
-making people pulling out their hair in fits of drunken insanity.
-allowing husband's to ax their wives...
Cheers,
Kaelan
Most religions in history (except Islam) have been tolerant of moderate alcohol consumption, even at times supportive, as exemplified by Martin Luther in this statement:
"Who loves not women, wine and song/Remains a fool his whole life long."
Alcohol had great medicinal value in pre-industrial life. One cholera remedy, called Huxham's Tincture, contained two ounces of Peruvian bark, a half-ounce of Virginia snake root, and three and a half PINTS of whiskey.
Maybe people just became so drunk they forgot they had cholera. Cured!
Taverns and drinking were the centre of 19th century life in Canada. The first Parliament of Upper Canada met in a tavern on Niagara on the Lake in 1792.
Sir John A. was certainly known for his bouts of drunkenness. He once told an audience: "I know enough of the feeling of this meeting to know that you would rather have John A. Macdonald drunk than George Brown sober."
During WWI officers distributed rations of rum at dawn and dusk. One soldier claimed that "under the spell of this all-powerful stuff, one almost felt that he could eat a German, dead or alive steel helmet and all."
In response to the newly legislated prohibition laws, those who opposed it would sometimes pursue acts in guerilla warfare to get their message across. In one particular instance, a temperance advocate's home in Sarnia had his home dynamited!
That's right, fucking dynamited!
The oppositional movement to prohibiton was largely ambivalent. William Lyon Mackenzie King, after voting against the importation of liquor, wrote in his diary, dated April 1921: "the two boxes of whiskey that I had asked Lemieux to purchase for me in Montreal came today."
After drinking a bottle of illegal moonshine on a Saturday with some friends during prohibition, one farmer remembered the effects quite well. "About an hour later all of us were paralyzed to a certain degree, and by Sunday noon the ends of my fingers were still numb."
And now, my two favourite pictures:
This is an ad from 1961, when brewers were diversifying their products and dispersing them in "stubby" bottles for home consumption in order to satisfy consumers' needs.
The woman in this picture appears to be creepily happy about this trend...
Apparently by "sleeping" and not endorsing prohibition, people on the streets were:
-leaving babies on the ground.
-making people pulling out their hair in fits of drunken insanity.
-allowing husband's to ax their wives...
Cheers,
Kaelan
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