The Muppets Wish all you Amerians a Happy Memorial Day Weekend

James at the Shore

DSC06727, originally uploaded by dweidl.

Pike Bay Sunset

DSC06752, originally uploaded by dweidl.

My wife on her way to view a magnificent sunset at Pike Bay during the Victoria Day long weekend.

What I learned on the internet...

This picture owns my mind. It's like when you point a camcorder at the TV and you keep seeing smaller and smaller images of TV's within each other until you reach some moment of singularity.

So! This marks the first occasion of a regular topic I'd like to blog about once a week...more or less. I like to keep you guessing.

Anyway, the aim of this post is to enlighten you with some good ol' fashion cool content I've stumbled across in the last little bit. It could be funny, mind blowing, sad, enlightening, or merely interesting. Hopefully you'll enjoy.

Crazy robot that might take over the world
I really like robots. And not in a hipster-1950's-robots-are-cool-way. No...real, live robots. This kind of blew me away and frightened me at the same time:


Sorry, I can't get the video to resize properly

Can you imagine how complicated this would be to program and design? I almost died trying to figure out how to use html on my so-so website that I am both ashamed of for it's mediocrity, but proud of because I made it from scratch (with a little help from a script I scooped). Anyway, humans...beware. I predict we have about 5 years left to rule. And don't get me started on nanobots.

Blurb: Make your own books



Kind of a cop out because I've known about Blurb for a while...but it's just so damn cool. Basically, Blurb is a service that you can use to make any kind of book you want. You download some software that helps you design it, add in text, add in pictures, save the thing and upload it to Blurb's site and boom! You can order books that you created yourself. Who says you need a publisher? And the pricing is pretty reasonable too. I want to create a photo book but haven't decided what the topic will be yet. Any suggestions?


Local Edition: No Lovin' For McLovin














So it seems as though Christopher Mintz-Plasse has a thing against Hamilton, the city I live in. Christopher is the actor who played the absolutely hilarious character of McLovin in Superbad. But some locals have fought back, organizing rallies and protests. Don't believe me? Check out the rest.

That's it for now! See you next time.

Right Size Me

I am a lover of cities - I need urban life. And I'm particularly fascinated by the challenges that "rust belt" cities face and the potential for real urban change that they can lead. I guess my fascination stems from growing up in Windsor, Ontario - the car manufacturing capital of Canada and right across the border from the car capital of the world in Detroit. I now live in Hamilton a steel giant down on its luck. Just like Windsor had its mirror image in Detroit, Hamilton sees itself in Pittsburgh. At least it hopes it does. Pretty much my whole life has been spent living with and rooting for the underdog, the ugly urban stepsister, the manufacturing giants that have been used and abused by more prosperous neighboring cities. Root root root for the home team, they say, and my home teams have 2 of the biggest down on their luck cities in Canada for the past few decades. But that's what makes them so interesting to live in.

Detroit is the ultimate curiosity. After living so close to this former great for most of my life, I kind of consider myself to be a cousin-like citizen of the Motor City. I've been regularly following the great Times Magazine blog on the site called (quite creatively) The Detroit Blog. The writers there have done a great job of capturing the absolute devastation that has occurred but also the hope that the people cling to. David Okrent:

If Detroit had been savaged by a hurricane and submerged by a ravenous flood, we'd know a lot more about it. If drought and carelessness had spread brush fires across the city, we'd see it on the evening news every night. Earthquake, tornadoes, you name it — if natural disaster had devastated the city that was once the living proof of American prosperity, the rest of the country might take notice.

The stats continue to blow my mind away:

• 100,000 foreclosed homes, 30% of the city's total homes
• Population has decreased from 2 million people to 800,000 today, losing 1,200 citizens per month
• Median home prices dropping from $59,700 in 2005 to $8,000 in 2009
• 28.9% unemployment - let me repeat - 28.9% unemployment! Post-Katrina New Orleans reached a peak of 11% unemployment.

Detroit once was the future city, where new technology was developed and featured and represented the American dream to its fullest extent. I pass it off to David Okrent again:

If what was once the most prosperous manufacturing city in the nation has been brought to its knees, what does that say about our recent past? And if it can't find a way to get up, what does that say about our future?

To some, the answer to the problem Detroit faces is what folks are calling "rightsizing". Detroit is a sprawling city built for 2 million people but only housing 800,000. 4o square miles of land has been left vacant as the mass exodus continues - enough land area to hold 2 Manhattan islands. Many neighborhoods have only a handful of inhabited homes - the rest have been abandoned. Some are calling for city officials to mandate the leveling and uprooting of whole neighborhoods and redistributing the population in an effort to redistribute essential city services in an economically viable way. Even for a citizen of a manufacturing giant in decline like myself, these measures seem inconceivable. But the opportunity to basically start a city from scratch is overwhelmingly intriguing. Imagine the possibilities. Well, I already have begun by developing a film idea that we've been pitching around on this very topic called "Right Size Me: The Shrinking of Detroit". Check out the treatment here. Pretty mind-blowing things going on in Motown.

Random Youtube videos

Umm...what the title says...








Discuss

Not Penny's Boat

In case you haven't heard, the television series called "Lost" is nearing its end. Sunday marks the last episode. I. Can't. Wait.

My interest in Lost very much mirrors Jack's character trajectory from "Man of Science" to "Man of Faith". I was very skeptical of the show at first. It looked like it could be interesting, but I figured it probably was good in the way people think shows like CSI are good. Good for a cheap thrill but nothing more. My wife and I started by watching the first 3 seasons on dvd a few years back. I enjoyed the show, was addicted, but didn't afford it more status than simple popcorn entertainment. We waited for season 4 to come out on dvd, and struggled a bit through season 5 online during the whole time-shifting saga. I was a little weary of Lost and wasn't sure if I would continue on. But that's when I discovered the online community around the show and I had a Jack-like transformation to "Man of Faith". Theories, episode recaps, hidden meanings...oh my. Yes, this was what I was looking for.

And the ultimate transformation of all was going from basically watching on demand by dvd or online streaming to the week-to-week grind of sitting by the television set, positioning the rabbit ears (in Canada we still have over-the-air television reception), and taking each episode in along with the rest of the rabid fan base. People often have difficulty making this transition, but I now much prefer it. After watching the episode I eagerly await the episode recaps, the crazy new theories, instant reactions, and all the other glorious content waiting to be consumed at the water cooler that is the internet. It's a much more rewarding viewer experience. It engages in a much different way than coming to a show after it has finished and consuming every dvd in rapid succession, pounding out 4 or more episodes a night until you're completely through the show. This method also has its merits. You notice trends and remember details you might not have if the viewing was stretched across many years. But I do regret not going through Lost on a weekly and yearly basis. Definitely one of the most vibrant online communities I've come across.

Here's hoping Sunday's episode rewards all us Losties for our engagement in a real cultural phenomenon.

Professional Craziness

Have you ever tried branding yourself? Like, have you ever thought about how you try to present yourself to the world? I'm working on this hazy concept I have running through my head called "Professional Craziness". It's this nebulous notion (how's that for an alliteration, teach?) of mixing creativity-on-steroids with the ability to reel it in to make some semblance of sense to your bosses, company, and most importantly, your audience. Let me give you an example...

Back in university, I was entered in this really intense marketing competition called The Apprentice. It was similar to the TV show: we were split into two competing teams who would be challenged by a real world case each week by a sponsoring company (someone like Xerox, Frito Lay, Pepsi, etc.) and we had to create a unique marketing solution to the problem and present it in the next week's boardroom meeting in front of a panel of judges and often 70+ audience members including students, faculty members, media, and prospective employers. The big difference between the competition and the show was that our motto was "You're Hired", not:

Anyway, it was really intense and both groups would pull out all the stops. Leading into our third week of competition, I felt like we needed to hit a new level in our presentation for the next challenge. Xerox had laid down the gauntlet by asking us to develop, write and design a new sales collateral piece for their SMB sales agents. So we went to work on what we thought would be a unique idea on collateral design. Meanwhile, as we began prep for our presentation, I proposed an absolutely bat-shit crazy idea. The presentation would take the form of some pseudo trip along the yellow brick road à la Wizard of Oz where we would encounter strange travelers who would give us advice on how to build the best sales collateral possible and we would finally meet the Wizard himself to whom we would sell this new-fangled sales collateral. My favourite (favorite for my American readers) part of this was that the wizard bit would be prerecorded and projected up on the screen - eschewing powerpoint altogether and forcing us to time our "lines" to match up with the recorded wiz. This hair-brained scheme all sprung from my love of the movie quote:

Despite my enthusiasm my group members unsurprisingly didn't quite go for this. However, I took this kernel of an idea and shaped it into something a bit more palatable - a recreation of a high-level Xerox manager assigning us this task and then us presenting it to him "live via satellite" (i.e. rerecorded projection) complete with hilarious synchronicity improvisations and low-budget production values (this was before the advent of youtube, where everyone now knows how to shoot a Hollywood level film). It had the crowd in stitches and firmly in our corner. Now that's "Professional Craziness".

Do I have this illusive attribute? I would say I'm a Pro Crazy young padwan aspiring to be a full blown Jedi of Professional Craziness. And I'm looking for my yoda.

Should have made that left turn at Albuquerque

Nothing good can come of this

I love old cartoons. Cartoons were way funnier back in the old days when violence ruled the day. Unfortunately (although correctly) society has dictated a restriction on the gratuitous cartoon violence in children's programming today.

I'm definitely more of a Looney Tunes guy, but Goofy is pretty awesome too...especially when he's teaching me how to play a sport from a 1940's perspective

Yes random youtube commenter, Swivel Hips Smith IS ridiculous

Cartoon conventions are what really get me though. The running gags that run consistently throughout the canon of the genre. Like seriously, who decided that a banana peel should be the universal object of slippery-ness? That person deserves a pat on the back. Genius. And we just accept the fact that if you step on a banana peel you will be sent on a gravity-defying, bone-splitting journey; likely through drainage pipes, into oncoming traffic, and eventually off a cliff. Of course the dive off the cliff will be accompanied by that "skreee!" sound effect until eventually you turn into a puff of smoke upon impact at the bottom of an apparent 10,000 foot drop.


Seriously, has anyone actually stepped on a banana before? Prepare to be underwhelmed.

Speaking of smoke, my all-time favourite cartoon convention is the physical transformation a character goes through upon the receipt of a gunshot or explosion.

It's surprisingly difficult to find a picture of an "exploded" Looney Tune

This calamity is represented in a few ways...none of them involving the death of the "inflicted" character of course. Case #1: the character receiving the business end of a gunshot or stick of dynamite will revert to a black and gray (smoked?) figure, dazed, stumbling like he or she is drunk. Usually the clothing has become ragged as if the character has spent too much time with the Swiss Family Robinson. Case #2: the victimized character's clothing or fur is virtually blown completely off by the gunfire or explosion, leaving a mostly naked but unharmed character stumbling around in a daze. This is used to humorous perfection by the characters of Wile E. Coyote and Sylvester the Cat. Case #3: this is unique to the character Daffy Duck but is so damn funny that it deserves its own category. The duck bill. Words really don't do this justice...

How despicable.

P.S. Other favourite cartoon conventions include perfectly shaped mouse holes, anvils, dynamite (has anyone even used TNT in the last 80 years?), Powerhouse

Chrylser Building at Night

_DSC7246, originally uploaded by dweidl.

My favourite NYC shot.

Bay Front Train

DSC02177, originally uploaded by dweidl.

Taken from the bridge by Bay Front Park. Hamilton, Ontario

Wilkemen! (That's "Welcome!" in polka)

Nothing gets the adrenaline going quite like 4 dorky dudes playing polka

Congratulations for stumbling upon this modest little corner of the interwebs. On my brand-spankin' new blog (it has that new car smell - I swear) you'll get exactly what the title promises: What I am saying. And not in that super-lame slang, "what you sayin'?" nonsense that doesn't even make any sense, but literally what I am trying to communicate - whether that be through words, pictures, videos, or music. This will be kind of a repository of random thoughts, new ideas, and inquiries that stretch the definition of sanity. You are reading what is the first post of what I promise will be many with the plan of attempting about 5 to 10 posts a week on top of the other regular social media activities to immerse myself in. Enjoy!