The "pass it on" Project *updated* I figured it out.

In February of 2009 I started a project named "pass it on". I mailed out notebooks to friends of mine in England (Birmingham and London), Norway; Australia (Manly), USA (New York, Auburn, Murray and Baton Rouge), France (Rennes), Canada (Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver) Germany (Leipzig) and Mexico (Veracruz).   and left some of them around Victoria as well...on the bus, etc. They were given these instructions:

Find one of my notebooks. Add something to it; a drawing, a story, whatever. Send me your e-mail address and pass the book on. When the book is full, mail it to the address written in the back. If money is an issue, I can also mail you a self-addressed-stamped envelope. It's simple. It's fun. Good luck! note: if you're not interested, please give the book to somebody else. thanks!
 I started a blog  for it and everything, and updated it when people found the notebook and let me know. How exciting it was to hear from France, Germany, Mexico...it was a really cool project but it seemed to die out really quickly. And so I deleted the blog. And completely forgot about it.

Get this: today I received an e-mail notification that someone left a comment on my (deleted) blog...it was on a book that previously I had only known as being "released" in Vancouver B.C., Canada. Here's what the message from "anonymous" said:

Hey! I see that the blog hasn' been updated in a while. Anyway, I got this book in Madrid from an Italian friend from Barcelona. It has travelled with me to Beijing (China) and it is about to be given to my Chinese friend. I hope these are good news! Cheers!

Oh. My. Gosh. I am SO EXCITED ABOUT IT! Project BACK ON! But now what do I do? How can I redirect a deleted blog somewhere? Or can I re-open it? HELP!!

**update** I figured it out. Turns out, Blogger is kinda idiot-proof. Cool. 

And now I'm inspired to do a "Pass It On" part 2. Anyone interested?

Tools of the Trade

We have a thingy at work to make the stencils...don't ask me how it works exactly. Some kind of paper and some kind of magic inside the thing. Who knows? Anyway I love the way it looks...it's heavy as hell, it's 'vintage' looking,


and, best of all is its name...

Seriously, where did we pick this up? The set of Mad Men? I'm gonna slap its ass and ask it to pour me a scotch on the rocks later on today.

Tangentially, isn't it funny how the word 'secretary' has fallen into disrepute lately?

Things I Love Thursday

...in which I talk about cool stuff

These photos by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, I found them in an article entitled "Detroit in Ruins" by Sean O'Hagen. They're so good I want to vomit. In a complimentary way, of course.

See more here.

This Map of American English Dialects by Rick Aschmann.Cool!

You've probably seen this before, but Wants For Sale is the coolest idea I've ever seen for fund raising. Basically, in 2007 in order to raise money for things they wanted, artists Christine and Justin started painting ... the stuff they wanted and selling the paintings for the price of the stuff. Big or small, they seemed to do alright!

For example, they sold "Drinks On Us" and bought all their friends a round of booze,

and they sold "A New Bikini"...to buy a new bikini.

They became pretty internet popular, and decided to use their powers for good, and created  
Needs for Sale, the Wants for Sale sister site, where the money from the paintings goes to people in need. Great idea! You should go check it out; the site is pretty and the paintings are really neat.

Party Hats For Pets.

Animals in human clothes are always number one in my book.

The original Space Jam movie website! Geocities style. It's really high tech...for 1996.

A kitty who meows while it eats...

"pop culture inspired street art" ... always fun

via

Crumpled City Maps

Speaking as someone who can not fold a damn map if her life depended on it, these things are fantastic.

Time Management, Filofaxes, and Organization.

It's not something I'm good at or even really practice because I hate routine and schedules almost as much as I love them, but wow, it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside to read about plans, lists and schedules. Haha.

The moment when water balloons pop, caught on camera. 

Via Pop(ped) Art

Guess what I had for dinner last night.

Yeah. Swear words and kids food. Good times!

(one of) the benefits of having a dog

Ryan left for work last night around 11:30pm, to work the graveyard shift. 

It's my weekend, so I stayed up to watch Jon Stewart and drool over Superheadz cameras on the computer... LOOK AT THIS 'BOOK' CAMERA. So. Great.

Images from here.

Anyway, so I was still awake when he left. Alone. And paranoid. The weather was terrible...kind of an island-style blizzard. Wet, heavy flakes that should be melting but it's juuuuust below zero so they stay and compact on the road, creating a vertitable ice rink. I could hear ambulance sirens, or maybe police sirens. Fire trucks? I still don't know the difference. The sky was glowing that weird sepia-amber that comes from snow clouds and city pollution reflecting street lights back at us.

There's something about being home alone at night, tired but still awake, that freaks the hell out of me. My imagination works triple time. Every noise is a robber, a monster, or worst of all...an alien! (Ha ha, it's so dumb but seriously, my brain goes there every time.)

Last night the sky was glowing yellow and there was a loud THUD on our roof when I was home alone. Have you ever seen that movie Signs? Yeah. There's thuds on their roof too. Alien footsteps thuds.

I also heard some in the backyard. What the hell? My heart raced as I turned off some of the lights and peered out the blinds. Who or what was in our yard?

THUD!

The last one woke Tank the bulldog up. He jumped to his feet still half asleep and let out the most ferocious bark I've ever heard. He's a lion when he's alarmed. And just like that I felt less afraid. I have a guard dog. To guard me!

He patrolled the house at my feet, alert with his ears up, listening to the weird noises outside, while I tried to unsuccessfully convince him (and myself) that nothing was going on out there.

All became quiet again. I put the dog to bed. I went to bed, and the cat was lying beside me. There was another thump, quiet this time, but I noticed that even the cat got nervous. We lay together in the dark, I was trying to go to sleep and the cat was trying to get me to pet her, both of us freezing all motion; holding our breath each time another THUMP was heard.

What is that? I kept thinking. And then the phone rang. It was Ryan's work number so I answered right away, grateful for the comfort of his voice. He told me he just arrived at his work twenty minutes late because of the weather. The ground was covered in snow and there were car accidents everywhere, but it was raining at the some time and giant clumps of wet snow were falling off the trees everywhere.

Ahhh, mystery solved.

I was placated and knew I shouldn't be afraid of wet snow, of course, but my imagination still wanted to carry me to those dark afraid corners of my brain...just knowing that even if it wasn't snow falling, but something more evil, I had Tank on guard was so comforting I quickly drifted off to sleep...

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Happy Anniversary to Me and Ryan! *updated so the link works*

Today is our 4 year anniversary, counting from the date of our first date, where we held hands and had dinner and kissed at the end. And I made him drop me off two blocks away from my house so he wouldn't know where I lived in case he was a crazy person. Aww, how romantic!

 **also**

Today on my photo blog: I ranted about the awkward seating arrangements they force upon us on the bus! I know how much you all like hearing about what I hate about public transportation. Check it out! (haha)

I also decided right this second to change it from a 365 blog to a plain ol' takin' photos blog. No pressure, just pretty pictures. Because I am dreading the day 365 comes. Then what happens? I take it down? Hell no! So I'm going to work on that today. Right now! Here I go.

Um, that is, after I finish drinking coffee out of this ginormous skeletor mug I found in the cupboard and cuddling with Tankenstein all morning.

Life is rad.


**update**

The photo blog is ready for viewing here.

Happy Anniversary to Me and Ryan!

Today is our 4 year anniversary, counting from the date of our first date, where we held hands and had dinner and kissed at the end. And I made him drop me off two blocks away from my house so he wouldn't know where I lived in case he was a crazy person. Aww, how romantic!

 **also**

Today on my photo blog: I ranted about the awkward seating arrangements they force upon us on the bus! I know how much you all like hearing about what I hate about public transportation. Check it out! (haha)

I also decided right this second to change it from a 365 blog to a plain ol' takin' photos blog. No pressure, just pretty pictures. Because I am dreading the day 365 comes. Then what happens? I take it down? Hell no! So I'm going to work on that today. Right now! Here I go.

Um, that is, after I finish drinking coffee out of this ginormous skeletor mug I found in the cupboard and cuddling with Tankenstein all morning. *sigh* life is rad.

Reflecting

Music Monday: Die Antwoord

Die Antwoord in the house today guys! I chose this song (Super Evil) out of all their songs because it's so darn catchy.

Here's what they look like. 

Photos from here and here.

As their website says, "For those who don't know yet, Die Antwoord are a futuristic rap-rave crew from South Africa who represent a fresh new style called Zef."

I love them and have been lucky enough to see them in concert in Vancouver, their first time in Canada. It was fucking awesome. Check this song out. 



                       

And because I love them so much, and they're kind of underdogs...here's another song. NSFW!

This song actually talks about the story of"evil boy"...it's not just a bunch of dick jokes, no matter how the video looks. Evil boy is from a Cape Town ghetto, and can't go back because he isn't circumcised.Watch this video first actually, Ninja explains it better than I could, and it's in his cool accent.



And here's the song that's gotten me through some boring walks home from the bus stop. (see if you catch the District 9 reference in the video) Even if you're not interested in the music, give the video a play. The "evil boy" story is interesting.



Die Antwoord might come off as kind of silly and a sort of novelty band at first, but I think you should give them a chance. They're actually from a real ghetto, they worked their way up from nothing, Ninja is like the fastest rapper I've ever heard in my life, and Yo-Landi is...something I've never seen before. I seriously love them!

Learn something new about sex workers.

This video features advice from sex workers to the people in their lives. I don't personally know any sex workers in my day to day (that I know of), so everything they say in this video is rather interesting to me.