Alberta: the sky, the weather, the beauty. (super photo-heavy)

Lyndon, my little sister, lives in the town I grew up in, in the middle of Alberta, Canada. She is seriously killing it with all the amazing photos she's been taking over there. She can find the beauty in everything, I tell ya. Please please do yourself a favor and follow her on tumblr or even better, her instagram (lyndonlane).

Or if you're like "STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO NOVA", at least sit back, relax, and check out all these amazing photos she's taken over the last month.  I command you.

 

I always tell people here in Victoria I miss the Alberta sky and they always say "is it really so different from here?" Yes. As you can plainly see, it's AMAZING in Alberta. This never happens here.

diptych: trying the timer on my camera

LINKS

HI HERE ARE SOME LINKS OKAY BYE

First of all, Caitlin, one of my main link-post-competition friends put up so many rad things last week I want to share, here are the five best ones.

1. 25 things you need to know about word choice.
2. The ultimate movie drinking games list.
3. Rare celebrity photos. (The one of JFK and Marilyn Monroe made my heart stop.)
4. Ultimate creative business cards collection.
5. Bartender, a dirty martini with a tampon! (Testing the vodka tampon myth.)

And now for some more cool stuff.

What you need to know about cosmetics and chemicals. (infographic)

This meme that basically makes fun of the German language is hilarious.  I laugh every time I see one.

We are all equally deserving of kindness.

Chloe's post on voodoo doughnuts. She's so fun!

15 things you should give up to be happy. 

All the comments on Danielle's post asking to hear some happiness. 

Free Game of Thrones tattoos for fifty people! 

On (finally) accepting feminism. 

This elephant playing with a galaxy note. (video) I LOVE ELEPHANTS SO MUCH.  (thanks Dani)

Tips on snapping perfect portraits. 

Give yourself photography assignments.

Le vent (slow motion ballet) (video)

Let me tweet that for you.

There's a new maru video...SO CUTE. 

Cat scientists of the 1960s.

5 ways modern men are trained to hate women. 

Why tattoo artists hate doing lots of text on you.  I'm adding this to my tattoo faq page.

I think dressage is weird...and this guy makes it even weirder. (video)

How to have a fabulous, luxurious retreat...& produce your best work ever without leaving your house. 

SANDWORM TATTOO

10 wonderful short stories to read for free online. 

My friend Savvy is living with lupus, and has started to write some very honest and raw blog posts about it here. Go tell her something encouraging or happy, she's a great girl with a big heart.

This pianist plays Mastodon's entire Leviathan album. (video)

I quit my passion and took a boring job. 

The first thing you do when you sit down at your computer. Something to think about. 

The motherfucking pterodactyl! (video)

A rad letter to a plagarist. (Thanks Courtney!)

How Stephen Hawking & "Draw Something" made me into an artist...sort of.

More than everything else, this makes me want to get a gosh darned iPhone.

Cody the dog's howl. (video)

Ashley's monthly link-up.

How to be a good library patron. 

My son the straight boy.

Mameshiba ... well it's a dog-bean that seems to frighten children by telling them weird random facts during dinner. (video)

The moment when your son asks about his balls. (Thanks Courtney!)

Why you should take a career sabbatical. (And how to do it without ruining your resume)

Why is Pintrest so addictive?

This is my latest bus jam. Who knew I liked Cradle of Filth? I especially like the ghost in the background. Very spooky. haha Warning, do not listen if you are afraid of screamy music.

And last but not least, check out Dain Fagerhold's stereographic drawings. WHOA

You can see tons more here. Doesn't it make you feel like there's an earthquake happening in your computer?

Found via Andrea's blog.

knee tattoo part two!!

We did it! I never ever have to get my damn kneecaps tattooed ever again!! Yes! Gerry took some instagram photos during the actual tattooing. Here they are so you can get a sense of the actual size of the tattoo...it's about the same as the one on the other side.

I love Mikel's comment, haha.

And here it is a few hours later, all swollen, with the other one for comparison. Damn fluid-filled knees! Ugh! It feels so gross! I don't even want the air to touch it. And you should have heard me whining when Ryan moved the blanket in the middle of the night. Knees are the worst spot to heal, I tell ya.

In case you're new here, you can read what it's like to get your knee tattooed here. I wrote it just after I got the red rose done.

On the agenda today: lay around, do nothing and then go see the Hunger Games movie finally. Sounds awesome, right? I think so!

Three things I see every day.

1. Tool box stickers at work. This one is particularly funny.

2. Bus window views. This one is from the top of a double decker.

3. Bastion square, it's near my work, and just beyond this copyright infringing sandwich board there is a beautiful view of the inner harbour. I usually walk this way just to see the water and the float planes.

Today is my day off...the plan is hang out, drink coffee and watch Degrassi Jr. High for a bit, take the dog for a walk and then go get my other knee tattooed by Gerry Effing Kramer. Sounds like a pretty good day, don't you think?

look in the mirror yeti!

Yeti knows how to use a mirror. It's creepy. You can see her weird mismatched eyes watching you from basically anywhere in the house.

This is our bathroom, in case you couldn't tell by the sushi shower curtain. Anyway Yeti has decided that the bathroom sink is the most amazing water fountain she's ever seen. I heard her jump up onto the counter and told her to get down because nobody likes cat hair in their toothbrushes and she just cat-frowned at me in the mirror. 

But of course as soon as my camera came out she was all over the place, looking away whenever I got close to pushing the shutter button. Ah well. As punishment I opened the two sides of the medicine cabinet and gave her a house of mirrors effect. She was looking back and forth all confused because SHE COULD ONLY SEE HER OWN HEAD. haha good times.

diptych: parliment buildings and the setting sun. Plus the pass it on project lives! I heard from book ten!

Do any of you remember me talking about my Pass It On project? I started it in um...2009? And apparently it's still kind of happening! Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain for those of you who don't memorize every single thing I ever say on the internet. 

In February of 2009 I decided to try doing a 'thing'. Like, an art project type thing. I mailed out 20 notebooks to friends all over the world. In this notebook I wrote out the name of the blog, and I wrote in it something to the effect of "If you found this book, add something to it and pass it on to a friend." 

I then put in my parents P.O. box number for when it was full and said I'd reimburse the sender for the shipping fees if they wanted to send me a self-addressed stamped envelope. 

I also encouraged people to message me or email me or send photos of the book so I could put them on the blog and know where the books are. 

Well I was greatly disappointed with the entire project. It started out with high hopes and fizzled rather quickly. Most of the notebooks disappeared off the radar after one or two passes. I have no fricking idea where they are. 

In January 2011 though, I got a notification that somebody had found a book that, as far as I knew had only been "released into the wild" in Vancouver, B.C. It 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!

Right? So cool! And today I found out that another book that was left in a cafeteria here in Victoria by my friend was in San Francisco. The note says:

I encountered Book 10 while sleeping overnight on the floor of a United Airlines terminal in San Francisco, CA last March. It has been a year and I've been unorganized so I have yet to make my addition. It is on my list of priorities and I plan to release back into the wild very shortly. I hope the rest of your project is on track.

This project is really fragile, it depends so much on every single person who gets the book to not just forget about it or keep it for themselves. I'm so stoked that it's still happening though, albeit really freakin' slowly. It gives me hope that the other nineteen are in the hands of more people with good intentions and not rotting in a landfill somewhere.

I think if I get one back and it's awesome I'm going to try and publish it somehow. Next time I do something like this it's going to be way more organized. There's definitely gonna be a next time, but probably with bloggers involved so there's an easier way to keep track of it. 

Although I do love the mystery of the books I have out there now. Who knows what they've seen?