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When I was in BC last summer I saw a pair of bald eagles at Willows Beach in Oak Bay in Victoria.

I managed to get a couple of photos of the birds. Here’s how I described it on my photoblog:

Tried to speed walk nearly the entire length of the beach. Walked barefoot across stones, rocks, and jagged boulders. Came close to falling and smashing several hundreds of dollars worth of camera gear. Nearly stepped on broken glass while trying to avoid the fall. Got bug bites on my ankles that kept me from sleeping through the night for nearly two weeks afterwards. Seeing these two bald eagles in the wild at Willows Beach in Oak Bay in British Columbia? Worth every single one of those poorly thought out, risky, and painful steps.

Here are two of those photos:

(photo: “bald eagles” copyright davidartemiw 2008. Originally published here.)

(”in search of food,” copyright davidartemiw 2008. Originally published here.)

Earlier today I came across a Google Docs presentation on the Agenda website with the bios for the current crop of candidates for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.

I decided to see what I could do with the exact same information. Let me know what you think.

(DISCLAIMER: The terms of my employment require me to be neutral in this race so this exercise is not an endorsement of any candidate. All elements of this presentation were taken from the original done by the folks at the Agenda. Photos were chosen from those published by the candidates themselves and selected for resolution quality.)

Will it sell a single phone? I doubt it. But that doesn’t mean their message is a bad one. Life is for sharing. And there’s some interesting stuff in there about joy and contagiousness and how great it is to be alive.

Via: adliterate

Thank god for Johann Hari who sets us straight. Of pirates, he writes

They mutinied against their tyrannical captains - and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls “one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century.”

They say this kind of thing about Hamas and others, don’t they?

The Printed Blog is an independent media outlet that aggregates user-generated content from the Internet and publishes it twice daily via print. The result is a revolutionary newspaper that reads and functions like a web feed - yet can still be enjoyed on the train or spread across the breakfast table, for an uninterrupted, pleasurably tactile experience.

The selection of content in The Printed Blog is based solely on the votes of readers and their geographic location. In such a way, The Printed Blog revolts against the top-down, ‘one size fits all’ model of newsprint, as we know it. Instead of one paper serving hundreds of thousands of people, as is often the case, The Printed Blog publishes hundreds or even thousands of highly-localized editions based on what a community declares is important to them. The papers are distributed to neighborhood pickup points in A.M. and P.M. editions, and will incorporate rapid turnaround reader comments.

If I understand correctly, I have to go online, choose what I like, wait for somebody to decide whether or not to print it, then go out somewhere to pick it up and hope I get to read what I wanted to (and could have) read hours ago.

Doesn’t Google Reader already aggregate this stuff for me? Can’t I read it on the train on my iPhone? Aren’t I already killing the earth enough using these devices?

This sounds like a reverse-engineered meatball sundae.

The e-mails have been arriving over the last few weeks. Today, I’ve received the e-mail twice. I guess they’re getting desperate as the event is on Tuesday, I think.

After getting the second one I decided to write back. Here’s what I sent them:

The subject header on this reply should probably read, “Your last chance to keep from having e-mails from your organization automatically deleted without being read.”

I’m not sure how you got this e-mail address but ok, you did.

I have no idea who you are. Also fine.

Please rest assured that I have read it. I have not yet decided to attend the event.

Sending me the exact same e-mail over and over again is not going to make me any likelier to attend the event. In fact, it is possible it might have the exact opposite effect. Because that’s what spam does. It makes me want to do the opposite. This isn’t “Simon Says.”

Spam says come. I stay home.

Spam says read. I delete.

Should I decide to attend, you will hear from me.

Now please take the time that you’ve spent spamming me and use it to click on the following links and learn little bit about more appropriate ways to start a conversation with someone and creating some real value for your clients. Assuming that’s what you’re interested in doing.

If your actual business is annoying people then keep on keeping on. You’re doing a great job.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/01/how-to-send-a-p.html

http://davefleet.com/pitching-tips/

http://davefleet.com/2008/09/anatomy-of-a-bad-pitch/

Any bets on whether they offer me the same consideration I gave them?

On his latest album, Spliced Krispies, Vidler introduces Luther Vandross to REM. He gets the Stone Roses, Billy Joel, and the Byrds together for a beer, plays spin the bottle and and CeCe Peniston (remember her? I know, right?) has to kiss the Sex Pistols.

This one is wild. The anger and confusion of the Sex Pistols coupled with the innocence and joy of Peniston. The grime of the 70s vs. the gloss of the 90s. A world with no future. A world where it’s good now and it’s only going to get better. Vidler’s liner notes don’t make any mention of these contrasts - just that “if this doesn’t raise your roof when played at full volume, then nothing will.” (But download the MP3s from the link below. The sound quality on the vids is pretty crap.)

FTW? Mick Jagger and Carly Simon spend 3 minutes and 44 seconds in the closet together.

You can download the whole album here or go here (scroll down a little) to watch the music videos he mashed up for the songs. (As I said, the sound quality isn’t so good on the videos. The MP3s, however, play like butter.)

My all-time favourite by Vidler? “Wouldn’t it Be Nice to Be Your First.”

Choke is a novel by Chuck Palahniuk. It has also been made into a movie (winner of the Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for work by an ensemble cast).

I haven’t read the book. Nor have I seen the movie. But I bought the soundtrack back in October and it’s excellent.

The playlist:

1. The Rules - Ben Kweller
2. Don’t You Ever - Natural History
3. Navy Nurse - The Fiery Furnaces
4. Reckoner - Radiohead
5. Sin Terror - Alap Mornin
6. Satan Said Dance - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
7. Orgasm Addict - Buzzcocks
8. No Sunlight - Death Cab for Cutie
9. Wicked - Blitzen Trapper
10. If You Feel It - Ms. Tyree “Sugar” Jones
11. Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, Pt. 1 - My Morning Jacket
12. Bicycle - Shout Out Louds
13. There’s Been an Accident - Twilight Singers
14. Crystal Ship - Nicole Atkins

Prior to getting the soundtrack, the only artist on here I was really familiar with was Radiohead. I have a few Nicole Atkins songs, but just odds and sods picked up over time from Frank. I vaguely remembered Death Cab for Cutie from an episode of the O.C. (I confess, I got addicted to the show when I had mono) and the Buzzcocks I’d heard about but never listened to.

One of these days I will learn how to write about music “properly.” But in the meantime…..

There’s a dance-punk buzz to many of these songs but also a melodic smoothness; in the case of “Navy Nurse” you get both in the one song.

What I like best about the soundtrack is that it, alone, tells a story.

“The Rules” sets it up.

“Tell me all the rules, girl. I just want to get ‘em wrong. Tell me all the rules girl. I just want to get along.”

There is a nagging feeling, our hero feels, to change his ways. But it only nags, because getting into the middle of the album the buzz saw appears and there follows an up-and-down for our man as he fights the yearning for a future with the pull of his past. 

“It disappeared at the same speed/ as the idealistic things I believed./ The optimist died inside of me.”

So sings Death Cab for Cutie, followed shortly by the sultry Ms. Tyree “Sugar” Jones singing “If You Feel It.” A moment of despair followed by a seduction. The dream for a new future, dead. But that seduction, a seduction that will last a night at the most, feels so good.

With the songs “There’s Been An Accident” and “Crystal Ship” the reckoning foreshadowed by the song of the same name is realized.

Should you wish to listen for yourself you can get the album here.

(BTW: This album is now available DRM-free from iTunes. The one I bought wasn’t. For me to have that luxury I have to pay another $3.00. Thanks Apple.)