John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

A thought on hearing things said out loud

2009-07-14T07:42:00-02:30

"Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning."
- Maya Angelou

Saving our pennies for Wii Fit Plus

2009-07-14T07:35:00-02:30

We bought a copy of Wii Fit last summer, and although we've fallen off the wagon a bit, it's been a popular game in the house. It's more than a game, of course; while our son has balked at the balancing exercises we've been trying to get him to do, he gladly moves through the Wii Fit routines. Indeed, balance is what many of the activities are about, and the introductory yoga moves went down surprisingly well.

Wii is prepping Wii Fit Plus for a fall release, and I imagine we'll get it (if and when we can find it - Wii Fit itself was pretty hard to track down). From the trailer video below, I like the upgrades that include making a customized workout out of the various elements. On the fun side, the new games look like a hoot that mom and dad can play with the kid. Everyone wins.

The vision of Beggars Banquet: Tom Wilkes, RIP

2009-07-13T20:26:00-02:30

Beggars Banquet is not even my favourite Rolling Stones album cover, but I've always admired it: gritty, dirty, bang-on for hitting the adolescent rock fan (of whatever age) square in the face ... and no doubt pissing off some parents to boot.

The death of Tom Wilkes, 69, who created this and other rock album covers, reminds me of something that is often not obvious with Beggars Banquet, among many other items in my record collection: it was designed. Every rotten, Trainspotting-esque element in the shot is there, not by accident. Says veteran Rolling Stone magazine writer David Fricke: "The magic and the sort of importance of album design was to be able to catch the eye, to try and get a sense of what the music and the personalities were inside and also make you want to buy it."

You can read that comment, and more about Tom Wilkes, here. Look also for some Rolling Stone links on album covers that matter.

A T-shirt with a clean face

2009-07-13T07:18:00-02:30

Apart from getting hooked on journalism when I started volunteering at The Muse, Memorial's student newspaper, I got hooked on a sub-sub-sub-specialty: typefaces. I started at a time when the paper still sent out all of its copy, headlines, cutlines - the works - to be set by an outside company. When the paper got its own typesetting machine at the end of 1982, it was a revelation to see how changing a font changed the meaning of, say, a feature headline.

It's hard to express to people today how much effort it took years ago to get a wide range of fonts. Today, you can get hundreds of fonts with thousands of variations with common word processing packages, and even more are easily downloaded. I almost keeled over a few weeks ago when my son, while working on a school project, told me we needed to download "the Star Wars font" for his poster. (It turned out to be easy to find.)

Fonts come and go, but good old Helvetica is a standby, which is why the T-shirt seen above (found here) is appealing.

In search of Calvin and Hobbes

2009-07-13T07:12:00-02:30

Calvin and Hobbes has long been a subject of admiration in our house, and my wife and I have been looking on fondly as our son, just a little older than Calvin, has discovered the joy of a boy and his stuffed (or is he?) tiger.

One of the books I'm looking forward to seeing this fall is Looking for Calvin and Hobbes, by Nevin Martell. The book looks at how Bill Watterson created a sensation of a comic strip, and then retired it after only a decade. This recent post on Boing Boing points to what we can expect:

In Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip, writer Nevin Martell traces the life and career of the extraordinary, influential, and intensely private man behind Calvin and Hobbes. With input from a wide range of artists and writers (including Dave Barry, Harvey Pekar, Jonathan Lethem, and Brad Bird) as well as some of Watterson's closest friends and professional colleagues, this is as close as we're ever likely to get to one of America's most ingenious and intriguing figures - and a fascinating detective story, at the same time.

The Boing Boing link includes directions on getting a free download of a chapter of the book.

A thought on the gene pool

2009-07-12T07:43:00-02:30

"The problem with the gene pool is that there's no lifeguard."
- David Gerrold

Live strong, and log every item along the way

2009-07-12T07:32:00-02:30

[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, July 2, 2009. Yes, it's been a while since I've posted a column here. Will rectify that. Click here to read more Surf's Up.]

Lance Armstrong helps you get fit, and use the web to do it, while a website of 360-degree photos takes you inside one of the Norse house in L'Anse aux Meadows. A full-fledged online guide to Twitter, for all users, and a game to play with a virtual cat ... they're all stops on this weeks hop around the web. First up: a healthy way to monitor your movement.

Livestrong
Lance Armstrong is an all-round celebrity - famous enough to warrant mentions in the gossip columns and such - but he remains foremost an athlete and a social motivator. Livestrong.com is a social network with a difference: instead of making contacts, it emphasizes personal fitness, with real-time tools for meeting challenges ("dares," as the site calls them) and apps to help busy-busy-busy people make them happen. After a year, Livestrong's users have collectively logged some 340 million minutes of exercise.

1001 Wonders: L'Anse aux Meadows
One of my regrets in life is that it took me so long to make my way to L'Anse aux Meadows. I'm a bit of an evangelist about the place and the surrounding area now, encouraging people to make the time to make the trip. Need a visual teaser: consider this set of panoramic pictures presented as part of the 1001 Wonders site, which chronicles other UNESCO World Heritage sites. To learn more about all the rest, click your way back along the navigation, and dive in to more than 270 remarkable places on Earth.

Twitter guide
Seemingly every few days, someone asks me for something or other about Twitter: how to get started, tips and tricks, what a hashtag means, the works. I was delighted to see Mashable, a go-to site for tech news, has compiled a fantastic all-round resource. The basics are covered with tutorials, common questions (like, say, where are my followers?) get answered, and there's a vibrant section for businesses wondering whether and how they use Twitter.

Wikibooks: Cookbook
Years ago, in the seemingly ancient mid-1990s and long before phrases like "user-generated content" sparked desire among web publishers, online recipe collections spread like wildfire over the web. It made sense: almost everyone has a recipe, and even rudimentary online tools were all about swapping information. Wikibooks, which has been evolving steadily since 2003, offers a cookbook that is nothing quite like what you'll find in the bookstore, mostly because it's changing all the time. You'll find, yes, recipes, but also tipsheets on techniques and informative pieces on the very ingredients that make their way to the dinner table.

Irish settlement in Newfoundland
How Irish is Newfoundland? Well, a lot. This article is one of the newer pieces posted to the always-appreciated Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage site, and chronicles the peopling of places like Placentia and St. John's (in the latter, the Irish population jumped 700 per cent in the four decades before 1836).

Chat Noir
A quick game involving a mouse and a cat. The mouse is what you'll click, and the cat is an animated puss that hopes from one disc to another as you try to outsmart its path. The idea is to keep the black cat from escaping; it'll take about 10 seconds to figure out how it works, and a bit longer to win. A good game for a coffee break or even while you're on hold.

Ctrl-Z
Last year, a short film called Ctrl-Z came out. It's cute. It features Tony Hale, who played the rotten youngest sibling on Arrested Development, as an office dweeb suffering away in the hell of his desk. Until he discovers his keyboard has magical properties. NBC is turning the short into a web-based series, which ought to be worth watching, if that is any indication.

John Gushue is currently on leave as a writer and editor with CBCNews.ca in St. John's. John is on Facebook right here. John is on Twitter right here.

When silvern voices tune thy riffs: the metal version of the Ode to Newfoundland

2009-07-11T11:44:58-02:30

This video is causing a bit of a buzz online: Chris Feener plays the familiar notes of the Ode to Newfoundland (familiar, that is, to those who live here), but with a metal arrangement. Stick around for a medley that also includes Saltwater Joys and the Mummer's Song, as neither Buddy Wasisname and the Other Fellers nor Simani have played them. (And then, like a tonic at the end, Chris plays the Ode on an acoustic guitar.)

So, I made this life-changing decision ...

2009-07-11T07:54:00-02:30

Well, not necessarily life-changing, but pretty major. I decided to step off the treadmill that is my job at cbc.ca/nl, where I edit the news from CBC in Newfoundland and Labrador. I asked for, and got, an unpaid leave of absence; my last day was July 3, and I'm scheduled to report back early next March. As I've told people, it's a great job; it's just that there's too much job. I'm very grateful I've been given the opportunity to take a break to develop some new skills.

What plans do I have? Well, I'm not yet sure. Still figuring that out, although I have some ideas of what I want to try. I want to stretch my creative legs and try some things I haven't done before, as well as master some new skills and return to some types of writing I've enjoyed in the past. Among other things, I'm working for my wife, who runs a successful company from our home. I'm really looking forward to working from home again: I've been self-employed twice during my career, and I have to say they were pretty satisfying periods.

Week 1 is drawing to an end, and it was not nearly as productive as I might have hoped. I spent most of it coming down with and then getting over a sinus infection. Nothing like a little kick to the immune system to take the wind out of your sails!

I will be keeping Dot Dot Dot running, and indeed will actually have a little more time for it.

Anyway, on with the rest of the adventure for the next eight months!

A thought on a lighter calling

2009-07-11T07:06:00-02:30

"I'd rather be entertaining than poignant. People have enough drama in their lives already."
- Samuel L. Jackson

Peggy Noonan and Maureen Dowd have Sarah Palin for lunch

2009-07-10T12:31:45-02:30

I read two fiercely written, and very different, critiques of Sarah Palin just now, particularly about the Alaska governor's decision to quit her term early.

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times wrote a column this week in the voice of Palin, jotting some diary entries, and pretty much nails Palin's peculiar sense of syntax:

It’s the same old double standard. I am not one of those who would whine and cuss. It’s just not how I’m wired!!! But the minute I start to whine and cuss, the mainstream media totally misunderstands my verbiage and the combination of things that brought me to this place of knowing. And I know that I know that I know those crappy bloggers will put out more confliction stories.

I keep explaining what impacted me, but everyone seems more confused and ironic than ever. What is it about average, hard-working Americans like me that Americans can’t understand?

In today's Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan urges fellow Republicans to let go of what she calls a Palin myth. She doesn't mince words, either:

In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.

In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying.

Click on the links above for the full texts.

A thought on the demands of stress

2009-07-10T07:55:00-02:30

"Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency."
- Natalie Goldberg

Voting underway for Verge Music Awards

2009-07-10T07:40:00-02:30

To be honest, I hadn't even heard of the Verge Music Awards, sponsored by XM. You may want to check out the online vote, which features a host of Canadian indie bands and performers, including Hey Rosetta! of St. John's (a prior winner for album of the year). Check it out here.

88 Lines about 44 Women

2009-07-10T07:04:00-02:30

The Nails, and a tune that was a staple of my university years. Released in 82, and re-released in 84. In lieu of a video, a fan collected some photos to match, as it were. Still a lot of fun to listen to.

For variety's sake, here's the same idea ... but with stills from the kids TV series Kim Possible.

A trouser press: The world's first historical thesaurus

2009-07-09T14:53:00-02:30

I want a copy of this: The Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, which has been in the works for, believe it or not, about 45 years at Oxford University Press. The work tracks synonyms, from the earliest references to the most recent. This BBC Magazine piece highlights a lengthy list of words for trousers, from breeks to rammies.

Why marketing types care about what social networks you use

2009-07-09T07:20:00-02:30

According to new Anderson Analytics data, what social networks you belong to (and don't) can indicate something about you. All this talk about finding tribes online? It applies to companies trying to figure out where consumers are headed. Interesting piece in Advertising Age.

A thought on doing something spontaneous

2009-07-09T07:18:00-02:30

"All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience."
-Henry Miller

Motion-synched movie seats

2009-07-09T06:47:00-02:30

My colleague Peter Nowak, who is on leave from CBCNews.ca to write a book titled Bombs, Boobs and Burgers (coming in 2010, and bound to do well in the results for various Google searches), has a post on the Canadian-developed D-Box, which matches a moviegoer's seat with what's happening on the screen. A Toronto theatre will have just a few seats this weekend for the new Harry Potter movie; I'd be really curious to see what the Quidditch match feels like.

Peter says:

It's great to see a Canadian tech company starting to make it - I'm betting D-Box's seats are going to spread like wildfire, especially considering that theaters are looking for ways to lure people away from pirated downloads. The technology will be really amazing when it's combined with 3D, and yes, D-Box CEO Claude Mc Master says that's coming.

Filthy rich? OK in Spain, except for filthy part

2009-07-08T18:08:54-02:30

If you're rich and headed to Spain, intent on sharing your wealth, do take time to spruce yourself up first, lest you run afoul of the tramp-loathing authorities.

Thriller in St. John's (now on YouTube)

2009-07-08T07:30:20-02:30

In June, I posted a link to the video that Philip David Hogan shot last Halloween with friends, as a shot-for-shot remake of Michael Jackson's Thriller. Hogan had posted the video to Facebook. Since then, the video has been the buzz of the town, even earning some media attention.

The video is now posted to YouTube, albeit in two parts. (YouTube has length restrictions for uploaders.)

Here's the intro; I love the substitution of "Honeybun" for Michael.

Here's the song part, with the zombies in this case cavorting on the St. John's waterfront.

A thought on family outings

2009-07-08T06:58:00-02:30

"There is no such thing as 'fun for the whole family.' "
-Jerry Seinfeld

Hitler loses it over Michael Jackson's death

2009-07-07T11:52:26-02:30

Yes, this is completely tasteless, but I laughed out loud when I watched this clip this morning: the latest in a long, long line of parodies using Hitler's breakdown scene from the movie Downfall. (More on that here.) The subtitles are not for the easily offended.

Jonathan Richman, My Baby Love Love Loves Me

2009-07-07T07:42:00-02:30

Jonathan Richman still amazes me. I went through a major and extended Jonathan phase in the 1980s, fed by my friends Samantha and Rick, with interstitial bouts of fandom since. (Seeing him live in Ottawa 20-odd years ago was a concert highlight.)

This recent video of a live performance shows that Jonathan still has that stripped-down style, and is still a hoot.

A thought on paranoid people

2009-07-07T07:25:00-02:30

"I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them."
- Susan Sontag

A Texas cover of Prince

2009-07-06T19:37:00-02:30

I picked up the new issue of Spin, which offers a free download of an album of covers of Prince's Purple Rain. Listening to it now - everything from mariachi to old-school soul to an indie-princess version of the title track. You can get it here, but you need to have the magazine to answer the gateway question. (And a valid email addy.) One of the songs not on the album: a cover by Scotland's Texas of Take Me With U, recorded about a decade ago.

And, really, why shouldn't your chicken coop have that Ikea feeling?

2009-07-06T19:34:00-02:30

Just because they're chickens doesn't mean they shouldn't live amid clean Scandinavian lines. From Make:

A thought on knowing what you are

2009-07-06T19:24:00-02:30

"I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb... and I also know that I'm not blonde."
- Dolly Parton

The Idlers, One Future

2009-07-05T08:21:00-02:30

The Idlers are a band that bring a ska/reggae vibe to St. John's music ... and St. John's plays a role in the band's new video, for One Future. A few familiar haunts are featured here. (Follow the Idlers on Twitter right here.)

The tweetness of King George

2009-07-04T18:16:13-02:30

On Historical Tweets for today.