Okay if you’re ever in need of some random mixes then check out The Hood Internet. I came across this track – really can’t discern the name of it, but it’s off the hook. It’s just a mashup of The Beastie Boys and Matt&Kim (Who ain’t half bad actually).

So listen to this first:
Good-ol-rump-shaker-Beastie-Boys-vs.-Matt-Kim.mp3 – Good ol’ fashion rump shaker.

Then listen to the original:
03-Good-Ol-Fashion-Nightmare.mp3 – Good ol’ fashion nightmare.

Granted there are a ton of websites out there giving creatives the opportunity to share their inspiration with many, I stumbled over these guys on the weekend and quite enjoyed the random beauty submitted by it’s members.

The site is very easy and simple to use – and they have this neat ability to capture any image you decide to “Love”. All you have to do is add their handy dandy widget to your browser (I use Firefox 3 so I’m not sure if it’s compatible with other browsers). I’m going to try and dig deeper into what they’re using to do this because honestly I think it’s so intuitive that everybody should share in it’s brilliance.

However aside from their cool technology for such a simple site – it’s still fun!

Website: weheartit.com

Stumbling on this little tune, turned what could have been a shitty Monday into a GREAT Monday. Why do I like them? Part of it could be the fact that they’re not trying to sound American, as you can clearly still make out their scottish accent, the other part would be that they actually sound good.

If you’re up to speed – You would have noticed a tune here and there. I will now be sharing my latest fixations – which can be justified, only because my tastes are ecclectic enough to warrant sharing.

Angry Bear by Mellowdrone – rocks!

, originally uploaded by i.Anton.

He hears you.
He sees you.
He sits beside you.
Sometimes her scent brings just enough momentary comfort, that he forgets…
Sometimes it’s enough, that the comfort feels just right.
It’s deserved.
It’s reward.
For…

At times he waits.
At times he lays awake.
He opens his eyes thinking that the moving shadow is her.
His ears receives distant shuffling with such startling fervor that he becomes anxious.
Anxiousness.
It’s welcomed because it makes him feel invincible and alive.
Trepidation.
It’s welcomed only in its undeveloped form.
Undeveloped emotion.
Undeveloped longing.
Undeveloped lust.
Undeveloped reasoning of intimacy and connection.
Intoxication bring out the truth.
It may be momentary but he revels in it.
He bathes in its light – so bright – that he is too stunned to react.
Reaction plays into a dissonant revelation of his own intuition.
His own rationale.
Do he bleed lust into his minds abstinence?

She sleeps.
He waits.
She wakes.
He hold still.

Not to be confused with any offspring of Mr. Roper from Three’s Company, James Roper has some incredible illustration skills.

website: James Roper

Today whilst waiting for a cuppa at my local coffee shop, I stepped aside after giving my order and decided to perch myself against the counter – affording me a birds eye view of most of the store.

Within minutes this gentleman came in to place an order, and even at the risk of giving my sexual nature some latitude, he was handsome. OKAY who the fuck says that these days anyway, but hey he had that scenester 80’s look to him. Long blond hair, deep v-neck t-shirt, tight acid-wash jeans, nice tan…

Now. You might be asking yourself, “Why was he staring at this man? Is Shaun coming out?”. Haha, well to answer that first question I’d have to go back and tell you about a girl around the age of 6 sitting with her family across from me. The second question is a no…

She was very beautiful, very inquisitive, and very interested in said gentleman. I mean VERY interested. Even though she was perched beside her father, even though my natural assumption would preclude her from being at that stage of interest. She was looking at this dude up and down, lips pursed, eye-widened, following him all the way as he exited the coffee shop.

Now why was this so fascinating to me? Probably because, given her age, this was probably the first man she’d ever seen and realized an attraction toward. It was probably something that even she could not explain or understand – but it was there.

That’s what prompted my question.

Do you remember your first crush? That first unknowing feeling of absolute liking for someone you knew. That sensation of being immediately at ease with a complete stranger. Do we ever get to an age when we forget these juicy moments of our lives?

I don’t. I still get them – even though the innocence is lost when we adults tend to follow through sometimes.

I’m just looking for some direction in terms of aesthetic, layout, usability and or course valuable information. I can be the simplest or most richly satisfying site, but it must be geared toward the creatives of the world: Communication design, web design, industrial, architectural, apparel, illustration, motion graphic, photography, even food and the written word.

My favourite is: CPLUV – http://www.cpluv.com/ . It creates a cool community for designers and professional alike to collaborate, communicate and share (can even find work!)

And yours is?

Okay, so granted I have been on a photography kick lately – but you can hardly blame me when all these beautiful photographers are surfacing with some amazing, not to mention, unique portfolios. Isreali born Guy Aroch has an incredible eye, and he has the credentials to back it up. With an impressive resume, he now teaches at the US School of Visual Arts.

Simply natural, originally uploaded by gabor.szantai.

I like beauty. It might seem a simple noun to describe that which evokes a sense of pleasure and delight – but the seeming quality can go deeper. Farther. It can reach into the recess of the most evil and pull from it a sense of empathy, compassion and vulnerability that – even though might last mere seconds – will still prove that beauty is power.

, originally uploaded by i.anton.

The perspective of this photo is beautiful to me. To me it injects fun, carefree, sweet candy, the smell of the ocean and the smell of vanilla sun tan lotion as it catches the wind.

Do yourself a favor; get some Nina Simone (personally I was listening to Feeling Good), and stare at this photo. If you get the chance, then do ME the favor and let me know what exactly came to your mind.

From April 20-30, 2009, the graduates of Langara’s arts programs are displaying their final projects to the public.  This includes students of Display+Design, Film, Photo-Imaging, Fine Arts, Theatre, Art History, Publishing and Journalism 

The events are all free of charge and are located in various venues around Vancouver.

For more information check out the website: artsfest.ca

Originally posted on Fastcompany.com by Norman Birnbach, I thought – after reading the post – that he put together a very useful list of Do’s & Dont’s for the Twitter crazed socialites out there. I had stumbled across some of the sources he’d pulled from – but in my opinion Birnbach’s somewhat “condensed” version is pretty direct and applicable.

Don’t believe me? Read them yourself…

I’ve started compiling some etiquette and best practices for using Twitter, which limits users to 140 characters. Most ideas come from other sources, to which I will give due credit. Most of these tips are most appropriate for people new to Twitter. (Apologies is any or most of the tips seem familiar to people who have used Twitter for a long time (i.e., several months).

1. Remember, Twitter is a conversation.
2. Ask questions; don’t just pontificate.
3. What part of 140 chars do you not understand? (Thanks to jyarmis).
4. Discretion: Some things are better left unsaid. So avoid stream-of-consciousness-blogging via Twitter. Check out this article about what happened when a tweet backfired.
5. Transparency is vital — just as with any other social media.
6. Consider quality vs. quantity. (I am going to look at what makes for a useful tweet in the next few weeks.)
7. Many users provide links to interesting articles, information, etc. Guy Kawasaki does this many times a day.
8. Use proper grammar. Check out Mignon Fogerty, the host of the Grammar Girl blog/podcast who tackles proper grammar usage on the popular micro-blogging site. Her tips are available at”Grammar Girl’s Strunk & Twite: An Unofficial Twitter Style Guide,” and include:
   • “Don’t start posts with ‘I am.’ You’re answering the question, ‘What are you doing?’ It’s OK to answer with fragments in a conversation.”
   • “Use proper capitalization. Typing in lowercase doesn’t save characters; it’s just lazy.” I totally support this tip.
   • “Don’t use abbreviations such as 4U and L8…Shorthand symbols such as >, =, &, and @ are allowed.”
9. For an interesting look at the impact of Twitter, IM , SMS and texting may have on language, check out the Boston Globe’s “Is language dead or evolving? Some see the use of shorthand and abbreviated text as the beginning of the end. But studies say students know the difference between formal writing and instant messaging.”
10. “Use numerals, not words, for all numbers.”
11. “If you can’t say it in 140 characters, reevaluate whether you should be posting it at Twitter.”
12. “Provide links and context whenever possible. Remember that many of your followers can’t see what you are responding to.”
13. If people follow you, it’s polite to “follow” them back. However, because of that, be careful about adding too many people at one time — that’s the Twitter version of spamming. People will think you’re trying to sell/hype something rather than start a conversation.
14. It’s really about conversation. When I tweeted about writing a blog on etiquette, I got a lot of response. But be careful contacting someone you don’t know — like in real life, you could be seen as butting into someone else’s conversation. If they don’t know you, they may not respond. (A better way to initiate a conversation would be to comment on that person’s blog. That assumes, of course, that the person has a blog.)
15. In fact, according to jljohansen in a tweet written after my first draft of this article, he said, “First rule of Twitter is ‘Don’t be creepy’ after that, Right and Wrong are dependent on social contract of your friends/follows.
16. To which Nedra said, “Sadly, the creepy people don’t realize they’re being creepy.”
17. See, how the conversation idea works?

Check out some other articles: Twitter + Etiquette = Twitterquette?, Twitter Fan Wiki, and “The 10 rules of Twitter (and how I break every one)” by Robert Scoble.

Of course, there may be a rule that I’ve just broken, according to a comment on Scoble’s blog, Scobleizer: Don’t blog about how you use Twitter.

So I’ve posted some video’s before of some stop action tilt-shift photography, and I just can’t resist posting this incredible sequence at a Monster Truck Rally. The perspective is so odd it’s like a mix of hot-wheels and a Thomas the Train episode.

This year has been a year of great challenges and great obstacles – all of which have instilled a great sense of purpose, ambition and direction for me. Technology has been cited as the single fastest growing phenomenon in the shortest time span this century (want more incite check out “The Next 5000 days of the WEB“), however even with all these technological advancements the world still managed to fall into another economic dark age.

I could go into a 2008 retrospective but I think there have been more dark moments that shining moments – so all I have to say is this:

WE all have the power and ability to steer our own course in this life. It might be small compared to schematics of the universe. But the beauty of this world is not what we accomplish as individuals but what we’re able to change together. Sounds pretty tacky I know – but take a step back for once and see the world for what it is – just one big bubble. A bubble we’re all inside of, a bubble that is fragile, but also a bubble that is majestic and everlasting, giving us life. A bubble that surely can live without us if it were sentient enough to just wipe us all out tomorrow, but a bubble WE can’t live without.

May 2009 bring you all joy, peace and power. Power to live life. Power to live it well!

Working in technology is competitive – especially in a town where they seem to spring up on every street corner. I’m not sure which are more abundant, Starbucks or interactive companies.

FCV however, has been around since 2005 and in those short 4 years, it has grown at an alarmingly successful rate. I work as Lead Designer for them- and I might be accused of having a slight bias in terms of singing its praises – but if you sum up the talent, drive and passion we all share with technology, couple that with the fact we’re all under the age of 40, I’d say we have enough endurance to outlast even the big guns.

Don’t believe me, then check us out!

I stumbled on a couple of these brilliant and effective postcards and tried to find who’s responsible for creating them. I found more images following the same theme and quite possibly the creator – Wilhelm Staehle. They’re quite cheeky – which I love, so enjoy them.

If you’re really crafty you could always just print one out and use it as a great birthday card. (more…)