The best hot dogs. period.

This is a shameless plug for a hot dog place in hartford by the name of woody's.  It has apparently been on some television show, but more importantly it has earned my endorsement for serving me a dog with both sauerkraut and swiss cheese on it.  Delicious.

I like to call it 'eccentric'

As we were traveling past Gillette castle the other day and decided to stop and take a look.  It's the product of a newly wealthy actor by the name of william who was the first to portray one sherlock holmes on the stage.  That job must have made him insanely wealthy, because the castle he made for himself on the connecticut river was entirely stone on the outside (even the faux banners are stone) and came with it's own scaled-down train service for after dinner trips around a pond.  As horrible taste goes, it's right up there with a rhinestone piano.

the return of the polaroid!

One of the things that made me sad last year (or whenever ) was the closing down of polaroid en masse.  The instant gratification and the feel of having an actual photo in my hot little hands couldn't be beat by any digital facsimile.  Now they're back with a new model and they're reproducing the type 600 film, which is what my old polaroid takes.  Here's to cameras that only produce one copy of those illicit photos!

more jet cranes

(photo by my better half(who is a stickler for credit apparently))

As the whirlwind tour of family, friends and wedding venues continues, it was nice to take a little time out to sample some of the local brews on the way.  Since I was going to be sitting still for a little while anyway, I decided to fold myself another crane or two (i'm now up to a couple dozen or so).  The best part  A great part about visiting the states is the option to buy your beer by the paddle.  This paddle went from a nice white ale all the down to a stout.  It was a spectrum of hops gloriousnicity.

On the subject of Barns...

As we look at wedding venues, I've noticed that we tend to gravitate towards farmy-looking old barns.  They have that hoe-down feel to them which just screams upper crust.  Then there's the opportunity to have wedding photos like this, not to mention the tractor.  We, of course, go nuts for all the exposed beams and joinery; add a wrought-iron chandelier and we're just in heaven.

Great Scott!

Since my subconscious is such a genius, it figured out how to travel through space at speeds faster than light while I was dreaming last night.  I woke up with the crazy-big maths parading through my brain like some crowd of hooligan sports fans.  Not having a pen to hand, I've lost the thread completely.  All I remember is that, due to gravity's warped sense of humor, not only did you travel through space, but also randomly in time.  I think that would be quite confusing, but ultimately fun.  Think of all the people who want to get in line to punch hitler in the face circa '33!

the best ice breaker yet

So my embarrassingly fun parents brought along the best party favor to the rehearsal dinner we all went to for my cousin's wedding.  Since the 'dinner' was more of a cocktail hour that lasted all night with some nibbles past around, they did the smart thing and waited for everyone to get their fill at the open bar.  After the whole room had managed to get sociable, out came a gigantic bag of wax lips for everyone to wear.  The wedding photographers loved them, because they made us all look foolish and those are the pictures that people will remember.  There was enough for us all, from the aged grandmother to the two little kindergartners.  Don't worry, there will be photos!

leaving on a jet crane

What with the volcano (conveniently named kevin for those of us who fail at icelandic pronunciation), who knows when I'll be coming back again.  In order to keep up my weekly art goal, I'll be making paper cranes out of whatever scrap papers come to hand during our whirlwind tour of family and friends back in the states.  It's a great way to keep my fidgety hands occupied during long, and boring, stints of siting upright in the one cubic meter of space that we're allotted as we travel coach in these modern times.  There's a great challenge in trying to make them as small as possible.  My goal is to beat my current tiniest folded paper crane, which is pretty f*%^ing small.  If I can manage that, I'll definitely have won this vacation.  Stay tuned for photos of the cranes I fold in the coming week.

blue is the new green

Happy earth day!  In the spirit of all things tree-hugging, I'm going to spend a few minutes rambling on about a few of the more pop-cultury (I am my own dictionary) moments from my earth day past.  First off, those images of earth from space have been classic ever since the first of them came back in the 40's.  It was the alpha and omega of the p.r. campaign to save the earth.  That was back when all we had to do to save the earth was recycle our newspapers and bottles/cans.  That and stop those evil loggers from destroying the rainforest.  Now, of course, we're just f*<%#d whatever we do.

My earliest earth day commercial was a coca-cola ad naturally.  All the problems in our world could be solved if everyone just got into one big hand-holding circle and sang it out.  That advertisement, coming as it so often did during the tv showing of 'the sound of music', just served to reinforce the point that you should never sing along with the television.  A point my farther made through example.  Typical scene from my childhood living room:

Dad: 'The hills are alive..'

chorus (the rest of the fam): 'no dad! stop it!  arrggghhh my ears are bleeding!'

that last one may have been an exageration.

My other great memory from saving the earth is when somebody got ben & jerry's to sponsor a litter clean-up in a national forest picnic area.  Ice cream and nature are a very good combination.

black books

I've decided that this series will be the next obscure tv series that I sink my teeth into.  I've been a cbc junkie for quite some time (who would ever suspect the canadians of coming up with quality programming?  I was shocked. shocked! well not that shocked) but after they axed the jPod show I kind of lost heart.  It had the dry wit of douglas coupland set free in a world of surreal carnage.  It also had one of the greatest websites to flog it's tie-in merchandising, complete with free online video games and everything.  Sadly it's gone now, or I would totally be linking it right now.  le sigh.
Anyway, I breezed through the dollhouse last fall and haven't had a cult tv series since.  Let me tell you, there is nothing quite as cult as something that joss whedon has been at the helm of.  Now I'm ready to get back on the horse, so to speak.
Who wouldn't go for a show about abusing the people who wander into small bookshops, browse for 20 minutes, and then leave without getting anything?  I look forward to some wit at it's driest.

I just had a dream last night about this website that the better half showed me yesterday.  When I first saw it, I thought that it might be nice to see all the data that a website poll like that could produce.  My subconscious took it one step further, and last night I made a stirring argument about how this must be somebody's sociology dissertation.  I must have tapped the big word part of my brain (the broca obnoxious), because I was using words like 'cogent' as I related it to another experiment going on in my dream.  This experiment was about drawing in some way, and the adult participants were told to use the babies stacked up like cordwood on a nearby pallet.  Surprisingly, nobody thought to complain about the misuse of infants.  I guess as long as they weren't loaded up by men with pitchforks there's no reason to worry.  Last but not least, Ralph from the muppets was living in a recycle bin with a corrugated metal roof out behind some school yard.  He had one slice of wonderbread for his thanksgiving feast.

And that's all the craziness that was inside my head last night.

Hedgehog fundamentalism

There is a quote from some greek that says:
'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing'
This quote is great for philosophers; they've used the quote to talk about everything from the internet to religious fundamentalism.  I think it's great because somebody came up with this photo of hedgehogs in

gas masks. I mean, how cool is that?!  Inspired by this obviously undoctored image, I've decided that someone needs to come out with an animated series about the wars between the hedge and the heath that is destroying the english country side.  As long as it's light on the references to religious extremism, I think it could be great.  Think of it as 'the Secret of Nimh ' meets 'Tankgirl ' in way even small children enjoy.  Special characters would include a hedgehog wearing a TNT vest (we'll call her dyna), and possible some field mice with rapiers; because among my many other foibles is Narnia-fandom (BEFORE those horrible movies).  Maybe even a team of three sword-wielding mice; they could be the three mouseket (sorry).  Anyway, I'll leave you with a quote from this imaginary series:

"the foxes may know many things, but I know how to blow them straight to hell"
                                                            - Dyna the hedgehog

shabby sheik

... or maybe side-of-the-road sheik.  Whatever else it is (be nice) this is also the collage/map of shoreditch I just put together this morning.  It's hanging up in the kitchen as we speak, adding a much needed bit of color.  I'm particularly hoping that the collage will distract the eye from a dead pigeon that's been stuck in some webbing right outside the window next to that wall.  I was going name it 'we are absolute vintage' but my fiance (hereafter referred to as babydoll ... hedgehog ... that girl ...), she suggested 'stuff I found on the street' which I like more than the other title.  The whole collage is made of fliers that I picked up in shoreditch, usually on sunday morning when we went to bricklane for the markets.  It's the perfect time because all of clubs and parties have left their saturday night detritus lying about and the cleaning crews haven't had the chance to sweep up all the art lying on the pavements.

So this is my first try at making one Art each week; we'll just have to see if I can keep it up.

And I've finally thought of a callsign for the fiance:  Goose.
That's right, she is the goose to my maverick.
Thoughts?

back to the drawing board I guess...

Star Wars travel boutique

So this is just one of the retro-style travel posters (by Justin van Genderen) that I came across on my way through a great website called drawn! which I look through from time to time.  I love it because it satisfies two types of dork within me at the same time.  Who doesn't love retro-artistry mixed sci-fi geekdom?  Nobody, that's who.  Now what would be even better is if there were travel posters for other great fictional places.  I'm imagining a series for the places visited in Doctor Who or even the lands travelled by Gulliver.  Come see the country-side of Lilliputia, with its majestic views!

selling out never looked so easy

So I used a link in my last post that sent you to amazon.com, becasue I thought that the cover art of the snorks vhs was just wicked.  While I stand by it, I noticed today when I logged into my blog account that there was a banner ad from amazon telling me that I could earn money by adding more amazon links into my blog. gasp. Now I'm not one to say that free-market capitalism is ruining the internet, or even that it's what I was just offered......well, yeah I think I can safely say that it was (latter) and it is (former) or perhaps that it could.  I remember reading about some sort of system that allowed members to earn points by using ad space as an incentive.  Posting ads would earn you points that you could use to buy, in turn, your own ad space on other sites.  While that seemed like a pyramid scheme just waiting for a sucker to come in and use real money, it seems to work for people.  It also has the benefit of being right out there for everyone to see.  

wow, this has actually run on a fair amount. apologies.

Anyhow, the insidiousness of taking amazon's money in return for linkage makes me want to take a shower.  Let it be known that I will try to avoid linking back to them again, and ebay and other similar sites I suppose.

I leave you with the thought that the internet will soon grow to be a huge pyramid scheme.

a little trip in the way-back machine

So if you're lucky, you remember saturday morning cartoons the way they were supposed to be.  I'm talking about good old fashioned wake-up-before-your-parents fun.  I myself switched between Captain O. G. Readmore (try remembering his name after a few decades when all you remember is a leopard in a funny hat that sang between cartoons.  not easy at all) and the Real Ghostbusters (on ABC) and the Snorks and Gummy Bears (on NBC).  God bless you Hanna-Barbera.  Last, but nowhere near least, was the ultimate in large robots that came together to create an even larger robot... that's right it's Voltron!  It was an action packed morning of animated fun, before being sent outside to play until supper.  Remember when young kids could just roam around unsupervised in public without the massive paranoia?  It's probably because we were just that much tougher than todays model.  And with that, I leave you to roam around in the voltron nostalgia.

What's that you say?  I've left out the Transformers?  Nonsense, I watched that movie so much as a child, it'll get it's own blog entry someday.  As for those communist smurfs, they too deserve a blog all to themselves.  

What's in a name?

It's those five little words that every guy, at some point, says to their drinking buddies:
"we should buy a bar!"
I hope that you're all ready for a whole bunch of himym references. Just sayin'. Since the chances of me ever owning a bar are slim, I thought that I would use my list of kick-ass pub names for this blog. So here, in no particular order, are the top ten:

The Goose & Cloud (from this wicked cool website)
The Wallace & Grommit (with cheese!!!)
The Draughtsman's Pint
The Bricklayer's Arms (which is just a great pub to drink at in shoreditch)
The Long Man (pickup lines much?)
The Pig & Whistle
The Obvious Syrup (A syrup is slang for a wig)
The Fox and the Hedgehog
The Figs & Mice (who's a WOT dork? I'm a WOT dork. I will not apologize)
and finally...
The Blue Bollard (which has a fine tradition)

I think that the blue bollard just sort of rolls off your tongue, although I wonder how easy it would be to say drunk...must research this later. Anyway, we have a name for this blog, so let the games begin. New template and some bollard drawings will soon follow.