Stress Relief

It's Friday!!!! So I'd hope your stress level is coming in for a landing. But just in case you're having a rough day, here is a stress management technique recommended in all the latest psychological tests.

The funny thing is that it works.

1. Picture yourself near a stream in the mountains.
2. Birds are softly chirping in the cool mountain air.
3. No one knows your secret place.
4. You are in total seclusion from the hectic place called the world.
5. The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.
6. The water is crystal clear.
7. You can easily make out the face of the person you are holding under the water.

See. You're smiling already.

Via Have Fun With English

We Laugh. You Laugh Too:

This is the new ad for Monster.com
Daniel Kleinman strikes gold yet once again!
Agency: BBDO, New York
For all the credit info, click here.

Please don't Kiss Me in 3D!

So I know it seems like I only write about saucy avatars who can live on your desk top, but we are just 9 days away from Valentine's Day, and Crest has decided to give us Fernando so that we all learn the value of whiter teeth. Oh, and 3-D glasses.
Huh?

Digitas along with production co Luxurious Animals have designed two online avatars for Crest who will kiss you in three dimensional form. Pick from either Olivia or Fernando, slip on your 3-D glasses [that you have to buy yourself!] and get ready to be smooched over the computer screen. After kissing you in a variety of steamy ways, Olivia and/or Fernando then stop the virtual make out session to [surprise!] remove Crest whitestrips from their teeth. The moral of the story then kids, is that you can do just about anything when wearing Crest whitestrips. It's just like a tampon commercial, but for your teeth!

Um, so... I'm trying to figure out how buying 3-D glasses and kissing an on screen Spanish avatar is going to make me want whiter teeth. I guess Fernando's Spanish accent is meant to make us blog girls get a little flustered and never want to spend time with our real boyfriends but I sort of feel like if I did actually make out with a boy in the real world who proceeded to remove a set of whitestrips from his teeth post tonsil hockey, Spanish or not, I may end up barfing in my own mouth a little bit. Would Crest be happy if the barf was white? Let's wait until next Valentine's Day to find out.

Poor show, avatar. What is the point of you?

Alas, for the curious I must leave a link. To be kissed in 3-D, click here.

inkSPIRATION: Talk to the hand

via Barack Khazad

Get In My House

The Interior Design Show starts tomorrow at Exhibition Place. STUDIO JOB will be there on February 6th at 3 PM as guest speakers. The pair are most famous for their Alice-In-Wonderland-esque oversized "Silverware" pieces. Their designs are so good that their website doesn't even contain any of their work. Oh snap! Visit it here.



Other top pics are Canadian duo Castor, made up of Brian Richer and Kei Ng. They'll be taking place in 5X5: 5 DESIGNERS, 5 INSPIRED SPACES with 4 other firms designing living spaces within the exhibition. Joining them are 64th and Queen, Dee Dee Taylor Hannah, Tomas Pearce Interior Design Consulting, Inc. and Earth, Inc.

And just an aesthetic tease - check out what's in Studio North:

Chroma Lab

Ani Lumigrane

Manor 12

Soon Cho

Happy Eyes I have, Grasshopper.
More on the Interior Design Show here.

Advertising: Sony Vaio

Through the next couple weeks in New York City you'll have a chance to catch a street campaign that Sony has launched. Live mannequins will be appearing in several spots around midtown and lower Manhattan holding Sony's Vaio notebook. The models are appropriately clothed with eye-catching threads designed by six designers and are choreographed to move like mannequins. Creepy Chic!!

Here's a video of what went down in Grand Central Station:



Client: Sony
Agency: 180 Los Angeles
Executive Creative Director: William Gelner
Creative Director: Joel Rodriguez,
John Matejczyk
Art Director: Lindsey Aquino
Copywriter: Graham Douglas

Visit http://sony.com/golightly to view the upcoming videos as the mannequins strike a pose.

inkSPIRATION: Fear and Loathing in Graffiti

Gig Guide/Music: Fan Death

Either you expected it, or you feared it...but DISCO is BACK! If you've been loving the sounds of Chromatics, Hercules & Love Affair or Glass Candy, be sure to check out Fan Death as they take over Sneaky Dees on Febuary 6th. They'll also be joined by Toronto's Parallels, the side project by Cam Findlay, live drummer of Crystal Castles.

Check out their video for Veronica's Veil:

Invention: Midomi

I fell in love with the Shazam iPhone application the moment I downloaded it. So the Midomi website peaked my interest tremendously. Instead of listening to the recorded music, you can hum or sing a song into the microphone, have that analyzed and it will tell you the artist and song. Supposedly!


I decided to put it to the test and belted out a few in the name of science. Unfortunately for my song selection OR my lack of carrying the appropriate tune, it only was correct on 1 out of 4 songs.

Here were the songs that I sang. (Maybe humming would serve me better??)
Apples in Stereo - Glow Worm
TV on the Radio - Dancing Shoes
Lil Mama - Lip Gloss
Britney Spears - I'm not a girl, not yet a woman! (ya, I sang this..WHAT??)

The technology matches songs using recordings submitted by other users. So, in essence more mainstream selections will give you better result. But, give it a try!

Music: Frivolous

Image from frivolouslive.com

I went to a great line up of electronic music happening out of a dance studio on Bloor this weekend, hosted by the great minds at Break and Enter. Frivolous was one of the headliners who really caught my ear. His live performance of Jazz-infused minimal or experimental house was something fresh I hadn't seen in awhile. He's studied classical piano and electronics and brings these two elements together in his one-man live performances. But, really what sold me was him doing the vocals through a telephone receiver. Best thing I've seen in 2009 so far!

www.myspace.com/frivolouslive
frivolouslive.com/

Happy Groundhog Day!

Punxsutawney Phil has spoken. Six more weeks of winter it will be!
To read his full 2009 weather forecast, click here.

Mood Altering?

I came across the Moodstream website that might be useful for the ol' writers block. Let the site know what sort of mood you want to be inspired by and it chooses music and visuals from Getty Images that will help with a bit of inspiration.

Ready? Stream. Create.

Stand in someone else's shoes...

Buck 65 is auctioning off his basketball shoes on eBay for seemingly no rhyme or reason.

Wicked and weird.

The bidding stops tomorrow [January 31st 2009]. Even if you don't bid on the shoes, it's all worth reading the item description. Hilarious stuff.

Bid on Buck's shoes here!

Eat your [jelly] fish

Ooooooooarrrrrrrrrrghhaaaaaaahhhhh!!!

Perhaps the most frightening thing about this image [apart from the fact that it's real and wasn't created by the art department who worked on Alien vs. Predator] is that this jellyfish - known as the Turritopsis Nutricula - is completely and utterly immortal.

Says The Telegraph, "The Turritopsis Nutricula is able to revert back to a juvenile form once it mates after becoming sexually mature."

Oh. And,

According to Dr Maria Miglietta's interview with the Telegraph: "We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion."

Yep.

Couldn't we be taken over by something more cute?


Read The Telegraph article here.

Hilarious: Born Ruffians

Picture this: You're playing the final song of your set to an insanely wild crowd in London, UK. Swarms of sweaty kids surround you on stage. You get ready to sing the last verse as the crowd goes off. BUT WAIT!! Drunk hipster girl #1 would like to take part in the vocals.

MOMENT RUINED!!!!! The look on Luke's face is absolutely priceless.

(skip ahead to 1:25 if you're antsy)

When I look into your eyes I see the future

I present to you the Lemur Input Device by JazzMutant. My knowledge of this equipment is limited. But my iPhone is a touch screen and I still can't wrap my mind around that. Justice and Daft Punk use these customizable multi-touch pads to control their synthesizers. And the minds of youth on the dancefloor.

Music: Evil Nine

Hailing from Brighton, England, this electro duo is bringing back Michael Jackson's Thriller to the new generation. Well, at least the zombies.



They'll be munching on brains at The Social in Toronto this Thursday, Jan 29th. Check them out on myspace: www.myspace.com/evilnine

inkSPIRATION: M::R::I Lightpainting

Here's a bit of light painting to bring you through the weekend. These great photos are created using long exposures on the camera. The same technique used in the video I posted yesterday. Okayyyy, say it with me now...Obsessive!

Check out some more examples at the M::R::I Lightpainting website.

No explanation needed

This is an orgasm for your eyes and ears.
You're welcome. Now go have a smoke.

Golden Dawn by South Central

Directed by: Steve Glashier
Artist: South Central

Eye-Pod

Ever been looking at the lamp in your living room and wishing it could transform into a speaker?
No?
Oh.

Then this blog isn't for you.




Castiglione Morelli Design along with Tommaso Ceschi won an honorable mention in the Sound Innovation Competition for their bulb sound kit. Unscrew the bulb, pick your favorite tunes on your iPod and listen in bliss as they transmit across your living room.

We want.

For more on the bulb sound kit, click here.
For more on the Sound Innovation Competition, click here.

Talent Alert: Talia Shipman

I had the opportunity a couple weeks back to attend the opening of Talia Shipman's latest showing of her work titled "EXODUS: The Ten Plagues". She has taken a dark look at the story of the 10 Plagues from the Old Testament and presented it through a series of photos relating it to OUR disgusting society. With twins as models!

She is now showing at Angell Gallery from January 9th - February 14th. Be sure to check it out before it's too late.

For more on Talia's work check her website. www.taliashipman.com

Good Music: Yeasayer

Yeasayer come from Brooklyn. (I swear there is something in the water!) They picked up a load of new fans when they toured with experimental rockers MGMT and Man Man last year.

I've been listening to the track "2080" on high rotation over the last week. It's just I have a soft spot for harmonies. Then, throw in a kid's choir and I am SOLD. In reality, anything to mask the ridiculous sound of my voice singing along is good in my books. You should hear me on roadtrips!

You can download the single which features "2080" and "Sunrise" from their website

Find more here:
http://www.yeasayer.net/
Yeasayer at MySpace

Fly awayyyyy...

Every year the town of Pingsi (just ouside of Taipei) celebrate the Heavenly Lantern Festival by releasing these paper lanterns into the night sky.

My grade 7 class actually tried to re-create this event. Except we did it in our gymnasium with lanterns made of tissue paper. Let's just say, a lesson was learned.

Muse - Friday, January 16th

TODAY IS FRIDAY, JANUARY 16th 2009.
WELCOME TO SHOWCASE!





Okay, okay, so it's winter and you're cold and Toronto's lights have gone out and this all seems like a evil Narnian Snow Queen joke to publish a water conservation blog in the middle of January, but eco battles seem to be only fought in the summer months where heat and electricity are pretty much deemed unnecessary because, "the sun like, provides it all man."

Here's just a gentle reminder of campaigns who have contributed to reversing the flow. We wish you warmth & inspiration...



Sukle Advertising + Design's campaign for Denver Water in 2006 still has all the blogs buzzin like a crazy foo. With the slogan "Use Only What You Need", the campaign encouraged Denver city folk to re-think the amounts of water they use versus need. Sukle worked on both extremes for the campaign; one by transforming regular mediums of advertising by using as little space and supplies necessary [i.e. the quarter bench, above], and the other by showing just how much we consume through quantity defined installations, like How Much Water Is Wasted By A Running Toilet in 3 Months?
Oh wait, this much:






We have to applaud the City of Toronto for taking on a similar note with their Drowning in Plastic Campaign. These posters were put up at bus and streetcar shelters across the city in late 2008 and still remain. We're still hoping for Sukle to come fill a shelter with bottles, but until then, try and get a hold of Channel 4's Human Footprint. The program originally ran in April 2007 and National Geographic went on to buy the rights for an American version of the same title. Like the Denver Water campaign, the entire program staged installations based on quantity defined statistics of how much we consume across our lifetime. Take a looksy here:



For more on Human Footprint, click here.
Denver Water images from useonlywhatyouneed.org



The WHOPPER Sacrifice Campaign is done and dusted. Facebook first disabled the application, then Burger King killed the entire campaign. :(
This only means two things - no more free burgers and back to having false friends. Hey-o!

Read the campaign's epitaph here.

Have no idea what we're talkin'? Read about the initial WHOPPER Sacrifice campaign here.


HAPPY WEEKENDING TO YOU WITH LOVE FROM TATTOO.

Muse - Wednesday, January 14th

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14th 2009.
WELCOME TO THE NEEDLE!



Land of Talk is at The Horseshoe this Thursday.
For directions to The Horseshoe, click here.
For more on Land of Talk, click here.

Bishop Allen is at El Mocambo on Saturday night! More on the band here.
Directions to El Mocambo here.




Ainslie Henderson has forever been a favorite of mine. The better looking version of Rivers Cuomo, Henderson first jumped into the public sphere with Fame Academy in 2002 [like American Idol, but Brit-ish and they live together! Oh the scandal!]. Skip the Fame Academy stuff and listen to his passionate Ainslie-ness here.

Wanting to transport yourself to Scotland? Watch this:



Image from ainsliemusic.com



Even though it's been about eight months since Lady GaGa released Let's Dance to the North American side of the hemisphere, the femme Radio GaGa has just reached Number One in the UK Charts, a victory that the Brits are saying "came out of nowhere" [just like this quote...]
To celebrate, we give you the overplayed. Go GaGa, go!





HAPPY WEDNESDAYS TO YOU WITH LOVE FROM TATTOO.