June 2006
The Mac is not a typewriter
Today someone sent me a layout document with
- Placed graphics for simple tables.
- Placed vector shapes for paragraph rules.
- Manual tabs and spaces to create indented bullet points.
- Hard and soft returns to create spacing between paragraphs.
And whoever made this thing, charged money for it.
It’s one of those Thursdays, folks.
June 29, 2006 in | ✍ 2
Did you see this?
Right at the end of CTV’s broadcast of The Colbert Report, when he was talking about Highlights magazine, the satellite feed jittered for a second and there was a really weird freeze-frame from Colbert’s “The Word” segment — with graphics overlaid, including - i kid you not - strange hypno-rays coming from his eyes, and parts of the broadcast graphics (like the bullet points) circled in red.
What was this? Part of the satellite feed that we’re not supposed to see?
If anyone Tivo-ed it, can you get a frame grab and post it?
Koo Starck w/ Final Flash + Cut Throat Republic to-nite
My ex-band Koo Starck debuts a bunch of new songs and a new guitarist when they headline at the gorgeously renovated Petit Campus tonight along with two other bands - Cut Throat Republic (an actual band-with-instruments featuring well-known Montreal DJs Jordan Dare and Mateo Murphy) and Final Flash.
The action kicks off at 9:30. $10 at the door.
Also, don’t miss DJ Pat Dynamite’s after-party at the relocated Café Chaos, 2031 St-Denis.
The CBS Eye is upon us
Media conglomerate Viacom has a large part of Montreal’s bus-shelter and outdoor advertising market. Walking home today, I noticed that all the little Viacom stickers on the bus shelters had been replaced by the CBS logo. Well, I guess I must have missed the news that the old Viacom media empire was split into two companies at the end of 2005 - CBS Corporation and Viacom Inc.
Stranger things have happened. Heck, during part of the 60s and 70s, CBS used to own Fender Guitars (a period where the quality of said guitars dipped precipitously — I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’).
I know it sounds odd, but it’s sort of disturbing to see this logo all over Montreal. Viacom was just another multinational; its logo tended to blend into the background. CBS is a very specific, very American network with headquarters on 54th Street in New York City.
I feel like somehow, someone has stolen the unicycle that Canadian sovereignty rides on, or something. Does anyone else find it a bit weird?
Best Buy invaded by clones
What happens when a Best Buy gets 50 customers who all “accidentally” show up dressed like Best Buy employees?
Street-theatre improv troupe Improv Everywhere has the answer to that.
I think it’s a brilliant stunt, as it showed just how quickly an organization can be exposed as unimaginative, short-sighted and humourless.
By contrast, a bunch of non-employees showing up at the Apple Store and being helpful to other shoppers is considered normal and welcome.
Continue reading “Best Buy invaded by clones”
June 12, 2006 in Branding | ✍ 1
antispam, volume 2
I’ve turned off commenting on posts older than 30 days, thanks to a flood of comment and trackback spam intended to fool bayesian and other filters. Thanks spammers, you’ve made using the Web that much less fun!
Sentence. Fragments drive. The reader mad.
Reading text composed of sentence fragments is like being in the passenger seat with a start-and-stop driver; they’ll race away from the green light, travel a very short distance, then slam on the brakes, causing grammatical whiplash.
Sentence fragments also make the writer sound as if they’ve been hit with a tranquilizer dart — squeaking out small bursts of lucidity between blackout spells.
Here’s an example of writing from a friend’s blog, transmogrified into sentence fragments, with comma splices for good measure:
Clearly. The cat was suffering. There was nothing we could do. But we couldn’t just leave him there either, we had a little bit of water left. So I cut the bottom out of the bottle to make a small bowl. And we set the water down next to the poor creature.
The cat looked at the water. And then stood up. He gave us a contemptuous look. And walked away. With the swagger, of an old arthritic sailor.
It’s hard to resist the urge to say that out loud in a “caveman” voice, isn’t it? What scares me is that some people write like this (all together now…) all the time!
Continue reading “Sentence. Fragments drive. The reader mad.”
