Go Outside, by Cults from Boing Boing on Vimeo.

I am in awe of the amazing and beautiful music video Cults have made for their song, “Go Outside.”

Director’s Statement

To tell the story of Cults’ hauntingly beautiful track, “Go Outside”, I was inspired to bring the band inside the world of Jim Jones’ famous religious cult, Peoples Temple, and the eventual tragedy in Jonestown. Fortunately, when exploring the feasibility of this video I became acquainted with Fielding M. McGehee III, an expert on Peoples Temple history and the primary researcher for the Jonestown Archive. It is thanks to him and his encouragement that I was able to take on this project and through his support gained access to over two and half hours of home videos showing Peoples Temple in Jonestown. For this music video we didn’t want to put a spin on the footage or the peoples lives—instead we wanted to re-tell and humanize their story. In order to achieve this we used a combination of stock footage, visual effects and other tricks to embed the band into the historical footage. This was achieved through my collaboration with my visual effects supervisor Bill Gillman and my cinematographer Matthew Lloyd. Lastly, I am moved to say when we completed the video we were able to preview it for some of the survivors of the Jonestown Massacre, who expressed their appreciation of our focus on the lives of the People’s Temple members as opposed to exploiting the graphic images of the final tragedy.

In History and Memory,
Isaiah

Honda Indy Toronto 2011!!! Fun fact; this is the first Indy I’ve ever been to, I’m more of a tech guy than a sports guy and have never really found these types of events to be all that exciting. To me, it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, things are however, different if I have money on the outcome, but that doesn’t happen often.

But watching the Indy from the Bud Winner’s Circle is something truly special. Now, I don’t even have to watch the sport. I can just drink beer, play sports (which is fun, watching is not), and hang with hot girls. What is there now to love. oh, and the beer is free. Unfortunately the girls are not.

I’d like to personally thank Michael Nus for bringing me along.

Wanna know what it’s like, check out this video I made;

Picture bomb!

Just hanging with the top 3 Bud Pit Crew girls.

Girls everywhere, these girls greet you when you come in.

These girls played basket ball with us for like and hour.

You can see all my photos in this flickr set, enjoy

All this makes we want to do anything to go to Bud Camp this year!!!!! Bud Camp, Bud Camp! These ladies want me to go.

A week or so ago I get an email asking if I want to come to an exclusive blogger event with not a lot of details, I checked my calendar and had nothing so I said sure. A few days after that I got an email that said it was for the the HP TouchPad and I got excited! I’ve been dying to play with a WebOS tablet for a long time. I was thinking kewl, I get to play with it, see how it feels, and see how WebOS behaves on a much larger screen.

The event was at the always wonderful Marben Restaurant on Wellington in Toronto. I got there and headed downstairs.

Get downstairs and am greeted by the lovely ladies from Hill and Knowlton; Courtney and Rachel. Get my name tag and chat for a bit (cuz they’re wonderful ladies), then head on in.

The food at Marben is just fantastic. These little burger quarters are so unbelievable that I had to ask about them, they’re braised beer ribs wrapped in ground beef. All the food was amazing but these really stood out.

After a grabbed a quick bite and a beer, I found someone showing off the TouchPad, as I really wanted to see it in action pulled him over and finally got some hands on time.

I had to end my demo short as the event was getting started and I needed to take my seat.

Then they dropped the bomb, everyone gets a TouchPad!!! I was seriously shocked and super excited.

I tweeted “#TouchpadTO pulls an Oprah, everyone gets a touchpad!” and my phone blew up with replies. This is a hot commodity in Toronto.

We unboxed them and started booting them up, we were told we needed them setup and activated for some of the events later in the evening. Here’s mine turning on.

Created a WebOS account and it’s setting itself up and rebooting. Time for a few more mini burgers and some beer.

Sorry about this photo Erin, I’ll just assume you were thinking about kissing the TouchPad.

After we all got the TouchPads unboxed setup and running they did a quick demo so we all had an idea on how to use it. Which is good cuz boy did we need it for the next part of the night.

Up came Marty and Kirk from Brass Facts who run a super kewl trivia night at Brass Facts at The Ossington. This was by far the best and most brilliant way to get people to engage with the new device of any event I’ve ever been to. Kirk and Marty had a series of very difficult trivia questions and we had to use the TouchPad to do research to come up with the answer. First prize was a $100 gift certificate to Marben Restaurant. This was so much fun and I used the TouchPad constantly during the entire contest.

One of the awesome things I discovered about the TouchPad during this quiz was it runs flash!! Yes, flash! The questions was “On the website for the company who’s slogan is ‘Impossible Is Nothing’ there is a pop star, name her husband”.

The company was Adidas and of their website is in flash. (So it doesn’t drive you crazy, it’s Katy Perry and the answer is Russell Brand, you’re welcome).

You can see the answer sheets on the table. I came in 3rd, argh so close.

I’d been pawing at it, it’s now all finger printy. You can see my quiz sheet open on the table.

Some rocking top Toronto people, Casie Stewart, Wes Bos (or WebOS ), Raymi the Minx, in the back OakleyInc. I also see a nice Louis bag.

Wow, what an incredible night. Thanks to everyone at HP, Hill and Knowlton and Brass Facts you guys really blew my socks off.

I used the TouchPad for most of the night when I got home and a bunch today. I’ll do another post about the device and my impressions a bit later when I really have it as part of my life. Looking forward to trying the WordPress App!

It seems every time I write a blog post I start it with “It’s been a long time”, well not this time or ever again. (Cuz I just won’t say it).

Last night I had the privilege of attending both the Toshiba Primer party and the YYZ Lifestyle Magazine party. Both were at the Ultra Supper Club on Queen W, one inside and one on the rooftop patio. Both were wonderful and I’m glad I had the opportunity to attend.

This post is going to be very light on pictures as I didn’t bring a good camera and I didn’t take a picture of myself, big fail. There were tons of photogs there BUT as usual, today those photos are nowhere to be found.

As an aside, I’m not a photographer, but wouldn’t it be in their best interests to get those photos posted somewhere online as quickly as possible? It is, but none do, often waiting a full week before publishing anything, at which point it’s totally out of everyone’s mind. Big business fail. There have been times when I’ve brought my point and shoot camera to events, taken a ton of pictures and posted them that night or the next morning. Those photos get hit hundreds of times and get reused in all sorts of blogs posts. So do yourself and business a favour and post the damn pics asap. People will remember you for it and invite you to more things. Timeliness is better then prettiness, people just want to see themselves.

The focus of Toshiba evening was to introduce us to their new glasses-less 3d laptop. It uses the camera on the laptop to track you face and adjust the 3d based on your head position. Playing with it quickly I found it to be fast and pretty impressive. By far the coolest thing is that 1 window can be in 3d and the others in regular 2d. You can see that in the image above, the ocean scene is in 3d and windows and everything else is in 2d. Personally I would never get a laptop with 3d or one that’s this big but the tech is impressive.

Toshiba was also showing off some new Android tablets. I didn’t get the exact specs but from what I hear they were nothing special, prices starting at $419 I wouldn’t expect premium materials or blazing speed. Wouldn’t give up my iPad 2 for it.

From there we left the dark inside and headed to the roof where YYZ LifeStyle was launching the second issue of the their new magazine. The party was great and there were tons of well dress ladies and gentleman.

I had a great time mingling and chatting with people until it started to get crazy busy and you couldn’t move. I grab a copy of the mag and took my leave. I haven’t had a chance yet to read it, but I most certainly will in the next few days.

FYI Ultra Supper Club was serving extremely good hors d’oeuvres at both events. Some of the best I’ve had.

<rant id=”This may be hard to follow as it’s a rant”>

I’ve been a kid of the internet for what is now 16 years. Yes, half of my entire life! Yet, I’ve been fighting a losing battle with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) for most of that time.

This should seem like a simple service, I pay you money for a connection to the internet, you hook is up and leave me alone. If I want that connection to be faster, I pay a little more money, simple.

I think the fundamental question that needs to be answered is; What are they selling? Are they selling speed or are the selling data?
This  concept seems to be changing over the years that I’ve been on the internet.
- On dial-up you’re paying for time connected on a phone line. (Speed was limited by the hardware, up to 56Kbps, and data was limited by time and speed.)
-  Then we had the original pilot cable modem programs, 1Mpbs unlimited.
- It seems the current genius paradigm is to sell access to a certain amount of data.

There are MANY things that enrage me when it comes to the way in which ISPs operate in Canada. I’m going to make a list.

Advertised Speed

- I enter into a contract with an ISP based on a speed metric (7Mbps, 15Mbps, 25Mbps, etc). To me this should be the average download transmission speed I get in a month. But it’s not, it’s the peek speed I might get if the stars align, there is no static or interference on the line, and no one else using it. Even then it will only come close. But be sure it will NEVER exceed that number. Meaning the average will most definitely be substantially lower. I should pay a proportional amount of money back per month if the average is under that number.

Bell, here’s an example of what I will pay you on my next bill;

25Mbps/down – 7Mpbs/up – Cost: $74.90 (with taxes and modem rental)
For simplicity say I average  17Mbps for a month download speed. I’m paying for what I think is 25Mpbs.
Therefore, my bill should be  $50.93. I should only pay for what I get.

I know everyone knows the speed numbers are BS but it shouldn’t be this way. It’s fraudulent advertising*.
* it’s not cuz we add an astrix to all numbers that states;  it’s just something we made up, hehe.

Internet Traffic Throttling

This is something Canadian ISPs LOVE doing. For those of you that don’t know this is were an ISP like Rogers looks at all the data you’re sending to and from the internet and saying, oh we don’t like that, let’s make it really slow. Then we’ll make the things we like, like Rogers Home Phone or some bullshit and make it really fast on the same lines. I don’t understand why the government has such a hard time seeing that this is wrong and anti-competitive. We need net neutrality. Everyone knows this is evil, stop.

Data Caps

This is the new fun way to screw customers. This used to be unlimited at almost all ISPs. We will sell you a 25Mpbs* connection, but you can only use 70GB of bandwidth per month. If you go over, we start charging out the ass. (At Bell $1 per GB up to $60, so double your bill).

For comparison, I use an average of 370GB per month. 300GB over the 70GB cap, costing me $60 additional dollars. I talk to customer service to see if there is anything I can do or plan I can switch to and they simply say. You’re SOL, we have no plans or packages for you.

Perhaps, I’m a power user, but I’ve been on the internet HALF MY LIFE! It’s important to me and I use it. 370GB (upload and download) a month is not a large amount!!!!!

Let’s do some math

I buy a 25Mpbs connection, if I get a full 25Mpbs and download at max speed 24/7 for 31 days it would download 4.78TB/Month. So 4.78TB a month should be my cap.

370GB is a pathetic 7.5%. How is that a power user?
70GB is an even more pathetic 1.4%

Let’s look at it another way;

I have a data cap of 70GB per month. Doing a little math, that’s effectively a download speed 0.2Mbps.

You’re thinking but Chris, you have 25Mpbs. Yes, that’s true, but I am only supposed to download 70GB. If I download 24/7 for 31 days up to 70GB, it’s an effective transfer rate of 0.2Mbps. BLAZING! Only a tad faster than Dial-up (56Kbps = 0.06Mbps).

Let’s look at how we’re getting screwed one last way

This is how the ISPs would like you to use your internet.

25Mpbs with a 70GB cap; go as fast as you want for 6.3hours then go offline for the rest of the month, you’ve used up all your internetz.

These examples are using Bell’s Fibe 25.
Everyone says I should switch to Tek Savvy. Sure, but they max out at 15Mpbs and 1Mpbs up. Useless! The cloud will never, ever, ever, ever work with these restrictions. Sorry everyone. Blame Rogers and Bell but most of all blame the CRTC, they are supposed to watching out the for the consumer.

It’s 2011 Speed and Usage caps should be going up, not getting smaller and slower.

</rant>

I don’t have anything great to post. Was going to write about PodCamp, but it was so long ago now. All I could do is post pictures. PodCamp was awesome BTW.

I leave you with this ridiculousness I saw while driving to work this morning.

WTF? A Pontiac G5 is not “Gods Car”. God needs a car like unicorns need a cars. They don’t, cuz they’re both magical and fictional.

Friday was the Everything to do with Fred show at the Sound Academy, arguably one of the best/worst venues in Toronto. I’ll get into that in a minute. The Fred Show, as I’m going to call it, was a concert series/carnival created and hosted by the 102.1 The Edge DJ Fearless Fred. I’m not sure if it was to celebrate something or just a reason to party but party we did. The first thing I noticed upon arriving after being searched was holy crap, there are a lot of kids here. Like under 19 years old kids. I thought “oh crap this is an all ages event, better go get my wristband”. But no, there were no wrist bands and no separate section for alcohol, I didn’t even get ID’ed, weirdest event I’ve ever been to.

The Sound Academy – They have a great sound system and damn can it get loud. But problem number 1, it’s way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere with no TTC access, too far to walk and a $15 parking lot. So there is no wining if you go. The layout is long narrow, this makes it very difficult to get close to the stage and causes a lot of added pressure when you’re up front. I’ve been to many, many concerts and spent a lot of time in the pits. The ones at Sound Academy are the most dangerous I’ve ever been in. Just way too much squeezing cuz there is no where for the pressure to go. Here’s third party confirmation, trip advisors people saying it’s the “Worst concert venue in Toronto”. I tend to agree.

It was my pleasure to be invited by the always wonderful and foolish Leaf fan Michael Nus. (Google Jacket of Shame and Sean Ward)

Here’s Michael with the leader of the Ska band Prince Perry that performed on stage that night. This was just after their set.

Fearless Fred on stage giving out prizes.

Here’s @rebheartsyou checking out the tat book.

The headliner was Ko. A one hit wonder from days ago. They kinda sucked.

The highlight of the night was Nus and I sparing for sport. No waivers, no helmets.

I’d like to say that I won but I didn’t it was a very close 2-1 for Nus. This is the final blow on round 3. Well played.

This is either the best or craziest f’ing thing I ever seen.

In New Zealand an add agency replaced a plank in public benches so that when people with short short or skirts sat down their ad was impressed on the back of their thighs. Apparently this mark last for up to an hour and promotes whatever was impressed everywhere that person goes.

We put indented plates on bus stop, mall, and park benches, so that when people sat down, the message was imprinted on their thighs. This meant that as well as having branded seats, a veritable army of free media was created, with thousands of imprints being created and lasting up to an hour.

Out of the thousands of imprint I don’t any were readable. Is this nuts, creepy, or just dumb. What do you think?

Grimbergen Dubbel is a new beer that Carlsberg is bringing to Canada. It’s currently available in 12 countries and I’m so glad it’s coming here. Most dark beers tend to have a very bitter, almost metallic taste, that takes a few sips to get used to. Not Grimbergen, this medium dark dubbel is sweet and light with flavours of caramel. However great the beer is on it’s own, it has a truly legendary history.

The Grimbergen Abbey was founded in 1128 as a Premonstratensian monastery – a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Norbert.  The abbey was ravaged by fire in 1142; in 1566 it was destroyed during the Religious wars; and in 1798 it was demolished yet again.  The abbey was miraculously rebuilt after each wave of destruction.  Fittingly, the Fathers of Grimbergen adopted the phoenix as their emblem, symbolizing the perpetual rebirth of their abbey.  Their motto is, “Burned but never destroyed.”

Grimbergen beer was first brewed at the Abbey in 1128, and despite a tumultuous history, the Fathers have protected their recipes throughout the centuries.  Today, Grimbergen Dubbel is a lively and inimitable brew that honours its phoenix symbol through a wealth of flavours born anew with every sip.  Grimbergen Dubbel has a very rich, bittersweet flavour with hints of caramel, thanks to the mixing of several malts and a double fermentation process.  Burgundy in colour, it has an alcohol content of 6.5 percent by volume and is approved by the Union of Belgian Breweries (UBB).  It is certified as an official Belgian abbey beer.

Michael Nus with Fathers Erik de Sutter and Karel Stautemas, who came all the way from Belgium to share their incredible beer.

Nick Relph the Director of Marketing for Carlsberg Canada.

I urge you to try this beer. Yes, because it’s historic, yes, because it’s beer but Yes, becase it really is a great beer. I know I’ll be asking for at fine establishments in March. Also the 6.5% alcohol packs and awesome punch with great flavour.

As  a guy that spend most of my time building web things. Hex code colours are an everyday thing. This amazing web app, that can also be the screen saver on OSX, converts the current time into Hex and display the background as the colour. Which is count through the hours!

http://thecolourclock.co.uk/