Category: Uncategorized

In case you haven’t yet checked today’s news, Tony Blair has announced that he’ll step down on June 27th. Expect lively chatter from the punditry in 5…4…3…

Here’s some reading to get you started: Mary Ann Sieghart’s article in the Times, I’ll give Blair six and a half out of ten, in which she compares him to late-50s/early-60s British PM Harold Macmillan:

…better than average when the historians come to evaluate him. Worse than Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher, perhaps, but certainly better than Major, Callaghan, Eden, Douglas-Home, Heath and Wilson.

Kevin Bracken from newmindspace — they think of themselves as “interactive public art, creative cultural interventions and urban bliss dissemination”; I just say they help make Accordion City a little more interesting — asked me if I could spread the word about Saturday’s pillow fight. I told him I’d be happy to! Here’s the official blurb:

Feathers fly and teddies soar as you converge for a giant urban pillow

fight! Swing and whack as you evade pillow-wielding assailants. Bring a

soft pillow at 3 PM and wait for the signal. Pillow fight!

Costumes and funky pillows are encouraged. The gathering takes place at 3:00 p.m. this Saturday at Nathan Phillips Square. The event is free and all-ages, and a rain date will be announced.

Some ground rules to make the event enjoyable for all:

• Soft pillows only!
• Swing lightly, many people will be swinging at once.
• Do not swing at people without pillows or with cameras.
• Remove glasses beforehand!
• Wait until the signal to begin.
• Spectators welcome, but consider bringing a pillow

For more info, check out the newmindspace page for the pillow fight or e-mail love (at) newmindspace.com.

All I can say is “Yeah. Right.”:

Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele. Click to see a larger version.

I find the photo below — in which a cute young woman is about to immanentize the eschaton — far more plausible:

This photo originally appeared in this entry.

Mark Harvey dropped me a line asking if I would announce a Flash video game design contest; I told him I’d by happy to oblige. It’s a chance for you to show off your game development chops and win a cool ten grand. Here are the details:

Calling All Video Game Designers –

Win a $10,000 Scholarship to IADT’s Game Design School!

Want to jumpstart your future in game design? The International Academy of Design & Technology (IADT) and Electric Playground are calling on all video game design wannabees to show off their creativity, originality and Flash skills in IADT’s Flash Game Contest.

Beginning May 1st, Canadian residents 17 years of age and older can enter the contest by registering at www.gamedesigncontest.ca. Registrants must submit a fully functioning version of their Flash game by July 2nd. Games will be judged by a panel of experts on their creativity, technical expertise and originality. The Grand Prize winner will be announced later in July and awarded a $10,000 scholarship to IADT’s Game Design School in Toronto.

I knew we should’ve dropped most of the kitchen stuff from the wedding registry and put the Roland Digital Accordion on it instead*! According to this New York Times article, “$200 can equip a basic kitchen that will be adequate for just about any task, and $300 can equip one quite well.”

* Just kidding, sweetie.

Here’s another dirty little blogger secret — we’ve all had moments like this:

Click the comic to see it on its original page at full size.

Also: on the imaginary Billboard charts, I’ve been the number one rock star for the past 39 years, 6 months and 4 days.

In Manila, the city in which I was born, movie poster billboards have tended to be hand-painted affairs, with the renditions of the actor’s faces varying with the artist. While their renditions of faces in Filipino movies are within the ballpark, sometimes the faces they paint for stars of American movies are hilariously unrecognizable (I recall a particularly crappy Macaulay Culkin in a poster for Home Alone 2).

Manila’s not the only city to feature home-grown hand-painted movie posters; consider these gems from Minsk, courtesy of the English Russia site. Click each poster to see a corresponding official version.

Belarusian poster for 50 First Dates. Click the image to see an official poster.

Belarusian poster for Bridget Jones’ Diary. Click the image to see the still frame that inspired it.

Belarusian poster for Scooby-Doo. Click the image to see an official poster.

[Found via Reddit]