beautiful

Ok, I recon this makes quite a few youtube videos I've been posting lately.
But if you haven't heard Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent yet, sit down, turn your speakers up and truly enjoy this diamond in the rough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk

I dream the dream indeed! Inspiring. We should all be as lucky as her to find our inner diamond, and have our biggest critics raise their eyebrows in astonishment as the infamous Simon Cowell.

Kudos to the producers, editors, camera and sound crews too, who did a great job reinforcing the emotional effect.
------------
UPDATE: apparently I wasn`t the only one inspired by this. Check out: http://mashable.com/2009/04/18/susan-boyle-video-jimmy-fallon/

problematic plastic and inspir-action

Excellent documentary I watched on plastic last Monday night:
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/passionateeyemonday/2009/addictedtoplastic/
If you get a chance, watch it, it's really good!

Here's an informative review:
http://www.nationalpost.com/life/footprint/story.html?id=901421

"[…] I knew it would resonate with people because plastic is something we touch every day without even thinking about it." Indeed, from alarm clocks and toothbrushes to shampoo bottles and razors, most of the developed world relies on this material just to get out of bed and showered in the morning. The problem, explains Connacher, is that nobody stops to wonder where all this plastic came from and what happens when we throw it out.

Life's for Sharing

Watch this first:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3d3KigPQM

Then watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVFNM8f9WnI

there is something prehistorically attractive about so many people doing the same thing at the same time - so many bodies orchestrated and synchronized - almost like precision drill, but so much easier for ordinary people to relate to and enjoy!

Stonehenge mystery solved?

gotta wonder if Stonehenge wasn't just another case of a clever druid guy showing off or a frustrated druid wanna-be trying to prove something!

For hundreds, maybe thousands of years, people have been trying to
figure out how primitive people could build huge structures such as
Stonehenge and the pyramids out of stone blocks weighing thousands
of pounds. Scientists have been stumped.

Then along comes a normal guy - a retired construction worker - and
he says well, I would do it like this. And he does. This guy uses
the simplest tools known to man and shows how simple and easy it
would have been to create Stonehenge .

This is a really great video clip. Amazing how this guy could figure
out something that has confounded scholars for centuries. And not
only figures it out, but demonstrates it!

This guy could build a replica of Stonehenge single-handedly, while
a committee of 20 or 30 Civil Engineering professors from leading
universities would be debating how it might be done.

http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/posts/moving_big_rocks

World's Most Bizarre Statues

http://www.oddee.com/item_89236.aspx
There's a fine line between being imaginative/spurring public creativity, and insolent/generating public distrust and resentment.
This is probably why public art is too often perceived as unjustifiable in Canada, but there are some organizations trying to change that. One particularly impressive example is Maman, the giant spider with marble eggs. I'd like to commend the National Gallery of Canada for their acquisition and choice of location.

Louise Bourgeois's sculpture Maman (1999, cast 2003 © Louise Bourgeois), in front of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Photo from National Gallery of Canada.

Drop the penny, support Bill C-531

Sent this to my MP, the Honourable Gordon O'Connor:

Sir,
I fully support the withdrawal of the one cent coin ("penny") from circulation. The good people in your department could calculate the exact numbers for you, but purchasing power of the dollar today is less than one-twentyfifth over the past 130 years or so; it therefore doesn't make any sense to continue squandering financial and environmental resources to support its production and distribution. No sense throwing good money after bad, so to speak.
The rounding method proposed for section 8 subsection 2 is reasonable. The resistance from the Royal Canadian Mint (and their spin doctors' attempts to control the damage the results of their November study inflicted upon them) is understandable, and the nostalgic value of the penny should be acknowledged, but as will all things, there comes a time when we must let go. The time has come to recognize that the penny has become obsolete, merely a heavy, expensive reminder of days gone by when you could actually buy something with it.
The only logical alternative would be to enact a "new canadian dollar" worth ten of today's dollars. Then the penny would be worth a dime, and worth fighting for.

Sincerely,

bubbles speak

How to stir things up a bit - reclaim the corporate advertising space for our own collective benefit!
(disclaimer: i do not endorse vandalism, so don't do it. but if you already see an ad desecrated with a blank bubble, the ice has obviously been broken already so no foul if you add to it!)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
There was a Canadian documentary about this on TV a long time ago, but recently I read that a guy in NYC is also doing it. He just puts blank stickers on advertisements and lets people write in their own comments. I like the "street bubbles" ones in the politics & social commentary.
http://www.thebubbleproject.com/01.Bubbles/BubblesFrameset.htm

parking like an a-hole

print and pack your own parking notices:
http://youparklikeanasshole.com

in case you see others like these:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/93742085@N00/pool/

(edited to add hyperlinks to please some people)

city never sleeps, but time does stop in New York

I love it - wish I had the time (and genius) to do that kind of stunt here too.

What greater gift can we offer, but to break people's routines and make them wonder?

> http://current.com/items/88830919_time_stops_at_grand_central