Month: July 2011

This “extra scene” from LOST made its debut at Comic-Con in San Diego. For it to make any sense, you’ve got to have at least the first five seasons under your belt.

Creative Commons photo by Kris Krug.

Vancouver’s photog-about-town Kris Krug took this photo of me at South by Southwest Interactive in March. You’ve got to put this big smile into context:

• Only two months before, I was in the ICU with a nearly fatal case of the flu (see the story titled My Hospital Week). I remember sitting on the plane on the way to Austin and just marvelling at how easy it was to breathe. It wasn’t anything special about the pressurized air on the plane; it was just that the memory of that feeling of drowning on dry land was still pretty fresh in my memory. At that point, I was only halfway to the Half-a-Versary of all the big changes in my life.
• Only a month before, it became clear to me that it was time to move on to the next step in my career (see Departure).
• I was in a party town, at its biggest party, two days away from signing a contract with Shopify, which would mean moving to Ottawa for the summer and a lot of travel.

(By the bye, be sure to check out Kris’ site. He does a helluva a lot of interesting things, and I hope to catch up with him when I’m in Vancouver in August.)

It’s another episode of “how did I not know this?” This is a deleted scene from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, in which they explain why the Terminators look like Arnie, as well as the Austrian accent.

It got removed because it doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the movie. I’m inclined to agree with the commenter who said that they should’ve kept this scene and deleted the rest of the movie.

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

Spacing, a magazine/blog/movement started in Toronto and dedicated to all sorts of things about urban life and public space, is in the middle of a cross-Canada Road Show. Matthew Blackett, the publisher and “face” of Spacing, is spending the summer visiting cities across the country and holding events where presenters talk about what it means to be in a city and everyone shares their ideas on how to make them better places to live, work and play.

The Spacing Road Show comes to Alternate Accordion City — a.k.a. Ottawa — tomorrow evening (Tuesday, July 19th) from 7:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.at the National Arts Centre (53 Elgin) and will feature a panel discussion with the following people:

• Matthew Blackett, Spacing publisher, as moderator
• George Dark, partner at Urban Strategies, urban designer and landscape architect
• Allegra Newman, community planning advocate
• Evan Thornton, editor of the Spacing Ottawa blog

I’ll leave it to the event’s Facebook page to explain more:

This event will be held in the 4th Stage part of the NAC. 

In support of Spacing’s first national issue, publisher Matthew Blackett is heading out on a cross-Canada tour to celebrate the launch of the national issue and to lead discussions on urbanism and city design in the nation’s big cities.

The eighth stop on the tour is Ottawa! Come out to our event/party and pick up an issue. From 8-9pm, the Spacing team will be joined by three local panelists to discuss the top 10 public spaces in Ottawa as well as the state of good design on the streets of Ottawa. A more casual party will follow.

COST: $5 (gets you a copy of the new national issue)

I’ll be there, and if anyone want to join me afterwards, I plan on holding court at D’Arcy McGee’s fine drinking establishment across the street afterwards.

The second article in my series on BarCamp New Orleans is up on the Shopify Technology Blog. This one’s topic: The Schedule Grid, the heart of every BarCamp.

After leading a Bastille Day parade with the accordion down the less cheesy parts of the French Quarter’s narrow streets (photos and story later), Edward and I took our new local friends Amanda and Emily out for drinks and then to Cafe du Monde. On the way to the cafe, we passed by Jackson Square and came across this gentleman with a decent-sized telescope offering views of the moon in exchange for donations. We took him up on his offer, and were treated to some spectacular views of the lunar surface.

And then…beignets!

Hey, Hipster Boy! Get off your phone, enjoy the beignets and make some conversation with our gracious hosts!