A while back anyone using the popular microblogging tool Twitter may have noticed that their contact’s avatars sported some peas. This was in support of the Susan Reynolds and the Frozen Pea Fund, and was actually for a good cause. Now a new trend has surfaced in recent days that has Twitter users pitted against each other in mini gangs, showing their colours.
What exactly is the war over or about? That’s yet to be determined. The very green team seems to be in the lead with a pretty extensive cast list thus far. I was tempted to join them too.. but I figured if we all joined their team, then there really wouldn’t be any competition! [iJustine]
Meanwhile over at Tech Moz, the have a detailed graph showing the support for each colour team to date.
It seems all you need to do to join a team is change your avatar to include your chosen colour in the background or under your image, across the bottom. The sentiment around the web so far seems to be that Tweeps or Twitterers (those on Twitter) have a lot of time on their hands, are bored, and must have nothing better to do. Quick! Time for a Steve Jobs keynote… or another Zuckerberg interview.
I was recently inspired to write another post of this nature based on how I was able to enlighten folks to the fact that there was much more to Joe Fortes than an oyster bar.
Whenever I hear the ad for Cyclone Taylor Sports on morning radio it gets stuck in my head for the better part of the day. Cyclone Taylor’s is one of those local stores that is rooted deep in Vancouver history and has managed to avoid being bought up by the giga-multi-plex sports retail outlets over the years. However, there’s much more to Cyclone Taylor than mouth guards, elbow pads and hockey sticks as Fred “Cyclone” Taylor was on the last Vancouver hockey team that raised the Stanley Cup over their heads.
Fred “Cyclone” Taylor Sr. was one of professional hockey’s first superstars. While Fred was playing for the Ottawa Senators in 1907, Canada’s Governor General was so impressed with his incredible Speed that he coined the name of Cyclone, and it stayed with him the rest of his life. Cyclone Taylor played in 4 Stanley Cup series during his 18 years of professional hockey. He won the cup in 1909 with Ottawa and in 1915 with the Vancouver Millionaires. The other two series Cyclone played in with the Vancouver Millionaires they lost to Toronto in 1918 and to Ottawa in 1921. Cyclone passed away in 1979 at the age of 94. [CycloneTaylor]
Taylor’s speed, skating abilities and scoring skillfulness lead him to 198 goals in 180 games and as noted on the Hockey Legends blog, “After playing eighteen years of hockey Taylor claims he never once got a scar or lost a tooth. The two biggest factors that contributed to that was his skating ability and that he wasn’t a rough or dirty player.”
Not up for writing a post this morning, or yesterday really for that matter, I sat down at our iMac and recorded a quick 17 minute video podcast. Basically I wanted to wrap up the SXSW series, give some shout outs and name drops, and show off a few new tshirts thanks to John Biehler.
I did edit out all my coughing and you can actually see my hair getting dryer as the video goes on but just remember, I’m not a professional, this is just for fun.
Also, I’m having a few issues with Viddler as this video isn’t actually working for me, although it does look like it’s uploaded. Hopefully the good folks over there will be able to figure this out, but in the meantime here it is in lovely flash player form (although now the audio and video are off *sigh*)
Update: It seems as though nothing it working at this point so here’s a photo of the SXSW shirt supplied by John.
Also, here are some links to names of products I mention in the episode:
Our good friend Henry, who spends time all across the world but is still nice enough to send del.icio.us links our way for blogging purposes, sent along a this information.
A new Canadian chamber opera based on the life of the late writer, poet and actress Pauline Johnson will have its world premiere in Vancouver in two years….
…Pauline was written by Margaret Atwood with music composed by Christos Hatzis. It is the first commission ever undertaken by City Opera Vancouver, which announced the project in Vancouver on Tuesday… [CBC]
This sparked my interest not only because it involves one of Canada’s most esteemed novelists and poets (two of them really), but also because I was recently reminded of the work of Pauline Johnson.
Pauline deals with questions of dualism. Pauline Johnson (1861-1913) was a woman ahead of her time, traveling across Canada, the United States and Great Britain giving readings of her own work in an era when such female independence was rare and remarkable. She was the child of a Mohawk chief and a Quaker Englishwoman, always torn by loyalty and ambition. She was a popular stage figure who was in private deeply insecure.[CityOperaVancouver]
Pauline passed away in 1913 after a battle with breast cancer, and her ashes are scattered at Stanley Park. I have yet to check out the monument in her honor, but I have avoided some of the places in the park she spoke of in some spooky legends.
City Opera Vancouver hopes to stage the world premiere in the 100-year-old Pantages Theatre in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside during January or February 2010. Plans are in the works to renovate the now-derelict theatre. [CBC]
Side note about the Pantages Theatre, during its heyday it hosted stars like Charlie Chaplin, Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth. Also, a nephew of the original Mr Pantages, Peter Pantages, took over the theatre in the 1920s and also founded Vancouver’s Polar Bear Club.
I haven’t been to the opera since I saw La Boheme in high school, but I’m definitely interested to see how Pauline’s prose, adapted for music by Margaret Atwood, will play out in one of Vancouver’s more historical venues come 2010.
Once again, SXSW Interactive dropped a huge pile of swag on all attendees.
The first year I attended, I ended up having to get an additional bag for all the goodies on the way home. Where possible, I brought extra swag for coworkers that didn’t make it to the conference and it was much appreciated…even if it ended up as a cubicle feeding frenzy once I dumped it out on my desk.
Last year, I planned ahead and had a lot of extra room in my main bag (I packed lighter for the warm weather) and which was overweight upon checking in at the airport to come home (by 5 pounds) so I simply pulled out some magazines and put them in my carry-on.
This year, I just brought a bigger suitcase and was still 16 pounds over upon leaving. I brought an extra carry-on for all the books and pulled it and the paper goods out….and the check in attendant let me go even though I was still about 4-5 pounds over.
Aside from a pile of free t-shirts from all kinds of places, here’s a few shots of some of the stuff that was picked up on the trade show floor – a few purchased items from the Make store or via donations to Creative Commons (CC/Mozilla Moleskin FTW!) and a few trinkets from my brief stopover at BarCamp Austin:
Here’s a video of me dumping out and going through the swag bag you get as an Interactive attendee. If you attended the Music, Film or had a Gold/Platinum badge, you’d get additional bags for those events too.
I shudder to think how much paper was wasted (and not recycled) from the thousands of bags issued to attendees:
A while back anyone using the popular microblogging tool Twitter may have noticed that their contact’s avatars sported some peas. This was in support of the Susan Reynolds and the Frozen Pea Fund, and was actually for a good cause. Now a new trend has surfaced in recent days that has Twitter users pitted against each other in mini gangs, showing their colours.
