Short Circutz

If you were growing up and watching YTV in the early to mid 90's, you might remember these shorts that were played on YTV instead of commercials at times. The Mind's Eye and Beyond The Mind's Eye were a collection of animated shorts and music files put together. I thank Jax184 on youtube for making me remember something from my childhood that I must have seen a good hundred times but still managed to completely forget about. Enjoy (if you would like to see more, just do a search on youtube for Mind's Eye)

Japanese Power Puff Girls

Hey ever ask yourself, "Hey, the Powerpuff Girls were great and they should bring it back, but what if we made them japanese, wouldn't that be great?" Hell, I didn't but somebody did.... so here's the intro to what they came up with!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fo-8LkzC9U

School Has Finished!

....until summer school on monday! woo. haha. Either way, this calls for a celebration.

A Note of Encouragement

Hey There Blog,

Its been a while. To all my readers I have (my friends and the random person that passes by every now and then hahah) you probably know the reason why I haven’t contributed to my blog in a while. I took too many classes in a semester of school that proved to be particularly challenging. I worked and set up an exhibition at the same time as well; I’m actually at the gallery right now writing this. It has been a hectic 2 months… and I’m amazed I’m not done yet. My school work is going all right, I don’t have a reason to fret per se, except for the lack of time. I handed it, or am going to hand in, quite a few papers late; I promised myself I wouldn’t but under the time constraint I had it’s proven to be impossible. That in turn made studying for tests difficult too. Once again, I’m not sure if I can boast about having a good mark in exams this semester, because I honestly don’t know how accurate my answers really were, and if the teacher will cut me some slack and provide me with partial marks for the answers I knew I couldn’t answer completely (like picture for woman (1969) by Jeff Wall for example and how it relates to ---- by Manet…)

The gallery for me has been a mixed bag of feelings. To be honest I was iffy from the start. I had a negative attitude about the whole affair, and I found many faults and no answers. It’s a big step to go in a gallery; what if no one comes? What if everything blows up in our faces? Ridiculous fears to be sure, but they were there… until we got a grant of course. The fact the university found in us a project worthy enough to warrant a grant, no matter how small, filled us with hope. From that point on it became a question of not if, but when and how often. We worked incredibly hard on it. I found my lack of experience in the gallery world troublesome, and my schoolwork made me stay in the west island, far from the downtown core, so I completed advertising and anything I could do from home to help. Jean Marc and Eunice really showed their colours here, and I learned so much, even from my far away position.

Then during this week we finally opened it up. There were so many people, and everyone had a great time, myself included. It was essentially a celebration to the end of school, before school ended. I felt good mingling with people, thinking to myself all the while ‘We did this! People are here because of us.’ The only real disadvantage came from learning that while many people enjoyed the works on the wall, no one seemed inclined to buy anything. The advertising we made seemed insufficient. At this point we haven’t sold works yet, and this has been a blow. I started thinking about my future again. Apparently art history is a hard field to go into! I started wondering what future I’ll have without a master’ degree… if I’ll be able to get anything in terms of work, and if I’ll have to go back to school to get another degree… it’s a terrible prospect… I feel like I’d have wasted years of my life learning nothing practical.

I did get to talk to Emily though, and as always she made me feel better. It is not the end of the world. This was in the end a wonderful experience, and I have to admit I enjoy coming down to the gallery every morning. It’s a good feeling knowing you own something as amazing as a gallery… this is a dream. Art history as a field is amazing in the sense that the program has such vast possibilities. I can end up in the arts or I could go work for magazines or websites etc. The knowledge I’m gaining is opening my eyes in terms of art… and in the end I chose this program because I truly enjoy it. Emily will be a cook, and chances are she’ll have much stabler employment then I will. That might just be a big advantage for us in the future, and it made me feel better. I just need to stay positive about everything. That’s the bottom line. I’m accomplishing a lot. By getting a degree and getting work and volunteering we all are, and that can’t be a bad thing. I will tell myself that if I believe in myself, others will believe in me, which in turn will make me believe in myself. I can’t feel negative, because that just breeds negativity. The semester is almost done guys, then we can just stay at home in our undies and play video games, watch tv or exercise (hein Eunice and Jean Marc?? Nudge Nudge) I for one plan on playing that complicated world war 2 game several times, with different countries. Be the bad guys and see how fast Germany can conquer the world, and for a challenge, manage to be Japan and hope for the best against the U.S. and play Italy to try and recreate the Roman Empire.

We’ll see guys, this is just a step in our lives. It’s simply the beginning of a new chapter, and at least we know that we have each other to help out and work with. We are a group of incredibly resourceful, varied and smart people. Some have great talent in their work, some are incredibly intelligent and quite frankly you people all are kind hearted. We’ll all go far in life, there is no reason we won’t be. So get this shit done, and let’s enjoy summer! I for one plan to walk up mount royal again through the back way and get mauled by mosquitos! The view was worth it. 

JMEC AD!

Here we go! The final ad is done and ready for printing!

Save the Arts in The Uk

The Campaign to save the arts industry from severe tax hikes of up to 30% has a new video by David Shirgley... Seen from my crafts class, I enjoyed this so much.

So fantastic...

Funny Volkswagen Commercial

Darth Vader was evil... even as a child

Tan or Ayran

Taken from Wikipedia:

Ayran or dhalla is a yoghurt-based, salty drink popular in Albania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, Pakistan, the Republic of Macedonia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. It is made by mixing yoghurt with water and (sometimes) salt. The same drink is known as doogh in Iran; tan in Armenia; laban ayran in Syria and Lebanon; shenina in Iraq and Jordan; laban arbil inIraq; majjiga (Telugu), majjige (Kannada), and moru (Tamil and Malayalam) in South India; lassi in Punjab and all over Pakistan. A similar drink, doogh, is popular in the Middle East between Lebanon, Iran and Afghanistan; it differs from ayran by the addition of herbs, usually mint, and is sometimes carbonated, commonly with carbonated water.


... carbonated. ok there's things even I won't try.

Growing up in Montreal

I've been interested with architecture for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was young I looked at how buildings worked, and I wondered why a McDonalds looked the same, no matter where in the city it was. I lived in a tall building in St. Laurent, and since school was nearby and all the students lived nearby, there was no reason to travel outside the city and explore back then. All I knew was that I lived in a nice big concrete building. It was strong and I felt safe... I remember our balcony and the fact there were openings on both side large enough to dangle my foot out of. It sacred me when i peaked out and looked at the ground from the 11th floor... I liked the height because it amde me feel powerful. It was fun being able to see so far away! I was close to a highway too, and I could look out my window and watch the cars pass by on their daily commute to and from work. There was the footsteps of the people above us. Being in the city made me feel like I was never alone.

As I grew up and the brother came along, we moved to a suburban house, and I stayed there for many years. I'd go downtown very rarely maybe a handful of times during my teenage years. I ws always impressed by the architecture. It looked so old, and I never realized how old it was until I started my life in art history, and I could see in a photograph the montreal that was. I don't think people are as impressed and awe struck as I am when i see a picture from the late 19th century, or the mid 20's for example, and people are walking around in suits and house carriages and such, and the only thing I could recognize, the only thing I could see that would prove to me that the location of this photograph is really in that part of the city was the building in the background. It looks the same today, the road leads up to it, just like it used to! I can even read the painted ad on the wall, which is worn or partially blocked today. I think every time I go downtown (and that's essentially every day, I go to school downtown now) that i had some way to go back to that time, when the photograph was taken. I'd do anything to see the tramways pass, to see the men in their suits and the women in dresses, and to see everything in colour, with my own eyes. I'd love to experience it, instead of just seeing a black and white picture. don't get me wrong, I'm glad it's here, to show me what was... as proof that this time was real. I just feel like it's teasing me... it gives me a taste, but doesn't let me in more then that.

I found this movie on the National Film Board Website titled The Memories of Angels. It's not the first one I've posted focusing on Montreal and this wasn't even what I was originally planning on putting up ( an interview with Jean Drapeau about his plans to build a highway infrastructure way back in '55.) It's a cutup of different scenes, put together by Luc Bourdon, from the many movies the NFB did over the 50's and 60's focusing on Montreal. Apparently I'm not the only one who imagines how the city used to be (or perhaps he's just reliving his childhood?), but seeing montreal moving like that made me happy.

I haven't had the chance to watch the entire thing, I scrolled through certain screens, but the last 15 minutes were saddening to me, especially the part where they tear down buildings. I've always found that each building we tear down today, robs our children of a piece of Montreal's beauty. I might be afraid of change but I don't find Postmodernist architecture all that beautiful on the most part (the Concordia buildings are in fact quite nice; the art history auditorium is actually a really nice place, apart from all the stains on the seats.) Realistically, if we want the city to grow, there's two ways; expand upward, or outward. If we expand outward, we contribute to urban sprawl... it takes us longer to get to work, clogs up our infrastructure and is bad for the environment. If we go upwards, well, we can't save as many buildings as we'd like. The truth is Montreal is kind of a low city, at least towards its center, and we'd have to demolish old buildings to create the high rises we'd need to have to avoid urban sprawl. Either way the answer is not easy, and most likely a combination of both will have to be done. So Enjoy the movie and I guess we'll see where Montreal will be in the future

The Memories of Angels by Luc Bourdon

Laptop Abuse

Everyone who knows me and my laptop think that my relationship with it is hunky dorry right? Well, lately I think the stress of school is getting to me. A some of you may know, I have my laptop tell me the time at every hour. it's a mans voice that goes *it's 6 o'clock* very calmly and it's great when I'm doing work or I'm getting ready to go somewhere. But when I'm procrastinating, it gets scary. it goes a little something like...

- It's 11 o'clock
- NO IT ISN'T! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU DIRTY LIAR! ARRRRGHHHHHH
... and thats usually followed by crying at the fact another day's gone by with nothing to show for it ....

The start of a mental disorder? simply stress... or both.
(that having been said, I'd never take the voice off... and I'm not sure I remember how I turned the feature on in the first place... maybe I enjoy the abuse)

Van Gogh on Webcam

If only they would've saved their recordings...

Kia Commercial Song

Usually when I'm on the computer I have the tv on for the noise. Commercials only interest me when they have something funny going on (like the Old Spice commercial! and not like the yogurt commercials!) Anyway, one that actually stops me everytime is the Kia 2011 sportage commercial, part of their "share the road" campaign. The commercial itself isn't what impressed me.. but it was the song they played. After some searching, I found it! it's called start now by Marco Solo featuring Crow's Nest. It's a lot of fun and the band has a page on facebook. 

I haven't been this excited about a commercial song since Shiny Toy Gun's adaptation of Major Tom for the lincoln commercials

I want a rocket ship.... without ending up like Major Tom

Minecraft Ad

If you can explain to me the link between a game where you mine cubes of different materials... and a rapper getting fucked up by a child... you get a cookie.

by the way...

Emily has a blog! Pretty cute :)

To Be Asim

Steve Page at The Olympia!

Last Wednesday, I went to a concert with a friend to see the GooGoo Dolls. It had been years since I've heard of them, but she was excited to see them, and I thought it would be a great chance to catch up. So I said what the hey and went. Little did I know that the opening act would be the one I would be more excited for!

I have to admit as a sidenote, that the theatre itself was a lot of fun to be in. I just love the old theatres and I think we're lucky to have so many in Montreal that still exist. Although I feel bad that the metropolis gets its ass kicked every time there's a mosh going on during a concert (although I seriously doubt that was the original intent of the builders, it has stood up well..), I do think it's kind of a good fit to have concerts there. I mean, it's either that, a dollar for a movie theatre... or a porno movie theatre. it's.... the best of the three. (also, I need the light fixtures inside the Olympia. they are huge and red and metal.. and they look like they came out of some carnival and they rock :) .... they have 4 and it lights up the whole theatre! really powerful)

Anyway, so I was incredibly surprised to see Steve Page as the opening act. At first I though the barenaked Ladies we're playing but I soon remembered that they had broken up. Nevertheless, he played a lot of their old songs! I was incredibly happy since I grew up with them :) The newer songs were mixed into the performance, and they were pretty good too but not as much as the older ones I found. The GooGoo Dolls were pretty fun too, and my friend enjoyed them a lot, so it helped. It was the first time I haven't been in the mosh in the front, I was sitting down towards the back but honestly, that was fine since there wasn't a lot of moshing going on anyway. Overall it was a fun night!

An incredible amount of things to tell you

So it's been about 2 weeks since my last post. The reason is procrastination mostly, but I also spent the time to hang out with friends and rest, something I don't do often. Since I have so many classes and a constant fear that I SHOULD be doing work, this week has been a great break change, and I spent a lot of time with friends, and a bit of time home alone, enjoying time by myself too. That having been said, I've been thinking of what to write for the blog for a while, and I have quite a bit, so what I'm going to do is divide my post into 3 or 4 separate ones, divided by subject.

Obama Hitting Kid With Snowball! (He probably deserved it)

I found this off a website called Superpoop.com. I think I found a new website to go to for my procrastination needs!

My poor blog...

Allright So i've totally ignored the blog and I'm terribly sorry. I've had a ton of homework and its probably going to be this way until spring break two weeks from now... I know it's not march so its not march break... its not technically spring either... break break?
Anyway, so I should be posting a few things up really soon. For now, I have a few things that I've wanted to post for a while now and haven't had the chance, starting with...

Oiligarchy
This is the kind of game that you can spend a few minutes on and you don't need to wait until you download or install it... it just plays. This one is from website Addicting Games and is about creating your own oil company after ww2. It's great because it makes you think about the role of oil in today's economy, as well as a worst-case scenario of what could happen if we don't change our way. Just a heads up from someone who has spent WAY too much time playing this thing there are in fact multiple endings, gauging from ww3 to the fall of your company... Enjoy!
http://www.addictinggames.com/oiligarchy.html

The Crucial Man: Art Appreciation
Taken from College Humor.com... another website I spend way too much time on... It's an interview by the curator of The New Museum on how an average joe can appreciate art
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1925029

Then and Now in Montreal
When I have a few moments to myself, I like to look up old photogrpahs of the streets of montreal from the Mccord Museum. Thousands of photographs are ready to be searched and with the help of google street view, you can get an idea of how the city looks today. I learned about the archive while creating a project with friends on the Victoria Bridge and I've enjoyed the resource ever since.

As for the images... I really do love this city. I never cease to be amazed at the fact that the same building I pass by everyday is in a photograph of people in horse drawn carriages, tramways and men in top hats! It's the most awe-inspiring thing. You can stand in  the same position as the photographer had when he took the picture over 100 years ago and the building hasen't changed. It's builders died, its tenants changed, and the passer's by too. Even the street and it's surroundings did. That building (or buildings) remained the only constant throughout Montreal's history. So when I don't have the time to post a full blog or when I feel like adding an extra piece here and there, I'll try to find an old historical photograph, and I'll relate it to today... I hope you enjoy! (click on it for a closeup)

Corner St. Catherine and Stanley Streets, looking east, Montreal, QC, 1915

Once you're done enjoying it, and focusing on the details, check out how it looks today!

(note: The image seen here is copyright Mccord Museum)

Eaton's 9th Floor

For those of you that don't know what the 9th floor is, it's an old art deco style restaurant that was built when the Eaton's Center was built in Montreal in the 30's. It's modelled after the restaurant of a cruise ship and was a popular spot for the people who went shopping in the giant mall. Since Eaton's demise, and the take over of the Eaton's Center by Les Ailes de la Mode... (the original Eaton's part of the shopping centre is now Complexe Les ailes, a mall with 60 stores and a ton of offices) The restaurant has been closed off to visitors and a good 6 floors were converted to offices.

The Inside of The Restaurant

Well a few years back, people who have a website up with pictures they took while exploring Montreal's abandoned, unoccupied or ignored buildings and locations tried to gain access to the interior of the restaurant and document it. The group (called Urban Exploration Montreal) failed to gain access inside the place itself, but took some great pictures of it's lobby, surroundings and the converting process from old 'The Bay' style shopping building to boring white offices. To view a small summary of the 9th and 10th floors of the building, as well as the photographs and videos (although they didn't work for me,) check out the link here.

Interested in some of the abandoned buildings in Montreal? Explore UEM's website and also check this one out! Unlike UEM's website which seems to have had it's last update in 2009, Abandoned Montreal seems to still be updating. The comments made about a sign in an old pumping station made me laugh...

Enjoy :)

Stupid Goldeneye...

I've been doing great for the last, like 4 months not getting distracted by video games, but this game is just too addicting! It's the new Goldeneye 007 game on the Wii. On top of finally being a reason why  should turn on the machine, the game is great and challenging, and it looks good too. It's a remake of Goldeneye on the n64... I game I personally loved growing up and has been a very popular game for anyone that enjoys first person shooters! Here are some videos comparing the two.. Can you spot the differences the video game industry has come up with in 14 years? (the original came out in 1997)

This is the video for the new came, which came out in late 2010 (I find it kickass... except the singers yelling at the end of the sequence.. it kinda gets to me)

This is the Intro of the game which came out in 1997

If you've played the game or seen the movie... I want that satellite :) Birthday's in May.. just sayin'

The Lost and Destroyed Art in WW2

Looking back to the class where we looked into the western cannon of art, one painting made me think more then the others. The stonebreakers, a painting by Gustave Courbet, is a painting made during the late 19th century. It depicts a father working as a stone breaker, a gruelling job with little pay and few prospects. The harsh lighting of the painting shows the sun bearing down on him. His son is standing behind him, symbolizing the fact his fathers job will be continued by him; it's a circle of life that will keep him poor. This painting, like many others, was destroyed during the second world war.

The Stone Breakers, Courbet. 1850 Destroyed with 154 other paintings when the truck transporting them to a castle in Konigsberg was bombed by Allied planes.

We know of it because of photographs, but the original was lost long ago. It's saddening to think a painting important enough to be shown to students in an introductory course on art history couldn't be preserved, but then again, the conflict it was lost in was a very destructive and harsh one. Thinking of all the people who lost their lives in the war is a terrible thought. The loss of art however, is just as bad; people come and go, but one of the only ways to piece together our past is through art, architecture and the design of everyday objects (with the other way being historical accounts through old books.) Losing paintings means losing a page of man's past. Thankfully, a lot of the art that has been destroyed in the last 100 years has been documented, and we can still see a glimpse of its stature.

When Germany invaded europe, and took over the majority of it, Hitler created a list of works of art he wanted. He was building a museum, the Fuhrermuseum, and he wanted the best examples of German art  in it. He ordered the looting of museums across France and the low countries. The art pieces that were thought to have value to the Nazi party were sent to several locations, to be catalogued by art historians and sent to Berlin. Those that didn't were sold on the international art market. Those that weren't sold were destroyed in bonfires like the one in the gardens of the galerie national du jeu de Paume in 1942, where several painitings from prominent artists like Picasso, Dali, Ernst, Klee, Leger and Miro were lost.

 As the war turned sour and Fascist Italy fell, the Germans, under the pretext of 'preserving' art, looted the museums of Italy and sent all the art back to the German mainland. A large amount of the art was found in salt mines across Germany... they were just humid enough to preserve the art and would be protected from the bombing.

This famous photograph shows President Eisenhower, Omar Bradley and General Patton looking at art found in the Salt mine in Merkers

How much of the art didn't make it out of the war? It's hard to tell since there are still works of art that are unaccounted for today. They could have been destroyed since the war, or they could be hiding in an unsuspecting persons attic. The Clark Photograph and Clippings Archive has an account on Flickr documenting the art pieces lost or destroyed during World War 2. While most of the works that are still lost are China and everyday objects, there are still paintings too.

You can take a look at the list of art works, their creators, the year of their destruction and how at this link.

While being the largest act of artistic destruction during the 20th century, it wasn't the only one. Since then, art has been destroyed because of fire, accident, or because of terrorist attack (the September 11th attacks destroyed works of Picasso, Lichtenstein and a tapestry from Miro, one of only two he ever made.) There have been a few instances when art has been destroyed simply because people found it 'ugly.' Richard Serra's Tilted Arc was removed from a New York park in 1989 for this reason.

The JMEC Gallery

Hello! So I've been quite busy this week so that would explain the reason why it took me so long to update the blog! Hopefully what I have today will make up for the fact you guys had to wait so much. So it's been a while since I've created anything creative. The last real effort I made is the 60's suburban house we had to design for a class on Frank Lloyd Wright which I might post up here later in the year. Some of you may know that me and my friends (ironically, the same one's I was with when making the Frank Lloyd Wright house) started a company last semester, and are now making concrete steps into making a real business. It's an exciting time and there's a lot of hope. The people I'm working with are incredibly dedicated and have helped me a lot with this and with other things ver the last year, so having them as partners is great. Since I'm the one who can get around Adobe products, it was my job to make the initial ad trying to get students to join. I'm very pressed for time, since I'm working and taking a bunch of classes, so i wanted to make a work that was easy to create and wouldn't look cheap or ridiculous on a board beside the work of bonafied art students...

Originally I was planning on having no image at all, but while I was bringing a friend home from work last week, she explained to me that I need to have a picture to interest people. She knew what the original plan for the ad was and helped me through some of the design elements, like the fact that it should be placed in the form of a Z, since that's how we read a book. The logo shouldn't be dead centre like I planned on making either... it should be on the side. In all, I ended up taking all her comments into consideration, and while she told me to just add a cartooney looking frame with a question mark in the middle backed by an easel, I thought that... realistically I can do better, and if I'm going to have a drawing up there, I want to be proud of it.

In the end I ended up making the ad that same night, and the french version was made a few days later. I spent many hours on the work... but I tried to keep it as simple as possible. I kept the papers I drew on making the piece, I the hopes that someone following in my footsteps can be inspired in some way or get something out of my experience. I'll post some pictures below and the steps I took making it.

The Logo

Some of the different logos I drew up

The first and most obvious thing laking in our company was the logo. The name for the company was thought up about a week before, being a mesh of Jean Marc, Eunice and Chris. It's an elegant solution. The original plan was the draw a rectangle simulating a painting, with the logo written on the bottom right, like an artist's signature. My friend Sarah (the friend I work with) suggested I keep the box open, and not close it, so the logo morphed into this. Before this page was made, I also thought of making the logo in a diamond shaped square too but the L shape worked the best.


















Template

The Ad Template with the original drawing idea

I got the inspiration for my ad from one from a creuset ad I saw on the back of last month's Ricardo Magazine. The drawing is the original idea.. and after looking at the drawing for a little while I decided against it. 

The Living Room

The living room sketch became what  the ad was, I wanted it to have more of a 3d feel then the final product, but with the font I found it looked like an  ad from the 80's, so I was happy. In this drawing, the plan was to make a group of 3 dimensional 'bathroom men'  (that's what I call 'em because I have no idea what the real term is) having a great afternoon surrounded by potential art they bought form us. meh. It also helped me figure out the perspectives. I knew I wanted a 2-point perspective since that becomes more interesting to see and realistic, but it took me like 8 different drawings to get to what I wanted which brings me to...

The Drawing!

Ok so I had 2 points where all the lines went when making the drawing, and everytime I made one thing, I would create a bunch of lines stemming from these points, and converging to make the objects I wanted. It was easy, once I got the perspective right, it just took some time, and it also made my drawing very box like. The only thing that didn't follow the rigid structure was the book on top of the other one in the table... I had to make a whole new perspective for that.. but it makes the whole drawign a bit more realistic. 

The Final Product

The ending was't nearly as ambitious as i would've liked. Since I wanted to create it as quick as possible I couldn't include anything that was rounded or not cube shaped essentially. The advantage is that the end drawing looked simple; it wasn't busy and so it attracts people more. The french version of the ad was a nightmare as far as grammer goes. Thankfully Eunice knows french well and was able to translate everything for me.. but it took me a while to figure out that gallery is with one l in french and means shopping center. You need to indicate art in there or else it makes no sense. :\

... and there you go! So that's it for today's post. My next ad is hopefully going to be a little more ambitious. Maybe an isometric drawing? We'll see. I'm going to the auto show tommorow and it should be a lot of fun! Take care and have a good week.

P.S. I realize the post is screwed up for some reason... I'll fix it at a later time.

Speaking of Star Wars...

...The old man behind the knife counter at work looks like Grand Moff Tarkin... for those of you that don't know Star Wars he's the one who oversaw the construction of the Death Star and ran the first one. Spooky... though I wouldn't be too surprised.

Star Wars PSA

Allright people so I spent the night last night making an ad for the new art dealing company we started. I plan on posting the ad and some of the steps I took in making it up on the blog but there's still a few details that are sketchy so that might have to wait until tomorrow evening. Unfortunately, I was late with this post as well but it'll be the last time for a while! For today, I decided to post something else... Star Wars Public Service Announcements

Star Wars has been an incredible marketing tool and there's been a ton of advertising made over the years with it, but did you know they also had some of the characters make PSA's. I was only able to find a few that were real(most of them are fans making their own adaptations of what Star Wars PSA's would look like) so here they are!

Star Wars Smoking PSA
What Happens when a little droid discovers a cigarette?

You'd think an anti-smoking ad featuring Star Wars characters would feature Darth Vader (I mean it makes more sense then the droids, although I found the ad they made very endearing... especially the end when C3PO adresses the audience)

1979 - STAR WARS Drunk Driving PSA Commercial
None of the main characters are in this one... but the cantina is!

Star Wars 'Childhood Immunization' PSA
Another R2D2-C3PO combo PSA, this one talks about how important it is to have your children immunized. This PSA was released in April 1978.

These ads were all released in the late 70's, a year or 2 after the first movie was made. It gives people today an idea of the immediate impact the movie had on viewers (children and teenagers in articular) and if anything it's a shame that there haven't been any PSA's (that I know of... from an online search at least)  with the Star Wars crew since. There's so much possibility! From the Emperor having a one-on-one chat with the viewer over the excesses of plastic surgery, to Admiral Ackbar smacking drugs off a kids hand while franticly yelling "ITS A TRAP!", to showing a video of Porkins telling kids to eat right and exercise in case an evil empire builds a death star and it ends up being your job to fire a proton missile through a small hole (hard AND kinky) ...

Porkins Video Tribute

So in conclusion, George Lucas, sir, please work with the government and make more PSA's. They rock, years later kids remember them, and your movie spreads some good vibes through the galaxy. It's a win-win-win. win. 

To All the Negative Voices In My Head...

... I'm doing this for myself. I need to prove to myself that I'm able to be someone worthwhile in life. I know I won't regret it when I get it, and I deserve this. So goodnight and good riddence... hopefully for a while.

Happy New Year!

Hey guys! This post came a little late since I've been working non stop for a week and so this was my first chance off, and I've moved my post to today. It's been a crazy week, at work and at home, since we got to finally open our christmas presents (we open ours on new years) and hang out with the family. I haven't seen my grandparents in a while and my grandfather was really excited to see me. They're getting older and that house they live in has been in our family since construction... it's provided us with stability and comfort for so many years, but I see them now and think to myself thank goodness they're moving out of that place. It's too far, too big and cleaning and maintaining it is a daunting task, so I'm glad we sold it and are going to have them move nearby within the year. Since we're getting rid of some of the old stuff in their house, I was given an old Ronson table lighter. Apparently these old lighters precede the modern throw away Bic lighters and were made sturdy and refillable, kind of like a large Zippo lighter. Comparing a Ronson to a Zippo is ironic, since over the course of the 20th century they were rivals, until Ronson essentially lost the race, and now Zippo owns the American rights to Ronson Products.

The one i got has had a hell of a ride. It was incredibly dirty, and jammed... it needs a few new parts, but I cleaned it best I could. It took about 20 cutips and some rubbing alcohol, but the mechanism now looks like the day it was first bought. The body is in terrible shape, it's been banged up so many times that the outer enamelled layer has chipped off in places. I figure I could take it all off and show the inner chrome, but I like it the way it is... shows its history. My grandparents threw parties every week, sometimes several days in a week, and there was always a ton of alcohol and cigarettes. This lighter reminds me of all the fun they must've had, and once it gets to work again It'll be a great trinket too! A fun fact is these lighters are everywhere online (back in the 50's and 60's, they were considered better then Zippo, so there's a ton around) and they're cheap too! If you feel like working on an old piece of technology, and want to impress friends with a fancy lighter, this is definitely something to look for!

(Here's a picture of a beautiful one from the art deco period, taken from CollectorKevin.com)
http://www.collectorkevin.com/Images/Ronson-Ballerina-0.jpg

If you'd rather have a brand new Ronson, with retro styling, you still can. The British factory that was building Ronson lighters survived the fall of it's American owner, and they still make them. You can get information on the different models on their website. http://www.ronson.com/en/index.php ... my favourite lighter is the Veraflame

What my dad got was rather odd. It's a Wahl Hand-E. Not from the Wall-E line of products from the movie of the same name but I vibrating massager. Kind of suggestive, but actually really effective on the back! I was impressed by the thing. Although it's small and turning it on is like turning on a breaker switch, all the attachments are still fine (they're made of rubber but haven't worn out with use) (probably because this thing was never used...) and it looks cute. What made me laugh the most was on the Wahl website. They seem to have a modern version of the Hand-E with almost all of the same attachments! It retails at 40$

The Ronson Lighter I got. Shined the Chrome best I could, but the body will stay that way.

 

So for those starting school today good luck and have fun! I'll be joining you guys tommorow.