you’ll have to imagine the accompanying hand gestures.

The Legend of Drunken Master Go see The Legend of Drunken Master starring Jackie Chan. In this re-release of the ’94 Drunken Master, Jackie Chan plays a master of the Drunken Boxing style of combat who needs to actually be drunk to reach the peak of his abilities.

There’s this one scene where a dude with an axe comes at Jackie, and then Jackie’s like: “pow, pow, whap-pow, kapow, smack-wap”, and axe-guy is like “oof,” and then Jackie does this flip-somersault thing and then: “whap, whap, whap, YIIAHH! wap-wap-WHAP,” and the axe guy falls off the roof.

Probably the best Jackie Chan movie I have ever seen. I don’t think he’s human.

 

Adbusters Jan|Feb 2001 Issue #33

The latest issue of Adbusters magazine is, I think, the best they’ve published to date.

If you have a copy, I recommend spending some time reading Kono Matsu’s scrapbook of the EarthWorks media campaign (Kono is the creative director or Powershift, the marketing wing of adbuster’s parent organization, The Media Foundation). It is a facsinating window into the workings of activism and advertising.

Well done, adbusters.

 

“Hey, I’m quite talented, why not do something legal with MP3″*

While perusing an extensive list of MP3s I stumbled across an album that I recorded with my old band Horton’s Choice. We wasted all of our attention spans and money recording the CD and didn’t have anything left over to actually duplicate any.

Bottom line is, there are about seven copies of this CD in the world. Having spent a lot of time and money recording it (don’t get me wrong, it was an incredibly low budget and only took a week, but everything is relative, right?), I offer it to you.

You can download the whole album, tentatively un-titled The Borden-Carleton Sessions, at MP3.com except for one track which can’t be posted on MP3.com for legal reasons (email me if you have high-speed internet and curiosity).


* The title of this post is an except from my inner dialogue. I love footnotes.
 

I need these forearms!

Oh, dear. What does Carpal Tunnel Syndrome feel like?

[UPDATE – added 25 minutes later]
It turns out I only ache when I’m doing boring or unpleasant work.

 

music that is good

In addition to having some fine websites, I have recently discovered that Prince Edward Island is also home to some fine tunes courtesy of windom earle.

On an unrelated note, I have stumbled across a full length, high quality streaming Catherine Wheel concert.

 

what a government website should be*

Imagine a website where you could:

www.gov.pe.ca

Then imagine that it’s all easy to find and navigate, quick to load, and resists the temptation of self-indulgent multimedia.

If you are lucky enough to live on Prince Edward Island then you already have a website like this: www.gov.pe.ca. “Website architecture and construction by Reinvented Inc. for the Government of Prince Edward Island, Canada”. I build websites and I fancy myself a fine critic of effective sites. This one is insanely great.

 

three counts of sleep deprived driving

Thanks to some pervasive media campaigns (most significantly that of Mothers Against Drunk Driving) our generation has done a pretty good job of stigmatizing drunk driving. You’ll still encounter a few nuts and jackasses that insist they’re “<drunkspeak>ok to drive</drunkspeak>” but in general it’s understood that driving drunk is really stupid.

Having grown up with tag-lines like ‘Friends don’t let friends drink and drive’ burned into my subconscious I find it very odd to hear an oldie-olson1 talk about how drunk driving was common when they were growing up. This is the same generation that claims they didn’t know smoking was bad for you2.

This got me thinking: Old people are stupid and I am smart.

Upon further thinking, this premise seemed somewhat unlikely. Then it dawned on me: What do I do that that is so stupid it will make my kids wonder how we even managed to reproduce? The answer: Sleep deprived driving.

Having just gotten back from an all night drive to Halifax and back to deliver a “friend a co-worker” to the airport on his trip to New Zealand (the bastard), I can attest to the stupidity of driving while over-tired. Fortunately I had a fellow aov author to share the driving duties.

Bottom line is, driving while over tired is really stupid3.


  1. an individual over the age of 40
  2. this is stupid
  3. footnotes rule!
 

more top level domain nonsense.

Taglines from what is possibly one of the worst marketing campaings I have ever witnessed:

Because .com is for old people.
The global MUsic Domain has launched! Declare your independence now!
The screamin’ streamin’ Domain for people who love music, movies, hot cars, sports and lots of partyin!

It goes on, but I’ll spare you the rest. If you haven’t guessed already (and why would you?) the above cheese is in support of the new .mu domain. Go here to get the full experience complete with guitars, cars and cleavage. I don’t have adequate words or bile to describe how unbelieable god-awful this site and ad campaign are. This guy apparently has two more top level domains appearing soon. Live in fear.

 

How should I know, I just work here.

Amazing! A former writer for Letterman marched into a dot-com company’s offices, claimed a desk and started ‘working’. He was there for three weeks before he got busted. Then he wrote about his stunt for The New Yorker.

That is art. TheStandard.com tells the rest of the story.

 

“Oh, I know, let’s get mugs!”

aov with your coffee in the morningWhat is it about non-profit and bureaucratic organizations that possesses them to get mugs, pens, pads, and t-shirts branded with their logo. Admittedly, I have an inordinately large collection of mugs. In my defense, however, I didn’t pay for any of them. They just appear.

The Four Neighborhoods Community Health Centre is a good example of a typical mug producing organization. They are an organization that provides supplemental health care to the local residents to take the strain off the hospital (at least that’s what I think they do, don’t take my word for it). This sounds good enough to me. My question: Where the hell do mugs come in to the picture?

The best I can figure is that when people are put on committees and don’t know what to do, this is when it happens: “Oh, I know, let’s get mugs!”. The world continues to mystify me.