Archive for the 'history' Category

History in Full Colour

Published
by
Ehren
on January 16, 2008
in Aspirations, Mentions, fun, history, photographs, technology and web 2.0
. 0 Comments

Rarely do we have the opportunity to have a glimpse into the past.  One of the eras that I am fascinated by — the Great Depression of the 1930s — is one that continues to peak my interest over and over again ever since I was a high school student.

I ran across the news at TechCrunch today that Flickr was working with the American Library of Congress to share colour photographs taken during that area.  This initiative is through The Commons program.  There are a wide variety of photographs to check out and I highly recommend browsing through all of them.  I’m still going through them right now!

I can’t say that I usually support Flickr but the project that they are working on with the Library of Congress is definitely worthwhile and truly makes history(I’m a history major) that much more accessible to the world.  And it’s not a bad thing to be able to look back at the challenges, failures, and accomplishments of fellow human beings.

Take a look!

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Some Rocky Inspiration

Published
by
Ehren
on September 18, 2007
in Mentions, Ponderings, fun, history, philosophy, travel and video
. 0 Comments

In a good sense that is …

During my recent trip to Pennsylvania, we explored Philadelphia for a couple of days. Philly is quite the city full of political and labour history. Definitely would go back to check out what I didn’t have time for. One thing I did get to do is visit the Museum of Art.

First thing I knew of and noticed was the constant flow of tourists who flocked to the statue of Rocky. Posing with Rocky Balboa was one of the primary attractions but not only did it seem that Rocky inspired people to pose, people ran up the stairs of the Museum of Art reenacting the scene in Rocky, and people would applaud and smile each time a group of people raced up the stairs. Some people were so enthused that they almost fell down the stairs!

Nevertheless, I find it interesting that Rocky inspires so many … for better or for worse … the character appeals to the nature of many Americans as well as those around the world who have watched the movie. I didn’t run up the stairs though … I just walked up and enjoyed the view at the very top of the stairs.

On the topic of inspiration … I’ve somehow found the inspiration to dive into linux and experiment with Ubuntu. I have to say I haven’t tinkered with command lines since DOS on PCs, but I am enjoying the opportunity to play around and explore the Linux environment which I have not yet done before. Hopefully my patience will still remain after a week …!

Now since we’re on the topic of inspiration, a neat little site called Should Do This has come up. Feel free to wander on over and suggest what Ehren should do :)

Here’s to Rocky!

Rocky Statue in Philadelphia

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101 Greatest Simpsons Quotes

Published
by
Ehren
on July 19, 2007
in Mentions, fun and history
. 0 Comments

It’s weird that I take a look back in time and I realize I was in elementary school when the Simpsons first came on television and there are still episodes today that I have yet to see and I think there are still new ones released on occasion. I can’t say that the animated television show really captivated me during my younger years but I did relate more to it as I got older. An animated television show that manages to hold on to such a large audience and help define more than a decades worth of history definitely has some tremendous contributions with regards to memorable quotes.

With thanks to Blogzarro for compiling 101 of them, these are my top 5:

Homer: D’oh. (Ehren’s note: No other quote likely had so much impact across the world)

Chief Wiggum: Can’t you people take the law into your own hands? I mean, we can’t be policing the entire city!

Homer: Books are useless! I only ever read one book, “To Kill A Mockingbird,” and it gave me absolutely no insight on how to kill mockingbirds! Sure it taught me not to judge a man by the color of his skin…but what good does *that* do me?

Troy McClure: Don’t kid yourself, Jimmy. If a cow ever got the chance, he’d eat you and everyone you care about!

Ralph: Me fail English? That’s unpossible.

 Check out all 101 at Blogzarro’s site

 The Simpsons

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Guess who’s back?

Published
by
Ehren
on June 18, 2007
in Mentions, design, fun, history and marketing
. 0 Comments

Fido Dido!

He's back!

He used to be a little two-dimensional but pretty spiffy line-drawn character for Pepsico’s 7-up in the late 1980s. Now he’s returned … in 3D! I was surprised to see him on a billboard this evening as I was walking around with a friend downtown.

Old Fido Dido Fido Dido Billboard

 

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Why do I blog?

Published
by
Ehren
on May 22, 2007
in Aspirations, Mentions, Ponderings, history, marketing, philosophy, politics, technology and web 2.0
. 0 Comments

Ultimately, I don’t expect people to read my blog exclusively but when I run into anything that I feel others should know about I post it as soon as I can. Seth Godin posted an outrageously large list of tips on how to get traffic to your blog.  I can’t say I follow all of those, but then again the purpose of this blog really isn’t to obtain a whole lot of traffic, whereas at work, the purpose of blogging is quite different.  But I am at a point where I wonder why I keep blogging…?

Hidden Driveways

I can’t see it … do you?

Trying to encourage people to blog in the workplace is difficult. People have a lot of work to do, myself included. How did this topic come up? Well, lately I’ve been trying to encourage my fellow co-workers to blog — about anything related to what they do! However I think after blogging on and off late last year and then consistently blogging since January 2007, I can understand the obstacles. What are some of the key stumbling blocks?  Well the questions that I have heard and consistently are the following:

  1. What do I blog about?
  2. What should I say?
  3. How should I say it?
  4. Is what I’m writing OK?
  5. Would anyone even bother reading this?

I began to ask myself why I blog …

I think I blog because I enjoy sharing thoughts and bouncing ideas off of other people. In fact, when I am in need of ideas I tend to walk around the office throwing ideas at people and seeing what they think. Especially as a web worker (aka. web slave) it’s always important to determine what others think.  With a blog however, we are sharing ideas with people we do not really know and are not even aware of — that is until they write a comment.

For me, the Internet had changed how we interact with one another back in 1995 when I first got my dial-up access and discovered the richness that was the World Wide Web and IRC (Internet Relay Chat).  To be able to say hi to someone on the other side of the world and have them respond back in real time blew my mind away, I was hooked.  Fast forward 12 years, post-secondary education complete and working full time … I still look at those first days of the Internet as having one of the biggest impact of my life.  I remember running to my friends at school and telling them about it and having everyone give me odd looks as I explained to them how I had the opportunity to speak to someone on the other side of the world.   What we had then was the freedom and ability to roam from #channel to #channel and meet random people to share common interests, ideas and thoughts.

Web 2.0 is really an extension of this ideal.  We blog, we chat, we share bookmarks, websites, photographs, videos, music and much more over the World Wide Web.  However now that so many people are involved and technology has made it so much easier to become aware of the presence of another person, I can’t help but wonder if it truly brings people from across the world together or if these newer technologies merely encourages us to share amongst friends in real life and family only.

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Midterms, Memories and Nostalgia

Published
by
Ehren
on March 7, 2007
in Aspirations, Interests, Mentions, Movie, Ponderings, Uncategorized, fun, history, photographs and work
. 0 Comments

Sometimes I wonder if heading out of the house 2 hours in advance really does me any good. No matter what I seem to do, the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission for those who don’t know about Toronto) appears to be some sort of great equalizer that somehow eliminates as much time as possible between me getting out of the house up till the point I get out of Union Station. Today I managed to get delayed twice while sleeping on the subway. Normally I don’t notice this since I’m dozing off on the subway but today was different. We had to stop at Davisville because someone had pressed the emergency alarm. Automatically people began to panick as the train was delayed and started flocking out of the train as if the world was about to end. The funny thing is that after about 5 minutes, the subway operator announced our train would be ready to leave as soon as the paramedics took the ill person off the train. Of course people began flocking back into the train only to have the operator announce yet again that we would not be departing until the train behind us went first. This of course, led to people flocking back out like there was no tomorrow. I could not help but smile at the silliness.

This has made me decide to start yet another a new blog about the TTC, the people who ride the TTC and have a few people join me in discussing ideas and whining (some prefer the word critiquing…) about daily life on the TTC. I guess technically Spacing Magazine does a pretty good job of discussing the TTC, but I don’t read magazines very often (no time) and Spacing Magazine really is much more activist-like than I am, so this blog will just be for the average person. So … let me know if you’d like to join in on the ruckus.

So aside from my rather silly TTC story, I was studying for my midterm today and I happened across of old goggles. Not just any pair of old goggles, but this pair is classic just because it really illustrates graphic design back in 1995. Not that this relates to graphic design at all, but ask yourself, what were you doing back in 1995? Here’s a shot of it below:

Googles, oops I meant Goggles

I can’t remember if this was for Chemistry or Industrial Arts…

So you’re probably wondering why I have a pair of these goggles? Actually I don’t, I was looking for Goggles for a photo shoot that I will probably work on tomorrow at Dundurn and I figured it’d make a good prop? Maybe I’ll post them later.

And while I was pondering about life back in 1995 … I recalled a discussion over the weekend about The Littlest Hobo and I figured what better way to honour the past with the intro to one of the best tv shows ever to come out of the Golden Age of Canadian television … well almost. I have a couple of episodes still on VHS although the quality is dying, sadly enough and I have photograph of London. In case you didn’t know, London was the name of the dog in the show. It’s amazing how many people on YouTube still fondly remember the show so well.

 

 

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