The colors worked out pretty nicely in this one I think. I’m not so hot on the “1st” at the top of the piece, but I couldn’t think of much else to do. If you have any opinions or suggestions on this piece, please feel free to let me know.

Other than that, come out an enjoy the races on July 24th, should be a good day!

–T

Five Alarm Funk will be here on July 29th, which should prove to be a great show. Here’s the poster I created for the show:

This poster was fun to make, just got play to around with text and effects, and came out with this funky set. I think it looks pretty good, let me know what you think!

As for the show, it should be a good time. Pick up your tickets at Amigo’s ahead of time, and come out to party on the 29th!

–T

Here’s an example of the most recent project I took on, in it’s original form:

And this is what I was able to do with it, using the beautiful program known to most as “Photoshop”:

Who am I kidding? I call it “Photoshop” too, I’m not that fancy. Anyway, technology is great- embrace it.

–T

The holiday in question was indeed Canada Day, and what better reason to celebrate than the fact that your country is awesome? Sure I’m biased and often other places will say they’re the greatest in the world, but I truly think that I live in the best (certainly top 5 in my opinion*) country in the world. This is obviously strictly opinion, and I’m not going to convince you that my country is better than yours if you’re from somewhere else.

You hear about some crazy stuff happening elsewhere in the world, but you never seem to hear about it here at home. I love my country and my city, and there are very few things I’d trade my living situation for.

In short, celebrate Canada Day everyday- I know I certainly do.

–T

* I say top 5 because I’ve heard some good things about the Netherlands, Switzerland, and some of those other European countries. They seem to be doing it right over there, and since I’ve never been I’ll reserve final judgement. Plus, if you follow the World Cup (I don’t, I found out via Twitter), Brazil who?

How do they do it? Over the past fifteen years, Pixar has given the world eleven movies. Of those eleven, the only one I haven’t seen is ‘Cars’. As far as I’m concerned, these are some of the best movies that have been produced over that time. Don’t take my word for it, take a look at the rankings from Rotten Tomatoes (RT):

- Toy Story (1995): 100%

- A Bug’s Life (1998): 91%

- Toy Story 2 (1999): 100%

- Monsters, Inc. (2001): 95%

- Finding Nemo (2003): 98%

- The Incredibles (2004): 97%

- Cars (2006): 74%

- Ratatouille (2007): 96%

- WALL-E (2008): 96%

- Up (2009): 98%

- Toy Story 3 (2010): 98%

Fifteen years and only one movie (that I haven’t seen so can’t comment on) scored less than 90%. That’s an impressive stat no matter what way you look at it. Now RT may not be the most credible or lucrative reviewing source out there, but I’ll be damned if those stats don’t mean something.

The movies that they continually put out are entertaining to people at so many different levels. Children get a kick out of the bright colors and cute characters, while their parents and any other young adult in the room can enjoy the diverse story and sub-plots that the children likely don’t understand. The humor is complex enough for the older crowd to to get a kick out of it, while at the same time being riddled with comedy for the young ones. The Pixar movies aren’t riddled with fart-humor and poop jokes, but rather a solid attempt is made to reach a broader audience.

As well, the story telling in these movies is second to none. There’s a plot for the children, and there’s a plot for the grown ups. The plot intended for children is light and easy to follow, while the plot for the grown-ups is deep and tugs at your heartstrings. They don’t even need words to do it! The first 15-minutes of WALL-E gets you attached to this lovable little robot who doesn’t talk, yet you just want someone to hold his hand…

I’m going to cut my Pixar-loving-cartoon-huggin’ monologue short, because I keep getting distracted by things going on around me, and it’s starting to bug me that this isn’t posted yet. BEST EXCUSE EVER. Moral of the story, go see Toy Story 3, especially if you grew up with the first two.

-T

After the stressful events that occurred last night as I was about to sleep, to the not-so-hot start to the work day, today turned out to be a pretty good day.

The sales numbers picked up, Taco-Time provided a decent lunch (far from greatness, but it sure beats sub-par cafeteria food), and then the rest of the day flew by at the office.

The evening is what really defined today as a good day. I was able to spend a good four hours at one of my favorite places in the city, a place that goes by Cairns field. For those that don’t know Saskatoon that well- or just aren’t that familiar with the place- Cairns field is the home of the Saskatoon Yellow Jackets (WMBL), but more importantly just the home of baseball for me in Saskatoon. There’s nothing like sitting at the ballpark for hours on end on a nice evening just taking in some baseball. From Midget AAA to the Senior league here, it really didn’t matter who was playing tonight, and seeing as it didn’t start pouring like it was supposed to, I was happy just watching the two teams that were on the field battle it out. That made the rest of the day and last night’s shenanigans just seem like peanuts (pun intended). Coupled with the fact that I had a fresh bag of smokey BBQ Spitz, there really wasn’t much that could upset me at that point.

Pair that with a 2-hour longboard this evening, throughout the north end and up and down Lenore Dr. several times, today ended up being pretty good.

To conclude, here’s an awesome commercial from Nike with Ice Cube’s song in it as well. Watch P-Rod rip it up with a couple guest appearances, overall a pretty sweet spot.

-T

This is a late night post, for the sole purpose of venting the frustration I have over the fact that I just spilled a full glass of milk all over my desk. Seriously, Google image search for “Glass of milk”, and the biggest one you see on that page was probably only half the size of the glass that was spilled.

I used my ShamWoW (and it’s imposter ‘Shammywow’) to clean up the mess, and let’s just say that it didn’t get all the milk out of the carpet like Vince did with Coke in the commercial. That brings the total number of products that I’m dissappointed with tonight to two. Milk and ShamWoW, why hast thou foresaken me?!

I just watched a good episode of Criminal Minds, I went for a nice relaxing cruise on the long board, I had just made some fresh salmon sandwiches (leftover from dinner), and thought:

“Gee, some milk would be awesome with this meal.”

Turns out I was sorely mistaken, and water definitely would have been a better selection, and I was so close to just foregoing the milk- it was like 3 feet away and in the fridge, but I thought I’d go the extra mile tonight and go with the 2% good stuff.

Let that be a lesson to you kids out there: NEVER go the extra mile. All you’ll end up with is a carpet soaked with milk and a bunch of gear that’s possibly ruined.*

I think there’s milk in my bed even…

-T

*Just kidding kids, go the extra mile and send a $5 donation to “Get-Tom-His-Gear-A-Thon”, so that I don’t have to bother trying to clean all this stuff.**

**Nah don’t do that. But do go the extra mile and help someone out today. You’ll feel better about yourself.***

***Does not only apply to kids. Adults included too (especially the $5 part).

Then again, maybe there is someone who reads my blog, and in my post-absence they think I’ve either gone missing or worse (read: died) and they’ll alert the authorities and cause pandemonium over nothing.

Now even though that’s really not that likely, I’ll still let you know what I’m up to.

Went long boarding for the first time two nights ago, and I went again last night. Probably one of the most fun things I’ve picked up in a while, and I can see myself going out to purchase a long board for the fun of it. Good exercise, and it does sort of feel like I’m snowboarding, which is an added benefit. I’m not crazy yet, but one day I hope to be like these guys…

But for now I’ll just cruise down Lenore Dr. at a nice relaxing pace. That’s all for now, and my one piece of parting advice:

Go long boarding.

-T

This pretty much sums up what I did at work today. But I think you’ll find that when you really put your mind to it, and take about 7-10 minutes out of your day to focus it on a project, you’ll get a high quality, polished result like this. Beautiful.

This started out as a rough draft for an ad in the Edwards School of Business student day planners for the 2010/2011 school year. But after working on it for a while, then getting bored after working on it for a while, I started to let loose and this happened. Probably for the better, no? I think we can probably just go ahead and send this to print.

From funny pictures, cool videos, interesting links, my thoughts, your topics, whatever you’d like to see on here we can probably make it happen. To lead things off, let’s look to the future…

The date range of Sept. 20th – 30th eats up the majority of my extra brain power, and is looking to be one of the most exciting periods of my life to date. Here’s the reason why it has the potential to be so:

http://bit.ly/aeqNAs

Minnesota Twins vs. CLE (20th)
Milwaukee Brewers vs. CIN (21st)
Chicago Cubs vs. SF (22nd)
Cleveland Indians vs. KC (23rd)
Pittsburgh Pirates vs. HOU (24th)
Philadelphia Phillies vs. NYM (25th)
New York Yankees vs. BOS (26th)
Toronto Blue Jays vs. NYY (28th)
Chicago White Sox vs.BOS (30th)

That’s 9 games, 9 outdoor stadiums (with the possible exception of Toronto), 11 days, and 15 different teams. It’s not the baseball road trip of a life time (Or #TBRTOAL for those of you on Twitter), but it is definitely the biggest trip I will have ever taken in my life, and not one to gawk at. It’s over 7,000km’s worth of driving, but hopefully will prove to be a lot of fun.

Starting things off with a bang hey? Not really, but it’s exciting to me and being my blog, why not start off with something that really gets my juices flowing? Maybe the next one will be about something you’re interested in, but for now this will have to do.

–T