Random Tuesday: Um...

Connor: Daddy, how did you fertilize mommy?
Me: Um....



I love disaster movies. We've only had one trailer out for this movie in North America so this is a new one from Japan. Even if this movie sucks, the trailers are great.




Remember when Twitter was cool?


Supreme Leader: Liam, come here and I'll wipe your boogers for you.
Liam: That's ok, mommy, I pushed it back in.

Vodka Mom and I worked on a post over at Lost and Found in India this weekend. While we were busy emailing back and forth I may have forgotten something...



If you didn't read our post, have a look.

missed connections - I have absolutely no idea what this means. I wrote it on a sticky for a random Tuesday thought but I guess it was a little too random.

Wait, wait, wait. Now I remember what it was. Missed Connections, the blog. It's by an artist named Sophie Blackall. She takes random (like the tie in?) moments of day to day life and paints a picture of them. It's great work. If you get the chance, click this link to see the intro page to her personal website. You need sound, so if you're at work, don't bother, you'll miss the magic.

Now I've probably got a couple of my artist readers upset because I've never pimped them. Um... well you've got a point there. But I'd be happy to if you liked.

Alright, get off my lawn. Go mill about on hers.

Dumbass: The Blue Period

I wasn't always a SAHD, I used to be an acclaimed artist. Studied in Paris, the whole bit. Go ahead, click on that bad boy and drink it in, I'll wait.


$150,000 and it's yours. Well, you'll also have to pay for the wall to be replaced in my son's room.

Today was our second day of painting and I'm still only doing the prep work. That room has a lot of corners. Liam wanted to help out again so I stripped him down to his skivvies and gave him a brush. Then I told him for the hundredth time to stay away from the paint can. Then I stepped down off the foot stool and knocked a gallon of paint over. It's important to teach by example. Good thing I put a tarp down yesterday when I decided to let the kids help. Good thing that paint is thick enough that you can scoop it up and pour it back into the can. I think there's a bit of dirt in there from the tarp now, but whatever, it's not my room.

Anyway, it gave me an idea for a post today. A post and a contest. Don't ask how I got to the idea, because that was like ten hours ago and I didn't have a pen. Yes, I had a paint brush and paint, smart ass, you're disqualified now. So I have this big... mostly blank wall.


So here's the contest: Whatever you want on that wall (until I paint over it) and I post it here. Anything you want. Pimp your blog, my fabulous art, poem, whatever. Just keep in mind it only comes in one colour, and that is colour with a 'u.' American contestants will just have to adapt. A few of you are confused now, aren't you. HA! Admit it, your forehead got a little scrunchy as you tried to figure out what the hell I was talking about. It's ok, you looked cute.

Rules? Rules are for pansies. Contest is open to everyone, even you lurkers. Even Twitter friends, which means I should probably tweet it since they won't know about it. Don't know me? I don't care. Arch nemesis? Fair is fair. One of my two judges will pick a random number based on however many replies I get. Wait. One of my two judges will pick a number out of a hat since they're still working on their numbers. Contest closes whenever I decide it does. Same with the picture.

Now, I mentioned two contests. This one I just pulled out of my ass after stepping on a can of paint. (Complained recently of having nothing to write? I knocked over a can of paint. You always have something to write about!) Contest number two is the real deal. It's a giveaway! A real live company is giving me a gift coupon to give away to one of my readers. I KNOW! I couldn't believe it either, and just wait, it gets SO. MUCH. BETTER! Except you really do have to wait because I haven't written that post yet. I'm thinking Friday. Ish. No, I'm pretty sure Friday.

*So yesterday 'afterwards' wasn't a real word but today 'scrunchy' is? Seriously?

Friday Pics: Art

And it's Friday again. How is everybody feeling today? Was it worth it? Of course it was. Before I get on with the pictures, I wanted to pass along some information to those of you who tweet with me. Yesterday I had a little message from Twitter:

Unexpected changes in our billing have forced us into a difficult situation with our Canadian SMS service. We can’t afford to support this service given our current arrangement with our providers (where costs have been doubling for the past several months.) As a result, effective today we are no longer delivering outbound SMS over our Canadian shortcode (21212).

The ability to update Twitter over SMS will still be supported over 21212. But we know that this is only part of the experience and we want to make Twitter work in the way folks want … regardless of where they live.

There is a realistic, scalable SMS solution for Canada (and the rest of the world.) We’re working on that and will post more details on the Twitter blog as we make progress.

What the hell does that mean, you ask? It means that if you respond to some random message I just posted from my cell phone and I don't answer you it's not because I hate you, it's because I didn't get it. Or that, much like American cell providers, Canadian cell providers are GREEDY BASTARDS!!!

*ahem*

Anyway, the pictures. My pictures turned out bad, but at this point I have movies to watch and can't be bothered to go redo them. I love this picture. A little house tethered to a balloon with cherry blossoms and a giant koi. What's not to love?



This looks like a small poster, but it's actually at least 6 feet tall. It's an advertisement for the Vancouver Opera and nicely filled out a gigantic wall space. And what says home like a giant picture of a homicidal Italian woman who eventually dives out a castle window and plunges to her death? O Scarpia, avanti a Dio!


Ellie from Me & You & Ellie. "Here's my favorite piece of art hanging in our house. A triptych by St. John (U.S.V.I.) artist Elaine Estern. Which we bought in a local gallery in Cruz Bay one year we were there. It hangs in my house in New London, CT, and makes me think about St. John every day."


Mary Anna from Random. "Here are some pics of my favorite art from around my house. Sorry the quality isn't great. I didn't use a flash because of the glass, and my house has a two-story family room with windows from the ceiling to the floor - there is no shortage of natural light, which is nice but it does cause some strange glares sometimes!

"The painting of the fall scene was done by my husband's grandmother. It hangs in our living room and makes me smile. Mitchell and I like to talk about what kinds of animals might live in those barns. Noah loves to look at it too."




"The clothes line of artwork is in the boys' playroom. We hung some twine on the wall and added a bunch of clothes pins. It's holding up all different art projects - including Noah's very first drawing and a pretty cool robot my hubby drew. I keep trying to encourage Mitchell to do more artwork so we can switch it out, but he gets all upset if he thinks I'm taking something down!"



"The fruit and vegetable prints hang in our breakfast area. We bought them at an antiques market years ago for next to nothing then spent several hundred dollars to have them framed! At our old house, they hung side by side down the long wall in our kitchen, which I loved. When we moved into this house, there wasn't a perfect spot for them, so we tiled them on the wall. (Excuse the motion detector for the alarm system in the upper corner of the photo. I absolutely hate seeing that thing but the alarm people said it had to go there!)"


Middle Aged Woman from Unmitigated. "In an effort to stave off writing tomorrow’s post, I have decided to overwhelm you by sending NEXT Friday’s material THIS Friday. And some text. The black-and-white scratchboard portrait was of and by my son. With it he won a Scholastic Art & Writing Award last spring. It was on display for awhile in a juried art show at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit. The gorgeous photo is one I found on cog’s website Driving the Flies. I have not yet had the funds to have it properly matted and framed. Isn’t it amazing?"



From Sherry at Sherendipity. "This is part of my antique Chef Menu chalkboard that I got for Xmas last year. He hangs in my kitchen. He's big and bold, and old and I loves him."



Participation seems to be waning for Friday pics so I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it up or not. Maybe it just needs a rest.

Big Duck

Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman

Spring, Art, Sidewalk Etiquette & My iPod

Went out for a walk yesterday at lunch and saw this in a gallery window on Granville.


Oh yes, Toronto, it is you. Ha ha.

Some early morning thoughts:

Forsythia, they're like the drag queens of Spring. No matter the weather or time of day, they're in your face with their giant yellow happiness. Smile mofo! It's Spring!

When you get off the bus and you need to do God knows what in your purse or whatever, either move off to the side of the sidewalk or WALK IN A STRAIGHT LINE! Be happy I didn't shove your dumb ass in front of that bus. Good morning!

Finally, had a brief scare this morning when the note pad in my iPod wouldn't work. I'd open it up to write something and it would just close itself. WTF? I tried it again when I got to work and it seems fine now. Played music just fine. And speaking of music, last song before I got to work... Sex Machine by James Brown. Get on up.