Lo Pub | Eye Opening Design

The Greenest Handshake

Last week it was that time again.

Time again to see if the creative world cares about little old me. 🙂

Well I showed up rather early to the meeting, so I took the time to enjoy the warm weather and soak up the downtown ambience.

I’m not normally downtown much. Sure I go to the WAG fairly often, but I’m usually in and out. Not too much time wandering around to see what’s going on.

So after much wandering around, mostly around Portage Place, I was off to the Lo Pub. And more vegetarian-style pub grub.

I tried the nachos this time around. They were quite good. Not the best nachos I’ve ever had though. That title belongs to some unnamed restaurant in the blue smoke filled haze that is Bally’s casino in Las Vegas. Now those were awesome nachos!

While I was there enjoying my nachos, I had three quick conversations. One with a budding First Nations artist who, when asked where his work was being shown, rather offhandedly said, “New York”. I was rather flabergasted (and somewhat jealous). And apparently too flabbergasted to get anything else like a name or any place locally where his work might be found. And then I spoke to two other programmerator types who could have been each others stunt doubles. Which lead to a rather embarrassing event that will go left unsaid. Suffice it to say I had a seniors moment, and I’m a bit too young at 37 for such nonsense. 😯

The rest of the evening was looking to be rather blah, when I ran into someone I had chatted to briefly before several meetings ago. Turns out, he’s an EV (electrical vehicle) enthusiast. And while I’m not exactly the worlds greatest environmentalist, I do own a hybrid Honda Insight and try to walk, bike or bus to work every day, so it was interesting to hear what he had to say regarding the state of EV ownership here in Manitoba. Seems to be a bit more of that going on around here than I thought.

And in keeping up with the environmental theme of the rest of the evening, I then spoke for quite a while with someone working in the carbon trading industry. He works for this company Emissions Recovery Solutions Inc., that is trying to get First Nations communities set up for carbon capture programs — mostly thru land management practices like tree planting and wetlands preservation — thereby generating a carbon credit that can be sold to corporations to offset any regulations these business may be facing. That’s a very basic explanation. More info can be found here on carbon trading. Anyways, he spoke to me for some time regarding lots of the aspects of his business and environmental policies here in Canada and the US. Especially regarding the Tar Sands in Alberta. And he wasn’t nearly as negative about it as you would think. Though he wasn’t exactly glowing with optimism either. Very down to earth approach. While I’m not totally sold on everything he said, he gave me quite a bit to consider.

So after a rather successful evening out, I headed off for home. Once again enjoying the nice warm evening. I even got off the bus early so I could walk a bit more of the way home.

I’m also rather looking forward to next month’s meeting. Seems there will be a demo of a game called Cogmation Robot Builder. As someone who once owned the Star Wars Droid Factory playset, I’m intrigued.

The Handshake gets Flashed

So after a brief absence, I once again attended a monthly meeting of the Secret Handshake, Winnipeg’s informal group of freelancers and other creative professionals and enthusiasts. It was once again held at the Lo Pub. And I finally figured out why it’s called that. It’s attached to a youth hostel from Hostel International. It has a rather large sign out front that sez “HI”. So, I guess “LO” is a rather clever and natural fit. And I cannot believe I didn’t make the connection earlier. Yes, I am a Graphic Designer, and no I’m not a very observant one.

As I’ve blogged before, the menu at the Lo Pub is vegetarian. I set out to try their vegetarian burger (even sprung for vegan cheese) and was very pleasantly surprised at just how good it was. And I’ve had some pretty mean veggie burgers in the past. I was alo very glad I did not order the nachos as it came in a rather ginormous serving. Might be something to consider if I can ever get Kimmy out there.

Shortly after my meal, I ran into someone I went to high school with and caught up a little bit. He hadn’t really been to many meetings before, and was wondering whether these meetings had any agendas or if they were just mixers. I said that while it seems some events have specific purposes, like launching an iPhone app, or showing off a hand-crafted camera rig, most the other evenings I’ve had with Secret Handshake were very informal. This got into a rather lengthy discussion regarding pecha-kucha that the DGC put together once in a while and how it would be nice to develop a forum that allows local creatives talking about their work to other creatives in a slightly more structured way than the slightly hap-hazzard what that Secret Handshake goes about doing things and the very curated and structured way pecha-kucha is handled by the GDC in Winnipeg. While I certainly do not mind the very informal, party friendly atmosphere Secret Handshake has right now, and would hate to see it disappear, it would be nice to get people to show off what they are working on or perhaps try getting people to do something creative while attending the event itself. An easy one could be found over yonder should anyone but me think it’s a cool idea. And no, that’s not a hint for me volunteering.

Later on, I ran into a web developer who just started working over at some little company called Automattic that make a little piece of software I think most people reading this blog might of heard of. Surprising that it’s now the second time I’ve run into someone located here that works for them. Must be something in the water.

Anyways, we wound up having a rather interesting discussion involving revolutions in publishing, Guttenberg, the hell that is making ePubs from InDesign and blogging when we were suddenly bamboozled by a couple of guys looking for beta testers for their software. They were from a company called Fannex and all this weekend (as I write this) they are running tests of their software and needed some brave volunteers. These guys came across pretty strong and the web developer fled quickly enough (or perhaps our conversation was only interesting from my end?) leaving me to hear the spiel.

It was actually pretty cool. The idea is pretty simple. You‘re at a game or concert somewhere and people in the audience turns on their smartphone and the phone becomes one pixel in a giant sized monitor. Thus allowing the audience to display an image or motion graphic. Pretty cool, as long as you have enough people in the audience to participate. Won’t work if only five people use the app. The simulation with 30% participation was interesting, though it would only allow for primitive graphics.

While they guys I was talking to from Fannex seemed to have their eyes set on a bigger market, they seem keen to launch here in Winnipeg. And I think that’s a good decision. The newly reformed NHL team , the Winnipeg Jets, have quite a history of getting everyone to wear white to create a “White Out” and that’s without fancy technology. So it might be an easy sell. And the fan base seems rabid enough to try anything right now.

When I went home and mentioned all this to my wife she thought the Fannex App was pretty cool, and remarked it was similar to a flash mob in some ways. Just a bit more “flash” than mob I think. And speaking of flash mobs, while I am pretty certain it’s not what the developers have in mind, this technology could certainly be used for culture jamming. Not to mention having the possibility of taking away the home team advantage at a game by creating a make-shift banner for the opposing team. I’m thinking Labour Day at Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field in Regina. 😛 Though, while funny in theory, I could imagine that might get dicey in practice depending on how much of a sense of humour the home team fans have! There could also be some interesting (and far less dangerous!) possibilities for artistic expression by turning a whole bunch of cell phone into a virtual canvas.

Well that’s it for now. Got to rest up as I think I’m in for a busy weekend!

Secret Handshake – The January Review

It’s that time again for my very unofficial review of The Secret Handshake, a monthly meetup for creative people in the greater Winnipeg community.

I originally wan’t sure I was going to go to this one. January has been a pretty busy month for me, and it was damn cold outside. But last minute, I decided to go anyways.

It was very slow to start when I got there. But I did arrive pretty early, so it’s not like there was a ton of people to chat with, and as a personal character flaw, I do take a while to warm up to people. And sometimes people take a while to warm up to me. I can be quite an enigma to people and I think I have a very intense way about me when I talk to people that might be a bit off putting. I’m a portrait artist at heart and I have a thing for faces. I’m always deeply and intently observing people’s faces and I think people often take it the wrong way. But the slowness of the evening taking off gave me the opportunity to really enjoy my meal. The meetup was at the Lo Pub, which seems to be the usual haunt. I had the special, an Tuscan Tofu Sandwich with fries. Very tasty. So basically, stay away from the Philly on their menu, and I do not think you can go wrong.

Once the evening picked up though, there was quite a bit of activity on the stage area of the pub. Some guy had gotten a hold of a lens from an old WWII bomber and fused it to a bellows camera which was haphazardly attached to a digital camera. It was huge, awkward and very, very cool. Not too sure what possessed him to actually do it. My wife said it was probably Everest; it was just there. I’d recommend anyone who is into photography (or Istagram) to check out the camera. The pictures that camera actually took haven’t been posted yet (he took a LOT of pics, mostly because it was really hard to keep it in focus) but check back in a while. The quality and essence of the pics could be described as Instagram the really, really hard way. I hope he actually makes some use of that camera. It’d probably be just too much of a pain for a lot of commercial use, but it had a really nice quality to the images. Hopefully someone will see this and have a special project that could make use of his ingenuity. And hopefully my pic turned out as well. The little LCD preview certainly made me look way more badass than I actually am. Would be cool to have kicking around even if the focus might not be bang on. But then, that’s the charm of a picture like that. As with most things modern and cultural, I’m going to blame the lighting and camera crew of Firely for that one. (Disclaimer: I’m not a browncoat, but I am a little afraid of them.)

Once my pic was taken, it was time for me go. Amazingly, I managed to time the bus almost perfectly. Like I planned it that way or something. The trip back home wasn’t as eventful as some others I’ve had, but we all did manage to piss of the diver for some reason. A lot of the busses now use a touch pad to open the rear doors. I hate them, as they only seem to work some of the time. So, everyone was pressing pretty hard on the touch sensitive door to ensure the door would open. The driver got so mad he stomped up to the middle of the bus to show “those of us who don’t already know,” that the door was “electrified(?)” and you don’t have to actually touch the door, just place your hands close to the front of the door. And magically, the door opens. I was seriously awed by the miracle of the open bus door. But was a little confused as the door very clearly indicated that you had to touch the door to open it. My protestations went unanswered, and I was sorely tempted to touch the door even after our little demonstration, just to see how much I could wind up the bus driver. But clear thinking prevailed as I assumed he’d just not let me off at my stop and I’d be forced to walk home from what I’d imagine would be a long way off from home. And -30 degrees is a bit too cold for such playfulness.