sup

Italy prints

the wind up

Merry Xmas to us!  Look what arrived today:

Italy prints

Bah!  You can’t get it from a web-optimized iPhone jpg.  These prints turned out gorgeous.  They look like oil paintings.  Just… smashing.  Thank you, Venice, for being so photogenic.  I couldn’t be happier.  Except now the other walls are clamoring for attention.  Patience, friends.  Your time will come.  Of course, that sale happens once a year, so it could be a while.  Dangit.  Somebody buy my script.

Gorgeous!

I’m feeling awfully fortunate these days.  Avery and I must have spent half an hour just looking at the Christmas lights, neither of us saying a word.  She drooled some.  Me too, though that might have been the smell of Marjorie’s banana muffins.  Or the homemade cinnamon granola.  See?  So fortunate.

As planned, I connected with the nice lady at the tech/design school, and it sounds promising.  I’ll put together the job description and she’ll post it to the system, and we’ll be partners in education.  A thing Fuel knows something about.  In the new year we’ll meet for an extended talk about how our worlds might complement.  I’m hopeful.  The Italian team is working some magic, but I want to get them some help, especially on the UI – something with which none of us has much experience.  She’s very pretty, but she wants to dance.  The app, not the nice lady at the tech/design school.  Well, unless it’s also true in her case.  I have no idea.  I’m sure she’s lovely.  You should take her out dancing.  You neglectful bastard.

This week, Fuel needs to wrap its official 2013 planning sessions.  Chaos will take what time it can get.  I think I have some mixing coming up.  Wednesday should be especially good.  An abbreviated Chaos session, followed by the Fuel jam, and hopefully somewhere in there we hear back from [A-List guy for Secret Project].  And then Lee and I are attending a fete at the Canadian Consulate in honour of Barb Stegemann, whom Canadians know from The Dragon’s Den and her company, The 7 Virtues.  Neither of us have met her, but she heard about us and wants to meet.  So we’re going.  And then we’re supposed to take her out to see some comedy.  Neat.  Whatever shall I wear?

Adventure.

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all up in the chrismizz

How was your Sunday?  Christmassy?  MaxiChristmassy?  MegaYule?  Marjorie and Avery hung out at home today while I combed the Upper East Side for gifties and stocking stufferage.  By my estimate I walked about ninety blocks.  No giant ass Snickers, though I could have used the snack/meal/enough to feed a family of four for a week.  I had a good time on the hunt, but I wasn’t sad when it was over.  Bit of a sore knee.  I did find some goodies, but I think I’m going to have to go out there one more time… there’s a lot of New York.  Or at least there are a few more blank spots on the checklist.

I am probably a pain in the ass to shop for.  True story.  I tend to have everything I want already.  Beautiful family, good friends, fantastic job in the greatest city in the world.  All the toys a man could want.  The toys I don’t have but want are prohibitively expensive.  A new monitor, maybe.  How about a new lens for the ol’ point & shoot?  Time to upgrade the camera too?  A new set of wheels maybe.  A new car would be nice… or should I be thinking more like a family man?  A nice family vacation?

See?  A bit disproportionate to my current economic status.  Perhaps just a new t-shirt then.  Oh, which reminds me:

If you’re looking for the fun way to throw some support at the victims of Hurricane Sandy, these shirts will do that.  Every dime will go to relief efforts – I’ll publish the details on the Chaos Complex website at the end of the tax season.  We hoped to have our own silk screener for this, but that somehow wandered away.  So, we made a Zazzle store.  Lots less profit (donation) but also no overhead.  Here’s the flash window, maybe, if it works, and in case you’re not on an iOS device:


View more gifts at Zazzle.

And if it there’s nothing there, just click the link.  I’m too tired to mess with the html right now.  I’m sure you’ll hear more about the shirts over the next few days.  We really want to do something fun but meaningful to help out.  And hey, that shirt is fun.

Meanwhile, kids, it’s time for bed!  May your Monday be shiny.  Hugs and such.

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pound o' snickers

xmas really satisfies

Wawaweewa!

Woo woo!

What’s she so excited about?  Lunch?  Nap time?  Shiny thing?

pound o' snickers

How about a giant ass Snickers?  Kablammo shazammo.

I didn’t bring it home with me.  Seemed excessive.  But one had to admire a pound of candy.  I bet it really satisfies.  And eventually nauseates.

Yeah, that’s little Avery Peppermint strapped to my chest in the background.  Slept through the whole thing.  It’s what she does.  But that’s cool.  There isn’t much you can say about the K-Mart experience that’s really worth being present for.  Which probably explains why so many K-Mart Shoppers™ seem like zombies.

Why aren’t there more baby clothes consignment stores?  Why isn’t there a baby clothes recycling operation online?  Baby Gap clothes are made well enough to go through at least three babies.  They only wear them for three months, then they’re up a size.  Premium brands would go even further.  Look, here’s the model, for free.  You don’t have to give me a dime.  Build a nice simple searchable interface.  Let people sell for free.  Let people buy for free.  Buyers pay the shipping, all flat rate USPS.  Colour photos welcome.  Add a forum for product reviews.  The whole site is user-moderated.  What’s the revenue model, you ask?  Where do I start?  Sidebar ads.  Embedded links.  Premium services like storefronts and priority notifications.  Build it and they will come.  I know because we’ve been looking.  Huge blue ocean market.  Used frickin baby stuff, dude.

The last thing I need is another business idea to work on with all my spare time.  So this one is up to somebody else.

It’s now December 9.  In ten days we’re Canada-bound for the Xmassing.  All sorts of things happening between now and then of course, but it’s bright on the radar.  You can hear the sleigh bells jingling.  Actually, you really can.  We bought some for the Christmas pillar.  I heart xmas.  My girls do, too.  Sigh.  Happy.

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