Victoria Summer 2011 Design ideas from Italy Chapter 2 · Sunday July 24, 2011 by colin newell
A P.R. firm in Italy has spent the last 13 months coming up with a re-branding for their product.
13 months and this is what they came up with.
Feel free to click on the photo for the slighter larger view…
I have been polling this story pretty broadly and so far only one guy (a colleague that lives and works in Taiwan) thinks it’s OK to lampoon, minimize, diminish or profit from the misery of the past.
Example: There is a good reason why we discourage commercial use of images of Nazism and Adolf Hitler in ad media around the World.
And for similar reasons, the embracing of multiculturalism and leaving behind of old stuffy racist colonial thinking is known as progress.
The image above was custom made, for me, by the P.R. firm in Italy with the designer begging me for a change of heart with a frequent; “What? WHAT? What is wrong with using this lovely plump African woman dressed in 19th Century clothing to help sell espresso beans?”
My attempts at explaining my position on this matter have prompted more; “What? What? I don’t get it…”
Help me out here folks: Using racial stereotypes to sell stuff in Europe is not, like, this common, is it?
And for the record, the White guy that lives and works in Taiwan does embarrassing impersonations of Chinese Cab drivers that would have fallen flat on a 50 year old episode of the Ed Sullivan show – still, I appreciate all opinions…
Especially yours!
Victoria Spring 2011 - Islandnet under attack · Thursday May 12, 2011 by colin newell
My ISP (client since 1995) has been under a cyber-attack since yesterday – taking down the entire operation several times over the last 24 hours – disrupting thousands of customers and hundreds of webpages.
For the time being all is calm.
Islandnet.com was contacted by the attackers who ordered that the web site in question be taken down.
Islandnet.com has capitulated. And in their words.
“UPDATE 3:12pm: we have been contacted by a group claiming to be behind the attacks. They identify the target (a customer of ours) and demand that the site in question be shut down or the attacks will continue. As much as I hate to capitulate, we can’t afford to stand up for the rights of one customer at the expense of all the others, so the site has been shut down.”
Not sure how I feel about this.
So. It was not the website I thought it might be. For all intents and purposes, it could have been my blog – which regularly speaks out on some sensitive international issues – pleases me to no end that my opinion is not so valued somewhere that I would be attacked over it. That said, I am not sure how I would feel about my Canadian ISP giving me the boot over the whims of a foreign power.
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Victoria Spring 2011 Observations Murder of Crows · Tuesday March 29, 2011 by colin newell
Nothing like a murder in Rockland near Victoria B.C.
A murder of crows that is – and I found myself near ground zero of a crow convention this morning – around 5:30AM – or when it was getting light.
And it was distinct in an entertaining kind of way – there were approximately 50 crows in a variety of perches – and what sounded like one head crow speaker on the hustings.
A main crow speaker who would cackle a couple of phrases with a clatter or derisive caws from 1 or 2 in the crowd.
Eventually, the main crow uttered something that the stadium liked because they all went wild — in a good way. I have never heard quite an eruption from a flock like this before. It was like the Justin Beiber crow hit the stage and all the crow girls and boys went nuts.
Translated
Main crow: “What say we all go down to Clover Point and look for garbage?”
Handful of crows: “F*ck that. We are SICK of garbage and picking floaters out of the water!”
Main crow: “Alright, alright… how about the Sooke Hills?”
All the crows: “HELL YA! SOOKE HILLS! YEE HAAAAAAAAAA!”
Assorted crows: “Awwwwwwww f*ck!”
And then everything went quiet – apart from the occasional clutter from some of the birds that were talking amongst themselves.
It is well known that crows are family oriented, cooperative, have social values, are generally monogamous and they share intelligence on the subject of food and drink.
Something we do not seem to find in our politicians… Federal or Provincial.
Colin Newell lives, works and writes in Victoria B.C. on the subject of nonsense – and this is how he sees it.
Winter to Spring Pop Culture 1 Facebook Face off · Saturday March 19, 2011 by colin newell
Just decided that my blog and websites have been neglected long enough – and the web stats show it.
This blog averages around 75,000 unique visitors a month – and that is not hits – that is actual people. Thanks folks!
But those reader levels have been dropping faster than the water level in the spent fuel rod baths… and it’s all my doing.
Dang you twitter.
Because if you do the math — and I am fond of my core twitter followers, that is a small audience relative to here — but it is there that I am putting my energy.
Foolish huh? Yea. It is.
And it is not like there are lots of people out there sitting on their hands waiting for me to write something – I mean, I hope not.
Still, writing pulp blogs here is way better that firing quips into the wind on Twitter.
As much fun as that is.
So my new rule is: Before I utter a beak full of tweets, I am going to bash the side of my head and think up some observation on the human condition…
Like this one.
Good start. But I am not finished.
Facebook – it has been way useful for keeping track of events of my actual friends in almost real time – with alarming regularity and reliability that rivals gravity.
But what of those special friends… you know the ones… the ones you have stalked on facebook from your past. The people you went to High School with. The friends of the people you may have dated 25 years ago… etc.
Well, I ask myself. Why am I peering into their lives. I have a cluster of friends on Facebook who are part of my distant past and I am pretty sure I will never, ever get together with them – for any reason… ever. So why do I look into the window of their lives? Or why do I continue knowing what I know?
Hard decision.
Time for a Facebook cleanup. People do it all the time. Different reasons. You have yours, I have mine.
It is time to let the past go and let people get on with their lives.
It is the right thing to do.
Colin Newell lives and writes in Victoria B.C. Canada and is often the go to guy for opinions on the subject of Canadian Cafe and Pop Culture
Summer Fun Food and Drink 19 Cafe Conversations · Sunday August 8, 2010 by colin newell
Good cafe conversations are like a mountain stream – your best bet is to sit on the edge and listen to it babble gently – and occasionally toss a small stone in and watch the ripples.
And I had a lively converse over cups of exotic HABIT coffee with writer and raconteur Brennan Storr this afternoon.
Brennan Storr is a twenty-something amalgam of a Mickey Spillane character with a bit of Hunter S. Thompson’s DNA thrown in for good measure. Razor sharp social observation and witty quips and retorts fly randomly like a scattered stacked deck of playing cards.
And that is before the first sip of superb single origin what-cha-ma-call-it from somewhere in central Africa. Sorry hipster HABIT coffee brewers. Not paying attention.
Brennan is the kind of guy who is just as comfortable in a hipster cafe as he is at an anonymous motel room on Main Street, Big City, Canada – up to whatever writers and raconteurs do in their spare time. For the faint of heart – you probably don’t want to know. Let’s assume that he, like me, likes to wander the streets of Vancouver, Los Angeles or Toronto draped in the cloak of anonymity that only the large urban melange can afford.
Mister Storr is also better known, perhaps, for his twisted and quirky food writing on Largely the Truth – A site that relies as much on being alert and prepared when you are reading it and also maybe holding a glass with a finger of Scotch and a Cuban cigar with your free hand.
It is heavy reading at times but rewards the reader with a wild-card or two of genuine funny with the tasty aspect of his muse and impression of Food in Western Canada.
Brennan is also a regular on the social medium known as Twitter – and if you are not following him, you are not really living. He is funny, spontaneous, irreverent and unpredictable in 140 character measure. Drinking coffee with the man has its occupational hazards – unless of course you mind being subjected to the free form style normally reserved for open mike comedy night.
Which I am always up for – because I like conversational stimulation – like I like my coffee… hot, fresh and from a mysterious corner of my cerebral cortex.
And as it has turned out, Twitter and social networking has turned out to be beneficial. I find inspiration in the oddest places and it takes me to the next level in my writing – wherever that might be.
Meantime, watching the mountain stream… making its way to the Sea.
Long time resident of Victoria, Colin Newell, eats drinks and lives popular culture on an Island called Vancouver – and finds the life and times of the Cafe Modern most interesting.
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