As much fun as activitybook.org is for me, I need to take a bit of a break until mid-July. Between getting married in a couple of weeks, the nice weather outside and my job, I foresee that it will be tricky to squeeze in blogging time.

See you in a little bit,
Marty

Anybody up for exchanging links? Want to get added to the !friendly links section above? Link to http://www.activitybook.org, then come back and comment with your link!

Well gosh, it has been over a month since my last posting and it is not entirely my fault. Somehow, sometime and somewhere along the way the back-end to my blog seemed to have decided to play a naughty game of hide and seek. The end result was the disappearance of some features and functions that I did not have time to address. Well, that is all behind us (for now I guess) and I will be blogging again

We have a winner! Congrats to “DL” who wins the Warm & Scratchy prize pack. Thanks to all of those who entered.

THE PITCH

So the folks behind William Street, those genius purveyors of cartoon insanity that comprises much of the Adult Swim block on the Cartoon Network (think The Brak Show, Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Aqua Teen Hunger Force) have done something even more genius. They are providing one lucky reader of Acitivitybook with an amazing prize pack in the Activitybook goes Warm and Scratchy contest.

THE PRIZE:

A William Street canvas bag (see a pic) filled with:
- The Warm & Scratchy compilation on CD (see my earlier post)
- an aqua teen hunger force koozie
- adult swim postcard book
- meatwad stressball (see a pic)
- adult swim button set
- adult swim sticker set
- williams street t-shirt
- aqua teen hunger force movie mix CD
- adult swim belt
- assy keychain
- adult swim notebook
- william street button

CONTEST DETAILS

1. The contest runs from June 6 - 13, 2007 (till 11:59pm EST on the 13th) and is open to anyone over the age of 18 anywhere in the world.
2. The winner will be picked at random from all correct entries on June 14, 2007 and notified by e-mail.
3. To enter, send the correct answer to the trivia question below along with your name to activitybook(at)gmail(dot)com.
4. Trivia Question: “Who voices the Aqua Teen Hunger Force character Carl?”

Don’t forget that you can download the Warm & Scratchy compilation for free here

01. Me-I - TV On The Radio
02. Dead Sound - The Ravenettes
03. The Equestrian - Les Savy Fav
04. Crimson Red - The Rapture
05. Justine - 120 Days
06. Canada Vs. America - Broken Social Scene
07. Color of the love You Have - SOUND Team
08. The Bunting Song (acoustic version) - The Good, The Bad and The Queen
09. Half Century - The Brother Kite
10. Silver (Original Beats) - Jesu
11. Back to Flash - Amusement Parks on Fire
12. Stay Awake - Asobi Seksu
13. Winter - Fennesz
14. Sunset Rodeo - Liars

Hi there,

Passover is just around the corner and I will taking a bit of a hiatus from posting as I have cleaning to do, seders to attend and matzah to eat. In the mean time, why not check out the Best of the activitybook.

See you soon,
Marty

Activitybook is growing - I have added a new section to the site, which is a feature that I call ‘Let’s Get to Know…” This section features interviews with with people who do interesting and often special things in this world. My first interview is with Fraser Young who is a Toronto-based stand-up comedian and master story teller.

Fraser’s style is sprinkled with loads of wit, smarts and, grammar. There are no “So did you ever notice…” jokes with Fraser. Canadian readers might also recognize Fraser from his numerous appearances on MuchMusic’s Video on Trial. Lucky for us, Fraser was good enough to spare some time and answer a few of questions for the Activitybook.

You can check out what Fraser is up to next on his Myspace page (he does tour across Canada and sometimes internationally) or his website.

Who is Fraser Young?
That is a question that I don’t really know if I have an answer for. Fraser Young is different things to different people, and I spend a lot of effort making sure that doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass. If you are a person who knows me, and you meet someone else who knows me in a different circle, please terminate the conversation immediately and go back to living unconnected lives.

How did you get into comedy?
I bought it a few drinks and whispered sweet nothings into its ear. Comedy’s aged quite a bit, and it is a lot easier to get into it now that it doesn’t have the high standards that it used to.

What did you do before comedy?
Pretty much the same shit I do now, but without getting paid for it. I’ve never had a real job or anything, so it’s hard for me to really understand the context of “before comedy”.

Continue on via this link to read the full interview. As well, you can see and hear some of Fraser’s material at the end of the interview.

I appologize for the lack of postings over the weekend, which will continue over the next day or two. You see, I just moved yesterday and now comes the fun of continuing to unpack, clean, set up furniture and so forth. In the meantime, why not check out the Best of the Activitybook.

Use this guide to determine which style of sunglasses are appropriate for the shape of your face.

via linkbunnies

Here is the fourth, and final, video featuring an interview with Ben Goldhirsh, the founder and publisher of Good Magazine.

Need to catch up on the previous videos? See part one, part two and part three.

Today is day three in the four part showing of an interview with Ben Goldhirsh of Good Magazine.

Need to catch up with this interview series? Check out part one and part two.

And now for your viewing pleasure, here is part two of the four part series of interviews featuring Ben Goldhirsh founder and publisher of Good Magazine.

Missed part one? You can view it here.

Good Magazine’s name says it all – it is good. I have previously posted on the virtues of Good, so I am not going to rehash the bulk of my views on the magazines but for the following:

Many of the issues covered in the magazine are aligned with those of Activitybook. It is nice when things work out like that. In Good you will find coverage of issues such as social justice, the environment, literature, the marketplace and so so much more.

So, the folks behind Good have been gracious enough to provide us (by us I mean the Activitybook audience) with the videos from a four part series interview with Good founder Ben Goldhirsh. There are four videos in total, and I will put them up over the next four days.

Ben Goldhirsh is not only the founder of Good, but he also the person behind Reason Pictures. The interview just a little while back at Sundance. In the interview Ben opens up about what it takes to successfully launch a magazine, the values of Good, how start a production company, and how to get into all the parties at the Sundance.

Photo of the Year in the 2006 Photobloggies

Time lapse movie of a parking lot, shot by Sam Javanrouh with a Canon Rebel DSLR

Naomi Harris’s ‘Haddon’

The many flickr photo sets of LeoL30, including squared circles, numbers, letters, photomosaics, signs and plaques, much more. (From Swiss Miss)

All symbols contains on Imallfake are carefully selected to provoke thought through association. (From Surfez Avec Moi)

‘Little Bits of Spring’ by Chris Glass

‘Stranded’ - The isolation of Amy Stein

Vintage camera manuals (Warning - it is one 650mb file)

Philip Greenspun’s Guide to Digital SLR cameras: what to look for, what you want and what they are

Start the day with a year of mornings

An old Kodak commercial with Bill Cosby

Bill Sullivan’s photos of people going through a subway turnstile in New York

The portfolio of Nick Koudis

A gallery of walls with stuff written on them

Trish CupcakeMomma’s archive of cupcake pictures

The Narrative - Mark O’Sullivan’s Toronto photography

Shannon Richardson’s Black & White “Electrolite”

13 Photographs that Changed the World

Today’s postings take on a different format, as I am “co-posting” with Hanan Levin, who blogs at Grow-a-Brain. Grow-a-Brain is a wonderful blog that has, on a daily basis, a smart and eclectic mix of links that are typically grouped together thematically. Hanan is also the co-owner of ‘The Champion’ Real Estate Company in Riverside, California.

Gosh, I almost did not catch this, but this is the 600th post for Activitybook. It all started back at the end of October/early November of 06 and it has been going strong since (as evidenced by the bloggies nomination for Best New Weblog).

I feel like I should make something special out of this benchmark of sorts. However, let me just say thanks for stopping by and I hope that you come back tomorrow when I will have another 6-10 assorted things for your perusal. Or, in the meantime, take a look at The Best of the Activitybook for a taste of the 599 previous posts.

As with just about every new album that is recorded, the Arcade Fire’s new album ‘Neon Bible‘ has been leaked out in torrent and p2p land. That’s not the story here.

I am opening up this thread to those who have *ahem* accidentally found it on their hard drives to comment on. I cannot weigh in on this as I am waiting for an official release. So how is it?

Pre-order Neon Bible from Amazon

Wow, do I have a nice big smile on my face. I just found out that activitybook is a finalist for ‘Best New Weblog’ in the 2007 edition of the Bloggies!!!

First, let me thank all visitors of the site for giving me a raison d’être to put so much effort into the blog. Second, let me give a big and gracious thank you to everyone who nominated the blog for the short-list and a just as big thank you to those panellists who voted for the blog so that it could be in the finals.

There is still one more step in the process: voting for activitybook to be the ‘Best New Weblog‘. If you enjoy the blog I ask that you would be so kind as to follow this link to the voting page and select Marty Finestone’s Activity Book (as it is listed there) as the Best New Weblog. Voting will close at 10:00 PM EST on Friday, February 2.

Thanks for your support.
Marty

Today we kick off a new category for the activitybook: fashion. Although rather than just calling it fashion, I am going to make this an ode to the kicky David Bowie song ‘Fashion’ and call it Fa-fa-fa-fa-fashion.

Inaurgurating the category is this article from the International Herald Tribune about the resurgence of the tie and how it is increasingly being worn just for the hell of it and not because it should be at the office.

What is my take on ties? Check out those by Paul Smith and other British designers like Ted Baker and Duchamp.

This post is just to remind you about activitybook’s policy on product and other mentions on this site as found in the about page.

Generally you will see mentions of products, bands, websites and other items here on activitybook. These appear because I choose to feature them and there is no compensation or influence provided for their inclusion. This site and I have nothing to do with PayPerPost or any other sponsored posting organization.

So there you have it: products and people are mentioned on this site because I find them interesting and not because I can make some money. I’m not in this for the money – at least not yet.

The nomination process for the 2007 Weblog Awards, the Bloggies, closes tonight at 10 p.m.EST. Make your way over here to nominate your favourite blogs in categories such as “Best Canadian Blog”, “Best Writing in a Blog” and “Best Community Weblog”. While you are there, considering nominating activitybook for “Best New Weblog” and/or “Best-kept Secret Weblog“.

Thanks in advance,

Marty