darklyteblog

I really like working here. Granted it’s only been a week – and shit could potentially still hit the fan in a big bad way – but everything I’ve seen so far has shown a lot of promise. The space looks awesome, the people are friendly, and the mood strikes a very fine balance between being professional and, in the parlance of our times, chill as fuck. It was really comforting to meet the other creatives and see that they were willing and eager to talk to me and bounce ideas off of me because I came into this being kind of terrified of not being up to snuff. A part of that stems from the fact that I don’t consider myself a great designer and, unlike some, I’m certainly not gifted with a mind that seemingly churns out ideas made of pure magic; anything that I’ve done that is even remotely passable is a direct result of tons of research and practice. What would usually take me weeks I now have to condense into 2 or 3 days. The prerogative to be creative 7+ hours a day can be surprisingly rough but I’m hopeful that I’ll emerge out of this intact, relatively unscathed and a better designer. You know… unless they fire me.

2011 was a damn good year for me. I’m actually kind of surprised at the amount of insanely awesome things that happened now that I think about it:

• I – finally! – graduated;
• I had two great trips to Manotick;
• I spent two weeks travelling around Italy with Sandy and Rouslana;
• My video game company finally found its direction;
• I met Adam West, Stan Lee and James Marsters at the Montreal ComicCon;
• Meeting Maddie on a crazy late-night adventure;
• I fucking saw Portishead live and they did not disappoint; effectively scratching something off of my bucket list;
• I got the opportunity to work on a project for the Cirque du Soleil thanks to DEFASTEN;
• I landed a new job thanks to this guy right here (although whether or not the job is awesome remains to be seen… something tells me it is, though haha);

And yet despite all of that, I think that what stuck with me the most – and subsequently enriched my life the most – are the conversations that I’ve had this year. They made me realize that I’ve surrounded myself with truly incredible people and it turns out that for someone who is really socially awkward sometimes, I’m actually a bit of a people-person. Whether I was engaged in a heated debate about politics or defending my love for ‘Victorious‘, I can’t think of anything I would’ve rather been doing. Not even playing ‘Skyrim‘… Maybe.

So to the new friends that I’ve made, the old ones that I’ve rediscovered and the ones who’ve become an integral part of my day-to-day: thank you for making 2011 a most memorable year. Here’s to another great one!

While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I collect them, I’m definitely a fan of unconventional watches. So naturally, I immediately fell in love with the Hamilton Ventura XXL Elvis Anniversary Collection when I saw it.

I don’t think that there will ever be a picture that more aptly depicts how I feel right now.

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Nothing says ‘good time’ quite like Ninja coming onstage in his Pink Floyd boxers and performing ‘Beat Boy’, something that I was fortunate enough to witness at le National last night, when I went to see Die Antwoord with Stefan.

People who follow me on ye old Twitter saw me gushing over how fantastic the show was, and for good reason. It’s probably one of the best live acts that I’ve seen. What they lacked in budget and visual pazzaz – boner inducing videos of naked chicks rubbing each other aside – they more than made up for in terms of pure fun.

What surprised me the most was the diversity of the crowd; which was equal parts scene, hip, punk, nondescript and girls, and everyone was really into it. In fact, I kind of lost my proverbial shit when they opened with ‘Enter the Ninja’. I even moved a little. It was crazy!

So yeah, if you’ve listened to their music before and even remotely enjoy it, I’d recommend you go see them live because they’re fucking epic. So epic in fact that we might catch them again in NYC since we’re already here and they have a showed scheduled for the 24th.

July is shaping up to be a very busy – albeit fookin’ amazing – month for me; full of travel, live shows and fried chicken.

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Vitamins Design came up with an interesting solution for Samsung in order better acquaint consumers with their spiffy new smartphones.

Via Mike Jerugim

I’ve been taking a break from design lately – chalk it up to physical and mental exhaustion – which is kind of a drag but on the bright side, it has rekindled my love for videogames that aren’t Street Fighter in a big, bad way.

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I wanted to wait a little before posting my impressions of the iPad. Now that I’ve lived with it for about a week, I think I have a pretty good idea of how it’s integrated itself into my day-to-day routine.

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