bibendum on a bicycle at the Michelin Building London

bibendum on a bicycle at the Michelin Building London
Originally uploaded by praguelondon

Musicals are my guilty pleasure

Anyone who really knows me already knows this fact. My best friend knew I needed some cheering up of late. That's why she sent me this brilliant performance by Neil Patrick Harris at the 2012 Tony Awards. Enjoy!

Queen's Silver Jubilee Brownie Badge

Queen's Silver Jubilee Brownie Badge
Originally uploaded by praguelondon

Queen's Silver Jubilee Brownie Badge
I recently found this relic from the Queen's Silver Jubilee while going through all my stuff in my parents'basement. I thought it was worth sharing given the fact that the Queen is celebrating her 60th Diamond Jubilee this year.

Where did the last 35 years go? 

 Update: I decided that since we were here in London we should go and see the Queen on her 60th Jubilee. Enjoy my pics of her flotilla.

Hey, Google Analytics: Canada is not the 51st state (yet)

As a Canadian, I'm often pointing out Canadians and Canadians' achievements to my British colleagues. I'm sure they're sick of it by now. If you know a Canadian, you'll know I am not alone in this obsession.

Why do we do it?

We do it because we live all our lives in the shadow of the most powerful country on earth. We are innundated by US news, culture, music, movies, finance, business, politics etc. We're just looking for a little way to be noticed. So, when we have our chance we jump on it. That's why we bother pointing out that Michael J Fox, Christopher Plummer and more recently Ryan Gosling is Canadian (even though he's probably spent most his life in the US). It's our little way of jumping up and saying "we exist".

In Canada, we amuse ourselves by watching episodes of Rick Mercer's Talking to Americans and sharing stories of injustices to Canada's pride.

Today, even Rick Mercer's antics can't bring a smile to my face due to this Canadian injustice. Yes, it's true GOOGLE of all companies has committed the biggest sin. They have decided that Canada is not quite big enough to have their own map in Real Time Google Analytics.

Let' me expand. I work in the internet. I was investigating the origin of the visitors that visit our website using Google Analytics. As a Canadian, I was particularly interested in the Canadian cities where our visitors were from at that moment.

So, here is what happened I clicked on the link "Canada". On the left hand side of the screen I saw a list of familiar city names such as Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver, Richmond Hill (a suburb of Toronto), Guelph, Grand Prairie, Unionville and many more. Seeing those names made me feel close to home. Yet, when I cast my eye on the accompanying map, it wasn't a map of Canada at all. It was a map of the United States of America. What the ****? See for yourself ...

In case you are not familiar with the Canadian map, this is NOT a map of Canada. This is the map of Canada.

I'm sure you will recognize the first map as a map of the mighty United States of America. Yet, all the cities are floating in a blue sea north of the US border.

I guess it has finally come to pass, Canada is just the 51st state of the US. Please Google, sort that out to make this Canadian a little bit happier.

What is your porn name?

I thought that title might get a little interest. As it turns out my alternate names range based on my anagram are:

Della Sir Owl to Ladle Sir Owl to Ordeal Wills to Dare Ill Slow

So, what's your alternate name?

Dalston Street Artist -Stewy - Does Tea Parties

The building across from us is the canvas for various graffiti artists. I captured some little men back in 2007 and J posted another find on his blog. Usually, the moment someone tags it, the authorities come in and paint over it.

About 3 weeks ago, I woke up to a horse outside of my window. Unlike our home in Primrose Hill, it wasn't a real horse, but it was still beautiful. Here's what it looked like:

there was a frog too.

About a week later, a horn was added and it became a unicorn. Unfortunately, I was a little slow to capture that transition on film because not more than a few days later some wings were added. I made sure I got that one on film (*ahem* digital I should say)

I was planning on making a short post about this unexpected surprise and that would be that. However, last weekend, a little tea shop and art installation (Urban Fog) popped up beside my winged unicorn in a soon-to-be renovated building. It turns out Stewy (see more of his work here) collaborated with the team at Urban Fog and added some animals announcing the tea house. I thought I would document these wonderful additions here as I am sure it will all soon disappear when the renovations begin.

More about the Tea House ...

The owner - Zoe - decided to use the space to create a wonderful fabric installation. It feels like you are inside a modern day cave with little cubby holes where you can sit, enjoy music and tea. You can read more about the concept and installation on their website.

So, if you're in Dalston before May 21, 2011, you should check out Stewy's and Urban Fog's work. (opening times are on their website)

My Beautiful Network of Professional Contacts

Last year Dopplr sent to its users a beautiful map which outlined their business travel for the previous year. Here is an example of the map they did for Barak Obama for 2009. As you can see it was a really beautiful way of presenting data.

It seems that Linkedin has been taking a page from Dopplr's playbook. And, they've done a brilliant job. I now have a visual map of my Linkedin connections. The colours represent connected networks. If you create your own, you will see that you can decide who the colours represent by scrolling over the dots to expose the individual people.

(click here to see it life-size)

I was surprised to see that the majority of my connections in Linkedin were associated with my time at Yahoo! This is incredible given it was only 2 years of my rather lengthy career. I guess I made lots of contacts during that time.

I'm now thinking I love my map so much I might make a set of MOO business cards with my personal map printed on them.

Go on make your own!