Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

School's done and the itinerary is set! I can't wait for the up-and-coming Chitown adventures with the ad and PR majors on Monday, May 3rd to Sunday May 9th.

I'm particularly excited about Tuesday's itinerary, May 4th. According to Kenton Larsen's Infotainment blog, we are having a "Chicago welcome" pizza party in the hotel from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. - Free!

My only concern is if the pizza party is in fact a deep dish pizza party. I am on a quest to find Chicago's best deep dish pizza party. Nothing will stop me on my quest to find the most delicious, most tasty, and most deep Chi-keh-go pizza. OK, maybe I will stay in the constraints of the hotel vicinity as this little expedition could get out of hand!

So I've been researching online, trying to find the best deep dish hot spot and this is what I found.

Internet recommendations: (based on Google searching "best place to go for deep dish pizza chicago")

1) Lou Malnati's Pizzeria - 439 N Wells St. = estimated travel time 3 mins., 0.84 miles
2) Giordano's Pizza - 730 N Rush St. = est. travel time 1 min., 0.35 miles
3) The Original Gino's East of Chicago - 162 E Superior St. = est. travel time 1 min., 0.34 miles
4) Pizzeria Due - 619 N Wabash Ave. = est. travel time 57 secs, 0.26 miles
5) Pizzeria Uno - 29 E Ohio St. = est. travel time 1 min., 0.43 miles

Fairfield Inn, 216 E Ohio St. recommendations: (based on the person who answered the phone)

1) Giordano's Pizza
2) The Original Gino's East of Chicago
3) Pizzeria Uno

"You hit one of these places, you're a happy man," says Sul from the front desk of the Fairfield Inn. I think I'll take his advice.

And finally, a recommendation from a Chicago native:

"Oh man, you need to go to Gino's East. They have the best deep dish pepperoni pizza - it doesn't get more Chicago than that," says Jackie Te, 26-yr. old. registered nurse.


The Pizza Plan:

Logistics - after getting a hold of a Chicago map, I will be mapping out the five different locations for ease of locating them later when we're on foot. I will also bring a GPS device and go on a little pizza geocaching adventure. My team and I (and yes, I will need a pizza team for this one) will consume pizzas from all five locations. A deep dish pizza can serve up to four people or one hungry Neil Babaluk. Our team will be traveling on foot.

$$$ - will they take my 'par' Canadian dollars? I don't think so. So I will be allocating up to US$100 for my expedition, whatever it takes to eat pizzas from five different locations. As for everything else, there's always Mastercard.

Health considerations - none.

Fun factor - high.

And until I actually have pictures holding one of these babies, I'll leave you with an image that would make you wish you were going on this trip with us...

Ivana trust Macs...

Some say Mac computers are great because there is little or no virus that can affect its operating system. Recently, I found something on my USB stick that would test that statement...

At first I thought the unidentified folder on my USB stick was mine, but then again I don't remember copying any folders called "Ivana" nor would I re-title a folder with that name. Once I collapsed the folder, I instantly knew what it was - a virus!

So instantly, when I saw a virus, I immediately thought it was caused by my PCs at home running on the Windows platform. I'm sure everyone has been affected or have known someone who's computer has crashed recently because of an unknown computer virus. And also, many would agree that it was very easy to catch a virus on a computer running in a Windows environment.

Nevertheless, I continue with my CreComm life by backing up the contents of my USB stick. As long as you don't run the program contained in the "Ivana" folder then you're actually fine. The virus in this case was an executable file ending with the file extension '.exe' so for it to work, you would have to double-click on the file. Collapsing the folder container would allow you to see the contents of the folder without touching the programs or files in it.

Knowing that my CreComm movements were logged and monitored at school, I was careful not to bring the virus to the school's Mac computers, which were what we primarily use because of Adobe InDesign and Final Cut Pro. So after formatting my USB stick, I transferred all my files back. I ended up doing this procedure about three times...finding an unknown folder, formatting my USB stick then transferring my files again.

Eventually, I got frustrated. I even ran my virus check on both my desktop PC and laptop, twice and yet no viruses were found. This puzzled me. Until yesterday...

I printed out a promotion campaign for The Fyxx for my advertising class. I brought my 'clean' USB stick to the print centre in the William building. As "Lorne The Print Guy" looked for my pdf file, he paused and picked up the phone. As he talked to the person on the phone, Lorne looked at the screen in front of him. I couldn't help but ask "Is there something wrong Lorne?" He hung up the phone and replied "There's a virus here..." still looking at the screen.

I immediately thought I didn't properly format my USB stick and that the folder was not actually deleted...my "Ivana" secret was out! And worse, it might have infected Lorne's computer! I must say I was a bit terrified and thought I was going to get expelled from RRC for crashing the network with virus on my USB stick.

Little did I know that the virus Lorne was looking at on his screen was a different virus altogether. Which meant that the virus came from his computer! Which meant that the entire time I was getting infected was because the virus was on select Mac computers at school! This also meant that my computers at home were NOT the ones that were infecting my USB stick.

Lorne handed me back my ISB stick and didn't say much. All he said was "The virus is contained, we quarantined it." As soon as I plugged it into a Mac at school, I saw a new folder added to my flash drive. This one was labelled "Sevebomba" but the contents had been emptied by Lorne.

For those Mac users who think Macs are impermeable to viruses, think again. This was proof that viruses exist on Macs and can attach themselves on to your flash drive or USB stick so always run a virus check on your platform at home and scan your USB stick too!

A view from Neil's beard. - Neil's review of a wing place!

"A let down," says Neil Babaluk, a full-time student at Red River College's Creative Communications program.

Babaluk visited Big Guy's Ranch and Saloon in the St. Vital area with three of his buds to hang out and have some wings and a couple of bevies.

"It was good, but not Tony Roma's good," says Babaluk. He and some classmates from CreComm went to Tony Roma's on Pembina Hwy. the night before to take a break from studying.

"The wings were more meaty and the sauces were better in general at Tony's," says Babaluk.

"The wings were big and there were a lot of them," says Babaluk about his experience at Tony Roma's.

Neil Babaluk's rating: 2 1/2 stars out of 5 for Big Guy's Ranch and Saloon.
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Big Guy's in St. Vital has their wing deal on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Wings are 49 cents per chicken wing with a minimum 5-win order. They have most of the regular flavours like honey garlic, hot, buffalo, sweet chili, lemon pepper, salt & pepper, and their popular flavour choices being cajun and teriyaki. I am intrigued by their pineapple curry and I'm interested how it would hold up to Movado's same offering.

Just for the record, Neil very much enjoyed his night at Tony Roma's when he was with me and a couple of other friends. He says that the best part of every wing night was the company.

The Truth About Chuck - Charlie Magazine

It is done. We couldn't be happier.

After 2 weeks of sacrificing sleep, family time, and some good home-cooked meals, the creation of Charlie magazine definitely put up a fight - a good fight.

I guess this was the nature of group work though; late nights, endless group meetings, relying on each other to finish the work, and of course, lots of arguing. I must admit, the group atmosphere got really heavy at times and there was at least one definite time when I wanted to leave the room. Then, I wiped my tears (figuratively), took a deep breath and said "Charlie has poisoned your mind but you're still my friend" and continued working. Everyone had good intentions to finish the magazine strong, but because we were a bunch of CreComm superstars put into one stellar magazine group, our creative ideas didn't really work well with each other's. In the end, we just had to communicate as a group and work with all the ideas we've pitched. I really hoped that what we have in our hands was something everyone in the group would be proud of for the rest of their CreComm careers.

If you were wondering what our cover looks like, you're just going to have to wait until the magazine trade show/fair on April 1st. Unlike the other magazine groups, the creators of Charlie magazine chose to unveil their cover page at the trade show. It will definitely be worth the wait. We had to find a photographer, make-up artist, props, and one beautiful model to create a photo that was cover-worthy for a magazine that was visually stunning. Charlie's content was also fun, informative, and best of all, a good read!

The creators really poured their heart and soul (and money!) into the magazine and that would show through the overall layout and content of our product. Creating a magazine from start to finish was truly an amazing experience. I still couldn't believe that we wrote all the articles, advertisements, took photos, layed it out, then had it printed at a professional print shop. Magazine business is hard business - that I can attest to!

Being in a magazine group has many key learnings. Here were some of the things I took away from the entire experience:

1) Working in a group of four was tough! Three would have been better because there wouldn't have been too many ideas flying around and less people to butt heads with :)

I thought the hardest part of being in a group was making sure that everyone in the group was heard. Sometimes it was easy to listen and empathize with a member in the group and just let them talk about how they feel. But when another member in your group confided in you, it made it difficult to continue knowing that members weren't communicating through out the group.

So key to working in a group (and in any relationship) was open communication! With open communication, there wouldn't be misunderstandings and every group member would be on the same page. If one member didn't like an idea then he/she should say so before it was too late.

2) Knowing your role/having a role/taking a role in a group was also key. Sometimes in a group you have way too many people wanting to do all the work and that was great! But when you have talented people who want to put their mark on everything, you need to decide where to stand: Do you push your idea instead or do you find other avenues to help out? Once you thought about it, the answer was pretty clear. Again, this was a group project so you need to do what was necessary to achieve group harmony.

3) At the end of the day, it was just a project! Some people might think that getting top marks on this magazine project would determine the success of their project but when everything was said and done the important thing to take away from the CreComm group project were the things that couldn't be marked with a letter grade. Things like:

What did I learn about myself when working in a group?
How did I react when someone didn't like my idea?
Did I accommodate everyone's ideas or did I fight to stick with mine?
Did I listen more than I did talking?
What did I learn about using InDesign? Photoshop? Using a camera?
What I did learn as a journalist?
What did I learn about managing my time? My group's time?
How did I react when things didn't go my way?

I'm sure you could have added a lot of other things to this list. No matter, how you thought you're magazine turned out, the best thing you could have taken away from the magazine project was the fact that you learned how to work in a group of A-type students in an environment under a high-level of stress and survived to tell the tale. That alone was commendable. So congratulations to all the magazine groups for a job well done!

Here are some behind-the-scene pics of my interview with Constance Popp, a profile interview featured in the upcoming Charlie magazine available April 1 in the Red River College Princess Campus Atrium :)


This necklace was provided by Chocolatier Constance Popp. The necklace was dipped in artisan chocolate then dusted to give it an "Amazon" feel.



These chocolate cigars are neat! - Available at Chocolatier Constance Popp (1853 Portage Ave. Winnipeg, MB. Ph. 204-897-0689)



Dog's love chocolate! A special visitor was at the shop when I interviewed Constance



These and more pics will be available at the Magazine Fair on April 1, 2010 RRC Princess Campus South Atrium where Charlie Magazine's booth will be located.

See you there!

Winter or summer, you gotta get yourself to The Nub!

Also known as the chimney of the contiguous United States, Northwest Angle and Islands is both beautiful and relaxing, and awesome. I know that's more than two but it really is awesome!

Getting there is definitely part of the experience. I don't think there are other places in Manitoba you'd encounter a remote area border crossing. All you need is your Canadian passport and a finger to press the button to call the border services agent on the U.S. side. There's nothing to it!

The boys and I had such a good time I think I'm going back in the summer sometime for a fishing trip.

Here are just some pictures of the ice road - which was the obvious highlight of the trip - that we took when we were down there last Friday. I also threw together a 2min video (not worthy to call a montage) on YouTube for you guys to see what it was like in a car with four guys on the road.



Eman and Neil.


Steve and Sean.


The Angler putting his mark on the Angle.


The Angler failing.


Our GPS as we approached the unmanned U.S. border.


This is how you report. You open the box and say hello.


It starts getting interesting...


The road's running out!


Seriously Neil, turn this car around!


Ahhh! We're on water shows the GPS.


Here it is - the ice road phenomenon.


Looks like the ice is melting but no slush will stop us from getting to the Angle.


In its full glory, we are right in the middle of the lake. DRIVING around the islands to get to our destination.


This is the wildest thing we saw on our trip. I didn't realize how big a moose's head is until I saw this mounted on top of the fireplace at Flag Island Resort. Definitely going there in the summer. Their lodge is amazing!


The most hospitable NWA resident we met. Don't know her name but she was all over the car when we stopped to get air in one of our tires. We'll miss you the most!


Now for a live-action account of the ice road. Forgive me if the video is a little short, just threw together a couple of short videos and a bg track. It was a 10-minute effort ;)

Pseudo wings & PR

During our afternoon break, our PR instructor Kenton Larsen (that's him in the yellow shirt) bought the class (whatta nice guy!) a bag of Ruffles chips, "Hot Wings" flavoured. He bought it because he knew this blog existed, lol.

Well, needless to say, the chips somehow tasted like real hot chicken wings. Everyone was able to taste the chips and looked like everyone enjoyed them. I mean, who'd really say no to free chips? If you asked me, I think it was Kenton's way of making us work harder in class.

Sean Garrity's Zooey & Adam proposal was well underway and the class is almost done. I, myself, still have a couple of sections to do: executive summary, letter of transmittal, and tweak the evaluation section of my proposal. The proposal was such a neat project because in the end, we all get to put this proposal in our portfolios so it made it more important to complete a PR proposal that we would be proud to show to future employers.

As for the chips, I'd give them 3 1/3 stars out of 5 for tasting close to the real thing. haha.

PR Event in the Olympics: Death of Georgian Luger

Tragedy strikes today at the Whistler Sliding Centre where a 21-year old Georgian luge athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili died when his sled crashed, throwing him off and hitting a metal support beam. You can get the details of the accident and a link to watch the video here: http://www.ctvolympics.ca/luge/news/newsid=39315.html

Now when something totally unplanned (possibly the worst thing that can happen in an event) actually happen, how do the organizers and event planners prepare for the media and the questions regarding the incident?

This is truly a PR test and I'm not sure if the CEO of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games John Furlong has prepared himself for and, in fact, says exactly that he wasn't during an interview at the pre-show for the opening ceremonies Friday night.

The biggest question: To what extent does an Olumpic organizer plan for accidental deaths of athletes? Interesting.


Another thing to pay attention to are the advertisements during the opening ceremonies. It feels like the Super Bowl all over again when it comes to these ads; each one has a specific tone but was created for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Rona - this one follows a measuring tape as it retracts across Canada's diverse landscape. "It takes a great country to build great games."

Bell - a guy sends a message from his Bell mobile device while watching an Olympic hockey game that reads "Canada scored! What a goal!" and his message is carried across the country on a snowflake that travels from the venue to the remotest part of Canada.

Molson Canada - if you think their other commercials are patriotic, this one's that x3. It's pretty good.

Tim Hortons - a man prepares to pick up his wife and kids emigrating to Canada and brings a pile of jackets, toques, and mitts for the cold weather outside. He welcomes his wife with her first Tim Hortons cup of coffee. It is a touching story of the many immigrant families that makes up our country.

Hey did everybody see the opening video that lead to the start of the ceremonies? was it just me or was that just as exciting as the first Transformers movie? The announcer in the video got me super pumped when he described Canada's biggest competitors and ended the segment with "They are all here..." - how powerful is that?! Go Team Canada Go!

Writing creatively for radio dramas (and other things).

In the second part of our Creative Writing class, we studied a unit on radio dramas. In this unit, our class was put into groups and wrote our own radio dramas. The dramas had to have a plot with a setting and characters designed to create a picture by listening to different sounds.

Our group of four guys: Neil, Sean, Steve, and I, came up with "Hot Ice." This was a radio drama about an elite group of specials ops agents assigned as Olympic detail to ensure public safety during the games. The group of four special ops agents heat up the action as they run around the city of Vancouver for clues after finding out from drug kingpin Chike Moi that something bad was going to happen at the Olympics.

The story was centred on bravery and heroism with a little bit of cliche and a lot of fun.

Here was a work sample of the dialogue my group and I presented in our class.


2. CHARLES NORRIS: See Moyer, nothing good ever comes out of a life of crime.

3. JERRY MOYER: Charles, can I finish him off. There’s no one around. No one will know.

4. CHARLES NORRIS: Come on Jerry. He’s scum, but let’s not stoop to his level.

5. CHIKE MOI: It’s too late special ops squad. I’m already dying, but you’ll be in the same boat soon enough.

6. CHARLES NORRIS: What do you mean Moi? Spit it out you scumbag.

7. SOUND: GURGLING SOUNDS

8. CHIKE MOI: You’re time is coming. The Russians will take care of you and your squad soon. The Olympics will be your doom. (DYING)

9. SOUND: DYING SOUND

10. CHARLES NORRIS: What Russians? What did he mean?

11. MUSIC: THEME SONG.

12. ANNOUNCER: Join us next week for another exiciting episode of Hot Ice.

As you can tell, this is our (and my) very first attempt at writing radio dramas so it may have sounded rough and even too cliche. The idea behind our drama was supposed to be funny and easy to listen to. Our target audience of aged 18-30 yeasrs old would like this kind of material as it is easy to understand and the episodes were easy to follow even if one was missed.

Writing and planning the script was pretty enjoyable. I would say writing the episode loglines really helped in ironing out the details of the story. The hardest part was thinking of eventful scenes for the entire 20 episodes. The episodes needed to make sense and needed to have some sort of linear component to it while each episode still had its distinct plot arc.

In the end, our group was able to come up with something we thought was fun to listen to with a plot that was unpredictable.

If there was an image that depicted our drama it would be this:


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An example of a well-written audio drama could be found here:
http://www.wirelesstheatrecompany.co.uk/index.php/component/jotloader?Itemid=15&cid=2&id=100

The Wireless Theatre Company was a company that still produces radio/audio dramas and released the drama called DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI on Feb. 10, 2010. I foundnd myself liking dramas about war or dramas that had heavy action in them. I really enjoyed 'Afghanada' and thought that style of drama was really interesting to listen to. So when I realized that DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI was about the experiences of soldiers in the first world war, I downloaded the mp3 (it's free!) directly from the web site.

The unit on radio drama opened my ears to something pretty cool. The way I looked at it was radio dramas was like reading a book, except someone was reading it for you!

I thought writing for radio dramas was good training/experience in writing creatively in a sequence that made sense. I thought it was good practice for what was still to come - video writing and video game scripts!

In this screenshot from the game Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 for XBOX 360, a character chose an action from a set of actions the gamer can perform. The path the story went would depend on the action chosen by the gamer. There was a choice of three different actions ranging from passive, active, and agressive decisions. Passive took the easy way around the story while the agressive choice usually lead to more villians along the way in this role-playing adventure where you select a team of four people to fight beside you.

The type of creative writing on this game would be very elaborate as the writer(s) would have to think of multiple scenarios to give gamers a choice of things to do and allow them to take the story to a whole new level. I'm sure they only wrote two or three different endings but the path to get there and the way the story unfolded had 20-30 different variations... or more!

I am excited to see what type of video I'd come up with!

Picking apart the iPAD video - what you and I should think about before purchasing one

Which much hype, anticipation, and curiosity, Apple launches a high-res, 9.7-inch computer tablet much like an iPhone but "better".

I watched the video. It made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, almost to a point that I wanted to head to the Apple Store at Polo Park to grab one because of its affordable price tag (not available in Canada yet).

Then I stopped, thought, glazed over, then thought again. There were so many things to discuss about the new iPad. From its name to its design and practical use, there were so many things people could comment on. So I thought I'd give it a whirl and took snapshots of the video so we could talk about it. I used the handy-dandy CTRL + PrtSc button on my PC laptop, something that was not available on a Mac. It was so much fun trying to screen-capture the VP's best angles lol.


So here it goes!

The video started with the VP of Design describing the magic that was the iPad.


VP Design - "You know it's true when something exceeds your ability to understand how it works, it sorta becomes magical. And that's exactly what the iPad is..."

- Queue in cheesy bg music (available in iTunes of course)...

The VP of Design made it sound like people don't really know what they were dealing with here. Haha, he said this thing was magical! Hey dude, it's not anything new. This thing just looked like an iTouch, just bigger. Maybe the magic came from a million Apple iFairies embedded in the iPad that powered the device?

Let's look at more pictures of the VP to tell the story...

This was his 'magical' look:

This dude was really passionate I tell ya... I wonder how much he's getting paid.

VP Design goes on to say: "I don't have to change myself to fit the product, it fits me." - what an awesome quote Jony!



Then he smiled.




Then comes the VP Worldwide Product Marketing - whatta title you got there Phil!



You'd think the VP of Worldwide Product Marketing had something sophisticated and definitive to say about the iPad. Instead he said: "The ipad is the best web surfing experience, the best email experience, the best photo and movie-watching experience. It's gonna change the way we do the things we do everyday."

Oh don't forget, this was a video so at this point, the bq music changed to a faster beat... queue in piano concerto no.4... you're definitely dancing now as you watch this. You're iBlood is pumping through your iVeins, ready to commit to buying this thing...

But if you were supposed to market a new product I'm sure using the word 'best' holds no ground. I'm sure some people would ask "How is it the best?" or "Why is it the best?" I understood his use of plain words but in this case, the word 'best' didn't really mean or explain the capabilities of the iPad.

Thanks VP Worldwide Product Marketing, good explanation! (NOT!)



Go back to your office and re-read the fact sheet about the iPad that your marketing team prepared for you for this video.

VP Software was just as helpful in the cliche department. This guy was super iPumped though; very excited. iCaffeine must be free in all Apple offices.



He, too, used the word 'best' in his quote: "iPad is THE best way to browse the web."

- note the emphasis on THE. haha.

This was the best line in the video: "If you see something, you just reach out and tap it, it's completely natural. You don't even think about it, you just...[music stops] DO!"



- Wow! Hahaha... I'm sure they've used that line for the entire Apple line. I liked the part where the music cut out before he said the word 'do'. lol, classic Apple line. And also showed that music in video is a powerful tool!


Ok, ok, let's get serious here. As White Goodman in Dodgeball said: "Go ahead, make your jokes, Mr. Jokey... Joke-maker. But let me hit you with some knowledge..."

The actual dynamics of the iPad was very questionable. Starting with the posture you need to actually use the iPad.



Note how the Apple iModel's body was positioned in the video so he could type on the iPad. That was bad posture!!! I used to work for a big company that really took care of its employees and spent the time for each one to be ergonomically assessed. When working with computers, especially for extended periods of time, proper posture must be used to avoid injury in the long-term. This meant that the wrists and feet must be properly positioned. Also, the neck can't be strained while looking at the monitor which must be a certain number of inches away. I won't get into the specific details but as you can see with the iPad, all those guidelines were thrown out the window! I'd say if you were to use an iPad, limit your usage to 10-20 minutes. This thing is iDangerous to your iLife!

I'm sure chiropractors have a lot to say about the iPad.

That was about the only negative thing I had to say about the iPad: posture while using it.




There was a portion in the video, however, that made a lot of sense. The explanation was clear and conversational. It was from the VP of Hardware and seemed like the only real person in the video and Apple iPad's team. He was a man in his field...



His intro music was serious and compelling, made you really want to listen to what Bob Mansfield had to say. And actually, he did make a lot of sense! He explained multi-touch techonology and it was clear how the iPad worked based on the illustrations in the video.

He said "By putting well over a thousand sensors in this multi-touch design, the level of multi-touch accuracy the customer will experience is unprecedented."



"The backlighting system is LED. And LED is what gives you crispness and colour quality in the display itself."



(But I'm sure Bob meant to say 'color' because he was iMerican.)

"Beyond that we use IPS technology. IPS is a premium display technology that gives you not only a great experience looking directly at the device, but also off angle when you're sharing the device with someone else."



"The reason why this product responds so well, and you really feel the performance on them, is because of the custom silicon that we designed for this product. That silicon is called A4."



- Thanks Bob, now I know how to make my own iPad and the Canadians now have the technology. We will make our own and we're definitely not calling it iPad that's for sure! Bob should be the VP of Worldwide Product Marketing instead. Phil Schiller should work somewhere else, maybe for the 'best' company in the world - wherever that was.

Bob continued to say that this chip was designed by their hardware and software team and I'm thinking yeah but where was it made? In China! (Look at your Apple packaging as it proudly boasts the that your device was design in California but was made in China - nice!)



My magazine group is doing an article of Fair Trade chocolate. This means that cacao bean farmers in the southern regions of the world where conditions are more likely poor get a FAIR share from the profits of their harvest. This means the chocolate beans they harvest are more expensive so the money can dribble back to them. The money helps open doors to development, gives children access to healthcare, education, and a decent standard of living. (go here! - http://fairtrademanitoba.ca/why/faq/)

Which makes me think... Is there such thing as Fair Trade iPods? Or Fair Trade iPhones? Or Fair Trade iPads? If Apple has an agreement with China to manufacture their products for a low cost, do the Chinese workers at the plants get a fair share of Apple's iBillion-dollar profits? Who/where can I get these answers?







Apple's Agenda:

2010, iPad = check

2011, iHeartFT = all Apple products will be Fair Trade certified

2015, iPatch = a handy device you put over your right eye (could be interchangeable with your left eye) that will simulate being IN the internet. Why browse the net when you can be IN it?

If you want another review of the iPad, check this link out. http://www.geektown.ca/2010/01/whats-missing-from-the-ipad.html - His review makes more sense than mine :)

Taking a break from designing the news...

Today was a long day. Got home at 3:30am. My Thursday night was a long but was filled with thrill and excitement - I mean that.

As one of the production editors for the Projector, my job was to layout the news section of the paper and make sure the paper looked good. My job was pure aesthetics only. I had to make sure that all words aligned properly and that all picture and text boxes were perfectly put in place. This also included making sure that the entire page was filled up or at least lookes filled up with text. Laying out the news story with the pictures that came with them and the advertisements that must go in that particular page was like playing a puzzle. It was my job to make sure everything fit!

That being said, it was a good time laying it out. This issue was the last intern issue and we all had a blast doing it! I looked at it as a good way to practice what was yet coming for us in this semester. The magazine project was a big assignment and would involve a lot of layout and designing. In a way, the magazine project would be harder because there would be more pages to layout out and there was no clear cut way to design it. The Projector had grid lines and a specific layout structure that must be followed. We wouldn't have that on our magazine.

I am happy that Berea Henderson is part of my magazine group because "i've heard" that she is good in layout and plans to go into advertising. Jessica Cable and Brietta O'Leary are equally as great as, already, I am starting to see that their story ideas are super cool. I'm sure the decision of majoring in journalism will help them in their future careers. So to summarize, I think Charlie magazine has a well-rounded team of editors and I really can't wait until we have all our stories written, edited, and ready to go. The designing and laying out of it will be the cherry to the icing! lol.

I will leave you with some images I've seen today starting with what Berea had for lunch. Man, was I jealous! hehe.


She brought her own BBQ chicken wings! And she didn't even offer! :) But that's ok, what's a wingman to do??!?!?!?




Well, go for wings, of course!

Though I planned to try a new place this week, I ended up at a local hotspot. My justification? = easy to get to, no wait times, consistently good service, and amazing wings ALL THE TIME! Movado's Polo Park is attached to Perkins Family Restaurant and Bakery - grab some wings today! (No, I am not affiliated with these companies, food just excites me.)







upper left corner: salt & pepper
lower left corner: BBQ
right: pineapple curry





left: hot-honey (combination of hot sauce and honey garlic sauces)
right: salt & pepper

Being the "Last Men" - In The Chamber play review at Rachel Browne Theatre

A few of my fellow CreComms attended the Jan. 14 show of In The Chamber, a series about two men going through an identity crisis. The first of the series was Last Man in Universe Alpha - 11 written and performed by Gordon Tanner. The story was about an engineer investigating a hog barn fire at a Hutterite colony. The second of the series was Last Man in Puntarenas written and performed by Steven Ratzlaff. The story was about a man who used his retirement dinner to speak about his findings in Puntarenas. Though both stories were different, both men shared the common desire to get out of a state of imprisonment.

The show started with a pretty funny eye-opening scene which kinda set the mood. Comparing the two of the series, I identified with the first one more. The topic was about hog barns and the inhumane ways hogs were kept in their holding cages. I enjoyed bacon as much as the next guy but the way hogs were treated in these barns were definitely something everyone should be made aware of.

I thought both Tanner and Ratzlaff did a fine job up on stage. During the first scene, I realized that Tanner had been talking for 45 minutes and that he'd probably talk for about an hour. How does someone memorize an hour worth of lines? And it was a monologue!!! Wow! Obviously, these guys were seasoned actors so they knew what they were doing.

The evening was followed with a meet-and-greet and we were offered a couple of drink tickets to enjoy wine, beer, and delicious cheese. The evening was sponsored by Amphora Imports and Bothwell cheese. Needless to say, the cheese was amazing :)

As we walked away from the theatre that evening, I took away from the play that no matter what we do in life, we were always presented with choices. I believed that every single one of us has been equally empowered with the ability to choose right from wrong and the challenge lied in when to use that power given to us.

The message of the night: don't be the last man.

Chocolate / Tony Roma's wings

As the new year unfolds, we are bombarded with projects that have to be completed before the semester ends.

I'm super pumped for both the magazine project and my IPP proposal. The magazine project alone is enough to keep busy during this semester as there are a lot of things my group has to plan and think about. Even after planning and actually doing what we need to do, I'm sure there are many things we could re-do to make our magazine really, really cool and professional.

For our magazine topic, we chose chocolates. I remembered when our group was just in the brainstorming stage for a concept and the topic of chocolate was pitched. We collectively thought it wouldn't be such an interesting idea since chocolate has to do a lot about food. At the end of our brainstorming, when all possible ideas had been exhausted, we reverted back to the chocolate idea as a fail-safe topic and wrote it on our proposal. We actually prepared to get shot down by panel and had the topic of magazine for university students as our second choice. Luckily, the panel approved our first choice and our group couldn't be any happier!

The birth of Charlie, our magazine's name was on Jan. 12, in electronic publishing class when Jessica Cable and Berea Henderson pitched the idea to me. The name was actually initially thought of by Jessica a few days back but was sadly missed. Jon Braun a.k.a. JB a.k.a. The Man from Niverland reiterated the idea to the girls and it stuck the second time :) The final approval came from Brietta O'Leary who heard the pitch last. When all four editors were on board, Charlie was born. So actually, the official birth date should be Jan.13.

Since then, the editors and I have come up with so many story ideas for the magazine and can't wait to get at it! The many cool things that will happen in the next few weeks give me enough reason to jump out of bed every morning and live life to the fullest... ok, maybe not that full... wings still do it for me.

So without further adieu, I leave you with some images of hope from my wing odyssey last night at Tony Roma's Pembina Hwy...


Asian Sesame - sweet Thai chili sauce w/sesame and flax seeds




Teriyaki - Tony Roma's in-house Teriyaki sauce w/sesame and flax seeds




Lemon Pepper - fresh lemon and pepper spice