While waiting for [[Oliver]] to finish up with drum lessons yesterday I recorded a minute of the sounds of drum kits being tested and cool bohemian drummy types milling about.

Nutrition labels for buses. An excellent idea:

Flocks:

This summer in a village in Wales, a small flock of sheep was shorn. Each garment in the collection was produced from the wool of just one of these sheep, continuing until the wool was finished …

Linkage from Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino.

From The Laws of Simplicity via Guy:

“ING Direct tells their customers that to determine how much of their money they should put into high-risk investments versus low-risk ones, just take your age up to 100 years old. However old you are, that is the percentage that you should invest in the low-risk stuff; then take the number 100 and subtract your age from it and invest that percentage in the high-risk stuff.”

I am the world’s worst investor (no, really, I am). Everything I have is earning 3.5% at the Credit Union. So, in other words, I’m 100% invested in extremely liquid, extremely low-risk vehicles. Setting aside my pathological aversion the regular instruments of capitalism, any improvement in my behaviour as an investor requires pithy bits of wisdom like this. They don’t even have to be true.

The Island Grind is Campbell Webster’s private-label “don’t pay the Timothy’s franchise fee” waterfront coffee shop, tucked away inside the bowels of Founders’ Hall at the head end of Prince Street. Despite the rather abysmal environment — expect to be pummelled with tourism propaganda, aural and visual — the place is rescued by three things: a delightful staff, a good cup of coffee, and the best signage you will see anywhere:

Make sure you take a moment, while waiting at the cash, to look at the staff-intended signage that rings the kitchen. Each piece is a work of art.

I got my start in the business (whichever business it is that I’m in) by making hand-painted signs for the marathon sponsored by the Hamilton YMCA. To the extent that I have a visceral sense of typography it is due to that project (there’s nothing like painting a giant foot letter ‘M’ to get you intimate with ‘Mness’). And so I have a tremendous appreciation for those skilled in the arts of hand-lettered-signage. If you share my passion, visit the Island Grind just to experience that.

I was called in for last-minute [[Ava]]-sitting tonight. [[Johnny]] expertly took me though the official feeding, cleaning, diapering and soothing protocols. Other than my avuncular [and possibly annoying] “check every 10 minutes to make sure she’s still breathing” routine, the night was uneventful, and she didn’t stir once. Next stop “anarchist indoctrination for infants.”

If you have any sense at all, you will immediately telephone the Trailside Cafe in Mount Stewart, PEI and reserve your tickets for their Garnet Rogers shows on either October 7 or 8, 2007. Garnet is one of the world’s preeminent singer-songwriters, and his live show is not to be missed. To see him in a unique, small setting like the Trailside makes it all the more special. You will not be disappointed (listen to samples here).

I note, for the record, that I have subscribed to the actual printed copy of a newspaper for the first time in 10 years: I took our a “Saturday-only” subscription to the Globe and Mail two weeks and. It’s delivered to my vestibule every Saturday morning before I get up. And I’m really enjoying it: it’s a completely re-made Globe from the one I remember, and it’s completely unlike the National Post, which I’d fallen into the habit of treating as my “national newspaper” in recent years. $11.25 a month.

Pita Express is a new take-out counter built into part of The Seatreat restaurant at the corner of University and Euston Streets in Charlottetown. I stopped in today for a 12” chicken shawarma, and it was fantastic — maybe the best in town. The 12” is huge, and a great deal for $6.99; they’ve got a range of sandwiches running from shawarma and falafel to philly cheese steak and lobster. It’s a welcome addition to the neighbourhood.

I was up at the Robertson Library at UPEI for a secret high-level meeting this morning, and got a demo of their latest item of cool gear, a 3D scanner.

You stick any object (up to the size of a shoebox) on the turntable and a combination of a camera and a team of lasers scan the object 8 times as the turntable rotates. Some magic software on the workstation driving the whole thing stitches it all together, and when you’re done you have a 3D model that you can, well, ogle at (or put in Second Life, or add to a collection of digital artifacts, or send to Pixar for inclusion on Toy Story 3). Obviously there are Serious Research Purposes for the technology, but it’s also very, very cool.

Every time I’ve visited the library this year I find partitions being installed, boxes of supercomputers piled high, and smart people doing interesting stuff. It’s a far cry from ye olde musty library, but is also pleasantly libraryesque in approach and demeanor.

If you’ve got an inkling of an idea that involves the overlap of any of scholarship, technology, information, archives, digitization, UPEI seems increasingly like the place to be on PEI. There was already plenty of evidence of this during the winter. Now there’s more.