Paul Bellows: Pop and Style
New Smashula Record - coming September
Posted 1.06.08 by Paul Bellows
We’ve been working on a record for Smashula for just over a year. It’s not really that great an undertaking, we’ve just been doing it small pieces at a time.
The record happened in 2 halves. We did a few days of recording and mixing with Nik Kozub (7?) just over a year ago in his mom and dad’s living room. They gave us pop. Then we recorded the other half this past year with Stew Kirkwood at Sound Extractor, squeezing out the last mixes just before Stew finished ripping everything out to move to his big new location.
The record went down to Troy at Spectre in Seattle where he put the two records together into one (we decided at the last minute to NOT do a double EP).
Jeff Sylvester – designer of all things Smashula – put together the artwork based on his own butter-fist logo.
All that said, the record just got back from the plant. We’re going to be shooting some video and working up the website over the summer and heading for a September launch.
Do hold your breath.
Hockey Rock and Smashula Rock
Posted 31.03.08 by Paul Bellows
Last weekend I spent time in Toronto at the Exclaim Hockey Summit of the Arts as part of the Wheat Pool Whalers. It was my first proper hockey tournament and it went well. We made it all the way to the finals, and then lost to a much better team. Dang Rheostatics.
Along the way we played the ChartAttack Hack, who did some trash-talking ahead of time. So great was the rivalry that I ended up in a stand-off with George Stromboulopoulos just before game time in a Kanesatake-esque confrontation.
Conclusion: I’m going to hockey camp this summer and then showing up next year to take it to Toronto.
In the meantime, the new Smashula record goes to mastering today. More news shortly.
Spring is coming
Posted 26.02.08 by Paul Bellows
I was doing a Google image search for myself (why pretend that we don’t do it?) because a client mentioned that they had done it and I figured I should know what incriminating images are out there. And I stumbled across Dan’s piece on my bike from Dirt Rag last year. I ride my cruiser to work with winter tires sometimes in the winter. This picture makes me wish spring was a bit closer.
Variable Width
Posted 14.02.08 by Paul Bellows
Got a request from Jeffrey Chase for how the balance columns js script works in a variable width layout.
I did a previous article on variable width width min-max in IE6, but didn’t put up an example.
So this example includes my ReReset of the YUI fonts/reset, the min/max width script for IE6 to get variable width layouts in all browsers and the balance columns script.
CSS Variable Width Layout using cross-browser min-max width, with Javascript to Balance Columns
Read it Cover to Cover
Posted 2.02.08 by Paul Bellows
The new HTML5 spec was released as Working Draft a couple of weeks ago. Today’s the first time I’ve been able to sit down and read it.
First of all, it’s in actual language, which is nice. Second of all, it’s self-aware, which is also a nice new feature from the W3C. Thank you W3C for continuing to evolve:
It’s always nice to read: “This specification should be read like all other specifications. First, it should be read cover-to-cover, multiple times. Then, it should be read backwards at least once. Then it should be read by picking random sections from the contents list and following all the cross-references.”
I also like: “WYSIWYG tools are legitimate, and this specification makes certain concessions to WYSIWYG editors.”
Famous or Obscure?
Posted 1.02.08 by Paul Bellows
I submitted a six word memoire to an online book project and it seems I was selected. I love that I’m in the company of David Eggers, Deepak Chopra and Nora Ephron. David, if you’re wondering who I am, I’m one of the Famous writers.
How about 1% better service?
Posted 8.11.07 by Paul Bellows
In Canada we have a beloved tax called the Good and Services Tax, or the GST. They collect a 6% levy on all business transactions, which Dave and I pay faithfully.
The current federal administration is planning to lower the GST to 5% which would be the second such reduction in this least popular of all Canadian taxes. However, I suggest to Prime Minister Harper that he keep the GST at 6% and invest it directly into the operational efficiency of the GST collection department itself.
We filed and paid our GST in full and on time this past year (as always) – despite the department losing our first set of paperwork. We eventually received confirmation that our GST payment had been received and they cashed our cheque. However it wasn’t until 6 months later that we received a notice that our payment had finally been transferred from their receivables account and applied against what had become in the meantime our overdue account. Now the diligent GST department has decided to charge us interest on the overdue amount, which according to their own records they were holding all the time.
Rather than what amounts to approximately a 17% reduction in the GST, I would prefer a 17% increase in operational efficiency so that Dave can spend less time on the phone trying to understand why we’re paying interest to Ottawa to hold onto our money for us.
Upcoming Shows - Edmonton and Calgary
Posted 6.11.07 by Paul Bellows
Some upcoming shows in November
New CSS Balanced Columns Script
Posted 20.10.07 by Paul Bellows
Scott and I wrote a new version of the CSS Balanced Columns script on Friday. We updated the page CSS for anyone who uses the HTML template, but mostly we integrated Lawrence Carvalho’s text resize detector so the script adapts to text changes, and rewrote our script so that you can add your columns to an array and the script will ensure that the column exists (a little error checking we’ve been meaning to get to).
I think it’s a big improvement and makes the script even easier to implement. If you’re using the script now, just replace version 2 with version 3 and update your column ID names.
Enjoy! Get the script
I'm OK according to Google
Posted 17.10.07 by Paul Bellows
I started to set up Google Apps for the company 2 weeks ago. I got distracted and didn’t finish. Now I can’t remember which password I was using.
So I clicked the “Forgot your Username/Password” link, and got the best help message I may ever have received:
