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This is my team – We be strong and free baby! Yesterday the Swiss beat the favoured Russian team at the World Junior Hockey Championship. I was shouting “davai Swiss!” (Go Swiss! in Russian) with Irina cheering her homeland. I was rooting for the underdog I told her, [...] Recently I got to playing around with a graphic of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and a picture of artist/writer Douglas Coupland. I was compositing the two and came up with the image at left, which I really quite like. I started thinking about what makes Doug Coupland one of my favourite Canadians, and who [...] Today in the Toronto Star there is an interesting article on the disappearance of “Italiese,” a Toronto-specific dialect of Italian that was spoken frequently a generation ago. The article touches on the larger issue of global language extinction and ponders what the relationship of language is to culture and how, internationally, societies become increasingly homogeneous as the [...] Recently Sam Javanrouh, the excellent Toronto photoblogger who specializes in interesting landscapes, street scenes and buildings, shot a pic that blew me away. I couldn’t figure out where it was. Turns out it was a work commissioned by the United Church. The scale is phenomenal. The three story mural awaits your perusal at Church and [...] We are back from our second trip to Costa Rica, and though it was the start of the “rainy” (or “green” season as tourism promoters describe it), we were lucky to get some fantastic weather. We started our trip by returning to the northern region where we spent our first vacation, in the El Tucano [...] It’s no secret that the Internet is a vast repository of virtually any and all kinds of information. Recent stories about Facebook retaining our info after we delete our accounts makes me hopeful that Canadian and American authorities will reign in the behemoth. What you currently post in cyber space may well continue to cycle [...] "Cat-iture" by Strongandfree.ca Well, it seems a good time to let everybody know that I’m going back to school. I’ve been accepted to the IDFC campus and I look forward to designing for modern interiors and creating some future furniture. As some remember, I got my start in design doing t-shirts and rock band [...] Well, we decided to opt out of the mini rat race that is travelling north to cottage country on the August long weekend. We stayed in the city and had ourselves a pretty good “staycation.” It wasn’t about saving money so much as just wanting maximum “chill time.” We spent a lot of the weekend [...] Sunset – The View from High Park Ave I’ve been semi-serious about photography for quite a while. And since I got my Canon Vixia HV30 video camera I’ve had the opportunity to test out its still photo capabilities as well as put it through its video paces. The results can be stunning. My favourite [...] Often I ponder Canada and what it means, to quote our national anthem, to be “strong and free.” Of course, many will note that “strong and free” is in fact a marketing slogan for me and my services/products, and my main domain is ”strongandfree.ca.” I’m an entrepreneur and a patriot, that goes without saying. But I’m [...] |
Mike Simpson is a teacher, writer, musician and designer from Toronto, Canada. He is a new media enthusiast and has been "strongandfree" since 1996. Mike is working on new graphic design, developing websites and multimedia, and leading training workshops on weekends. Check out Strong+Free for his Design and Media work. Check out Mike's Edu-Tech Workshop site. Please contact him at this address: mike | strongandfree.ca 
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