Etsy Bloggers Blog Carnival: A little bit of green

EARTH DAY CANADA!

IS COMING THIS APRIL 22, 2009!
http://www.earthday.ca

We Are Wedges is celebrating along with all the other Etsy Bloggers!

So what's green with Wedges? So many things!

1) There is SLUGGO, he's a green sea wedge.

He naturally cleans our oceans waters by feeding on detritus!
Thats the dead and waste stuff found in our oceans!
You can adopt a sluggo here.

2) There is WALTER the Wedge!

He has a green hoodie!
To save the earth, he lowers his carbon footprint by riding his bike EVERYWHERE!!!
Even to work!!!
You can adopt Walter here.

3) Most of all we'll introduce RASCHERA the Wedge!

She's a Wedgetarian! What's a wedgetarian? They only eat wedgetables!

That means she's reducing her human footprint in wedgeland!
Being wedgetarian contributes to solving:
-World hunger
(it takes more energy to raise and produce animal meat than the meat itself provides)
-Deforestation
(forests and rain forests are being cut down to provide grazing land for animals)
-Soil erosion
(grazing animals that eat the grass strip the land and make it vulnerable to wind and soil erosion, thereby destroying prime agricultural land)
-Disease
(vegetarian diets reduce the risk of heart disease, atherosclerosis, diabetes, obesity, cancer...)

To learn more about Raschera and the other characters, check out the "We Are Wedges" Main Website: http://wearewedges.com

To adopt a wedge, visit the adoption centre: http://adopt.wearewedges.com
OR visit our etsy shop: http://wedges.etsy.com

Blog Carnival: Be My Valentine

Love is in the air in Wedgeland, seeing as Valentine's Day is coming up soon and all.

So what mating rituals do Wedges follow? How does a wedge choose its valentine?


Here we have Walter, a Wedge person, he likes to eat cereal, make music, and build things.

This is Brie, another wedge person. She likes to shop, paint circles on everything, frogs, and forts!

Some would say they are polar opposites, especially since Walter is very, very, tall, and Brie is very, very petite!

So how did Walter and Brie become sweethearts?
Was it her keen sense of style? Her no nonsense intellect?
Or was it his sense of humor and crooked smile?

Lets interview Walter:
Me - Walter, when you first saw Brie, what made you look her way?
Walter - I liked her red colour.
Me - What did you think of her?
Walter - Pretty...
Me - Is that it?
Walter - Pretty...
Me - mmm...ok...why did you ask her out?
Walter - she smells like diverse gene pool...
Me - What did you do last Valentine's Day?
Walter - Took her to a park and gave her some cherries...


Lets interview Brie:
Me - Brie, what was your first take on Walter?
Brie - I thought he was very tall and very thin, other than that, I didn't think much about him.
Me - So how did you two start dating then?
Brie - he asked me out, and I said why not.
Me - So did things pick up from there?
Brie - I got lots of free dinners...oh and some cherries...
Me - What took it to the next level?
Brie - sparklies.
Me - You doing anything special this Valentine's Day?
Brie - Oh, we're going adventuring.

Walter Talks UHF Reception

Walter gets excited about things with wires and dials and whatnot. He asked me to post this about some antenna he's building. This post has otherwise nothing to do with Wedges, except that Walter is behind it. Anyway, here goes.

Back in the 1950s, a guy named Hoverman designed an antenna. There's one pictured to the left. People used to use antennas to receive television signals before we all decided it was a good idea to pay large corporations with poor customer service to deliver more, but not necessarily better, television to us for a monthly fee.

At any rate, Hoverman's design wasn't bad, but antennas just weren't that popular anymore, and most people eventually took them down and fed them to squirrels or what have you.

Then, a few years ago, the US government decided that it would be a cool idea if everyone bought a new television even if they didn't really want or need one. They did this by mandating that all television signals be delivered digitally by the year something or other. The television networks have gone along with it, and now a whole bunch of crystal clear digital television channels are floating around in space in front of you. Some of these channels are even in high definition.

Here's the part that Walter's really excited about. The same antennas from the 50s can be used to pick up these digital channels. And some guys on the internet took Hoverman's old design and ran it through some magic computer programs and improved it a whole bunch. Then they released the plans under a GPL3 license, which is a very geeky way of saying you can use it without paying them anything. You can make your own out of wire and a 2x4! Here's the plans!




It just so happens that Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is well suited for picking up television signals from both Canadian stations broadcasting from the CN Tower, and American stations broadcasting from across Lake Ontario in Rochester, New York. It's all "very ham radio".

Here is a link to the page about this antenna: http://www.digitalhome.ca/ota/superantenna/index.htm. Walter is going to build one and post it here when he's done!

Public Notice RE; Novelty Haiku

ATTENTION PHARMACEUTICAL WHOLESALERS

If you must send junk mail, your friendly recipients at wearewedges.com now require it to be sent in haiku format. You do remember what I haiku is, right? No?


HAIKU PRIMER

Well, we did some research, and apparently, the format of a haiku depends on what language you would like to write it in. We’re going to keep it simple here and leave it at “poems consisting of 3 lines, the first containing 5 syllables, second line 7 syllables, and last line 5 syllables.


OK, SURE. WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH WEDGES?

Nothing, absolutely nothing except that if you write and send me a haiku about anything related to my wedges, I will post it. If you send me junk mail, in haiku format, I will read it! No other haiku will be accepted!! Well, we're still accepting death threats -- but only in haiku format!!!

Here is my attempt at writing a haiku – Death threat styles:

Uttered under breath
Eyes staring as if to kill
Abruptly depart

Walter came up with one on the topic of junk mail:

Lottery winnings
Accost my inbox daily
Who are these people?

***SEND YOUR HAIKU. WE REQUIRE AMUSEMENT.***

Oh dear. Walter found out about Twitter. Twitter's like blogging for really impatient somewhat self-centered people (don't get huffy, it's totally true). Walter really gets caught up in these internet-phenomenon-of-the-day type of things. This is probably going to end up with more internet addiction counseling.

Until the intervention occurs, you can keep tabs on Walter in almost kind of real time at www.twitter.com/walterthewedge. If you like, you can 'follow' Walter, and you'll be pestered whenever he does something in twitter-land. The internet is awesome!

Show and Tell

Show and Tell at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery was a fun and idea filled night with fellow Toronto artists and crafters.

Thank you to Susan Rowe Harrison for putting this idea together and to Day Milman, and Jen Anisef of Toronto Craft alert for hosting it.

Here I am...
with my wedge smittens.

Walter talks magnets

Magnets are awesome.

Walter wants you to know that he has them in his guitar and gets very excited about how they convert sound to electricity, and how there are very strong ones in computer parts if you smash them apart and look very hard, and how you can make a magnet by wrapping a wire around a nail, and a bunch of other things that seem to be very exciting to him.

SEGUE TIME!! (DEFINITELY NOT SEG-WAY TIME)
You can buy Wedges magnets in the wedges Etsy shop! They're just like the pins except you can't accidentally stab yourself with them. And they're not wimpy can't-stick-the-phone-bill-to-the-fridge magnets either. There was rigorous quality assurance testing involved (we stuck the phone bill to the fridge).