Digressionally Creative

The work office can sometimes be a source of creative inspiration outside your normal work tasks. Those inspirations can come from something that somebody said or did, or your work environment, or a combination thereof, and possibly others.

The team of six software developers that I work with are situated in an interesting cubicle area that has 2 entrance ways... well, actually... more like one main entrance way and a second narrow escape alley.

Our team has gained a bit of a reputation... I'm not going to explain what that is, but it's not entirely my fault. However, that narrow escape alley can come in handy sometimes.

The contriver of puns that I am, I couldn't just say this pun... I had to spice up the cubicle space with a couple of signs... For some people, it might be a warning.

Borrowing a little alley humour from Harry Potter, I appropriately named the narrow alley "Digression Alley". The sign is situated outside the cubicle area as a bit of a warning for all those who enter.

Of course, the sign situated inside the cubicle area, as you head out through the narrow alley, is appropriately labelled "Regression Alley".

Whatever magic is cast on you as you enter Digression Alley is respectfully removed as you leave through Regression Alley.

Did I mention that one particular task that software developers (or testers or the QA group) perform after programming changes have been completed for software is something called regression testing?

Poem: Imprisoned Fortitude

I live in this room
     no doors
     no windows

[so I can sit in the dark]

just six dank stone walls
     built
     by my own instinctual fears
     strengthened
     by each love lost

[so I can be stronger]

to keep me confined
     from love
     from loving
to keep the memories
     from entering
     from escaping
to keep
the pain

I should have said good-bye
when I had the chance

I should have at least cried
when they turned and left

I should have loved them less

I should have

I should have brought
a hammer and chisel in here
to keep me company

Poem: The Game of War

Fear in people's eyes,
terror in their minds.
And trying times
shed tears of pain
through anguished cries.

Bodies dropping to the dirt
while fallen souls are rising up
within the dust of dying men.
And soldiers' eyes
are pierced by death
while their enemy's beds
make their only rest.

Blood on their clothes,
empty are their souls.
And mortal men
embrace their fears
by killing their foes.

Endless killing for an end
while fighting souls are burdened by death
within their surly plays to live.
And leaders play
the game of chess
with men to expend
and lives to trade.

Poem: Foundations of a Life

The ceiling is so high
in the room in which I stand
that I can not see it.

All that I see
are the endless rows of columns
supporting it.

Gold (Ticket) Cube

Woohoo! I mean, Yeehaw!!! (I'm supposed to be a Calgarian)

I received an email today from The Hypercube with the fabulous news that I was selected as one of the 500 final hypercubists to audition for 1 of the 50 Nissan Cubes.

So in celebration, here's my precious Gold (Ticket) Cube...

Check back here in a few days... I'll have more information on how to vote for me, and how you can check out the creativity of the other 499 finalists.

Out of Character

Every Halloween, the company I'm employed at holds an afternoon Halloween event with fun activities where employees are asked to (optionally) where a costume.

For Halloween 2008, I originally planned to go as Balki Bartokomous from Perfect Strangers, but as Halloween approached (I procrastinated of course), I could not find a suitable vest that would help people make the connection.

So now it was the morning of Halloween and I still didn't have a costume. I stopped in at The Real Canadian Superstore, only to find that all Halloween costumes and accessories were ransacked. But I did manage to pick up a Heads Up Harry (life-size animated talking zombie figure) for half price... If I couldn't dress up, at least I could bring my buddy Harry, who was Halloween-ready.

Now it's lunch-time, and still no costume. I zipped out to the mall for lunch and hit Spencers Gifts. I was able to find a redneck baseball cap with long greasy curly locks attached (last one in the store), glass bottle glasses, and a set of hillbilly teeth. And luckily, I had a set of overalls from a cable company in the back of my car.

I was going to be some fictitious Billy "Cable Guy" Bob character, and no one in the office knew.

I secretly slipped into the costume. But at the same time, I slipped into the character behind the costume. I changed my stance, my walk, and my talk. Of course, the hillbilly teeth had a lot to do with the alteration of my speech, but my words were now from the mouth of Billy Bob.

Here's the before-and-after pics to show my usual office persona and my Halloween Billy Bob persona. Actually, the "before" pic was taken a couple of days ago, but I think you get the idea of the physical transformation. Uh, I'm the one on the left if you're wondering... and that's Heads Up Harry on the right (it looks like he's lost a bit of weight, and I've gained a bit).

(For larger view, click on above images)

A few people had a difficult time figuring out who I was (or even if I was supposed to be there), and I had a great time being someone else for the afternoon. I didn't let up... I stayed in character the entire event, until it was time to pull off the costume.

Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any video of my character from the event... that would have been ideal to show how I pulled it off.

So instead, I'm going to try and persuade my colleagues to leave comments about their point of view or experience. If you're curious, come back to this posting during this upcoming week to read the comments left by my colleagues.

See Sean, the Cube Man

This is a literary and visual ode to Sean Williams, the Cube Man, for his creatively daring efforts to promote the Cube... He brings a whole new meaning to playing in traffic...

See Sean.	See Cube box.	See Sean wearing Cube box.

See Sean run.	See Sean run in traffic.	Look out, Sean!

Run, Sean, Run!

See the complete Cube Man series on Sean Williams' FlickR photostream.

Edit - Apr 5, 2009 at 6:35 pm MDT:

The Cube Man currently does not appear to have a blog nor site, so you can follow @Seandubb on twitter.

Hypercube for Everyday People?

The Hypercube had asked everyone a while back about people's reactions when we mention the Nissan Cube and the Hypercube word-of-mouth campaign. I didn't actually answer it at the time as I wanted to gather more reactions.

But this evening, the Hypercube asked 5 questions that I thought I'd answer in this blog posting rather than in several tweets on Twitter. Here's the questions:

1. How did you hear about @thehypercube?
2. What was your first impression?
3. Would u have been interested if Nissan had used ads instead?
4. Have you told people?
5. What do they think?

Here's my answers:

1. I heard about @thehypercube via an email I received from Nissan Canada because I had signed up on the Nissan Cube microsite to receive notifications about the Nissan Cube.
   
   
2. I thought, "This is really cool! 50 free Nissan Cubes." But I also thought, "This is gonna be a bit of creative and techno-social work." But I was up to the challenge.
   
   
3. I would have been interested in the Nissan Cube regardless of the advertising. I knew about the Nissan Cube back in 2004 because I had an interest in all Japanese vehicles. When I saw the Cube in the JDM market, I was wondering why it wasn't in North America yet, and hoping that Nissan would soon decide to bring them to this continent. In the meantime, I had to "settle" for importing a Nissan S-Cargo from Japan for myself. But then the Cube showed up in the Montreal auto show as a concept vehicle, and I thought, "They better be serious about bringing this to Canada." It took them a while, but it's finally here.
   
   
4. Yes. Face-to-face, over the phone, email, Twitter, Facebook, forums. I'm going to try smoke signals next.
   
   
5. What do they think about the Nissan Cube? It's like my Nissan S-Cargo... Either they really like it, or they don't. There doesn't seem to be a halfway in between on this car. But I think that's a good thing. I think people who like it will tend to be more passionate about it.
   
   What do they think about the Hypercube campaign? They're mostly okay with the word-of-mouth thing, but the contest part seems like too much work and techno-socializing beyond their current circle of friends. Out of all the people I've talked to, really only 1 other person seemed genuinely interested in participating in the contest.

Papercraft R/C Nissan Cube

I had a little fun with a papercraft Nissan Cube that I downloaded from SH Illustration Studio, and the chassis from a 1:26 scale Nissan 180SX R/C car (borrowed from a colleague).

Since it was a JDM model (Japanese Domestic Market), I had to tweak the image to flip certain items left-to-right because vehicles in Japan are right-hand drive, and USDM models (U.S. Domestic Market) are left-hand drive. I also had to scale the papercraft images so it would fit over the R/C chassis.

I used wooden stir sticks, which are thinner but longer than popsicle sticks, to reinforce the papercraft construction as well as attach it to the R/C chassis.

The result... my colleague and I had a little cubicle fun driving this little papercraft R/C Nissan Cube around our work area. I only have a Canon A95 Sureshot still camera, but it took decent enough video for me to create this little segment to promote the Nissan Cube campaign...

Sweet Ride

I couldn't leave this series of X Cubes at only two. It needed at least 3 Cubes to keep this a well-balanced cubular theme.

This could be the sweetest ride this summer...

Got Cheese?

One of the other hypercubists, PhantomJoe, left a tweet for me on twitter, "cheesy but I love it!". I'm assuming he was referring to my Nissan Ice Cube image. Thanks for the, uh, compliment, Joe. :)

Well, the contriver of puns that I am, be it literal or visual, I could not resist the challenge. PhantomJoe, I give you the cheesiest cube of them all...

Note: No cheese was harmed in the making of this image.