I don’t think colleague and friend Brett Macfarlane could have been more spot on with the following tweet he posted earlier this evening, which read “Thinking the three R’s - retail, real estate and renewables - will surprise us with innovation in the coming decade.”

On the retail front, it would be tough to be more inventive than Italian practice Studiometrico’s recent transformation of an old Milan cinema into the new Bastard flagship shop.

The concept is genius. In order to maximize the 15,000 square-foot space, the skateboarding bowl is suspended from the ceiling providing more than enough capacity below for sleek product merchandising and administrative space.

More info and photos about the project can be found at Arch Daily.

Today, Gavin Froome and I ditched the agency at high noon in hot pursuit of a Black Cod lunch at Aki. According to Gavin, Aki has the best Cod in the city. Apparently, the owner has some type of fresh fish connection that ensures your delicious Omega-3 filled lunch was just snatched from the sea. And if it’s not ‘fresh to death’, “no soup for you”, know what I mean?

Sadly, Aki was closed. Rather than smash down the barred up doors and fry that fish our damn selves, we opted for Guu. There, we had a savory bowl of deep fried chicken, rice and egg. Hearty, delicious, cheap.

Aprés lunch, we took the long route back to office. There’s nothing like taking in the Cherry blossoms on a beautiful spring day in Vancouver. Work to live, don’t live to work. Work supports life.

Branded, reusable chop sticks, for the serious Guu patron.

Spring is in full effect.

Gavin.

I first had the pleasure of meeting Josh Michnik a.k.a Charles Lee a few summers back. He was dating the sister of the woman that I was dating at that time. Over the years we’ve had some serious fun together. Most notably, doing navy seals dives off the back of a ripping speedboat on Tulameen Lake while intoxicated off of cheap liquor. And an impromptu acoustic music show we hosted at his apartment starring Sam Bradley - the then unknown musician behind the #1 hit from the film Twilight - myself, and a stand up bass player from the VSO. He’s a chilled out dude - a creative that understands the balance between producing work of the highest quality, while simultaneously managing to enjoy life and not take things too seriously.

Since our nights of taking hipster parties at The Limerick Junction and The Columbia by storm, he’s traveled extensively and spent two years living in London where he worked for clients such as VH1, MTV, ITV2, Wowwow, Diesel and RedBull.

Currently, homie has some serious irons in the fire. He’s relocating to Venice beach where he will reside with Paul Devro from Mad Decent, work and surf.

We recently reconnected this past weekend for the first time in over a year to kick it old school, so to speak. Over Sapporo, saki, and tuna tataki we discussed what agencies are currently producing the best creative, and ways that we can collaborate in the future. He then showed me his demo reel. Kids skills are off the chains.

Today’s savory/delicious web findings are as follows:

Theme magazine writes, “Given the frequency of earthquakes in Japan, it would seem a bad place to build elevated highways; but given their space constraints, they’ve got no choice”. Check out Ken Ohyama’s documentation of Japan’s elevated urban expressways. Be sure to add the dude as a contact on Flickr.

GOOD recently worked with Wooster Collective to curate some examples of cutting edge street art. I’m not sure I’d agree with most of the selections, however, I do agree with the statement “These days, if you’re looking for innovative and vital art, skip the galleries and take a walk down the streets of any major city.” In a separate post Good writes, “That Old Testament God sure was kill-happy. By Dwindling in Unbelief’s tally, the good lord smote some 33 million people during Biblical times”. On that note: Watch Zeitgeist y’all.

Will Loafers be the must have kicks of ‘09? I’m digging Ryan from Hyr Collective’s prediction.

Speaking of Zeitgeist, Hype Machine has a great version of its own. So, “Forget the magazine editors & big label marketing budgets. This is the best music from 2008 chosen by the most passionate music fans alive: music bloggers.”

Flipping Typical is a cool font tool.

Are you into Popular Behaviour? If so, my colleague Gavin Froome just started a new block. YAMS, that clean white and black design looks slick, no?

As the year has now come to a close, it’s time to look back at The Aesthetic Poetic’s most popular stories of ‘08. In case you missed them the first time, here’s a list of the top 12.

1. Ilkka Halso: Museum Of Nature - Finnish artist Ilkka Halso portrays a futuristic world where nature, no longer capable of serving its natural purpose, functions as nothing more than an amusement attraction.

2. The California Academy of Sciences - The California Academy of Sciences is currently migrating 20 million specimens and 38,000 living animals to its new location in Golden Gate Park.

3. “Chinglish” In China - Recently, the F-word has been popping up on many signs leaving government officials bewildered and expats amused.

4. Carbonated Conflict - Prompted by a recent surge of prosperity in the Middle East, the giant American beverage companies have engaged in a fierce race to win the soft-drink allegiance of Arabs, especially youth.

5. Reverse Shoplifting - “Shopdropping” as it’s known, is an ongoing project in which artist Ryan Watkins-Hughes replaces the packaging of canned goods with his own artwork, and then “shopdrops” the items back onto grocery store shelves.

6. Cyclope Paris: Fixie Bike Culture - Cyclope, the city’s only shop dedicated to repairing, building and selling fixed gear bikes, is impossible to find without extremely detailed directions or a guide.

7. Photographers are Terrorists - All to often the act of snapping a couple of unsuspecting photos results in extreme violence towards the photographer.

8. The Street Jazz Hustle - In Europe, the means by which peddlers, buskers and vagrants alike hustle for dollars on the street-level is much different than in North America. When compared, European beggars are performers, fortune tellers and musicians whereas North American bums are lazy, intoxicated narco-state drones that expect you to provision their next crack rock, smack injection, or bottle of liquor like it’s your societal duty to do so.

9. Seylynn Bowl - On Saturday October 17th 1978, the district of North Vancouver opened Seylynn Skateboard Park to the public. Now in its thirtieth year, it’s the oldest surviving park in Canada.

10. Corporate Infiltration - Recent years have seen street art and its central figures become as mainstream as all over print tee shirts and French electronica.

11. San-Zhr Pods - Along the coastline of San-Zhr - a small town on the north coast of Taiwan - exists remnants of a brightly colored and futuristic looking hotel/housing development.

12. Made In Queens - Are you as hyped as I am on the sound bike scene that’s brewing in New York’s Queens borough?

I recently picked up a fresh copy of Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut for my library to replace the previous copy I owned which was never returned by the careless individual that I lent it to. If you’ve never read the book and you’re into satire, you’re seriously missing out. Simply put, it’s ingenious - clever, original and inventive. Vonnegut at his best.

The following exerts from the novel remind me of the sad, destitute and rampant drug addicted population that inhabits Vancouver’s downtown east side.

“The whole city was dangerous - because of chemicals and the uneven distribution of wealth and so on. A lot of people were like Dwayne: they created chemicals in their own bodies which were bad for their heads. But there were thousands upon thousands of other people in the city who bought bad chemicals and ate them or sniffed them - or injected them into their veins with devices which looked like this.”

Above photo via: The Publics

“Sometimes they even stuffed chemicals up their assholes. Their assholes looked like this.”

“People took such awful chances with chemicals and their bodies because they wanted the quality of their lives to improve. They lived in ugly places where there were only ugly things to do. They didn’t own doodley-squat, so they couldn’t improve their surroundings. So they did their best to make their insides beautiful instead. The results had been catastrophic so far - suicide, theft, murder, and insanity and so on.”

As noted by Javier Perez de Cuellar, “Let all bear in mind that a society is judged not so much by the standards attained by its more affluent and privileged members as by the quality of life which it is able to assure for its weakest members.”

The last six months have been insane, to say the least. Many aspects of this time were great; others were filled with gut wrenching pain to likes I never thought possible. The good: an amazing journey through France and Spain followed by landing a great new job. The bad: ending a fantastic, albeit tumultuous relationship with the love of my life. Let’s just say that heartbreak is a bitch. It sends relatively sane men off the deep end and into self-destructive whirlwinds of dark and dreary self-analysis, retarded liquor consumption and mental oblivion. Oblivion by definition is the state of being unaware or unconscious of what is happening: they drank themselves into oblivion. Fitting, no?

Looking back, being temporarily fucked out of my mind was the best thing that ever happened to me. It enabled me to reach a state of clarity, a return to my center, so to speak. As stated in the song Jerusalem by Hasidic Jewish reggae singer Matisyahu, “Out of the Darkness Comes Light”. It’s all about returning to your renaissance - focusing on what’s important. In my case, writing, work, entrepreneurship and the arts.

In the words of Jay-Z, “If you love it, let it fly out it’s cage and if it comes back to you, then fuck it, cause it’s here to stay. An equally inspiring passage, “I’ve got 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one”.

I’m often amazed by the political incorrectness of advertisements from the past. Especially those that use category experts or celebrity endorsement to mislead and deceive consumers into misinformed, inappropriate and unhealthy product selections. For example, in the early ’90s, St. Ides Malt Liquor ran a campaign strategically targeted at low-income blacks that featured rappers 2Pac, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Project Pat, King Tee, DJ Pooh, The Notorious B.I.G., Eric B & Rakim, EPMD, Wu-Tang Clan, Method Man & Redman, Cypress Hill, RBL Posse and The Geto Boys reciting original rhymes written by St. Ides that advocate consuming the subpar liquor.

Watch some of the campaigns spots after the jump.

“People who remember when tobacco advertising was a prominent part of the media landscape — and others who recall what they learned in Marketing 101 — probably recollect that actors like Barbara Stanwyck and athletes like Mickey Mantle routinely endorsed cigarettes.” Read When Doctors, and Even Santa, Endorsed Tobacco.

I’m digging the wheatpastes of Vancouver based artist The Dark. He has some cool work to scan posted on his Flickr.

“Give Hieronymus Bosch a Mac Pro with two 3.2-GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors and 32 gigs of RAM, unfettered Internet access — and some electricity — and you have Case Simmons and Andrew Burke’s You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth.” Hit up Wired, and check out Assembling Internet Images Into a Garden of Webly Delights. Amazing!

I could be wrong, but does this Forbes article not reinforce Haddow’s opinion?

On the SMS front, Vancouver based Tagga is about as sweet as vanilla ice cream doused in maple syrup. The application “allows anyone to create instant SMS and Mobile Sites so that you can interact, sell to, or simply communicate with mobile users. Promote your band, your house for sale, your business, organize your sports team, club, events… anything!”

In music, Radiohead Launches Easier, Less Expensive Remix Contest and here’s a look at Six New Directors Who Are Making Music Video Cool Again.

A year ago, a leading network/Telco exec advised me that Twitter would be dead in a year. Since, hundreds of applications for the simple, open-source platform have been developed. Here’s 140+.

On the wheels, I’m really digging spinning jams released on Fort Knox Five label. Check out their MySpace.

Lifecasting is a regularly updated broadcast of events in a person or brand’s life through digital media channels such as Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, YouTube and blogs. By documenting and broadcasting personal experiences and daily routines, an ongoing and interactive dialogue is created with viewers that connect with the content being created. For brands, these enthusiasts are extremely important. As stated by Kevin Kelly, in his article 1,000 True Fans, “a creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.”

So how is a True Fan defined? The article goes on to say, “A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can’t wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.”

If each True Fan you have were to spend $100 per year on your products, your revenues would be $100,000 (keep in mind many of your True Fans will spend more). That’s a substantial income for an individual!

Examples of individuals, organizations and brands that are leveraging Lifecasting for promotional purposes include: Barack Obama’s use of multiple channels such as Flickr, Twitter and his blog to keep his supporters up to date on his campaign, The Berrics and The Hundreds – niche fashion/skateboarding brands – that broadcast their lifestyles, and Non-Society - a group of elite women that have created personal brands by publishing their lives.

Lifecasting has greatly evolved from simply recording ones life, into individuals, companies and brands daily distributing new content in order to spread their brand messaging, and build a True Fan base of dedicated consumers.