Above: A little league coach gets thrown out of a game, causing a brawl to escalate on the field between all the parents.

The hassles that come with having kids aren't always kid-related; sometimes, it's the having to deal with the parents they're related to that becomes an even BIGGER hassle.

Parents have to be protective of their kids.  After all, the little tykes don't have the complete mental capacity to always make decisions that are the safest for them.  Unfortunately, the level of child protectiveness a person feels is necessary varies from parent to parent.

All of this is well and good when a person is dealing with their own child.  Throw another person's child into the mix, however, and things can suddenly start to go hay-wire!

Why? Because when you interact with other people's children, you are also interacting with a set of parents whose child-raising views, opinions and methods are different from yours.  And when their parenting methods are ones that don't match with yours, the consequences of dealing with these people can be catastrophic!

For example: you have a kid named Johnny, who has a school chum named Iko.  Iko wants to come over to your house after school to play with Johnny.  After talking to the parents, they agree to allow Iko to go over.  However, they instruct you not to feed Iko any bread because he's allergic to it, and you tell them it won't be a problem.  So far, so good, right?

But then: Iko comes over to the house to play with Johnny, and when you leave the room for 5 minutes to go to the bathroom, Iko slips into the kitchen to make himself a Peanut-Butter and Jelly sandwich, which, of course, consist of peanut butter, jelly... and BREAD!! He eats the sandwich before you get back from the bathroom, and, since Iko put all the evidence of sandwich-making away, you don't notice anything.

10 mintues later, you look over at Johnny and Iko, and notice that Iko is breaking out in bumps on his face.  He's also staring to cough a lot.  You call Iko's parents and tell them what's going on, only to hear from his Mom that the symptons are the result of him eating bread.  Before you can defend yourself, Iko's parents start going off:

"How DARE you feed our kid bread!  We TOLD you he was allergic to it!! Why are you trying to harm our child!!  I should have KNOWN you couldn't be trusted - your son always LOOKED like he was a bad influence!!" 

Next thing you know, the both of you are yelling back and forth on the phone, threatening to call the police on the other one for being rude and inconsiderate - all this, while Iko is still coughing his brains out!!

Think this scenario is too far-fetched? HA! This is just an example of a MINOR incident that could occur!  I've seen parents fight with other parents over many stupid things, including:

• Which person's kid is smarter than the other
• Aruging over who's kid is getting more playtime in (name of various sports)
• Whose kid gets to be first in line for something
• The last of a popular Christmas toy on the shelf at a Toy Store
• Which kid REALLY got the biggest half of cake
• Whose kid did more work on a school project
• Which kid deserves a better scholarship deal/college placement
• Whose kid is taller. Yes, you read that correctly!

The fact is, since most parents see their child as the end-all, be-all savior of the future, any other parent that comes along with their own kid is a threat to that ideal.  And personally, I can live without the hassle of other parents meddling in my life!!

-A.P. Taylor

Send your "Why I'm NEVER Having Kids" stories/ideas to neverhavingkids@gmail.com.  If you're a parent, send your "Dealing w/Kids Horror Stories" - who knows, your story could be the catalyst for my next blog!

En voor de A vision by Kanye-spot, klik

This is one of those odd ones that I hate/like.

A bit like shaving your balls, it’s not nice to do but I like the way it feels afterwards. Or wanking off looking at pictures of your mum, which is nice at the time but after it you feel a bit... well... suicidal.

The advert starts with the usual humourless twattery; bubbles, filters, clean, cool…beer-guff - the sort of shite they wheel out for people too scared to drink proper ale (which should be dark brown, flat, a little cooler than warm and drunk by men - not baseball hatted tossers with three quarter-length shorts and Billabong t-shirts).

We’ve seen it all before. Swirling effervescent liquid glittering like silver sunflakes in tan gutmud with some Burton-deep narration - rich and manly - eulogising over it. Wonderful, delicious etc... hyperbole in a glass.

But wait. No. Something’s not right. The camera has pulled up through this pond of gassy gall and two young men are in conversation… Wait - the one on the right appears to be the one actually narrating… The one on the right IS the man evangelising about the wonders of Coors.

Jesus.

Now this is fucking annoying. At this stage of proceedings my exasperation dam has broken and a flood of rasping sighs gas into my living space like a farting cow. The tit on the left castigates the ‘narrator’ on the right for ‘doing that’ but by now my tolerance is repaired, something wonderful is about to occur…

I really don’t understand why this has happened; I can’t comprehend why any part of my being seismically shifts as it does. I mentally down tools and like a five-year-old waiting for the steam train to round the mountain, I freeze in anticipation for the narration to continue off-camera. The two protagonists look at each other in silent astonishment, then look behind.

Approaching them, extolling the virtues of the ‘clean crisp taste’ in exactly the same throaty tones as the narrator is a plain looking girl with a rather large mouth. Sweet Christ, no.

SHE’S the narrator, it’s her!! She’s nothing to look at. She’s mousey and a little rotund but something about her, the way she walks and the manner in which she ‘speaks’. The coquettish way she chinks her bottle at the end of her sentence. Dear reader... I FUCKING LOVE HER!

I’m left sitting there in silence, grinning from ear-to-ear like an utter twit, like I’ve just been touched by the hand of Christ. Why has this happened?

Oh beautiful Coors girl, be mine, be mine, you fat frog.

• Agency: Sukle Advertising & Design
• Client: Denver Waters

This was put out by blogger Lee Stanahan who also pokes fun at presidential contender Barack Obama. Nice and balanced. Or does he just have a fight with everyone? Either way he's good.

IKEA were quite bold with this one, apparently it got banned in quite a few countries. It does however get your attention.

A not so obvious outcome, always a good element if you want people to remember the commercial.

Sergey Ratnikov is from Russia.
Portfolio : www.aduiart.ru
Mail : adui @ mail.ru

By Jacob Cass

General Design

1 Spunk United

An excellent magazine with a selection of the worlds best artists providing inspiration, interviews, articles and more.

2 FreeLance Switch

The community site of reference for all freelances. You must know this one!

3 Computer Arts

The site of the excellent international magazine Computer Arts. I have subscribed to this mag and love it!

4 David Airey

A graphic and logo designer who shares his knowledge on these areas.

5 Behance

A site gathering the portfolios of the artists of the whole world, a true inspiration.

6 Pdf Mags

References all the PDF mags out there! A great resource.

7 Graphic Design Forum

The most active of the graphic design forums out there. A bit more focused for the beginner designer.

8 Design Is Kinky

An Australia site focused purely on design news and design in general. Stay up to date!

9 Freelance Folder

A community blog which posts regular articles on freelancing. Very diverse.

10 Bittbox

Provides regular resources for design… tutorials, brushes, vectors and more!

11 Vandelay Webdesign

Provides very social media friendly articles, large resource lists and tips for web designers.

12 You The Designer

Very complete and diverse range of articles on graphic design.

13 Design You Trust

A daily design magazine, blog and small community, full of new design trends, news and events, great design portfolios and hand-picked design stuff from all over the globe.

Web Design:

14 Noupe

An excellent site on Web design & the development of the web (CSS & Ajax).

15 Smashing Magazine

Information for all. So broad that if you are a designer and you don’t know this site, we all have pity for you.

16 Think Vitamin

Vitamin is a resource for web designers, developers and entrepreneurs. 50,000 subscirbers can’t be wrong.

17 24 Ways

Web design and development, quality articles are always here.

18 A List Apart

Another pillar of the Web Design blog world, very good articles with diversified contributors.

19 Site Point

Very diversified site, graphics, css, ajax… Also editor of many Web Design books.

20 The Rissington Podcast

Excellent podcasts full with humour of excellent the Web Designer John Oxton and Jon Hicks.

21 Web Appers

Blog of Open Resources for Web Developers. .

22 Happy Cog

They publish their best ideas and speak out to the world on web design.

23- Web Designer Wall

A must have for all web designers and designers out there!

Resources:

24 Design Float

A digg like site for design related subjects. Must know!

25- Psd Tuts

The best tutorials on the web. Mmmmm.

26- Blue Vertigo

The MUST HAVE bookmark of all stock resourceson the net.

27- SXC.hu

My favourite stock site, you may notice I use this site for most of my images on this site.

28- Icon Finder

Self explanitory.

29- Da Font

Free fonts. Mmmm.

30 Maniackers Design Make

A lot of inspiration can be found here along with a lot of free resources. Bit hard to navigate though.

31- Colour Lovers

Find, create and exchange your pallets of favourite colors.

Show Cases:

32- Command Shift 3

Have you heard of hot or not? This is like that but for web designs, you choose the best website of 2. Great for inspiration.

33- Showcase Point

Showcases Flash & CSS sites with several options of sorting.

34- Zeniltuo

Large database of all the inspiration sites out there.

35- The FWA

Mainly shows off flash websites but is always of high quality. Great inspiration here.

36- CSS Mania

Another showcase site.

37- CSS Remix

A very good gallery of CSS websites.

38- Best Web Gallery

A very good selection of designs.

39- ScreenFluent

A very good selection of Web designs.

40 W3C Sites

Excellent selection of valid W3C sites.

41- CSS Beauty

A good gallery and it also has very interesting articles on the development of websites with news.

42- Edu Style

The schools and universities have also right to a gallery css, this one is particularly remarkable.

Development:

43 - Problogger

Tips on blogging in general. Must have for any blogger.

45- Pro Blog Design

Tips on improving your blogs design. Only quality articles here.

46- WP designer

The blog of reference for all the WordPress developers.

47- Ajax Rain

One of largest Ajax bookshops on the Web.

48- CSS3.info

The site of future standards - CSS3.

49- CSS Earth

Site referring the best articles on the development of CSS on the Web.

Flash & Flex:

51- Labs Adobe

New technologies and development from Adobe.

52- Christophe Coenraets

Blog of a Flex developer.

54- Adobe AIR Tutorials

The site of for tutorials on AIR.

55- Mike Chambers

The blog of Mike Chambers based on programming and technology.

56- The Blog Flash

Blog for Action Script 3 and Flex.

57- Jean Phi Blog

One of the largest French flashers. Has some great work, but the French part may be a problem for some.

Typography:

60 Swiss Legacy

A blog focused on typography, swiss design and the grid.

61- I Love Typography

Speaks for itself. A must know.

62- Design & Typo

The blog of the famous Peter Gabor, posts cool inspiration pieces (in English too).

63- The Typographer

The site on typography for the French.

64- Slanted

Large German site on typography.

Video & Motion:

65- Stage6

YouTube of animation (2d and 3d). Great quality.

66- Fubiz

A great blog which posts creative daily inspirational pieces of design. Bookmark this one for sure.

67- Motiono Grapher

International reference for all who are in the motion business.

68- Video Copilot

Tutorials of creating special video effects.

69- Graphics/ Motion

Italian Blog of Motion, the articles are of great quality and are updated very regularly.

70 FX Guide

Great Community site of Video and Motion, do not miss this one!

71- Works Motion

The site of John Dickinson, great inspiration here.

Personal Design Blogs:

72- Elliot Jay Stocks

Just check it out. His name pops up everywhere!

73- Veerle Blog

One of most beautiful blosg on the Web, very complete articles and tutorials, in short a must.

75- Jina Bolton

Design of Jina Bolton (aka Sushi Monster), author of the book “Art & Science of CSS” and of the excellent conference “Create Sexy StyleSheet.” A very envious portfolio.

76- Snook

Blog of the graphic designer, developer, writer and lecturer of Jonathan Snook - very complete tips and tricks for all Web Designers.

76- Stuff And Nonsense

Super and super blog of Markley, one of best WebDesigners in the world.

77- Lysergid

Blog of the excellent French Art Director Loïc SATTLER. Great articles, fresh design.

78- Iso 50

Blog of the excellent graphic designer Scott Hansen.

79- John Nack Blog

Blog of John Nack, composed of very complete article on graphics and Adobe.

Web2.0:

80 NetVibes

The web comes to you. News aggregator plus!

81- Del.Ico.Us

A tool for bookmaking and social media attention, must have!

82- Twitter

Get updates on what your friends, co workers, etc are doing.

83- FaceBook

A website where you can pass your life.

84- Flickr

The social site of photography - a great number of people are present there with new photographs to discover each day.

Relaxation:

Places for just browsing - Areas that most designers are interested in. (ie. Fashion, Music, Design)

85- Vinyl misuses

A magazine about toys.. Must check this site out, some really cool designs.

86- Discobelle

Excellent site of music, showcases music videos, parties, etc.

87- Hype Beast

Magazine for fashion design and culture.

88- Lense

A French reference for all those who wish to know some more about photography.

90 PopRave Blog

Underground culture of the clothes industry.

Various:

91- All Graphic Design

A site for everything graphic design related.

92- North X East

Articles for bloggers.

93- Ads Of The World

Web site which publishes all of the worlds ads. Great inspiration here.

94- LogoPond

Logo Design Inspiration

95- Logo Design Love

A blog focused totally on Logo Design. Regular articles and resources.

96- Split Da Diz

I have translated his page from French into English as he was the original poster of this article however I changed the French sites he recommended into English ones, fixed the old links he had posted and changed the order of some items… Visit his site!

97- Boing Boing

A genearl directory of wonderful things.

98- Business of Design Online

Pretty much anything to help a design business grow online.

99- Just Creative Design

Who else would have brought you this massive English list of 99+ graphic design resources? We provide graphic design tips, resources and articles for all.

More Sites You Should Know About

• DesignFlavr -The masters of Design and Illustration.
• Inspiredology - The social media master of design. Inspiration at its best.
• DesignMeltDown - Categorises websites into categories for inspiration.
• Creative Briefing - A web workers blog.
• ImageAfter - A great stock site.
• IgniteMotion - Free motion backgrounds.
• CSS Artillery - A showcase of web standards across the globe.
• CreativeBits - A mac orientated website around design.
• Communication Arts - The essential creative resource.
• Designers Who Blog - A blog dedicated to designers who blog among other things.
• NO-SPEC - Educate the public and designers about speculative, or ’spec’ work. Must read.
• Creative Latitude - A worldwide community that unites various creative disciplines for collective promotion, education and ethical business practice.

Featured Artist of the day :
Erik Jonsson

Brasil Cine: A2 poster

Telecom City: Website

Data Airlines: Summer promo mix 2008

Ignorance is bliss: Poster experiments

Ignorance is bliss: Poster experiments

Eyezcream Records: Redesign mockup board

Dubmood Backdrop: 200x80cm 300dpi

Mina hem: Webdesign layout & Framework

Vin & Sprit: Styleboard, interactive campaign

The 404 Project: 6 Stills from the 60 movie

The 404 Project: Logoboards

Dubmood - Presskit: Dubmood, Presskit cover

Hyper Island assignment: A2 Hamlet poster

Creatives Unlimited: Concepts

The constants are changing: Personal works, A3 poster

Under a color mooon: Dubmood promotional A3 poster

Top the Tune: Melodifestivalen Karlskrona promo

Hyper Island assignment: Cirque de Soleil

Hyper Island assignment: Beer Hero concepts

Hyper Island: Xmas Calendar

Microdisco Marseille: A3 poster

The problems considered with the existing educational system includes:
1. It prepares youth for a world that doesn't exist anymore (industrial), while nowadays it's more important to quickly learn, integrate and solve problems, create new ideas, not the knowledge to work on standard situations.
2. Kills creativity using methods that uses just left-brain modes, limits thinking and freedom of expression.... and there are more...

So if you are interested or concerned about this topic, just contact us or write a comment to this post.

Take a look at Ken Robinson presentation - "Do schools kill creativity?"

You can Advertise any Product or Service on our Site and Newsletters,this has already gained rapid acceptance amongst our Promoter and Buyer. Your Company and Your Product is very special to you and it deserves a special place too. Check our Advertising plans to reach out beyond borders.

Also you can subscribe for Newsletter and Softinfo - mobile Subscription.

Newsletter is a regularly distributed publication generally about one main topic of interest, delivered electronically via email where you will get updated regularly on Information Technology related informations. Through our Newsletters, we provide information on Interesting Software, Featured Software, Free Trial Downloads, Latest Readings, Requirements, Special Offers, Advertisements etc.

Softinfo is Mobile BLOG (MOBS - Mobile subscription) through SMS, this mobile blog method is to expose the Software & Software Information. We send details of one interesting software from iPOTT everyday, to all the subscribers.

Check this out! We assure you, you will be excited. You can now get Software Information on your mobiles.

From Queens to Coney, IKEA has announced to New York City that they have landed. Once upon a time, New Yorkers would adventure to Long Island, Jersey and even Connecticut just to get lost in a warehouse known for its chic press board, primary colors, and Swedish meatballs. For some time now, New Yorkers have seen the ads, heard the rumors, and have flocked to Brooklyn with wallets and eyes wide open.

The ads are unsuspectingly successful as the hazmat yellow draws your attention to a bleak beige spot with astute black lettering. But because its an actual unfolded box thrown into an ad display it starts to like looks like some sort of mistake. By replacing the everyday expectation with something a little bit off; it's then that IKEA's got you. It's also a reader, meaning that it's worth it to stop and take your time to read it as if it were in your best interest. The copy isn't unusual or really that clever, but the first person technique of humanizing a box to tell you all the information you need is a bit welcoming and acts on par with a human voice behind a 1-800 number.

Alternate IKEA ads show a city skyline crafted out of cardboard. The bright yellow shouts for attention and the beige looks so foreign on a bus it draws eyes wherever it goes to. And when absorbing the ad as an honest New Yorker, it's probably the most endearing diorama you've ever seen. Gotta love those water towers. These ads are pleasurable, playful, and trigger instant thoughts of the corrugated genius, Chris Gilmour.

Yet another ad is out there, and this one thinks outside the box. Literally. In that it envisions what happens after the IKEA furniture has been taken out of the box (and assembled). Obviously. Every NYC apartment or place called "home" is different from their own neighbors, and the ads reflect that appropriately. So, if the yellow-brown box-n-bus ads haven't drawn you to IKEA perhaps a showcase of a classy, fun, and alternative interior design changes will. These ads vary and showcase different rooms clad in a variety of different styles with copy that reasons with you. Many ads still throw in the yellow-and-brown color scheme to tie the campaign together. Similar to the unfolded box ad, this ad takes on the 1st person approach—and chooses to start it's conversation about money.

Every so often on a weekend, you could catch a truck sporting a see-through cargo bay on a truck parade streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan advertising for IKEA. It hurts to think this way, but the inner dimensions of a standard U-Haul truck became the equivalent of most peoples bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens as the see-through cargo bay was a mobile showroom, prompting onlookers to consider redecorating. The stunt was effective and mesmerizing though the association to IKEA wasn't so obvious since the instinct is to see what's inside before you loose sight of the truck. There's a lot of home decorating stores in the city that cater to the 40-60k income bracket (Bed Bath & Beyond, Pearl River, the Container Store, CB2, even Home Depot and more) but most have become par for the course and seen as hum-drum, visited primarily out of convenience. New York City is a metropolitan, fashionable and fast moving city that tires of routine and the same-old same-old. If only there was a new, accessible, fashionable, affordable and refreshing retailer in which to rejuvenate dwellings city-wide. . . .

On A Personal Note: When IKEA broke ground in Red Hook it caused quite a stir. New York City rejoiced as many of Red Hooks citizens groaned and endured increased traffic and aggressive gentrification. Despite having an abysmal time wading through their cluster-fuck of a store and became even more repelled at the slower-than-Pangaea pace of the checkout line (which, in fact, I dropped my items and walked out empty handed and very annoyed), it is not Ad Hawk’s place to judge the ramifications of IKEA's new nesting grounds. Nevertheless, I am a New Yorker, and a proud Brooklynite, and I do shed a tear for the removal of my favorite Red Hook staple thanks to IKEA. Lo, erased and long gone is the dilapidated waterfront warehouse that I had dreamed of housing my secret laboratory after I go mad from a city that “just doesn’t understand me.” No shady dwelling in which to hide out in and craft the perfect revenge or unseen doomsday device to unleash upon a city that has turned its back on me. This loss is the most tragic of all; sadly no affordable piece of fashionable furniture can replace my dream lair.

ACG North America
July 27, 2008
Star Walk International Buffet
648 Silver Star Blvd
5pm-10pm
Cosplayers $20 and Non-Cosplayers $30
Food, fashion show, cosplay competition, games, ddr, karaoke, skits, dealers.
www.acgnorthamerica.com

August 16, 2008 - Anime North 2008 Doujinka Festival
Located at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (Don Mills and Eglinton)
6 Garamond Court, Toronto, ON
There will be artist alley, and dealers!
Visit www.animenorth.com for more information!

August 19, 2008 - COMEX Radio Hosts
Thee Asian Kitchen
3160 Steeles Avenue East (Just West of Victoria Park on Steeles)
12pm
Bring on money
We will be hosting the week's show at a private location...
Please make sure you email (comex.media@gmail.com) if you're interested in joining us!
We'll be on air from circa 2:30pm-8:30pm
Fan Expo 2008
Metro Toronto Convention Centre - South Building
August 22-24, 2008
Deluxe Package is $69
Deluxe Pass is $49
1 Day Pass is $25
www.hobbystar.com