The logo for the London 2012 Olympics has been circulating for months, but it was only today I read an article that displayed the logos for each of Olympics, including some logos for cities bidding on the Olympics.

The official logo for the London Olympics in 2012 is a disgrace.

It is not uncommon for Olympic logos to not contain the five Olympic colours, blue, yellow, black, green, and red, but the colour choice usually has some significance.

I can’t imagine what significance the bright pink and yellow has other than maybe that the 1980′s happened in London.

The design is totally retro, but completely lacks the cool appeal of retro.

They were looking for something “dynamic, vibrant, contemporary, flexible and inspiring” and they may have hit all those elements but they also could have designed something classy.

And it doesn’t come as a surprise that the logo came with a price tag of approximately $650,000 CAD. I can respect that the marketing company Wolff Olins invested considerable time researching, collaborating, and designing, but the committee selecting the brand for these Olympics surely could have challenged Wolff Olins to make the best possible logo.

My expectations are that Jem and the Holograms perform at the 2012 Olympics in London based on the logo.

Rants Logo Design, London, Olympics

Interest Canada, Olympics

Not many people knows his name but Walter Frederick Morrison was the creator of the popular Frisbee disc.

Walter Fred Morrison - inventor of the Frisbee

60 years ago this man threw around a pie plate that has since become an important part of our lives.

Today he has passed away.

Without Fred Ultimate (Frisbee) would not exist, a sport that has been a huge part of my life for the past eight years.

Thank you Fred.

From Argue With Everyone: Frisbee Inventor Walter Frederick Morrison Dies Aged 90

GregPike.ca, Heroes, Interest Frisbee, Ultimate, Walter Frederick Morrison

I saw this on Google Buzz from Shawn.

see more Funny Graphs

Wacky Speedos

1. The nicest thing about the future is that it always starts tomorrow.
2. Money will buy a fine dog, but only kindness will make him wag his tail.
3. If you don’t have a sense of humor, you probably don’t have any sense.
4. Seat belts are not as confining as wheelchairs.
5. A good time to keep your mouth shut is when you’re in deep water.
6. Always be yourself because the people that matter don’t mind, and the ones who mind, don’t matter

Interest Aphorisms

Jean-Sebastien Giguere

It just crossed my mind why Jean-Sebastien Giguere is a great fit for the Leafs. Experience. Obvious, I know. But here’s why.

The Leafs have been playing all season with two young aspiring netminders who have had an incredibly inconsistent season. Wilson had the Leafs defense working hard to keep the puck from reaching the net. (In fact, the defense was practically forbidden from entering the attack zone.)

Unfortunately the puck always eventually gets through.

And when it did, all it would take would be a sharp shooter or a good rebound to put the puck in the net.

Now that Giguere is there that same hard-working defensive mentality is there, but when the offense reach the net, they aren’t facing a rookie. They’re facing a Venza-winning Stanley Cup goaltender who is ready for both the first shot and the second shot.

Now Giguere has 60 saves in back-to-back shut-outs.

Interest, Rants Jean-Sebastien Giguere, Toronto Maple Leafs

Everyone talks about how much they dislike Stephen Harper but few people take the initiative to do anything about it.

Someone created a Facebook Page for this onion ring and their social experiment is to determine if this onion ring can conjure up more supporters than Stephen Harper

I am proud to say that an onion ring has more fans on Facebook than Stephen Harper does. As I write this there are 30,136 people who are fans of Stephen Harper. There are 73,600 fans of this onion.

Politics, Wacky Facebook, onion, Stephen Harper

A few years ago my friend Joe Coffey and I sat down to eat some fries from the Ziggies van in Churchill Square and a mountain of ketchup packets.

When we were applying the ketchup we exchanged our annoyances with the design of standard ketchup packets.

Firstly, the packets never contains the right amount of ketchup. You always find yourself opening multiple packets.

Second, they always make a mess. You have to squeeze the ketchup through the rip in the corner. It’s hard not to get ketchup on your fingers.

We thought surely there must be a better design.

The biggest problem is affordability. Restaurants are not going to pay extra for a ketchup packet that is larger and cleaner. The current design is very efficient.

Joe and I thought of many options but narrowed it down to one perfect design. We shared it with a few people in the industry and it garnered a little excitement.

Unfortunately it ended there. We didn’t persue it any further.

Recently Heinz released a new ketchup packet design. It’s more or less the same design Joe and I created with some minor differences. Here is their new design:

To read more, check out Heinz Ketchup Packet Makeover

GregPike.ca, Rants, Service Heinz, Ketchup Packets

A nine year old child has given premature birth via c-section in China this week.

There was no comment as to the conception of the child.

It may not be the world record, the record was set by a girl in Peru, but it’s not far off.

From NuttyNewswire: 9 Year-Old Girl Gives Birth in China

Wacky

Early in the season Burke made a trade that many Leafs fans were excited about but that created much discontent. Phil Kessel for a first and second round draft pick in 2010 and a first round draft pick in 2011.

Many people felt it was too much to sacrifice, but I disagreed. The Leafs have an extremely youthful team, Wilson says “the youngest team in the league”. The average age is 26.5 years old (as of today’s trade) compared to the league average of approximately 28 years of age. In other words, the Leafs are not disparate for youth.

Additionally the point of a team picking up an early draft pick is the chance that a perspective player will become a star. The Leafs have traded the chance to obtain a star for an actual goal-scoring stud.

Sounds great to me.

Today Burke made some welcomed announcements. Two big trades that resulted in the movement of ten players with Calgary and Anaheim.

The Leafs have lost four of their offensemen in exchange for a stronger back end. While I am not sure what Burke’s plans are to fill in the forward lines after this trade (perhaps make room for Bozak, Hanson, or Kadri) I’m impressed with the defensive mix up.

It has been said that Burke led the Ducks to a Stanley Cup victory by building from the netminder out. In Anaheim he built a team with Giguere, Beauchemin, Niedermayer and Pronger.

Now he is doing much the same thing in Toronto. Giguere is a Stanley Cup championship goaltender who, if he cannot offer wins, he can offer mentorship to Jonas Gustavsson. Despite Gustavsson’s losing record he has exhibited incredible potential.

Giguere has not been doing well in Anaheim, but he did not want to play there and even threatened retirement unless he was given more action. He will certainly get that in Toronto.

In terms of the blueline, the Leafs now have Karbele, Phaneuf, Komisarek, and Beauchemin as well as World Junior champion Keith Aulie. With any luck it will be more challenging for opponents to put the puck in their net.

In terms of their offense, the Leafs never really had talented goal-scorers anyways. What they had was Ron Wilson’s shoot-and-get-as-many-rebounds-as-you-can dirty style of scoring, which is brilliant when you don’t have the talent to put it in the net.

To top it off, the Leafs can now make a push for the playoffs. While getting a slot may be near impossible, they have nothing to lose in terms of draft picks as their first and second pick for next season goes to Boston.

I am sure that Burke is now formulating a plan to get stronger skaters to meet Kessel at the front lines, but until then we will have to see how this current mix-up will affect the Leafs ability to win games.

Interest, Rants Anaheim Ducks, Calgary Flames, Dion Phaneuf, Jean-Sebastien Giguere, Toronto Maple Leafs