80’s style video games arrive and begin the attack, ultimately conquering the planet and turning it into one giant pixel. Video by OneMoreProduction.

image (c) Lisa Town

Spotted while enjoying a day at the beach last weekend on the Oregon Coast.

Santas take to the streets for the annual SantaCon in towns across the US and overseas in this lovely month of December. Santas have been seen riding bikes, boarding trains, eating and drinking in city pubs and gathering in public parks. Here’s a few street scenes from the event that took place over the weekend in Portland, including the initial gathering point at downtown’s newest urban park, Director Park.

Happy Holidays all!

images via ohhh_yeah808

Improv Everywhere, the NYC-based improv group devoted to causing joy and chaos among the public streets, has been at it again. This time, they set 2,000 people loose in Brooklyn with invisible dogs on a Sunday afternoon for about an hour long walk. Participants spread out and acted as they normally would with a real dog, stopping at hydrants, picking up poo, chasing other dogs and even other people. Apparently the whole gag got started by a phone call from someone who happened to have taken over an abandoned factory to convert into an art space and the factory had 2,000 invisible dog leashes gathering dust. Well surely you can’t let those go to waste! Oh how I love urban gags. Check out the video above to watch people walking their dogs.

image via Lisa Town

When you go to the beach you expect to see things like lighthouses, sand, beach chairs, people throwing sticks out in the water for dogs, kids skipping rocks and other such recreational activities. What you don’t expect to see is two paramedics lounging on the sand and their ambulance truck in the parking lot with an “On Strike” sign posted to the back.

On my drive back from my vacation up in British Columbia, I got stuck at the US/Canada border near this “green wall” outside the duty free store. I couldn’t see it very well at first, it just looked like pine branches sticking up behind some other vegetation. Then when I got right up to it, I noticed that it was basically giant green pipecleaners woven through a chainlink gate that opened to the service area for the store.

images via Lisa Town

I have a horrible habit of not looking up but I suppose this is also something of a curse because of my profession, I’m generally paying more attention to what’s going on around me on the ground plane and perhaps a story or two above. A conversation recently with a relative who is a building inspector brought up the point that far too often buildings take this into account and only put the detail on the ground level. So it’s not just me, it’s society….as a whole, we don’t look up.

images via icopythat

Over the last couple years I’ve been trying to make it a habit to look up more and pay closer attention to what lies above me. I’ve discovered many interesting things. I even went back to my hometown and looked up only to realize that there was this whole world I had been completely unaware of for my entire growing-up life. What else have I missed?

This reminded me of a stunt my favorite public space shaker-uppers, Improv Everywhere, did awhile back in New York City’s Union Square called “Look Up More” designed to express this exact point…check it out….

As it turns out, they are also good for keeping beer cool when it’s hot….

images via Lisa Town

I recently saw The Science of Sleep, a fabulous film for those of us dreamers out there who don’t always see the world as it is. And with all the talk all over the web about creating sustainable cities….I think everyone is just making things far too complicated and perhaps this movie has it all figured out.

Just build the entire city out of the cardboard rolls from paper towels and toilet paper!

images via RachelA

Since I’ve been spending the day grading parking lots, roads and stormwater systems…I can’t help but be highly amused by these.

This is an advertising campaign from Bates Y&R for Jeep around Copenhagen as a way to communicate the ability of the vehicle to be able to park on any terrain, even on stairs and up on planters.

images via ibelieveinadvertising