I work for an ad agency in downtown Toronto. I haven't made note of that before on my site really as I only started working there (full time) fairly recently. I do digital web work/ programming.

Just thought I'd make a note about the fact we just won ad agency of the year for 2007 here in canada. Feels pretty cool. (had nothing to do with me though, I just means it feels cool to be workign with them) it's a pretty small firm too, which is one of the reasons the company is so good, less cooks in the kitchen.

Now I have to get back to doing a 3d animation for Audi.

Every year on the 256th day of the year it's international programmers day.

whether you're a PHP/ASP developer, C/C++ junkie, javascript nerd, VB enthisuist sit back for 5 minutes, pat yourself on the back, print 'congratualtions'; on whatever code you're currently writting (I'm finishing an webmail client myself) and then get back to work.

If you're not a programmer, send smile to those that are, the interent wouldn't be here doing what it does quite as well otherwise.

New show at Powerhouse Museum in Sydney Australia. Late notice but oh well, those of you not in Australia probably weren't going to go anyways right?

Info: August 24-26th+ possibly a few extra days on top of those 4. It's a quick show happening during ultimo science festival.

Genpets will be in the window of the Museum shop though, so basically every single person coming through the museum will see them. Much better than saying, "oh ya, they're on level 3 around the corner then down the hall, yadda yadda". So it's great and also allows Genpets to be in the museum without being in the museum context, which was the curators idea to my glee. I love it when people get it.

If you go, you'll see em. Trust me. No worries.

More info? Check powerhousemuseum.com for more info like address, and.. the museum logo?

Ferrets do like their beauty sleep. It's hard to not laugh when he starts dreaming and twitching on my chest or lap. Even harder when he starts to snore or sleep with his tongue sticking out.

Over at Slate.com Amanda Schaffer has done an article on artists dealing with bioengineering. link

This month as I desperately figure out how I'll pay rent (as I'm involved in multiple web projects where the designers aren't pulling through on their end in a timely manner and thus bringing me down with them...) I feel a little funny.

"Adam Brandejs' recent work mounts a more successful critique of biotechnology without actually using it. Genpets (2005-06) presents a fake biotech company, Bio-Genica, which purports to sell genetically engineered pets in convenient clamshell packaging. Genpets come in a variety of color-coded personalities and are kept in a "hibernation state," with a "fully functional heart-rate monitor." A "fresh strip" ensures quality until you take them home. "They are living pets, but better, modified to be as reliable, dependable and efficient as any other technology we use in our busy lives," the Web site explains. Brandejs' parody is full of imagination and benefits from some creative distance, making it a sharper commentary than Kac's or Catts and Zurr's more-technical efforts."

kind words indeed, and ones that while they won't go to my head, do make me feel better about not knowing how the hell I'll afford rent this month.

I'm 25 and just being mentioned along side the big boys is honor enough, never mind opinions on how my work may or may not compare (that is of course in the eye of the beholder, ---... doesn't mean I won't gloat though!!!).

This coupled with my possible inclusion on a possible upcoming project where my name is along side other artists like Chris Landreth (created the oscar winning short "Ryan") and others blows my mind.

When Sam and Allanah came in to interview for a quick clip to be used for the project (that shall not be named..) and Sam not only knew Genpets but apparently all his friends had messaged him about it etc when it was first out,... well, I guess I don't see that side of it, I don't realize that people have actually seen it, I see the stats, the millions of hits, but numbers aren't people, it's hard to wrap my head around the fact people might actually know my work. it's hard to fully understand that it's being shown in university lectures, or that the press articles/magazines it's in are being read by people (or at least flipped past...)

Tying that into being included along side Oscar winning or governor general award winning artists, and being talked about along side the big boys like kac or catts, I don't feel like I'm quite as much of a failure.

I'm not sure how professional it is to say "I feel nice not being ignored and being mentioned along side the famous artists" but screw being professional, I'm 25 and that's pretty great.

If I can actually ever pay my rent I could actually get back to creating art and possibly make it even further... (or possibly not, who can say)

anyone wanna buy a genpet? now with 32% more love from Adam Brandejs?

I unfortunately receive spam attempts to all of my email form systems, be it this website, a clients site, or especially genpets.com

blocking via keywords is nice, but nowadays spammers simply use groups of non coherent words.

here's a useful way to implement a block, depending on what sort of site you run it might work great.

generally no one sends me links via legitimate email on my forms, sometimes one or two. but never 5-7!

so it seems to make sense to count how many links are in a body of text, and then block the email if there's more than, in my case 5.

here's is the code below.

//check for link spam

preg_match_all("/http/i",$Message,$matches);

$cnt = count($matches[0]);

if($cnt >=5){$errors[] = "Email Spam detected! Please do not try again, your IP has been logged.";

}

obviously switch the IF to what you need, but I use an error array and only send if the array is empty.

this is not an end all be all approcah, but it should cut down on the amount coming through, and if combined with IP logging and keywords should be close to 100% successful.

News script online!

Ever wonder what sort of emails I get to Genpets.com? wonder no longer little one, I wrote a small email browser script. yes, now you can share in the fun of hate mail! Yay!

The script can be accessed via this link http://www.brandejs.ca/gp_emails.php (link)I haven't added it to the portfolio yet, I'll do that later.

Beyond just browsing emails sent to me, you can also mark them as either interesting or funny. sort of a cheap mans rating system.

By no means are all the emails in there, only about 1600 out of like 4000 (and no replies, etc), but it's more than anyone will ever read anyways.

What's a social experiment if you can't share the findings after all?

Child proof my ass.

just a little update, for anyone wanting to show support? do free advertising for me? or just in general run around with images of the genpets, I've added a cafepress account for genpet merchandise http://www.cafepress.com/Genpets

I kept the markup at 1-3$ so if you buy a shirt, you're buying me a beer! ..I mean adding to the material fund for more art... and beer.

Go buy adam a beer and wear his art.

At about 11pm lastnight I got tired of coding and needed a break to have some fun. Crystal plays alot of Nintendo (original NES) on my xbox through the emulator, but it's never been all that good with an xbox controller so I don't play much. I saw someone else do an xbox nes controller so I figured why not.

I used a hipgear controller as my base, which, was a strange one as the a b x y buttons had 3 contacts instead of 2. I had to separate the ab lines in the NES controller and basically have 2 grounds, which defies all logic but at 2am it became clear it was 2 separate grounds or no controller mod. (weird, weird hip gear controller...).

this by no means reinvents the wheel, but it IS insanely better than using an xbox controller. I'm surprissed acctually how much more fun it is.

and yes I know what you're thinking (2 grounds??) the hip gear uses ground on one side of the controller and on the other the buttons use a separate line hooked into the controller cpu rather than a common ground.