November 26, 2011 by Brad.

Greetings! Due to travel and Christmas, Turning Point Arts will be closed during certain days in December.

December 2 to 6

Brad will be visiting family in Ontario for a few days in early December. Therefore, the digital design and printing side of Turning Point Arts will be closed from Friday December 2 to Tuesday December 6 inclusive. Brad will be back in the studio on Wednesday December 7 at 11:00 am.

While Brad’s away, Peggy will keep the Turning Point Arts showroom gallery and pottery studios open regular hours, except Tuesday December 6, when Peggy will be working that day our other outlet, The Pottery Store in Chemainus. Everyone knows that we own The Pottery Store, right?

December 22 to 31

We’ll be closing everything down at Turning Point Arts for a much needed hiatus from Thursday December 22 through Saturday December 31 inclusive. Regular Turning Point Arts hours will resume on Tuesday January 3, 2012 at 11:00 am.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Merry Christmas everyone and thanks so much for your support, friendship and business in 2011. We look forward to seeing and working with everyone again in 2012.

Posted in Events, News, General | Print | No Comments »

September 21, 2010 by Brad.

Given the wide deployment of broadband Internet access and the advanced state of streaming video technology, something I don’t understand is why are TV channels only available through a cable or satellite TV operator? Just about every AM and FM radio station features a “Listen Live” link on their web site home page. Why is there not a corresponding  ”Watch Live” link on the home page of every TV station’s web site?

Radio stations must see many benefits to feeding their signal through an Internet connection. For starters, a web page is interactive–while folks are listening to the stream, they can also read and click on ads, which is an additional revenue source for the broadcaster.

Sponsors must love this too, since their ads can appear on a different rotation through the web page than on-air.

With streaming over the Internet, listeners can tune-in to their favourite stations from back home, even while on vacation or business trips. Wouldn’t the same apply to favourite TV channels from home?

So I don’t get it. Why don’t TV stations support this? How can the cable and satellite TV operators have this stranglehold over the feed?

For further insight into the cable stanglehold, read this.

Posted in Brad's rants, General | Print | No Comments »

September 18, 2010 by Brad.

“Reflecting Nature: Reflecting Spirit” is the title of Cathi Jefferson’s monumental installation piece now exhibiting at the Cowichan Valley Arts Council office at 2 - 139 Station Street, Duncan. I was very much impressed by how Cathi’s workmanship demonstrates a complete command of and intimacy with her medium. This is definitely not pottery as one normally thinks of it–bowls, vases, urns, etc.–but rather an exploration of ideas expressed in organic analogs of nature and spirit, as the title indicates.

I strongly urge everyone in the Cowichan Valley area to make a point of seeing “Reflecting Nature: Reflecting Spirit”. I know you will be surprised and awed by it.

For further information, see the CVAC web site or Cathi’s own web site.

Cheers!

Brad

Posted in Pottery, News, General | Print | No Comments »

September 1, 2009 by Brad.

Thanks to everyone who came out for “Arts on the Avenue” in Ladysmith on Sunday. The weather was awesome and we think more people came through than ever before. For our part, we sold some stuff and we met a lot of very nice people, many of whom signed up for pottery classes and took printing brochures and business cards. What more could one ask?

Thanks again!

We look forward to seeing everyone again next year!

Cheers!

Brad & Peggy

Posted in Events, News, General | Print | No Comments »

April 20, 2009 by Brad.

Do you use different video players? Have you noticed there seems to be no consistency in the use of (or even the existence of) keyboard shortcuts?

For example, what’s the keyboard shortcut for “Pause” on your player? In some cases, it’s “spacebar”, in other cases it is “p” and in yet other cases (Apple QuickTime), clicking in the window will pause the player. In the case of Microsoft Windows Media Player, it is “Ctrl-S”.

Would it be possible for the player developers to establish a standard for the most common functions, such as pause/resume, fast forward, next chapter, etc? Wouldn’t we all appreciate this?

Personally, I like the approach taken in WinDVD in which letter keys are assigned functions related to the letter, e.g.

F - fast forward / stop fast forward, resume playback    

R - fast reverse (rewind) / stop rewind, resume playback

and function keys are assigned related functions, e.g. 

PgUp - previous chapterPgDn - next chapter  

Spacebar - pause / resume playback    

I particularly like “Spacebar” for pause / resume playback because it is perhaps the mostly frequently used function and the spacebar is the largest key on the typical keyboard.

What’s with the multi-key combinations in Microsoft Windows Media Player, e.g. Ctrl-S and Ctrl-Shift-F? Most keyboards have about 100 keys, so it hardly seems necessary to use multi-key combinations. Why not just assign each key a dedicated function? It should be feasible to map just about every conceiveable function to its own key. Tsk, tsk.

If you think about how these players are used, you can see why single keys are important. In my case, I use a laptop in the TV room to playback recorded TV programs on a large screen TV. I don’t want to be fumbling with multi-key combinations when skipping commercials.

So developers, could we please have a standard on this? Thanks.

What are your thoughts? 

Posted in General | Print | No Comments »

December 24, 2008 by Brad.

We live on Vancouver Island in arguably the warmest climate in Canada. We don’t get much snow, but 2008 will probably go down as a record year. We found out today, for example, that Victoria has the deepest snowpack (41 cm) of the 50 major urban centres in Canada. We might not have quite that much snow here in Saltair, which is about 70 km NW of Victoria on the opposite side of the island, but there was enough accumulation on our deck that we couldn’t find our Bose 251 outdoor speakers.

But we could hear them! By following the sound while shovelling a path to our hot tub, we were able to uncover them, still playing in all their fine weatherproof Boseness.

Posted in Weather, General | Print | 1 Comment »

November 5, 2008 by Brad.

NOTICE

Our studio and gallery will be closed from Tuesday, November 11, 2008 to Thursday, November 20, 2008 inclusive. We will re-open at 11:00am on Friday, November 21, 2008.

Posted in Events, News, General | Print | No Comments »

November 1, 2008 by Brad.

Greetings and thanks for dropping in. If you’re looking for the latest news, events, schedules and ramblings by Peggy and Brad at Turning Point Arts, then you’ve definitely come to the right place.

Cheers!

Peggy & Brad

Posted in General | Print | No Comments »