Say "goodbye" to busted equipment and buggy computers--for good! Install The Canary Early Warning Crisis Detection system on top of any piece of equipment/device to keep it in tip-top shape. The Canary works while you are sleeping, descending into the depths of any machine to inspect, repair, maintain and emerge each morning with a friendly thumbs-up if all is well.
Prevent problems in your home or office BEFORE they happen (and enjoy a happy songbird tune at the same time)!
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When I was younger and still in high school, I was not a fan of history class. My teachers would try their best to make it exciting, relevant and even useful as I forged ahead into my future. Many of my classmates loved history class and had an easy time remembering famous names, dates and locations. I, on the other hand, mostly stifled yawns and could not wait to get to "more interesting" classes.
Art, creative writing, computer programming, photography, filmmaking, advertising -- these topics were more my speed.
In high school, you might have heard me say something like, "who needs all this OLD stuff anyway? I've got NEW and exciting stories to tell with my creative mind."
But there is a lot more to this story than meets the eye. Even today, the creation of The Canary, became yet another example of a little "creativity secret" that I learned in college -- a secret that I've been using ever since.
A neat way to fully explain this "secret" is to examine the process I went through with the creation of The Canary paper toy. I knew I wanted to create a character that could be something that repaired things on your desk. The concept of an "access hatch" was the first thing I sketched. But what sort of gremlin would reside there? Whatever it was, it needed to be wearing a hard hat with a light -- that feature was crystal clear in my mind. At first, I drew things that looked similar to the Doozers from the Fraggle Rock television show. (Remember them? If you don't know what Fraggle Rock
is, do yourself a favor and look it up online to see this wonderful show by Jim Henson.)
My early rough sketches looked pretty neat, but I was not feeling a deep emotional connection to the "story" of this new character.
What other things could be visually interesting about a miner sort of character wearing a hard hat? Well, as I often do, I started thinking about the subject from a "historical" point of view.
FACT: Canaries are particularly sensitive to carbon monoxide and methane. Years ago, miners would bring these birds down into the coal mines with them to detect dangerous gas build-ups. A quiet canary signaled bad air quality and the need for a speedy evacuation.
I'd love to report that I learned this in history class. (And perhaps I did!) But more likely, I learned this from a song called "Canary in a Coalmine" on the album Zenyatta Mondatta by the Police. (Fun fact though: Sting, the lead singer and writer of this song, was a teacher before his music career took off.)
So with the memory of this historical fact, a light bulb went off when I put a canary on the shoulder of my gremlin character. The more I studied the drawing, I realized the real power of the concept was the canary itself and he became the main character of the paper toy. Problem solved.
So if you're writing a story, designing a game with WarioWare D.I.Y.
on your Nintendo DS, or making a movie with your Flip Camcorder, search your memory for interesting stories you heard in history class. Pull out those old textbooks or jump online and do some RESEARCH! Don't groan! It's a great place to start, even if your end product will be pure fantasy!
