As night passes around the globe and 2009 transitions into 2010 the skies will once again become home to some of the most dazzling arrays of human combustion art as intricate and intensely beautiful fireworks displays are released. To help get you into the mood, design website Smashing Magazine has put in the work to collect the best fireworks photography from online portfolios of professional shooters from around the world and the collection is staggering. While it's always impressive the way some fireworks can be timed to create shapes, there is an amazing mix of explosive intensity in the sheer volume sometimes of elements expanding into the sky and the peaceful beauty in the way that intensity can illuminate smoke trails and the land or water below. 

One of the most popular items from my week-long gift guide series, ThinkGeek's Electronic Guitar Shirt sold out just scant minutes after I showed it off on Canada AM, leading to one of the largest avalanches of viewer responses our show has ever seen. I spent five full days just responding to e-mails from fans across the country desperate to get their hands on this shirt that can be played like an electric guitar which is only available from ThinkGeek.com, the creators. The good news is that ThinkGeek is now taking backorders with a promise to ship out new orders from their re-supply on January 20th. It's not soon enough for Christmas sadly, but soon enough that you can still be the first on your block with one. Although it is a bit of a novelty item, the quality of the magnetic guitar picks, the portable speaker, and the velcro system system to remove the electronics for washing are all well beyond expectations. Thanks to everyone for writing in!

Canabalt is an addictive game where you must run for your life along a series of rooftops, using one simple button to leap over obstacles, jump from one roof to the next, all to gain enough speed and acceleration to outrun your doom. It is exceptionally done thanks to little presentation touches like the way you leap through panes of glass, scatter flocks of pigeons in your path, and run to a soundtrack that captures the sense of both alarm and speed. Canabalt is free online, but also available for as an app for those with an iPhones/iPod Touch.

Below is "Alma", a holiday short film created by one of Pixar's (Up, Finding Nemo) animators as a side-project. Rodrigo Blaas has kindly posted it online for everyone to enjoy, but only for the Christmas season as he will take it offline once the New Year arrives, so quick, take a moment to watch it while you can.

Alma is a creepy, slightly sinister tale about a little girl who becomes fascinated with a doll sitting in store window. The toy shoppe is closed, but she does her best to get inside and explore it anyway. This is NOT the kind of warm-heated story we expect for Christmas, but more of a creepy Twilight Zone-style tale to match the chill in the air outside. It may not be the kind of family fare we expect from Pixar, but it's done extremely well. 

Let's Get Flurrious is a very cool snowflake design application. You begin by simply dragging your mouse across the screen to create a basic snowflake pattern, From there you can augment it by adding soft triangles or warm squares to the pattern and further tweak the way things interact with a set of slider bars. The result is a 3D model of an intricate snowflake that you can spin and look at from all sides. When you're done you can save it with a message and add it to their gallery where they all fall like snow. If you send it to a friend via e-mail, the creators will donate $1 top UNICEF. [More]

One of the biggest factors for change in our society has been technology, something we can see quite clearly by looking back over the last ten years as the first decade of the new millennium brought to us life-changing and revolutionary technologies and gadgets. From iPods and smartphones to digital photography and gesture controls, how quickly these appeared and how fast they have evolved, there’s no telling where the next ten years, five years even, will take us. There’s only one thing for sure, there’s no going back. [More]

In a way “The Nutcracker” is a misleading title as it will surely remind you of previous versions of the story told in the past. It’s a “classic”, it’s “timeless” and you might be forgiven if you expect to see something rather familiar, but done extremely well. What The National Ballet of Canada is performing is something wholly inventive and new. Its layers upon layers upon layers of creativity, detail, characters, and little actions taking place merely for the sake of curious, darting eyes used to taking in so much visual stimulation. It’s about sets, costumes, and whimsical animals that only seem to become more real the longer you let your eyes linger on them. Dancing bears, galloping horses, and small, portly chefs that get up to mischief, just off the corner of your peripheral vision. I say this as someone who is professionally over-stimulated all the time. Their version of The Nutcracker has more actions “on-screen” than the most dazzling video games, more layers in the background than a Ridley Scott film, and more pupil-awakening detail than the largest 1080p High Definition televisions, which would surely be sent home with its HDMI cable dangling between its legs in defeat.

Today I have the honor of making a cameo appearance in The National Ballet of Canada's production of The Nutcracker. Canada AM fitness expert Libby Norris and I will be playing cannon dolls as part of the production's incredible ensemble cast of characters and dancers. If you're curious, I will be posting tweets and photos from backstage using my Twitter account starting at about 12:30 pm EST. This will give me a chance to show off the elaborate and immensely detailed costumes (of which I get to wear one) and the production sets. If things go well, I should also have some actual footage to share here later on. Now I'm off to try to be athletic, courageous, and er, Russian. Wish me luck!