My good friend Debra McN is a fervent reader of Vanity Fair. She loves the magazine, and I must say, she has good reasons to do so. The photography, some of the articles, the content, there’s some good stuff there. I love their Hollywood Issue. I just got wind about their May 2008 issue, which will be “The Green Issue”. I looked for some online stuff that I could link to, and here it is!
I will be talking in more detail about my opinion of this Vanity Fair Green Issue, but for now, I can say – good for you, VF! Finally, fashion mainstream media is catching up to the need to raise awareness about being fashionable *and* being green. I used to be a model for an Italian firm in previous incarnations of my life (e.g. when I was *much* younger) and love to be fashionable (and green).
This is a preliminary post just to set the stage. I’ve been enlisted by Rebecca (Miss604.com) as the official reporter/live-blogger for the Canadian Journalism Foundation event that will take place at the gorgeous St. John’s College on the UBC campus. University of Ottawa renowned professor, Dr. Michael Geist will be speaking about “E-Publishing and the Law”.
The Internet and new technologies have ushered in a seemingly unlimited array of possibilities for access to knowledge, creativity, and public participation. University of Ottawa Law School professor and internationally renowned expert on law and the internet Michael Geist will highlight the role that the Internet is playing for new creativity and knowledge sharing, while identifying the business and policy challenges that this creates for journalists and journalism. The talk will be followed by a Q&A.[Canadian Journalism Federation]
Rebecca and I have agreed that I’ll send her the code after the live-blog, so you should mosey over to her post as well. It’s 3:22 pm now, so I won’t be posting updates until I am actually physically there.
5:51 pm – I’ve introduced myself to Cristina Coraggio from the Canadian Journalism Federation, and set up shop here at the Social Lounge, St. John’s College (SJC). I’ve accredited myself as the official reporter for Miss604.com. I feel important 🙂
6:02pm – I’ve introduced myself to Michael Geist, indicating that I pretty much will try to type exactly as he speaks (more or less, I type over 70 wpm but who knows how things go. You’ll see). He said he’s not bothered by that or by whether or not I get something wrong. I promised to drop a comment on his blog so that he can know if I got what he said right. The room is starting to fill. And for those of you geeky types – he is using a Mac (although UBC set him up on a PC – hehehe). We’ll see if there are any compatibility issues.
6:27 pm – Nancy Zimmerman (aka MoneyCoach) is here sitting right beside me. It’s so nice to see her! The talk is about to start. A preliminary introduction is given for the Principal of SJC, and the representatives of CJF and the volunteers. There’s also a brief speech on what the CJF is (go check their website, it’s linked in this liveblog). Brief speech by Mary Lynn Young of the School of Journalism at UBC.
6:33 pm – Three stories being shared by Geist. Got a lot of attention.
I) Speech from the Throne – Our government will improve the protection of copyright and intellectual property in Canada. The government was going to move forward. Bill was supposed to be forwarded on Dec 7, 2007 – the bill wasn’t. One of the reasons was “Fair Copyright for Canada”. Geist started the Facebook group “Fair Copyright for Canada”. His hopes were limited. The bill wasn’t going to be as balanced, he was concerned, so he sent out invitations to a bunch of friends. Within a week there were 10,000 people and within 2 weeks, 20,000 people. Today there are more than 40,000 people on this group and the legislation still hasn’t come. It was the active blogging AND the Facebook networking. Geist started a YouTube “The Canadian DMCA: What You Can Do”. It all got viral, lots of blogging, linking, etc. More videos, etc.THEN the media picked up on it. Many of the MSM outlets picked the issue up. Lots and lots of coverage, and people acting on- and off-line. How you can use Facebook/other media to reach
II) CMAJ – controversy that got national attention. CMA seemed to be interfering with the editorial independence of the editors of the CMAJ (ranked amongst the top 5 medical journals in the world). The editors of the CMAJ decided to resign instead of succumbing. They didn’t stop there, they created Open Medicine. It’s a peer-reviewed, open access, general access medical journal. The same editorial team now runs Open Medicine. Not only is it freely available and you can create other things, like research discussions forums, debating with the author and others.
III) Wiki-travel – If you haven’t – it was established by a Montreal couple in 2003 with the Wiki technology – collaborative creativity – create a wiki-based online travel guide. People talked about the museum they visited, airport, etc. You have a pretty valuable guide. It’s an award-winning site. 30,000 destination guides. 10,000 edits a week. A large community that contributes to this. There’s lots of collaborative examples. Even more interesting – beginning of February 2008 – WikiTravel launched WikiTravel Press. A paper version more convenient when you travel, taking the same content that is freely available and began to publish forms in print form. Print-on-demand using Lulu.com (Bob Young, Canadian entrepreneur). They got a couple of books. For the city of Chicago, circa 400 pages (you won’t find it at Chapters but you can order it online). Particularly useful is that travel books become dated quite quickly but in this case, it’s not like that – being updated regularly – publish print-on-demand – should you choose to buy it is the most updated version (update every month). You get the most up-to-date. They plan to offer in 2008 a customized version.
This is the current environment that we are living in. We need to think about that new world, we need to think about the new policies. This is the new “normal”. Please note that every time I write “Another example” Geist means these are examples of what is now “the new normal”
Another example – “No to Bill C-10”. A professor at The University of Alberta created a Facebook that grew to about 36,000 people (many of these people writing to the Senate). Now lots of people will have an opportunity to discuss this bill thanks to the efforts of this Facebook group.
Another example – It’s not confined to Canada – protests against FARC (Colombia) 250,000 people in a month alone. Rallies in 180 cities around the world protesting FARC. Similar actions taking place last year (monks in Burma), etc. Similar sorts of things happening.
Another example – “Yes We Can” Obama campaign – Put out in the beginning of February – generating a million views a day. The YouTube site has now more than 4 million views (sitting through the whole thing, more than 37 minutes!?).
Another example – The “Vote Different” video got a lot of attention. What is particularly interesting about this video is the same video that superimposes Clinton was created 3 years before but superimposing the president of Tunisia. Other countries turned to these tools years ago.
The new normal – graph that comes from Alexa – monitors traffic on various sites. In red, traffic for CNN – in blue, traffic for Blogger.com (RAUL’S NOTE – WOW – impressive growth). In 2006 traffic intersected – Blogger’s traffic now is much more – a few-fold times!). While there are some blogs not worth reading, there are some where you find excellent experts. There are lots and lots of new media, such as podcasts.culture.ca, and others.
Another example – Star Wreck – you can download it. Film that took 7 years to make. The makers have made enough revenue from DVD sales to actually
Another example – Community art project – PostSecret. Encourage people to create a postcard or a mash-up and to share a secret. Tell something to the world that you’re not comfortable telling your friends and/or family. Every Sunday a new series of secrets are posted. Some of these are pretty sad. These people do this as a form of therapy.
Another example – Flickr – photosharing – more than 2 billion photos. There’s a photograph literally of everything. With Creative Commons you can use practically everything (with attribution, of course). Facebook still the largest photo-sharing.
Another example – knowledge – Wikipedia – more than 2 million articles in English. Not authoritative but a great starting point. There are of course mistakes. But it’s a great beginning point.
LibriVox – upload books in audio-form, community created.
Example – There’s a move towards open-access. The Public Library of Science. Peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal. Skepticism by the scientific community – 5-6 years later, some of the citation impact. People who have Nobel Prizes and then publish PLOS.
Example – We see lots of government data being readily available. The case of UNData. Freely available.
Example – Rise of the “citizen journalists”. NowPublic. Nurturing stories that don’t get attention from the mainstream media. Staffed by a handful of editors, 90% of the
Global Voices – Blog aggregator. Top ranked bloggers. Bring the voices and the stories from the bloggers in Africa, parts of Asia (those bloggers that we don’t hear about or hear from). You hear those stories there. You can also see them (people at personal risk post video or picture). Individual bloggers use these sites to ensure that their voices are heard (sometimes at high personal risk).
Reporters Without Borders –
Other tools – Google Maps – Ushahidi.com – catalog of violent events in some part of Africa. People who have chronicled these events to the level of city block. Tunisian Prison Map – Google technology to map prisons and people who are currently there.
CrowdSource interviews – Search Engine. Industry Minister crowdsourced a posting (more than 300 postings).
OUR PUBLISHING – There is a new normal
Geist recently edited a book – worth reading – Geist (Ed.) “In the Public Interest. The Future of Canadian Copyright Law”. Read it. It is available freely through Creative Commons. People who never would have purchased the book, unless they had online access. The publisher can tell you that the book has been a commercial success.
New publishing also involves – finding books – Book Search program (Google). Millions of books, digitized. The book is in the public domain. Full access to the PDF. It’s still subject to copyright. It’s a catalogue for the XXI century.
We are finding many publishers that used to lockdown their audio-books, launched an experiment with a watermark so that they can identify all the instances where the file was shared on a file-sharing system. The simple fact – they couldn’t fact ONE copy of their book. People were buying the DRM audio-books but not downloading them on to the net.
MITOpenCourseware initiative – very ambitious goals. All their courses freely available online. Make the course notes, syllabi. More than 90% of the faculty, more than 1800 courses, podcasts, webcasts of lectures, some of which are viewed 100,000 times or more. Lots of these views come from developing countries. Other professors are looking at these and learning tips for their own teaching. Only one Canadian member – Capilano College – (RAUL’S NOTE – What a shame for other Canadian universities).
COPYRIGHT
People are becoming interested and engaged on this critical issue (copyright). Our rights as creators, our rights in terms of access to knowledge, our right to creating a knowledge society. We have the opportunity to create this society.
We have to be very cautious – not create OVERLY restrictive copyright rules. Ensure that there is sufficient flexibility to make full use of the tools that people are making
Copyright law is not there yet, but it could get there. It is essential that all voices are heard. At a minimum, ensure that that happens.
INTERMEDIARY LIABILITY
Geist will speak cautiously.
Around the question of “what liability should we ascribe to ISPs, bloggers, etc.” … not for what they say but the speech that can occur in their venue.
USA – controversial – Communications Decency Act. Unconstitutional. A number of provisions that survived. What survived is CDA SEction 230 – inmunity to intermediaries (Amazon, thousands of people posting book reviews, some of which may be defamatory, or Google – thousands of bloggers – some may be posting defamatory – individual blogger who allows a defamatory comment). You have immunity for the voices of others just because you happen to be hosting it. The rationale here is up to a court to determine whether or not something is defamatory, intermediaries don’t have that
WE DON’T HAVE THIS PROTECTION IN CANADA. If someone posts a defamatory comment on a blog, there is a probability/possibility that there might be a lawsuit (because we don’t have this protection). Creates an enormous potential for liabilities.
ACCESS FOR ALL
IF we are going to have this “new normal” we need to ensure that there is access for all.
We’ve rarely seen involvement of the government in these policy issues.
NET NEUTRALITY
Two-tiered internet. One in which those who can afford will be on the fast lane, those who can’t, will be on the slow lane. Google and Yahoo are actually lobbying against this, because they argue that they wouldn’t be Google if they had been charged as much in the 90s, when they were just graduate students.
Throttling – limiting bandwith available. But now some government and media outlets are making some content available. But people who are being throttled get only about 10% of bandwidth access.
GOVERNMENT DATA
From a “new normal” perspective – data SHOULD be freely available. In some countries, data is readily available. Weather data is publicly funded, freely available in the US. Here in Canada there are still lots of restrictions on government data (restrictions are stifling, government can deny some information).
Access to Information Request – what are people asking for and what is the government answering? Government is generally responding, but not to everything. More problematic – when government people say no.
The new normal requires focusing on CULTURAL FUNDING. What I’m hoping the CRTC recognizes is that the days of keeping content out are over. You can’t keep things out. If you want to support and enhance Canadian culture – you can explicitly provide government funding. The argument can be made that
The new normal requires addressing the issue of DEFINITION OF A JOURNALIST. If you post it in Canada – we still have issues of journalism and freedom.
There have been a couple of cases of people who have thought about bloggers/citizen journalists.
The new normal requires us to think about CONTRACTS. We spend a lot of time worrying about the protection of their copyright – they SHOULD spend more time thinking about their contracts. Highly restrictive, sometimes the creator ends up surrendering some if not all of their rights. Copyright still should be addressed in these contracts.
7:26pm – Concluding remarks – “Hands off the internet”. We still need an active role. It’s not about “hands off the internet”. It’s more about recognizing the future of the new media.
Now starts the Q/A period.
Q.- [RAUL’S NOTE – I couldn’t really understand what he was asking – he asked way too many questions] Are we waiting for the government?
A.- We don’t need the government to move in. We need private sector and individuals to lead and establish the framework to move in. It’s not up to the government to move for us. One of the things we have to recognize is that many business have refused to move in the direction of what Geist calls “the new normal” (RAUL’S NOTE – described above in abundance!)
Q.- Comments on the blog – What should have the blogger done (he had a negative experience of someone else impersonating another person and leaving comments on his blog – suicidal comments – but the actual person emailed the blogger and asked him to take the comment down).
A.- There is no right answer. You have the choice to say that there’s nothing defamatory and you don’t think it should be liable. If they want to take it down, the person should find a court order. But this person may decide to sue the blogger. There isn’t really a right answer.
Q.- About Facebook – who owns the picture – can they use that picture.
A.- The CBC did a story exactly on that. The answer – you own the right but Facebook has licenser rights. Part of the agreement. You agree to give Facebook licensing rights. You could take the picture down. Facebook has certain rights. We’re seeing more and more journalists using the pictures found on FB. Geist thinks that there isn’t any clear right. They might want to rely on “fair use” or “fair dealing”. In the FB context, if you use a FB screenshot, it might be more “fair use”. There’s the issue of attribution – attributing the source. It’s a bit of a murky issue and we’re seeing that people are grappling with it more and more.
Q.- You mention jurisdiction but not what jurisdiction applies. Are you or are you not protected.
A.- Geist used to spend a lot of time on this issue until he gave up. Multiple jurisdictions can have jurisdiction over something that happens online. You can have a real substantial connection to more than one jurisdiction. Where this becomes even more controversial and murky is where you have a jurisdiction that really doesn’t seem to have a real substantial connection. There are journalists cases around this issue of internet jurisdiction. Australia was one such case.
The most important Canadian jurisdiction case – Washington Post – someone suing the Post for an article that was written back in the 1990s when this person lived in Africa, made allegations about drug use. He moved to Toronto. Once he moved there he decided to sue the Post in Ontario. The question was – could Ontario be a jurisdiction on this issue? This is a challenging issue.
Q.- A bit of a devil’s advocate – [RAUL’S NOTE – Two questions that are way too fast for me to capture – man, why don’t people speak S-L-O-W-L-Y? The man is speaking way faster than I can type, and I am a super fast typist! – so I’m going to skip on this question] Should ISP’s restrict access or ask for more $$$?
A.- Bandwidth hogs could be charged more, that would be more fair. At least it should be a transparent issue. They don’t tell you that (ISPs). They don’t tell you when they throttle down their network.
Q.- Nancy Zimmerman – where do we find sources on these kinds of issues?
A.- Well, I blog a lot. At the U of Ottawa – CIPPIC.CA – Good sources.
Comment.- A source of information in Vancouver – You can get free summary advice from lawyers on a bi-weekly basis to answer copyright questions, if you’re a writer who wants to review their contracts, etc. You can use these to educate themselves.
HOLY SMOKES – I lost the last paragraph!
The session ended at 7.45pm.
8:39pm – I am on my way home. Hope you guys liked the liveblog!
Recently, the Canadian airline Westjet launched a campaign (the “Caring Comes Home” campaign) whereby their employees undertake random acts of kindness. The campaign was noticed by the media just recently (I read about it on Tuesday’s Metro Vancouver) but it seems to have had very little fanfare. That’s too bad, since numerous people I have talked to think of Vancouver as a non-caring city. It would seem to me as though this campaign could (and should) be taken up by Vancouverites.
I do appreciate random acts of kindness like putting money on people’s parking meters, carrying grocery bags for elderly people, etc. But I have to admit, (and yes, you are welcome to disagree with me on this) that I would prefer other types of random acts of kindness such as the one mentioned in a recent “What’s On Your Mind” comment. The author of the comment praised a woman who was standing in the same Timmy’s line with him. This woman was approached by a person off the street asking for money, and she bought said person a meal and a coffee.
A few months back I complained that, in one of my attempts to be kind to a woman I saw shedding tears, she had snubbed me quite adamantly (by the way, this is one of the posts that WordPress didn’t import from Blogger). Mitch commented that he had undertaken a few good deeds and each one of those was appreciated. He even wrote a full post about it. And to be honest, I was just upset at the fact that I had had one small good deed not being appreciated, when I’ve undertaken lots of other well-intentioned actions whose recipients have been extremely grateful to me.
I think that this chain of good deeds should be year-long, and I also think that Good Samaritans should focus on the local problems and local issues. So you bump into a homeless person… maybe offer to buy them a warm meal? Someone needs your help and you’re up to your eyeballs in work? Take a few minutes at least to listen to their issues. I don’t know, there are lots of things we can do.
The website HelpOthers.org offers a few suggestions:
Gift of service: donate to a cause, as a holiday gift for your best friend.
Gift of affection: be generous with hugs, kisses and pats on the back.
Gift of laughter: clip cartoons, share funny stories.
Gift of a written note: send a ‘thank you’ note, write a letter to an old friend.
Gift of a compliment: a simple ‘you look great today’, a sincere ‘thank you for a wonderful meal’.
Gift of listening: no interrupting, no daydreaming, no responding, just listening.
Gift of solitude: spend some time in silence, help others spend some time in silence.[From the HelpOthers.org website]
I just wish this city had a year-long “Random Acts of Kindness” campaign… *sigh* So, if you can, and if you want, take a minute to execute a random act of kindness. And if you feel like sharing what you did, I’d love to hear from you. My contact information is in the About page.
I hadn’t written weekend roundups in a few weeks because my weekends were so full I sometimes even didn’t recall what I did (despite my photographic memory). Then I got sick for three weeks, so I wasn’t really feeling up to writing. But now I can quickly summarize my weekend. Friday I worked most of the day at home (freaky weather – it snowed!) and then hung out with my good friend SF. I had missed her so much! Now that she lives in Montreal, a visit from her is such a treat!
As you may have read, I took Friday night off all by my lonesome, which was very nice. Saturday (after going to sleep at 7.45 am, don’t ask me why), I spent most of the afternoon working on a paper until it was time to head to BB’s.
It was such an enjoyable night, with BB’s sister and boyfriend, JN, LB, SF, BS, HZ and of course yours truly. Abundant drinks and munchies were consumed, and there was much rejoicing. It had been way too long since we last hung out as a group, and we really ought to do that more often.
As for Sunday, the day was beautiful but I had been locked inside trying to finish a paper, but luckily the sun is so bright that I am writing this paper and my home office (so to speak) is so well illuminated that I don’t need to turn on a light. Awesome! Hope your weekend was great too!
UPDATE – You might be wondering why I posted a recap of a weekend that is already past when the weekend is almost here (two days until Friday!). Well… I want to post it for posterity, as I have a bunch of great friends who’d love to read it. So there…
I admire Kylie Minogue for many reasons, not the least of them the fact that she battled and survived breast cancer. I lost my Grandma and my Aunt to, respectively, liver and lung cancer, and currently my Mom’s only surviving sister is battling the disease (she seems to be doing well, though – something I’m very happy about). Thus, anyone who knows me will realize how much respect I have for people who are currently fighting cancer. Minogue did it and emerged victorious and still is a great singer. I know she is heavily criticized but I really don’t care. Her music is fun, and very good for dancing (and since I’m a dancer, well… enough said).
This is perhaps my favorite song of hers, Fever. I found other videos that were not SFO (Safe For the Office) but this one seems to be pretty ok. Disclaimer – she wears light clothing (shorts and a top), so don’t say I didn’t warn you. Video from YouTube, apparently it’s from her live performance in Manchester.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3BI9aobkhU&hl=en]
April 3rd, 2008 in
music |
1 Comment
While I was writing the post I realized I was going to talk about the two topics… the post is strangely not very coherently written, so I apologize in advance… here it goes.
Since I’ve migrated to WordPress, I have had a fairly smooth experience (with the exception that I still don’t know how to insert photos on my blog, but that’s a minor glitch… I can learn how to do that pretty fast).
I just wanted to issue a quick apology to those of you on whose blogs I comment who are still Blogger (Blogspot) based, and to those of you who have stumbled upon my Blogspot site. Those two sets of readers have to go through two or three clicks to get to my new site. In the case of people who stumble upon the actual Blogspot page, they have to click on the link to this one. In the case of Blogspot-based bloggers, they have to click on my name to get to my profile page, then click on the link to my Blogspot site, then click again on the link to the WordPress site.
Given that I don’t really know a thing about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), I really don’t know how to drive traffic away from the old Blogspot site and on to this site. I know for a fact that my readership has increased through different pathways, none of which is SEO. I’ve met bloggers online, read their blogs and commented, people have Googled my restaurant reviews, other bloggers have added me on to their blogrolls or invited me to guest-post (thank you!), etc. This readership growth hasn’t been the result of any SEO strategy.
But the thing is, a number of people still stumble upon my Blogspot site, so I feel really bad that they have to go through two, three clicks just to get here. Of course, one could say “hey let them” or “hey well, if they want to read you, they can add you to their RSS feeds”. But being a non-geeky blogger myself, I am not sure if everyone does that (RSS feeds).
So, being the non-geeky blogger, I have started to leave comments using the OpenID feature with my WordPress identity (hummingbird604). Of course, that creates the problem that (unless you know Raul = hummingbird604), I have to leave my name in the comment so that you know who it was that left the comment. I know I don’t need to do this on blogs where I’ve commented often enough that they know it’s me, but when I comment on new blogs, I feel compelled to do this.
I know this may sound like a totally stupid question but – any way to solve these two minor issues? (e.g. issue # 1 – send my WordPress higher on the Google search engines so that when people try to find my blog they find this one and not the Blogger one? and issue # 2 – avoid leaving comments with my Blogger profile)
April 3rd, 2008 in
blogosphere |
1 Comment
Yesterday I was fortunate to spend some quality time with Phaedra. We went for brunch at The Nice Cafe on Main and 8th and got to enjoy good food, great conversation and a short walk in the sun. At one point in our conversation, I realized how much Phaedra reminds me of a friend whom I love very very much (LG) although he is not longer permanently in my life (he moved to the US).
I think it was one of this “aha” or ‘eureka’ moments for me. In talking with Phaedra about certain things that she had to fight and overcome, I realized that LG had followed a very similar path of reflection and discovery in his evolutionary pathway. And then I realized why LG made certain decisions that he has made. Decisions that have kept us (LG and I) at least 5,000 miles apart in the physical sense but that have allowed us to grow emotionally closer.
I am grateful for having all the friends I have, and in particular I am very grateful to the blogosphere for having brought Phaedra to my life. Not only for her contributions and insights into pathways of self-discovery and for sharing her own evolutionary process, but also for helping me understand LG’s growth process. Needless to say, for the laughter, the conversation and the in-jokes… Thank you 🙂
And to my dear friend LG … I understand. I now do, and I love you just the same.
Totally awesome prank for April’s Fool’s Day. As many of you know, I can’t function without my Google Calendar. I have managed to integrate a number of services I enjoy (like GMail, Calendar, Groups, PicasaWeb). No, this is not an ode or a poem to the company, it’s just the truth… their services really do make my life easier. And you have to check Google’s April’s Fool’s prank. I hadn’t discovered it until today, when I had to do my weekly round-up of meetings and important dates (yeah I triple-book myself – so that’s why I use a web-based calendar, to avoid that!). Go check it out and let me know what you think.
While for many this is the day where pranks are played upon people, April 1st is a reminder of the birthday of someone who I used to call my best male friend while I lived in Mexico. We have known each other for probably 20 years. I sacrificed countless hours of my time to help him finish his undergraduate degree.
He continuously insisted to be brought into my intimate circle of friends (who absolutely hated him for being such a user). He also managed to gain the animosity of all my family (with the exception of my Aunt, who was unbelievably generous and forgiving). While I understood that he was not really well-off (money-wise), he would *never* make an attempt at paying when we went out. So, thousands of dollars went on dining out, going to bars, and Raul would always pay. I invested countless hours of work, thousands of dollars, etc. And still, he would always rant, whine and complain about how I was so lucky because I had all the blessings and that destiny had handed him a raw deal.
This guy also insulted me when I told him that I had refused a full scholarship to do a Masters degree right out of undergraduate because I feared he would not be able to finish his undergraduate degree (I had already finished mine, as I skipped semesters). His exact words were (and I remember them because he hurt me so much when he said it: “I don’t really believe that you sacrificed that scholarship for me. Nobody on this planet is that noble“). Wow. Thank you, friend!
Why on Earth, you might ask, would I be friends with someone like this? I am ashamed to say that I don’t have a good answer. Maybe it was the fact that I felt I was helping him achieve a goal. Maybe it was the fact that I felt sorry for him and so blessed about having so many capabilities, so much love in my family, so many great friends that I thought I would share my blessings with him. There is no really good answer (because I know anyone can come back to me with an equally valid counter-point). So the answer is… I don’t know, I just did.
Years went by, he got married, I moved to Canada, England, went to Mexico and then Canada again. I saw him again a few times before I moved back to Canada, and you know how he said “good bye”? He sent me a text message. I replied back saying “I think I deserve better than a simple text message. You should come by or at least call me“. He sent a reply (by text):”you have been privileged in ways I haven’t, you are such a gifted person while I am not, destiny has smiled at you and it has been nasty to me, blah blah blah“. I was shocked.
I thought “wow… I’m moving 6,000 miles away and you are ranting about how you didn’t have the life I have had and how bad destiny and fate treated you because it didn’t give you everything I have“. I didn’t reply back. I erased his phone number and all his text messages right there and then, and never looked back. In 2.5 years, I have never received an email from him, nor sent him an email. I’ve been to Mexico twice already and did not even bother to look him up. Neither did he.
You might ask why am I writing about him, if he’s been out of my life for so long. Well, the thing is — I should have dumped him from my life decades ago, and I didn’t. But once I did, I have never looked back. And even though he may (eventually) come across this blog and this particular post, I don’t care. I have never in my life been happy about having someone drop from my life until he came along. So, on his birthday, I say to him “THANK YOU FOR LEAVING MY LIFE… GOOD RIDDANCE!“.
The idea behind 4TheRcrd is:
4TheRcrd Magazine, a Hyper-current News Magazine featuring Previews, Commentary and Culture Shock with Urgent Thought on Vancouver, Music, Culture, Politics, Events, the Arts & more… If you’re a writer, designer, or if you work in advertising give us a shout, we’re hiring and we’re looking to make new contacts with aspiring writers, artists and promo people in Vancouver. Come on over to YarkTheSaint and his team and chat ‘em up.
“First we take Vancouver, then we take Manhattan”.
This is a transparent effort by a great bunch of people who see no reason why they can’t express themselves freely, but with attitude and wit. We don’t pretend anything, except to be genuine and at other times, when something rubs us the wrong way, we really go to town on what we see around us. This is also a consensual effort by a slew of Vancouver writers who care about the things they write. Enjoy and work with us!
The way I see it, 4TheRcrd.com is a key complement to the blogospheric universe, brought to you by Jark. There are other great Vancouver group blogs, like Vancouver MetBlogs, VancouverVibe.ca and Beyond Robson (I *love* reading Sean Orr’s Morning Brew), and 4TheRcrd is a very welcome breath of fresh air. The way I see it, we are all part of the blogosphere and we all contribute in one way or another.
I would recommend that you mosey over, there are lots of cool writers over there. And who knows, maybe you’ll want to contribute too! I for one will be sending over some of my more serious essays [because, really, who wants to read about my latest weekend, anyway? :)]
Everybody knows one of my favorite actors is Ryan Reynolds. He’s from Vancouver, he’s really funny and his movies are usually a riot. So it was kind of nice to see him in a completely different movie and challenging himself to cover an very broad spectrum of characters. In the movie, three sub-plots are intertwined in a very crazy, a little bit over-the-top, sometimes spoon-fed, however intricated storyline.
The only element that is common to all three stories is a little deaf/mute girl that holds an important piece of the puzzle. Ryan plays a drug-addict, crazy-partier actor; a preppy Hollywood writer and a father. Melissa McCarthy also plays three characters as does Hope Davis. It is a witty movie although a bit convoluted. You have to see it to understand it. But the bottom line is: it’s a great movie and Ryan Reynolds does a great job.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS7AGOAyMUI&hl=en]
March 31st, 2008 in
movies |
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Photo credit Raul on Flickr
Located in the upscale Vancouver neighbourhood of Kerrisdale (in Southern-ish Vancouver), on 41st Avenue between East Boulevard and Maple Street, this is an amazing restaurant. A few months back, I lamented about having lost my burger joint. The absolutely adorable Sodas Diner (on Dunbar and about 27th Avenue) has been transformed into a sports bar, The Dunbar. Yes, they still do serve burgers and now have a liquor license, but it’s more of a sports bar now. Anyhow, this review is about The Red Onion so let’s get on with it.
The menu is extensive and there are LOTS of options … and LOTS of dessert items. I ordered the Red Onion Burger with bacon without cheese (not surprisingly). The Red Onion will provide you with bottomless pop (soda). I found the service refreshing, the place really clean (they have an open space concept that I would love to show you but I still haven’t figured out for the life of me how to insert images in WordPress… I only know how to blog directly from Flickr. Let me figure out the way in which this can be done and I’ll be up and running with an updated review of The Red Onion that includes all the photos I took).
I am not the only one who loves The Red Onion. The majority of users on DineHere.ca agrees with me. This has become my new hangout. I’ll have to bring all my friends here for inexpensive but really tasty burgers. And it’s even accessible by bus! The 41st Joyce/UBC will get you there, as will the 16 Downtown/Arbutus.
Ok, I admit it. I fell in love with the place. Of course, it helps that I came for dinner with a close friend, but regardless of the company (which was great), the food was really unbeatable. If you are a fan of home-made, great burgers, this is your place. Heck, even if you’re a vegetarian, they’ve got menu options for you. Bottom line: I *love* The Red Onion.
March 31st, 2008 in
Uncategorized |
5 Comments
Photo credit Raul on Flickr
I had decided a couple of days ago that I wasn’t going to be socializing on Friday night. I wanted to take the evening off, have some tea and curl on my couch watching movies. I did manage to take in a bit of the show “Reaper” (filmed in Vancouver). Today’s episode was filmed on location very close to where I used to live, so it was somewhat eerie. It made me very nostalgic, longing for a past that is long gone.
I went to bed really early (for my standards, 9:30pm) but a nightmare woke me up. Feeling restless, I went to browse some of the blogs on my blogroll and landed on Keira’s beautifully written post. Her post made me think and reflect on how my life has evolved (rather than what I want to be when I grow up). So, in a way, this post takes a departure from hers, but it’s along the same path of reflections.
When I first moved to Canada, I was very unaware of what I was going to be faced with. True, I had lived in other countries and have always had a knack for languages, so I knew that the language barrier wasn’t the one I was going to struggle with. I soon enough found out that the challenge was how to adapt to circumstances I had never been faced with.
It was September of 1996. I was frantically looking for a place to live. Uncomfortable as a guest to a married couple who kindly hosted me when I arrived, I felt the pressure to get out of there and establish my own residence. I ended up taking a room in a house in Kerrisdale. The landlady was a single woman perhaps in her late 50s who lived with five cats. My room was tiny, but at least, it was a place where I could put my head to rest at night.
The first time I went out in cold weater (6 oC), I was wearing a leather jacket and a sweater. Needless to say, that was not enough insulation for someone who thought that 15 oC was the coldest temperature ever. Not only did I feel cold, I felt frustrated. Since I didn’t have the experience of freezing, I hadn’t thought about buying warm clothing. Nor had I learned to layer up.
Fast-forward to today, when the temperature was close to 0 degrees Centigrade. Before heading out to meet with my very good friend SF for coffee at Our Town Cafe, I put on two pairs of socks (one of them from Thinsulate), thermal underpants and three sweaters. I put on my warm jacket and a scarf, a toque and Thinsulate gloves. Loaded my favorite playlist on my iPod and packed my laptop-friendly backpack.
As I started walking down the street, warm and excited at the prospect of seeing SF after a few months of not having had much contact with her (I last saw her in Montreal in September of 2007) I thought about how different my life is right now to when I first arrived.
I have learned to adapt. I am not longer a stranger in a foreign land, I am one of us, one of you. I am a true Vancouverite. I love where I live. This is my city. Vancouver is my home. I recognize its flaws and am fully aware of how much work is needed to improve safety, solve homelessness, clean up the urban environment, the list is long. But I still love this place.
I have a wonderful group of friends, and blogging has enabled me to establish new links and create new friendships. True, I lead a fairly modest and budget-conscious life, but I don’t deprive myself from enjoying the best things in life. And some of those great things in life you can’t really buy them with money anyways.
Going for walks with my friends. Sharing events such as Pride last summer. Having house parties where we get to share stories and laughs. Spending time curling on the couch and taking in movies or simply watching TV. That’s what my life is made of right now.
My life is more than my academic pursuits or a job search. My life is more than that, much more than that. My life is a star in a constellation of love. I love a lot, and I am very loved too. True, I face challenges and can’t deny that sometimes I feel sad, depressed, frustrated and/or lonely. But I always come back to seeing my life as what it really is: a great life.
I live to the fullest and enjoy the moment. Small things make me really happy: spending time with a good friend, reading fun stuff, walking around Vancouver, cooking and entertaining friends, sitting in Lonsdale Quay watching the sunset, the list is endless. I can make myself very happy with very little investment.
I collect Kodak moments. I define my life for what I have, not for what I don’t have. I cherish every single moment I have on this planet. I loved bowling even if I am incompetent at it. I love taking pictures even if I am not a great photographer. I love to challenge myself every day, minute and second of my life.
I am aware of how blessed I am and am grateful to the Powers-That-Be for giving me the chances and opportunities I have. I wake up every morning with the firm desire to do the best I can and go to bed tired but knowing I gave it my all.
I am intense and can sometimes make people tired if they spend too much time hanging out with me. But I cherish every opportunity I am given to be happy. I make the most of it. I am by no means rich in terms of money but I am a millionaire in terms of the love I have. I embrace my destiny with an open mind and a willing heart.
I made myself a promise when I was six years old: I would *never* let a day go by without being amazed at something. So far, more than two decades later, I am proud to say that I have stood by my promise. I am *always* marvelled at something. I am in awe of how smart my friends are. I am amazed by the beauty that surrounds me. I am fascinated and perplexed by the complexities of the world I live in.
I know what love is, I have felt its effects. Intoxicating, exhilarating, fulfilling. I have been profoundly in love and have also had my heart broken. I have fallen and risen. I have been able to survive what I thought were the worst days of my life, and what didn’t kill me made me stronger.
I have flaws like anyone, but I work hard at overcoming those shortcomings. I care, I give, I love. I like myself the way I am. Of course, there’s always room for improvement but I am proud of being who I am. I know myself. Simply put, this is who I am.
March 29th, 2008 in
Uncategorized |
8 Comments
A while ago, Rebecca (aka Miss604) and Nancy (aka MoneyCoach) kindly invited me to write guest posts for their blogs. It took me a substantial amount of time to finish both but strangely enough I completed both on the same day. So, if you’re interested in reading a bit about the Mount Pleasant history, mosey over to Rebecca’s blog and if you want to think about water pricing, head over to Nancy’s blog. Thanks for inviting me to guest-post!
March 28th, 2008 in
blogosphere |
2 Comments
I’m way too exhausted to even write a coherent blog post, but I *have* to mention some really cool stuff that is floating in the blogosphere and you might want to take a note.
Rebecca is asking YOU whether you think that $ 200,000 dollars should be spent on making the Stanley Park hollow tree more sturdy. I personally think… um, no. Give me that money and I’ll find dozens of other worthy causes. Much as I love the hollow tree.
Corinna is reminding YOU of Vancouver Earth Hour. On March 28th, take some time to shut down unnecessary lights. Mosey over to her blog to read more about it.
Ian in Hamburg has *the best ever phrases* you can use on Facebook. I almost choked because I was laughing so hard. I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of this post too.
Tanya (aka NetChick) is still the Queen of Mid-Week Socializing Games. I confess I talked about Paris a tad too much. Je t’aime, Paris!
Stephen Rees shows us a bike lane for two. I am sorry, I am still not biking in this city even if there is a bike lane for FOUR. Well, maybe then I’ll do it. In dry weather. With a temperature of + 23 oC.
Ok, so there’s probably a lot more content in the blogosphere that you ought to read, but I’m dead tired and need to sleep. Will talk to you guys soon.
Ok, admittedly I am dead tired after having worked all day long and I’m just stopping now (it’s midnight – almost Friday morning). But really, who is playing games with my heart (and/or WordPress)? I know for a fact I had Matt and Maktaaq on my blogroll. How the heck did they disappear? Is there a limit to how many people you’re supposed to have on your blogroll? And why them and not anybody else? Weird… well, they’re back (and I suggest you check their blogs because both of them are really funny and awesome people – yay Memphis Blues! – sorry, if you weren’t there that night you won’t understand)
UPDATE – Their blogs are now in my blogroll. So, problem solved and crisis averted 🙂
I went to bed last night at 4:00 am and missed the PhD defense of a close friend of mine, which was really regrettable as I really wanted to go to her defense. But those-who-shall-not-be-named were making noise at 6 am and thus I couldn’t really rest. I missed the 9:00am defense because I finally managed to fall asleep around 7 (and went all the way through to 10).
I’ve been working all day (at home until about 4pm and then I came to the office). Finally managed to get a panel proposal submitted before the deadline and my back is hurting. This also means that I’m probably not going to Dine Out for Life (I already did brunch so I feel a bit less guilty).
I am planning to attend a party on Saturday night and thankfully I don’t have volleyball on Sunday morning, so I am going to get to sleep in. But I have decided that I’m not going to go out on Friday night. No, no. I’m staying home and taking Friday evening off. I’ll be coming to the office all Friday morning but after 7 pm, it’s going to be my couch, “The Nines” and/or five hours of CSI:Miami episodes, rooibos tea and a disconnected land line.
I am ashamed, embarrassed, feeling guilty, and the whole plethora of adjectives that can apply to someone who actually does research on the governance of wastewater and sanitation. I *should* have remembered that March 20th was World Water Day 2008. I *should* have remembered that this 2008 is the International Year of Sanitation. I *should* have remembered to post something. And I forgot.
Admittedly, up until this past Monday, I was really sick and trying to just nurse myself back to health. But this is way too important a topic for me to forget. So if you are a close friend of mine, feel free to scold me. Ok, with that out of the way, I’d like to just remind my readers (particularly those who live in Canada, but also in other parts of the world) that the more water you use, the more water you end up polluting. So, think twice before having long showers, repeatedly flushing the toilet and leaving the tap running while you wash your hands.
While a vast majority of Canadians enjoy access to municipal sewage systems, lack of access to sanitation is still a problem in the developing world.
Nearly 75% of Canadians are serviced by municipal sewer systems. In 1999, 97% of the Canadian population on sewers received some form of wastewater treatment. The remaining 3% of Canadians served by sewage collection systems were not connected to wastewater treatment facilities in 1999 and discharged their untreated sewage directly into receiving water bodies.[Environment Canada]
Water quality is just as important as water quantity, particularly because of the intricate linkages between ecosystem health, water pollution and human health.
Unsafe water and the lack of basic sanitation and adequate hygiene contribute to the leading killers of children under five, including diarrhoeal diseases, pneumonia and undernutrition, and have implications for whether children, especially girls, attend school. This means that achieving Millennium Development Goal 7 and its 2015 targets of reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation are of vital relevance for children and for improving nutrition, education and women’s status.[UNICEF, Water, Environment and Sanitation]
Thus, please think twice before letting the water run. And happy belated World Water Day!
Last week, my friends B.S. and J.H. wanted to go watch the sunset on English Bay, but it was way too cold and cloudy to really enjoy it (besides, I was incredibly ill for two weeks, so I couldn’t really join anyways). However, with the cherry blossoms I do want to do a photo-walk. If any of you bloggers out [AND/OR readers!] there want to join in, let me know and I can organize something. I’m not a great photographer but I love taking pictures.
UPDATE – I think Saturday afternoon-ish would work best or everyone – we could say 1:00pm on Saturday (today is Thursday). I need to find the best spots in Vancouver for cherry blossoms photographing. Stay tuned.
March 26th, 2008 in
Vancouver |
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I really enjoy watching CSI, all three versions (CSI Miami, CSI New York and CSI Las Vegas). In one of my past lives, I wanted to be a criminologist and/or a forensic scientist. Since my parents were both lawyers, they understood the inherent risks. However, they always let me choose my own path and so I ended up researching the topic and meeting with actual forensic scientists, taking correspondence courses and several other activities that I would be very happy to detail for you over a coffee 😀
Anyhow, I was finishing dinner before heading out to a coffee shop to put in a few more hours of work, and ended up watching part of CSI’s Episode 605: Gum Drops. I’d let you read the Wikipedia synopsis. Of course, I ended up shedding a few tears (I always do when the episode touches on a topic that is somewhat emotional).
Watch this scene and you’ll understand why my eyes welled.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHtQk6aYYHg&hl=en]
I just read my liveblog of the “Evening of Green Web 2.0”, and while I’m not 100% satisfied, I think I did an ok job. It was hard to include my own commentary and capture the speaker’s thoughts simultaneously. I need to find a way to do that in a better, more sophisticated way. I think I’ve still got to learn a lot. Made some changes to reflect sponsorships.
It was nice to see some of the familiar faces from the blogosphere. For me, blogging is sort of a “way in”, a link between the abstract world of blogging and the very concrete world of interpersonal relationships. The process has become familiar… I get to know a blogger by reading his/her blog, then at some event, I get to meet him/her and from that point on, we are connected. You can tell that I’m happy to see my fellow blogging friends at this kind of events (I just smile like crazy).
Although Rebecca didn’t join us for drinks at Steamworks, we still got a chance to have a brief chat. I also got a chance to exchange a few words with a some folks while at WorkSpace (NOTE TO SELF – Me *loves* WorkSpace – if I’m successful as a freelance sustainability/urbanization/climate change consultant, me wants to get a membership). I recognized David Drucker and Nancy (aka MoneyCoach) although I didn’t get to chat with either of them.
I was also introduced to Colleen, and had a chance to chat for a bit with Jonathon Narvey, whose newest venture WriteImage sponsored the food this evening. Had an opportunity to re-acquaint myself with Ash from PeerGlobe as well (whom I met at ThirdTuesday). At the beginning of the session I met one of the Communicopia sponsors (I am pretty sure he was Jason, the CEO of Communicopia). Overall, it was nice to meet so many folks, both previously known and new. I missed Erika Rathje, though 🙁
After the event, we had a chance to have a drink at Steamworks (which as you know, doesn’t qualify as my favorite restaurant/pub). Karen (and her partner Dan), Darren, Jonathon, Eli (with the Suzuki Foundation) and Greg (with TechVibes). I wanted to liveblog this, but I couldn’t connect to FatPort (even though I should have been able to). Not happy about that. Overall, it was good fun. I didn’t have dinner there because I was craving Uncle Fatih’s pizza. So I Skytrained to Commercial and Broadway for dinner.
I have to say that it was quite upsetting to find that The End Cafe had live music (and I wanted to listen to my own music) and Waves on Commercial was totally packed. JJ Beans doesn’t seem to have wi-fi, so I ended up at the End Cafe (one of my favorite cafes, granted, but not the best place to concentrate or listen to my iPod). Did manage to write an abstract for a conference, but I was really distracted.
And to close the night on a not-so-happy note, I was shopping at Safeway and as I was leaving, I had to stop to re-arrange my shopping bags. The woman behind me yelled at me “thank you for stopping, sir!” and I was like “hmmm… I could confront her and stuff, but that’d be too aggressive”. So I refrained from saying anything. As if this wasn’t enough, the 99 B-Line driver ran through a puddle and managed to get my jeans and coat wet (splashing me).
This city is a total paradox. You can find super friendly faces and you can find total a***oles (pardon my language). And if you know me in person, you’ll know that I’m a super sweet and friendly guy. How do I manage to get people angry or upset at me is beyond my wildest imagination. I really don’t know what I did to get both the driver and the woman at Safeway mad, but boy were they aggressive!
March 26th, 2008 in
blogosphere |
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After a short chat with Rebecca (aka Miss604), I decided that I was going to liveblog the event. She is also liveblogging, so mosey over to her blog for another perspective.
I was quite excited about the prospect, since I hadn’t met Darren Barefoot in person, nor the other two speakers. There is a bonus guest speaker. UPDATE – Food sponsored by WriteImage, additional sponsorship by Communicopia and location sponsorship by WorkSpace.
5.58pm – Rebecca has suggested that I live-blog and I accept, and surprisingly (and happily) my laptop is not having issues. I manage to get Wi-Fi and here I go!
6:10pm Owen works for a recent start-up in West Vancouver. They are organizing an event for Earth Hour (turn off all unnecessary power and lights). He mentioned that the biggest event will be in Toronto, but there are others here in Vancouver. Owen’s company does energy information management. Currently, they are working on a project that will monitor the energy savings that will be gained from Vancouver people participating in Earth Hour. Owen’s firm is also helping UBC measure opportunities for greenhouse gas reduction (if I understood correctly).
Ron Williams @ HappyFrog.
6:15pm Ron is “the token non-geek” of the evening. He’s going to talk about “Why HappyFrog?”. Live for about 5 months. What brought Ron to do what he did? He described the larger perspective that brought him to do this. He first looked at his Ecological Footprint (a concept developed by UBC professor William Rees and his PhD student, now professor Mathis Wackernagel, that measures how much land would we need to use per capita – so you’d need a few planet Earths to sustain a world-wide North American life-style). By the way, if you want to calculate your own ecological footprint, you can do so here.
RAUL’S NOTE – I was quite impressed at the degree to which Ron understands the whole issue around the problems with non-sustainable consumption, with the fact that the planet has a limited carrying capacity, and that our consumption patterns are unsustainable.
6.23 pm – Ron’s speech continues. These non-sustainable mega-trends should make us look at the level of dislocation and disruption – when will we realize how much impact we have? So, this is how Ron understood the world, and he wanted to create an independent media project – that’s how HappyFrog came to exist.
HappyFrog is harnessing social media, creating a resource that is locally-based, it is a hyper local directory of about 2000 businesses and non-for-profit that are British-Columbia-based. It’s based on Drupal. Basically a parallel to the 100-mile diet (“the 100-mile economic diet”) – socially responsible businesses with emerging commitments to sustainability. Everything is in your own backyard, the scale is different. He also commented about Epic – the Sustainable Living Show. They’ll going to put up a team of social media.
RAUL’S COMMENTS – Ron did a great presentation that was (surprisingly) non-geeky and without a laptop. Great behind-the-scenes description of how he came to be inspired to create HappyFrog. I am glad I now know more about HappyFrog.
Rex Turgano @ The Green Pages.
6.35 pm Rex is the Creator of The Green Pages website. In a nutshell, it is an environmental, Canadian website dedicated to sharing stories and information. They’ve been operating for about 10 years now. (RAUL’S NOTE – Love the layout!). In 1996, Rex started off at Univ of Waterloo, and apparently this idea came to fruition at the U Waterloo dorm. From their website:
thegreenpages.ca is a grassroots web phenomenon that started in the dorm room of an environmental studies student at the University of Waterloo. It began with a large collection of links and then grew into an interactive portal highlighting the latest social-economic, environment-related news, events, and stories from across Canada. The site acted as what is known today as a “blog” and created opportunities for students, organisations, and community groups to voice their opinions and share information. Today, the web site is a virtual “library” of ideas, success stories, snap-shots from the past, and inspiration.
RAUL’S COMMENT – At The Green Pages, you can browse by category and by region (e.g. if you want to check out British Columbia stuff you can check it out using a pull-down menu. I insist, I love the design. It was also nice to see him describe the actual evolutionary process (e.g. how he went from composing HTML on Netscape Communicator to adding discussion groups on Yahoo! and experimenting with logos, and animated GIFs – Rex is really funny, I have to say. Very good presenter.
Rex was frustrated and tired of forwarding stuff to people who were asking him the inevitable question “hey where do I find this environmentally-related stuff?“. He commented about a website that he used to go back through time, Archive.org. Holy smokes, you can go back SO many years! In 2004, his website evolved into a portal (similar to Google).
Over the years, The Green Pages has supported a LOT of organizations (and catalogued them, with the help of a few volunteers). The site kept growing and growing, and people started sending books (Rex, can I get a few of those? hehehehe). Apparently people thought that he was this huge organization (hopefully one day, Random Thoughts of a Student of the Environment gets me some free books!).
RAUL’S NOTE – It’s kind of nice to see that there are other people who have studied graduate programs in Environmental Studies (although at a different university – I confess that would *love* to be a professor at Rex’s alma mater – the Faculty of Environmental Studies at University of Waterloo). If I get a tenure-track position with FES, that’d be a dream job! Anyhow… I digress… back to Rex’s talk.
In 2003-2005 he became frustrated with information overload and partner frustration. So by then he realized that he could blog and that the social interaction was already built in. Thus began the “Greater Conversion” as Rex called it. He wanted a fluid site (RAUL’S NOTE – It is fluid, Rex, don’t change it!)
Numbers: 15 blogs, 10331 entries, 3000 links, 11,000 visits per month, circa 500 per day, 45+ volunteers across Canada. This is a part-time gig, with no funding. GreenPages as a media outlet, enviro-buddy, etc. They’re focusing on the latest technology (WordPress, Drupal, etc.), breaking down content, some social media technology (Upcoming.org, and Facebook – RAUL’S NOTE – I *hate* Facebook but *love* Upcoming.org – it links to my Google Calendar!)
Darren Barefoot – Associated with DeSmogBlog
6.51pm – It’s Darren Barefoot’s turn! Man, does he *ever* have a great voice! He should be a radio anchor, because his voice just filled this room. Very excited about the prospect of seeing him speak and meet with him in person for the first time!
Capulet (the company that Darren is a partner of) started to work with DeSmogBlog – he is NOT using PowerPoint (I’m very impressed) – using a very unusual but cool . Widgets – a widget is a “little bit of functionality on a website”. They made a desktop widget. Folks at DeSmogBlog – display the carbon footprint of the planet. Capulet helped DeSmogBlog create apparently the first carbon footprint widget out there.
Darren talked about Digg (ok, so I’m a non-geek blogger and yes I was excited to hear about Digg). It’s kind of a bookmarking service. DeSmogBlog is strongly and aggressively tackling bad climate-change skeptic PR.
They (DeSmogBlog and Capulet) have also engaged blogger outreach (I admit that I didn’t want to get involved with DeSmogBlog for a long time due to my work commitments, but now as they are shifting, I might want to get involved with them – even if climate change isn’t like full-on my research area, but I’ve studied the literature long enough). They also created a newsletter (old-school).
So it seems that DeSmogBlog also tried to do YouTube videos (but apparently didn’t really take off very much – the ones that worked, very few). According to DB, Facebook and MySpace bad for advertising (RAUL’S COMMENT – YAY Me! I don’t have to sign on to FB nor MS either – no source of revenue!!).
Question from the audience – Did you consider podcasting? – DB – Not really… they wanted to do some videos, but it is a lot more work that a blog post. 5 blog posts take less time than one podcast (RAUL’S NOTE – I agree. I love podcasts, though – but I am not sure they’d work that well at propagating climate-change stuff).
Question from the audience – what were the metrics of success of the site? – DB – Simple: more links, more visits, etc. Google Analytics, Technorati (which doesn’t seem to be all that great right now).
7.10 pm – The event is basically over. I think I’m going to stay for a bit and/or join DB at Steamworks (head over there if you feel like it!)
UPDATE – In a previous post I had already suggested that I would attend this event, but I can’t stop giving myself pats in the back for doing it because it was REALLY fun, and I got to chat to a number of people (which I’ll mention in my next post).
Even though it was sort of a holiday (Good Monday), I somehow forgot to watch Dancing with the Stars. I was so busy doing work and catching up with the mountain of stuff I need to get done that I forgot about DWTS.
Here’s the video of their performance last night.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEG39eNcKnc&hl=en]
However, truth be told, they weren’t all that bad. There were a number of complex moves that they were able to perform, I mean… I think the judges *love* to put Monica down (“oh we know how much of a struggle this is for you”) but I’d also love to see any of them hit a tennis ball. Trust me, Monica would simply make puree out of those pompous, self-righteous, conceited, annoying judges. So there, I’ve spoken 😀
Surprisingly, my body reacted to having been sick for over two weeks in the most unexpected fashion: I could hold my energy for long hours. Yesterday (Monday) was a really productive day and I was able to do a lot of work. So much that I stayed up until 3 am again. But as you may have read from previous posts, my upstairs neighbours are really noisy and they tend to wake me up.
This morning I woke up naturally at around 9.30am (I know, less than 7 hours sleep is not very healthy) but I started hearing noise as soon as I was barely conscious and thus got up and started my computer. But when the noise-makers started increasing the volume, I thought “ok, it’s time to counter rudeness with music” so I turned up the volume in my speakers and played Pat Benatar’s “Invincible”. Best-solution-ever. Ten minutes later, the house was completely silent. So right now, I am happily working at home and there is no noise, no sound, nothing.
For your listening pleasure, may I present “Invincible” with Pat Benatar…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAxM1wNUgYA&hl=en]
So everybody knows that, while I lead a fairly Spartan life (e.g. I’m a budget-conscious man), I do indulge in eating out every once in a while. My 2006 and 2007 were filled with chances to eat out and thus I ended up becoming some sort of food critic, if might. However, I have resorted to my trusty restaurants and haven’t been very adventurous lately. I apologize to those of you who are expecting me to review new restaurants. I do have a couple in sight that I’m saving my money for… Boneta, The Charlatan and Me and Julio. Potentially Tequila Kitchen too.
That being said, I’ve recently had brunch and dinner at other places and I’ve just simply forgotten to post the review. So you’ll be seeing some new commentary on local Vancouver restaurants. One of the places that I do want to recommend for lunch is Liberty Bakery on Main and 21st. I will refrain from commenting more until I write the review, but just wanted to give you heads up about that one.
But I guess it’s natural to have your trusted restaurants – I mean, how can you go wrong with The Nice Cafe for brunch, or Kishu Mountain for sushi dinner? Or Crave for breakfast? Or Arms Reach Bistro for dinner? I mean, there is something to be said for reliable good food…
UPDATE – Since it wasn’t really worth writing yet another blog post, I have a question – should I give restaurants a second chance? I have long hated Chill Winston, The Cat’s Meow, Las Margaritas, Shabusen, The Red Room, I have fallen out of love with Slickitty Jim’s, and Toshi sushi. However, I wonder… should I try once more?
