Public Service Announcement with bonus self-aggrandizement

raincoaster media ltd presents:

Shebeen
 
The Shebeen Club:

Tax Tips for Literary Professionals

When: 7-9pm, Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Where: the Shebeen, behind the Irish Heather, 217 Carrall Street, Vancouver BC *UPDATE* we’ve moved to the Reading Room upstairs at the Irish Heather. Just ask if you don’t know where it is, or come upstairs and listen for the loud arguments about alliterative versus rhyming verse.

How: reserve by emailing lorraine.murphy@gmail.com

How Much: $20 to March 17th, thereafter $25 space-available; limited to 40

What: Mingling, presentations, and a special literary-themed light dinner & drink combo: Po’ boys?

Who: Why not you? Our presenter this month is author and tax specialist Sylvia Lim.

For more info or media passes contact: Lorraine @ raincoaster media lorraine.murphy@gmail.com

This month the Shebeen Club welcomes two-time author and tax specialist Sylvia Lim for an educational presentation on tax tips to help practicing writers, editors and publishers get ready for T-Day. Can you deduct the laptop? Maybe. The Editor’s Association Membership? Probably. The blonde wig and sunglasses? Sorry, JT.
 
Potted bio:

Sylvia Lim, CFP, CGA, is the author of two books – the “Personal Budgeting Kit” (2nd edition, 2005), a step by step guide to methodically organize one’s day to day finances; and “Finances After 55”, a retirement and eldercare planning guide to help people live a full and successful retired life.
You can reach Sylvia through her website: www.SylviaLim.com

Famous dead celebrities celebrating birthdays today include Charlotte Bronte, poet Phyllis McGinley, and Canada’s own immortal Madame Benoit, so the dress code is accountant, repressed petticoat feminist, emo librarian, or crazy Quebecois chef. Chacun à son gout!

Meet and Mingle 7-7:30
Listen and Learn 7:30-8
Frantic receipt-hunting and drunk-dialing your agent  8-9

 

Now they’re working for the Intelligent Design lobby

From Fortean Times which I am nice enough to credit even though they banned me from their forum, but I’m so over that!

Completely.

 

Charles Fort Books

 

10 March In 1974

Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda of the Japanese army stopped fighting World War II. He dismissed the leaflets announcing the end of the war as American propaganda and remained in considerable discomfort on the tiny Philippine island of Lubang on which he had been marooned. Two years later, Shoichi Yokoi turned up in a cave on Guam, and another Japanese veteran was found in Indonesia in 1974. In December 1989, two Japanese civil engineers, who had been fighting with the communist guerrillas in Malaya since 1945, gave themselves up.

Big Loser

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present Patrick Deuel.

Patrick Deuel

I guess it’s People Who Shouldn’t Breed Day in the ol’ raincoaster blog, eh?

There is a tenderly written account of Patrick’s personal journey from the weight of a Percheron cross to the weight of a Harley Davidson here. I note that, however delicate and PC its tone, the link is called “Fatman” on the CBC website, nicely highlighting the difference between the American and Canadian approach to writing about morbidly obese people; ie here it’s okay to make fun of them if you don’t think they’ll notice. Nice.

Give him this link. Let no one accuse me of closetation!

 

A Nebraska man who once weighed 1072 pounds has dropped another 81 pounds in surgery that removed a chunk of fat, skin and fluids hanging from his waist. Patrick Deuel, 43, weighed in at 400 pounds after the operation on Tuesday at a hospital in Sioux Falls, S.D. Doctors performed the surgery because the extra flesh made it hard for Deuel to walk.

Chyeah, not like the other 400 they left. The doctors are all excited because before he used to be too fat to exercise. And how do they think he got that way, hmmmmm? I’m sure he’ll be doing marathons in no time and recording videos with Kathy Smith. And if you believe me, I’ve got some oceanfront property in Saskatchewan for sale.

Deuel weighed 1,072 pounds and was dying of heart failure when he checked into the hospital in Sioux Falls in June 2004. Before he entered the facility, he hadn’t left his home in seven years and was so big that workers had to cut a hole in his bedroom wall to get him out.

Which brings to mind the words of the prophet David Letterman.

Skinny people are bringing this guy food.

Just stop!

Problem solved.

Nerd Mating Rituals: “Lover’s Cup”

So, who thinks this is a good idea?

Unquestionably, this matched set of wirelessly synchronized, web-enabled Big Gulp-scale blinkenlite Frankentumblers will help nerds bond with each other.

I say again, Who thinks this is a good idea?

I suppose, when faced with the alternative (allowing them to bond and potentially reproduce in meatspace), this appears pretty innocuous. “Hey,” the Freudians all say, “Let’s help these poor, sex-deprived geeks get their virtual freak on.” But why? And besides, those Freudians are pretty strange, too.

Lovers cups

I suppose it’ll keep them in their basements and off the streets. I suppose it’ll prevent them from searching for the meaning of life and becoming cultists. I suppose it will keep them out of the Irish Heather, sparing me the necessity of eviscerating them when they drool at my chest and try to impress me with their ability to recite all the captains of the Starship Enterprise, backwards.

Someone once said it was nice of Mr. And Mrs. Thomas Carlyle to marry each other “and thus make only two, rather than four people miserable.” So in that sense, nerd bonding could be a good thing. It’ll keep them in their own end of the gene pool, for one thing.

But I think God invented WoW to keep their minds off sex. Because nothing on Planet Earth has been responsible for as many missed opportunities as this single game; it is the highest and purest form of contraception ever invented, as well as the most precisely targeted, and for that we can all give thanks. There are zeta males and females everywhere, rocking monitor tans and not knowing what they are missing, and it’s better that than having them throw off the soma and suddenly realize that The Matrix was neither fictive nor involuntary.

The Lover’s cups will glow when your lover is drinking. When both of you are drinking at the same time, both of the Lover’s Cups glow and celebrate this virtual kiss.

But, I ask, is there potential for betrayal and senseless drama?

You bet! Ah, suddenly, things are looking up.

When one’s Lover’s Cup meets with another cup by toasting, two of them will become a pair of Lover’s Cups until one of them toasts with other cups.

“You’re toast,” takes on a whole new meaning.

I note with some interest that the cups not only light up, but vibrate as well. I’m wondering if, as with Starbucks stainless steel travel tumblers, consumer demand will result in slimmer, longer models. “Let’s do that again! Again! AGAIN!”

Ew. Just ew. And while we’re on the topic, watch where you’re putting that dataglove.

Why do you think they make plastic keyboard covers?

The Fungi from Polynesia

Suddenly, the Cthulhu Mythos references look so, so far ahead of their time. Call me Cassandra. The Fungi from Yuggoth have been found, near Easter Island. Of course.

Hail our Crustacean Overlords.

 Kira

A team of American-led divers has discovered a new crustacean in the South Pacific that resembles a lobster and is covered with what looks like silky, blond fur, French researchers said Tuesday. Scientists said the animal, which they named Kiwa hirsuta, was so distinct from other species that they created a new family and genus for it. The divers found the animal in waters 7,540 feet deep at a site 900 miles south of Easter Island last year.