About raincoaster

The view is more beautiful now that it is mine

Theda Bara

Power Corrupts

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

But It Also Rocks Absolutely

Bjork once called me cool.

Aspiring Governor-General.

Anarchist. Activist. Journalist.

Seen in Vanity Fair, The Guardian, Slate, Salon, and more.

289 thoughts on “About raincoaster”

  1. I find this blog fascinating, entertaining and compelling.

    I thought your comments on the Guido blog have been spot on. Keep it up.

    My two pennyworth: All wars are predicated on lies.

    Sorry about my lousy blog.. it’s my third attempt and I am too scatter brained to have a clear purpose.

    (first attempt…. wrinkledweasel.blogpsot.com

  2. Thank you. I enjoy your posts over at Guido’s as well, and generally learn something from them, if only how to spell big words.

    All wars ARE predicated on lies.

    And don’t sweat the blog thing; I steal everything I post here!

  3. This is a really nice-looking place you have here. Is that Isadora up at the top of the page? I am immigrating from BloggerBeta as soon as I can manage to figure out the intricacies of WP. There are some things to be said for the simplistic approach Blogger used. Sigh.

  4. Thanks. I prefer WordPress (I’ve got blogs at both places, and believe me, WordPress was easier to figure out and has more options). You do have to be able to survive without Java widgets, though, which some people find really limiting.

    Wait on the migration, though; there are some issues with transferring files from Blogger Beta right now. Give it a couple of weeks and things should be okay.

    It’s Theda Bara at the top of the page. I was looking for an old picture of Ming the Merciless, but saw that and knew I had to have it. Isn’t she cool? There’s nobody like that nowadays; Elizabeth Hurley might want to be like that, but because she doesn’t eat she’s just too frail.

  5. As with Fruning, enjoy your contributions on Guido immensely. Good site, too.

    Also thinking of moving to WordPress, if only to build my own Terror Alert Levels – your collection is impressive!

  7. You expect anything else from me? Silly boy. Besides, I didn’t say they rejected you!!!

    Thanks, Juvenal. I appreciate it. WordPress is easy, but Blogger is even easier for terror alert levels and suchlike, because they allow Javascript. Everything you see on this blog could also be hosted on Blogger or many other sites, but not everything you see on Blogger etc could be hosted here. If you want some tips on WordPress, click on the category Professor Raincoaster’s Little Lectures in the sidebar.

  11. Nice Blog,love the lady at the top of this page.Always enjoy your insightful comment on Guido,think some of mine are a bit strong for the old duffer,keeps deleting them,so much for radical eh?Best wishes,moko(misunderstood all over the net…………but still bashing away)

  12. The old duffer is about half my age, from what I can gather, so I have no comment on that.

    Do tell what he keeps deleting, though. For some of us, it was the loss of our comments that got us blogging in the first place. Think about it. Blogging is free (moreso than Comment is Free, which is heavily moderated and devoid of trackbacks, very Web 0.25)

  17. raincoaster, I DO hope you are being sarcastic about the “Murderers, you say? They’ll fit right in with my friends.” comment. P-u-leassse … be ethical, blog-master.

  18. Come on; it’s possible to be both ethical and sarcastic. These guys are all pretty much all from the rough-and-tumble Guido Fawkes political site; they’re Brits, probably never heard of Kimveer Gill.

  22. Thanks!

    I live very near Main & Hastings, which upsets my sister no end. I think we probably are neighbors, as well as both Searchgrads, yes? I’m relatively sure we’ve met face to face at least once. Are you on the next Culture Crawl? That should be coming up soon, shouldn’t it?

  23. I live very near Nanaimo and Hastings. We are but a five minute busride away. :)

    I am not, sadly on the next culture crawl. Dammit! *shrugs* During the summer thought about the culture crawl but did not act upon it. And only now through your response to my comment have remembered it.

    I will however being attending the crawl on foot.

    And delusions of Grandeur… my boyfriend mentioned that to me last night. I had to laugh. We are all delusional. I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s akin to dreaming. Except now our dreams have a place to be shared on a much grander scale than that of our own minds; through blogging.

    Cheers dude!

  24. Pingback: Operation Global Media Domination: if it swims, it wins « raincoaster

  26. i’ve come to appreciate your blog. one of the few commenters to, how we say, “do more than comment?” whats the deal though, no email contact? i’ve got all this juicy gawker gossip for you and nowhere to send it…

  28. raincoaster, remember me???? it’s Daring Denis…from the D. I. days. Forgive me, but I’m a little drunk, but I do recall seeing you and your friend Ferko? I think, at the racetrack, you had a coffee and Ferko had that knit cap?? Must confess, my name is not Daring Denis, but who cares? so have you been watching Intelligence? Not too shabby, altho looks like Chris is trying to save on lighting costs, either that or my TV needs a new picture tube….Mr. Campbell can still be seen at the track, as well as moi, getting a little soggy out there these days, how the heck are you woman? Still on the downtown eastside beat I see……how bout Ferko and Dangergirl? from the OLD days of DI. Say something….

  29. Good god, haven’t heard from you in a few years. Haven’t heard from Ferko and DG in at least that long, unfortunately, and haven’t hooked the rabbit ears up to watch Intelligence, although I hear, of course, many great things about it.

    Email me and we’ll hit the track again sometime. And maybe the Ovaltine as well.

  30. …..but I now remember that your TV was on the fritz and your roomie was getting weird and you were living in the cellar and you were about to be evicted….hope all is still going well……Mo

  32. The roomie ended up trying to throw me downstairs; the police arrested him but couldn’t make charges stick because my friends were all cowering in the living room rather than coming to my aid, thus preventing them from being witnesses to the event…I did lose the house but got an apartment…the co-op president gave the roomie a 2-bedroom apartment in the same building…

    But if the ex-roomie says two words to me now I can get a restraining order against him at least, as everything was documented at the time, including the bruises he left me with.

  33. Aha – I see you were the first beneficiary of the Trick or Treat Domain thingy. Cool!

    I also see that you’re Canadian – should have guessed by your nickname. I’m originally from Winterpeg but then moved to Toronto, then England and I’m now living in Spain. Anyhow, just popping in to say ‘hola’ as I keep seeing you over on Archie’s blog.

    Nice blog, by the way!

  35. Well, in southern Spain (where I am) it’s probably similar to Vancouver except not so much rain and it doesn’t snow (except in the mountains). Of course no central heating and old balcony doors that don’t close properly means that it’s usually as cold inside as outside … actually often warmer outside at midday. But way better than -40º.

  37. Hi, dropped in because of the similarity in our nicks. I am indeed just a little north and west of you on the far side of Molly’s Reach.

    I think between us, we account for a lot of diversity and that’s what I like most about where you and I live.

  39. Pingback: can I whore it out or what? « raincoaster

  40. Hi it’s just Mo (formerly Daring Denis), and just so you know, the Penthouse is used in
    Intelligence as home base for Ian Tracey but it’s called the Chick-a-Dee Club (they put a faux sign for outshots), guest shots by Stuart Margolin, Charles Martin Smith, and a regular spot by Matt Frewer (Max Headroom), who was raised in Victoria did you know?
    A few weeks ago I saw Camille Sullivan in LQ store lower Davie, very petite. Shes one of the carry-overs from DaVinci. (Sushi? the undercover detect.). You simply must get those rabbit ears dusted off and catch some epi’s. Speaking of Mr. D, caught part of “A Bridge Too Far” couple weeks back, featuring amongst a cast of thousands (the end credits found it easier to list who WASN’T in the movie rather than who was) a 25 yr old Nicholas Campbell being rescued by James Caan in a jeep deep in enemy territory. Now hows that for some dedicated reporting not from the east side but the west. Mo

  41. well talk about a lively comment box. i do hope to have at least half of your blog hits and misses before my first year :)
    yup, wordpress is better than blogger but i still can’t figure out how to install the script on the server. aargh.
    *patience dear apprentice*

  42. You can’t install scripts. Period. Welcome to WordPress.

    It’s still better than blogger, but if you HAVE to run scripts and/or ads, this isn’t for you. Go to WordPress.org and download their free software, then install it in your own webspace. Then there are no restrictions.

    And thanks for the compliments. Gratefully accepted at all times.

  43. Question … how did you transfer the first 16 comments from Saddam’s Last Words to the Would You Watch Saddam Die post? I’ve been trying to start a new post using some comments from a previous one and can’t figure it out at all. Help?

  44. Never mind, I seem to have more or less figured it out. Except I lost all the paragraphing in the copied comments. Ah well, could’ve been much worse.

  46. Oh, no worries but next time I’ll just copy and paste (duh)! I can’t even remember what I did now but it was a bit more complicated and the result wasn’t as good.

  49. I Love Theda! She’s been a big inspiration for one particular series of art of fiction I’ve been (Slooowwwwly) working on.

    Great photo of her btw.

  52. Yes, and you should keep it to short words so that you can spell them all. Welcome to comment #51 on one post of my blog…did you read any of the others? Or perhaps I should ask can you read any of the others?

  53. I’m sorry but comment#51 didn’t need to read any of your other posts to immediately appreciate the absolute shite presented on this site. I’ve had a look at the nature of blogging for the first time today and I must say it is a complete waste of time, the only people who read them must be socially and creatively inept. Thats perfect, yes lets all turn the internet into a monster mass of ripped off shit.
    And before you feebly attempt to comment of the irony of me posting this on a blog, stop and re-examine your over-inflated ego, think of me laughing my ass off, and no I’m not lmao because I can spell.

    Your right… “Power Corrupts

    Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

    But It Also Rocks Absolutely”

    Please reply, I’ll never read it!

    Yours sincerely… an experiment more powerful than you…

    edited by raincoaster to add IP: 82.152.203.161

  54. Sweetheart, therapy is often discounted in cases like yours. The mentally deficient deserve our pity. You can’t even get your own email address, and if you think the blogosphere is nothing but ripped-off content, you’ve obviously got impaired vision, probably due to the fact that your head is so far up your ass.

    Welcome! Also, dialup? Can’t they afford anything better at the institution?

  55. Now, now. Don’t tease da widdlle twoll. It’s so cuuuute, twyin’ to tawk wike da big peopwe …

    And dial-up is probably the best it could manage. You need a brain size or two larger to use cable properly.

  56. I’m not even sure cable internet is available in the St Louis area.

    Honestly, don’t people know how stupid they look when they talk bullshit like this? Yeah, I am the high priestess of Cthulhu, and I look just like that photo, which was taken last week by my good friend Karl Lagerfeld. TOTALLY.

    Ask Metro.

  58. The others were Photoshopped out, same as the tentacles.

    Do you know, I actually think I may have tracked down this gibbernaut.

    Holy shit, if that’s the case Gawker is getting seriously desperate about ramping up the hits and the heat in the commentisphere. Mohney? Oddjack-dude? I know it’s great for their hits, but wow. He’s not exactly a character out of Saki.

  59. No, I will not send you a comment to your bolg following your entirely injustifiable description of me as a dyslexic.

    Jules Dirles

    PS: I trust you have taken note of the fact that above comment is spelt perfectly, giving you no opportunity whatsoever to make cheap gags at my exponse.

  61. As you have “no opportunity whatsoever to make cheap gags at [his] expense”, will you please allow me to make cheap gags at his expense?

    Julio Dirles, or “Irles” (the spelling seems to be optional) is absolutely right, following your characterisation of him as dyslexic, not to comment on your “bolg”.

    But he might do well to run the above comment through a spell check or similar crude tool before pronouncing it “spelt perfectly”, no?

    And grammar check might pevent him from making “injustifiable” errors, though I would tend to be forgiving as English seems to be his second language.

  63. Dear Blogger
    We read often and with interest your posts. It is important that people like you try and protect our animals. Sad to know that we lose so many rare species every day.
    But unfortunately I must report that with all your research you have missed one animal.
    This little critter from the Northern Territory, Australia is almost gone.
    Today we ask you for your support to save it; please read our article:
    http://www.darwinnewsblog.com/?page_id=95

  64. Yeah. I know. I wrote it, published it, and felt the little tug in my lower lip. Then I said “screw this” and went off to play poker. With little more success.

  67. Thanks, glad you enjoy it. More coming up daily, although I may train my faithful blog readers to lower their expectations on the weekends to one or two posts a day. Feeling lazy lately.

  68. Trust me. Anyone reading this blog has already lowered their expectations about as far as possible.

    And based on what I saw of the critter while I was there, there may be good eatin’ by a hairy-nosed wombat. I always thought they were gopher-sized, but they’re actually about the size of a pitbull and up. Only with massive great claws.

    As usual in Oz, said claws are mounted on a cute, cuddly-looking furry mammal.

    In fact it reminded me of you in other ways too …

  70. Hey, I saw your post on a forum somewhere about trying to put your pic permanent on your side bar, Its pretty easy, I can walk you through it if you would like, BTW nice looking blog, and great content, Im going to go back and take a look around, Bob

  73. Thanks! Mo links mo betta! I’ll take a look at yours as well. I appreciate your comments in the Bath Disaster thread.

    Update: I took a look around and u b blogrolled, yo.

  75. hey, seen you around on wordpress.com forums (i’m “dubesor” on there) and now stumbled on your blog when looking for other vancouver bloggers online. nice site! i like your content like the story about pivot. blogrolled you :)

  76. Howdy, and thanks for the blogroll. I’ll check out your blog (note: you’d make it easier on people if you linked your name to your blog; you can do that in your profile). See, I’m lazy: a true Vancouverite!

  77. Hi,

    I like your blog and I was wondering if you could answer a question for me. I was just wondering how you get all of the little buttons at the bottom of your posts to del.icio.us, blinklist, digg, etc. Not the images of the buttons, but how you actually do that for each post. Do you just have to go through and manually insert each button or is there some sort of script that does it for you? I assume that you are still hosted here on wordpress.com at this point instead of hosting on your own?

    Thanks for your time,
    Chris

  78. I’m hosted at WordPress.com, and there’s no script to input those buttons. I do it by hand, in Word or Notepad every time. If you click on the sidebar category: Professor Raincoaster’s Little Lectures you’ll find a couple of posts on social bookmarking that will give you what you need to get started. It’s not difficult, actually. The instructions are also in the forum if you search for Social Bookmarking, or “Add This” which is one button that lists many more services than I’ve got buttons for, and it works for all of them.

    There, now that I’ve told you the secret, can you go vote up my “My blog is covered with porn and so is yours” post at reddit and/or digg? :D

  82. I don’t mind, but I totally suck at memes. I simply never pass them on and hardly ever respond to them, however flattering they may be, and I am flattered. You can ask envelope filter: he tagged me before Christmas for the eatery meme and is still waiting.

  85. Heya Raincoaster! *wave*

    I thought I’d let you know that I’m having trouble viewing your blog unless I turn off Javascript. My browser (Firefox 2.0.0.5) just keeps reloading the page, without actually displaying it. Looking through the source of your front page, it seems that the problem may be the JS function to do with onload() stuff. If others have the same problem you might want to look into fixing or removing that bit.

    That’s all for now. Let’s go see what this blog is about..

  86. How very weird. That’s a WordPress.com backend function that I have no control over. I’ll send an email to staff, thanks for the update.

  87. Howdy from a fellow Defamer commenter and DTES neighbour (you can probably see me waving from Victory Square, beside the Woodwards’ pit!)… I bid you welcome to my blogroll.

  88. Greetings, Defamerite. Y’all in the Dominion Building with Haddock and Co? Gorgeous place.

    Your name is totally familiar to me. Do you know somebody called Lorraine Murphy? That would be me. I’m 90% sure we’ve met somewhere. Vancouver’s a small town.

  89. I see that you write a lot about books. If you want to save money on any books including textbooks, visit http://www.valorebooks.com and use the coupon code: cheap100
    You can also sell books once you are done with them. They give you the cheapest books and the coupon will give you extra 5% discount.

  91. Ya, ya. Which edition? I don’t read those crappy Sumerian/English versions. It’s Wormius all the way, bay-bee!

    PS what the hell is that Chalmers expedition thing? Looks intriguing but there’s nothing to link it directly to Lovecraft.

  92. It’s a CoC campaign, from what I picked up – and it refers to Nyarlathotep, which is –

    a) a shape-shifting entity from the stars.
    b) an endearing little short story by HPL, which I’ve just recently milked, strangled, and wrangled in my diss, for all it’s worth in its 3-page-glory.

    The edition of the unnamable book is a re-print of the 197-something edition by George Hay, with contributory material by Dr Stanislaus Hinterstoisser (who, I think, is not a real person – at least, Google doesn’t deliver any hits on him outside the George Hay-Necronomicon-context). I sometimes whisper some of the incantations when I’m queuing somewhere, but to no effect so far – “Mr. Cashier, may I introduce a friend? One of his tentacles holds a wallet, another one – damnation, and yet another one – a culinary experience for…with you!” – never works, though. I’ve even tried taking the thing to church once, & hoped to see some immediate results, some interaction between Judaeo-Christian and Lovecraftian theology, but no, nothing happened.

  96. walkingbetween, I didn’t design that. In fact, I want to tweak it a little and then when it’s just the way I want I’ll make the CSS available. Devblog at Coderlabs designed the CSS for me.

    Jolie, Glad you like it. There’s a lot to see; hit the raincoaster randomizer to get a random post from the past.

  97. Hey there, just wanted to say that for some reason I thought you were a boy up to now. I only realized you were a girl when you mentioned that thing about being sold to a Saudi prince! I guess in my world, boys are not sold to Saudi princes. And girls are not named “raincoaster.” I’m not sure if that means I have entrenched sexist tendencies or what.

  98. I myself thought rain was pretty genderless, but your experience is virtually universal. EVERYBODY thinks I’m a dude for the longest time; you’d think they’d have noticed my magnificent tits!

  99. Pingback: I found my dream job! « raincoaster

  102. Operation Global Media Domination is simply my famequest. So far I’ve broken online and print journalism and television. Radio is next on the hit list. Soon all global media shall be nothing more than the tool of raincoaster, mwahahahahahahaha!

  103. That would be so good, I guess you can give a little space to Kashmir :) then! But, why should I donate for your famequest?

  109. What’s this BS.
    You should be rated as one of the top Canadian Blogs or am I missing something. You’re not even in the top ten.I’m looking at 2007 blog awards.Sorry to be a pain, but right is might.
    BAKIN

  112. Bakin: last year I cared about blog awards. This year, although nominated for a few, I’ve done nothing to pursue them. I won a couple last year, and the big prize was…a free ticket to an awards dinner where I’d have to pay for my own food. Fughedaboudid.

  113. How’s it goin? I’m not sure if you remember me, you had commented on one of my tutorials a while back, for corphacks.com just wanted to let you know me and my friend are starting up a funny blog based on Man Law. If you or anyone you know might be interested here’s the link http://themanlaw.wordpress.com/

  115. Hi… for whatever it’s worth my post about the links feature is up. It was for the best that I waited until this morning to finish it, the first draft was just variations on the words “fuck”, “this” and “shit”.

  116. Thanks, I’ll take a look but it’ll have to wait till tomorrow, I think. I’m emailing back and forth with Matt and I do not know whether or not he understands what I’m saying about this. I do know that the “closing of the threads” phase has begun; this could simmer down, or it could escalate to the “inactive status” suspension. From there, the “temporarily locked out of blog” and the “identity locked” phases are the traditional path. We shall see which way it goes.

  117. If I can offer some advice, the issue of communication between WordPress and us content providers is probably the centrepiece right now. I think it comes down to:

    If we had been told in advance what was happening, we could’ve had the time to make our really personal posts totally ‘Private’ so they wouldn’t be picked up by Sphere. We were told we could opt out, but we weren’t told it could take days for our blogs to be removed from the system, so again we weren’t given the opportunity to make our private work private.

    Don’t blow up too hard at Matt, and don’t bang your head against this wall for too long. There’s no point in getting yourself banned from anywhere. It’s a state of mind, a way of doing business that’s been around for a long time. I really believe that we, as content providers, have been extraordinarily naive when it comes to our part in this process.

  118. Profound thoughts, and I appreciate them. I don’t think anyone at Automattic is an ogre, but I do think there’s self-interest at play here on both sides, and that those two things will only align in the absence of ethics in this particular case. I’ll elaborate on that some day when I haven’t had five glasses of wine. Or perhaps some day when I have had ten. Saturday night is looking good, it’s Derby Day and I’ve got my hat, just need my bourbon.

    Matt and I are emailing and I would far rather have the discussion in public. After all, it’s a community trying to work things out, it’s not just “keep raincoaster happy and for god’s sake, was that video supposed to be about US?” Doing things behind the curtain like that, while the default communication mode at WP.com, isn’t helpful. What you have is an open-source product with a top-down management, at least from the blogger’s point of view. Naturally, this pre-selects for conflict.

    I’ve seen it SO. Many. Times.

    God, I’m old.

  119. Hi Raincoaster,

    Just a quick ‘thank you’ for being one of those magical people who always try to help.

    I really appreciate your help through the forums!

    Jim Connolly
    theideasblog.com

  125. Thanks, happy hunting! I’ll probably steal that Simon Says post of yours… have a huge crush on Simon Cowell. What can I say? I love the arrogant ones: Steve Jobs, Simon Cowell, and anyone played by Jeremy Piven.

  126. Hey, no one’s ever mentioned stealing one of my blog posts before, lol. Hmm, maybe I’ll steal one of your posts ;-) We’ll call it an even trade: Barter blogging!

  128. Linkie luv, eh? I haven’t mastered that on my blog :-( I have to figure it out. I wouldn’t really steal unless I know how to properly do it (properly link, that is — not steal ;-) As for you, my friend, you are both funny and smart…

  130. In lieu of writing on my own blog, I’m now reading your blog, you sabotaged me, wtf! Well, there’s only like 5 people that have looked at my stuff. You are now in the company of this elite crowd. I enjoy your work and comment, you can invest in my Baby Rental/Daycare business as a venture capitalist by directly depositing your life savings into my Swiss bank account, by the way this will automatically qualify you as a member of my cult as an added bonus.
    andre

  132. Hello rain. I’ve seen much from you over the forums, and broke down and had to throw a comment your way. Quite a comfortable-looking and experienced blog here I must say. I’m still pretty young to WordPress, but not young to blogging.

    Stop by anytime.

  134. Many thanks for adding The Naked Listener’s Weblog to your blogroll. I have enjoyed your blog and have added it to my blogroll. Cheers from Hong Kong, Robert.

  141. But she looks old. Your about page lacks the aboutness. Where’s the “oh hae ther I’m Rainfoaster a 107-year-old woman who tweets every two minutes”?

  142. And you claim to be good at algebra! I’ve been on Twitter since last August. Do the math…

    Also, I spell correctly, and do not have a Scottish accent. And my About page is all About me; in fact, it’s ALL ABOUT ME!

    Duh.

  143. I have heard and seen you so often on WP! It was about time I left my footprints here!

    I wish this page had more info on you! Will read the posts to know more for sure. Subscribing to feeds, better late than never! :)

    I am a new blogger but learnt the ropes rather fast!

  146. Which web host you use? I am looking for suggestions to self host my primary blog. Thanks.

    And how come I am logged in here while writing my comment. On other self hosted WP blogs I have to fill my name and email and website!

    P.S.: [I am aware of Nodaddy!]

  147. I recommend WordPress.COM, where this blog is hosted. Why would you think it’s hosted elsewhere?

    If you want advice about self-hosting your blog, I’m available for consulting, but it’s not free.

  148. OMG Raincoaster thanks a ton!

    I was such a fool! This is simple domain forwarding! I used to think that domain forwarding has utility only where you want to forward it to your new domain when you have shifted your blog to WP.org!!!!!!!

    This will really help. I may reconsider my decision on self hosting now.

    I do not have money for official consultations. Besides I want to struggle and learn and do it myself. May come to Raincoaster Media someday when I have enough money. Meanwhile thank you for the ‘priceless’ info.

  150. Yes. The ONLY reason i’d move off WordPress.com was if I wanted to run ads and for whatever reason they wouldn’t give me a VIP blog for free. Don’t they KNOW what a VIP I am?

  156. The forum volunteers may have been stymied by my inquiry so I will pose the question to you. The web analyst Quantcast suggests adding a tag to each post in order to analyze visitor demographics. As far as you know is it both safe an effective?

    Here is the tag:

    `

    _qoptions={
    qacct:”p-05_DrYhoSlCWo”
    };

    `

    Thank you

    [email deleted; don’t feed the spambots]

    http://empireglassdarkly.wordpress.com/

  157. The question has been answered in the forums already, and I’ve decided to charge my full consulting rate for questions I answer here. Up to you: check the forum or pay me $150 an hour.

  158. I bought the domain forward option! Thanks. :)

    Can you tell me if I need to edit my feedburner feed and email subscription details. I guess not. It’s working fine!

    Sorry, I’m asking you here and not searching in the forums; feel free to ask me 150 dollars [which will be of course not given] or curse me!

    Thanks again.

  161. Hi there raincoaster.com,

    I believe you and I talked on the Greyhound into Penticton Fri evening. How was the course?

    My meeting went splendidly and I tasted some delicious liquers at MapleLeafSpirits.ca hosted by Jorg Engel, ever nice and knowledgeable stillmeister and crafter of excellent liquers and eaux de vie!

  162. Hey Bob, nice to see you again. I have yet to talk to Jorg, but I have heard some good things about him and got a spot for the interview in a cocktail site, so I’d better drop him a line. Thanks for the tip!

  163. 160

    Bonjour. If you’ve got numbers on people unwilling to click through partial feeds, or links to blog posts / sites I’d like to get the source so I can maybe use it in a future story. Seriously.

    “sonic kitty”, the girl who left comments here thinking you were 107-years old, deleted her blog. She was funny.

  164. Ah, blogs. Easy come, easy go I guess.

    I’ll try to dig it up for you, but I think you can probably find fresher information just using Google. You can also compare the number of views your blog gets each day with the number of Clicks and estimate.

  165. Raincoaster. What a delightful odyssey. I journeyed from Outer Space to Mother’s Day (which I hate too, for different reasons) to “What You Did Today” to Betty White to Shebeen to Screenwriting to Experiments with Gummi Bears to Guerrilla Marketing to the NY Public Library to Barack Obama to Vancouver, BC to Lolebrity and back again (with a few side trips in between). It was splendid. You have been busy³! How do you do it? (Don’t answer that until I get my Visa) It appears you are so multi-handy at it you teach others. I am very impressed and will come back and visit; there’s so much to check out. I couldn’t quite figure out how many blogs you have, or are with, or post on, but it’s mind-bloggling how prolific you are. Congratulations and good work; it’s beautiful, easy, and you should be very proud of it, (and I have just barely scratched the surface). I look forward to my return, especially to flesh out fully my future favorite tag: Porn (191)

    There. Done. I’m getting better at this.

  167. I do love your name, it encompasses two of my favorite things: Rain and Coasters, I absolutely live for rain, in fact I’m a rain chaser…and I positively hate setting my drinks down without something underneath. I actually love roller coasters too, which I thought might be at play, but now that I know your locale, it all makes sense. I had never thought I could be a Raincoaster, I live in SoCal most of the time, and it is far too dry a desert for me. I spend a great deal of time on the East Coast for the weather. But Vancouver is my second favorite city in N. America, actually it’s a tie for first. I have been there for work and for pleasure, and never want to leave it once I’m there. Everything is so tasteful. I was curious, at first, why you don’t want to accept advertising? Isn’t that every blog’s goal, I thought to myself? But knowing how free your city is of that type of clutter, I can see why you would not want to junk up your beautiful space with shiny-blinky crap. Is there another reason perchance? How many other blogs do you have, and how many do you wish to have? Feel free to tell me it’s none of my business, or send me a PM.

    And do you have a Crosstalk area? Or is this it?

    I should think when I inevitably start my own blog I would like to put you on retainer.

  168. “Everything is so tasteful.”

    I can see you haven’t noticed the architecture.

    I’m too expensive to put on retainer, but sometime this week I’ll put up my new raft of online courses at my social media blog.

    Altogether I have:
    TheCelebrityIndustrialComplex
    raincoaster
    raincoastermedia
    ayyyy
    lolebrity
    TheShebeenClub

    and that’s it for the moment. And as for Crosstalk, I just use Twitter. Where I am also called raincoaster.

    I don’t have ads on this blog because I’m smart and know a thing or two about blogging and return on investment. The Manolo blog, Ayyyy, has ads because that’s his blog and I just work for him. He makes a fair bit off it, but that’s partly because it’s on the Glam network. I’m going to put ads on Lolebrity, because a celebrity blog looks almost incomplete without them, but I don’t want them mucking up the look of MY material or competing for attention with what I wrote. Also, this blog is on WordPress.COM, where ads are not allowed. There are many other forms of compensation, and I’m very happy with this setup. It gets me all my paid gigs.

  170. Jeebus, how much are you? My attorney is $500 an hour and I have him on retainer. You do know that means I give him 10K at a time, in advance, and he bills me monthly and deducts it from the account? Never be too expensive to be put on retainer.

    But thanks for the info, I can see you may be too busy to be put on retainer. ;)

  171. Well, my hourly rate is only $150, and I will MAKE time for you if you’ve got a connection to a good lawyer! Always comes in handy for anyone as contrarian as me.

  172. Hi Rain :-) Could you please email me? I need some technical help and I’m not sure even what category it would go in. My email address is:

    ———>>>edited out by raincoaster <<<———

    Thank You!

  173. I also enjoyed this blog, but…..
    BUT NOT the “everybody draw the prophet” idea and much less the audience it drew. It is awful to behold, how easy it is to make 1000000000000000 humans get together to hunt down the dissidents.

    Geez!

  174. Uh, did you read it? It wasn’t about hunting down the dissidents, it was about exercising freedom of speech. You’re free to be offended, but don’t distort what happened.

  177. So, honestly, I subscribed to you because of your “War is not my language” page and you had the same background as my blog.. Your site sounded quirky, pure nonsense (something that I need from time to time), and I felt maybe you had a mission for the world.. But the more I read something here, I think you are not a real person, just an oyster dressing, later I had a feeling you were a cocktail waitress.. And now for no reason, I think you are a 17 year old dude trying to make it big in Hollywood..
    Either you are too intelligent or I am too dumb to get it.. Which one is it?
    Disclaimer: The writer’s tone is neutral and not sarcastic. *coughing*

  182. Ok, this time I read carefully, and there I can see those words, “Cheers dude!”, somewhere up here where you were chitchatting with that nice lady and being overtly friendly with her.. Oh well, none of my business really!
    Atleast now I can rest easy, yay!

  184. OMG OMG!! I found out the “answer” to my problem through other “media” resources.. Now I am a bigger fan! I want others visiting your site to suffer as much as I did, so won’t be revealing your true form here.. :)
    You rock!

  185. Ha, thanks! I always like to see why people think I’m one gender or the other (but it’s been so long it’s almost an academic distinction at this point…but there, I’ve said too much…)

  186. Because I can’t tell why others like or unlike you, I will tell you how I feel.. :D I was sure that a specific gender would not be able to most certainly write the way you do! And the revelation only meant more for why I think you click for me..
    :)

  187. Hello,

    This is Dan Perciun at GPSmyCity.com. I came across your blog and was greatly impressed with it. My company, GPSmyCity.com is an iPhone software developer focusing on self-guided city walking tour apps. With over 2,000 walking tours available – spanning over 180 cities worldwide – GPSmyCity.com is the largest travel portal of its kind. We have developed such a tour guide app for the city of Vancouver and would like to sponsor a quiz contest on it. Would you consider featuring this on your blog? The readers who correctly answer to most of its questions, will win three free city walk iPhone application developed by GPSmyCity.com.

    We are confident this to be a mutually beneficial event and a great way to engage your readers.

    I look forward to hearing from you.

    Best regards,

    Dan Perciun
    Editor
    GPSmyCity.com

  191. hello!
    I’ve followed your comments on defamer ever so long. wish I was as witty as you – or Valet of the Dolls – Starter Wife – who else – just naming a couple off the top of my head. no star for me, alas. guess I’ll just be an audience. that’s good, too? right?

    right?

    also, I’m benign.

    hope you feel better!!

  193. Hello –

    I’ve been having some problems importing a blogger account/blog into a WP one. I was trolling through the support forums and found you had posted on this a few times. Would you be willing to answer some questions for me?

    Steve Kaplan
    [email edited out]

  194. The #1 tip I’d give you is not to post your email publicly.

    The #2 tip is that in the forum over and over is that if you run into trouble, it’s probably something going wrong with the Blogspot importer and you need to contact WordPress.com staff for help via your Dashboard.

    The #3 tip is that if you can’t find the answer in the forums, I charge $200 an hour for social media consulting and $100 an hour for WordPress.com consulting via Skype. You can email me at raincoaster at gmail to set up an appointment if you’re interested.

  195. i would like to see more conversation about how the chinks seem to be taking over the west coast:) i recently moved to richmond and the disgusting little yellow insects have taken the place over, they do make good food though:))

  197. dear onedakini you should come to my forum, we hate all ethnic types equally, chinks, niggers, ragheads, muslims etc. come visit us:)) i post as ex-dv and bleu there:)

    just click om my avatar and you will go right there lol:)

    [not anymore. lol.]

  198. Isn’t that funny? The members of the Vancouver forum (or possibly the moderators/proprietors) are trying to troll my blog looking for racists. Isn’t it unfortunate for them that this sort of thing, ie racism, is against the Terms of Service and can get their ENTIRE FORUM SUSPENDED.\

    Scuze me, I must compose an email. BRB

  200. raincoaster i am very sorry this idiot is polluting your blog now. they are permanently banned from memebee vancouver forum, precisely for spamming us with racist content.

    please ban them from here and delete all their posts if you like, as their only purpose is to badmouth MMB vancouver community.

  201. No worries. I believe in allowing idiots to make idiots of themselves, so I’ll leave their posts up, but remove their association with Memebee. Thanks for suspending them.

    Never fuck with raincoaster, even when she’s hospitalized.

  202. *Never fuck with raincoaster, even when she’s hospitalized.*

    haha! i like that.. oh i wish i could get a hold of them.. not tu hurt them, just to taser them gently. for an hour or so:)

  208. 1) I don’t take orders, everyone knows that
    2) as discussed, I believe strongly in allowing idiots to make themselves look idiotic
    3) I’m quite sure you’re the impostor again.

  212. You ARE an impostor, though. One with a great deal of time on her hands. Does Mommy know you’re using the computer for this when you’re supposed to be doing your homework?

  213. Dear Rain,

    Every once in awhile, I ask myself, “is this the best use of my time?” Maybe you could do the same and eject the troll from your space.

    In the meantime, troll’s message go where they belong: spam.

    I’ll be back.

    Best,

  215. Hi Raincoaster, I was reading your comment on the wp.com forums about transferring fm wp.com to wp.org and not wanting to lose your page rank. Therefore you suggested using domain mapping first directing to the new url before switching. So people will still be able to find the wp.com site but they will slowly learn that there is a new URL to go to? Is that the idea? I never thought of that and that is an important concern. Appreciate any help. Some ppl seem to be able to redirect their sites without using (paying ) for domain mapping with wp.com so is it necessary?

    Thanks very much.

    Cathryn.

  216. Yes, that’s exactly it. You can change all at once, hosting AND domain, but your readership will have a very hard time finding you. And the pagerank you’ve built up will be completely eliminated: you will start at the new site with a PR of zero.

  217. A very different and nice blog you have here. Am happy I came across it.
    Allow me to say sorry if my first ever comment on one of your posts was a little too sarcastic or nasty… i didn’t realize it had come out this bad until i had already submitted it, and i am very lazy, so didn’t edit or repost a somment.

    Great work. Keep it up. :)

  221. Dear raincoaster. I went randomly on your site. Somewhere on wordpress, I found that you said something about Romania! I joined the site and I liked it. I brought you in my blogrolul! I’ll follow you! I like what I read.
    I have a few items that might interest you. My blog is http://popatepa.wordpress.com.
    http://popateapa.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/let-us-pray-for-peace-in-the-muslim-world-a-war-in-the-middle-east-will-lead-to-major-catatclism-earthend-of-days/
    http://popateapa.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/bravo-canon-canon-preservatif-jetablesbravo-canon-imprimante-canonprezervativunica-folosinta/ and others. Now I will select all written in English in a page.
    Goodbye! A good day!

  222. Good day. It’s not a good idea to drop that many links to your own site when you’re a new commenter; it looks spammy. But you’re lucky: I like Romanians much better than Albanians! So I’ll leave it for now.

  224. I don’t really do the blog buddies thing. In fact, I’m thinking of deleting my blogroll altogether. There are obscure technical reasons for that, but also nobody ever reads those things or clicks on them. If you blog something that’s of interest to me, I’ll probably link to you from a post and that’s better for your blog anyway.

  225. Pingback: It’s a MAN, Baby! « raincoaster

  226. Well, I completely understand! I was just asking, and I appreciate your time, I guess. Thanks anyway! (:

  227. Hey, Rain–I can’t believe I just stumbled across your blog. I’m japecake here on WordPress, but you know me in other quarters as octothorp (though I’m spending much less time these days in said quarters–you know why!). You have some very funny, snappy things here. I look forward to being a regular reader!

  229. Hi there, I found your blog via a Gawker post —

    I was interested in the finding more out about the flawed “transcripts” and couldn’t find a related post.

    Cheers

  231. I’m still working on the post. I’m adding in all kinds of stuff about LulzSec. I can say this: you will physically headdesk when you see it, it’s so obvious in retrospect.

  232. Pingback: Church Chat with the Gothic Blog Princess « Necrotic Hijinks

  234. That, little one, is Theda Bara, a silent film star and an amazing woman.

    Note also that by all the laws of the Interwebs, you are not allowed to name your blog anything with “Write” in it until you stop using the non-word “wat” except for comic effect.

  235. Pingback: Tag, I’m It « raincoaster

  236. ok….thanks for your suggestion…!!!!!1 now its alright?? actually i am sort of habitiuated to write short…..ya,,i know its good….
    but…i’ll try to write full from now on…..
    by the way…i like your profile a lot….may be coz..i love supernaturalz n all those stuffs…..

  237. ok….thanks for your suggestion…!!!!!1 now its alright?? actually i am sort of habitiuated to write short…..ya,,i know its not good….
    but…i’ll try to write full from now on…..
    by the way…i like your profile a lot….may be coz..i love supernaturalz n all those stuffs…..

  240. Oh Sweetie, I take pride in schooling people who are rude to my friends. Recently we had a child who told people trying to help her to “STFU” and a squally narcissist who attacked my friends At Length when they tried to offer solutions. I will continue to smack such people upside the head. If you’re afraid I may do it to you, there is a very simple and effective way to protect yourself; don’t be an asshole to the volunteers.

    Simple!

  243. …the HapEng’s gave you a two day suspension and took away your forum member-thing for swearing at a spammer. That is hilarious. I hope you’ve learned a lesson young lady.

  245. What’s your contact email? I made a list of broken links I found on raincoaster and I wanted to send it to you. Don’t worry Im not a spammer, just a dedicated reader who wants to help out raincoaster :)

  247. Hey ive been reading some WP forums and seen you name come up quite often… as in you know what your doing with WP im a new user and i would like to use plugins but i have wordpress.com site but dont want to re-do everything ive put into it. is there a way i can get around this? any help would be awesome thank you
    -Cody

  248. ps heres a link to my site
    [whoops, looks like somebody broke the internet rule about NOT LEAVING SELF-SERVING, COMPLETELY UNRELATED LINKS in blog comments; I’m unsure how this relates to the topic About Raincoaster, and baby, we are ALL ABOUT RAINCOASTER in this thread]

  249. industrial creativity, what you can do is GO TO THE FORUMS and do a search there. God knows how many times I’ve answered that question.

    If you want me, here, on my own blog, to go out of my way to dig up the answer for you, I have a standard answer to such requests now:

    1) click the Paypal button at the top right-hand side of the blog.
    2) follow the steps and send me $200
    3) await the solution by email. It will be forthcoming within 24 hours.

    If you want free help, go to the forums where I have answered that question hundreds of times.

  252. I’m not sure how to message you, so I’m leaving it here. You replied to a technical help post I made back on Dec 21st. I just now saw it, and I wanted to say thank you. I can’t wait to try your suggestions. I am so much more tech savvy now! :)
    Enjoying your blog as well. Can’t wait for some free time to really explore it.
    Best of luck.

  255. Did you read the comments here? In the forum, I answer questions for free. If you request personal assistance via email, that goes at my normal consulting rate of $200 per hour. If you’re still interested, reply.

  256. Hi Lorraine.

    My name is Kevin Gillespie, but I do, MUCH prefer to be called Kev. :). I live in Wales. :).

    Reading BOTH your Tagline & your Bio have COMPELLED me to ‘Follow’ your Blog. :).

    Best Wishes. :)

  262. Hi raincoster, you just gave me some helpful advise for my serious blog. Thought I stop by with my private identity and say thanks!

  267. I like this place. Popped in a few times and have found something new, something funny, or something… every time.
    I’ll probably be back, because I often repeat previous actions.
    All the best!

  273. I wish you had a “contact me” page. Oh well…

    On that forum thread, I was trying to make a point about civility, partly because the OP kind of smells like a troll. I know full well what the differences between .com and .org are… although CSS Custom Design on the Sandbox theme is supposed to come pretty close to full control. I’ve seen other custom designs that have made themes completely unrecognizable. (For example, there’s the Snoop Lion blog that the San Kloud theme page links to.)

    I will not be posting this information on the forum thread because I do not believe that rude commenters deserve to receive information until they calm down.

  275. two reasons:

    1- Most bloggers moderate comments by people who have not commented there before. It seemed like an 80% chance the comment would not appear.

    2- The idea was to express an idea to you outside of the OP’s presence.

  276. I CHARGE to handle WP questions outside of the forum. I answer dozens of questions a day; I don’t want them following me home as it were. I simply do not care about the OP and their problem to put my blog at their disposal, as a cursory read of THIS thread would have told you.

  277. I do not disagree with any of that. However, at what point was I putting your blog at their disposal? If anything, I am advocating that you be less generous with your time and knowledge. If they’re not treating you with respect, they don’t deserve information from you.

  282. WHAT MAKES A BLOG SUCCESSFUL? Understanding how readers perceive LIFESTYLE BLOGS

    Hello!

    My name is Elia Pacheco and I am conducting a qualitative study of the factors that make a blog successful for a school project I am doing in the course Qualitative Methods. You are well known in the blogging community and I am wondering if you would be willing to be interviewed for this project. All your responses would be anonymous and no identifier would be provided to connect you with a specific response. I would be more than happy to provide you with a copy of my final report. I also would very much appreciate it if you could pass my name to other well-known bloggers that you think may be willing to be interviewed for this project. My email is eliacomm477@gmail.com.

    Thanks!

    Elia Pacheco aka Elia Princess (eliaprincess.wordpress.com)

    https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZPLKVXZ

    …

    WHAT MAKES A BLOG SUCCESSFUL? Understanding how readers perceive LIFESTYLE BLOGS

    To Project Participant:

    You are invited to take part in a research project conducted by Elia Pacheco Amaro a student at California State University, Los Angeles. In this study we hope to learn more about understanding the success factors for a blog that would help specialists in Public Relations better design communication strategies that can have a long-lasting impact. This project is novel in that it focuses specifically on lifestyle blogs. You were selected to participate in this study because you are a blogger in the lifestyle blog sphere. We hope that our research will lead to understand what makes a blog successful, which may be helpful for students of communications and public relations.

    You will be answering a short questionnaire about your activities as a blogger that should not take more than 10 minutes.

    There is a minimal risk that you may feel discomfort but you may refrain from answering any question that makes you uncomfortable.

    Reports resulting from this study will not identify you as a participant. All information gathered in this study will remain anonymous and be given out only with your permission or as required by law. If you chose to participate, we will protect your anonymity. Web-based surveys (e.g., Survey Monkey) will not collect IP addresses. Data will be kept in separate locked locations for three years following the completion of this research project as required by law.

    If you have any questions about this research at any time, please call Beryl Bellman at 323-343-4262 or write him at bbellman@calstatela.edu. You can also call Elia Pacheco at 626-802-7756 or write her at EliaComm477@gmail.com.

    If you choose not to take part there will be no penalty or loss of benefits to which you are entitled. If you agree to take part, you are free to withdraw from it at any time. Likewise, no penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled will occur.

    THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN REVIEWED BY THE CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LOS ANGELES INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD FOR THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN SUBJECTS IN RESEARCH. ADDITIONAL CONCERNS AND COMPLAINTS, OR QUESTIONS REGARDING YOUR RIGHTS AS A RESEARCH PARTICIPANT, SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO THE ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH AND ACADEMIC PERSONNEL (Phone number: 323-343-3798).

  288. Okay I’m not sure if I’m replying in the right place, it was a little confusing. I’m doing pretty well. I couldn’t find you on facebook. Is your email still the same?

  289. Email is the same. I got permanently banned from Facebook fir saying that a firing squad for the Trump family would be an exercise in national healing and a great way to encourage volunteerism.

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