Category Archives: Canada

Beaver and Big Wood picture

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Beaver shots are very popular among fans of the ol’ raincoaster blog, and it must be said that other than the drunken beaver shot, we haven’t had much beaver around these parts lately except my own, which very few of you have had, it must be said, and certainly not in any way that enables saving it to your hard drive. I mean, how long would it stay hard, if you did that?

Where was I?

Beaver shots. Right, beaver shots. I saw this one featuring young beaver and major wood on the Fail blog and though I’d share its shiver-inducing potency with the loyal readers here. Of course, it’s hidden behind the page jump for lo, we are terribly discreet, mofos.

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Okay, Vancouver, WTF?

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Vancouver, BCOriginally written like, a week ago, and been sitting in the Draft bucket since. For whatever reason, my internet connection also went down. And according to all the news sources, the following never happened.

Sure. Sure…

It’s 2:21am on a Tuesday morning and the BC Hydro “Oh Canada” blast horns have just treated us to an impromptu performance. This (well, a regularly scheduled performance rather than an impromptu one) is something they do every day at noon from the top of the Electra, formerly the BC Hydro Building, and notorious for it’s very Progressive International Fifties poison green and royal blue colour scheme. The horns are a quaint (and, for residents of the building, no doubt extremely annoying) relic of Vancouver’s maritime past.

And every night at nine o’clock a cannon is fired off in Stanley Park, and the ships used to set their various and esoteric timepieces by the sound. At Coal Harbour, you’d hear it at nine o’clock and one second. At further points, later times. Carinthia once listed them all off for me, each of the geographic coordinates and their coordinating time coordinates, for verily she’s a storehouse of information like that, or was, until she started forgetting things, and it’s true that ever since then she’s refused to try to remember things, in case she finds that she cannot.

But I repeat, it’s 2:21 in the morning in Vancouver. It is not noon in Vancouver. In fact, it is not noon anywhere.

I blame Anonymous.

UPDATE: Oh. Oh, this is swell.

I blame Anonymous.

Don’t you hate it when you live somewhere for years and years and years and they change something and they don’t tell you and then you’re taking a bus through that neighborhood or walking by or blogging about the horns on the top of the building that you know o-so-well and you trawl through Google to find something to link to which will familiarize your readers with these things in your memory and so you will move forward with at least some crazy-quilt of a patched-together background of shared memories and THEN AND ONLY THEN do you find out that they moved the freaking horns to Canada Place!

So now the nine o’clock gun fires at Stanley Park as it has every night since 1894, and every noon the horns on Canada Place blasts back at that incendiary upstart with the first four notes of O, Canada and the next day they do it all over again. That’ll teach ’em, yep.

What a wonderful metaphor for Canadian Regional Separatism, really.

Speaking of Canadian Metaphors, I was rather proud of this one.

YouTube and Vancouver Film School Scholarship Contest

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VFS and YouTube have just announced an international scholarship competition that should knock Chris Crocker off the front page and into the obscurity which has hungered for him ever since the Leave Britney Alone fifteen minutes started.

The prize is a full tuition scholarship to internationally-respected Vancouver Film School, the school out of which Kevin Smith dropped to go on to produce the magnum opus, the veritable Big Chill of his generation, Clerks. Like I ever saw that.

I’m old, yo.

Anyhoo. The challenge is to make a compelling YouTube pitch explaining just exactly why you’re the natural choice to win. Anyone with enough self-confidence to go into film should have no problem with this part. The school picks the finalists, and then the viewers on YouTube make the final choice.

Official Rules

Full Press Release (PDF)

A few more details, from the FAQ:

This competition is about making film school accessible to everyone. The YouTube community will award three aspiring artists (that includes directors, animators, actors, sound designers and more) with full-tuition scholarships to the Vancouver Film School program of their choice.

Between March 18th and May 9th, submit a short film, animation or creative pitch addressing the theme “What Matters to You.” You must start your video by identifying the VFS program you wish to attend and you must limit your video to no more than three minutes. On May 20th, we will announce the 10 finalists, selected by Vancouver Film School.

From May 20th to May 27th, the YouTube community will view and vote for their favorite videos.

On May 30th, we will announce the 3 scholarship winners.

What programs are up for scholarship awards?

1. Foundation Visual Art & Design
2. Acting Essentials
3. 3D Animation & Visual Effects
4. Classical Animation
5. Digital Character Animation
6. Houdini™ Certification
7. Acting for Film & Television
8. Digital Design
9. Entertainment Business Management
10. Film Production
11. Game Design
12. Makeup Design for Film & Television
13. Sound Design for Visual Media
14. Writing for Film & Television

Some handy tips:

Be creative. Don’t just tell us what’s important to you – show us. For example, if you’re a director, make a short film or documentary about an issue you care about. If you’re an animator, animate a story about an issue, person, place, etc. that matters to you. If you’re a writer, pitch a fresh screenplay concept about something that matters to you. If you’re a makeup artist, transform a stranger into someone who matters to you. These are just ideas and we know you can do better, but the point is: think creatively!

What gets into the shortlist?

Vancouver Film School will judge submissions based on the following criteria:

a. Creativity and Originality (up to 25 points)
b. Relevance of the video to the particular program of study selected (up to 25 points)
c. Technical Execution: Camera/Sound/Lighting/Editing (up to 25 points)
d. Overall Impression (up to 25 points)

And after that, it’s all up to the community on YouTube, so start sucking up building relationships now!

Feeding Time in Rlyeh

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Feeding Time in Rlyeh

These allegedly endangered Moon Jellyfish don’t look so all-fired rare or endangered to me; they look exactly like the loathsome, throbbing masses of protoplasm that make kayaking in Indian Arm such an unpleasant experience at migration time. Seriously, with those damn paddles it’s like lading up jellyfish soup and watching it slide down the ladle onto your hand, then taking another stroke and ladling up some more on the other side. And the herds, swarms, masses, go on for literally miles.

No wonder people love motorboats: puree!

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Blogging for Nonprofits Course March 26th

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social media

OUR NEXT CLASS RUNS
Wednesday, March 26th

Current course: Blogging for Nonprofits

 

• What: a hands-on, blog building workshop including advice on how your organization can get the most impact from social media and blogs.

• When: 9 – 4 Wednesday, March 26th

• Where: Tradeworks Training Society, Downtown Vancouver

• Why: Learn to use social media and blogs to complement your organization’s mission. Get a blog up and running in one day with personal instruction in a small, intensive workshop.

 

This workshop covers blogging issues like:

> what social media can and can’t do for your organization

> posting rich media like podcasts, video, and images

> basic copyright law and accepted practices

> solving basic technical problems, where to find help

> privacy, confidentiality, and the internet

> balancing accessibility and professionalism online

> SEO, publicity, and building your media presence

Tuition is $200 per participant. Please pre-register via email prior to Friday, March 21st. No late registrations will be accepted. Computers are provided; you may bring a laptop if you prefer. Presented by raincoaster media ltd, in partnership with Tradeworks Training Society. Contact or 778-235-0592, bloggingclasses AT gmail DOT com .

With class size limited to 6, this will be a program of personalized, intense learning. During the workshop you will create a blog, customize the design, and publish several draft posts including various multimedia formats such as video. You will leave with a functional, professional blog and the skills you need to run and promote it.

Why blog? Check out the creative, effective ways that other nonprofits are using blogs to distribute their message independent of the mainstream media:

> 10 reasons every nonprofit must have a blog

> 10 ways nonprofits can use blogs

> blogging basics for nonprofits

> the nonprofit blog exchange

> net2learn blogging for nonprofits

> how nonprofits can use social media

> should your nonprofit have a blog?

Upcoming Courses: Corporate and Nonprofit Blogging, Pimp My Blog (blog
promotion), Blogging for Business, Audio Podcasting, and Photoblogging (online and in
Montreal, courtesy Neath of Walking Turcot Yards). Please email bloggingclasses AT gmail DOT com to be put on the notification list.

Bio: Lorraine Murphy has been blogging for many years, and her flagship blog, raincoaster, is ranked in the top 20,000 blogs in the world. She maintains The Shebeen Club Blog for the literary group of the same name, running through rain for students of her course Blogging to Personal Growth, and Blogger’s Blurt, a resource for beginning WordPress bloggers. She mommyblogs at TeenyManolo and celebrityblogs at Ayyyy!. Ms Murphy is the author of Terminal City: Vancouver’s Missing Women and a former Small Business Columnist at Business in Vancouver newspaper and Occupational Pursuit magazine. As one of the cornerstone volunteers in the WordPress.com technical help forums, she has long experience helping beginning bloggers develop fluency and achievement online.

Contact us below for more details:

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