For the record and just to warn the universe on general principles, it is now eight minutes after midnight on July 4th and the moronic bumblers working on the garage gates of our apartment building are STILL AT IT WITH THE FUCKING POWER TOOLS, sixteen hours after they started and six hours after the bylaws say they have to stop. I tried calling the noise bylaw hotline: it’s open from 9am-4pm, Monday to Friday, and there is NO VOICE MAIL.
If they really want to see a power tool up close and personal, just let them keep this up till my bedtime.
Thus: the Devo. I am self-medicating with New Wave.
For no reason I can imagine except that my life has been deprived of it so far, a DVD of the movie Gladiator has just shown up in my mailbox, purchased from Amazon on my behalf by a name I do not recognize with no further contact details.
Hmmmmmmm.
The only person who’s really been outraged by the fact that I haven’t yet been exposed to the buff and beefy (instead of just puffy) version of Russell Crowe is a gay man whose name is definitely not the one on the receipt.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Oh well, the timing couldn’t be better as I will be taking it easy today as I was up till all hours last night with the Shebeen Club drinking: one Strongbow (why do I do this? why do I inventory it?), two and a half glasses of wine which Lydia bought, one Highland Park 12 year old whiskey which I bought (and bought Lydia one, leaving me effectively penniless till the paypal hits the bank around Friday) and then ran into an old friend on the way home who waylaid me for another two (or was it three?) pints of Dead Frog Nut Brown Ale at the ‘Ho.
You know? The ‘Ho? It doesn’t blow!
A friend of mine got taken to the Ivanhoe for her first legal beer on her birthday. I don’t know how many she had, nor does she because she had that many. How many? So many she passed out and woke up around three in the morning, sitting in a corner with her purse in her lap and a blanket thrown over her. Nothing was missing, either.
No, first we will tell you what we’re going to tell you. Then we will tell you. Then we will tell you we’ve told you. I’ve been told that’s what to do.
Then, we will invoice you.
No, wait, that’s how it works in the corporatesphere, and the great part is, you get to bill for ALL of the above, plus the time you spend making shit up to talk about in the first place. But this is the Blogosphere, as differentiated from the Twittosphere. So, nobody is getting paid here.
Is this the point at which to mention that my canned Introduction to Social Media talk includes the song “Starfuckers, Incorporated?” Sure it is.
By the way, if I may be allowed to digress (and, since it is my own blog and raincoaster.com to boot it may truly be said that I am not only allowed to digress, but actually encouraged, nay, mandated to do so) and to name-drop as well (ditto, double) I would simply like to take this opportunity to mention that there is every indication and some considerable circumstantial evidence (moreso even than for the existence of fairies, of which we have written elsewhere at length) that this very website was visited by Trent Fucking Reznor. For realz.
< / squealingfangirl >
Thank you. And now, back to our irregularly-scheduled blog post.
Drupal Camp Vancouver is nothing like Girl Guide Camp; for one thing the gender ratio is all wrong, and for another there are no s’mores. So, like, damn.
But once you get over that, it’s not so bad. First of all, it begins, as do all good things which don’t involve pubic lice, with a free drink ticket. In my case, because I am impecunious in the extreme and gifted with a sense of entitlement larger than the Grand Banks, it began with two, actually, because Dave is a self-declared old hippie and susceptible to the charms of a self-declared old goth such as myself, particularly if she’s heavy on the “just got through teaching blogging to the marginalized population of the Downtown Eastside” speil, which I am wont to do just about whenever I wont to, which is definitely when it will give me free drinks, which is something I always wont except possibly at breakfast and even then I might just wont to pour it into a handy Wellington boot and save it for later.
Tomorrow it continues (remember Drupal Camp? It’s a blog post about Drupal Camp) with me volunteering. I have been assured/assurances have been made unto me that there is no reason to turn my world upside-down by presenting myself in, like, the morning. Thank god; I’d thought for a second they were going to be unreasonable or something. So for tomorrow the plan is that I will show up at some point and try to be more useful than annoying, although those of you who know me are aware that it tends to be a wash, whatever the amplitude or volume in question.
And after Drupal Camp packs up its Pug tents and its GPS-ess and stainless steel travel mugs for the day, I am to assist at Code Sprint, an event which I have neither witnessed nor participated in, but I am prepared to wear a festive hat and consume mint juleps and shoot the second-place finisher if that is what it takes.
Come and “jam” with fellow creatives, both technical and non-technical, from 6pm to 9pm. There’s activities for right and left brainers, er, themers and coders, alike! The plan is for coders to focus on methods for adding mobile content and themers to focus on the creation of a mobile-friendly black-on-white theme. Don’t worry about your skill level, everyone can participate.
The Fearless Media Project facilitates community participation in the creation of media and community dialogue on issues relevant to people in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) of Vancouver.
Which brings us to Fearless City Media. Which I told Scott I would link to once that bloody SEO-slaughtering splash page was ripped pixel by pixel out of the cyberverse and thrown into the deepest pit of Hell, but what the hell, I lied: sue me. Fearless City is what I do with my Thursday nights, manifesting the promise of equality and emancipation implicit in the Digital Revolution and bridging the Digital Divide by leading a blogging workshop for some of the most marginalized people in North America. I do this in the back room of an art gallery which works with artists suffering from mental illness or the aftereffects of abuse, in a neighborhood where, according to Statistics Canada, the average life expectancy is 33 years, lower than any nation on Earth.
What did you do Thursday night?
Yes, even I find me insufferable sometimes. Still. What did you?
The purpose of the Fearless Media Project is to facilitate community participation in the creation of media and community dialogue on issues relevant to people in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) of Vancouver. This cultural initiative connects documented visions and practises with community priorities and goals. With oversight from the DTES Community Arts Network coordinating body (CANCore), Fearless functions as a portal to arts and culture in “the heart of the city.”
Fearless functions as a community arts initiative that prioritizes an inclusive process and involvement of people in media making. Context is central; this media is situated in more public, accessible and resonant places, geared to a specific audience and a specific time. Fearless is reflective of and responsive to the DTES community.
Fearless fosters engagement with the community by giving voice to the experiences of local people and amplifying their stories. The community-building dynamic happens in many ways: by providing access to resources and training people in media production; by bringing people together to address community issues and explore the rich culture of the Downtown Eastside; and by cultivating understanding through listening and dialogue.
And this video right here is what I tried (and failed…maybe Code Sprint will fix this?) to post on my Fearless City blog: The Adventures of Homeless James Bond, which I stole from The Homeless Guy, an American blogger who’s been blogging since before raincoaster was a twinkle in Cthulhu‘s third eye, posting from libraries and public computers all over his hometown.
The revolution is coming. And it will be Fabulous.
Class War in Blood Alley? And what happens to the losers?
has just shown up in my mailbox, purchased from Amazon on my behalf by a name I do not recognize with no further contact details.
raincoaster 