The Progress Bar Unicorn Chaser

Uniformed Letter Carrier with Child in Mailbag
Image by Smithsonian Institution via Flickr

It’s Wednesday. Is it ever Wednesday. It’s that Wednesday, in fact, when you’re invited to a fabulous cocktail and catering showcase in a swanky hotel and you get there and the staff says Sorry, it’s not in this hotel, it’s in that hotel, and you go to that hotel and wander around, peeping in the ballrooms and concluding (on very little evidence, it must be admitted, except the Board of Trade cards left on one of the tables) that it looks like no balls were had that day, not even those of the cute bellboy, because you were running a bit late and besides, still weren’t entirely convinced you was in the right hotel, and when you ask the staff they say you were worried for good reason because the event is not, in fact, in that hotel, but in still a third one if it’s anywhere, and now you’ve got a 15-minute walk ahead of you in your flowered sandals which are very pretty but definitely more akin to a cheese wire between your toes than one is or should ever become used to, and so you go halfway to the third hotel, decide you’re hungry and your feet hurt, and stop for a #14 with beef and a diet coke.

THAT Wednesday.

That Wednesday when your computer scan renders the system so unstable that you conclude that it, itself, is a threat, and you delete it.

That Wednesday when you’re 48 hours behind on something that isn’t even due yet and you’re already two days late with it.

That Wednesday when the office is full of people having meetings at the back and guys doing construction at the front, and, very definitely, the smell of dairy products gone bad ages ago, perhaps when Elvis was last in the building, and now lying, forgotten, in a dark corner where they are becoming progressively more expensive cheese products by the day.

That Wednesday when, if you open the door to get some fresh air, the crackies chat you up.

That Wednesday when you think THIS would be a good post.

That Wednesday when you fantasize about winning the lottery and opening this:

The Progress Bar, loading in progress

The Progress Bar, loading in progress. I'll take the seat closest the whiskey

Ahhhh, that’s more like it. And so, in the name of progress, we present my inaugural link roundup at the ol’ raincoaster blog, a new tradition which is destined to continue at least until Google has seen the error of its ways and reversed The Soundtrack for Losers Situation. Yes, this is what I get paid for, three times a week.

Mean Disney Girls just a bunch of drama queens (raincoaster)
The Beatles, Captured! (Lolebrity)
Rihanna is disoriented, hideous (Ayyyy)
Reznorvision coming soon to your screens? (AgentBedhead)
The Face of Kotex! (BusyBeeBlogger)
Some people will do ANYTHING to impress Sandra Bullock’s castoffs (CeleBitchy)
Spot the cyborgs among us! (CelebrityCosmeticSurgery)
Violent repeat felon seeks custodianship of Lindsay Lohan (CelebDirtyLaundry)
Michael Bolton, it is FAR too late for respect! (CelebritySmack)
Gaga a Go-Go (CityRag)
Naomi Campbell’s feet are HUGE (CojoStyle)
Yes, everyone but me DOES have a book deal (DailyStab)
Macaroni Rascals (DListed)
A foursome isn’t just for golfing and bridge? (EvilBeet)
Sly, stylin’ (GabbyBabble)
Brigitte Nielson is looking younger (GoFugYourself)
Get your Bieber Babies! (HaveUHeard)
Michael Bolton is the Rodney Dangerfield of show pony has-beens (INeedMyFix)
Catching up with Bristol Palin’s favorite show (IBBB)
Oh holy Jeebus, even Hilary Duff has a book deal (JustJared)
This will be some actress’s lowest career point (MovieLine)
Baby Buble (PerezHilton)
B from the block (PinkIsTheNewBlog)
Backney! (PoorBritney)
The Mysteries of Minnelli (PopBytes)
Jon’s got a Ham in his pants (SeriouslyOMG)

And special bonus links:

What we have here is a failure to communicate: Comments vs no comments; the eternal argument

Bukowski: the worst hangover: (warning, this is NSF Peace of Mind)

Harry Potter and the Homework of Vengeance: A GOOD story about spammers

And I’m selling this link service, so if you run a gossip blog, jump on this bandwagon now by leaving me a comment. When I have five subscribing blogs, the price will go up. That’s what you call high-pressure tactics. I read it on JohnChow.com. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with an imaginary bartender.

Mean Disney Girls

Lindsay Lohan confessions of a teenage drama queen

Lindsay Lohan confessions of a teenage drama queen

Well, now that Ariel has nearly completed her downfall and is drying up in rehab (yet again), I think the time is right for a little flashback to when it all started to go wrong. Once upon a time it was cokeups and muscleheads, alive, alive-o, and now it’s nothing but orange jumpsuits, enforced Yanni listening sessions and yoga, and the smell of cheap regret.

Those? Those were the days, my friend.

what did you do today, raincoaster?

Shakespeare got to get paid

Today it isn’t so much what I’ve done as what I’m going to do; I’m going to give the keynote speech tonight at the AGM for the Federation of BC Writers. I’m also going to take the opportunity to pimp out my intensive, 10-week online Blogging for Writers course that starts next week, and my June 19th Social Media Self-Promotion for Writers half-day workshop.

Dud my nails for the occasion, too! Sparkly!

Posted an announcement about my new linkblogging service for celebrity/gossip or fashion blogs:

$100 a month gets you a list of links three times a week, minimum 10 links to different blogs. More links, or more frequently, more money, obviously. Every blog that buys into the monthly link service is automatically included in the links, of course, and the more blogs that buy the service the more powerful in terms of Googlejuice and visibility each link will be. Completely custom link lists are also available, but if I’m going to spend two hours looking for links already day in and day out, you’re gonna hafta make it worth my while. Send Viggo with cash.

I also blogged:

Dropped a couple of quite pointed comments, even for me:

  • On Gawker, about Starbucks watering down its high-class image:
    Starbucks hasn’t been dedicated to high-end coffee at the expense of market share for about…lemme count on my fingers…oops, have to take off my shoes and socks too… twelve years. I was working there at the time, and you could feel the “shareholder-driven focus” seep through the stores like the nauseating vapours from an open grave. They still have good coffee, but that’s only because they want to keep the people they hooked with it, like me. They also pander to people with terrible, soy-creme-mocha-chippichino taste, because they roam the cities and towns of this world like lumbering herds of calorie-addicted ATMs.
  • On Ann Hathaway’s loser boyfriend (not that one, the new one) ripping down part of a mural, perhaps because he thought it was a Banksy:
    I like to think that the idiots who tear down/paint over Banksy works spend an eternity in a unique circle of Hell where they are viciously butt-raped by LeRoy Neiman and Thomas Kinkade. [banksystreetart]

Answered about 20 questions in the Support forum.

Threw about 12 items on the Tumblr for possible later use.

Outlined the Vancouver Social Media Club event on the 27th, for which I hope not to be in town, actually, and emailed several places to arrange a venue. And roughed out the announcement, which cannot go out until I get the nod from the venue, UGH, even though the Straight deadline is tomorrow.

Applied to be a speaker at 140 Character Conference, a Twitter conference run by the very cool Jeff Pulver. My proposed topic is using Twitter to initiate offline action in your readers.

Took the exit survey from Northern Voice.

Grocery shopped like a fiend. The shelves at London Drugs will never be the same; seriously, if you’re flexible, buying food from drugstores in the middle of the night can save you shitloads, because they’ve always got SOMETHING they’re trying desperately to get rid of, less than half-price. I’m eating packaged, microwaveable Indian vegetarian meals and canned fish for the next three weeks, it would seem.

Realized the Shebeen Club is NEXT FREAKING MONDAY which means all the invites have to go out via social media tomorrow, and we’ll miss the papers. This is what I get for booking a speaker who promptly takes off for Malaysia. “Pull a topic out your ass” night it is then! Thank god it’s Zombie Awareness month.

Noted that my first post on Sami Salo’s testicles has 666 hits. Hmmm. Does that mean he’s cursed? Or that the devil loves to read interviews with social media gonads?

Bitched endlessly on Twitter about the two drunken hipster chicks who sat in our doorway so they could loudly conduct a “private” conversation. If it had been more interesting than “Oh my god I totally don’t wanna be your friend when you’re like this! I’m not like this? I mean, I’m like this now, but I’m totally not, like, LIKE this, you know?” I’d have liveblogged it. Must. Get. Webcam. “ZOMBIE HIPSTERS OF VANGROOVER” sure to be a Youtube smash!

Neglected (once again) to blog the fantastic Bombay Sapphire event I went to Monday. Oh well, so far I’ve posted it on Twitter 12 times and that’s 12×5500 readers, so I’m sure they’re okay with me taking my sweet time.

Somewhere in all this I went for an hour-long walk around my neighborhood, which is always a rewarding experience, particularly when I run into the kitten I rescued on Christmas Eve a few years ago, all grown up and haughty. And get to chat with the cute guy who works at Union Market. Suddenly, yeah, I LOVE talking about the weather.

Decided on the spur of the moment to do the Shebeen Club press release right now…see ya l8r!

Canadians Win: The Cure for Black Sunday

As presumably even penguins in the Antarctic are now aware, on Sunday the Canadian Men’s hockey team lost to the US team for the first time since 1960; this day is now known as Black Sunday or, in the US, as the “Miracle on Ice” because that country ran out of ideas after inventing disco and they’ve just been stealing from the Japanese and the English ever since, and have to reuse old names.

This is what it looked like:

All you need to know about Black Sunday

Seriously, that’s all you need to know about it, other than the one thing nobody knows: how much Brodeur took to throw the game.

And this is the smashingly effective Canadian Comeback:

Canada wins, cuz at least we have health care

Which means we don’t have to worry about things like this…

Rachel Bilson gets a smallpox surprise

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She Scores!

Not only is she PRETTY sure she saw Colin Freaking Firth down in Gastown today, but she got all her paid blogging done by 10am, she got invited on a Bobwheeling ride-along, AND she picked up all of the following for a grand total of less than $30:

  • DVD of Frankenstein’s Daughter starring Donald Murphy, Felix Locher, and Sandra Knight
  • DVD of The Bat starring Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead who was the aunt of a friend of hers when she was little in Winnipeg
  • DVD of CARNIVAL OF FREAKIN’ SOULS, PEOPLE! Yes, let me repeat that, CARNIVAL OF SOULS, also known as Corridors of Evil.
  • DVD of The House on Haunted Hill starring, again, Vincent Price. I understand the actual house has been torn down, which is a bloody shame and just goes to show you LA has no sense of history.
  • DVD of The Ice Harvest, which I only bought because I’m a sucker for a John Cusack movie. Well, because I’m a sucker for a John Cusack movie and a caper film. Well, because I’m a sucker for a John Cusack movie and a caper film and a dark, twisted comedy.
  • When the hell did I switch to the first person, anyway? Being up in the daytime has COMPLETELY discombobulated me.
  • A lovely pink lacy cardigan that covers mah butt.
  • A lovely ombre baby blue cardigan that, again, covers mah butt.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention the beautiful blue/grey houndstooth hipster sombrero and the $80 wrestling boots I picked up at the DemiCouture sale at W2 on Sunday. But I DID! The wrestling boots are black Reeboks, which will wear out in no time but are cushy as the road to Hell in the meantime, and being black ankle boots make me feel like Batgirl every time I put them on. And the two of them together cost me $15. YES, you SHOULD hire me to do your shopping. 10% of gross and I’m yours.

And as I was rooting through the rather random assortment of DVDs there and passing up some awesome films like A History of Violence because it was $9.99 instead of $1.99 like the others and it’s Cronenberg and how many times can you watch that, really, even if you ARE a Viggofan? one of the Army Navy staffers walked by, uttered a squawk, and grabbed the Mamma Mia which I’d moved from in front of the much more interesting Van Helsingwhich isn’t actually an interesting movie unless you’re fascinated by the optical illusion of the cross-stitch on Kate Beckinsale’s bodice (are those nipples or are they…?) or by the sheer sexual magnetism of Hugh Jackman, which gosh, nobody we know would be, would she now?

Hugh Jackman is missing something

Hugh Jackman is missing something

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