Category Archives: Lush Life

How to Do ANYTHING Better on 4/20

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420 Vancouver by gillicious

420 Vancouver by gillicious

Yes, it’s a civic holiday in Vangroover (not really, but yeah) and there’s a distinct likelihood that several, if not even plenty of my readers, yes, we can see you out there, you left the webcam on and your eyeballs look like piss holes in the snow, may be somewhat affected by, shall we say, hyperlocal atmospheric conditions.

So, in the spirit of serviceyness, we present a couple of handy-dandy guides that will help you pretend not to be completely fucked up.

First up, Mowing Your Lawn on PCP:

Great! Don’t you feel productive now? But the night is still young, so don’t stop the buzz now! Grab a bottle of some refreshing liquid and follow along with Jenna Marbles as she shows you how to do makeup drunk.

And now Hannah from My Drunk Kitchen shows you How to Make Poutine, which you will want if you got baked, yourself:

She should definitely NOT have licked up the gravy that dissolved the dust from Burning Man and washed it down with a Caesar. She was only drunk before: now she’s a bad case of All Of The Above.

One thing that should not be attempted under the influence: singing in the car. If you’re the driver, you shouldn’t be messed up, and if you’re not the driver, you’re annoying the driver. Besides, no matter how awesome you think you are, you aren’t as awesome as this guy (yes, more Canadian Content; we’re just that much better at being drunk/stoned than you are):

And, no matter how awesome you think you are, even if you are sober and your audience is completely shitfaced, you will never be as good as Nicki Bluhm and The Gramblers, who use their van as a recording booth while tootling around San Francisco belting out cover tunes.

You’re welcome.

Did YOU Remember?

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Remember, Remember. Make sure Wall Street never forgets!

Remember, Remember. Make sure Wall Street never forgets!

Yes, it’s November 5th, Bank Transfer Day.

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason, why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, guy, t’was his intent
To blow up king and parliament.
Three score barrels were laid below
To prove old England’s overthrow.

By God’s mercy he was catch’d
With a darkened lantern and burning match.
So, holler boys, holler boys, Let the bells ring.
Holler boys, holler boys, God save the king.

And what shall we do with him?
Burn him!

http://twitter.com/#!/Jemima_Khan/statuses/132780357379563520

Who is this Thomas Jefferson guy? He sounds like a filthy dirty hippie.

Who is this Thomas Jefferson guy? He sounds like a filthy dirty hippie.

Don’t look now, but there’s something going on at the bank over there, George!

Occupy your own wallet by taking all your funds out of the Big Banks, putting them into your local credit union. You’ll get better service and better protections, you’ll own stock in a community business, and you’ll be helping make the world a better place.

Along with over one million Americans and counting:

That’s already about twice as many as switched from banks to credit unions last year, and when that video was made it wasn’t even November 5th yet! More switched in the month of October, 2011 than switched in all of last year.

“These results indicate that consumers are clearly making a smarter choice by moving to credit unions where, on average, they will save about $70 a year in fewer or no fees, lower rates on loans and higher return on savings,” said CUNA President Bill Cheney.

No relation to…you know…THAT guy.

Are banks really that evil? Let’s ask THIS guy:

Scott Warren opened an account at JP Morgan Chase Bank in 2009 to receive unemployment payments.

Scott Warren has some hard numbers for JP Morgan Chase

Scott Warren mailed his statement to Chase after switching to a credit union. It said 'Dear Chase, Occupy Wall St., from your ex-customer.'"

“Chase was the only one that set it up for you,” said Warren, who was a quality supervisor at Unisolar in Greenville before being laid off. “I went to the unemployment office, they gave me my paperwork. I go to Chase, they set me up, and, right away, they’re trying to get me to sign up for a credit card.”

Warren was stunned. And it happened every time he went into a branch, he said.

“They knew why I was there,” he said, referring to his unemployed status at the time. “I told them I didn’t think that was smart. This tells me that they are not in business to serve my needs. They intend to make money off of my failures.”

Here in Vancouver, a call has gone out from Nancy Zimmerman, Moneycoach, to VanCity Credit Union, one of the biggest success stories in the industry:

In light of corralled girls and teargassed wheel-chair bound women and articulate youth and the hashtag #occupy showing up here, there, everywhere, does Vancity have something to offer? Yes, this vid gives a glimpse of a better way. It’s inspiring.

But it’s not a manifesto, and if ever a ballsy manifesto (nothing pretty, please! and no slick marketing!) was needed from a financial institution, one whose DNA is still gritty and radical even if tamed over the years, it’s needed now. Is a credit union something more than a kinder, gentler bank? I’m listening. And I hope about 99% of Canadian citizens are too.

Think there was no Canadian bank bailout?

Lord Black of Conradistan

Lord Black of Conradistan

Think again:

Between September 2008 and March 2009, Canadian banks reduced their holdings of domestic residential mortgages from $486.1 billion to $434.9 billion according to Bank of Canada stats; on a net basis.

Where did those mortgages go, you ask? Did 10% of Canadian homeonwers sell their homes and move into rental accomodation enmasse during a six month period?

Of course not. The federal government created a unique program through CMHC specifically targeted at allowing Canadian chartered banks to move tens of billions of dollars of assets off of their balance sheets. The reason? Canadian banks couldn’t raise sufficient and/or cost-effective funding from their traditional sources – primarily other global financial institutions – and needed Crown intervention to keep the wolf from the door. By mid-November 2008, the federal government had agreed to take $75 billion of mortgages from Canadian banks.

Assuming the risk-weighting of these assets was 20%, the feds essentially put $15 billion of capital into the Canadian banks that participated in the $75 billion CMHC program.

Bank Transfer Day: Ah, remember how it all began!

Bank Transfer Day: Ah, remember how it all began!

More money for you, less for “Too big to fail” corporations that would no longer exist if your tax dollars hadn’t been used to prop them up when their own machinations dug a grave for them. No tie-dyed, herbal-tea-stained, smelly hippie radical protester fingerprints on any of it.

Taking back your own wealth while sticking it to The Man, making more money, and saving fees? 

Ca-CHING!

Haters Gonna Hate ... Gramma

Haters Gonna Hate ... Gramma

UPDATES:

Oh, it’s working all righty:

As of this writing, somebody’s posting to Facebook every 30 seconds that they ditched their bank in favor of a credit union…The campaign has caught on and credit unions reported a $4.5 billion surge in assets in October alone…

Should you wish to go about your business today or any other day wearing an Anonymous-approved Guy Fawkes mask, but hesitate to participate in consumerism by buying a mask copyrighted by Warner Brothers, you can print out a paper pattern for a 3D mask here, and you can find instructions on making an origami mask at the bottom of this post.

Should I register “rollercoaster” as well?

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well what the fuck WAS that?

well what the fuck WAS that?

Ever had one of those days that starts out like that and then goes…well…like this?

That’s right, bitches.

Problems! Solved!

mostly.

Problem 1) Transportation to Vancouver so I can honour my commitments to speak at and participate in Social Media Week and Social Media for Government in Victoria.

Solution 1) Hotel_Goddess, a woman who has never met me, who lives in another city from me, and who doesn’t even know my real name, promptly put her airmiles together and made a reservation for me. Now this is a religion that pays off: I am a convert! From now on, I’ll stop worshipping Cthluhu and start worshipping Hotel_Goddess, because what the hell has worshipping Cthulhu ever got me? I’ve yet to be eaten first or, really, at all recently, but there…I’ve said too much.

Problem 2) Homelessness which I think we can all agree is a helluva problem, particularly with it frosting over every night already (yes, really). Solved in bipartite mode by my friend Nancy until Monday, stowing me away in her mother’s basement (maybe Mom won’t notice? I dunno, she’s pretty sharp!) and by friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend-of-a-chef-running-a-pullled-pork-truck-in-Osoyoos(and if you see him say hi from me) to whom I was introduced by email and who has a cabin which isn’t currently occupied and whose current house-sitter has other things to keep him busy for the next few weeks and maybe forever. So this cabin needs someone sitting in it, and it might as well be me. So, from Monday I am going to be sitting in a rustic two bedroom cabin/trailer/Rube Goldberg agglomeration with a view, a deck, a wood stove for heat, a gas stove for cooking, a big screen tv, and in a very funky, desirable neighborhood that’s walking distance to downtown. Like, four blocks. If the next couple of weeks work out, I might get to stay there when the owner goes up north to cater at a college, which would mean I pay for utilities and taxes and such, but no rent.

u totes jelly bro

u totes jelly bro

Oh yes, did I mention two bedrooms? One for me and one for Julian, until I coax him into getting over his crippling shyness.

Problem 3) Vancouver rent doubled from $340 to $760 or thereabouts.

Solution 3) Emailed the woman in charge of admin at Kellett and had her fax my ROE to the co-op. Did this before the last post went up, by the way. Doing it afterwards may have been less productive, knowmasayin’? Photographed my last pay stub detailing last day paid and how much I earned in all of August ($288 for the curious) and sent the digital files to the co-op. Was almost punchy enough to hit Flickr Uploader by rote, but managed to stop myself in time. It ain’t art. Then I forwarded to them the receipt from Paypal for my blogging payment for the posts I made in July. $300 US equating, after Paypal fees and the exchange rate, to about $288, sound familiar?

Co-op re-evaluated my housing charges in record time, thank GOD, and now I have to pay only the $340.

Problem 4) Unemployment=No Money. And no, I’m not eligible for BC welfare or, it seems, welfare up here either. Yay, mobility! Anyhoodle, even when one saves $400 on rent and gets another place for free, one cannot eat air. And one cannot purchase non-air foodstuffs up here for anything like spare change. A week’s groceries from Sunrise Market would cost me $12; the equivalent here (if I could even GET the equivalent here) is more like $45.

Solution 4) A very nice person on Twitter who wishes to remain anonymous because it’s a business account and they don’t want it to seem like they’re looking for publicity ALTHOUGH THEY TOTALLY DESERVE IT FOR THIS AND YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE sent me $250 via Paypal. This is, as with Hotel_Goddess, someone who’s never met me in person and doesn’t even know my real name. They just like the way I roll, have benefited from social media in the past, and want to pay it forward. And another friend who’s starting her own blog sent me $200 for a blogging lesson, so I can at least pay my Vancouver rent if I put the two of those together. Might even get some gruel!

If I can manage to switch my flight to the 13th instead of the 9th, I might even be able to run a workshop here at the Aurora Conference Centre. I’ve been talking with Chef Pierre and a workshop series is very doable, but I’ve missed the deadline to get an ad in to the paper in time to have a workshop before the 9th, so I have to check out the flight change tomorrow. A full workshop would mean I could pay all my arrears to the co-op and then some, and be sure of having enough money to get back up here and do another workshop. And so on. Gotta get that flight switched (might be another $100 or so) and then pick a date!

Oh, and I’m going to be speaking briefly at the Rotary North meeting this coming Thursday at the Top Knight, so if you want to meet the now-happy wanderer in person, turn up. But don’t get between me and the mic; I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.

Moral of the story: When in trouble, whine. Copiously. On every social media platform available to you.

C'mon, get HAPPY!

C'mon, get HAPPY!

Welcome to Yellowknife

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and believe me, I NEED that Flak Jacket lately

and believe me, I NEED that Flak Jacket lately

Keep your shoes on. You’ll see why.

In Vancouver, when we go into someone’s house, we generally take our shoes off; it’s something we probably picked up from Asia, and for those of us who don’t enjoy vacuuming, which is all right-thinking people if you axe me, it makes a great deal of sense.

Not in Yellowknife.

Judging completely by my own experience, for I cannot judge by anyone else’s, not being anyone else (except for icecoaster) and thus not having had their experiences, I would say not only don’t take your shoes off, but you might want to keep that jacket handy as well, and not just because it’s getting chilly lately.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the history of my Great Yellowknife Adventure, here is some background which should fill you in, right up to the present moment. You may want to keep a sick bag handy as well; I don’t make up the facts, I just report them.

So…in Vancouver I live in a co-op, which is both extremely well-situated and extremely affordable, my earnings since I got sick last fall being of the minimal variety, and co-op rates being tied to income. When people ask why my earnings have been minimal, I explain that being self-employed and having to take several months off for health reasons, then, while recovering, jumping back into a market where social media trainers outnumber social media students by a ratio of about two to one is precisely what I believe Forbes defines as your basic “challenging business environment.” So, earnings being minimal, and Vancouver being somewhat less enchanting of late for various and sundry (although, alas, not tawdry; that would be more entertaining) reasons, I cast my eye abroad. Or along. Or above.

And ended up in Yellowknife. My friend Nancy, whom I met on Twitter, sent me a message that Kellett Communications was looking for a digital project manager. We chatted via Skype, they checked me out on LinkedIn, and after a few back and forths they came back and said they’d hired someone with more direct project management experience, but would I be interested in coming up and learning it while they built up the social media side? Well, given the chance to start basically the first social media agency in the NWT, I said Yes! Well duh, of COURSE I did. There’s nothing someone who’s good at something hates so much as not doing that thing, and god knows, I wasn’t doing it in Vancouver, but Yellowknife was like stepping back to, say 2002 in Vancouver in terms of social media: everything was just about to start happening. An awesome opportunity, and while I was up there, I could get involved with a nonprofit or even start my own, bringing the power of the digital revolution to remote communities just as I had to the homeless and the marginalized on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

I got a start date (which I managed to miss by a day: my own damn fault for not allowing enough time at the airport, yes, even at 5am) and a sublet; the sublet was amazingly handy. Four blocks from work, fully furnished, and (for Yellowknife) a good price. I should explain something: a good price for Yellowknife is approximately what a Yaletown condo would cost. This is not a place that one could describe as “reasonable” by any means. Or on any level: read on.

The sublet was courtesy of a commenter on Crasstalk, and she’d be gone from June through to the start of October, which was perfect, as I’d know by mid-September whether or not the job would be a go; after you’ve been self-employed since the last century, going back to working for someone else is a big adjustment, and so it proved. Over and over and over again, but more of that anon…

All was going swimmingly for a couple-three weeks, or as swimmingly as anything can go when it involves me waking up before the crack of noon, when I got an email from the woman from whom I was subletting: things weren’t working out down South, she was coming back. Hokay then: we briefly considered her subletting my co-op in Vancouver but:

  1. I’d left it in No Sublettable Condition, having recently taken delivery of a bunch of extra furniture I was supposed to sell (guess what I didn’t have time to put on Craigslist before I left?) and me being at the best of times no great housekeeper; when you add being seriously ill for a period of months and then in recovery from surgery, you have one epic hell of a messy apartment.
  2. My housing agreement (indeed, ALL co-op housing agreements) specifically outlaw subletting, to discourage profiteering.

So. Back she was coming and what was I going to do about it? Well, as it happens I stayed on the futon in her living room till, with Nancy‘s help, I found a shared house with a sympatico-seeming hippie type at a wicked good price for Yellowknife, and arranged to move in August 1. When we parted I said, “So, unless I hear something from you that everything’s gone sideways,” for lo, I am way cautious, verily dudes. For that carpet has been pulled out from my feet already here in YZF, as you can conclude from the above and if you can’t, take some smart pills and read it again, but where was I? Oh yes, “we’re on for the first of August, right?” She nodded and said, “right,” and we were in business.

Cut to August 1.

There I am, trundling up the walkway to the door. There Nancy is, leaning against her mother’s car, ready to help me with my things. And there the hippie is, walking out the door towards me with a shit-eating grin on her face…take it away, icecoaster:

Who YOU calling a tramp, buddy?

Who YOU calling a tramp, buddy?

Oh, guess what. Sorry I didn’t get back to you. I’ve been offline. Camping, actually. So you couldn’t have gotten in touch with me but, anyway, when I didn’t hear from you I just, you know, sort of figured I’d just go ahead and change my mind. Sorryyyyyy. So, yeah.

So.

It’s a good thing I’ve been scouting out charities to volunteer for, because at least I am well-informed about homeless shelter options in Yellowknife.

Cut to August 2.

There I am, beavering away (does not mean what you think it means; you have a dirty mind. That’s why I like you) at Kellett, doggedly learning that Project Management isn’t my favorite thing in the world but oh well, it must be done. And there I am, doing it. Right there on the lunch table. Because I don’t really have a desk, but that’s another story; well, I have a desk, but it’s in the boardroom, which is down the stairs, down the sidewalk a couple of doors, up some other stairs, and down the hall, but that’s neither here nor there, not either desk which I have.

Make that had a desk.

I get an email from the boss: could I come and see him for about 15 minutes? Sure, of course I can; I may be newish to this “employment” thing, but if there’s one thing I know it’s when the boss says, “could you” you say YES. So I said Yes and was even on time when I got there and when I got there he laid me off.

“Not enough social media work, sorry.”

Imagine my joy.

And then he clarified that, no, he wouldn’t be getting me a ticket back to Vancouver.

Being efficient-like, I went back and packed up my lunch supplies and papers and such (although dammit, I did forget that fresh new case of mini-yogurts in the fridge, and when you’re homeless anything you don’t have to heat up is bonus points) and went back to the place I was couch-surfing until I found a house-sit, and emailed the co-op, figuring, not unreasonably, that they would revise their estimation of the housing charges.

No such luck: because I was employed on August 1 (the holiday) I had to pay over $700 for the Vancouver place. Which wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t also had to pay $1400 for the Yellowknife place in July. Between the two of them, my housing charges for the four weeks I was employed exceeded my net pay by a significant amount. And that’s why I can’t just buy my own ticket back to Vancouver.

Today I got an email that because they don’t yet have the ROE from Kellett proving that I was laid off, my housing charges for September are also over $700.

Ah, but there’s more, if you’re still with me. And if you’re not with me, you’re agin me, as old people with single tooths in their heads are wont to say. Why would anyone wont to say that, though? I ask yez.

So. Thanks again to Nancy, I got a really good house-sitting gig for most of August: handy to stores, three stories, jacuzzi, cushy sofa, big tv, lynxes walking down the driveway. Sweet. After that gig ended, the deal was, I stay with Nancy a few days, house-sitting while she was down South, and then on September 1 I crash on my friend’s futon; this was the place I’d originally sublet. She felt bad enough for me to let me crash there for a few weeks until I fly back to Vancouver on the 18th for Social Media Week.

Cut to today.

I open my email and there, in #000000 and #FFFFFF, it is: the email that says Sorry, you can’t stay here.

Indeed. Apparently I cannot.

But wait, I just thought of something...Teepee for me

But wait, I just thought of something...Teepee for me

The Strange Range Tweetup: the aftermath

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The Strange Range tweetup featuring the styling talents of the late Edward Hopper!

The Strange Range tweetup featuring the styling talents of the late Edward Hopper!

The Strange Range Tweetup is history; the question now is, will the Strange Range be?

YOU can help answer that question by showing up at City Hall on Monday, August 22nd, 7pm sharp, when there will be a public meeting on the bylaw to buy the entire block. Here’s the sign that was hanging by the bar; once I explained what we were there for, the bartender practically begged us to take pictures.

Strange Range Hearing Monday at 7pm

Strange Range Hearing Monday at 7pm

I called the tweetup to hear the stories of the Range, to get a real sense of its history and what it means to the town. Unfortunately, literally everyone else who showed up showed up for the same reason, not because they had stories to share. That’s unusual, given that some of them are lifelong Knifers.

If you have a story, even an apocryphal one, about the Range, please please please PRETTY PLEASE post it in the comments (you can use a fake name: what the hell do I care, I’m not Google+) or hunt me down in person and whisper it to me, but if you do that you’re probably gonna hafta buy me a martini to calm my nerves down, and if you REALLY alarm me, probably a couple for yourself, too, besides the wound dressing for the compound fractured arm.

But where was I? Oh yes. As you can see from the slideshow below and the pix on Flickr, we didn’t exactly have to fight for space. The crowd outside was, as the bartender pointed out, about twice the size of the crowd inside; the Range has a problem like the Carnegie Centre in Vancouver: the scary throngs that block the door and hang out on the sidewalk, looking for all the world as if they’re going to pounce on you. And they might, too.

If it didn’t get down to -40, I’d suggest putting in one of those garden-misting apparatuses to keep the entranceway clear, but it does indeed get to -40 and besides, where else are these people gonna go?

If you axe me, which I note you did not, the problem isn’t the Range: the problem is that black hole of a parking lot across the street. Clean it up, make it into a park, put on some activities there so there’s something to do other than get high or drunk, and suddenly with eyes on the street and stuff happening, it’s not such a nexus of dysfunction. As for the throngs outside the door, well, does -40 not take care of that?

So ends today’s “lessons from an uppity Southerner”. See you Monday at 7?

Vodpod videos no longer available.