Category Archives: raincoaster media group

what did you do today, raincoaster?

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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!

What Did You Do Today, raincoaster?

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Desert Island disc-less

via fleetfootedfox

Nothing much, just:

Posted:

Discouraged a half-dozen or so people from attempting to pull the broken glass out of the door of the office and break in. I have some powerful stink-eye. A junkie kicked the glass door in the other day, but we have bars too, so even if you did scabble with your paws and get all the broken glass and the glass patch and the vinyl patch out of the frame, you’d just be stuck standing there looking in, only with you’re own blood all over your hands, and wouldn’t you feel stupid then, eh?

Watched an old lady get helped out of her wheelchair so she could root around in her bag for her crack pipe, and then watched as she dropped the pipe and the burning crack onto her slipper socks and then tried to suck the crack out.

Declared a moratorium on talking about dead people. Until BusyBeeBlogger pointed out that would give VanityFair nothing to talk about, so I said it was okay as long as the people were dead, fabulous, and not of my circle of acquaintances. Which describes most of the people they write about to a T. Or even an I.

Read Gawker and got depressed.

Pre-posted for the next couple of days. I’ll have to do a linkpost and something for TrueSlant Monday, but otherwise can take a day and a half at least off without feeling guilty.

Realized that, of my top ten posts, only one is less than a year and a half old. And got more depressed.

Self-diagnosed (probably accurately) with this fancy new, imported death fungus (25% fatality!). Have to get myself back to the doctor; maybe I should just camp there? I have every one of these symptoms INCLUDING the one only reported in animals so far. And I’ve had these symptoms for two months now.

Dealt with the post office, the bank, the other bank, Fido, the Sister, the Shebeen Club event on Monday, and American Apparel, who apparently wishes to send the Manolosphere some shoon.

On the plus side, when I go over to Victoria to speak at WordCamp Victoria, they’re putting me up at the Fairmont Empress. Yes, you may now envy me. Oh, AND the afterparty is going to be a gin tasting at Clive’s with a representative from Victoria gin and perhaps another gin which hasn’t been released to the public yet. Gotta hand it to that Dutch Courage: it works. There I was snarking about how you could use the stuff to strip paint and BAM! They ping me on Twitter and offer me another sample to see if it hasn’t improved. That takes courage of SOME kind, for sure.

Victoria gin is the third gin company that’s offered me a bottle, but it should be noted that Beefeater hit me up on Twitter and offered, but never actually came through with the goods. Bombay, of course, did. Not that I keep track of these things.

I submitted my blogs to Zemanta for consideration for inclusion in their devastatingly clever little linking system.

I offered up my services as a linkblogger: if I’m going to spend two hours every two days doing this, I might as well resell the end product: doing so will actually increase the value of each link, as it’ll be coming to any particular post from an increasing number of blogs. So, if you know a gossipblogger who’s got better things to do with his/her time than read and link, let me know. The more people who buy the service, the cheaper it gets.

Checked and re-checked Google and Bing for why they’re not indexing Lolebrity properly: I think it all comes down to this topless Helen Mirren photo. Hell, I even photoshopped out the nipples AND covered them with @ signs: what do these people want from me????

And, of course, did this post.

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coworking at BOB: re-open for business

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Coworking at BOB lounge area by AHA Media

As guests of yesterday’s Net Tuesday event or last month’s Social Media Club Vancouver panel will have noted, the gorgeous coworking gallery at BOB is open for business once again and looking for hot-desking cultural creative nomads in search of a home.

The space is enormous, and includes:

  • 15′ ceilings and art-ready walls and display cabinets (got some paintings you want to hang? talk to us)
  • keyless, secure entry
  • secure bike storage
  • access from 9am till very, very late (ie whenever I go home, which is generally not before 6am)
  • large kitchen area with microwave, fridge and freezer
  • private lockers
  • robust wireless
  • a funky polished concrete floor
  • hot and cold filtered water thanks to Wa2
  • projector and smartboard
  • cleaning service
  • rosewood desks and cushy ergonomic chairs
  • a social lounge area with a sofa, armchairs and an extensive window seat
  • two washrooms, one handicapped-accessible
  • space for (at maximum) 25 creative ninjas to work at any given time
  • in the heart of Chinatown and just blocks from Gastown
  • handy to Skytrain, buses and excellent pubs and restaurants
  • literally next door to a Waves cafe, if you’re already addicted to their coffee!

And, of course, the fabulous company of your peers. And me.

Sheng High by Trimpin

This is what the coworking gallery looked like during the Cultural Olympiad, when we had an exhibition by the sound sculptor Trimpin.

If you’re a recovering or current civil servant and prefer PDFs to all other forms of communication, here’s our downloadable flyer. In fact, why don’t you print out a couple of dozen and pass them out? No? Okay, maybe just one for the staffroom corkboard?

We’ve also been featured extensively in blogs, other blogs, other blogs, coworking blogs, on Facebook, on Flickr, and the mainstream media.

How much will this glorious work environment set you back? Only $200 a month, less than half of what Workspace used to charge. Half-month trials are also available, for $100. If you’ve got a small company and need multiple desk spaces, we can work something out. And we are available for special event bookings, subject to availability and usage. Talk to us.

We’re looking for do-gooders, writers, tech workers, SOHO ninjas and all variety of interesting, creative people who are looking for something more copacetic than a cafe, more professional than the dining room table. Give us a call at 778-328-7664 or email raincoaster at gmail dot com and we can show you around.

Here we are a few months ago, under construction:

Coworking at BOB gallery view by AHA Media

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Operation Global Media Domination: the Shockozulu Situation

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Well, it started with this: a simple blog post about Twitter, Janet Jackson, Bonnie Fuller, and John Cusack, essentially reblogged (with some edits) from my social media blog, posted to my new True/Slant blog, TheCelebrityIndustrialComplex. The blog I’m trying to get off the ground, the blog that typically gets anywhere between 100 and 35000 hits a day; even someone as raucous as I would prefer a little more stability (preferably on the upper end of that range, especially given that I’ve gotta get 4000 more sets of eyeballs by the end of March to make my monthly bonus).

It was a simple post, I was saying. And it was.

And then it turned into this:

And then it turned into an rt by Shockozulu and then it turned into this:

Yes, almost exactly one month into the life of this new blog, I’ve been rt’d by John Cusack.

And it was everything I ever dreamed it could be.

Carol Lombard

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Peaches Canned, Spoiled, Rotten

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Peaches Geldof is Miss Ultimo Thule

What are you doing here, when you could be over at my True/Slant blog TheCelebrityIndustrialComplex, watching me rip Peaches Geldof a new one? It’s honestly one of the meanest things I’ve ever written, and I cut quite a LOT of the meanness out before I posted it, because I am such a freaking softie.

Especially when it comes to Eurotrashy, chinless, illiterate junkie whore wannabe failed underwear models. As I said elsewhere:

She’s a classic second-generation-rich fuckup. “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” they say. She was born rich, has spent her “adult” life trying to get street cred while wearing Balencifuckingaga, and has for no reason other than the irresistible appeal of the trainwreck in progress, been making a half-million a year for the past several years being, essentially, a rich crackwhore wannabe.

And now, she’s failed. At least she got one thing right: if you’re going to have your picture splashed all over the internet for shooting junk with the stranger you bonked senseless and then dragged to the Scientology Celebrity Center hot tub, be sure to be wearing your sponsor’s product. Right above the blood-encrusted bandage on your thigh. Way to stay classy, Miss Ultimo Lingerie!

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