Vancouver Unicorn Chaser

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Yes, that’s twice in a week we’ve had a Unicorn Chaser, but after dealing with all the drama lately (including an indigenous Canadian assassin, apparently sent by the anti-Julia Allisonites) I think we need one.

As some of you may know, I’m still stuck up in P-town, that cosmopolitan megalopolis of the Interior, and am stubbornly going to remain here until I can get a free ride home. The way my luck’s been running, if I tried to catch a plane I’d be groped by some cranky TSA droid and let fly at him, at which point I’d be sentenced to life in prison for castration without anaesthetic, and if I tried to take Greyhound they’d seat me next to an escaped mental patient from Winnipeg with a knife and anger management issues. And I know way too much about serial killers to hitchhike or take the Craigslist route. If, knowing as many people as I do, I can’t get a free ride, nobody can, and then we’ll know the Recession has hit rock-bottom.

So, here are some lovely pictures of the burb to which I am trying to return: Vangroover, home of the Canucks and the Canadians, and where Marc Emery was once named Businessman of the Year.

Vancouver False Creek at Dusk

Vancouver False Creek at Dusk by akameus

All together now: It’s a small world after all… Actually, every neighborhood in Vancouver is a small world, almost entirely independent of its neighbors. There’s one block on Cambie that is deeply hipster, and has been since before we knew what to call those people, but only the pub across the street is hipster, while every other storefront/bar/restaurant on that side of the block is pure DTES. Even though it’s technically DTWS. And then you turn the corner and it’s something else again. Forget the lack of freeways; it’s this “Islands in the Stream” quality that is most discombobulating for tourists. You can see them along East Hastings, looking puzzled and somewhat frightened as they frantically page through their maps muttering “gaztown, gaztown, czhinatown…” and if I’m well-dressed I try to help them. If I’m not, I just walk on by on the general principle that if someone DTES-looking approached them and began to speak, they’d probably break into a run and then god only knows where they’d end up.

Which brings me to this:

Gastown sign in the Diamond

Gastown sign in the Diamond

Even though the Diamond (which is a delightful place, moreso because it’s hidden, and don’t try the veal: try the Vietnamese sub) sells $12 drinks and is constantly full of models and photographers, it’s still on the Downtown Eastside, and I can only ascribe that horrendous mistake on a very expensive sign to the desire to Keep it real, yo.

Fandumb, Freedom, and Fanarchy

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yes, this is they. they is us

yes, this is they. they is us

Well, you can see by the comments on the post below that pointless internet drama is the catalyst for ever-more-random explosions of other pointless internet drama. There’s some sort of magnetic effect going on, in which the drama calls out to drama queens, and so you have a post about a fanblog at WordPress.com being taken down generating a rather heated (or icy, depending on your point of view) and completely unrelated 24 comments about the infallible superiority of the Echo commenting system, my unspeakable rudeness at DARING to insult the commenting system, etc etc.

So I wonder what kind of comments this will generate. It’s a comment thread on Gawker in which the whole thing was discussed again. The Baroness and I have nothing whatsoever in common, but we’ve always gotten along pretty well because we respect one another and don’t believe the world needs to be filled with people who are identical. I mean, how do people who agree on everything even HAVE discussions?

I think Monet died before he really hit his stride artistically.

Yup, he sure did!

End of conversation.

Anyway, here it is for good or ill. By the time I wake up tomorrow, this post will probably have 789 comments about how it’s all my fault NASA cancelled the space shuttle program or something. It’d be typical. Putting it over the jump so this page doesn’t become endless, but all the good stuff is there, INCLUDING THE DEADLY ASSASSIN.

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Non-RebloggingNonSociety

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Scaaaaary 404

Scaaaaary 404

Not “Non” as in “Nony” or “Non” as in “NonSociety” but “Non” as in poof, gone, doesn’t exist anymore.

The Website Formerly Known as Reblogging NonSociety is no more. It was suspended or deleted for a violation of WordPress‘s famous Terms of Service, and let’s just say that the self-hating Julia Allison fangirl community is taking it hard.

Some vague background, because really all I know is vague background here, and for that, I am deeply thankful. Having gone about as far into fandom as one can do without getting a restraining order, I know the level of passion involved, and it’ll be no stranger to anyone who saw that rather unfortunate DeNiro movie. No, not the Fockers, the other one.

Anyway, there’s this person, Julia Allison. She’s an actual person and a decent writer, but she behaves like a fame-seeking android at all times except when she is renouncing fame and talking about settling down with her Rich Geek Boyfriend Du Jour. Let’s call it 99.842% of her life that the android is dominant, and the remaining 0.158% of the time she’s really only link-baiting Gawker.

Nick Allison, by CVXN

Nick Allison, by CVXN

Gawker. Oh yes, Gawker. This was all their doing, actually, because long ago, in a city far, far away, they plucked an obscure little blossom from her mundanity and bestowed upon her that most current of currencies: fame.

Fame Whore

July 6, 2010 Urban Word of the Day

An individual who is willing to do anything, regardless of how humiliating or demeaning, to achieve notoriety.

More often than not, this involves appearing on multiple reality television shows and/or having “private” sex videos “leaked” to the press.

Behold the reason for Julia Allison’s first major coverage in Gawker:

Julia Allison dressed as the Condom Fairy, Halloween 2006. Oh, has it really been four and a half years?

Julia Allison dressed as the Condom Fairy, Halloween 2006. Oh, has it really been four and a half years?

Actually, the condom dress was the most awesome thing she ever did. That took audacity, even for a sex columnist in a gimme paper, and before you laugh reflect on the fact that upon some very flimsy corsets great empires have been built.

Thus, from Gawker to Wired: not just to an article in Wired, but to a COVER STORY in Wired, on how to become an internet fameball (the gender-neutral, sex-trade-worker-positive replacement for “famewhore” that Gawker favours). And, really, who better to explain/personify/demonstrate it? Five years ago she was bumming around New York looking for a gig, any gig in front of a camera or behind a keyboard and within three years she’s on the cover of a Conde Nast glossy, albeit the geekiest one. She even got some venture capital for her website/lifecast/whoknowswhatthehellitwasreally, NonSociety.

One does not rise so far, so fast, without attracting several things:

  1. attention (see all of the above for details)
  2. fans
  3. haters
  4. that very complicated, metamorphic and unstable substratum of people who hate themselves for loving you and express this by dogging you, as publicly and as frequently as they can.
Haters Gonna Hate!

Haters Gonna Hate! Hatters Gonna Hat!

It is of these last that Reblogging NonSociety was formed, back in the early days of the interwebs, say, January of 2009 on Tumblr and, after a short, sharp shock in the form of the blog being taken down by Tumblr, on Blogger. After awhile, they decided to move to the (obviously superior) WordPress platform.

So what happened today really shouldn’t come as any surprise.

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The Towlift of Tiny Town Unicorn Chaser Links

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Yes, it’s still Wednesday, at least in my world (isn’t it ALL my world?) even though it’s 2:25am “on Thursday,” because I woke up on Wednesday and haven’t gone to bed yet, so there. See? Perfectly logical.

 

And if it’s Wednesday, what does that mean, boys and girls? That’s right, it’s Hump Day Unicorn Chaser Time! So today we present your delightful visual, auditory, and mental refreshment as a lovely picture:

coffee with the unicorn unicorn chaser

coffee with the unicorn unicorn chaser

There, doesn’t that feel better? Now your eyeballs and mind are all refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of the week. Remember, today is the first blog entry of the rest of your digital footprint, or something like that.

[ Yeah, this “raincoaster blogging sober” thing sucks. Don’t think you’re the only one who noticed it. ]

As if that weren’t enough, here is the cutest little tilt-shift video you’ve ever seen. Whistler, BC, normally looks something like Toy Town, although not as much as Silver Star does. This is what Silver Star looks like:

 

Silver Star is not exactly "Badass"

Silver Star is not exactly "Badass"

Seriously, it looks Just Like That. This is what Whistler looks like:

 

And yes, Whistler looks just like this. Also, I hear there are ski runs somewhere around.

And yes, Whistler looks just like this. Also, I hear there are ski runs somewhere around.

So, really, you paid for ONE Unicorn Chaser and if you’re a unicorn, architecture, or ski buff, you’re getting like four of them in this post, so don’t forget to hit the tip jar on your way out.

If your sphincters are still in a knot from the Monday-Humpday grind, we have that video I was talking about earlier. Now, have you seen a lot of skiing/snowboarding/surfing videos? Sure, it’s technically an “extreme” sport, but it’s a sport. Taking place in nature. Without mechanical engines. And sounding nothing at all like the Cobalt at 3 in the morning.

Skiing/snowboarding/surfing videos do not recognize this fact. They endeavour, in fact, to cover it up by every means known to cheap-ass extreme sport video producers, which is a bag of tricks that comes down to, essentially, picking the least-untalented person featured in the video and letting his neo-post-apocalyptic-metal-country-punk band do the soundtrack. For free.

And overpriced at twice that.

You doubt me? Watch one of these puppies. And then watch it again, with the sound turned off. Better my way, eh? Everything is.

Never. Forget. That.

So where was I? Oh yes, about to show you the video. This is the antidote to all those snow videos that sound as if they were scored by just laying electric guitars end to end across the floor of a mosh pit and recording the noise hobnailed boots make when they do the pogo on them. It’s that gimmicky tilt-shift photography that people who don’t know how to make street scenes interesting always use instead of learning how to take inherently interesting shots, but in this case it IS interesting, well-done, and entirely, 1000% awesome.

Viewing full-screen would be kind of ironic, but then if you were a hipster, wouldn’t you be Googling for “instagram” and not “Tilt shift?”

And now, in case you STILL can’t face Thursday, here are your gossip links:

Anger Management, with Kirk and Spock (raincoaster)

Why Gnott? Because it’s a CRAZY IDEA, DUDE! (ManoloFood)

Makeover vs Makeover (Ayyyy)

The literary world got Snooki’d (AgentBedhead)

Happy Feet, live (BusyBeeBlogger)

Messing with The Great American Novel is F—– up! (CelebDirtyLaundry)

JayLor broke up (CelebritySmack)

Cheeto-Rama! (CityRag)

Video proof Goopy CAN TOO sing (DListed)

Vanity Fair ran out of dead women to cover (GossipTeen)

Josh Groban’s new single is amazing (HaveUHeard)

Britney wants butt hair? (INeedMyFix)

Britney rocks the “chemo headband” look (PoorBritney)

She’s in, she’s out, she’s in, she’s out, she’s a Lohan (PopBytes)

Selah.

 

Anger Management, with Kirk and Spock

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Wolverine was a big hit on the Carnaval Cruise Line lido deck

Wolverine was a big hit on the Carnaval Cruise Line lido deck

I don’t know about you, but when I think about tips for managing those tricky adolescent hormonal and emotional firestorms, I think first of the cast of the original Star Trek. Here are Kirk and Spock starring in a Nerdy Instructional Film on the highly fraught topic of Anger Management.