Yearly Archives: 2011

Round Up: The Week That Was

I have worked every day for eight days, writing for a few hours on all my off days, so, the blogging force is not strong in me right now, Young Jedis. This may be the way of the Steff world for a while, but after so long running the financial tank on half-empty, I’m trying not to gripe about the opportunities coming my way. It’s a great change. Right? Sure.
But… there’s a lot going on in my/our world, and if I don’t stop to take a writing break, none of it will ever get my attention.

In such a blah news week, why not a quirky old picture? Celebrating what it is, a Beetle reportedly crossed the Irish Sea from the Isle of Mann in the '80s(?). Apparently sailed by Malcolm Buchanan.


So, the week that was, then, except for Norway because I’m still processing this because I’ve been working too much to follow it. It deserves more than a passing comment.

Amy Winehouse, Forever 27

I don’t know what it is about that age. Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Cobain, Janis Joplin, Basquiat, and now Winehouse, all dead.
I’ll confess I’ve never really listened to her. I have a hard time getting into people I fear won’t be alive long, since this reputation long preceded Winehouse’s death.
Russell Brand really said everything that needs to be said about Amy in this shockingly good blog post.
And I promise to spend a rainy night sometime learning about her music, thinking about the prices paid for having an artistic predisposition — since artists are more likely to overdose and/or commit suicide than most. Just another brilliant mind gone far too soon.
Jack Layton, Cancer
I’m much more upset by the news of Jack Layton’s second instance of cancer, a new kind too, than I thought I would be, and angry he’s so gaunt so soon. The Left needed a more energized and optimistic voice in Canada, and despite how badly the recent national election went, I was optimistic that Layton could bridge the divide between all the left-of-centre voices in this country for a stronger political opposition as time goes on.
And maybe he still will. But let’s be real, it’s cancer, and they’re not saying what kind. That’s probably not a good sign.
This itself is becoming a controversy. Are we, the public, entitled to know what the opposition leader’s specific cancer is?
You know what? No. Fuck it. Why? Why do we need to go there? We don’t. It doesn’t change anything. He’s stepping aside. Shut up and let the man fight his fight.
The media’s prying because they want the meaty story. What about all the stories on X-cancer and Y-treatment options? How in god’s name will the networks ramp up their viewership if they don’t have specifics?
Well, fuck you, media. I don’t want the specifics today. I want Jack to get well. I don’t want the public jumping to conclusions on treatments for X-cancer when others’ cases might be different. I don’t want cancer sensationalised or peppered over the news yet again.
Layton’s shooting for a return date of September 19th. With everything I have, I hope it works for him. I didn’t vote for him, but I greatly admire him, and he’s a great Canadian.

Yo, Vancouver, What’s the 311?

If you live in Vancouver and you haven’t discovered the 3-1-1 City Services number, it’s among the best “service-related things a civic government has done for this city in my lifetime, I would say. Put down the blue pages, don’t dare Google that number — if you have a problem with ANYTHING the City has a department for, call 3-1-1 and report it.
One number, every solution. It makes every corporation in Canada look like an asshat for making phone customer service so onerous (I’m looking at you, Telus and Fido).
Every time I’ve called, I’ve been helped in 5 minutes or less. In the last month, I’ve called about:

  • tubs of black mystery liquid abandoned in my alley (picked up by sanitation next day)
  • an eroding bike lane (fixed later that week)
  • a small “pocket” city park whose lights had blown out (called to say wiring had shorted, it got repaired that weekend)
  • finding a cockroach in my apartment (I called on Saturday, city inspector called me for details Monday, by noon)
  • an injured, possibly rabid urban coyote in a cemetery (they said a conservation officer would see if he could heal & carry on with life, or not)

So, when they say it’s a one-stop dial-in shop for civic services, the City of Vancouver doesn’t lie. Stop thinking it’s impossible to affect change at an on-your-street level because, clearly, them things they are a-changin’.

Pride Week

Here, in Vancouver, it’s Gay “Pride Week.” Click here for events scheduled.
While I’m not gay, I think it’s a great opportunity to remember that being yourself makes living your life a lot easier. Be honest about who you are, what you want, what you love, who you love, and how you want to live.
Life spend half-honest, or full of compromise, is a life left unlived.
For every person I turn off or push away by “being my blunt self,” it’s one less person I need to worry about pleasing in the future, and those who remain are further proven to be the ones I need be concerned with keeping.

  • Celebrate who you are.
  • Celebrate who others are.
  • Embrace diversity.
  • Encourage individualism.
  • Don’t apologize for being different.
  • Don’t tone it down.

And keep on keepin’ on, my fine, diverse brothers and sisters. You make life more fun, and you’re welcome in my world.

The Obligatory Posting (Which in No Way Should Suggest Suckage, Y'know; Wine Was Involved)

It’s late on a Friday night and far into a “high-value” wine.
I was told I can’t call it “cheap,” by some industry guy. Unbeknownst to him, there’s an onslaught of the public whose heart races and mouth salivates when they hear the three magical words:

Good Cheap Wine.

But, no, the dude with the multimillion-dollar winery certainly can’t have his wine called “cheap,” even if it is sold for under $10 a bottle in a dirty motherfucker of an economy that makes $10 wine seem sexier than fish-net stockings on a 6’3″ vixen of a model.
I do digress, and my high-value wine bids I move the hell on. So, without ado.
I got nothing.
I had a title: The Obligatory Posting.
Seemed enough to work with. Type that in, see what comes up.
Number one rule for blogging, for me, when it comes to “personal blogging,” is: RIGHT NOW. What’s happening right now? What do you feel? What’s foremost on your mind? Put that down, see where it goes. The eggs you just ate for breakfast? Right on! Hell, WRITE on.
That’s personal blogging. You’ve got 1,000 words, give or take, so start wherever the hell you are and go where it takes you. Writing Blogs, 101.
And what I had was, a title, and a far-too-empty bottle of wine. Shoulda bought a boxed bag bladder of the stuff. Invest in the future, that’s my motto.
I’ve worked too much this week, that’s why I need more vino. My lord, you’d think I liked working for a living. It gets in the way of slacking, y’know.
Yet, still, in vino veritas. A dangerous time to blog, my friends.

***

But, seriously, there’s a lot I want to do with my writing in the next while. The perennial artistic struggle confronts me, though — when it rains, it pours, and when it pours, the crops tend to wither.
I’m making the money I need in the present, but it won’t come for a bit. That’s critical to me here and now, so I’m working as much as opportunity allows. Easy when it’s a lousy summer.
But I have little projects I plan to tackle through the fall — mini e-books.
I figure, if you like me — if you really like me, you’ll agree that I should enjoy life and all its refinements, and you might be willing to invest in monthly special e-books. Say $2 or $2.50 a download. Stuff I actually work at creating — fiction, really no-holds-barred opinion work, and stuff that I assume people who’ve followed my content here, on Twitter, and on Google+ (check me out, I do a lot of PUBLIC Google+ posts) might think 10,000 words of mine are worth the meagre price of a cup of coffee.
What do you think about that? It’s the price of a coffee. Making a living without working for the man, could you imagine how much throwing off those shackles of suppression would free my tongue? Hoo!

***

There’s a lot of talk of publishing and shit lately. Borders has gone belly-up. If the big bookstores came along and ate all the small bookstores, then the online stores ate them, who’s left selling real books?
I like real books.
But I like artistic control better.
Publishing is changing.
So, y’know, I had this thought earlier, that we’re becoming the artistic “Age of the Individual.”
Sure, I can go with a publishing house. Or maybe I can self-publish via e-book on a regular basis. A genuine Steff magazine, of sorts. And then it’s all me. No censorship, no hassle, just write, publish, sell. If you’re willing to support such a thing.
Imagine — artists, writers, etc, who just do what they feel and create off-the-cuff, and YOU can support it?
So, we’ll see. When I’m not working 50-hour weeks to pay off the spring that sucked my soul through a straw, I’ll get on that like Oprah on a ham, baby.
I hope many artists realise like I do that this is probably the best time to be alive as an artist. We have more exposure than ever, if we can figure out how to harness it. Get exploring, and be yourself.

***

The weather would-be-gods predict sunshine this weekend, which I’ll believe when I see. Vancouver is experiencing one of its blah-est (read: soul-sucking) summers of my lifetime. Only Mt. St. Helen’s Summer was weirder, and that’s 30 years ago.
I’m a seasonally-affected & disordered person, meaning I need full-on sun like a tropical plant does, or my soul withers and dies.
Given the shittastic season, though, I’m more like a yearly-affected & disordered person. God help us all, but I have a blog to run, I can’t be having this “rainy season that wouldn’t die” shit. We need me happy and creative, people. We really do.
Maybe THIS is the weekend. I guess if I started praying for it now, “someone” would get suspicious. SIGH.

***

And, with that, your requisite snapshot on my life, and a short-term wine hiatus is done.
If you’re really desperate for a G+ invite, you’ll figure out what to do, and in some charitable moment, I might see fit to help you.
Meanwhile, I’m out of here.

The Unfogging

People talk about “clarity.”
“Oh, I gained clarity.”
Sometimes I’ve said it. Sounds pompous, though. Change a word and it’s “Oh, I gained weight.”
Gained clarity? Did you eat a crystal ball for lunch? How’s THAT work, eh?
Tonight, I’m experiencing unfogging. Not clarity, just unfogging.
Don’t know quite what I’m seeing, but it’ll sort out, and quick.
There are shapes. Shapes are good. I can work with shapes. Guestimations and shapes. Done.
There’re an awful lot of times where I’ve felt stuck in murk and confusion. Then, the life premise has tended to be: Head up, eyes focused, and quick to react, ‘cos “quick” is all you got.
Forewarning? Whatcha think you got, a foghorn warning of impending demise, or something? Fat chance.
Life ever feel like that for you? Sorta my status quo for about 20 months.
But, hey, man. My last name’s Cameron. I’m an Irish-Scottish Cameron with a dash of Normandy-French. And oodles of wicked maple-blooded Canadian. Meaning, tough hardy northern coastal stock.
We know about fog. And foghorns.
Okay, okay, enough cryptic shit.
That back injury? This is the first time since about February I’ve had two reasonably decent nights back-to-back. Other things are coming together. I had a bunch of stuff that was conflicting between family/work obligations, and it’s magically sorted out tonight, giving me wide berth to do the life-stuff that we all need for longevity. Plus, tomorrow’s Friday.
The last time I can genuinely say life was all fun and awesome was August 13th, 2010. Shortly after, I got sick, then other shit, then the back, and it’s been 10 months of steely-eyed determination and one-foot-after-the-otherness. I haven’t had a lot of time to focus on other things.
Despite the back rehab and all that of late, I’ve begun to take on more, but with less struggle. Getting there. Change: This is good.
So, the fog’s clearing. I see a little more of the future. I like the part of the picture I see. I can’t see the rest. And I don’t care, because at least I have something to focus on.
Sometimes, that’s all you need.

Food: The Battle That Never Ends

One of my weekly addictions now, pun intended, is Extreme Makeover: Weight Edition.
It’s exactly what it sounds like: A person is ideally supposed to go from morbidly obese to, well, much less.
The most “extreme” episode I’ve seen spent the year with a man named James who began at 651 pounds and lost 313 pounds in 12 months. The first three months, the trainer, Chris Powell, lives with the show’s focus person. After that, the “contestant” is on their own but for the equipment they’ve been left, quarterly check-ins, and emails/phonecalls.
[Spoiler ahead.]
This week’s episode had 9 months invested in one morbidly obese man, who began at 490 pounds, lost 110 in three months, then 21, then gained 60 in the third quarter.
His food addiction came back stronger than ever.
The end of the episode had him checking into rehab 70 pounds below where he started, but 60 pounds over where he was after 4 months — and emotionally broken.
This is something I wish would shut all the cynics up who see weight-loss success on TV and go “Oh, but they had professional help, of course they lost weight.”
You know what? I don’t buy that. It works for a while, sure, but a show like this, it conveys that, left to our own devices, even with all the tools and means at our disposal, failure can find us because we’re our own worst enemies. Every person goes to bed alone in their heads.
Many people regain all their weight back, and even more, when life gets hard, because we’re usually heavy through unhealthy eating addictions that involve masking emotions or failed communications.

Enough About Them, Let’s Talk About Me

I’ve always been food-addicted, but I’m considerably less so in my old age. It’s still a problem. It probably always will be.
That I’m a pretty fucking confident cook sure as hell doesn’t help, but my ability to research and learn the science, well, that does help — a lot. I educate myself from time to time as well. Being a good cook means I take control, and I do so in an often-satisfying way with foods that are ultimately less addictive than fast food and commercial preparations.
Luckily, I somewhat like being active. If I weren’t so goddamned injured so often, I’d be unstoppable, and I’d probably get to keep eating the way I love but would continually lose weight doing it. Fortunately, I eventually battle past my distractions and usually maintain.
That’s me. And I know it’ll be a lifelong struggle. Fortunately, every year I get a little smarter about it, and have done that recently in the face of times that might’ve taken me down a more personally-destructive path in the past.

An Environment Created for Failure

The thing is, food’s an incredible struggle. It’s the hardest addiction in the world to overcome. It’s everywhere. Even skinny people drool over pictures like it’s porn. We even talk about the sexual ways we satisfy our hunger, we have “food orgasms,” we celebrate every holiday around a table, we communicate over tables, we have a national bacon dependency, and now we have sharing apps for cellphones that are all pictures of high-falutin’ drool-inducing food, and everywhere we turn is advertising showing the most sinful burgers and cookies and pastas and pizza (but read this about the dirty tricks photographers use to make that food look so yummy).
In this highly food-pornified world, losing 10 pounds is a massive achievement for some. Losing 313 in a year, no matter who’s helping you, even on a TV show, that’s absolutely mind-boggling — if done through weight and healthy eating, that is.

Add In Being Affected by Life’s Demands…

And putting a few pounds on in any given month or year, well, that’s human. Failing utterly? Also sadly human.
For me of late, I’ve not really been worrying about food, exercise, or whatever. I’m rehabilitating a back injury that scared me more than anything has in years. I had a week in April that was the darkest of my life. All I care about is NOT BEING THAT, and paying my rent. I’m rehabbing, getting my life under control, and that’s all the achievement I require right now.
In saying that, the last 10 months has included enough chaos that all I want to do is get into a routine where being active truly IS my lifestyle, and eating reasonably IS my way. That’s it. I want something I can follow for the rest of my life. I lost 70 pounds in a year doing it that way, I know I can get back to it, too, once my routine’s back.
Anyone who says weight-loss is easy during unemployment isn’t a stress-eater.
During my year of being often under-employed, I had pneumonia followed by a cancer scare that turned into a “dunno what that was, but it ain’t cancer” dealio, followed by blowing out my back. That I only gained eight pounds in two years since my drastic loss is fucking awesome, given my history of overeating for emotional reasons.
It is an addiction, and this has been the hardest year for fighting it. Have I won? No, but if this were a fairytale and the Big Bad Wolf was trying to get into grandma’s house, then I’ve been fighting that fucker back with a big-ass stick. He hasn’t gotten in, but I haven’t gotten around to doing much else with my time, either, time-consuming as fighting wolves tends to be, and all.

It Doesn’t Need to Stay That Way: Ebb & Flow

I’ve noticed in the last couple of weeks, as my stress has gone down, as my back injury has finally gotten to a livable place, that my tendency to eat excessively, and too often, has just naturally slowed down, as have my cravings. I’ve not been eating GREAT all the time, but I’ve really not had too much on the average day, either. I also find myself avoiding sweets or feeling compelled for pastries.
The effort now is to simply be more active in my food choices– making more effort in cooking it so I’m not just eating food but, if I overeat, I’m wasting my time and money. Instead of buying bread, the plan now is to make my own for a while instead of buying huge baguettes to indulge in. Every meal needs some kind of veggies with it, preferably more than half the meal being veggies. Using less fat again, I’ve cut back on cheeses, there’s no cheddar in my house (fact: “cheddar” is Canadian for “crack”). I had chocolate during my “girl time” but haven’t felt cravings outside of that.
I don’t care who might think I could’ve done more or I’ve somehow failed myself because I put a little weight back on instead of continually taking it off. I don’t think of it like that. I think of it as “success interrupted.”
What I know about myself today is, I can get through everything that’s happened in the last year (and that short “pneumonia-blah-blah” point there barely skims the surface, as we all know life’s more complicated than big talking points), and gain back only 12% of the weight I’d lost up till 2009, well, that’s not too shabby for an emotional-eating food addict when the odds are better that I should have gained it all back. I kept 88% off, yo!
I’ve been more aware, even in my failings. Now I need greater awareness. Thankfully, it seems to be rising in me, and the stressors seem to be falling.
That’s the ebb-and-flow of life. Like Rocky Balboa says, it’s about getting hit and knocked down, but keepin’ on moving forward.
When I see a man, in life or even a show like that, reduced to tears in his failures, knowing he’s let down his beautiful little girl and wife, checking into rehab and facing all those demons… well, for me, being knocked down but moving forward feels like it’s as good an accomplishment as I need.
We should all remember that. Setbacks are great, if we learn from them and treat them as practice against being defeated in the future. Welcome to life, where we don’t always get it right, but we almost always get a second shot.
Failure photo from Mindthis.ca.
Hand photo from Haley Bell Photography.

Why I've Drunk the Google+ Kool-aid… And Love It (for Writers)

I’m a writer.
I like an audience.
I also tend to use more than 20 words at a time, like on Twitter, or 75 words on Facebook. While I’ll always love the challenge of having a brilliant and funny 140-character-or-less tweet, the unfiltered-length possibilities on Google+ make it possible for me to write my Unabomber manifesto for the world at the large without burying it on some obscure “notes” page on my Facebook account, while giving me a larger audience than I enjoy on this lowly blog.
So, there’s that.
And I can edit after the fact, which is fantastic for a neurotic type-A personality like me who wants to cry at support groups every time my iPhone leads me to fuck up and upload a typo. And there’s bold AND italics? Oh, editor porn! Editor porn!
It’s a slippery-slope thing, the after-the-fact post-editing, but it’s LONG overdue in social media, where every word we say can cripple us professionally or personally.
If Google’s smart, they’ll have a built-in system that allows for proper tracking of edits once comments have appeared on a posting. I think, in the interest of truth and transparency, a “track-changes” feature might keep people on the ethical straight and narrow with edits. As it stands, it DOES say the post was edited and at what time, but not the extent to which edits have been done.

Google+ Has Borrowed From Those Before Them

Now, this is early in the game. Yet people are commenting, “Oh, I would’ve expected Google to roll out something much more dynamic, given their global reach,” etc, but I question if these folks really realize the scope of what Google has unleashed.
If you think of Google+ as being the framework upon which The Goog is developing a social structure that spreads throughout the whole web, they’ve created a fabulous start. No one has the ability to catch up with Facebook’s infrastructure — but Google can.
Right now, Google+ offers you “hangouts,” which takes the Chatroulette web-cam socializing idea and runs with it. They have “sharing,” and privacy controls that are far simpler to adjust than Facebook (and more transparency about the lack of existing privacy).
The continuous refreshing feed and ease of sharing replicates the Tumblr-reader/blogger experience.
The +1 bookmarking makes for a DIGG or StumbleUpon replacement and there’s a page on your profile where it saves them. It’s called the +1 Page, but it doesn’t save all the things you’ve “liked” in your main in-Google+ feed (where you +1 instead of “liking” as you would on Facebook), it only tracks external webpages that have a +1 button. (You can change a setting in G+ settings so that Google assigns a +1 button on ALL non-Google pages, and that way it can truly be your new bookmarking service. I’ve been hesitant to go there, but I use Google for all my searches anyhow, and resistance seems futile.)
That Google owns Youtube, which is rolling out the COSMIC PANDA experiment as I type (for which you need to use the Google Chrome browser, I understand), makes for better video interfacing in-feed than Facebook offers, plus excessively-fun and easy animated-GIF posting.
The following options on Google+ are like on Twitter — it’s public and anyone’s game for you to follow without approval, unless they block you, but it’s easier to find people, and there’s a built-in, far more interesting and informative profile that makes the follow/unfollow option much more simpler.
They have ingenius “social circles,” and a smart user will create additional streams beyond the few basic ones that come pre-set by G+ — like I’ve added “local connections” who are people I don’t consider acquaintances but know through the local scene, “extended family” is obvious, “soc med influencers” keeps the Chris Brogans at bay, “news and info” will be news organizations or persons affiliated with them, which I hope are allowed onto Google+ sooner than later, because I think it’d be fantastic for that sort of content. I have “people I like” and “Journalists & Writers” and other stuff relevant to my life. People are grouped in multiple circles if they’re more relevant to me.
I foresee Google allowing a more toggle-able feed, where I don’t have to have all or just one, but can default to 2-3-4 preferred feeds that most affect my content-consuming time.

Built for Engaging

G+ will be, for me, a more powerful way of getting my writing out in the world, and a way to have a much better engaging with my audience, because I never really log in here and write comments, but I do love engaging on topics, and I’m more likely to do so on G+, since I’ve found myself having more ideological discussions there in a week than I have on Facebook or Twitter in a month, and at a far greater length and focus.
For now, Google+ is telling marketers to stay away until the end of the year. I think business won’t really get how to use it, and many will be awkward and shitty at content-generation like they are on Twitter, but one can get away with sucking more at Twitter than you could on G+. With more rope to hang themselves, I’m nearly confident most marketers will succeed handily at self-asphyxiation on Google-plus.

So, It’s More Private Than Facebook?

[insert laughter here] Urm, definitely not.
Privacy? Are there better privacy protections? Arguably, no. This, however, is more transparent, and I think we’re all used to Google knowing everything about us anyhow.
If you want privacy, get off the internet. Really. The two do not compute. It’s like putting alfalfa in cheesecake. What the fuck are you thinking?
Are there issues? Yeah. If you don’t want something private inadvertently shared, you can’t just not include X circles of people, you also have to disable sharing on it. But, wait! You can disable sharing! And disable comments! Yay.
The reality is, Google+ just ensures you’ll be a thoroughly data-mined person in the Google universe, but who’s kidding who? You already are. Facebook has ya, your credit card company’s got a real sweet dossier on you. Fuck, every charity in the country knows when you’re a giver. Worrying about your information being out there, that’s just silly. It already IS.
The only privacy you’ve got is to not say anything you don’t want repeated. Shut up or suck it up, basically.

Google Takes Over The World, Story At 11

This feels very much like a social tool that’s truly social. If Google starts expanding it — and, remember, this company owns Blogger and has stopped developing it — the dynamic nature of their “socialness” will be nearly infinite. Google is among the only companies in the world with the wherewithal to beat Facebook, and mark my words — and many others — this might just be the tool that does it.
Yeah, I’m sticking around. Wanna follow me on Google+? Go for it.
In the meantime, it’s not all sunshine and roses. This damning article says the privacy concerns could blow up big. Other sticking points I’ve found are below.
But, hey, I’ve been on the web for years. My privacy got screwed years ago. Welcome to my party, people.

Shit They Gotta Fix

Comments are bothersome: You can’t collapse comments. I’m liable to unfollow all the “popular” people until this is fixed. For the moment, you can read the post and the comments, then click the greyscale “+” top right of any post and “mute” the post. This will not only hide it in your feed, but it’ll end any notifications associated with the post.
Invasive feed-refreshing rate: The continuously auto-refreshing feed does so while one is writing a post or comment, which doesn’t hurt anything, but can be jarring to the thinking process, and it’s clumsy. I’d like it to be possible to pause the feed.
Indiscriminate re-sharing: When one has shared things with a limited audience, it’s possible for their limited audience to then re-share to the general public, and, if so, the original poster’s name is on it. Great to have attribution, but it’s an invasion of privacy. Instead, G+ should build in a restrictor of some kind. In the mean time, you can disable sharing on each post.
Photo-sharing: When uploading photos, it creates a whole album, and one can share someone else’s complete album. If you ever geotag your stuff, whether it’s shot at home or you have kids, it’s unwise to allow these geotagged photos to be reshared, so, I would advise remembering to disable sharing on every posted photo album. UNFORTUNATELY, this cannot yet be done with the mobile app.
Circle-editing: You can’t edit a circle of friends and just move someone to a new circle, so you really have to be on the ball about it. Instead, you have to add them to a new circle before deleting them from the one you’ve decided they don’t fix, otherwise you have to re-ad them to circles in entirety, which is just irritating.
Ego-boosting fail: When I see great content and re-share it, I now get nothing out of the re-share when someone re-shares it off me. Instead, the person who originally posted it gets all the credit. I’d like to see “By way of Steffani Cameron, and Originally Posted by This Genius Guy” or something. Otherwise, you’re encouraging people to find the original source, upload it, and try to steal credit. Everyone wants their name in the game, Google. Savvy up there.
Buggy, bitches: The notifications, adding people, the numbers in circles, none of it is working completely right yet, but that’s to be expected with a new product that is achieving unprecedented influx of new power users in less than a week. This will smooth out, I’m sure.
Plain Stupid Things: That they request you to list “other names” like “maiden names” and stuff is absolutely moronic. Sure, it’s nice as a be-found-by-old-friends feature, but it’s also an identity-thief’s wet dream. Think twice before you’re so needy for antiquated social connections that you give scam-artists an open door to your identity, people.

RANT: Entitlement & Lack of Gratitude

This is for anyone who’s asked me for ANYTHING in the last three years in social media and|or Life and who hasn’t said thank you. If that means you, you’re seeming like an entitled asshat, and here’s why.
Let’s have a chat.
If you have a question about cooking, something you need help on or want my input with, or you want an invite to Google-plus, or whatever the fuck you’re asking for, well, that’s great, go ahead and ask.

Can I give you a little advice though?
My time isn’t yours. I have a job, and that’s who gets to expect stuff from me without saying “Thank you.” You? Not so much. Not at ALL, actually.
I want to be helpful and kind, I really do, but all the entitlement out there is turning me into the kind of bitch who wants to say no simply because I can.
Why?
Because almost every time I give my time in response to what I’ve been asked — whether it’s actual physical effort or just a reply, I don’t get told “thank you.” Not anymore.
People EXPECT assistance, answers, help. You know what? They’re not entitled to any of it. It’s actually a self-serve world, but we’re lucky people feel tribal and help us out.
I don’t want money, riches, or fame, but I want to know you fucking appreciated the 20 seconds I took out of my VERY busy life to give you my attention merely because you asked for it, and that’s ALL I want in return, a simple “thank you.”
The entitlement I see out there daily is really disheartening.
No one owes you a goddamned thing. Not their time, not an answer, not a nickel,  NOTHING.
Like them, I don’t owe you a FUCKING THING.
When anyone assists you, EVER, thank them.
If you don’t, then people like me are taking notes about who’s appreciative and who’s not. The ones who aren’t, they don’t get my time ever again, because time’s the thing I never have enough of, and it certainly shouldn’t be co-opted by people who don’t deserve it.
It’s the little things in life we can, and do, judge you by.
Rightfully so.
Pay attention, people, and express gratitude to EVERYONE in your life for what they do for you.
Sooner or later, not doing so is liable to bite you in your ass. It’s not just good manners, it’s shrewd thinking.
For me, I’m officially at the point where failure to thank me for my efforts, at the very least, means I’m pretty unlikely to do so for said person again. Real fucking unlikely.
I’m sure I’m not perfect and I sometimes forget to say thanks, but I usually do. It’s a pretty goddamned small thing to ask of anyone.
Wake up, people.
(That bumpersticker up there can be bought at Zazzle: http://goo.gl/dNQ6E)

The School of Fucking Up

I’ve been internally celebrating something I like to call The End of Fucking Up for about a week. Ironically, it’s coincided with more fucking up. Que sera sera, like the man sings.
Mistakes happen. That’s life. Growing from them, that’s smart. Repeating them, that’s dumb. I don’t tend to repeat mistakes. I may attempt, you know, a variation on a theme, as it were, but seldom do I duplicate it flat-out.

Turns out technique is everything.


From May of last year to June of this year, it’s been sort of The Lost Year for me. It’s been a time of being unsure of what I really wanted from life, and understanding that I wouldn’t get where I needed to go unless I could at least put a name and voice to that wish.

Mm-kay. Explain, please?

I think most of us are raised with the “find something you can live with doing” mentality about getting a job. You know, do what it takes to get by, and that’s that.
I wasn’t raised with the notion that dreams came true for everyone. I was taught you picked a career you were suited for, that you didn’t suit up for dreams. I wasn’t taught to pursue whatever I wanted because I “had” what it took — it was implied luck played more than hard work sometimes did. Confidence wasn’t a big thing in my household, for any of us.
And that sucks, but I’m far from the exception in that upbringing. Most of us were raised with the belief that we’d have a career, we’d have a house, and somewhere in there would be life, and it’d look a lot like the “life” other people had, too.
The older I get, the more I realize I can’t do the square-peg-square-hole-equals-career thingie.
I can’t just do the “it’s a job, it pays the rent” dealio. I’ve been trying on different writerly “hats” to see what feels right and the answer has been none of them, not really, not yet.

Stupid is As Stupid Does

From writing to life, the last year, for its scores of challenges, has probably been the hardest but also the most educational I’ve lived. There are lessons I’ve learned in the recent months that I hope I never forget, things I’m stunned I never really understood before now.
I believe there are eras that profoundly shape who we are — months or years that are somewhat like a crash course in self, and I think the last 18 months have been one of the most profound life-lesson times I’ve ever endured. Filled with events that may have reshaped the eyes I’ll see my years through.
Only now am I beginning to catch my breath enough to really go “Wow” at everything I’ve had go down in the last year, probably 70% of it or more I’ve never put anywhere on this blog, Twitter, or anyplace online. Ain’t for you to know.
But I went through my email yesterday, deleting thousands of things on my mission to Inbox: Almost Zero (read: 6).
It was kind of like a click-by-click visit of everything that came my way over that time.
You know what else it was, though?
As I saw all my original sent emails, I remembered the emotions I had, but hid, when I had sent the mail. I remember often being less than earnest, saying what I thought should be said.

Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?

It’s funny. It’s almost like the biggest lesson of the year was pretty simple: The heart wants what the heart wants, and trying the old switcheroo to get the heart to settle, that just ain’t gonna work. Lie to yourself, lie to others, doesn’t matter — the truth wins the end, the heart wants what it wants.
What my heart wants is to write the book that I just can’t fucking figure out. That’s what it wants. I’ve been making progress lately, after having back-burnered it for the job search. I know sort of what I want to accomplish, and with what, but I don’t know how to do it. I’ve made a  progress on the subject matter, and now the plotting begins on that front, but the structure… Hoo. That’s the doozy. And the voice.
I think there are a few books to read that might give me ideas. In the meantime, I’m just doing background writing in the hopes that’ll help me figure out the structure I’m so confused about.
When it comes to movies, it’s people like Tarantino, Terry Gilliam, Doug Liman’s Go, Baz Luhrman, and others who really capture the way I like a story to be told — so the reader/viewer has to work for it. Stylized. In writing, that’s harder to do without coming off a complete wanker.
The trouble with having written non-fiction and opinion for so long too — another “learning fuckup” — is that I really don’t know who I am, fiction-writing-wise. I was sort of getting somewhere in the late-’90s but stopped on that journey. I have a good idea.
This fall and winter, I’m really looking forward to exploring new writing and new avenues. I’ll be writing a lot more, but I doubt this blog will see a lot of that.
Necessity is the mother of invention they say, and I guess in times of necessity we can invent too much inauthenticity for ourselves, but in stripping away so much of the clutter we can’t afford or haven’t time to contend with, we also rediscover ourselves at our most basic. It’s a paradox of discovery.
And now I’m somewhere in the muddled middle as the dust settles. May I live in interesting times, indeed.

My Ever-Evolving Definition of "Being Canadian"

I’m 37 and I’m still not really sure what “being Canadian” means.
We’re a hodgepodge of nations, Spackled together with generational waves of immigrants who land here, retain some of their culture, and absorb others, and blend it all together in a delightful Canadian cultural smoothie that has oddly distinct flavours throughout.
We’re a sum of all our parts, always have been, so, as the world ebbs and flows through times of geopolitical strife, those seeking Canadian citizenship have changed greatly over the decades. From Poles to Jews to Hindus to Cambodian and Vietnamese, decade after decade, we’ve seen changing tides, and it changes who we are.
In a way, that’s a large part of Canada, an ever-changing reflection of the world’s times and its migrating peoples.
Somehow, a line in the sand separates us from our American friends, known around the world as brash and outspoken citizens, and we’re known to all as the continent’s meeker, milder types.
I’m the perfect age for knowing that Being-Canadian-Then versus Being-Canadian-Now has morphed considerable over time. Our sense of national identity has shifted through the decades, which is part of why I’m unsure about what my national identity means at times. Add that my city is the youngest, fastest-changing city in this country, and my somewhat untethered identity kind of computes.
My confusion is compounded when I visit the United States. Cross the 49th, and it’s a country dotted heavily with billboards selling the military as a career choice, and Jesus as Saviour. A land seemingly built on agriculture is littered with fast food chains that barely represent the nation’s great produce. The richest country in the world, at one time, and it doesn’t even provide ongoing medical care to all its citizens. The class divide is like a fault-line cutting across every American city, and Detroit is a harrowing postcard of its industrial decline.
The USA seems a land that comes together as well as any in times of national crisis — like 9/11 and Katrina — and shows the world what a great people it has, but somehow doesn’t provide a social safety net because the belief of “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps” means no comprehensive safety net for you. It’s a place where socialism is a bad word, despite an “in it together” mentality that comes out with every natural disaster.
You step into Canada, and we’re in it together both in word and in deed, our income tax system is proof. We pay more but get more, but not as much as we once got.
There are problems here, too. Some native communities are like third-world outposts. Vancouver’s Downtown East Side has long been rife with drugs, poverty, homelessness, and an AIDS/HIV rate that once was among the highest in the industrial world, but that’s been changing a lot too. Environmentally, we’re even now committing great sins with our natural bounty, and our personal freedoms aren’t quite as flexible as they once were.
We’re far from perfect here in Canada. But every country is.
Beyond that imperfection, there’s the people, the land, and the humour.
I’ve travelled coast to coast in this country, I’ve lived above the 60-degree line of latitude. There’s no place in Canada that I don’t love.
But how do I nutshell a country that’s this huge? How does a country with 202,000 kilometres of coastline and 10 million square-kilometres of landmass, that’s the most multicultural nation in the world, with only 144 years of history get crammed into an easy-to-define class?
It’s impossible.
From the safe passage allowed to African-Americans during slavery to our shameful treatment of the Japanese in WWII to our not-too-distant slap on the wrist from the UN for neglect of native rights, there’s a long and storied history of Canada embracing human rights in an inconsistent way, but for every failure we’ve had, there’s also been a shining moment.
Today, we’re a country that generally embraces knowledge, human rights, culture, and good times. We tend to love nature and the world around us. Because it’s as expensive to travel to the other side of the country as it is to visit the rest of the world, we’re pretty well-travelled beyond our borders, so we know it’s a bigger world than just us.
Unfortunately, that also means our talent migrates, a problem we domestically call “The Brain Drain.” After all, other countries have more flash and money, like the UK and USA, and money’s a nice thing, since our taxes are high. We get it.
Fortunately, our talent deserves the global recognition it receives. Over the decades, our writers, singers, actors, and painters have been celebrated as world-class. We read more per capita than any other country and we write more, too. From Mary Pickford, Louis B. Mayer, and the Warner Brothers, early Hollywood was built by Canadians. Today, William Shatner is loved around the world and Jim Carrey remains one of the highest paid movie stars.
We’re definitely the mild-mannered types who say please and thank you, but our favourite sport involves black eyes, high-speed collisions, institutionalised fighting, and some of the most aggressive gameplay on earth.
With almost a tenth the population of the United States but only narrowly more land mass, Canada feels like a vast and empty land once you get outside the cities. Sprawling and impressive in its expanse, some of it, like the poet Robert Service once wrote, is so isolated and desolate that there’s “a silence that bludgeons you dumb.”
I’ve always believed that Canada’s geographical spread/disconnect and the long winters with long nights are a part of why we’ve been such an imaginative, artistic, expressive land. To bridge that expanse, we now use the internet more per capita than most of the world. It seems to be changing our sense of disconnect as the use of social media grows.
We’re a changing country, Canada.
In my lifetime, we’ve gone from thinking we were an international afterthought to seeing Pierre Elliot Trudeau spin his famous pirouette behind the Queen, netting international headlines, showing we had a sense of humour and a less subservient sense of self than we’d always had. Some were horrified at the disrespect to the monarch, but many others felt as though the shackles of Commonwealth submissiveness began lifting then.
The Constitution came home a few years later. By then, we were known for the Beachcombers, Anne Murray, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Gordon Lightfoot. Another television show began to get a lot of attention, and would influence Hollywood for the next decade — SCTV.
Bryan Adams would soon be singing about the Summer of ’69. Michael J. Fox would become the heart-throb burning up the silver screen. By age 13, I’d started feeling like being Canadian seemed to mean something more than had been let on to me.
We were starting to feel like we weren’t just the little sibling with hand-me-downs from the United States. Suddenly we were wanted at the party — our music, our books, our stars, our culture, our funny… our natural resources.
These days, our dollar has parity with the United States, we’re the world’s 4th-largest oil producer, and Justin Bieber is King of the World.
I don’t really know what “being Canadian” means right now. I suppose it’s time I find out what the ever-morphing national identity is right this minute, but that’s part of why Canada is so incredible.
We’re not one country. We’re not stoic, stagnant. Where the United States’ founding fathers intended their constitution to be an ever-evolving document, Canada has somehow managed to be an ever-changing land that continually reflects the people who are building it — and, as their faces change, so does ours.
I’m proud of that. We reflect the modern world as well as any nation can. I love what Canada represents in my foggy, identity-muddled brain — even if Stephen Harper is the motherfucking Prime Minister right now.
I’ll forgive you for that, for now, Canada. But sharpen up. If we keep making good beer and bacon, we’ll overcome him, too.

Summertime Booze Recipes: Dish'n'Dazzle

The "Staves & Stones" drink. That sage is amazing in this bevvy. Picture by Cathy Browne! Thanks, Cathy.


Here we go, yo! Just in time for the long weekend. These are recipes for some amazing drinks we got to taste from some of the city’s best bartenders, at the the really great BC Hospitality Foundation’s Dish’n’Dazzle last Friday.
The restaurant’s food choices may have had too much seafood for this landlubber, but they knocked me out with the tasty beverages.
Thank you to Dana for giving me the permission to share these recipes with you. The sponsors of this portion of D’n’D event were Skyy Vodka & Gibson’s Finest Whiskey, so it was nice to attend a wine event with a little kick on the side. Whoo!
What’s neat about these cocktails is that they all include something South American — Chile, or its neighbouring countries. It’s nice to see how traditional bitters/ingredients like Amargo Chuncho can really pack a different wow.
My favourite two were the Afternoon Delight and the Staves and Stones, oh, and the Sangria Blanco. Heck, they were all super-good.
I was put off making one of these drinks because the mixologist was being so fancy when putting it together that it looks like crazy hard work. Now the recipe makes it sound ridiculously easy. I wonder if mixologists learn all the tricks to making drinks look like rocket science and serious work. But, hey, now, the recipe’s reduced to 2 lines. How hard can this be? You know?
Hey, I know: Party at your place, Saturday at 5. Bring the mix! We’ll find out!
Want to make a larger “punch” size of these? Go for it. Multiply! MmMm! Bottoms up, kids!

Afternoon Delight
by Evelyn Chick of UVA Wine Bar

*Steff’s favourite! Nummy-nummy-mm!
Featuring: Cointreau, Chilean Chardonnay, Lemon, Black Pepper, Coriander, Thai Basil, Ginger, Celery Bitters.

  • 1.5 oz Cointreau
  • 1 oz Chilean Chardonnay
  • 5 oz Fresh Lemon
  • 5 oz Black Pepper and Coriander Syrup
  • 1 leaf Thai Basil
  • 2 slices Fresh Ginger
  • 3 dashes Celery Bitters

Place ginger in a Collins glass and muddle gently. Dice basil and place in glass. Add all other ingredients and top with ice. Stir thoroughly.
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Dazzled by The Wines of Chile!

I was very fortunate to have received a couple of tickets to last week’s Dish’n’Dazzle event at the Fairmont Pacific Rim.
Here’s the complete low-down, good and bad.
Dish’n’Dazzle is the BC Hospitality Foundation’s big wine-and-food fundraiser. The Foundation is used by folks in the hospitality industry who have medical emergencies that can be crippling financially but aren’t insured adequately, if at all. It’s a really fantastic charity, if you know what it’s like to face constant rehab or medical costs.
This was a fantastic event with quite a few restaurants making tasting plates that were paired with a Chilean wine palate. The wines were all Chilean, a fantastic range of easy-drinking high-value wines all the way to unlikely splurges topping $70 a bottle.
Bonus was the cocktail room, where everything had at least a smidge of something Chilean in the mix. There was a lemon drink that tasted like a summer afternoon in heaven. I wish I had the details on it, but I was a little busy drinking that night to be making notes beyond “BUY THIS” on my tasting booklet. My god, a restaurant, cocktail name, AND recipe? Too much to ask of me! A print-out of the recipe would’ve been divine!

A Crash Course on Grapes

Whether it’s at the Fairmont, the Playhouse, or the W2, these wine events are absolutely fantastic if you’re a junior vino appreciator, like myself.
Hobbled by a single-life budget while living in one of the world’s more expensive cities in a recession, I seldom spend more than $15 on a bottle of wine, but I certainly LOVE a beautiful bottle. A recent BC Burrowing Owl Merlot from 2007 left me weak at the knees, for instance. Going back to a value wine’s tough after that, but a girl’s got to pay the rent — and when I need value, it’s usually to Chile I turn.
So, this kind of event lets me try all those amazing $20-30 wines that I actually think are fantastic and would love to start collecting soon.
Ironically, it’s also at these events that I get try so many expensive wines and realize that, personally, I don’t find that most of the flavour profile differences between, say, a $40 bottle and a $60 bottle are often worth the jump in price.

Our Favourite Vino

In fact, my favourite wine in that whole room was, shockingly, a white wine under $20. It was a 2011 Sauvignon Blanc from Hacienda Araucano, from the Lolol valley. The winemaker is the global big-producer Francois Lurton, with vineyards in France, Argentina, Chile, Portugal, and Spain. Since Lurton’s site sucks for information, it’s almost impossible to find a product page on this wine, sadly, so it’s not being well-marketed just yet, too new, but…

The Reserva de la Hacienda Sauvignon Blanc, the star of the show, is produced using the best grape varieties brought from the French regions of Loire and Bordeaux, and is described by the company as having “an intense aroma that combines tropical fruits, citruses and ‘minerality’”. The combination of micro climates (concentrated atmospheric zones with climates that differ from the surrounding areas) in which the vineyards are located, and the sea mists that arrive due to its proximity to the sea, allow for the production of an excellent range of high-quality red and white wines such as their Sauvignon Blanc.

(from I Love Chile.)

My friend and I so loved the Sauvignon Blanc, not yet in stores here, that we’re scheming to order a case (from Diamond Estates in Canada)between us.

You know what? It’s not shocking such a great wine can be had at a budget-friendly price. Chilean wine is fantastic for value prices. A $10 wine from Chile can really surprise you. (At $13.99, Carmen’s Gewurtztraminer also blew us away, but is also a specialty find, so, an easier-to-find value wine I enjoyed, but red, is the Vina Maipo Reserve Carmenere at $12.99).

It’s Fun, Not Stuffy

The above-mentioned wine we covet, but we tasted the 2011 vintage. Yummy!

My friend laughed at me for my winetasting strategies — I’d walk to every table and ask the reps present “What’s the wine that best represents you?” or “What’s the wine I have to try?” It’d always put them on the spot, and sometimes they’d give me the most expensive wine, but usually they’d give me the one they loved best of their line. It’s working for me, at least.

The night was a great opportunity to small-talk with people who really know their products, and a real learning opportunity.

There are a few such wine events in Vancouver each year, and they’re really worth saving your money for and getting out to experience.

I’m really trying to learn more about wine, trying to drink less frequently so I splurge more for “experience” wines I pair properly with food when I have the time to cook extravagantly. For me, it was all about the wine, but I was hoping to learn more about food-pairing strategies too.

The Food Wasn’t Chilean, Though

Unfortunately, I think the restaurants involved really could have offered more variety than mostly seafood, and thought more about the traditional Chilean food for the wines that were showcased.

There was no chicken, lamb, pork, or, what Chile’s famous for, beef! — it was all fish, mostly salmon (which I didn’t realize is one of Chile’s top exports) save for one muskox carpaccio… which doesn’t really scream “Chile” to me. Neither do cake-pops, I’m afraid, or Toasted-Marshmallow-on-a-stick. I was just surprised at the disconnect between a lot of those dishes and what one thinks of for Chilean wines.

Aside from the lack of Chilean influence found, I’m also not a seafood or even a dessert fan, so that aspect really disappointed me. I wish more restaurants would realize that not everyone likes seafood. I was left without eating as much as I should, and that’s never good when one’s consuming vast quantities of truly tasty grapes.

I was lucky to attend last fall’s Taste of Chile, where those doing the food had everything from empanadas to whole roast of pig, and the food knocked me out. It was truly varied but what I expected to see at an event meant to showcase Chilean wines — like this was meant to also be. I think last fall’s Taste of Chile spoke to the soul of Chilean food, and was a tribute to what the country offered. I was pretty sick at the time I went, and never did blog about it, but the event blew me away.

So, it’s interesting that I’ve had two amazing Chilean winetasting events, and while knowing what I know from the last one at W2 & thinking the Dish’n’Dazzle restaurants could have offered Chilean-inspired dishes, I gotta say: One thing that REALLY knocked me out were the amazing Mushroom Croquettes from Yew. I went back for two more. And then another! But, you know, French, not Chilean. Tasty as hell, though. Perfectly crisp and not a bit of grease. The coriander-crusted salmon with tomatillo puree from The Salmon House was fantastic as well, even if I don’t love fish.

My Last Words

Finally, I’m a pretty savvy web person, so I’m surprised at how tricky it was to find information on Dish’n’Dazzle this time. The BC Hospitality Foundation doesn’t even list it on its events page, a major oversight by the organization. I hope it has a more obvious home webpage next time around, because, even if the food wasn’t to MY tastes, I know my friend, a big fish fan, absolutely loved the offerings, and value-for-experience, start-to-finish, the event’s really something worth attending if you ever get the chance, and it goes to a fantastic cause. Great service, generous hospitality at every table, and a wide variety worth exploring.

You ought to consider these large tastings a chance to really learn about all kinds of wine. It’s a crash course in Everything Tasty-Grapey, and something every wine-lover needs to experience at least once, whether it’s the annual Wine Festival or gala events like this. Usually priced between $40 and $100, it’s great value for the money at any price-point, and if you throw a few tastings of wines you might never afford, sometimes up to $150 a bottle, you can really experience a tasting journey unlike anything anyone else can offer you. Go for it.