June 2013
Growing up is weird
- by admin
tonight after we made dinner I made Tyrone help me clean the apartment because it's dirty. Not like there's mud on the floor and garbage everywhere but dirty in the 'I'm totally neurotic about cleaning' way which means we go through this song and dance every week and a half or so.
When I was a little girl my mum and dad used to clean the house every Sunday. I don't even remember what they'd do beforehand, if they'd have a coffee or breakfast of hit up the bathroom or what, I just remember them cleaning the entire house.
My mum ran a daycare out of the house so I guess it made sense to do it before a bunch of smelly gross kids showed up to make the house dirty for the next five days but that didn't really occur to me as a kid.
I liked the smells of the furniture polish and the windex and liked to help because it meant that I got to touch all of my mum's special stuff on her dresser in the bedroom. She had all this silver stuff -mirrors and combs and brushes in a set that I loved for some reason.
Probably because I was a dumb kid and everything that I wasn't regularly allowed to touch was sacred.
My favourite part of helping my parents clean was the bathroom. I liked how the metal shined and especially cleaning the toilet bowl because the water was cold.
And yes I realize how gross that is in hindsight but my mum didn't and to my knowledge never has owned a toilet brush. That's just how she rolls.
I can see myself as this weird version of my ultra-clean parents as an adult now and it freaks me out sometimes because I realize not everyone is as neurotic as me.
Anyway now as a twentysomething I've basically become my mother in the sense that the minute I hone in on dirt or dust or balls of cat fur I get this itch to start cleaning and not stop until I've dusted, washed, swept and mopped every room.
It's especially tough because even though I make Tyrone help me to save time I secretly judge everything he does because I have very high standards and he spends a lot of the time we're cleaning talking to me or singing or showing me his bum and sometimes I just want to throw a lamp at him.
Today while I was cleaning the living room he came in and started vacuuming the rug because he likes to vacuum, apparently, and I wanted to say "you're messing up my system! I HAVE A SYSTEM IN THIS ROOM"
but I didn't because nobody wants to fight about who gets to vacuum the rug, right?
That might be crazier than making Tyrone help me clean the apartment every week and a half.
But only a little.
Sometimes you just gotta do it right
- by admin
and by that I mean bike yr ass to almost the suburbs to try Blondie's, which is this infamous burger joint in Winnipeg. It's also been featured on You Gotta Eat Here which is how some non-prairie peeps know about it.I'd never been there myself but I'd always heard stories about the crazy lady who runs it. It's just her in the kitchen by herself and apparently she'll scream at you and kick you out if yr a dick or you pisser off which both terrified and intrigued the shit outta me.
Luckily she has her rules posted all around the joint so you know what not to do.
The most famous(est) part of going to Blondie's besides the lady who runs it is the sheer massive size of the burgers they offer. I stayed safe with the 1/8 pound burger and even that was almost too much with a poutine.
I wish I could go back and eat this right now.
They also offer huge milkshakes which were a little too rich for my blood.
Yes that's also a pun about ice cream.
When we got there it was super packed so we had to wait a while, and as we were leaving the owner apologized to us for making us wait which kinda disappointed me since I was hoping she'd tell us to fuck off or something.
I briefly considered saying something rude back to see what would happen but then I saw her kneading this massive pile of hamburger patty in the air I decided I'd better not.
That lady could have totally kicked my ass.
Hip Hop Sunday #74 Abstract Artform - Through My Music
- by admin
One of those Sunday mornings when I ask myself
why the hell am I awake already?
and showered, to boot?!
After an evening of throwing a glowing frisbee in the park in the middle of the night
accompanied by a bonfire
smokies n 'shmallows
and random drunken lost people who became our friends
(and donated more firewood, thanks!)
I should still be asleep right now.
However.
I've got a wedding shower to go to
with snacks n mimosas to make
and I don't wanna let the lovely Derp Review down.
So here I am.
Awake.
Enjoying the shit out of my hip hop Sunday.
Hope you are too.
xox
The only problem with Aband*nthecar's show last night
- by admin
was that not enough people saw it.
This was due to some really bad scheduling on the part of Stylus Magazine, who hosted the show at the Rose n Bee last night where there were two kickass acts and one wtf in between.
Usually I don't go around slamming local musicians. Yr grl can't read music, sing, or play an instrument to save 'er life but I know tone-deaf when I hear it and the second act (who shall remain nameless) was tone-deaf.
The first band, Hana Lu Lu, were amazing. Check 'em out if you're in prairietown and like new wave and fog machines and lead singers with long hair who are kinda smarmy.
They played a really good set and their music was top-notch, so when dude got on stage with a guitar and an amp got on stage we were all
"alright let's do this. rock our socks guy"
except he kinda totally did the exact opposite.
I won't rag on him too much but it was bad news. He kept losing track of where he was in his songs, was tone-deaf, and for his last "song" did an a cappella terrible karaoke-style version of Like A Prayer complete with ad-libbed hoarse-screamed ad-libbed versions of the lyrics about how he didn't know why he was still singing.
Protip: neither did we.
By the time he was done the bar was basically cleared which was sad because Aband*nthecar's set was so sweet and lovely and even though we were out way too late it was worth it.
Needless to say I'm unimpressed with how the Stylus people handled the show. The minute they realized the guy was bombing they should have pulled him offstage, because they did a real disservice to a musician who clearly took the show seriously.
So for those of you that didn't get to, you can hear the stylings of Aband*nthecar here, and in the video below:
I can see why people are kinda hating on Bioshock: Infinite
- by admin
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which isn't to say that I don't absolutely effing love it for those exact same reasons.
some of the themes that people don't like in the game are:
- racism
- extreme religious behaviour
- zealots
- exploiting others
- ideological societies
- crazy-go-nuts American nationalism
- extreme violence
among other things which I think is total BS.
What it is, is that the game is exposing and discussing things
(particularly about American society)
that make people
(particularly Americans)
uncomfortable.
It's shitty when someone points at you and goes "these are the ways you're fucked up, this is what you could be/are becoming" which the game really does.
And that hurts, I get it.
But what I think is shitty is that we have games like Call of Duty which totally demonize other countries/cultures
(okay some are about Nazis but not all of them)
which are perfectly okay even though they're just as violent and graphic
and we let little kids play them.
But when a
(beautiful, stunning)
thoughtful
video game comes out that makes a statement
and ruffles feathers
(as a good piece of art/creativity should)
people get upset
because it doesn't demonize the people they want
it points to them and says
"you're fucked up, too"
now go fight this giant mechanical monster.
Today is Komus' birthday
- by admin
I met Chris Komus once upon a time at a bar called Sonar which is now a gay bar I think.It was a regular haunt for the people I now consider to be my dear friends and I was just getting to know everyone at the time, so it's all kind of a blur of beers, dancing, loud music and new people. Somewhere in there I met Komus, though we didn't really start hanging until I started dating Tyrone because they have the weirdest bromance ever.
However in the few short years I've known him I've managed to accumulate a ton of amazing memories such as:
- when we all went to Montreal for MUTEK
- running into a freezing lake in the middle of the night completely wasted
- way too many potlucks
- robot costumes
- gross Santa Suits
- educating the people of Connect about narwhals over the speaker system
- the pedobear costume
- and the epic Komus Party Halo:
Last year I had the privilege of driving out to Motion Notion in BC with him, Morley and Tyrone, and have so many ridiculous stories involving cars, ponchos, and air conditioning, plus getting lost in the mountains, Fatty Arbuckle's, wearing too many tshirts, awful lime beer, broken Styrofoam coolers, and a failed attempt to walk to the bathroom in the dark in the pouring rain where Komus proceeded to get lost and I had to run around with a sad, flickering flashlight, soaked to the bone, screaming
CHRIS KOMUUUUUUUUUUS
into the pitch black BC forest trying to find him.
Some of my best memories have been made while I've been in the company of this ridiculous man, and even though he's never on time and he and Tyrone totally get out of hand sometimes, I hope he never, ever changes.
HBD mang, thanks for being my summer bestie.
Sam Katz & Friends vs. Gordon Warren
- by admin
A few people have asked for my opinion on the recent article published in the Winnipeg Free Press concerning local blogger Gordon Warren, who is being sued by local media group Direct Focus Marketing, as well as Sandy and Robert Shindleman, owners of Shindico,Non-Winnipeggers interested in what I'm talking about can read the Free Press article here, but here's a snippet to give you some background:
The injunction was sought by Direct Focus Marketing Communications Inc., its owner Mark Hofer and the firms’ employees – all whom were named by Warren in a recent blog post on a move at city hall to sell off and lease out civic golf courses.
Direct Focus had been hired to conduct a media campaign to promote the sale of John Blumberg golf course and a 20-year lease for four other civic course. The campaign appeared to be spearheaded by an independent community group calling itself Responsible Winnipeg, but it turned out that group was the creation of one of Mayor Sam Katz’s political advisory bodies.
In case you missed that last bit, let me spell it out for you: our mayor ran a campaign without using City of Winnipeg logos to try and further his own political agenda and someone called him on it.
Important to remember: they're not going after him for libel, they're going after him for defamation of character because what Gordon Warren is saying is true.
Anyway, onto why you're here. You asked for my opinion, here it is:
I haven't read the blog posts in question, because due to the recent ruling they're unavailable on his blog, but from what I can tell everything Warren has been doing -bringing light to a shady political campaign, criticizing our mayor and his friends, and generally being politically active online- is completely within his rights as a Canadian citizen, and should be protected under Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
But you know what really bugs me about this whole thing?
We have people publishing much more malicious, hateful and half-true stories in our local tabloid, the Winnipeg Sun, every day. I'm speaking in particular about Tom Brodbeck, who uses his articles in the Sun and his blog (which I refuse to link to) to shamelessly criticize anyone who politically opposes him and his masters. I have heard more vitriolic commentary coming from this one "journalist" than I care to remember, yet to my knowledge nobody has taken him to court on Greg Selinger (our Premier)'s behalf -which is exactly what is happening with Warren. Sam Katz isn't suing him, but all of his buddies are.
A lot of people are saying "what did Warren say that was so upsetting?" and I think we're asking the wrong questions. Instead, we should be asking ourselves "how is suing someone over talking shit about you on the internet a reflection of your character?", "are these the kinds of people that we want running our city?" and, perhaps more importantly "is this how we treat people in our society who expose their dirty little secrets?"
**Alyson Shane is a blogger chick from Winnipeg and not a journalist. FYI.
