Today I love...

This is a posting that I jacked from myself. It's not particularly meaningful, but since it is a holiday, maybe it's time for a double posting day. Yes?

There's something about a rainy vancouver day that can fill you with feelings of love and nostalgia for our great city, and at the same time, on just the wrong day, the Vancouver rain can be absolutely devastating.

That's right, my friends. It is another rainy Vancouver day. And just now, I love it.

I love rainy days when I have absolutely nothing I need to do, nowhere I need to be, and have all the time in the world to just chill and listen to the elements that seem to define our city. You know something? I feel lovely today. So much so, that I think I'm going to make a list.

Today I love: my cat, my friends, my family, the rain, the sun, the internet, liberalism, socialism, free speech, continuity, words, writing, fiction, realism, art, passion, compassion, social media, social causes, marketing, media, soft light, community, hot chocolate, connections, podcasts, blogs, justice, beauty, truth, analytics, search, glass offices, little plastic army soldiers, peanut butter, blankets, service with a smile, no boundaries, soup kitchens, connecting, being heard, being here, being appreciated, appreciating, sharing wealth, sharing burdens, getting involved, getting inspired...

Spending time doing things that are worth it.

Making a difference.

What do you love today?

Rick Sanchez Mixes His Medias

Just wanted to start off by saying Happy Halloween! Probably the best holiday of the year, if you're asking me.

Anyways, yesterday I mentioned Rick Sanchez. Rick is a CNN news anchor who is famous for incorporating social media outlets into his newscast. Readers can send him messages on Myspace, Facebook, or Twitter and some or them will be read on the air.

At first I felt that he seemed to be simply leveraging the new media simply because it seemed to be the hip thing to do. In addition to that, it felt like he was, in a way, cheapening new media by putting it on the same level as the blunderous mass. It came off as an uncomfortable and awkward mix of medias, that didn't really contribute anything more to the show.

Anyways, a little while ago, I noticed that Sanchez was not only getting on the social media bandwagon, but possibly jacking one of it's favourite phrases and slapping it over the that famous CNN ticker. Frankly, that got me a little ticked myself.

On the other hand, his heart seems to be in the right place. And as I commented on the cloudid article, anyone that is recognizing the significance of new media and utilizing it help modernize age-old things like the typical newscast, well that smells like progress to me.

So Rick, I think your alright.

Yeah, maybe mass media and social media do mix like oil and vinegar. But it still makes for some good grub. ^_^

What do you think? Should we be using applications like facebook to help the get the public to be more involved in the mass media? Or are they seperate for a reason?

Speaking of Twittering, I just got my own twitter account. Feel free to follow me here. :)

Aggregate This

Having been an avid LJ-er for a number of years, I loved how I could see all the blog entries of my friends and communities, all feeded on to one convenient page. Livejournal may not have been the first to do this, but I certainly think they did it best.

So when I started to getting into blogging, I enquired to several people, of whom I considered to be fairly computer saavy, about a way that I could see all of my favourite blogs on one handy page. The consensus seemed to be that was a great idea, but nothing that they knew of could do that.

However it was a short time after that, that I discovered what that little orange box on the side of the page was for. You see that little orange box that says "subscribe" next to it? Yeah, that one. That was the answer to my question.

Meet the RSS reader. Brilliant little device that lets you do just that,get all your blogs aggregated on to one page. I was surprised about how few people actually knew about this.

Anyways, even after I had found out about RSS, I decided not to use one. I realized I perfered to see the content directly from the source. So I decided to continue to read blogs the way I had been doing previously, by simply bookmarking all the pages and going through them one by one every morning.

Now this method worked just fine for me. That is, until my primary computer was crippled by Vista. And since then I've been making do with using the library computers, internet cafes, and a generous friend or two. Suffice to say, all my bookmarked pages were lost and keeping up with blogs became impossible.

Since that time I've barely been reading any of them. So it made sense to finally capitalize on this free service.

So there you go. I now have 102 items lined up on my google reader, and about 30ish podcasts that I've missed in the past three months or so to listen to.

In short, RSS is your friend, I am dumb for not getting one three months ago, and Rick Sanchez is growing on me.

Huh? Rick Sanchez? Oops, more on that tomorrow...

Between The Staples.

I have a not-so secret confession to make.

I am a geek.

Star Trek in my religion, I have a number of episodes of Doctor Who on me at all times, and I spend way more than what is reasonable on comic books every month.

Unfortunately, whilst I was away travelling Europe, I ended up getting about a month behind in my comics. When I finally did come in to pick them up, (shout out to the lovely folks at the best comic store in Van City, Elfsar) I was handed a giant pile, with an equally hefty price tag. It's days like that, as Ethan mentioned, that the %20 discount really helps.

Anyways, so I head home, all excited to see what I've been missing. And I'm about halfway through one particular comic, when I see something heartbreaking.

And no, it wasn't Matt Murdock cheating on his mentally ill wife with Dakota North. Although that was rather douchebaggy.

It was one of those Really annoying things they put in magazines that you fill out to send away for something. And since they are thicker than the pages, they always stick out when you open them. But this was no regular send away offer.

This one was for the US Navy. Ugh.

Now I certainly don't put it beyond the Navy to market to a bunch of nerds drooling over Power Girl, but it was just so depressing.

I'm reading about a highly fictionalized world. I don't want to be reminded about the two wars going on. Having to hear about the American election every five minutes is bad enough. But they wanted you to write down what time they should call your house!

How scary is that?

Am I overreacting? Probably. However, I hate it when something I've been looking forward to is ruined by the harsh intrusion of reality.

Acknowledging The Masters.

Well friends, I'm off to buy David Usher's new CD.

Why does this deserve a mention in Some Fantastic? Well, because David's blog on Art, Technology, and Communication was one of the fantastic blogs that inspired me to start blogging. His blog, and a few others that I particularly enjoy, are now listed in the brand-new blogroll. This list is by no means complete list, and I plan to be adding plenty more to this preliminary batch, However I figured it was time I start to acknowledge the bloggers that I 'd like to one day emmulate.

What about you? Which blogs do you look forward to reading?

Indescions, Indescions...

The American political system has to be one of the most ridiculous, absurd manifestation of "democracy" out there.

Ok, so maybe it's not that bad. But Lord, it isn't good.

Any system where a candidate without the popular vote can still become president needs to be seriously reconsidered. Just what I think.

Having said that, it is election time in America once again. But I'm having trouble throwing my support behind one particular candidate.

I used to kind of like John McCain. He was a conservative with a conscience. I may not have agreed with all of his postitions, but here was a guy that you could really respect his politics. However, this campaign seems to have taken alot out of him. He's turned down right nasty, and his appeal is taking a pitfall.

Obama. Is there anything this guy can't do? He's got a lot of really great ideas, backed by what I am sure are the best of intentions. It is refreshing to have a candidate with solid positions on every issue, with detailed, plausible long-term plans to back them up. So what's the problem?

I just don't trust him.

Yes, I know. Blasphemy. Don't get me wrong, if I was waiting in those hideously long lines, and found myself looking down at those rediculous levers behind the red curtains, I'd be pulling for Obama (pun intended). But in my heart of hearts, I just don't trust this guy.

Yeah, he has great plans, but at the same time, he seems to be all talk. How can we be so sure that really would deliver on the change we need as fast as he says he will? I can't shake the feeling he's all ego and no action.

McCain is right, Obama is unexperienced and untested. It's high time we all admitted that. And it's high time that the American population came clean time that they'd bet thier country on the notion that good ideas are the greatest weapon for change.

So that's my two cents. or 1.56 cents American.

Whichever.

Marketing On Hold

Yesterday I found myself on hold with a local newspaper. I could go through the how and the why I would be on the phone with a newspaper, but this is a Bi-Partisan blog.

I was asked if I could be put on hold , and braced myself for a terrible mix of elevator music to come through the reciever. Unfortunately, what I got was a lot worse.

Advertising. On the phone. It was absolutely painful to listen to.

If the phone call didn't absolutely need to be made, I would have hung up right there and then. It was terribly loud and annoying. And I don't see why someone would actually consider that to be a successful marketing strategy.

Sure, you have an attentive audience, who really can't afford to hang up. However, the consumer is probably ticked at having to hold anyways, so they're not going to listen to all the reasons they should tune in to "99.3 Crave fm".

Really, all your doing is getting an angry consumer, even more angry. And if the person is vindictive towards bad advertising, such as myself. They'll go out of thier way to avoid your product.

But maybe I'm wrong. Is the hold button a good way to market? Or is it just another way to piss people off with more advertising?

Ujjal Dosanjh Says He Hates The French.

Naw, he didn't really say that. Depending on your point of view. Read on, friends.

Christ, has it really been nearly a month since my last entry? Indeed it has, my friends.

So much for daily entries. I try, I really do. But there's little motivation to write when you've been kicking back in Europe for the last three weeks.

Anyways, so I finally hit Canadian soil again yesterday, and what did I miss? Well, according to a close friend of mine all that happened was "...there was an election, Harper won. And Britney Spears has this new video where she looks like a total slut."

Interesting stuff.

However it was the election part that truly piqued my interest. So I took a peek at this weeks Georgia Straight to see if there was any mention of it. Hey, I don't have the internet, so the free paper is as good as it gets for me.

Anyways, this article caught my attention. It just talks about how former federal NDP-er, turned federal Liberal Ujjal Dosanjh, is now expressing interest in taking the reins of the party from Stephane Dion.

Back when he was with the New Dems I was actually a fan of Dosanjh, and followed his career. Nowadays, not so much. But party leadership does seem like the next logical step for him.

The part that struck me about this particular piece is where Dosanjh essentially says "fuck that" to the Canadian custom of having all our party leaders fluent in both English and French.

“But you know what, while I have the utmost respect for the Québécois, people of
Quebec, I think that those of us that are immigrants, first-generation
immigrants, are already saddled with the burden of having to learn one official
language... maybe they can make an exception”

I think he's right. Why should they have to know English and French? It certainly won't help them to connect with the Quebecois any better. You'd think it would, but not judging from our political history.

We wouldn't expect the mayor of Vancouver to learn Chinese, even though a heck of alot of his constituents speak it. Should it really make a difference wether a language is "official" or not?

It's a rediculous notion that if you don't speak French that you hate the Quebecois, or somehow don't have thier best interests at heart. That's all I'm saying.

So what do you think, my friends? Should a politician learn both official languages? Or is it acceptable to govern in the one language we know best?