And the lazy posts continue unabated

"Stay in school, sucka!"

Lack of time and serious sleep deprivation have prevented me from updating with my aforementioned “exciting” sentence diagramming series and studied take on career anxiety.

Wonk, wonk, wonk…laaame.

But because I know that flashy moving pictures get people’s attention, I’m going to, once again, pull a shameless lazy post over your eyes and present a video that I find confusing, terrifying, and beautiful. It’s  like a blend of a Dr. Seuss drug hallucination and an 80s workout with all the elegance of  running underwater. Whoa.

So, as Jack Black George Washington would say, “Keep your looking balls on the picture radio and prepare to get your nuts smashed!”

Favorite Thing: Pomplamoose Music take on MJ’s “Beat It”

According to Gawker, this is a videosong: “1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice). 2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds).”

Listen and watch them on their youtube page here. (Personal rec: Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” and “Mrs. Robinson”)

Visit their myspace page here.

Amazement!

What’s this? After silence for over a week, I still have page views? My stats must be deceiving me!

Thanks, lovelies, for sticking around.

I have been busy to the nth degree. Last week I started my internship at Vancouver Magazine, an upscale, shopping, dining and events-oriented glossy. Very luxe, very good writing — I’m still amazed that I work there!

Oftentimes, I have to repress my inner fangirl from squealing and turning magnificent cartwheels.

So, the internship is great.  It’s fantastic. I’ve also been blogging with MagMe and doing some PR stuff with a company called COS. So, it’s been busy and hence,  no regular posting. Sowwwy….

BUT, I have been thinking about all sorts of post ideas about the idiosyncrasies of grammar (the Oxford comma, for instance) and sentence diagramming, and some news about the j-industry (my shorthand for the journalism industry=geek alert!).

I’ve also got a post on career anxiety on the back burner since I recently wrote an article about it for The Ubyssey, which you can check out on the Writing section of my page. OR you can wait for me to write up a tidy, little post, which will expand on the article and include some lovely clips of our favorite public philosopher, Alain de Botton. It’s your call, though. Your call. No pressure.

What I’m trying to say, I guess, is that even though this blog has been dead quiet for the past week and a half, I’ve been thinking of updating. Amidst the haze of flying papers and deadlines and chasing after buses and cursing like a sailor, I’ve been thinking so longingly of this little blog. Much in the same way that a lonely soldier thinks of his sweet lass back home. And you wouldn’t believe the half-formed drafts I have saved up. Anyway, that’s my clumsy apology and an appeal for you to stay tuned. The busyness will subside, and then I’ll have all the time in the world to talk about career anxiety and sentence diagramming and the New York Times laying off 100 reporters (even though that’s old news).

For now, enjoy?

Addendum: Twitter is an evil spamming circus, and I will be deleting my wretched account post-haste.

Spam?: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is possibly Jewish, but why should we care?

I wrote this blog post for MagMe yesterday, and because I did quite a lot of research on it, I’m kind of proud.

Now, loved ones, you know I hate spamming, but this is a great story if I do say so myself. Etymology has never had such an important role in embarrassing an evil dictator. So, shares:

The Daily Telegraph recently published an article that claims Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran and notorious Holocaust denier, is a Jew. Since its publication, a host of voices have put in their two cents, many charging self-hatred and others resurrecting the old Hitler-was-Jewish debate. Meir Javedanfar, in the The Guardian, has called foul on the whole debacle. Ahmadinejad himself has not offered a statement, but The Tehran Times issued an article that blasted the Telegraph and British newspapers for “taking their cue from Israeli leaders.” On the basis of very limited information, more speculation abounds.

Oy gevalt.

Now, who doesn’t wish for Andy Samberg to come swishing in to serenade a dolled up Ahmadinejad into embracing his possible Jewish self?

Read the whole article here. Or don’t. It’s okay. No pressure. I’m not spamming!

Read it.

Kurt Vonnegut’s writing wisdom: the gift that keeps on giving

These past few days have been kind of frazzled and buzzy. I’ve been crafting a pitch to a local health and wellness magazine, and because it’s my first I’m 100% stretched tendons and nerves.  A writer friend sent me Kurt Vonnegut’s article, “How to Write With Style” in order to pull me back to center. It worked beautifully, so let me share.

Vonnegut starts with the question of why writers should work to improve their style:

Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you’re writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your readers will surely feel that you care nothing about them. They will mark you down as an egomaniac or a chowderhead–or worse, they will stop reading you.

Then he goes on to give seven principles that every writer should consider:

1. Find a subject you care about.
2. Do not ramble, though.
3. Keep it simple.
4. Have the guts to cut.
5. Sound like yourself.
6. Say what you mean to say.
7. Pity the readers.

These are great principles. I’m quite sure 2, 3, 4 and 6 are covered extensively in that hallowed work, The Elements of Style, but you can never have too many reminders to keep it short and sweet and not go off on a drunken tangent, reveling in your own sweet, sweet words. Lord knows I’ve had those moments. And the pain. Oh, the pain of cutting!

You spend hours writing about the babbling brook and the  sun that shines just so on someone’s slightly pigeon-like face, and then common sense swooshes in and–CUT, CUT, CUT.  You cut it all. Because you aren’t writing a Victorian novel. You’re writing an instructional manual or a news story about the local sewage system. So, CUT, CUT, CUT. Out it goes.

I like number 7: Pity the readers. It sounds self-deprecating at first. (“Hi there, readers. So sorry you’re subjected to my writing. I’ll try to make it fast. Soooorry). But Vonnegut explains that the “audience requires us to be sympathetic and patient teachers, ever willing to simplify and clarify–whereas we would rather soar high above the crowd, singing like nightingales. That is the bad news.”

Ah, bad news indeed. Left unchecked, I would fill pages upon pages with long, lyrical descriptions about freckled faces and golden, god-like suns that burn holes into our souls and faces, and draw some kind of metaphor between immorality and freckles. But, PITY THE READERS. They have to follow along with my nonsensical, self-indulgent rigmarole. Poor, poor readers. I really must reign it in.  This also ties with #6.

And so, wise man Kurt Vonnegut pleasantly reminds and re-energizes me beyond the grave with his timeless essay.  Oh, Vonnegut, you old beast. You’re the gift that keeps on giving.

Share: Twitter’s Alex Payne beefing w/ San Francisco

I was researching good stories to blog about for MagMe and found an interesting article about Twitter engineer,  Alex Payne’s “epic diss” of San Francisco in a blog post. Those two words had me at ‘hello’. Don’t people leave their hearts in San Francisco? I’m shocked that a city that invented Rice-a-Roni and that I’ve affectionately termed “Franny” could be anything but spectacular. Clearly I’ve been hypnotized by their tourism board. Let’s see Payne pull those punches:

On  squalor:

Perhaps the most visceral [problem] is that, for a first world city, San Francisco is dirty. No, filthy. No, disgusting. Whenever I travel outside of San Francisco, I’m amazed at what a disastrous anomaly it is. Sidewalks are routinely covered in broken glass, trash, old food, and human excrement. The smell of urine is not uncommon, nor is the sight of homeless persons in varying states of dishevelment. I frequented tough neighborhoods in DC and Baltimore – then the murder capital of the nation – and only in San Francisco have I been actively threatened on the street.

On indifference:

What sickens me most about San Francisco is not its dirt, or its large homeless population, or its questionable safety, but that locals and the city government seem to accept these circumstances. Hipsters boast of how disgusting and unsafe their Mission living situations are, as if choosing to live amongst squalor when you have the means not to do so makes you a better person. The wealthy seclude themselves in the Marina, Russian Hill, and Pacific Heights, and lobby against public transportation that would bring undesirables to their pristine neighborhoods. Aging hippies in the Haight argue about marijuana legalization and anti-war referendums when men and women are dying – visibly dying – on the streets of the Tenderloin. It’s as if all parties don’t occupy the same city, see the same shameful sights on the street, and bear the same responsibilities to taxes and charity that might help address these deep-seated and difficult problems.

On confused, mixed-up priorities:

Were San Francisco taking care of its own, creating an environment in which everyone had access to the same comforts and opportunities, I would encourage such celebrations [Pride Parade, Lovefest, etc.] every week. But, as liberal and libertarian as I am, I think there’s something disturbing and solipsistic and fundamentally broken about a place that seems to value a different way of life over better quality of life. It is this that I object to most strenuously about San Francisco.

Our Twitter man can write and reason well! So well, in fact, that he’s got me questioning  my major assumptions about the city that’s America’s answer to Vancouver. (That was a joke. A reverse joke, actually, because Canadians like to call Vancouver “Canada’s answer to San Francisco” Bah. You know a joke’s gone flat when you have to explain it.)

Anyway, I’m loving this argument. To be sure, Payne mentioned some of Franny’s good points. Its cuisine, for one. He gives a big up to their bartenders. Let’s see, what else does he like? Oh, their architecture! Wait, no, he hates their old, peeling Victorians. Oh, here’s one: he likes the weather and the burgeoning tech community, although he does say it’s a double-edge sword because some of the techies are passive-aggressive nerds with too much disposable income and not enough perspective. I’m making him sound evil. Truth be told, I think he’s quite fair, and he lays waste to the city because his experience has been genuinely shitty. He’ll soon be off to Portland, Oregon, the city of hipsters, artists, and rain. Let’s hope the Pacific Northwest finds him in better spirits.

Read his blog post, which is being twittered around, here.

Blogarama!

I’ve started blogging for MagMe, so do me a Beastie Boys and ch ch check it out!

I’m supposed to put up 2-3 posts a day, and let me tell you, it’s HARD. I don’t know how professional bloggers do it. I hear Gawker bloggers have to churn out 12 posts a day, which sounds crazy!  Trolling through news and gossip sites for gold nuggets of content is tougher than it seems.

If you want to support your girl, read my blog post on Gourmet’s death here. My other post on Levi Johnston’s Playgirl schlong-reveal should make you gag (rightly so) and amuse you. It should be coming up on the site shortly. So, CHECK IT, yo!

EDIT: I re-read this post entry and found it littered with excessive exlamation marks and gangsta-speak. Forgive me. Some people devolve into crack  cocaine and heroin when they’re ovewhelmed; i have my !!!!!s and mofo-hizzy-shizzy lingo.  I have since excised the offending articles, but i leave the last sentence intact. No more madness, I promise.

Fo sho.

Dammit!

MagMe but don’t SlagMe

Your girl’s got a blogger position at MagMe. The logical next question: What in God’s green pastures is MagMe?

Well, I’m sure glad you asked! MagMe is a new start-up online social reading platform that will allow you to read a multitude of publications online. You click, you read a blurbed headline, a summary,  you laugh, you read some more, you tweeter the hell out of it and that’s how momma gets paid. As of now, we have not yet purchased copyrights to paying publications, but we have a legion of bloggers who are putting up 2-3 great posts a day, so head on down to MagMe, check it out, tell yer friends (I’m starting to feel like a salesman with a cane at a county fair) and support your dear old dinosaur. The more readers we get, the more clicks we get, and the more clicks we get…well, aside from CHA-CHING ($$$) for me us, we’ll get more revenue to buy copyrights to magazines like–oh, I don’t know–Us Weekly or The Economist (lust).

I don’t want to keep pushing MagMe because I’m sure it’ll get old and before I know it I’ll be the Klondike pariah that everyone’s avoiding. So, I’ll only mention MagMe if there’s a really major announcement. Also, I do not as of today have posts on the MagMe blog because a.) I’m a terrible procrastinator busy and b.) I’m a dinosaur and new technology, even a new blog format, frightens me. But I’ll get to it Aesop! I mean, ASAP. (Mhah! I farted a funny).

TEDx Terry Talks

I went to cover the TEDx Terry Talks today at UBC. For those not in the know, TEDx is like a local version of the famed, soon not-to-be-exclusive-because-it’s-moving-to-Long-Beach TED conference. TED is an acronym for Technology, Entertainment and Design and it features the brightest minds in the world talking about–you guessed it!–technology, entertainment, and design. I’m happy to report that the UBC TEDx was warm and engaging and overall, fantastic.

Take a look at their promo, which always manages to make me laugh:

So, I did say that I went to “cover” the talk, which means that I did a write up for The Ubyssey. I sent it in about–oh, let’s say, fifteen minutes ago and, as usual, I’m Freaking Out. I can’t help it. I break into a cold sweat and start questioning every single decision from syntax to structure to something as trivial as using a semi-colon instead of a comma or being inconsistent with the Oxford comma. Now, mostly, I’m worried about structure.

It’s hard covering a conference with eight different speakers talking about eight different topics. I felt like every speaker deserved at least a mention, but I was afraid it would get too list-y with no real cohesion.  But I couldn’t mention a speaker without adding a description of what they said. And so, I fear the final product reads a bit like a price smart list, which is unfortunate. I wish I could write 450 words on each speaker rather than 450 words on all of them.

It’s also entirely possible that I simply haven’t mastered the art of covering a conference. After all, you’re covering ideas–not a conflict or a question that needs to be answered.  What is the right way? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the sheer number of speakers (8) that’s overwhelming. Either way, I’ll wait for feedback from my editor and then I’ll post the article on here so you can read for yourself. Yikes.

For now, I must share an excellent, MIND BLASTING video from Dan Ariely about our cognitive limitations, or in other words, how we are more like Homer Simpson than the Superman we like to believe we are:

EDIT: TEDx Terry talk article is now available for scrutiny and critique on the Writing page. Be gentle. I’m not particularly proud of this article. I find news writing difficult and I think it shows.

Dinosaur-come-lately discovers Bing

Apparently Bing is the new Microsoft search engine to challenge Google’s mammoth monopoly over the web. I won’t ask in wonder, “Who knew?” because I’m pretty sure a lot of people knew (Bing was launched in June of this year). But I must say that on first impression alone, I’m loving it. And who wouldn’t? With an ever-changing background and roll-over  fun facts, Bing is rockin’ my world.

The fact that someone as un-wired as me is even remotely aware, let alone dazzled by its fancy picture buttony clickers is a good sign that Bing’s enormous marketing campaign has created a healthy buzz.

However, Bing isn’t up to par with Google quite yet. (Check out this blind search experiment and see whether Yahoo, Google, or Bing is king). So, why am I rooting for a search engine that is not as good as our tried and true? For several reasons:

a.) I like an underdog, and I think most people do too. Most people want to stick it to “the man” (“Rock and roll! Whoo!”) even if the man’s been good to them. And this is a viable angle for Bing’s marketers: frame it as little Bing taking on the big, bad Google goliath and you’ve got a story that’ll appeal to the emotionals like me.

b.) Competition is good for us. Already, we know that Google founder Sergey Brin is heading up a Google team to beef up the current Google search in response to Bing’s encroachment on their market share. We benefit from this race for efficiency because we end up with better search engines!

c.) Who doesn’t love a Fun Fact? I don’t know anyone who, in private, won’t admit to loving Pop Up Video. It feeds you a stream of useless, sometimes disturbing, facts only tangentially related to the video, but I dare you to say you’re not entertained. Because you are. Saaay it. You know you are.

d.) What’s in a name? I’m telling you, short and sweet wins the race. How catchy is “bing”? Exactly. Imagine yourself saying, “I just binged the capital of Burundi. It’s Bujumbura.” See? It’s the most natural thing in the world.

Fun Fact of my own: I was typing “Bing Facts” into Google, and when I was at “B-i-n-g  F-a-” Google provided a drop down list and the second suggestion was “Bing Fail.”

Google just slippin’ it in there. Ssssnark!

More Bing page shares: