2011 March » nothing in winnipeg

In The Streets of San Francisco

Mar 302011

At the top of sloping streets, the bay windows of pastel Victorians wink down on the Haight. There is a vintage store on the raggedy end of the street, a real vintage store with real vintage things, prim 1950s swing jackets and Jackie Kennedy pillboxes and square wartime pumps. Those things, and a $40 purple velvet blazer that skims my wrists, just how I like it. I am waiting to pay when the radio, all oldies all the time, eases into a familiar refrain. If you’re going… to Saaan… Fraaan… cisco… At the cash desk, the little brunette with the flowers in her hair [...click for more...]

Hidden gems

Nothing In Winnipeg Goes Coastal

Caretakery

Mar 172011

For the next ten glorious days, Nothing in Winnipeg will be Everything in Portland, Everything in San Francisco, and everything else in many Amtrak points in-between. I hope to be able to blog a bit from the road, sharing some of my favourite scenes and urban discoveries from my travels. In the event that I do not, I will be back in Winnipeg (and back at work) on March 27, and I’m sure I’ll be bursting with blog entries upon my return. Fare thee well, friends, enjoy these 10 days of a warming Winnipeg, and may all your windshields be [...click for more...]

Forever Twenty-Winnipeg: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Store-Opening Hype

Odes to Winnipeg, This Is My Job

Mar 122011

Oh look Winnipeg, another store opened today! And as you can see from my grainy Blackberry pic, it was utter madness inside Polo Park Mall, where over 1,000 people piled in starting at 2 a.m. for the privilege of being, uh, the first 1,000 people allowed in our mammoth new Forever 21: We’ve had a lot of Big Store Openings, and announcements of future Big Store Openings, in the last year, haven’t we? And every time, some Winnipeggers get pumped. And when some Winnipeggers get pumped, other Winnipeggers get understandably disappointed. All this fuss for a store opening? How embarassing. How [...click for more...]

Late Night Linky-Post No. 2

Spreading The Love

Mar 092011

Ah-ha! Here we are once again, where I come bearing many links to share, with you, the people who stumbled in here and spilled coffee on your “back” button. Without further ado, may I present another installment of late-night linky-posts, wherein I share some linkies you may not yet have enjoyed. Wish I could have made it to Pecha Kucha or the Social Media Manitoba Tweetup tonight, but I appear to be coming down with a cold. So it’s just me, mint tea, and the blog tonight. Local + Ethan Cabel is doing great work for the Uniter, this time bustin’ [...click for more...]

Fare Thee Well, Mr. Vogelsang

Odes to Winnipeg

Mar 082011

Broadcast journalism class started at eight-o’clock in the morning, sharp. Be there, or risk the wrath of Steve. Despite the sickness (physical, mental) that plagued me through most of Creative Communications, I was almost always there. But on that day, I almost wasn’t. Instead, only half-an-hour before class, I sat sprawled on my bathroom floor with a shard of glass buried deep in my foot. The clock was ticking. I called the instructor, Steve Vogelsang. My message may have sounded a little desperate. “You’re not going to believe this,” I said, or something like that. “But I’ve got this piece of glass in my foot [...click for more...]

Lessons On The (Online) Spaces We Create

Musings

Mar 082011

This is a post about spaces and communities. This is a post about how we create and define the online worlds we shape and inhabit, and a story that is unfolding at this moment that tests those methods. This is not a post about Winnipeg. (But it might be, soon.) Meet Fred Clark. Fred is a newspaper editor in the U.S. and an evangelical Christian. In 2003, he had an idea: he would blog the entire first book of the infamous Left Behind series of crapopcalyptic End Times fiction. He would break down each page, patiently slashing apart the bad [...click for more...]

Judge Vic Strikes Again

This Is Why The World Sucks

Mar 042011

Here’s a question, to which I honestly don’t know the answer, and am hoping someone else does: Do judges get any education whatsoever in the psychology of survivors? I ask this because, sadly, the Dewar file appears to be the gift that keeps on giving. When I read that story last night at work, my initial response was along the lines of 1) bang head against desk, and 2) ask the question I just asked above, to nobody in particular. Let’s set aside the particulars of that case, with which I am not familiar enough to comment. And let’s set aside the verdict. Instead, [...click for more...]

Healthy Burgers for a Happy Village

Odes to Winnipeg

Mar 022011

A Tweet today alerted me to the looming arrival of Unburger, which will take the place of the now-shuttered Right There! Korean restaurant on the corner of Stradbrook and Osborne. We don’t know what Unburger is. We don’t know exactly what it will serve. We don’t know if it will be as stupendous as Sherbrook Street’s sublime Boon Burger. All we know about Unburger, is that it’s somehow “un,” and that Kyle is in charge. (Hi Kyle!) Hey, that’s enough info for me to get damn excited — because maybe this Unburger is going to undo Osborne Village’s fast-food problem. After a decade [...click for more...]