July 26, 2006

The Flink is dead long live the flink

Oh, just in case you were wondering...

She was reborn... Over here.

June 30, 2006

By webdesign, it's true.

Last night I thought of a great re-design for flink, while walking the pooch at 1:00am. Fell asleep while ironing out the kinks in my head.

Once asleep I had a dream about presenting a final version to a client, except I had decided to think outside the box and made the entire website out of foolscap using a yellow high-liter for the important parts. It was an anxiety dream obviously, about a project that is way due, way soon. Oh wait, that's all of them.

Then I woke up and my first thought upon waking was not sex, nor breakfast, not even taking a piss. I woke up, quite literally in the middle of a thought about how to take one of the older sites I have made this year and re-work the navigation to make it more user and action oriented.

There is *nothing else going on upstairs*. Just the internet 24/7.

I don't just need a hobby. I need my humanity back.

Speaking of humanity; This guy was in the park today walking his ferret, on a leash. It's really weird watching a pet-owner watching his pet climb a tree while on a leash. From afar it looked like he was taking this giant oak-tree for a walk.

What I really need is a new mac laptop. Does anyone have any special insider information that the intel macs are gawbage or anything? If I get a mac now, I get a free nano. Why I want a free nano when I already have an ipod is unclear, maybe to give to someone else or what'evs. it just seems like a good opportunity.

June 9, 2006

Upon re-reading the contract I have been using all year I found this;

"The Designer is not resposnible for copy-edit errors in the body text of content provided for the site."

yeah, no doubt.

February 8, 2006

One is here

Womyn's Voices

The other branch is here;

Womenspace

If anyone says one critical word I will hunt you down and throw a rabid ice weasel at your face, so don't even try.

Compliments are totally welcome though.

They are running off one install of Drupal 4.6 and two dbases, and yes I also know 4.7 just came out so shuttup.

g'night.

January 30, 2006

It's funny working from home - and having the monday morning feeling anyways.

Today I got an email about emails... The really not good one, that starts "Ever since the new domain propagated I've been getting 200 spam messages - can you try to fix that?.."

Sure I can try....

I am hearing the Strongbad song about emails in my head...

Speaking of strongbad HOLY hellpants is the new one funny

Technology

" '0101010101011001011' You may not have understood me, but I was speaking technology. The word technology means magic. It's basically anything that's really cool that you don't know how it works, and if it breaks you have to buy a new one."

This reminds the small P punditry conversation. Now that's an idea who's time has come.

January 23, 2006

This is the text of an email I just sent to a bunch of people

sorry if this is beginning to annoy some of you.

I am looking for blogs by women or feminist-men about books, literature, writing, libraries, book art - basically anything about the written word - BUT NOT ABOUT BLOGGING. Blogging is a social media, I am talking about writing in a literary or artistisc sense.

So book reviews are good, blog rating sites not so good.

Please help me, I need 30 blogs by friday. If you send me a link that is useful I will give you shout-out in my first post on the blogher main site which launches very soon, and I will buy you a beer next time I see you. (ask around I am good for my word)

please submit links as comments or email me.

tags: Blogher , Blogher '06

* bonus question *

Okay - here's the deal _ I have one ticket taht goes from montreal to whitehorse to vancouver with a stop in vancouver,. I can do two things cancel the final leg of that ticket and stay in Van for a few days before heading down to SF for the conference.

Or

I can come home to Mtl and hang with the dog for few days refuel the jets 9 so to speak) and then take another flight from Mtl to San Fran direct. the price is about the same for either trip. ecept for teh $50.00 cancellation fee for the van to mtl ticket.

What really informs this decision is my level of caninophilia, or how much do I love my riddled-by-separation-anxiety dog?

anyone?

January 17, 2006

"Blogs are safe havens for socially-awkward, self-absorbed men. The outside world is no place for me."

Say it theoretica. Can you add girls to that too..

This is a help wanted post

Wanted:

One personal assistant/home chef/jr web developer: must be willing to work for donuts, knock-knock jokes, and mix cds.

I don't know what I have done here. The good people at YES seem to think the hardest part of developing a business is developing a market. What if the hardest part of the business is keeping the market from covering up all your breathing aparatus so you drown.

Come on helpers.

I am talking good donuts here - and only the best knock-knock jokes

January 10, 2006

Oh boy!!!!!!

I just got a great contract,and I just listened to my class describe some really interesting seminars they are going to present, and I just came up with three story ideas based on Peter Pan and look, I never have to sleep because sleep is for SISSIES!

So the obvious solution is to become a gremlin and dip myself in cold water and make another me....

The people in this cafe smoke like it is going out of style.

I need to speed up speed up speed up...

(This is simply a random assortment of thoughts while I wait for the batteries in my computer to die.)

** really important question. Do my obvious mood swings point to some larger scarier problem.. when will I learn to be calm, probably never. what a horrible thought. I will never be calm, and I will probably never be a jedi warrior either.

January 1, 2006

Getting Things Done: The Procrastinator's Version

Maya just sent me this. After asking me what happened to procrsatibation.com. Which I gave to Jeff, and as we can see he's totally taken that ball and run with it - go JEFF! (Jeff is super busy, so this is not meant as a criticism, I think it's just an irony - if any site deserves not to get developed it's procrastibation.com)

So I skimmed the article. If I had that much color coding to do to keep myself organized I'd probably just weave rug.

Did you know they teach life-management skills in high school now? How did I miss out on that A+ gravy train? Not to mention that I could probably use a life management skills class or two. A friend called last night and she said " I need some advice." And I said" About your life?!" in disbelief, and she said; No about our computer." and I said " Oh, okay..." with obvious relief and she said; "Does anyone ask you for life advice?" and I had to admit that it wasn't a high demand service.

So here are my procrastibators resolutions for 2006.

In 2006 I resolve to;

- do more than I talk about doing

- blog less (I know it hurts but c'mon c'est fous ca, a post a day?)

- aim for 10 hrs of productivity 5 days a week

- take real time off on the two days that I am not being productive so that I don't get burned out cranky and guilty

- keep careful track of work hours vs non-work hours so I can measure my hourly take-home pay

- pay attention to one project at a time for three hours at a stretch

These are probably pretty basic for people who don't have serious focus issues. But I think it's better to follow the KISS rule. Once I have got the basics down I can go re-read that article and buy some multicoloured pens.

October 25, 2005

Okay here's the deal.

I have this story I am trying to write, semi-fictional history, based in Montreal.

Main themes are queer histories, masculinity, natural taxonomies, language and class.

Mostly it's a love story though, I think. I am planning on making it a sort of illustrated novel, it was going to be a comic book but I write too much for that.

My problem however, is that I can't seem to focus on things that aren't here, in a textbox on a screen. Also I hate writing little scraps of fiction in pencil or in some office doc editor and than not having a way to go back and stick it somewhere else or edit it without re-writing the whole damn thing on separate page.

I am a product of my environment I guess. Also apparently I really look forward to feedback when I write and the fiery furnace of creativity is proving to be a lonely place indeed.

So nu, whattamIgonnado. I am going to install a wiki on my site. Actually - I have already renamed it the flinki - cuz I am cunning. and then I am going to ask you guys my kind readers to volunteer to edit my work occasionally.

Maybe once a month, go check, see whats been added and what's been crossed out etc...I will credit you as editors on the wiki and on whatever ends up getting published.

The Wiki will be password protected. Probably not a whole lot will be public to anyone but my editors and myself, mostly because I think the creative process is intimate and can get intense and rewarding if it's kept kind of exclusive, like la famiglia, you know. So if you are interested in particpating please send me an email (mir@flinknet.com) and I will add you to my list of users.

I don't see it as being a huge time commitment, and I hope you will find the story enjoyable, if you ever are in my town or if you already live in my town I will buy you a beer every time we cross paths just to say thanks for the help.

In addition, if the idea is working and people are getting into the process, I will have upload forms for adding images and background visual data which I will need for when I start working on the illustrations...

I am really interested in using the web as a venue for creative writing that isn't just about my singular vision painstakingly cobbled together from pages I can bang out once every few weeks on average. I want my vision to be shared from its inception and I want other peoples ideas and voices to inform what I am trying to create. I have a great deal of faith in the value of the story I want to tell, and I think it will be an interesting project for other creative individuals and not just myself.

So yeah, email me, please...

Nu.

October 3, 2005

today:

- clean house
- do taxes
- finalize mock-ups for womenspace
- finish blog for LRS
- Style blog for coms490
- walk the dog
- call your brother
- eat something not composed primarily of chocolate

- worry pointlessly about the 3 or 4 things you haven't even begin to think about working on.

-call ally-oop and book a climbing lesson that you can't actually afford.

I think I overbooked, and like any good freelancer my agenda is curiously empty because all I can do is sit here at this computer and work now.

Note to self: you are doing this because you have collected some bad debt (see note about taxes) and if you don't you will continue to be in debt and then you won't be able to go to Europe in 4 months time and rock out with your international posse.

September 30, 2005

Nothing should ever start at 8:15 in the morning.

No wait amend that wars should start at 8:00am so that everyone sleeps in and no-one wants to go and eventually world peace becomes the norm.

The meetings today were really interesting, and I am officially excited to be part of this project...

Interesting links abound such as one to Martus.org a human rights bulletin board.

I alsos took part in discussions that dealt in very practical ways with aspects of authenticity and identity in totally new ways (for me anyways). Many of the discussions were about violence and violence preventation/support for women in abusive situations so we had several talks about identity and safety. On the one hand it is neccesary to guarantee the protection of womens identities when they use on -line resources. But as another issue of safety there is potential to use software like martus for publishing what basically amount to stats on known abusers etc..

In either case what is at stake is the aunthentic identity of the person sitting at the computer and making use of the web. The idea of publishing perp sheets came after the revelation that certain groups of anti-feminists (for lack of a better name) actually publish images of shelters with addresses on the web. Ick.

In another sense this meeting/conference has been a revelation because I have always been one of the third wave kids who hasn't dealt with issues of violence in an practical sense, because I am lucky probably. So to see actual discussion about how this site i am going to be working on can be utilized as an activist tool in a very grassroots way, is really quite exciting (I sound so British).

Other highlights include a discussion of F/LOSS and it's utility for feminist online projects and a really interesting discussion about sex work on the web, and the debate around how to integrate the reality of women doing sex work online with political discourses about exploitation and violence.

Another talk centred around the fact that there is no womens cluster in canadas e-governance portal.

What I find fascinating is that there was a suggestion that taxonomies which included gender and sexuality as references needed to be included in the national governments classification scheme. (called clusters for some reason, these schemes group services according to what each cluster would likely need)

Upon hearing this my first thought was; well they probably didn't include any hard and fast categories for gender, race sexuality and ability because they figured any time they named anything someone would get them in trouble> immeidately after thinking that I wised up and changed my mind and said no, they are just too lazy to actually support social change so they didn't bother to give anyone an identity on-line aside from socially sanctioned ones; business owner, parent, healthcare recipient etc..

Anyways, then I turned my thoughts to my own porblems with the click which gender you are buton found on most on-line forms, and from there to the fact that a lot of my friendster friends made up the tag pomo-sexual to describe themselves on their profiles over there. The trend caught on, and now when you click on anyones pomo-sexual tag you get a list of all the pomo-sexuals world wide.

The first example of canadas reluctance to use an incomplete /politically divisive tagging system is an examplel of the tstaes reluctance to assume responsibility for identity when that idenity departs from the norm, but it is also and example of groups who require that their existance be sanctioned by some body who has access to resources and services that we all require. YUck power power power and its uneven distribution.

The second example is the libertatrian myth, if you don't like your name you can change it and if the current crop of gender options doesn't satisfy then you can make one up.

I am still not certain which struggle I am down with, pushing for an expansion of state sanctioned identities or saying fuggit just call me pomo-sexual.

The last word of the conference thus far: (and it's afunny word)

CJ Rowe was doing a presentation on violence and Exploitation of Owmen using ICTs and I think to inject some levity into a tough topic showed us a websiet called the sinulator.com.

which is exactly what you think it a gameboy for your dildo. Even better than that it powers the dong remotely, which means you can hook up via the site and get some perfect stranger to man the stick-shift if you will.

Anyways, some members of the audiance found the concept a little 'confusing' and the best quote of the day comes from Gloria who cried in frustation:

"I don't understand are you dating the TOY?!"

I think that's it for me now.

I will exit with one quote I read while riding in a very slow cab to the hotel last night. It has nothing to do with anything but it's to good not to put up here, and I don't wanna post twice.

"Be patient towards all that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves."

-Rainer Maria Rilke

September 29, 2005

I just looked at the agenda for the conference I will be attending this week-end, and it's interesting looking stuff.

(Although I am still a little jealous that I don't get to go to london with my friends...)

C'est vrais que c'est mon premier conference ou je suis payee comme membre de l'equipe) that's a pretty nice trade off. I get a food allowance and a hotel room. I feel like a real professional.. Although maybe it's still a little up in the air. I am blogging about it after all, not a very professional thing to do. and i don't know whether to bring career clothes (pressed pants and leather shoes) or feminist-activist clothes (jeans, sneakers and multiple hoodies).

My favorite book about business trips is the Martin Amis book : Money. In which the lead character John Self spends a lot of time drinking himself senseless in expense account hotel suites.

I think I will spend most of my time working on contracts when not attending sessions. I don't think senseless drinking is a good plan when one has lots of contracts to finish.

Here's the agenda, (as Alison points out she should be at this conference as well. since she isn't, I am going to have to listen carefully and report back)

Agenda

Friday, September 30, 2005

8:15 - 9:00 Continental Breakfast

9:00 - 10:30 Welcome/Introductions/ Initiative Overview

10:30 - 10:45 Coffee Break

10:45 - 12:30
Virtual Mobilizing and Organizing
Communities of Practice
F/LOSS - Open Source Software
Online Consultations

12:30 - 1:30 Lunch - Luncheon Presentation - Constitutional Advancement of Women’s Equality: Responding to Challenges & Seizing Opportunities

1:30 - 2:30 Virtual Safety and Empowerment Violence and Exploitation of Women Using ICTs Online Safety Initiatives

2:30 - 2:45 Coffee Break

2:45 - 3:30 Virtual Safety and Empowerment (cont’d)

3:30 - 4:00 Roundtable Discussion/Closure

Saturday, October 1, 2005

8:15 - 9:00 Continental Breakfast

9:00 - 10:30 Virtual State and Participation Gender, Digital Divides and ICT Agendas in Canada Government of Canada Online Initiatives
Industry Canada-Telecommunication Policy Review Panel

10:30 - 10:45 Coffee Break

10:45 - 12:00 Virtual State and Participation (cont’d)

12:00 - 1:30 Lunch

1:30 - 4:00 Canada-Australia Comparative IP & Cyberlaw Conference: Fauteux Hall University of Ottawa

1:30PM Internet Content Regulation
Carolyn Penfold – University of New South Wales
Internet Content Regulations in Australia
Jane Bailey – University of Ottawa
Child Pornography and the Internet

3:15PM Online Consumer Issues
Matthew Rimmer, Australian National University
Consumer Rights in Digital Millennium
Michael Deturbide – Dalhousie University
Consumer Protection Online

Sunday, October 2, 2005

8:45 - 9:30 Buffet Breakfast

9:30 - 10:30 Virtual Strategizing and Development

10:30 - 10:45 Break

10:45 - 12:00 Next Steps

12:00 Adjournment - Lunch

.. and that's all she wrote folks. This is going to test my listening skills I imagine, I am really not that good at these things, I want to be, but I am really not.

Upon second glance the oddest part is these proscribed coffee breaks. As a freelancer /contractual cubicle jockey I am used to my work life being like one long coffee break punctuated by bouts of intense activity, not the other way around....

September 20, 2005

I was chasing mice tonight.

That's my new phrase to describe tasks as mundane as fixing errors in french in web texts that had apparently already passed a final edit.

I am not complaining, no way. I love making good use of the find and replace option.

More important NEWS

I am trying to be better at promoting myself. See that use of bold and caps.. yeah uh huh.

So to that end, this Friday September 23rd from 2.15 - 3.15 I will be participating in around table discussion on Blogs as Art at the conference Artivistic:

Heres the address:

22-23-24 sept | Quartier general du colloque _ homebase of conference
loft Eva B
:: 2013 St.Laurent, 2e etage / 2nd floor, Montreal
514.849.8246
http://www.eva-b.com/location.htm

Here is the program for the rest of the day. It looks pretty interesting...

***** Found the best song at Laurens today***

I borrowed her Great Lakes Swimmers CD. Actually Ned already played me this song once but I was listening to it on shitty laptop speakers and didn't get the full effect. The song is called Moving Pictures Silent Films. I will link to it following this blurb.

Don't listen to it if you are feeling too happy about things. It will be so much better if you are feeling a little like you feel those days you are wandering around by yourself in a vacant lot listening to headphones ...

Moving Pictures Silent Films

nb; I just removed a whole lotta text about parents dying etc.. because it sounded fake and it was.

There are some feelings that I just can't bring myself to blog and the ones I feel when I am listening to this song are of that type.

Oh here's the website : very pretty

Great Lake swimmers

Here are the lyrics to the song, don't trust me trust the great lakes swimmers.

Oh wake me please when this is over
Oh when the ice is melted away
And the hunger returns
I will feel the same but older
And I'll be twice the man that I thought I was

Where have you been?
And what have you done?

I've been under the ground
Reading prayers from this old book I found
Under the ground
Saving it up
And spending it all
On moving pictures
Silent films
Moving pictures
Silent films

Oh is this the dream I've been saving?
Oh where the heart beats slower and slower
To almost nothing
Almost nothing
Almost nothing

I took care for longer
At least something beautiful
Out there in the spotlight
But turned around softly
Turned around squinting

It's all they heard was headlights
And then the truth
The truth was unbearable
Oh and iminent
Bearing down on these two shadowed animals

Called painting a dotted line
Called painting a dotted line

Where have you been?
And what have you done?

I've been under the ground
Reading prayers from this old book I found
Under the ground
Saving it up
And spending it all
On moving pictures
Silent films
Moving pictures
Silent films

August 19, 2005

Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability the program grants the random-est masters degree I have ever heard a masters in leadership towards sustainability. No-one is going to have a clue what that means.

They use the Natural step Framework so I could go and do research about that too.. so much research to do..BTW doesn't Natural Step just sound so damn Swedish, like what you do in birkenstocks or something.

**NB** their website, and the courses they offer look very exciting..*** for a list of the external professors and what they teach click here.

The pamphlet for the green MBA at York U came in the mail yesterday.

It was kind of dissapointing, a lot of pictures of grinning people in front of laptops wearing powersuits.

Or, worse yet, standing in front of power points, still grinning, still wearing suits.

Also tuition at York for an MBA is 8G a semester, WTF?! I would rather eat a live tarantula then pay 8 thousand clams to go back to Toronto. In fact, times was, someone would have had to to pay me a cool 10 just to set foot in that giant urban hairball. I mean, I like it better now, but 8 grand... they must be joking.

(Sorry mel, megan and my entire family re: calling toronto an urban hairball. I haven't eaten breakfast yet.)

Luckily last night Francois told me about this award from the giant snowmobile manufacterer, and when I went to look at this years recipients I found the Swedish program listed above and their website looks a lot more more interesting then the one at York...

So , I guess it's back to the drawing board again.

Addendum to this post: I just had a stupendously depressing conversation with the admin of my program, during which I was told that since math is a requirement I am not going to be able to register for any more classes (despite my A average in all the other courses) unless I re-take the math course and get not only a pass, but a pass with a B.

I am pushing 30 folks, and the last time I got a B in math we hadn't even moved up to long division. I still haven't got the times table memorized.

So, basically I am screwed. In my imagination the language centre of my brain has got the number center in some sort of complex greco-roman wrestling hold and is saying (through gritted teeth, no less); "Say Uncle asshole. SAY IT!.. Fucking say uncle you pussy." Poor number center - it never had a chance.

Okay so really, what does one do when they have just dumped a barrel of stinky fishoil on the highway of life? How do I go about finding a different degree hopefully in a different school that will allow me in without making too much fuss and hollar over the F.

Or do I grit my teeth and try and do the course over so that I can get a B and thus erase the stain on my academic record or at least minimize it? This was suggested to me, it is not outside the realm of possibility. Or at least in a logistical sense not outside. On a more practical, can I actually get a B level, it may be well outside the realm of the possible.

Sorry for all the swears, I am feeling a little tenderized by life by life right now.

Addendum to this Addendum: My dad just looked at the Swedish program, and apparently it's part of the school of engineering, so I don't think I'll be doing that any time soon. Oh well, it still looks cool.

June 27, 2005

ha ha (look on the links side)

Maybe I don't even need a passport. I will use my awesome powers.

The next time I have a job that doesn't involve sitting sandwiched between a desktop moniter and a laptop in a deadly third floor apartment that smells a little funny, can I write for you work blog??

Maybe I can blog about "working" from home and how that's a total misnomer anyways..

Get a grip mir. you still have no passport and will probably be thrown in jail instead of going to your conference.

My moods are so volatile these days, I blame the heat.

oooh they are playing Julie Doiron on the radio, that makes me so nostalgic. She always sounds very upset does Julie, but I know for a fact that she is happily living to the west of me with her family. It's weird because I always sound hilarious but inside I'm more tormented than a bag of hammers.

Okay this is just dumbness. look for more intelligence when the temperature drops.

June 6, 2005

I was actually told we are doing fine for volunteers, but I am feeling out of sorts because so far there are no Canucks on board to live-blog for the Blogher conference in July.

So hopefully this is going to yulblog where lots of people will see it, and another north of 49-er will wanna get involved

It is definitely not late to volunteer to live-blog from this one day conferece about women and blogging.

side note: It's weird I am having trouble with saying it's about women and blogging, I would prefer to say feminist but I have no idea if everyone involved in the conference would self-describe as a feminist. But then again, sometimes I hate self-describing as a women, so really where's a healthy middle ground?

Why do issues that have to do with women/ politics representation seem to me to essentialize the basic truths of social justice. It's not *just because* we are women that our voices should be heard more, but it is possible that because we are women they aren't being heard enough??? That sounds like a teleology but if you think about it hard enough its not actually, not being heard and why one ought to be heard are not the same thing.

So, the conference isn't a ladies-only affair. If you are a guy but you have a healthy interest in how the blogospere functions for the other half than you can also pitch in to live-blog. The conference will be on July 31st and is in Santa Clara. If you volunteer your registration is covered but you still have to pay to get out there and find a place to sleep. Of course you have to have a blog in order to live-blog. One must have a camel to be a camel driver.

June 2, 2005

This is actually a craftily disguised cry for help. Disguised as self-promotion but it's also a little of that too I guess.

I am facilitating a workshop on Open Source resources for Community Organizations at the Institute for Management and Community developments summer program. The institute is a week long, from June 13th - 17th. I am actually pretty nervous, I am not really an expert as much as I could be, I am sure no Oana. Luckily Norbert from XT labs is co-facilitating so I think we'll be okay.

To cover up my total nerd-nervousness I have built this little site here:
The 5 w's of Open Source for community organizations. Which I hope will intimidate my audiance into thinking I am a capital E expert instead of a small e enthusiast.

Okay no more self-promo, cry for help time. If you go through the site you will notice a lot of "a venirs" where the french parts are supposed to be, and where do you think that venir is going to venir from??? That's right, I have no idea.

So if you are perfectly bilingual (or even imperfectly, I am no stickler for grammer) and would like to help out, please send me an email. In exchange I will make you an animated gif of your head being annointed with some kind of laurel wreath, or I will buy you an ice cream.

The email is at the bottom, in the seldom seen footer.

Good ice cream too, not the cheap mcDo's kind.

June 1, 2005

I was looking for a background on google and one of my patterns came from a post with this title:

BACON+PICASSO & Racing all day on a sofa

God I wish my days were half as exciting. I don't actually know what this person was talking about because half the post was written in Japanese.

My horoscope this week said that I should only do fun things or else whatever I do will suck... yikes.

Lately I have felt a definite lack of fun creeping into my breadwinning activities. How does one make work fun in the middle of the summer, when work is essentially virtual paper-pushing? It's not even exciting if I call myself a keyboard jockey, wear bubble googles and listen to the Pixies/Frank Black very loud.

I mean it's better than a lot of work I could do, and I believe in it, more or less, but fun? I mean really, what's fun? Water balloon fights are fun. Riding in the back of a windowed van on a mattress with your best friend in a state of pure exhaustion, laughing at pedestrians, that's kind of fun. Badminton is also fun. I seem to have moved into a state where I regard most "work" as not actually being "fun."

What to do? probably the next 5 years are critical work-doing times, but the grasshopper me really doesn't want to put in all this necessary groundwork, just so that I can go on expensive boat cruises while wearing a colostomy bag when I am a "woman of a certain age". Oh damn, I want to party now *and* go on cruises with a colostomy bag what will I do!!??

Seriously I have come up with a coping strategy because that's what one does when finishing school and making dough are interupting ones dreams and aspirations. I went to hear Bill Ryan talk yesterday about the teen-age exprience of being queer in school.

Apparently the 3 words most frequently used by Bills teen-age interviewees are
"it is hell." As Ryan pointed out, the Canadian charter of rights and freedoms protects everyone equally from discrimination and hatred. However most teen-agers don't know this, or even if they know it, their lived experience certainly doesn't reflect their legal rights.

So, I think next year I am going to volunteer for Allies which is a P10 project where "grown-ups" like myself go into schools and get kids to discuss issues of gender and sexuality etc... I am not too clear on what exactly I will have to do but i hope it will involve playing the song "hang on to your ego" (the Frank Black version) over and over again. Most of all I hope me and a group of questioning kids can take some part of each others lives and make them kind of fun...

Thanks Jane for putting on a wicked event.

May 26, 2005

It's already listed in my blogs column, but I wanna do a shout-out to work blog because it's just so goood..

Kind of like how I have long had the conviction that if I could just sit down with gord downie, dustin hoffman, bill murray or leonard cohen for like 10 minutes I am sure we would find many many points of common interest and become fast friends.. I feel certain that the good folk over at work blog are my unrealized kindred spirits in the completely "Anne of Green Gables" sense of the word.

I went for a meeting today at SAJE Service aux aides de jeunes entrepreneurs to see if I am eligable to get an entrepreneurship grant from the province of quebec.

I learned a couple of things.

Some websites are not just bad they are BAAADDD. like; "when you fill out this form don't add more then 200 words to the project description, because it will truncate. No we didn't write max. 200 words anywhere on the form so you would never have known that if you didn't come to this boring-ass powerpoint presentation. Oh yeah, and don't by any means try to fill out this form on anything other than Explorer, because it won't work and you will lose all your carefully completed data on this 50 item form and you will not be able t o click back to save it, oh and no that isn't written anywhere on the site either although you are right - that would be agood idea...

BUt actually what's most frustrating is what I interpret to be a strange evolution of quebecs social contract style governance. Because there are so many programs all specifically geared towards helping some "sector" of the quebec economy who are percieved to need a leg up, these info sessions invariably turn into long-winded explanations of who is NOT eligible.

They could spend as much time explaining how to jump through the hoops of Provincial beaurocracy, and try to help us negoiate our development - instead they spend time telling us who/what/where/when/why is not even permitted to attempt to negiate the hoops.

For example; one funding structure being offered was direcetd at people on unemployment to help them re-enter the workforce. Well fine, that's very admirable but everyone at my info session was either working or like me, worked freelance hence none of us were eligable for that program. Worse yet that program came with a grocery list of inadmissable business plans (like starting a florist - which apparently is a giant money loser, and the Quebec government wants nothing to do with any aspiring florists...?)

Anyways so this pauvre beaurocrat whos job it is to explain to us the budding entrepreneurs what it is we can do to get support to start our businesses spends about 1 . 5 hours explaining this back to work program, to 20 of us, none of whom are eligable.

Various people raise their hands to say, "hey we aren't eligable for this, is there another project we can apply to?" le beaurocrat formidable says "Oui y'en a des autres programs" and then proceeds to explain that there are several others, but that we are here to discuss the project for which no-one is eligable, and if we want to apply for the one which is open to people who are not on EI we will have to go visit our local CDEC....

At one point the BF said; there are 400 of these subventions available and thousands of people interested. I think by making these info sessions into disinfo-sessions they are actively preventing themselves from being flooded by hopeful young florists.

May 6, 2005

So I was talking to my new friend and web development mentor about how to be a responsible freelancer.

I said: "I am giving myself lunch breaks. I go for a walk for an hour and eat food. It's great! But it means I have to work for real when I get back home." A boring time management discussion ensued.

Then Jen said, " ... but you are your own project manager, that's why being a freelancer is so difficult. You have to manage your clients as well as yourself."

"I am the only project manager who cries at meetings I bet. I think everyone thinks I am childish." I responded, re-sizing an image with half an ounce of concentration.

Jen replied, "I can pretty much promise you that 50% or more of what you think your clients think of you is just a projection of your own insecurities."

"I wish we could do something oustide right now"

"Yeah I would love to play badminton - but I haven't any raquets."

"Let's go get some at the sally-anne and play badminton this afternoon! (a pause for a second). No wait, let's finish our work today, and than go play badminton tomorrow afternoon."

I could hear my mentor smiling and maybe making a little yoda-like steeple from her pointed fingers from the other end of the phone wires.

Thank you jen.

Listening to: Cat Stevens

Feeling: like things are going to have to change a little faster.

May 4, 2005

I am at blue monday I have laundry next door washing itself. I am multi-tasking, wicked.

Okay I am multi-procrastinating right now, because I should be working on a logo.

I am feeling wicked funny too, but not funny ha, funny oh. Don't know why. could be so many different things. Still worrying that strength weakness thing, like a bad itch, and also a new one about how to not feel lonely when I know lonely is a product of something inside me, and not actually a manifestation of not being loved or not being lovable, it feels stupid to even be writing that.

I should be writing only good news here so people will see my life as I wish them to see it. Talk about how I am working on a flyer for Project 10 an excellent group that provides safe and supportive resources for youth who are exploring their sexuality and gender options.

All I can think about at the moment though, is how hard it is to make reasonable boundaries. That lately I have felt like a burden and like I do nothing but speak to people and not listen and that the speaking is this compulsive act because if i am not talking people will cease to see me or care or something. That by flapping my lips somehow my problems will grow wings and fly away from me. Which isn't true at all, and certainly the problem of lonliness which is bone-deep isn't going to be solved by months of verbal hemmoraghing at the expense of my dear friends patience and my own self regard, and you my readers too, I imagine.

Okay it's 20 minutes later and I am feeling better thank goodness, the sun came out my laundry was atotal rip-off I sang some Lauryn Hill real loud in the park on my way to the bank to pay the highway robber laundramat..

In other words, enough with the hemoraghing already you can't even spell the damn word.

The cool thing about the p-10 flyer is that it is going to challenge my design skills and newly aquired (or aquiring) social-marketing approach because if I remember correctly, kids are fairly sensi about issues like their sexuality etc.. So the first idea that the coordinators gave me was to make the flyers small enough to jam in a pocket very quickly. Also, the current flyer has the words In! Out! in white word bubbles on the front. Graphically its very compelling, however I think if I were a shy 16 year-old walking into the nurses office and trying to fade into the background, I wouldn't go near a flyer with such an obviously sexual connotation.

I feel like I am finally flexing some social marketing muscle, which is making me really happy, putting into practise some of the stuff I learned at school but for real. It's pretty invigorating and I am glad for the opportunity to help Tynan and Sarah and the rest of the folks at P-10.

Re : just cause it is like an itch , the issue of loneliness. I often forget that the only person who can stop my lonely feeling is me. Which sucks sometimes but actually contains the seeds of a really gritty redemption. Lately I have felt like I am growing a spine, and it's not a feeling like a steel pillar is being rammed down my shirt instead its slow and sandy like the development of igneus rock under my skin. Pebbles and gravel of singular experiences (the sun, the park, lauryn hill, ned saying" you are good" today out of nowhere) collecting in the small of my back and hardening every day in tiny stages. I guess sometimes ther are avalanches where I am spineless for a while, and i forget it's only temporary and then I shoot my mouth off.

okay I have to go pay the crooks to dry my clothes "all the way dry"

April 16, 2005

They are sunning themselves on the balcony. I am sitting in front of a screen wishing I had decided to be a farmer or a berry picker or something.

If I were five years old I would be throwing the most major tantrum in the world right now.

The good news is; I am trying to put my nose to the grindstone so that I will have both the cash and the free time to go to Blogher. A conference on well, let's not be obtuse here people - girls and blogging. The sessions look really interesting and I have already volunteered to do live blogging for the event.

This conference idea represents a big challenge for me, since it requires that I set some pretty concrete goals both financial and task-related. Since I will have to get two pretty major contracts under my belt if I am going to be able to afford the time to go.

Frankly, I am pretty scared. Since my mom died, and probably even before that self-management has become a bit of a sticky issue for me. All my jokes about procrastination aside, I have a lot of trouble setting realistic goals for myself. and if I get really honest, I think I am more afraid of success than of failure.

But last night, the idea of a bunch of time spent bombing down the west coast visiting friends from Whitehorse to San Fran (I hope ; )) - and landing eventually at a conference all about bloghers made my heart hum. So if it takes a crash course in discipline - I am going to finish my work.

Sorry this is one of those days where I use theflink to give myself a pep talk.

"New drink for an old drunk" by crooked fingers just came on. File under music that makes me remember things I don't want to remember, like "Martha" by Tom Waits. I feel old like the hills and full of speechless nostalgia, sometimes I wish I was already on my way.

April 7, 2005

So many posts, in so many days. I talk more to this blog than to people, that's a little problematic I guess.

I am feeling pretty anti-school these days, and so is the province of Quebec

So this article, picked up from geeked.org, is timely.

Thinking about Cluetrain and Education

It's alot of these sort of one-sentence manifesto type things that I don't really like to read but some of them are bang-on about how schools and education in general is failing students.

Okay I have just had a beer and half and now I have to go give my first power-point presentation, well my first power-point where i actually managed to make the power-points. Thanks to Hueyni.

I am really dissapointed by that last entry. I was going to write something about how working on marketing projects destroys any possibility that I craft decent entries for theflink.

However, while lunching I read the following in Amazonia, (see previous, poorly written entry);

Inside every artist is the debris of a scientist, The same thing might be said of numerous other professions. Take psychoanalysts, with their wish to be seen as steely, squinting, white coated clinicians. Freud laid his cards on the table in, "The Future of an Illusion," arguing that his own intuitive procedures were basically a form of New Math:" Psychoanalysis is in reality a method of research, an impartial instrument, rather like infinitesimal calculus." Surely this makes the shrink the great scientist manque of the last century. In our own though, I'd suggest that this role has been taken over by an unlikely candidate: the youthful middle manager, with a freshly minted Masters in Business Administration.

{{cringe}} says the not even minted MBA candidate who can't write decently while working on large-scale exercises in completely superflous quantitative research ("Let's test to see whether there are many young arty types living in le plateau montreal - oh yes! Let's waste hours upon hours testing that. It's very scientific. No wait, let's just go to Euro-deli and count peircings and visible tattoos, it will bring the same result, I think...)

April 1, 2005

So after a horrible horrible crabby day of crabby pants-edness. A day wherein my darling Ned offers me his tuchas (bum) to rub (long involved story about our days in undergrad degree here - too boring and typical to explain -suffice to say rubbing a bum is an affectionate gesture and alleviates feelings of sadness and misery) and I accidentally start to smack it and lose all consciousness of what I am doing. In other words after giving my best friend an unrequested spanking at work, whoops...

After that, I go to the grad lounge at B-school to drink my hot chocolate and try and get 'psyched' for this marketing project. So I walk in and there are like 5 guys in bass -weejuns and leather bomber jackets sitting on the various couches, as I head towards the phone they start talking about how it is possible in this day and age to get cellular ring tones based on the vocal emissions of ones favorite pornographic film star.

I myself am not familiar with mainstream actresses but I believe the name being tossed about was gina jenkins?

There are the requesite chuckles and guffaws but no-one hazards a guess as to what gina would be doing on the ring-tone. Whether she would be saying: "Phone's for you big guy" or just making whatever noises she makes as she's getting the money shot all over her face.

Sorry that was innapropriate, especially given how nice the last entry was. I am just so incredibly lamed-out by walking into a (at that moment, it's not always so boys-clubby) male dominated space and then hearing such BS.

"Hurk hurk yeah man , like a pornographic ring-tone awesome.. harkle snurk boh-pe punch it in."

Okay it wasn't that troglodyte sounding.

Anyways, then I get on the phone with a friend she says how are you? I say: great I was going to sit here in my grad lounge and relax with my hot chocolate but there's this discussion about pornographic ring-tones taking place here so I am going to go find someplace more relaxing to be in.

I don't know if anyone heard me but they all shut-up.

Then I felt all sorts of third generation angst about pornography not being wrong and enjoying porn being okay and why be so judgemental etc... and then I said forget it (actually I used a stronger word then that). If you are five adult males in a room that is considered public and one women walks in don't immediately start talking about something that may make that woman uncomfortable - it's called marking your territory and it's no fun.

...or maybe ask the woman; "Do you have a horrible case of involuntary crankyness that is making you act a little crazy? would it be better if we all just quietly read our wall street journals - can I get you some spearmint tea.....do you need a footrub?"

- ha. okay I am feeling better now.

March 24, 2005

Freelancers Union

Of course in New York the coolest city in the world, in a country without national healthcare.

March 20, 2005

Listening to one song by destinys child over and over again,

I have decided that writing papers is the modern spiritual equivalent of Moses spending 40 days and nights in the dessert. ie; shattering and regenerative all at once.

I wish I still had Ruth sitting behind me saying; "what are you trying to say? is that really what you are trying to say? "

I still remember an afternoon in high school when she had to forcibly restrain me from adding a paragraph about volcanos to a Canadian history essay. I don't even think there are volcanos in Canada.

The sun will set in three hours. I will be finished the essay before the sun sets...

March 19, 2005

John Doerr is on the board of friendster??

Actually;

"Friendster, Inc. is a privately held corporation, headquartered in Silicon Valley, CA. The company was founded in 2002 by entrepreneur Jonathan Abrams, and is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, Battery Ventures, and individual investors."

I feel weird knowing what that means.

FTR Google, inc. is also invited to KPBC barbeques.

8 pages down 12 to go. One hour over the deadline - the sun has set and I am eating my 4th candy necklace and listening to Deltron 3030.

March 17, 2005

and eating sushi from the market..so good. except I am getting food all over my lap-top they should make lap-top bibs for sloppy eaty typers like me.

two thoughts today;

- if email hadn't ever been invented we would have gotten to the social software internet mcuh faster except creative techie people were blindsided checking stupid boring email all the time.. I count myself among these people, I am trying to figure out how to reduce my innate emotional connection to receiving emails. Except I was just reading about how the key to my success is networking so I should probably be trying to get like billions of emails a day from people like sophia loren. It's confusing, to me email is all about never getting anything done, but I think to other people it is *how* they get things done.

- I just finished reading an article in FASTCOMPANY ( what am I doing reading this magazine... ) about serial entrepreneurs, I like this line;

What he looks for in employees are methodical, single-minded types who will serve as a counterweight to his tendencies. "One guy throwing out 12 times more ideas than you need is enough, and that's me," he says.

I think I might be a serial entrepreneur without any capital, or perhaps in training. I have endless lsits of "projects" I want to start and then I end up getting a number of other ideas, and then I end up enrolling in business school (jury is still out about that one)

I can't wait to actually start something, and I like this idea of knowing when to get out. Apparently this is another hallmark of the serial entrepreneur. Liking the start-up part and not liking the maturity phase.

Sounds like me in a nutshell - I think it might end up making me crazy though, what will happen to all my hobbies like; blogging and ummm.... blogging and oh dear. I should probably just start a company.