I just love this photo. More so what we wrote inside of it. “No me incline!”
Duane does the 2008 Junos
My good friend Duane Storey has done some amazing coverage of the 2008 Junos this past weekend. He flew out there like a new media ninja and tossed out a lot of blog posts, videos, and photos from the media access he was granted for the whole event.
Have to say that I’m very impressed that he was able to do what he did. His level of access was on par to the big name players, and dare I say that it was better than what traditional media usually feeds you. Feel free to check out some of his posts here.
Different version of a release party
Keira, Duane, and Rod came over tonight, and we all gathered to kind of mark the occasion of the new Matthew Good album being released. For the most part, I made the dinner, minus Rebecca slicing the meat and cheese.
I’m pretty proud of what I came up with. Curried egg salad sandwiches, BLT wraps, assorted meats and cheeses, and crackers.
It was Raymi who inspired the effort. Otherwise, I would have gone with chiliaquiles, but there was something telling me that having them again just wouldn’t be as awesome as a gathering of good folks like this would be. Of course, slurpees go with just about anything.
Needless to say, I think it all went over well. Can’t forget to mention that Keira makes some of the best guacamole that can be found outside of my family. Truly an impressive concoction that I have found in a long time, and she makes a mean batch of cookies as well. In fact, they go well with the whip cream that was originally intended for the strawberries. Rod was the first to make this discovery, all of us following suit.
There wasn’t any listening of the new album as much as there was talk about “where we were when” during the process of the whole recording, not to mention a lot of other random topics that my belly is to full to think about. Then the good news passed down.
The record is sitting at number one on both Amazon.ca and iTunes Canada. [matthewgood]
As of this posting, it’s sitting at #21 on the U.S. version of iTunes. Not too bad.
All the way from Smithers, B.C.
Sean, aka Zanstorm, is on holidays with his wife, taking a road trip through southern B.C and the island. I’ve been reading his hockey blog, most for the Canucks content and not the Leaf stuff, for a long time. Waiting For Stanley is clever, funny, passionate, and very informed, even for a fan who is up in the interior.
Sean has been on The Crazy Canucks just once, but with the coming season on the horizon, watch for him to make another appearance or three. We’ve also told him that he needs to really get down here for a game.
This was the first time that Sean has ever stepped beyond the realms of meeting people online and meeting them in real life. Sadly, we were still pretty groggy from the late night Blogathon adventure. Next time, we’ll get hockey crazy, Vancouver style.
Hope you enjoy the vacation, Sean! Come back soon!
Watching stuff blow up in the water
Basically, that sums up the Celebration of Light. You take a barge, stick it in the ocean, lace it with fireworks, call 500,000 of your closest friends, and watch someone light the fuse.
The pre-game mayhem is annoying, and the post-game crowds is almost made up for by watching the pretty lights in the sky. Last night being the first night of four, I wish we had sat closer to the music being played over the loud speakers. Could have brought a radio, but the last thing I want to be carrying around is a ghetto blaster. Although, that would be cool, especially if I had some high-tops, track suit, and a bandanna.
Living in the west end, we understand what it is that we have to deal with. Getting to sleep last night wasn’t too hard, and I assume that the Saturday night performances will be much crazier than the mid-week displays. Still, I’m not complaining. Argue if they are good or not for the city, I was hanging out with a wicked group of people last night. Summer is made for things like this.
Corinna and Adam picked us up on the way to meet up with Keira, and then we proceeded to Duane’s to chill and enjoy some beverages. He and Rebecca had the opportunity to meet Mr. Tony Pierce while in Las Vegas a few weeks ago, and the man is in Vancouver for the next few days. He brought along a local friend as well, and good times were most certainly had.
Spain had their turn last night, and it started out slow. I was feeling a little let down towards the beginning, but it didn’t last long. There’s something pretty cool to be said about thirty, simultaneous explosions that will always put a smile on my face. Forty and I’ll clap.
Kudos to you, Vancouver, for taking your trash with you. Being that the garbage workers have been on strike for nearly the whole week, there wasn’t a ton of Starbucks cups left everywhere. I still can’t understand what possesses someone to just toss their waste where they are sitting. Morons.
And next time, I’ll think to take more pictures with my own camera. You can see even more of Duane’s fireworks pics here.
Mentioned in the Tyee
Matthew Good made a guest contribution to the Tyee today and mentioned Rebecca as being one of his top five, favorite blogs that he reads. As cool as that is, I also got mentioned and linked in the post, riding on the coattails that is Miss604. Of course, I say that sarcastically, but if you read both of our respective blogs, I’m just as much of a fan of hers as you are. 😉
Very cool stuff and many thanks to Mr. Good for the link love.
Getting my Alaska fix
I have a really good friend who did something even more crazy than my relocation to Vancouver. Paul one upped me and trekked to Alaska last fall, just as winter was setting in. The one thing he constantly says is how incredibly beautiful it is there, and I think that says a lot for him to say that without experiencing summer yet.
He seems to have a good gig up there, helping coordinate things at the Alaska Teen Media Institute. Paul took his radio producing talents and shares his creative expertise with the kids he works with. That might make some of you worry, but I think he’s got a handle on things.
This piece by one of his students nabbing an interview with the band OK Go is pretty good. I always wonder what it’s like to grow up in the great white north, especially where it’s much more north and whiter than Vancouver. Yes, I know that usually implies Canada, but Alaska seems more like another world to me than Canada ever has. Still, it’s on my lists of places in the world that I want to visit for the simple sake of saying I’ve been there, and I’d consider living there if they keep giving land away as if it’s the 1800’s.
Andy goes around the world
I got an email sometime ago from Andy Stoll. He’s a friend of my from my days at the University of Iowa. While I toiled away at KRUI, he did more constructive things, like be president of the student government or raise money for children with cancer. He even did a bunch of stuff for the school and Iowa City after he graduated. You can’t keep the guy down.
We also co-hosted, along with Chris Linn, a weekly community affairs talk show on KRUI for a little over a year. “It’s like Entertainment Tonight on a ten dollar budget” and “It’s like David Letterman, but not as funny” were our slogans. And boy did we live up to the hype. Odd thing was, there was this guy that I kept running into at various music shows in Iowa City that was the biggest fan of our program. He could recite those slogans by heart, and this was three years after the fact. Charming, but weird.
Back to Andy, and to exemplify the fact that you can’t keep this guy down, he’s on a round the world adventure. The reason? Just to see as much of it as he can.
You can check out No Boundries.org as he documents his venture. He left the Midwest in August and has spent most of the time at this point in China and Japan. We’ve emailed back and forth a little bit, and my hope is to get him on the podcast to talk about some of his experiences.
He’s been a little relaxed on posting updates, so hopefully this will inspire him to post more often. There has also been a challenge issued to me by Andy to make some comments about tips or things that I have learned about blogging. I’ll get to that soon, but here is a public challenge back to Andy to blog more about traveling around the world.
Chicago has a secret radio project that’s about to launch
I have a friend who works at Chicago Public Radio that clued me into something that is happening there. SecretRadioProject.com doesn’t give a whole lot of details, and the information that I was getting from Paul left me with more questions than answers. That’s just because I started throwing out some technical questions, and he isn’t the most technical type of guy.
Chicago will soon be home to a new radio station that is unlike anything you’ve ever heard before.
It’s a creative free-for-all, with no shows and no stuffy time slots. Engaging hosts guide you through the day – whether you stop in for an hour or a quick coffee break.
Every time you tune in, you’ll hear something new and surprising – music, interviews, shout outs, essays and more. All with a local bent and an unmistakably Chicago voice.
And the best part: this radio comes from you. You’re the creator, deejay, producer and editor.
Give us your take on what’s happening in your neighborhood. Share your deepest thoughts, confessions and opinions about your world. Upload audio to our website and tune in as we play it for all of Chicago and the world to hear.
It’s two-way radio: an ongoing conversation with Chicago. Radio of, by and for us all. [secretradioproject]
Paul also added something to the effect that it will be all new content with a YouTube like archive, uploaded from anyone and everyone. This won’t be tied to NPR but will be very tied to the Chicago metro area. However, this will be a service of Chicago Public Radio.
It’s very interesting to hear about, and Paul went offline before I could IM anymore answers out of him. Regardless, the scope of the project is daunting. Radio is in desperate need of rethinking how to exist within a world of changing media. This could be the best experiment I have seen yet to try and do just that.
Just another day, but I’m another year older
What can I say? It’s been an incredible weekend of birthday happiness.
There was Snow Patrol on Thursday night(which I have yet to make my review post about yet), dinner with my Canadian family on Friday, Mexican food with my Canadian friends on Saturday, and the Canucks vs. Ducks at GM place tonight. I’ve said it a lot already, but you only turn twenty-eight once, right?
There are so many thanks that need to go out to so many people. So many good times were had over the period of four days, not to mention the cards, gifts, and alcohol, consumed or given as presents, from everyone.
Just before the puck dropped tonight at GM Place, my parents called me on my cell. It was a moment of true analogy. The beer we had just purchased was foam all the way to the brim and slightly spilling over as my folks wished me a happy birthday. That’s what today had climaxed to, and I don’t think it could have gotten better than that, not to mention that the Canucks preveiled, 4-3 in a shootout.
As I write this, The Reverend Don Deeley is making his way through his weekly radio show at WYEP in Pittsburgh, dedicating a good portion of the selections my way, all for my birthday. He emailed me to give me a heads up, thinking I wouldn’t be listening, but I’ve been streaming in from the beginning. That means a lot, and I thank you so much, Don. Anytime I can take over airwaves through the use of my voice or a barrage of song requests, I’m so there.
I also want to mention thanks to some fellow bloggers for extending some birthday wishes. J.J. from the Canucks Hockey Blog met up with us ahead of the game tonight, providing me with another, frosty beverage for my other hand. Yvonne sent in an email as well as getting a voicemail from Uncle Weed. Even the woman who cuts my hair called me, but Minoo was more concerned about how Rebecca liked the coloring of her hair after there were some issues with getting that all done.
Most importantly, Rebecca has made this an amazing birthday. This has been the first time that we’ve been able to be together for it, and she has made it more incredible than I could have ever imagined. Everything you could probably imagine about her being a wonderful person is true, but I have that and a lot more with everyday that goes by.
Thanks to everyone. Just because your name isn’t on here and the exact contribution to this weekend isn’t listed, that doesn’t mean that it’s insignificant. There’s just so much, and I’ll keep those for myself. Memories are always the best gift that can be given.