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Ogopogo

Sign for sighting Ogopogo at the Gray Monk WineryIt’s no secret to people who know me that I have an affinity for the supernatural. There is this magical, magnetic draw that will suck me in things that seem so rediculous to some people that there is part of me that thinks there might be truth in the story somewhere.

Ogopogo is just that. This is a legend that has just recently come to my attention, and I find it to be fairly fascinating. A mythical creature that lives on the bottom of a lake. Dragon or serpent like, the legend has been around for hundreds of years. Now I will admit that I still don’t grasp the reality that I am living in Sasquatch country and the legacy of that myth, but that’s another topic for later.

I had heard Rebecca’s mom mention the name before we left, but I wasn’t sure what they were talking about until we set out on our wine adventure. That’s when I started getting more and more curious. Continue reading “Ogopogo”

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And Now For OT In Game 7

The Canucks needed to win last night.  It was considered game 7 of a playoff, but the game was over in the first period.  Now we head into sudden death overtime in the next three games, and it will not be easy.

Coming up, back to back games with San Jose, and then Edmonton.  Could we make this anymore of a nail bitter?  Yes, we can!  We’re going to need help in the forms of losses for Edmonton and Colorado.  Everything needs to slide into place for Vancouver to make the playoffs.

If we don’t, what happens next?  Crawford, Nausland, and Bertuzzi are names people keep talking about in very negative terms.  I’m not going to point any fingers now or later, but you have to think that something is going to happen.  The league has changed a lot this season.  Don’t be surprised when things shift in your own neighborhood.

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This Isn’t About Me

Asian Pacific Post Headline We had dinner with Rebecca’s mom tonight and got some gelato on the way back home.

Rebecca started laughing as we walked out of the little shop and told me to take a picture of this. Fran couldn’t stop giggling. I swear this headline has nothing to do with me.

The gelato was pretty good though…

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The Push and Shove of Podcasting

CNet and TechWeb both reported stories last week regarding a report that Forrester Research published regarding how businesses should tred lightly when it comes to venturing into podcasting.  I haven’t had a chance to read the actual report, but the stories I have read regarding it tends to make me very skeptical on their findings.

Essentially, Forrester feels that companies should create podcasts consisting of already existing content.  This further promotes the “TiVo for your radio” idea, simulcasting radio content into the podcasting medium.  They go on to say that investing in original content for podcasting should be a low priority as podcasting lacks in audience at this time.

I don’t disagree in the lack of audience debate, but holding off on creating original content paves the way for others to take advantage of podcasting right now.  Businesses unsure or uninformed about podcasting will buy into this report and wait.  Those with the desire to create programming will have more opportunity for getting in while the getting is good.

At the same time, podcasting will only become a stronger media method through promotion.  Creating original content that you can only get through podcasts will drive people towards being a listener or viewer, depending on what it is that you are publishing.  It’s like having a party where anyone can come and not telling people where or when.  There is also truth in saying you never know until you try.

I will admit that something needs to be done to make finding and listening to podcasts easier.  There are a lot of ways to find them, download them, listen to podcasts, and tons of MP3 players for you to take them with you.  Just because there isn’t one, simple way does not make podcasting a poor medium to attract people to it.  Not all radios and TV’s are built and work the same.  Time will tell, but it will become more common place to have podcasts fit into the realm of things.

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Back From The Fruit Of B.C.

I am a good driver... What a great, little getaway.

I get a feeling that running away like we did to the Okanagan[wiki. def.] would be a cliche thing to do for some Vancouverites, but there is no way that we are not going to do trips like this again. You can see how people flock to the valley for summertime vacations, even more so for those family holidays that your mom and dad dragged you along to. Miniture golf courses, beaches, B&B’s, real golf courses, hotel after hotel, and huge homes on the shores that one can only dream of ever owning.

Kelowna is a great community. However, it’s a city with two faces. Off-season and on-season. It seems like all of the hotels are hiring right now, the phrase “for the coming season” being key. To me, it’s a bit like the Wisconsin Dells[wiki. def.], but Kelowna has it beat for sure. I don’t think you can check out as many attractions as you can back in the states. At the same time, I don’t think that is why people flock there.

Crusing down Highway 5...The drive to get there and back was a treat for myself. I have this ongoing love of road trips, and Rebecca couldn’t be a better companion for that. With both of our iPods, we had plenty of tunes to make up for the lack of radio stations between populated areas. We took a different route there than we did back, so I got to see a lot of the mountainside between destinations. It could have been the fact that we set out early on Friday, but I said very little the whole way there, my head turned out the passenger side window with the hope that I might get to see a bear. No luck. Continue reading “Back From The Fruit Of B.C.”

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Adventures in Canadian Wine Country

Heading off to the Okanagan [wiki. def.] to get away for the weekend. For me, it’ll be a chance to explore more of the interior of British Columbia. I’m unsure as to what to expect from the mountain passes in terms of driving the route to get there, but it’s going to be a pretty fun experience.

Rebecca and I on wine tours? I think it’s a recipie for neat things to happen. I’d say disaster, but I know it’s going to be a good time. Makes disaster seem like such a lackluster word, eh?

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We Goin’ to See Some of Them There Rock Shows

In every budget, you have to make room for something recreational. Rock and roll is that for Rebecca and I. And boy howdy, we have quite the calendar of events lining up for us.

South is going to be exciting. I recently heard that they had some sort of song on The O.C. some time ago, so this puts the potential turnout at the show even greater. I still have hopes that it’ll be a good show. April 20th at the Red Room on Richards.

Mates of State are coming to town on April 21st, and I picked up tickets for that last week. The Plaza Club should be an interesting place to check them out, being the last place I saw them was at Gabes back in Iowa City. Tony Pierce had an article about them on Buzznet. They will also be making an appearance at Cochella, and I’d like to be there as well. Turns out there is more to Pierce than just a crazy blogger, or at least I was impressed.

Scored tickets to Snow Patrol on June 14th at the Commodore Ballroom. It was an early bird special that we jumped on, but it’s exciting to be seeing another show there, the first and last one that I caught being Matthew Good.

Lots of rock goodness going on in this city, and this isn’t nearly half of it. I just don’t have enough time to blog about it all right now, but the point is that we have tickets to check out these shows!

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Hello, Fat Cat

Fat CatYou see some interesting things while wandering around the west end in Vancouver.

That is a fat, old cat. Probably the size of two soccer balls, and cool as can be.

I couldn’t tell if it was guarding the store or just hanging out. Either way, he never looked at us once. Just kept staring out the door.

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Coffee-grinder-aphobia

Coffee Bean MachineWe finally made it through the award winning coffee from the Clubside Breakfast Time folks this week. When you’re out, you need more.

We wandered over to Capers on Robson St. last night, thinking that we’d go for more organic stuff because we really loved the one pound of Olympia Coffee Roasting Co. beans, fair trade and organic goodness. Although, the beans were a slight issue, but I found that a blender works for grinding them. I also found that I might have ruined the blender.

Anyway, we hunted down the coffee section and found that they pretty much had only whole bean coffee, aside from one brand that we couldn’t tell much about other than it was just coffee. Dark, medium, or what? These things matter.

Finally, after a half hour of looking at various, organic brands and almost giving up to head to the grocery store to buy already ground coffee, we watched some random woman go throught the process of grinding beans with the machine in the store. After learning what we could through the corners of our eyes, we gave it a shot.

Capers Coffee GrinderLow and behold, it freaking worked! For so long I have feared making a complete idiot of myself using the in store coffee grinder, worrying that I would send beans everywhere or a big pile of grounds on the floor. That’s not to say that we didn’t have some issues, but once we actually got the machine to give us our beans, the grinding was pretty easy after that.

Vancouverites love their coffee. I’m slowly becoming one of them, but it all works out in the end. I’m getting more and more Vancouverites to love margaritas. Poncho’s ain’t half bad either.

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NPR Quick to Podcasts, Regreting Decision?

Wired.com is running an article on their site about National Public Radio’s podcasting efforts hurting their fund raising.

“Why would I sit through all of that if I can get what I like for free online, listen to it on my own time and not be guilted for weeks into giving money?” says Michaels, a real estate agent who says her husband donates to the station on behalf of her family. “I’ve even found a whole bunch of NPR shows online that aren’t on NPR here, which is so great.”

That kind of thinking reflects both the blessing and curse presented by podcasting. On the upside, the medium is expanding NPR’s overall audience and boosting some shows previously unavailable in many markets. While most NPR programming has been streamed online for several years, the portable, time-shifted, on-demand nature of podcasting affords a new level of convenience and access.

As some one who worked for an NPR affiliate and tried to create podcast content from there, this is interesting. Fund raising happens at regular times of the year for nearly all affiliates. Some stations do this more times a year than others, but it happens. The other major thing to note is that there is a lot of cooperation from NPR themselves, sending satellite feeds of fund drive programming out at specified times.

I subscribe and listen to a handful of NPR podcasts. I really like what they are doing, they get what this medium can do for their programming. What I don’t get is how they can ignore the fund raising issue. It would be very easy to tag something on at the beginning of podcasts to remind listeners to support their local stations, specifically on podcasts that are timely, such as the NPR news podcasts. Continue reading “NPR Quick to Podcasts, Regreting Decision?”