I didn’t know about the comic book series The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore until this summer, when Rachel bought me the first volume in the series of comics. I was immediately enamoured.

The series looks at what a post-apocalyptic Earth would look like, if the apocalypse had something to do with a virus (or something) that makes the dead rise again. It’s less focused on zombies, and more interested in examining what that new reality does to the living left to carve out a niche without having their faces eaten.

When I found out AMC was creating an original series based on The Walking Dead, I thought I was going to explode with zombie-joy.

The series premieres on Halloween night this year, with a 90-minute first episode. My plans for Halloween have therefore been solidified. Here, then, is the extra-long trailer recently released by AMC…

0:00: Show Intro
2:35: Scott’s American vacation, and part one of our interview with Daniel Kaszor
8:27: Birthday party highlights with Ryan Jespersen from CityTV
18:10: Birthday party highlights with Samantha Power from Vue Weekly
24:37: Part two of our interview with Daniel Kaszor
43:01: More birthday party highlights with Colin MacIntyre from Makin’ Whoopee
47:37: More birthday party highlights with Trent Wilkie from Mostly Water Theatre
54:20: Adam Rozenhart – UNLEASHED
57:30: Part three of our interview with Daniel Kaszor
1:19:20: The Fast Fifteen with Daniel Kaszor

Let us know what you thought, everyone! Do you love us? Hate us? TELL US!

Download episode 31 of the Unknown Studio directly to your computer.

The Unknown Studio is a proud member of the League of Extraordinary Media.

=====================================================
EDMONTON JOURNAL STILL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
=====================================================

It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio this month!

We’re helping EJ to promote their Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!
=====================================================

More awesome than we could have expected.

On the next episode of the Unknown Studio, we’ll have a few highlights from the evening. Meanwhile, League of Extraordinary Media co-founder Brittney Le Blanc was kind enough to take a bunch of photos of the event and post them. Here’s a slideshow for you:

Huge thanks to all of the local celebrities who read for us, including Josh Classen, Ryan Jespersen, Samantha Power, Colin MacIntyre, Craig Schram and Trent Wilkie. You were all amazingly hilarious. We’ll definitely have to do it again sometime.

Fans of ours will recall that we made a big deal out of turning one back in June. But I feel like we didn’t go far enough, like we didn’t really KICK IT UP to the NOTCH that this momentous occasion merited. So, after some discussion with our League of Extraordinary Media friends, we decided a party — with delicious cake and delicious entertainment a delicious amount of time after our deliciously authentic birthday — was in order.

And so, along with Jeff and Sally, the aforementioned cherubs, we conceived of this:

It’s all happening on August 23rd, and you can get all the details on Facebook. The Unknown Studio’s own Scott C. Bourgeois will be emceeing a night of riveting and silly entertainment. We hope you’ll join us, because I was totally serious about the cake.

*Unicorns are old, right? RIGHT?!

• 0:00: Show intro (“Optimus Prime!”)
• 2:20: We dip into the You’ve Got Mail bag
• 5:31: Interview with Eri Riot from Geekbadge.ca
• 13:10: Interview with Stanley Woo of Apocalypse Kow — the group’s appearing at this year’s Edmonton Fringe!
• 22:50: Sex Talk with Brenda Kerber from the Traveling Tickle Trunk
• 26:31: Interview with Carrie Robinson, who recently auditioned for Wipeout
• 36:02: Outro (“So long Cybertron!”)

Huge thanks to Parabolix, DJ Chronos and LG from the Free Sound Project for helping out with our zipper sound effect and Cybertron soundscape.

Let us know what you thought, everyone! Do you dig the new format? Hate it? TELL US!

Download episode 30 of the Unknown Studio directly to your computer.

The Unknown Studio is a proud member of the League of Extraordinary Media.

=====================================================
EDMONTON JOURNAL STILL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
=====================================================

It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio this month!

We’re helping EJ to promote their Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!
=====================================================

And Smores! OK, I only thought of smores because it contains the word “more” and I’m going camping this weekend.

But this final installment of FML Friday is themed (applause)! This week, it’s all about money!

A-like so:

Cat Power

Today, my uncle passed away, leaving me an inheritance of $800, and his forty-seven cats. FML

Woohoo! Cat Party!

Or, maybe just think of it in a Pied Piper kind of way. With just a little bit of training, this Cat Army can do your bidding!

On the other hand, you should probably just register an account at icanhascheezburger.com.

Hush money?

Today, my boyfriend actually offered me $1000 to break up with him, and to move back to where my family lives 5 hours away. FML

If you don’t feel like moving, and you want to invest in around 47 cats for companionship, I have a good line on a referral for you.

Guard your investment

Today, I was bragging endlessly to my friends about my new $900 laptop. I then tripped and dropped it down the wooden stairs. FML

That’s what you get for bragging about a bottom-of-the-line laptop, doucheknuckle. Now go buy a real computer.

Picky eater

Today, I had to go to counselling as my mother thinks I have an eating disorder. All because I didn’t want to eat the crap supermarket lasagna she bought for $2. FML

Did you explain to the counselor what a waste of time your appointment was before or after you paid them their fee? Or did you just take the money and go enjoy proper lasagna?

Cue Annie Lennox

Today, I threw a party at my girlfriend’s house before her parents came home from vacation. After the party, I found all of her mom’s favorite wine glasses broken. I spent $500 on new glasses, and wrote a huge apology for the party and the damage. She got home and told me that they were already broken. FML

ZING! I hope you have a receipt for those glasses. I also hope you didn’t explain to her HOW you think they got broken. Actually, scratch that. She probably knows. NOW GO AND BUY MATCHING DISHES!

• 0:00: Show intro (“Back to the Future!”)
• 1:40: Part 1 – Interview with the YegLive.ca’s Chris Martyniuk
• 5:56: An interview with Jeff and Sally, creators of TheEdmontonian.com and Saturday Night with Samsonow (music provided by the Mystery Ponies)
• 15:47: Part 2 – Interview with Chris Martyniuk
• 36:48: A look at the life of an International Street Performer
• 46:29: A Dramatic Reading with Scott C Bourgeois (Dawson Bridge Watch™ goes audio!)
• 49:26: Part 3 – Interview with Chris Martyniuk
• 1:09:22: The Fast Fifteen with Chris Martyniuk
• 1:12:56: Extro (“Naked interview”)

Thanks to Pixelens Photography for allowing us to use their image of Lex Justice on the show slider!

Let us know what you thought, everyone! Do you dig the new format? Hate it? TELL US!

Download episode 29 of the Unknown Studio directly to your computer.

The Unknown Studio is a proud member of the League of Extraordinary Media.

=====================================================
EDMONTON JOURNAL STILL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
=====================================================

It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio this month!

We’re helping EJ to promote their Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!
=====================================================

You can check the rerun of the show on theEdmontonian.com’s LiveStream page. And on the next episode of the Unknown Studio, we chat with the show’s creators Jeff and Sally about just what this whole thing was really about.

In the meantime, here’s a slideshow of images from the big event (all images taken by @Raquelgal):

And they’re calling it: Saturday Night with Samsonow.

It all started up in the brains of TheEdmontonian.com creators Sally and Jeff. Several weeks ago, we met over dinner and drinks and started to discuss it. Sally has some background in video editing and both she and Jeff have become pretty damned skilled at creating and editing some great video content on their website (check out Jeff’s most recent video on the SOS Fest). As two people who are trying to push the boundaries and raise the bar for what alternative media can provide in terms of entertainment, content and information, Saturday Night with Samsonow seemed like a step in the right direction.

Over that fateful dinner, Sally pitched the idea to me, and I thought it was awesome. “How can I help?” I asked. “Can I be a guest?!” As you can probably guess, Sally thought that would be a good idea.

Here’s what the sign looks like outside TheEdmontonian.com theatre*:

And yes, I’m writing about this because I’m going to be one of Jeff’s first guests — and I believe Pepe Duenas from the Mystery Ponies is the band leader (or just the band himself. That remains to be seen).

The show starts at 9pm MDT on a live stream hosted at TheEdmontonian.com. Be there, or be marginally disappointed!

*TheEdmontonian.com theatre doesn’t actually exist… yet.

Now, if you’re still here and haven’t shot yourself in the face from hardcore mediocrity, then read on. I guess.

The ‘list’

Today, my dad found my “list”. 32 guys, 4 girls. Colour coded as to who I would sleep with again and who I wouldn’t, who were virgins, etc. He complimented me on my “organizational skills.” FML

What did you expect him to say? “I’m proud my little girl is so ambitious about the number of people she wants to sleep with”? He’s just trying to resolve with what he’s seeing on this list against the fact that you now appear to have a sexual conquest list is more than double that of most ensemble casts in film and television.

Homeless birthday

Today, I found out I’m being evicted from my apartment on my birthday. FML

Yeah, you know that’s kinda my fault. I mean, I don’t know you and I didn’t really know what to get you. And I just dislike you so much… So, I guess what I’m saying is… Happy birthday?

Poor and whiny

Today, I realized I hate the career I have spent the last 7 years and $120,000 preparing for. FML

Well, better to know now than in, say, 20 years, amiright!?

Talk to me, dance with me

Today, I bullied a kid at school, just so someone would talk to me. FML

That’s really how it starts, isn’t it? Why don’t you just put a sock on your hand and talk to it instead? Seriously, the world has enough problems without having to worry about the next Charles Manson.

Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em

Today, my mom found my pack of cigarettes. She’s now making me go to rehab. I had only smoked one cigarette ever just to try it. I didn’t even like it. FML

Rehab? Are you serious? I’m getting tired of the anti-smoking thing, and I hate cigarettes. How much can a single group be marginalized? Let them choke on their smoke. It’s a personal choice! Now, to the FMLer: smoke your brains out. And if you have an iPad, please betroth it to me in your will.

The ACTUAL truth is these FMLs stay at the same level of quality: bunch of first-world problems from whiny little sucks. But even after all this time, even in spite of the fact that this whole FML Friday dream ends at the end of July, all of this — THIS! — makes it worth it.

Now let’s hear it from the morons:

Breathalizer

Today, I was getting ready to go to the movies with friends. I was brushing when my dad walked into the bathroom and said I couldn’t go anymore. He thought I wanted fresh breath to make out with some guy. FML

Wow, so your dad’s a paranoid fuck, huh? What does he do when you apply deodorant? “Oh no, little missy. I won’t have any daughter of mine with one of those DISGUSTING TATTOOS polluting her body! No! Off to the convent with you!”

Oh no you di’n't, girfren!

Today, I proposed to my girlfriend. She happily said yes. After a few minutes of kissing, she said, “Wait, does this mean we have to live together?” FML

Aren’t you lucky! You’ve known this girl awhile, and she’s been able to fool you into thinking she’s smart enough to marry. Then, just after you get engaged, she reveals her true brain power. Just in time for you to get out of Dodge without entirely ruining your life.

Slippery when wet

Today, I slipped on the wet floor at work and sprained my wrist badly. I was carrying the wet floor sign so no one would slip. FML

WAIT! STOP! WE NEED TO GET ALANIS TO DO ANOTHER VERSION OF “ISN’T IT IRONIC”! Or, no, hang on… no we don’t. Drink some fuckin’ milk, mmmmkay?

Ai haz a sadbrow

Today, I got my sister to pluck my eyebrows. She shaped them wrong, so now I look constantly sad. FML

I’m going to assume you feel sad about this as well. Does that mean, then, that because of your sadbrows, you look REALLY sad? Like, suicidal, even? I bet if you feel happy and where that winning smile, you just look like you have a neutral expression. Oh, yeah: sad.

Never turn your back on the… uh, artificial ocean

Today, I got bitch-slapped by a walrus at Sea Life Park. FML

Oh man! That’s badass! Did someone videotape it? Did they send it to FAIL Blog? SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE OF THIS HILARITY!

• 0:00: Show intro (“Where’s Adam?”)
• 1:23: Part 1 – Interview with the Edmonton Journal’s videogame blogger Ben Gelinas
• 7:19: elm café, one month after launch
• 18:16: Part 2 – Interview with Ben Gelinas
• 31:30: Sex Talk with Brenda Kerber from the Traveling Tickle Trunk
• 39:10: Adam Rozenhart Unleashed (in response to this)
• 46:28: Part 3 – Interview with Ben Gelinas
• 1:07:27: The Fast Fifteen with Ben Gelinas

Let us know what you thought, everyone! Do you dig the new format? Hate it? TELL US!

Download episode 28 of the Unknown Studio directly to your computer.

The Unknown Studio is a proud member of the League of Extraordinary Media.

=====================================================
EDMONTON JOURNAL STILL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
=====================================================

It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio this month!

We’re helping EJ to promote their Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!
=====================================================

Take it away, Swami!

One small step for weirdo…

Today, the first step I took this morning resulted in a blood-gushing cut on my foot. FML

Swami says, “Don’t throw stones in a glass house, because if you do — maybe while sleep-walking or something — you’re going to wake up and fuck up your feet on all the broken glass.”

Social media for weight-loss (ask us how!)

Today, I posted a picture on Facebook. Somebody commented on it, saying “I notice you have a treadmill in your basement, try using it.” 21 people liked the comment in about 15 minutes. FML

Swami says, “It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a group of friends on Facebook to make you realize that you actually are a chubby fat-ass.”

Wand compensation

Today, I got a tattoo based on the Harry Potter books. My dad’s response was “I now fully understand why you’re still single.” FML

Swami says, “The meek shall inherit the earth, but a dork like you is going to need more than a Patronus spell to keep your ass from being kicked when people see your lame tattoo.”

A rube and his car

Today, I lost my car in a bet that Germany would crush Spain in the World Cup. FML

Swami says, “A fool and his money are soon parted, but it takes a special kind of asshole to ignore the wisdom of Paul the Octopus and lose his car in the process.”

Coming out of the closet

Today, I finally got around to organizing my closet. Discarded clothes fell into three distinct categories: Too Small, Yellow Pits, Stained with Food. FML

Swami says, “Often a noble face hides filthy ways, but even a lazy, entitled noble has the good sense to launder his clothes before they’re discarded in his closet, you sick fuck.”

But you have us for the next four weeks. The beginning of the end!

A blond walks into a bar…

Today, I went on a second date with this guy I really liked. It was going well until his friend popped in our date and began telling blonde jokes. My date joined in and told blonde jokes for the remainder of our date. I’m Jenny, his very blonde date. FML

Blond jokes? Did you go back in time to 1988 to go on this date or something? Tell the retard parade to cram it, and go date a real man (preferably a brunette).

Jelly nose

Today, I broke my nose opening a jar of jelly. FML

This is a feat… of what I’m not sure. You know you’re supposed to use your hands to open a jar of jelly and not a gas-powered pogo stick, right?

Hobo hootenanny

Today, I was walking home from work when a hobo checked me out, asking which alley I live in. FML

You need to be more sensitive. The only world this poor beggar knows is the hobo world. He’s looking for someone he can relate to. And you’re judging him because he thinks you’re a hobo? How about fuck you?

Mother’s day

Today, it was my mother’s birthday. I wanted to be nice this year, and give her roses, chocolate, and a book of tips on how to stay young. She yelled at me for accusing me of thinking she’s an old wrinkly granny. FML

Listen dude, if you can’t see why this would piss your mom off, you’re beyond help. The book completely nullifies the other two gifts. You can claim she misinterpreted your gesture, just like I can claim that you’re an insensitive prick.

Sun spots

Today, I got so sunburnt, I now share a color palette with a tomato. FML

Literally FOR DECADES, meteorologists, other scientists, parents, teachers… damn near everyone has been advising people to do two things: wear sunscreen, and don’t spend all your time out in the sun. Since you haven’t been listening for 30 years, you deserve to have a tomato-like complexion.

If you want to know what’s happening in Edmonton, go see what Jeff has to say about it!

Take it away, Tom Brokaw!

• 0:00: Show intro and beginning of interview with Brittney Le Blanc
• 6:10: An interview with local mom and bicycle blogger Ms Sarah Chan
• 20:44: We discuss Heroes with Brittney Le Blanc
• 32:47: Scott, Brittney and Adam answer your random Formspring questions (h/t to our pals at Makin’ Whoopee for the idea)
• 43:45: A dramatic reading… with Scott C. Bourgeois
• 48:05: We discuss Brittney’s robot double… and Girl Geek Dinners (shout out to Sally Poulsen @ 48:45)
• 1:02:00: The Fast Fifteen with Brittney Le Blanc

Let us know what you thought, everyone! Do you dig the new format? Hate it? TELL US!

Download episode 27 of the Unknown Studio directly to your computer.

The Unknown Studio is a proud member of the League of Extraordinary Media.

=====================================================
EDMONTON JOURNAL STILL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
=====================================================

It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio this month!

We’re helping EJ to promote their Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!
=====================================================

We’d like to borrow a page from the book of Nate Box, who only opened his elm café when he was satisfied that it was ready. We demand the exact same satisfaction on your behalf, fifties of listeners/readers.

When we’re ready with the new episode later on this week, there will be much fanfare. In the meantime, cozy up to a few outtakes from the Back to the Future movies:

Are you ready?

That’s what friends are for

Today, was the third day of my camping trip with my “friends”. I woke up in my boxers with my hand glued to my forehead. FML

This was a demonstration of your friends’ love for you, even though it seems totally counter-intuitive. Stop being such a pussy and up the ante.

Grey skies are gonna clear up

Today, a powerful thunderstorm rolled through my area. I’d forgotten I’d left my sunroof open. FML

If this is all you have to complain about — I mean, fuck you for having a sunroof, pal — then you’re got it good. Grab some towels and turn that frown upside down.

To infinite! And bey-bleeeeerrraaaaagh

Today, I saw Toy Story 3 with my mom. At some point, she emptied her soda and filled her cup with alcohol from a flask. Eventually, she puked all over the little kid sitting in front of her. FML

Your mom is actually awesome. Nothing beats one-upping a kid at a movie by puking on him before he turns around and pukes on you!

Fish heads, fish heads

Today, my grandfather died. The last thing he said to me was “You smell awful.” I work in a fish store. FML

You work at a fish store, huh? Then he was probably right: you smell awful. Our condolences.

BBZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZZzzzzzzZZ!

Today, the Vuvuzela that my brother ordered online was delivered to our house. FML

Dude: that sucks.

Doctor Emmett Brown conceived of a method of time travel when he hit his head on a toilet bowl while trying to hang a clock in his washroom. The Unknown Studio’s genesis is no less riveting, but it really involves drinking beer from a toilet, not bumping one’s head on it.

But we’ve discussed the past all week long. What of this triumphant future we continually espouse? A few things:

• This website was only the start — or rather, the natural progression of the Unknown Studio. We have plans to create some pretty cool video with the help of our friends at LEM.
• Since YEGSwap was such a rousing success, we’re looking at doing more events this year. Perhaps even all regular-like.
• The show itself will change — this we’ve already mentioned. But it will still focus on the goings-on in Edmonton.
• I will continue to swear, because I enjoy the sound of curse words (which means some of our listeners will need to put the kids to bed before tuning in).
• Thanks to the sponsorship dollars we have coming in (we LOVE Guru Digital Arts College and Traveling Tickle Trunk for their support and love), we’ll be able to do more timely, diverse things with the show.
• No one shot JR; it was all a dream.

One of the major points of beginning this podcast was to help citizens of Edmonton shed the notion that there isn’t anything interesting taking place in this city. And while I’m the first to admit that sometimes I feel bored, there are resources out there to help you make the most of Edmonton. This is one of them. So is theEdmontonian.com and TrueBritl.com. Mack Male created ShareEdmonton to show that very thing.

Two years ago, I was hell bent on leaving this place. Despite the fact that I was born and raised here, I didn’t feel like I had a personal stake in the city. This show has changed all that. There are thousands of cool people and cool things happening in old Why Ee Gee all the time.

The future? The future is about sharing that with you all. I hope you’ll continue to count yourselves among our 50s of listeners and readers. This city may not have been built on rock n’ roll, but there’s enough rockers and rollers here that the fortunes of Edmonton have taken a turn and will continue to take a turn for the better. And we want to be part of those fortunes.

Yes, friends, today marks our official first birthday. The Unknown Studio turns one today — sometime later this afternoon to be precisely. And though we’ve already done a bit of a summary of the last year, using data from the ever-popular Fast Fifteen, I thought I’d get into a few more details about the show’s successes.

As we’ve explained before, this whole concept started at a tweet-up. It was all downhill from there. We started the show using the LibSyn podcasting service — which served us very well for a time… But eventually we wanted to host everything ourselves, with our own website, theme and all. That’s what you’re looking at right now.

But the consistent piece throughout our one-year history has always been the podcast. And while we started out our first six or so episodes with an average per-episode download rate of about 150, we’ve since grown…

We’re up to an average per-episode download rate of 544. We’ve gone from tens of listeners to fifties of listeners.

A lovely birthday card from our friends at theEdmontonian.com

And just so that our guests can gloat amongst themselves, these are the top-five, most-downloaded episodes, starting with most downloaded.

1. Ken Bautista: 1,333 downloads
2. Mack Male: 1,050 downloads
3. Cary Williams: 767 downloads
4. Nate Box: 739 downloads
5. State of the Podcast (Adam & Scott): 681

It’s been a hell of a year, going from tens to fifties of listeners. I don’t think Scott and I ever set any formal benchmarks for success… Mostly because we didn’t really know what would actually make a good benchmark. Given that our show’s content is focused on Edmontonians and things taking place here in the city, I think we’ve been damned successful.

Especially given the fact that our fifth most downloaded episode occurred as a result of a guest fully jamming out on us. Which was fine in the end — it turns out Scott and I can handle a whole show on our own… And that sort of brings us to the future of the show.

But we’ll leave that for our last installment, which we’ll be publishing tomorrow.

For now, there are a few individuals we need to thank for helping us out along the way. We absolutely could not have done this without: Rachel, Anita, Jeff & Sally, Brittney, Ramin & Cory, Craig, Dave, Adam, Karen, Marty, Brenda, Owen, our wonderful listeners, our wonderful guests, the City of Edmonton (in particular, their communications and traffic departments), 630 CHED and iNews880.

And in our forthcoming episode, S02E01, we’ll answer a recent question that’s been asked of us: “Who has been your favourite guest this season?” among other queries.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, THE UNKNOWN STUDIO!

In our first installment of our TUS retrospective, we gave you some very deep and thoughtful pie charts that detail the splits in responses to some of our Fast Fifteen questions. Some questions, however, yield such unusual results that they simply defy the concept of pie charts.

These are their stories.

Tell me more, like, does he have a car?

About halfway through the season, it became clear that the question “What was your least proud moment?” wasn’t a terribly popular one. I think it’s because people’s least proud moments typically involve extreme weakness, poor judgment and even vomit. Sometimes, least proud moments involve all three of these things. We weren’t getting good answers out of people, so we ditched the question.

I replaced it with “What was your first vehicle?” I expected most people who get really cheeky as respond with, “A tricycle,” but most of the answers are based around motor vehicles, save for Peter Daly’s — he counts his bicycle as his first vehicle.

Other interesting responses to this question include…

• Sally Poulsen, TheEdmontonian.com: “A 1979 Dodge Aspen named Sweet Miss Pickles.”
• Cary Williams, Man About Town: “A Chevy Sprint, 2-seater convertible in turquoise blue.”

And my personal favourite response, from our own Scott C Bourgeois:

• “A teal-green Pontiac Cutlass Supreme, called Guzzy.”

‘Mmmmm… 64 slices of American Cheese’

Our guests also enjoy a vast array of different kinds of foods. And while diversity is the key, it seems most of our guests favourite Italian food… Lots of “pasta”-like responses on the “Favourite food” question (2 spaghettis, 1 lasagna, and 2 pastas — I got very specific and mentioned the Manor Pasta from the Manor Bistro).

Some of the more unique answers included:

• A dish that Ramin mentioned, but whose spelling I have no idea about… Ram, perhaps you can comment?
• Butter Chicken… not terribly unique, but cool that Don Iveson would pick such a yummy dish.
• Wine gums… Not technically “food,” I don’t think. But Dave Cournoyer‘s fave.
• And perhaps the most specific answer we got was from David Berry: he likes the Tofu Clubhouse from Café Mosaics.

Movies, movies everywhere!

Finally, we have our movies categories. Scott and I are huge movie buffs, so the Fast Fifteen was replete with questions about film. However, we found over the course of the season that there are just some people who don’t share our enthusiasm for the oeuvre, so we’ll be changing up the question list for our new season.

Anyway, I’m least interested in people’s favourite movies, and want to know their Secret Shame movies. You know, movies they hate to admit they like because they’re just SO TERRIBLE. Here are some of the more hilarious ones:

• Waterworld (Don Iveson)
• Godfather III (Ramin Ostad)
• A Walk To Remember (Brent Jans)
• Can’t Hardly Wait (Rob Fishbook)
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Ken Bautista)
• Titanic (Tom Ohle)

Yup… We have a diverse range of guests with a diverse range of tastes!

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at how much the show’s grown over year. A hint: it’s exceed both Scott’s and my expectations.

Into the second episode of the podcast, which was a long discussion about the city with councilor Don Iveson, Scott and I were already trying to think of ways to mix things up — to change the slow in small ways to make it much more interesting. At the beginning of Don’s interview I started scribbling into my notebook a series of really simple and fast questions we could ask Don to cap off the interview. I came up with the name Fast Fifteen, as the intention is for our guests to more or less blast through the list.

This almost never happens.

But the Fast Fifteen generates some pretty interesting discussions, answers and comments. Below are a few charts displaying how people have answered over the course of the season. I couldn’t get the “Favourite Colour” chart to match up colours to words, so forgive me if it looks really dumb. In fact, let’s start with that one…

A season of colour

Overwhelmingly, our guests love blue

You see that green section of the chart? That shows people who like the colour blue. Super intuitive, I know. blue and green were the top two this season. And only one person (Duncan Woytaszek from our Post-Partisan episode) likes the colour yellow.

A season of pets

One Fast Fifteen question we always ask of our guests is whether they prefer dogs or cats. Everyone has state a preference for one, the other, or both. But no one has ever said “neither,” which I thought was kind of interesting. Still, a majority of people prefer canines to felines:

Dog people. I guess they love mouth-breathing and drool

A season of computers

I’m sad to say it, but it seems most of our guests are PC users. Apple may be ubiquitous in the mobile phone markets, but they still have some work to do when it comes to personal computing… (Also, somewhat related, I’m glad they have Steam for Mac now. But I’m sad my little laptop isn’t powerful enough to run the games.)

It’s worth noting that none of our guests use Linux. But at least one guest prefers not to use a computer at all:

Jon Hodgman would be pleased

A season of holidays

The “What’s your favourite holiday question” is an interesting one. Some people interpret “holiday” as meaning favourite statutory holiday (in this case, we’re including birthdays), while others think I’m asking what they’re favourite vacation destination is. There’s no right answer, of course, so I never correct anyone, but it’s interesting how different people answer.

This season, four people shared their favourite destinations with us (India, Canmore, New Caledonia and England), but the chart below shows people’s favourite statutory holidays:

Christmas is about giving. And receiving. Oh yes. Receiving.

A season of sports

Finally, we come to sports. Not surprisingly, hockey is the overwhelming favourite sport among our guests, but there are some other interesting ones in there as well, including Rugby and Volleyball.

What really surprised me, though, is that no one said Baseball. Poor, poor Edmonton Capitals.

Oh, and at least one guest was a big fan of Quidditch.

In spite of a loser hockey team, our guests still love hockey

What’s next?

Clearly, these charts don’t depict the fifteen questions we ask of all our guests. Some of the responses are just too weird or diverse to place into a meaningful chart. So tomorrow we’ll have a post up discussing some of the funnier answers to questions, including movies people hate, and the first vehicles people were forced to drive. Stay tuned, as we celebrate our first birthday here at the Unknown Studio!

And note: if you have any questions for us about the show, or really anything, please fill out the Formspring form in the right nav. Who knows, we may even answer your questions on the air! Wouldn’t that be exciting?

THAT DAY HAS ARRIVED.

So on top of my own contribution, we have two more from the overworked Lilwall, whose insights into the lives of these FMLers far exceeds my own.

I know how you feel

Today, I woke up in an emergency room. Why? I hyperventilated and passed out when I found out that my favorite video game is getting a sequel. FML

So, you clearly overreacted. Winding up in the ER because you were that excited is astonishing. Maybe you were hanging out with some alarmist friends who had no idea what to do (for example, I’d have poured a glass of water over your face, and slapped you around a bit. If you were still unresponsive, I’d probably have watched a episode of TNG — you know, the one where the Continuum takes Q’s powers away? — and then if you were still passed out, I’d have brought you to the vet clinic. Because My vet’s a good friend, and I imagine he’d be able to revive you just like he would a cat or a dog).

But I imagine I’d have reacted the same way. In fact, I nearly did when I found out about Fallout: New Vegas. I was all like, “ZOMG!!!1!!eleven FALLOUT NEW VEGAS” and I started dancing around the room pretending to be a Raider. But not a bad Raider. More like a hard-edged Raider who probably wouldn’t just kill a Wastelander Wanderer for no reason, unless they had something I wanted.

Also, I would kill Super Mutants.

But again, this is all going to depend upon the video game in question. I wish I knew what it was because then I’d be able to determine whether or not you’re a total idiot. But given that you decided to share your story with the random people on FMyLife, I’m going with “total idiot.”

Man down

Today, I was hanging out in the pool with my friend, when a really hot guy walked my way. I really liked him, so the next time I saw him, I ‘accidentally’ bumped into him. He slipped and fell into the deep end of the pool. Little did I know, he couldn’t swim. I had to call a lifeguard. FML

I’ll admit, when I first read this one, I didn’t know what to think about this person’s courtship ritual. Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but when I see someone that I find attractive I drop anything that I’m doing, like preforming CPR, to go introduce myself. But, as I though harder on it, I realized that you actually went about this the right way. The first step to starting a relationship with this water-phobic hunk is to get him to notice you.

And you did! I’m sure that when he was looking up from the bottom of the pool, the bubbles from what he assumed would be his last breath floating past, he could make out your silhouette standing at the water’s edge. As his lungs burned and mind dulled from the lack of oxygen, the edges of his vision would have narrowed until it was only you. His chest would have tighten with attraction. Desire. Lack of air.

So keep it up, girlfriend. I hope you got his number when the lifeguard was pulling his unconscious form from the pool. Give the guy a couple days to recover before calling him up. On your first date, perhaps you could meet him at the door by headbutting him in the nose. And make sure that if you go out to dinner, ask the waiter to sneak something that the guy is deathly allergic to into the meal.

Trust me, he will never forget your name. Which he will need to fill out the request for a restraining order.

Always know where your towel is

Today, my brother came over and threw a fit because I didn’t have any soda. Sick of his whining, I took all the toilet paper out of the bathroom so he’d have to beg me for something to wipe his butt with. Instead, when my brother came out of the bathroom after taking a dump, he told me I would need to wash my towels. FML

Most advice columnists would say that you and your brother have a communication problem. But, most advice columnists are idiots. You guys communicate with something more effective than words: terrorism. If you had just told him that his whining bothered you, he might not have gotten the clue. Just like how you are now fully aware of how much your brother loves having a clean ass. These are things words cannot fully explain.

So, instead of telling you to change your ways, i just made a quick list of other tactics you can use when he does something that bothers you.

• Doesn’t put the toilet seat down when using your washroom: set fire to his room. (See last week’s FML post if you need help.)
• Forgets to pick you up at the airport: try to get him deported to a country that waterboards people for traffic violations.
• Borrows a CD and doesn’t return it: try to drown him. (#2 can show you how.)
• Forgets your birthday: Kneecap him with a powerdrill. He’ll never walk again.

You seem pretty creative, so do whatever feels right. Because nothing will help you guys connect as adults like acting like the miserable little shits you must have been when you were both kids.

That’s all that I’m legally obligated to do for today. Than you very much to Adam for letting me live my dream as an advice columnist. Now to move on to my next project: “Lady-Killer Dragon-Mouth,” my planned series of sexy, sexy fantasy novels.

Thanks to a tip from listener and Unknown Studio girlfriend (mine!) Rachel, we asked Brenda Kerber from The Traveling Tickle Trunk if she was willing to be on the show to talk about sex toys and the sex parties she helps organize. The show was great (you can listen to it here), and we started talking back then about maybe embarking upon a sponsorship arrangement.

I’m pleased to announce that, after some discussions, back-room negotiations, and fights to the death, the Unknown Studio has a new sponsor in one of Edmonton’s truly great, community-building businesses: Brenda Kerber’s Traveling Tickle Trunk!

When Scott and I decided to looks for sponsors, we really wanted to engage in partnerships with local businesses. We didn’t want to just exchange money so we could post an add on our site. We’re trying to work with companies to develop our individuals brands together. Our sponsorship agreement with Traveling Tickle Trunk, Guru Digital Arts and the Edmonton Journal are helping us to do just that.

Brenda Kerber, owner of the Traveling Tickle Trunk (from theEdmontonian.com)

As some of you will know, we’re changing up the format of the show (more on that in the coming weeks). And part of that will mean a monthly segment from Brenda, as she talks about sex toy trends, sexual health issues, and really whatever strikes her fancy. We’ll also be running some contests with the Traveling Tickle Trunk — so make sure you subscribe to our eNewsletter for the latest and greatest on that!

Stay tuned to the show and the site for more information about our new partnership with a truly great Edmonton business!

(As an aside, I’m hopeful they hit their target so I have a local watering hole I can hop and skip to. It’s called the Hilltop Pub.)

Given that I live three blocks away from the bridge myself, I have to note my own surprise at how late into the night these guys are working. I wouldn’t say it’s been disruptive to me, since I’ve learned to be able to sleep through everything — including those magpie jerks that insist on making a whole pile of noise first thing in the morning — but the noise is definitely noticeable, perhaps even more so because the River Valley is usually an exceedingly quiet place. This is, of course, with the exception of emergency vehicle sirens, but there’s a reason those things are really loud. Someone ought to point that out to Councillor Jane Batty.

Anyway, here’s what at least one Riverdale resident thinks about the noise waiver granted to the Dawson Bridge project:

Brenda Bolton, who lives on 87th Street, three houses down from the bridge, said she bought a noisy, second-hand fan to run at night in an attempt to drown out the construction noise.

“It doesn’t, but it was a good plan though,” she said, laughing. Bolton said she wouldn’t mind so much if she could sleep in on weekends to make up for the shut-eye she loses during the week.

“You would think they would have a little decency because you don’t sleep all week, but at 6 o’clock in the morning, they are out there pounding and blasting. I don’t know what the hell they are doing,” she said.

— From “All-night racket on Edmonton’s Dawson Bridge outrages Riverdale neighbour” in the Edmonton Journal, June 11, 2010, by Florence Loyie.

I’m not convinced this is an issue of common decency. It’s a tough balance between not disrupting those residence with noise, and not disrupting residence with the inconvenience of a very busy bridge being out of a commission for a whole year. Having said that, though, this comment at the end of the Journal story really caught my attention:

What has not been recognized is that the City of Edmonton held a presentation to the community of Riverdale one year ago promising that they can do the work on the bridge without being issued a NOISE WAIVER from the City! They (the City) indicated that the work can be done without having to work through the night! If nothing happens from this article, then everyone should get ear plugs including City Council and all of the people who complain about motorcycles and any other type of noise, traffic, buses, kids, schools, parties. Here is a suggestion get rid of the noise bylaw all together. I strongly support Barb and anyone else who holds the City of Edmonton accountable. She is not complaining that the bridge work – everyone wants the bridge work completed- she is complaining about how City Council are hypocrites. Pay attention to the story!

— Comment by “Greenthumbs” at 12:00PM on June 11, 2010.

If what this commenter says is true, then the city said they wouldn’t need to be working nearly around the clock to get the work done. I cannot say whether or not this is accurate, since I didn’t attend the presentation at the Riverdale community hall, but if this claim is true, it means two things:

1. The City apparently didn’t keep its word
2. If #1 is true, then the City probably needed to break its word in order to ensure the project would be completed on time.

This is one of those damned if you do, damned if you don’t situations. If the project wasn’t issued a noise waiver, it might not be completed on time and then citizens — from many different neighbourhoods, not just Riverdale — would be complaining about the fact that the city didn’t open the bridge on time.

Look, I get it. It’s disruptive and annoying. But I think this Journal commenter sums it up rather nicely:

Wow, its construction work, it noisy, theres no way around it. Sure they could have them work on it during the day only but how happy will everyone be when they tell you the bridge will be closed for 2+ years instead of one. Sometimes we have to put up with a little so a change can get through that helps alot more people. I lived near 137 ave and the lrt tracks when they built the bridges there, every morning 6 am they started pounding beams into the ground, i worked till midnight, so very little sleep but i knew it had to be done. Deal with it instead of being outraged.

— Comment by “Happypop” at 12:47PM on June 11, 2010 (emphasis mine).

It sucks that there’s noise into the wee hours of the morning. But it also sucks that no one can currently use the Dawson bridge.

Only 5.5 months to go!

I stopped in because I wanted delicious morning coffee… and I wanted to be their first customer. Sadly, I wasn’t early enough. I was merely customer #2, as the owner of the building grabbed a cup of joe on his way into work. Still, I was greeted with true warmth. Besides, I prefer to think of myself as #1 all the same — not unlike Commander Riker, who was second only to Captain Picard.

I spoke briefly with Nate and Claire (his wife) about their new project in between sips of what I would call, without hyperbole, one of the best lattés I’ve ever tasted.

Claire grabs a muffins from Duchess for me... They're heavenly

Right now, elm café is carrying Duchess Bakeshop muffins as well as panini which is pressed and heated for you once you order it. Otherwise, the keystone of the café is its namesake (no, you fool not elms! cafés!). While the food will change periodically, coffee is the shining star. Nate picked 49th Parallel coffee beans, sourced in British Columbia, as his ingredient of choice.

Coffee beans from a parallel dimension... or, you know, BC

The café itself is pristine and minimalist. Light grey concrete countertops, white cabinetry and a lovely, simple menu board make the café feel larger than it is. The whole east wall is a series of windows, which definitely helps to open up the space as well.

This month at the café, images from photog Jessica Fern Facette

elm café will feature artwork and photography from local talent, which will change every month. This month (and for the next 6 weeks, according to Nate, due to the delayed opening) photographs of Mexican wrestlers taken by Jessica Fern Facette adorn the walls.

Owner Nate Box's smiling visage reflected in the café huge espresso machine

I can safely say I’ll be making elm one of my regular morning stops, if only to see the smiling faces of some of Edmonton’s talented restaurantrepreneurs… There aren’t enough of them in this town.

Edit: Check out Kelly’s review of elm café… much more in-depth than mine!

(By the way, you should invest in TUS, BNGFL and SCB)

And, since we actually can’t figure it all out, we decided to get Empire Avenue Marketing Manager Tom Ohle on the show to pick his brain and get a handle on this whole insider trading thing… if only we could convince Tom to give us some tips.

So we dish about Empire Avenue, but we also get into some heady discussions about Star Trek and Scott’s learned fear of garbage trucks, Apple and their closed systems, and finally we talk about what’s been on everyone’s mind these last few years: whether or not Drew Carey has ruined the Price is Right forever.

This is the last episode of the season (technically, Scott and I are tracking seasons for the show. This is S01E26), and it’s a great note to end things off with. Give it a listen, leave us a comment or two, and stay tuned for our season premiere in just two short week!

Download episode 26 of the Unknown Studio directly to your computer.

The Unknown Studio is a proud member of the League of Extraordinary Media.

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EDMONTON JOURNAL STILL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
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It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio this month!

We’re helping EJ to promote their Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!
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Oh sure, I put it off again. But rather than suffer through having to write clever responses to stupid FMLs (which, now that I think about it, is kinda like “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” in MAD Magazine), I’ve enlisted the help of the Twitter hive mind. Unknown Studio pals Jeff, Jen and Lilwall provide answers to what ails you in this week’s edition of me passing the buck. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

Halloween and realism

Today, I was walking to my friends Halloween themed birthday party in my zombie costume. Apparently, my crazy coke addicted neighbor found the costume too realistic. He tackled me. FML

@journalistjeff: “First off, they have illustrated FMLs!!! So, that’s cool.

“Now, onto the topic at hand. F your L? F YOUR L?! What are you talking about? That guy may or may not be a coke head, but he’s a zombie fighting machine. And we may or may not need those one day. Soon.

“He was ready for the zombie invasion. Heck, he’s probably not even on cocaine. Or cola. He’s probably just been preparing for the zombiepocalypse and what you mistook for a twitchy, nervous drug addict was just keen zombie preparedness. He’s going to need that edge, and heightened senses when the dead rise again.

“Unless he’s just a coke head and you live in a terrible neighbourhood. Then your L may be F’d. But I’m siding with the zombie-fighter.”

Big baby Coin-face

Today, I was playing my guitar and singing on the street corner. I did earn money, when some guy threw a quarter out of his car window for me. It hit me in the face. I now have a circle shaped bruise under my eye. FML

@steenyweeny: “Wow hippie, talk about glass half empty — you’ve got this all backwards. The guy in the car helped you out in two ways.

“First of all, you have some money now and money is great. I suggest that you use the money to buy a frozen tofu steak to put on your eye, so that the swelling doesn’t get out of control. Secondly, you have a bruise on your face, and chicks dig scars. What you need to do is think of a better explanation as to how it got there. Try something like you were rescuing some kittens or protesting against the seal hunt, because everyone likes stories that involve cute baby animals.

“So now you have your nice, big (but not too big thanks to that tofu steak) bruise, and new story about how you got it when you were struck in the face while rescuing some kittens. You take this bruise and story down to drum circle tonight and BAM! that cute chick won’t be able to resist you! She’ll come home with you, you’ll fall in love, get married and have lots of little patchouli babies.

“You can thank both me and the guy in the car on your wedding day.”

You’re fired… get it?

Today, I wanted to impress my girlfriend with a cool fire breathing trick I learned online, and ended up burning half her room. She’s pressing charges. FML

@scott_lilwall: “I’ll admit, I am a bit iffy on if this FML offering is real. Not because the guy says he learned fire-breathing to impress women: that rings true with me. Whenever I hit the bar, I pull out every circus trick I know to woo the ladies – sword-swallowing, eating lightbulbs, that kind of thing. Sometimes, when someone really catches my eye, I’ll even show them Wiggles, the conjoined twin I have growing out of my abdomen. Cause I’m a playa like that.

“So, it’s not the fire-breathing thing that smells fishy. It’s the fact that he learned it on the Internet. I’ve been on the Internet almost four times, and there is nothing educational on it. Just dyslexic cats, narcoleptic dogs and the porn in every colour of the rainbow. A perverted rainbow you can look at for only $29.99 a month.

“So, Mr. Lady-Killer Dragon-Mouth, I think you are a liar. But, on the off chance you aren’t, here’s my advice: your chances with this girl are over. ‘Setting fire to her room’ is third on my list of Relationship Ending Moves. (Number two is ‘sleeping with her sister.’ Number one combines the two in to ‘setting her sister on fire.’)

“So, she is going to dump you. But don’t worry, because you have a skill that has you set for life: lung capacity. Seriously. I’ve seen fire-breathers before. They usually have enough oomph in the old chest for an impressive, but brief flash of flame. You are able to take out half a room! That’s a sustained blast. With lung power like that, you have the pick of sexy professions. Like, a diver who salvages gold dubloons from pirate ships. Or a garbage man.

“Not as hot as ‘guy with a deformed, shrieking twin growing out of his side,’ no. But still, you’ll do alright for yourself.”

This afternoon, my roommate shared a YouTube video with me. In the mountain town of Jasper, the Jasper Sustainability Club for Youth recently organized a flash-mob dance-party that rocked down Patricia Street. It’s a powerful and fun demonstration of community, communication and togetherness. I’ve watched it twice now and it makes me smile, so I thought I’d share it with you:

When it comes to the show, it’s no different. Scott and I spend a lot of time zoomed in on the specifics of what we’re doing — booking guests, recording and editing audio, coming up with content for the website — that we often forget to pause, step back, and take a look at where we’ve arrived. They have cliches that describe this — about forests and trees, and smelly roses. But we’re much too high-brow to invoke such phrases.

Still, I’d like to pause, if you’ll indulge me, and take a look and where we’ve arrived. If I get too self-flagellating, please feel free to take me down a peg in the comments.

You see, the Unknown Studio — the flagship of what we do, the podcast — is coming up on its first birthday. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is an exceedingly big deal to us. And hopefully to our listeners as well. Here’s a bit of a year in review for you:

• At some tweet-up in April or May 2009: Scott and I met, became reacquainted, and mused over the idea of creating a hyperlocal podcast.
• At some point at the beginning of June 2009: Scott and I met, this time to discuss, exclusively, the podcast. We started to plan things. We even enlisted the help of Daryl Hooke to come up with a show name, something I’m not sure we ever fully gave him credit for (thanks so much for naming us, Daryl!)
• June 23, 2009: We published our first show, with guest Brittney Le Blanc.
• July 6, 2009: We randomly introduced the Fast Fifteen into the [second ever!] show.
• November 2009: With the help of the wonderful, brilliant and beautiful Sally Poulsen, we launched the knew website… you’re lookin’ at it. And thanks to a young man named Eldon, we also got an official-looking logo!
• December 2009: We got our first sponsor! The Edmonton Journal!
  Also, a guy named Baxx asked if he can rebroadcast episodes of the show on his pirate radio station. We obliged. Baxx eventually got shut down by Industry Canada.
• January 2010: Scott and I spoke at the CUP National Conference… We were excited to be recognized as at least competent in our craft.
• February 2010: Along with TheEdmontonian.com, TrueBritl.com and UserCreatedContent.ca, we founded the League of Extraordinary Media (LXM).
• March 20, 2010: Along with fellow LXM members, we hosted our first ever event: YEGSwap.
• April 2010: We scored our second sponsor, Guru Digital Arts College — the start of a beautiful friendship, and the very beginnings of the construction of our own studio.
• June 8, 2010: We hosted a very successful ALEx II along with Daveberta.ca and the LXM.

So what does the future hold for the Unknown Studio? Well, we celebrate our birthday at the end of the month and we have exciting plans for Episode 27 at the end of June — which will feature a return appearance from Brittney Le Blanc, who’s rather sore at us that she’s the only Unknown Studio guest who’s never done a Fast Fifteen (that still doesn’t sound right).

You’re going to want to tune into that episode, as we’ll have some very awesome content and some exciting news to share with you.

Also, later on this summer, we’ll be having a proper birthday party — with cake and all! — alongside our lovely colleagues at TheEdmontonian.com, who are coming up on their first birthday as well.

To friends, listeners and naysayers alike, thank you so much for your support/constructive criticism over the last year. It’s shocking we’ve been able to do so much… and that we plan to do so much more.

Oh! If you want to get more “meta updates” from the Unknown Studio, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter! I personally promise that unless something incredibly rad is going down, we’ll only send your one newsletter per month. Deal? Deal.

As our food becomes more and more over processed and preserved with countless ingredients you can’t pronounce let alone guess at what they are, it’s little wonder that some people would like to remove some of the steps between their food and their plate.

The latest trend right now is the fight for urban chickens. People in various cities all over North America are fighting for the right to keep up to six hens, roosters excluded, in their backyards.

No, no, seriously, people want to do this, in the city, maybe even next door to you. Maybe people just miss being able to sing Old McDonald as they’ve aged and don’t realize they can sing it again without actually starting a farm in their backyard. Then again, we do live in the purse-dog era and in a society where it’s more acceptable to bring your dog on a plane than your baby.

Let’s see a show of hands for those of you who have lived on a farm with chickens. Ok, as you can clearly see, my hand is up. How about another show of hands for those of you who have lived in an urban setting, down the street from penned up birds? What’s that? Oh ya, that would be my hand still in the air.

Old McRitchie had a farm…

In a very sad and dark chapter of my life, I had the opportunity to live down the street from a man who kept carrier pigeons (rats with wings) in a very ugly shed. One of my problems with these birds was that they attracted wild pigeons; it was always more than just his birds. Then there was the matter of the odors, and the fecal matter, and then of course my lack of sleep… You know how we’re not allowed to mow our lawns before 8am, and not after 11pm due to the noise bylaws? Birds really really don’t respect those bylaws; they’ll wake you up every morning just because they have nothing better to do with their time.

Yes, I agree that pigeons are not the same as chickens, but they’re similar. They both like to chirp and coo, and they both like to do it at the crack of dawn. Where is their kind consideration for those of us who went out and enjoyed our Friday night and want to sleep in on Saturday? I nearly bought a gun, or a hawk. A really, really big Hawk.

For a number of years I lived on a farm outside of Cold Lake, Alberta. We had a several different kinds of animals, my least favorites being our chickens.

These birds are not calm and pleasant. They fight. A lot. No, it’s not just roosters that fight; hens also fight to establish dominance. During these fights, a lot of fecal covered feathers can and do go flying. Also, this may not come as a surprise, but sometimes the hens don’t like you coming along and taking their eggs. HUGE shocker, right? Even dogs and dolphins get possessive and protective, but they don’t have pointy beaks and zero remorse.

Chicken shit

Let’s also consider the mess these birds make. You know how sometimes you go out for a walk, or even are out mowing your lawn and you see a mess from a dog or a cat, just left there, sitting in the sun, no one picked it up? Not everyone is a responsible pet owner with pets that are comparatively low maintenance. Chickens? Not so easy to clean up or scoop up after.

The fecal matter from chickens is more likely to seep into our ground, or collect in runoff water and further tax our water treatment plants than to get cleaned up and disposed of. Are people really going to be ok with more money going to clean up after city residents that aren’t ok with a dog, or a cat, or even fish and need chickens?

Now, what of salmonella and infections that can be contracted from birds? Yup, still an issue. There’s an argument out there that people aren’t supposed to live in cities, and we should go back to all living on farms and raising our own food like we used to. I would like to ask when exactly in human civilization history this was? There have been cities and surrounding farms for centuries!

Also, when farmers used to live in their homes when the weather turned, life expectancy was extremely short by today’s standards, and people believed that bathing killed you. We’ve come a long ways since then in terms of our understanding of germs and hygiene. At this point we should be able to recognize that living closely with animals poses health risks and concerns — and not to be an alarmist, but in this situation let’s remember the term “bird flu.”

It’s not just a myth; you can catch a variety of infections from hand to mouth contact with birds. The danger is not just present to adults; there are serious healthy concerns around children, who will see something fluffy and want to play with it or touch it. What of the fecal covered feathers that during fights or day to day activities by the birds will fly with the wind into neighbouring yards and green spaces? Children will put things in their mouths — always have, and always will.

Urban jungle

What of predators that are being forced out of their homes due to ever expanding urban sprawl? Have you ever heard a news story concerning coyotes being seen in parks, or roaming residential areas? Of course you have. You know what coyotes would love to eat? Chickens. Keeping chickens in backyards will attract other curious or hungry wild animals.

There are definite pluses to having chickens in your backyard, like farm-fresh (or yard-fresh) eggs. I see the appeal and I understand it. But given the cost to maintain a small number of birds, and the potential negative impact on neighbours, a farmer’s market or visiting a poultry farm is a far better option.

There are organic and free-range chickens farms out there. You can buy directly from them in some cases. You may still support the idea of urban chickens, but I urge you to research infections transferred from birds to humans, consider the makeup of your neighbourhood, and do a little reading on the middle ages or even early Egyptian civilizations — farms and cities.

Cities such as Calgary (which was recently shot down), Vancouver, Halifax and even New York City are allowing small groups of people to test the urban chicken market and it looks to be a wait and see position now. Should you feel strongly one way or the other on this position I urge you to contact your city council representative.

The very excellent hosts of CJSR 88.5 FM’s Tuesday morning show “Makin’ Whoopee” are having Scott and I on their show tomorrow!

At 8:06am — and I’m serious, we’ll be on right after the BBC news — Scott and I will join Chad and Colin for their special brand of early-morning mishegoss. I’ve been promised danishes as well, so those boys had better pull through. I can be a real grouch in the morning.

Remember: tune your FM dial to 88.5 tomorrow morning — at 7am, if you want to hear the boys’ eccletic show from the start. We’ll join you all at 8:06am!

Unfortunately, the attendance cap prevented a whole pile of people from going to check out the talks (which were phenomenal, by the way. Read my very brief comments about it here). As a result, local political blogger Dave Cournoyer created a Facebook event which he called ALEx, invite people to come out and drink in lieu of attending the exclusive (and admittedly costly) TEDx event.

Turns out the demand for an ALEx was pretty overwhelming. That’s why we’re doing another one tomorrow evening at Original Joe’s Varsity Row.

This edition of ALEx may (or may not) feature actual speakers… In truth, it’s just an excuse to drink and discuss the issues of the day with people who are interested. It’s part networking, part education, part leisure and part alcohol — hence the fact that ALE stands for “Alcohol, Leisure and Edutainment.”

Come join us for a delightful summer gathering. You’ll learn something new, and you’ll meet some great new people as well!

Our only solace is our high-and-might attitudes, particularly when it comes to the mouth-breathing dinks who frequent the FMyLife.com website. It’s time to give these douchebags what-for. Why? Because it’s the right thing to do.

From behind

Today, I was texting my crush. I tried to say, “I need a nap,” but my iPhone changed it to “I need anal.” I sent it. FML

Hahahahaha!

Ha!

Ha!

…

Hahahahahaha!

You must have been typing so fast and then smashing the every-loving shit out of that send button to have made such a terrible (or serendipitous, depending on your outlook) mistake. What I want to know is what happened next. Are you a man/woman of your word? Did you think, “Well, I really could have used a nap, but I said what I said, and I’m sticking to it”? Because that would have been the honourable thing to do.

You can sleep when you’re dead.

Rookie mistake

Today, I was told that I do not meet the minimum qualifications for a job that I was promised to get by just applying. To top it off, I had to quit my teaching job to get it, because I could not be under contract and apply for this job. FML

I like to think I know a thing or two about job hunting, applying for jobs, and even occasionally getting jobs. And all the dominant wisdom on the subject says that you should never quit your job unless you have a solid, on-paper offer that you’ve signed, sealed and delivered (there’s a second cliché for you… stay tuned for the third and final one). I fail to see how you can’t apply for a job just because you’re under contract. If that were the case, then it would be a total mystery as to how people move on to new positions.

You’re a gullible little sod, and I’m sorry you lost your job. But to borrow a common phrase from FMyLife.com: you deserved it.

The old pressed flesh trick

Today, after staying at my boyfriend’s house for the first time, I got in the shower. His bathroom door doesn’t lock, so half way through my shower he walked in. Trying to be sexy, I pressed myself up against the glass, which turned out the be a door that opens outwards. I fell on the floor. FML

You’re dumb. Plain and simply an idiot.

Few showers have doors that swing open (as opposed to sliding open) into the shower — only ones built by short-sighted idiots. So if you’d paused to think about for even a split second, you’d have realized what an ill-advised — and frankly a decidedly unsexy — attempt at seduction that was.

They say love means never having to say your sorry (cliché #3!), but you should apologize for making an ass of yourself.

The last DemoCamp I attended, there was some discussion between the likes of Cindy Fulton, Hilary Darrah, and Roma Sobieski about creating a sort of branch of the local tech community that was more inclusive of women. After the event that night, seemingly hot on the heels of that discussion (though I believe unrelatedly), local social media mavens Shauna McConechy and Brittney Le Blanc launched YEG Girl Geek Dinners.

Girl Geek Dinners were founded by TweetMeme Community Manager Sarah Blow. Here’s what international Girl Geek Dinners are all about:

The Girl Geek Dinners were founded on the 16th August 2005 as a result of one girl geek who got annoyed and frustrated about being one of the only females attending technical events. She was tired of being assumed to be marketing, tired of constantly having to prove herself and decided that she just wanted a change and to be treated just the same as any other geek out there, gender and age aside. After all to be geeky is to be intelligent, have passion for a subject and to know that subject in depth. It’s not at all about being better than others, or about gender, race, religion or anything else. Those things just detract from the real fun stuff, the technology, the innovation and the spread of new ideas.

That’s how the movement began. But I really wanted to understand why Shauna and Brittney brought these events to Edmonton. Here’s the email exchange I had with Shauna…

Unknown Studio: What is your ultimate goal with Girl Geek Dinners?

Shauna: When I started thinking about bringing Girl Geek Dinners to Edmonton it was to bring a group of strong, witty, sassy, smart, unique women together. Social Media has opened to door to conversations about pretty much anything, including geeky topics… sometimes especially geeky topics. It has been very interesting to witness how many chicks out there have such passion for technology. It was apparent that we have a solid online conversation going on in Edmonton, we want to take it offline. So the ultimate goal is to create a solid, open and tolerant community of gals and guys who have a common interest: geekiness.

TUS: Many of the tech events in YEG have seen an uptick in female attendance over the last two years. Why bring this initiative forth now?

S: Sure there’s been increased female “attendance” numbers at Edmonton tech events, but there haven’t been any organized girl-centric tech events (to my knowledge). Why not bring another tech event to Edmonton, especially one with international recognition? I’ve been working on bringing Girl Geek Dinners to YEG for a while now and about 8 months ago I approached Brittney to see if she wanted to co-chair organizing the events. She was fully on board.

The way we see it is there’s room for everyone. Having said that and knowing there are other events happening in the City, we’re the only one dedicated to the betterment, development and camaraderie of girl geeks.

TUS: How would you respond to guys who feel like they’re being excluded?

S: Well the feminist in me would have to bite her tongue… And then I would say men are certainly not excluded from Girl Geek Dinners. It is the mandate of GGD to allow men to attend events but only by invitation from one of the attending women. Each woman attendee is allowed to invite one man each if they chose. This club is not exclusive by any means — at the most we’re “niche.” Personally, I am keen to hear what the attending fellas have to say about the event.

TUS: Do you have any plans to build robots? If so, will they be evil or friendly?

S: I have always been partial to the Buffy-bot, but she would have to come with the Buffy wardrobe, that way we could share clothes. Do I have plans to build one? Not at the moment — I’m too busy with my preparedness manual for the inevitable zombie apocalypse.

TUS: You touched on what the definition of a geek is when we spoke once before. Could you expand beyond “someone who likes gadgets, programming and everything in between”?

S: Dictionary.com says a geek is: 1) a computer expert or enthusiast (a term of pride as self-reference, but often considered offensive when used by outsiders. 2) a peculiar or otherwise dislikeable person, esp. one who is perceived to be overly intellectual. 3) a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken.

Although definition #3 sounds highly entertaining I’m sure we won’t be seeing those kind of geeks — or at least not many — at our events. My personal definition is somewhere in between definitions one and two.

To me a geek is someone who has a passion for technology (all aspects), science fiction, social media, witticisms, intelligent conversation, being challenged, the future, and unknown possibilities. A geek is someone who doesn’t settle for the mundane of the norm, but someone who believes there is more than meets the eye. (see what I did there?)

TUS: How long has this initiative been in the works?

S: I have been chatting up other like-minded gals around YEG at networking events and via Twitter about this initiative for over a year now. As a matter of fact my first email to Sarah Blow, Girl Geek Dinner Founder, was May 6, 2009. As I mentioned earlier it wasn’t very long after that I approached Brittney to see if she wanted to be partners in founding the Edmonton Chapter.

TUS: If I dress up as a convincing enough woman and call myself Rosey, do you think I’ll be able to pass as a girl geek, or just the bearded lady?

S: I’m going to say yes just because I want to see you dress in drag. BTW snaps for using the name Rosey and asking about robots all in the same interview. (ed. – see what I did there?)

From personal experience I believe you will be able to pass as a geek anytime, girl or other wise. However, you do have very nice shoulders so if you were to dress in drag I’d like to see you in something strapless.

TUS: Are there any open spots for the event?

S: We’re actually “sold” out. I guess the term would be we’re full, not “sold out” since tix are free this time around.

It’s worth noting that we started with 20 tix, they went in 4 hours. We then added another 10, and now those are gone too. Weeeeeee!

Edmonton’s first Girl Geek Dinner takes place Thursday, June 10 at Ceili’s Irish Pub. For more information, check out the YEG Girl Geeks website.

Then, the landscape started changing, as Edmonton’s downtown began its still-ongoing revitalization. Now, the city is blessed with great eating and drinking establishments. That means the time is ripe for Nate Box to open the Elm Café.

Well over one year in the making, Nate had originally wanted to open the café as a restaurant concept in the Belgravia neighbourhood on Edmonton’s southside. But the lease fell through and so it was back to the drawing board. Last March, though, things started coming together for Nate, when he locked down a location in Oliver — the west part of Edmonton’s downtown (outside of the core).

With the Elm Café slated to open on Monday, June 7 (bright and early at 7am), Scott and I decided to sit down with Nate and find out exactly what it takes to open a café in the this town. We also talk hamburger waterslides, and some of the worst food trends sweeping the city.

Download episode 25 of the Unknown Studio directly to your computer.

The Unknown Studio is a proud member of the League of Extraordinary Media.

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EDMONTON JOURNAL STILL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
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It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio this month!

We’re helping EJ to promote their Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!
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Not the red one, the blue one.

Sonic

Erinaceus Hypersonicus

Star of: A series of video games, comic books and at least two animated series.
First Appearance: Sonic the Hedgehog (video game)
Likes: Running shoes, rings, chili dogs
Dislikes: Swimming, speed limits, robots
Bio: A super-fast drifter, who sticks his nose in other people’s business and then usually ends up wrecking a mad scientist’s stuff.

1. Human Rights

Excepting the fact that Sonic is not a “human”, he is a humanitarian. The guy is the defender of the underdog, taking the fight to anyone who would try to take advantage of someone else for their own gain.

Sonic is also not prejudiced. He gladly leaps into action on behalf of anyone who’s in need of help, hedgehog or no. Heck, his circle of best friends include a ham-fisted echidna and a mutant fox, so the guy doesn’t judge based on race.

Blue, red and yellow together. It's racial diversity in action.

For Sonic, everyone deserves their fair shake, and he aims to see they get it.

2. Globalization

Sonic’s adventures often see him running up against Dr. Robotnik/Eggman, a scientist dedicated to creating a perfect mechanized utopia. Robotnik, an industrialist, is working hard to bring together the world, for what he earnestly believes is it’s betterment (we’re not here to judge him or his methods.)

Obviously Sonic is opposed to this, as he is constantly battling against Robotnik’s efforts, and ruining his plans.

Also, wrecking his stuff.

Coupled with his humanitarian stance, it would seem that Sonic’s main problem with globalization is exploitation. But when you also factor in his strong sense of self determination, it may be more about his dislike of over control over his life.

3. The Environment

Sonic is an environmentalist. This is pretty self evident. Most of what we see of him involves pushing back the march of technology and he clearly has a dislike of anyone despoiling nature.

I’m also fairly certain he’s against carbon emissions. He seems like he’s big on eco-friendly transit, as evidenced by his preference for walking everywhere.

Although, he does have his own airplane...

4. Social Security

This is where Sonic’s more libertarian nature collides with his altruism.

On the one hand, Sonic has a strong sense of individual freedom and self-determination. He would hate big government, especially if it tramples on his liberties, and I wouldn’t expect him to be a big fan of taxes.

On the other hand, he roots for the little guy, and isn’t above charity. He’d want to give to the poor, and to ensure everyone can get access to medicine and a proper education.

It’s a tough decision for him, but in the end I suspect Sonic’s generosity would win out, and he’d rather see people get access to social services. Begrudgingly.

Verdict:

Sonic might be blue, but he’s voting green. Heck the NDP are too left-leaning for our super-speedster. The environmental, anti-big business and social justice platforms are just too in line with his beliefs for him to consider voting anything else.

If you have an idea for a fictional victim for The Character Assassin, e-mail Scott, or send him a tweet with your suggestion.

ADAM: Scott, you magnificent bastard. You have a whole room full of board games.

SCOTT: Yes. Yes, I do.

ADAM: You should review all of them.

SCOTT: That’s insane. I have way, way too many of them. It would take years.

ADAM: Do it anyway!

So here we are. Welcome to Scott’s Game Review Corner. And our first subject of review is the remake of the 1987 board game “The Fury of Dracula”, now called “Fury of Dracula.”

Fury of Dracula (2006)

Game Design: Stephen Hand & Kevin Wilson
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
Number of Players: 2-5
Time: 2-3 hours
Ages: 10+
Website: www.fantasyflightgames.com

“Fury of Dracula” is a fantastic and very thematic board game by the amazing team over at Fantasy Flight Games. In fact, I should preface by noting that I have yet to actually play a FFG game that I haven’t enjoyed. They’re big into games that are atmospheric and story driven, and we’ll be looking at more and more of their games as this series goes on.

But that’s a little off topic.

“Fury of Dracula” is, essentially, a continuation of the novel “Dracula” by Bram Stoker. Dracula has returned from the dead, and looks to get vengeance upon the hunters who defeated him once before, while planting the seeds of an empire of undeath across Europe. Now, Dr. Seward, Lord Godalming, Professor Van Helsing and Mina Harker have come back together to put an end to the count’s evil once and for all.

Components

Lets start with a look at the various components that come with the game. “Fury of Dracula”, like most FFG games, is beautifully designed, with high quality components and art.

The game comes with five character cards, various tokens, several card decks, dice, and five wonderful plastic character tokens. I wanted to include a picture of the player tokens, but unfortunately my shitty camera couldn’t manage it. I did manage a picture of the excellent board.

The play area is a map of Europe, broken into west and east. There is also an area to keep track of the time of day, counters for the hunters and Dracula to monitor their strengths, and a track where Dracula lays out his location cards.

While we’re on the subject of game components, here’s a little something I wish more games came with.

A sectioned plastic insert in the box. This makes keeping various tokens and card decks separate a snap and makes it easier to put the game away. Take note other game designers – you should all be doing this.

Gameplay

The game itself is fairly straightforward. One player is Count Dracula. His goal is to score 6 points, at which point he will win the game. He earns points by creating powerful vampire thralls, defeating the hunters in combat, and just surviving long enough. The other players are the hunters, who are on his trail. They win the game with nothing less than Dracula’s death – by reducing him to zero blood tokens.

The Dracula player, as he is competing with up to four other people, is much stronger than the mere mortals who hunt him. He has a lot more health, is stronger in combat – especially at night, more on that in a moment – and has access to some fairly devious and terrible vampiric powers.

So terrible that my camera can’t even take a proper picture of them!

But the Count is not omnipotent. He has limitations, and weaknesses. Crossing water is taxing to the count, costing him a point of blood. He is also distrustful of modern transportation, preferring his carriage – he will not make use of the train, giving the hunters the ability to move around the board faster than him.

Dracula is not stupid, though. He knows his enemies are many, and that they are formidable in their own ways. For this reason, he moves in secret across the board – leaving a trail of clues for the investigators to follow, and perils to harass them along the way.

Each of the hunters has their own strengths and weaknesses. Lord Godalming is tough, granting him a bonus in combat, and can use his family’s wealth to catch the fastest trains across the county. Dr. Seward is ever prepared, giving him the ability to hold an extra item or event card, and can help his allies recover faster. Van Helsing is motivated getting extra actions, and is wilful enough to shrug off a vampire bite. Mina Harker is well organized, and can go through the decks faster finding useful items.

Play starts with Dracula’s turn. First, time progresses. There are six phases of the day, 3 daytime and 3 nighttime. The hunters have the advantage in the day phases, while Dracula is strongest at night. Next, the count choses a location to travel to using a deck of location cards. He can only follow the path from one city to the next, and cannot double back easily. Dracula then takes an action, by either laying a trap for his pursuers, or attacking them directly.

Next up, the hunters each take a turn, moving along the board after the elusive count, and taking actions to search, rest and resupply.

The game proceeds, with the hunters and Dracula playing a game of cat-and-mouse until one side has claimed victory.

Combat is a common element in the game, as the hunters do battle with either Dracula or his various minions. The mechanic is a sort of rock-paper-scissors, combined with die rolling. Both players involved in the combat draw a tactics card, revealing them at the same time.

They then each roll a die, adding any modifiers that may be in play. The winner of the die roll looks at their card, and determines the effect that happens next based on what their opponent’s card was.

The game is also affected by events. Any time a hunter resupplies they may draw event cards, and any time they rest they must draw two of them. Event cards add an element of risk. The majority of them are cards that are to the benefit of the hunters, but mixed in are events that are actually beneficial to the count! Event cards are drawn from the bottom of the deck, so the hunters never know if they’re about to draw a card that could help them, or hinder them. For the hunters, events can be anything from a helpful tip, a useful ally, or a daring escape in the nick of time. For Dracula, events could be a fearful horse or terrible storm that leads a hunter astray, or the devilish power to foil their best laid plans.

Theme

I’m going to talk for a moment about the overall feel of the game, too. I, personally, prefer games that are little more “immersive” – games where the theme and atmosphere help to draw me in. Now, for many of you, this is going to result in some head scratching. “How do you have theme and atmosphere in a board game?”

Well, you add flavour text, art, and you design the gameplay elements in such a way that they almost tell a story.  A good board game is fun. An excellent board game is fun, and has a discernible beginning, middle and end. And by the endgame, it should feel like things have come to a climax.

Contrast with “Monopoly”, where by the endgame you want to slit your wrists. “Can we just say Dad’s the winner and go do anything else?”

"Like shove this pencil in my eye?"

Well, “Fury of Dracula” is an excellent game in this sense. The design of the gameplay is elegantly interwoven with the Vampire hunt, and the feel is desperate and dark whether you play as Dracula or one of the hunters. And the drama of the game definitely builds, creating some desperate, exciting moments, and building to a strong endgame scenario as either side makes a push for victory.

A special shout out here goes to the wonderful art in this game. It’s dark, haunting, and effective – and surprisingly sparse. Few of the cards have pictures on them, but what art there is beautiful and very appropriate.

This coupled with appropriate flavour, and a clear understanding of the “Dracula” story by the designers. The game really does follow a narrative that is a believable continuation of the classic novel.

Overall

“Fury of Dracula” is a fantastic game, with a great deal of replayability. The theme is carefully woven into the game play, and most importantly it’s fun. The hunters must work together to bring down Dracula, who smugly watches them plan while secretly planting the seeds of their doom. The strategies available to the Dracula player are many – he can be a cautious creature of the night, always a step ahead of the hunters while leaving vampiric thralls in his wake; or a bold aggressor, hunting his foes just as they hunt him.

Likewise, the hunters have many options available. They can spread out in search of Dracula and his minions, or stick together to bolster their strength. They can make haste to hunt the count quickly, or risk biding their time to gather the tools that can give them the edge.

In the end, I highly recommend “Fury of Dracula.” It’s got a great Gothic feel, and it’s damned fun to boot. Especially with a full five players.

I mean, you think you have it bad? You’ve got nothing on the guy whose dog shat on him, or the woman who was crushed by a television set… Actually, both of those people totally deserved it (as I’m certain you’ll agree). The dude who didn’t deserve what he got, though, was the man who wound up with a face full of spiders.

I know, right? Just read on for the gory details.

Road trip!

Today, while driving from Dallas, Texas, to San Diego, California, my wife’s dog decided to crawl into my lap and poop on me. I didn’t have a change of clothes. FML

I’m a bit ignorant when it comes to the distances between American cities. And while I know that Texas and California are in the same general area of the states (you know, sort of south and west), I don’t know how far apart Dallas and San Diego are. But it’s an important thing to know, because it will determine whether or not you, sir, are a giant, filthy knob of a person.

Dallas and San Diego are 2,192 km apart. That’s at least a 21 hour drive, if Google is telling me what it should be. So, if you’re driving for essentially two days, and you don’t have a change of clothes, you’re a fucking dolt. AND if you are transporting an animal — and let’s face it, animals can be dirty and messy — without a change of clothes, not only are you a fucking dolt, but you’re one of the reasons we should reconsider eugenics.

I mean honestly, what the hell were you thinking? Do you always fail to pack a change of clothes? Did you expect you’d just buy whatever you needed when you got to San Diego? Did you think because it’s California you wouldn’t actually need clothes?

Please, don’t ever reproduce.

What did TV ever do to you?

Today, I fell down the stairs carrying a huge TV. Don’t worry, my body cushioned the TV’s fall. FML

Is the TV ok? Does it still work? DO YOU GET HBO?!

Here’s an idea for you, dipshit: get someone to help you next time. Good lord.

ZOMG Spiders!

Today, I saw some moss growing on my house. Not wanting it to spread, I began to scrape it off. It turns out that it wasn’t moss, but actually a cluster of hundreds of baby spider eggs. After being disturbed, they decided to hatch, and crawled all over me. I suffer from arachnophobia. FML

OK yuck. This is one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever heard. If this happened to me, I think I’d probably kill myself — after pooping and peeing my pants.

Just thinking about this makes me want to vomit. Remember the movie Arachnophobia? Great movie, but more or less solidified by distaste for the little guys. Not even a protracted discussion with an entymologist helped to improve my perception of them.

Ugh, spiders.

Our colleagues from the League of Extraordinary Media — videogame podcast UserCreatedContent — are celebrating their birthday this Saturday, May 29, starting at 6pm at Hi-Tech Gaming.

It’s easy to start a blog or a podcast, kick out a few posts or episodes, and call it a week. But the UCC guys have been at it for a grand total of 56 episodes (at least, at the time of this writing). Not only that, but these guys kick out some excellent content, among the most unique in Edmonton.

So here’s what their birthday party entails:

• Nerdish videogame tournaments ‚ including Rock Band for the more socially adjusted among you.
• Door prizes
• Pizza and wings
• A cash bar
• Birthday cake
• And even prizes for the video game tournament(s)

… All for the low price of $10. TEN!

On top of that, the action moves to Union Hall at 10pm for the after-party.

It’s endless nerdy fun, and it’s all happening on Saturday. I’ll be there, waving the flag of the slightly-less-nerdy. Or, I’ll be drunkenly and belligerently yelling at Ramin and Cory about some kind of random conspiracy theory involving Sony and Microsoft.

And really, who would want to miss that?

EdmontonPolitics.com was originally a domain name purchased by local entrepreneur and blogger Chris LaBossiere. But Chris is a busy guy, and when he realized he didn’t have the time to turn it into something, he offered it (and the sister site CalgaryPolitics.com) to any social media type who wanted to use it. The only requirement was that Chris would entrust the URL to that individual and he would contribute to whatever form the sites took. So, two websites about politics were born.

Jeff Samsonow and Dave Cournoyer took ownership of Edmonton’s URL. And the site just launched today. Here’s what Jeff has to say about the new media site in its inaugural post:

EdmontonPolitics.com is a collaboration of Edmonton bloggers, podcasters, writers, developers, and anyone else who wants in. We want to cover the 2010 municipal and school board elections like it’s never been done.

We’ll be online with words, photos, and videos. There will be straightforward reporting on wards, candidates and issues. But we also want to have fun and offer satirical and sarcastic takes on the same. There will likely be plenty of opinion thrown around, but lots of facts too.

The vision is to make it your best source for factual, opinionated and interesting (if irreverent) Edmonton election news. AND EdmontonPolitics.com wants YOU to contribute. So get yourself over there and find out what they’re all about!

Besides, if I’m not here to hook you up with your weekly dose of “hate-tanking” as my good pal Sally might say, then what good am I? I’ll tell you what good I am: not good at all.

So, instead of jamming out on you early this long weekend, I bring you what you’ve waited for all week: some FML Friday action.

Today, while having sex with my boyfriend, he started pretending he was a dog. This included barking, licking my face, and scratching his ears. FML

So, you booted him out of bed, right? And told him to get psychiatric help, right?

Listen, I know some sexual health professionals insist that people to sensitive to the kinks of others. Sex is a highly personal thing, and what works for one person might not work for someone else. But presumably your boyfriend is aware that his particular kink is unusual. And that if he’s going to bust it out, he should probably give you at least a bit of a heads up.

This is really less an FML and more of a #fail.

Today, I was fired from work for faking sick to go to a concert. I asked the boss how he figured out, and he said, “On the 10 o’clock news, I saw you drunk at the bar talking about the show.” I was wearing a chicken suit, and was completely hammered. FML

I’ve always tried to avoid cameras — both still and video — when I’m out and about. Unless I’m deliberately seeking out media attention, keep that stuff away from me. And that’s when I haven’t lied to my employer about being sick.

This is, really again, more an example of your own epic failure than of an FML. I mean, you can feel sorry for yourself all you want. But you clearly brought this on yourself. And an additional note: a chicken suit clearly doesn’t work as an effective disguise. A further additional note: you’re a moron.

Today, I learned my boyfriend had another girlfriend, his excuse was he was bipolar and each of his personalities need a girlfriend. FML

And apparently neither of you has any idea of what bipolar disorder actually is. It doesn’t mean you experience multiple personalities, so much as dramatic swings in mood from extreme euphoria to extreme depression.

You’re boyfriend is clearly using some dumb excuse to cheat. Which makes your relationship a fail. Not an epic one. Actually just a disappointing one.

When I first heard that Christian Audigier — designer of Ed Hardy — was putting out a wine line of wines and actually calling it Ed Hardy, my first instinct was to Google Ed Hardy to see exactly what that was. I had a pretty good idea, but it’s not in my regular vocabulary or everyday life. As soon as I figured out what it was I ran to my nearest drugstore, loaded up on hair gel, covered myself in eagle and skull tattoos (temporary of course), grabbed my shiniest, tightest little shirt I could find and my good friend Lynda and headed out to the Inglewood Wine Shop in Calgary to pick up a bottle or two.

Imagine how delighted I was when I found that they were doing tastings in their front room; I wasn’t going to have to buy wine without tasting it. Excellent!

You know how when a friend asks you to try out a new recipe, and you recognize a flavour but you can’t quite put your finger on it? That is what drinking Ed Hardy wine is like.

There are three wines in this French line available for purchase in Calgary; a Rosé, Chardonnay and a Cabernet Sauvignon. No one knows for sure who the maker is at this point, but looking at the bottle, Christian Audigier definitely put his personal “style” into the labeling. Overall, this wine is middle of the road. It’s not bad, it’s not great, but if you can buy it on sale it’s a good bottle for starting your night out. It’s not for serving to your friends with discerning tastes. They’ll just make fun of you.

In case you’re still interested in giving these wines a taste, it’s probably due to sheer morbid curiosity — the same reason I sampled a few Paris Hilton perfumes. I’m even more embarrassed to admit that I liked one of them enough to buy a bottle. No, it’s not Paris’ scientific work that made the perfume. She just bought the product. Still, I feel wrong every time I use it.

Anyways, back to wine.

Ambrosia for Douchebags

The Rosé was quite dry for me — subtle, not sweet but not tart either; ultimately not amazing. The Chardonnay smells quite sweet, like a Riesling. The taste lingers on your tongue and in your mouth. This is where you start to really notice that something else has been added, but you don’t know what. It seemed like it was an extra sweetener, but it’s hard to tell. Being a red wine drinker I often find it hard to appreciate white wines, thankfully I had a white wine friend with me… although she wasn’t too fond of this one. For me the “something different” also seemed like something wrong.

Finally, we tried the Cabernet Sauvignon. Now here again you’re allowed to look down on me. I really didn’t mind this wine. If you can get it on sale it’s not a bad purchase. It’s not my favorite, but it was a different wine than I’ve ever had before. The Cab Sauv definitely tastes like something other than a regular wine should — there is definitely something else in this wine. What it is we may never know.

The flavour is “modern,” another easy drinking wine with a lingering taste. Again, this is not a wine to impress your friends with, well unless your friends look like they walked right off of Jersey Shore, then this just might be the ticket. If you just want to try it out, I think you’re like a lot of people and keep in mind that it’s a matter of physical taste, not an unfortunate wardrobe decision.

— Lisa McRitchie

For those of you new to the party, I’ll explain. foursquare is an online game that takes place in your city. You get points every time you check in somewhere. Add a new place, you get bonus points. Go somewhere new, you get bonus points. If you check in at a place more frequently, there’s a chance you may be named the Mayor of the location.

Well, it turns out that it now has an additional usefulness: deals.

Starbucks has just unveiled a new North American discount on Frappuccino drinks for Mayors of their foursquare locations through June 28th. Anyone who is the Mayor of a Starbucks location (and, I presume, has their phone there to prove it) gets $1 off their Frappuccino.

Okay, yeah, that’s not exactly something free, but a discount for being a frequent customer is not a bad deal. Plus, Starbucks has indicated it will be exploring new deals for their foursquare Mayors going forward – a plan to, again, reward frequent customers.

This is actually a good way for Starbucks draw in the social media crowd, who are the main users of foursquare, and it’ll heat up use and competition on foursquare. It’s absolutely win-win for both sides of the equation. And I think there are plenty of other businesses that could – indeed, should – get in on this.

In fact, here you go corporate world – a dozen great suggestions for how you can draw in foursquare users. Things you can offer the Mayors of your locations, and I’m giving them away for free:
- A half-price regular or small sized Blizzard at DQ
- Free side with the purchase of any burger at Wendy’s
- Free regular pop-corn and drink with movie ticket purchase at Cineplex
- 10% discount on used games at EB Games
- $0.03 discount on gas at Safeway gas bar
- Rent 1 movie, get 1 movie free at Blockbuster
- 1 free mixin’ in your ice cream at Marble Slab
- $5 off any purchase of $40 or higher at HMV
- Free curly fries with the purchase of a sandwich at Arby’s
- Free donut with the purchase of a coffee at Tim Hortons
- Buy 1 Mama Burger, get 1 Mama Burger free at A&W
- Free cookie with the purchase of a sub or combo at Subway

Look how easy that is. This stuff would cost these companies pennies. Why? Because they’re only offering the deal to one person per location. And they’ll have people scrambling over each other to turn up frequently enough to earn the mayorship and get the deal, so there’s an increase in business to balance out any loss.

Anyway, I need to get in on this Starbucks deal – so all I can say is Jay M… I’m coming for you.

And wouldn’t you know it, but Lynda is extremely down-to-earth and fun. Scott and I spent just over an hour chatting with her about how she got into her job as a news anchor, how news has changed, and what it’s like to be a news personality who gets noticed out in public. I even reveal details about the first time I met Lynda — intoxicated at a hockey game, and probably a little overly friendly.

But wait! THERE’S MORE! We even spent a bit of time talking to her about her sudden jump off of Twitter.

Give the episode a listen, leave a comment, or rate us on iTunes.

=====================================================
EDMONTON JOURNAL STILL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
=====================================================

It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio this month!

We’re helping EJ to promote their Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!
=====================================================

Download episode 24 of the Unknown Studio directly to your computer.

The Unknown Studio is a proud member of the League of Extraordinary Media.

For influencial Edmonton Twitter user @steenyweeny (known to some as Jen), a boring February phone call accompanied by a notepad and pen has gone from random doodles to a bona fide Twitter phenomenon called #selfportraitmondays — that’s “self-portrait Mondays” or SPM for the uninitiated.

“I got to doodling and ended up with a blocky cartoon that I decided was myself and drew a red scarf on it, then made a Twitpic and sent it to the interwebs,” Jen explains. “Within a few minutes, a few other tweeters decided to do the same and lo – #selfportraitmonday was born. I honestly can’t remember who suggested the hashtag first.”

It was enough to catch the attention of @grempel (to to some as Geoff), who immediately created a #selfportraitmonday blog to capture the works of other Twitter users who were playing along.

“The first batch of SPM submissions were too good to get lost in the interwebs so we put them into the SPM blog,” Geoff says. “The blog is still pretty rudimentary. There are a number of features I have in mind that I would like to add — like a ranking system so that visitors can pick their favorite of the week or of all time.”

Geoff is also working on a way for users to submit their own self portraits to the site so that he and Jen don’t have to scour Twitter Search to find all the entries. It would also mean that those users who protect their tweets could still share their self portraits.

And there are plenty of users — both public and private — from all around who play along every week.

“We’ve posted over 200 self portraits over the last couple of months. Some people play every week, some people play now and then, and some people send a solitary self portrait and then disappear into the ether,” Jen says. “Looking back over the posts, I think we’ve had 50 to 60 different people contribute so far.”

Geoff adds: “The SPM thing is mostly played by Canadians but there is a strong following from Mexico that is growing.

“As for visitors to the website we’ve seen traffic from Canada, USA, UK, Mexico, Australia, Romania, Argentina. It’s still pretty small but growing.”

All of this activity stems from something random that Jen did and tweeted, and that Geoff liked enough to help her out with. Self-portrait Mondays even has its own Facebook group.

“I honestly didn’t think it would last past maybe three weeks,” Geoff says, “But since March 29, it’s been pretty consistent with the amount of participants and the amount of people visiting the blog. I guess if I had to pick a goal to achieve it would be pretty awesome to see #selfportraitmonday trend at least once. Maybe that’s not too realistic but it would be pretty cool.”

Twitter recently changed its trending algorithm, so it’s possible you’ll see SPM trend sometime soon. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a self-portrait to work on.

Like today.

We have three people, with three people in their lives who are utter idiots. Who take away from, rather than enrich, the lives of the authors. So while my approach to each entry will vary, the advice will ultimately be the same (which I realize spoils some of the tension I’m trying to build up).

And that advice is to ditch ‘em.

A-like so:

Snot blanket

Today, I caught my boyfriend blowing his nose on my blanket. After yelling at him and refusing to use the blanket to sleep with, he tells me I might as well sleep with the blanket because this isn’t the first time he’s blown his nose on it. I have been wrapping myself in a snot blanket for months. FML

Before I even explain why, my advice is simple: ditch him. Most women (that I know, anyway) are looking for guys who are at least moderately intelligent and also sensitive. Actually, strike that. Most PEOPLE are looking for someone like that. Unfortunately your boyfriend displays neither of these tendencies.

What he does successfully is display the maturity and sensitivity of a psychopath. Hence the advice to ditch him.

Ditch him. But first, buy him a warehouse pack of kleenex. Then, before you boot his ass out the door, give him a pamphlet on the proper nose-blowing method.

Dog day-off

Today, I went to my boss at work to request a few days off to see my sister. She’s flying here to spend a weekend with us before she deploys for 2 years.  My boss denied my request. Why? Because he wanted those days off. To spend at home with his dog. FML

Your boss is a jerk. Ditch him, ditch the job, and work for someone whose head isn’t shoved up one of their own body cavities.

I’m assuming you mentioned your reasons for needing time off. Because your sister is conceivably going to a place for an extended period of time where you won’t be able to visit her, and where the potential for death is pretty high. Meanwhile, your boss wants to roll around in his backyard with his mutt. You really, really should have told him to stuff it.

Hopefully you still can.

Dog diet

Today, my mom decided our whole family is going on a diet. Why? Because the vet told us our dog is overweight, and she “didn’t want Twix to suffer alone.” FML

You dog is named Twix? And it’s overweight? So your mom’s response is to force you all to go on a diet? I know this might sound harsh, but it’s time to ditch your mom. She’s nuts.

I don’t want to get into the strange psychology of naming a dog Twix and then being surprised that it becomes fat. There’s probably a pop psych theory there. And while you should probably be eating healthily anyhow, I don’t think your dog is going to notice that it’s food has changed and yours hasn’t. And even if it does, it’s not going to be able to reason about why that is. And frankly, dogs will eat anything so it probably isn’t going to experience a ton of distress about a changed diet.

But sweet gods, tell your mom to give her head a shake. Then tell her you’d rather not speak to her until she gets her shit together, brain-wise. Because, my friend, this is the tip of the iceburg. Next stop: dementia!

#YegHelp is the brainchild of Edmonton’s Jerry Aulenbach, bacon-enthusiast and man-about-town, and is aiming to raise $10,000 for the women and children of the La Salle Shelter.

Everything is going down at the LUX Steakhouse and Bar downtown, and the evening includes hors d’oeuvres and live music. The musical lineup includes James Leigh, Erin Faught, Erin Craig and DJ David Stone. There will also be a silent auction filled with some wonderful and desirable goodies.

And if you can’t make it out in person, be sure to keep an eye on your twitter feed because you could very well contribute through a twitter auction that will also be taking place.

It’s a fun night of entertainment and good company, and it’s all for a really good cause. And tickets are still available.

Don’t forget to say hello to the two handsome MCs.

I struck a nerve*.

And what happens less than a month following that post? They cover the bridge in a giant white tarp so we can’t see what’s happening inside. Kind of like cocoon, but much, much larger, sans old people, and without the witticisms of the now-washed-up Steve Guttenberg.

Not pictured: Steve Guttenberg

Well I had a theory involving robots… that has since been CONFIRMED by my own investigation.** You see, when I went to take these photos, there were all kinds of ungodly noises coming from the bridge. And while the City claims something else entirely is taking place…

Still not pictured: Sir Guttenberg

But I’ve seen RoboCop. I’ve seen Terminator. I’ve seen Battlestar Galactica. And I know a robot when I hear one. And I heard several.

I’d like to think this is all part of the city’s new snow removal policy. I mean, you can’t really expect a bunch of trucks to handle the volume of work, can you? No, you need a team of highly-armed, highly-intelligent robots to make sure that there’s less than 5cms of coverage on residential roadways. And really, when you consider all the robots that’ll be required, $800,000 isn’t all that much money.

The question now is, why hide this from citizens? Why build them on the Dawson Bridge? Perhaps so they can work side-by-side with humans, and learn all about construction and such. Or maybe it’s so they can stage a river-valley assault on the good people of Edmonton. For what reason? We may never know…

Not pictured: Robocop

*If it hasn’t at this point become glaringly apparent that this is a joke, I cannot help you.

**Not really, but it’s fun to pretend.

And I have to say, the organizing committee unconferenced Saturday’s first MediaCamp Edmonton to great success. I’m already looking forward to the next one.

The day started out with a normal conference panel discussion which included Sue Heuman (from Focus Communications), Mack Male (local blogger and developer), Dave Cournoyer (local blogger and occasional political pundit), and Paula Simons (columnist from the Edmonton Journal) — the panel was moderated by Karen Unland, also from the Edmonton Journal. Many of the questions that arose were related to the differences between bloggers and journalists — there were tons of great questions from the audience (who apparently numbers almost 200).

After the panel, conference attendees pitches session topics for the rest of the day, and proceeded to engage in group discussions on a variety of topics (the ones I attended included “What makes a journalist?” and “Getting advertising and sponsorship for your website/blog”); there was also a series of Lightning Talks just after lunch. There was a diverse range of opinions present — journalists from all types of media including radio, newspaper and television. There were also a lot of different social media types represented, including our colleagues from the League of Extraordinary Media — including Jeff and Sally from theEdmontonian.com and Brittney Le Blanc from TrueBritl.com. You can see some of the tweets from MediaCamp Edmonton here.

I don’t know what the ultimate outcome was from MediaCamp; I suspect people got different things out of it. I got some great ideas for trying to earn the Unknown Studio some money so we can do awesome new things with out content. I also learned that the journalists, at least in Edmonton, who provide us with news and opinion every day have a great respect for the local social media community — bloggers and Twitterers alike.

Thanks to the organizing committee and the MediaCamp Edmonton sponsors for making the day not only possible, but extremely worthwhile. Sorry for doubting you.

If you were at MediaCamp, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the day. Leave a comment.

To my mum: I’m what I am today in large part because of you. What I’m really saying is, this is all your fault. I love you, mum!

But I’m really sorry I didn’t get this to you sooner. I hope I didn’t ruin your weekend.

Now let’s get this bizarre show on the road!

For every action…

Today, I thought it would be funny to put peanut butter in my roommate’s ears. He thought it would be funny to shave off my eyebrows later while I was sleeping. FML

Were you born yesterday? Because it sounds like you were.

The pranking world is a complicated one. And by complicated, I mean dead simple. It’s a tit for tat world out there, and you can’t expect to jam peanut butter into someone’s ears and walk away to carry on about your life.

So, sure, you can squeal about how fucked your life is… or you can paint some eyebrows on your face get out there and BE SOMEBODY.

Importance of home inspections

Today, I discovered the house my family and I just moved into is infested with termites. FML

When you “just move into” a house, I like to think you’ve done some research. You know whether or not it faces north or south, you know how bright some of the rooms are… and you know if insects are going out of their way to fully decimate the substructure of your home.

Before you move in, as a general rule, you’re meant to conduct a move-in inspection. A proper, detailed one. Hell, I think you’re supposed to do that even before you BUY the house.

What I’m getting at is that I have exactly no sympathy for you. Your life may be fucked, but you, sir, deserve it for not doing the whole due diligence thing.

The importance of being honest

Today, I heard my roommate complaining about me not cleaning the bathtub after I shower. What I can’t tell her is that I haven’t taken a shower in 2 days because I’ve been swamped with schoolwork and that the filth in the tub is her own. FML

Time to nut up or shut up. Why can’t you tell her she’s filthy? Is it because you don’t shower for two days at a time, and then shed a layer of dirt into the tub? Moron.

I think there’s a distinct possibility she wasn’t just talking about the filthy tub over the last few days. I’ll assume there’s a fairly good chance she’s talking about it now because it’s been ongoing. Sure, she makes the tub dirty, but you don’t shower for days at a time. You wallow in your own filth while you study.

You need to clean the bathtub.

I received the following release in my inbox this morning:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 5, 2010

COMMUNITY ADVOCATE MICHAEL JANZ RUNNING FOR SCHOOL BOARD

EDMONTON – This morning, Michael Janz confirmed his intention to run for Edmonton Public School Board trustee in Ward F.

“I am running for trustee because I believe this election matters to every Edmontonian,” explained Michael. “The decisions we make about our schools profoundly impact the communities we live in today and our collective efforts to build a better Edmonton tomorrow.”

The community will have the opportunity to meet Michael at his Kickoff BBQ on May 30th, 2010, from 2:00 pm to 5:00pm, at the McKernan Community Hall (11341 – 78 Avenue), with a media address at 3:30 pm. Michael will also be knocking on doors in Ward F during the summer and throughout September and October.

Michael Janz is the current Marketing Director for the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues, and has previously worked as a researcher for the Public School Boards’ Association of Alberta. He was previously elected President of the University of Alberta Students’ Union in 2007.

To learn more about Michael’s campaign, his values, and his vision for Edmonton Public Schools, visit www.michaeljanz.ca.

-30-

I consider Michael to be a good friend, and wish him all the best in his pursuit of public office. I look forward to hearing his ideas. And maybe I’ll even see some of you at the kick-off BBQ!

With such a rich and diverse cross-section of musical talent in Edmonton, Scott and I decided to chat this week with one of Edmonton’s up-and-comers. So we brought the talented, the beautiful, the holy-crap-listen-her-amazing-voice Erica Viegas. And you know what Erica told us? She told us that she wanted the use the Unknown Studio to release a new track out into the world. All exclusive-like. So listen to the show for something we can guarantee you’ve never heard before.

Quickly, and stolen from her website, this is what Erica’s all about:

Raised in Sherwood Park, Alberta in a musical family, Erica has always had a passion for music. Since begging her parents to let her take voice lessons at age 11, she grabbed at every opportunity to be on stage, whether it was singing in a school play or performing the national anthem at an assembly. For more than 10 years, she has been singing at festivals and talent competitions all over Western Canada, including the Alberta Tattoo at Rexall Place, Calgary Stampede, Big Valley Jamboree, and Canadian Search for Miss Universe. In 2003 and 2004, Erica represented the City of Edmonton as Klondike Katie during the Edmonton Klondike Days (now Capital Ex), performing over 50 times during the 10-day festival.

Erica’s also a U of A Business School graduate with a day job at her alma mater. And she’s looking to maybe tour this summer, across Canada or even the US.

And I am going to make it my personal mission to try and get Erica up on the stage at the Folk Fest this summer, at the very least as someone who can perform in between main stage sets. She’s that good. So good, I think a lot of people need to hear her. So download the episode today!

=====================================================
EDMONTON JOURNAL STILL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
=====================================================

It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio this month!

We’re helping EJ to promote their Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!
=====================================================

Download episode 23 of the Unknown Studio directly to your computer.

The Unknown Studio is a proud member of the League of Extraordinary Media.

Here at the Unknown Studio, it means “A day where we make fun of the ninnies and dorks who feel the need to document their failing at FmyLife.com.”

And rather than indulge that documentation, we give ‘em what for. A-like so:

Labourious labours

Today, I just finished a sixteen hour double shift. I now have a five hour break before I start again for another ten. FML

I’d like to introduce you to a concept called labour laws. I’m not sure how it works in the US (which is where I assume most netizens are from, what with affluence, Al Gore and DARPA and all that), but here in Canada we have a series of laws related to employment. And, at least in the place where I live, those laws state, and I quote:

“Shift Changes and Rest Between Shifts
“An employee must be notified in writing about a shift change 24 hours beforehand. Employees must get at least eight hours rest between shifts.”

You see that? My government legally obligates me employer to, basically, let me get some fuckin’ sleep. I suggest you sort out your employment rights, then sit your employer down and educate them as well.

Bum-lookers

Today, my doctor and I had an in-depth discussion about how to wipe my ass better. FML

Wow. Really?

Wow.

One more time: wow.

There’s a NOFX song about a dude wanting to get a sex change. And he knows, after this sex change, that he must wipe front to back. Because who wants a bladder infection?

But I’m going to assume you just half-ass (no pun intended) your wiping. Which is despicable. How much should one wipe? As much as is needed so you are clean back there. Nuff. Fuckin’. Said.

Circle of Dumbass

Today, I was bored at home and decided to do the Circle of Life from the Lion King with my rabbit. He started kicking violently as I was holding him up, causing me to drop him directly on my face. A chunk of my eyebrow is now missing, and I look exactly like Scar. FML

I see the wisdom of the jungle has been lost on you, my child. The wisdom, as I understand it, goes something like this: don’t fuck with with a animal whose feet as the size of your face. Particularly when that animal is an excitable rodent that has exactly nothing to do with the Disney classic Lion King.

Honestly, I have a cat. Probably about the same brain-size as a rabbit. And she doesn’t care to be held aloft and sung at either. Both of those things separately, she might enjoy, but if you put them together… Let’s just say it only works on lion cubs, you dumb shit.

As shattering as this will likely prove to be to my precious ego, I’ve decided to give it a shot.

Those of you in the know will understand what comes next:

EAVB_UKIKOFZXJK

So if you happen along Empire Avenue in the near future, be sure to buy some stock in your favourite local dudes.

Also look for The Unknown Studio to start trading it’s value on that site in the near future.

No, I’m kidding. I don’t want to Eff my Anything. The new jorb’s going well. The people are nice, my boss hasn’t tried to kill me (except with extreme hot and cold temperatures in my office — something he attributes to “the building” [where the building is obviously someone or someTHING that wants to kill me. FML]), and I have a sweet office, as I mentioned before.

And while all those things might delay me in posting this — those things and my own failure to recall that yesterday was Thursday — they are here for you know, in fabulous internet style.

Enjoy the rage!

The best kind of rejection

Today, I received a rejection letter from a potential employer in the form of a post card. FML

Rejection letters are hard to take. You get your hopes up after the interview, you sit and wait by the phone hoping that someone — ANYONE! — will call and tell you that you are entitled to a salary because of your skills. And then you receive a post card.

A post card? How could you possibly be peeved about this?!

Given the fact that you’re an FML contributor, it stands to reason you’ll receive many more employment rejection letters, and I’ll wager that not a single one will be written on a post card. So you’re one of the lucky few to get the old “Wish you were here” message superimposed on an image of a white-sand beach in Mexico, and on the back, the message, “Actually I don’t wish you were here.”

It could be worse, pal. You could have received a form letter. So impersonal. And so not from Mexico.

Wed-a-Cheater!

Today, my boyfriend of 4 years cheated on me. When I caught him, he proposed to me. Something is wrong here. FML

WOW, I know, RIGHT? I mean you must be POSITIVELY hearing ALARM BELLS, am I right?! Like, who DOES that?

OK, OK, to be fair your statement, “Something is wrong here” was probably meant to be all ironical and shit. Except, here’s the thing. This is FMyLife. So any kind of nuance or little trick you’re trying to pull off with your writing will be TOTALLY LOST ON EVERYONE.

So you have three problems:

1. Your boyfriend’s a douche
2. Your boyfriend’s a douche who wants to marry you
3. You cannot even do something as simple as consider your audience before you sit down at a keyboard.

FML indeed!

Keeping 187 in the family

Today, after school, my mom called me into the family room to see my cousin who was on TV. I ran in, all excited to find that my cousin was on the news for killing someone. FML

I don’t have much to say about this one, except that you’re a selfish sack of shit. Your COUSIN was on the news for KILLING SOMEONE. How is your life effed in any way? Oh sure, it might be effed by association, but get a fucking grip. Your COUSIN is the one who should be writing in the FMYLife.

But I suppose that would count as his one phone call wouldn’t it?

That’s right, we’re going back into outer space. But we’re not talking about cute and cuddly E.T.s and Stitches who just want to hug and be friends with us. Hell, we’re not even talking campy outer space denizens who come here with their “Yak-Yak” and their “Prepare to die, Earth-scum” and shoot us with laser guns.

No, today we’re talking about skin crawling, nightmare inducing wrongness.

We’re talking real aliens.

Real scary aliens.

Scott’s comments will be in Martian Invasion Red, Adam’s will be in Green Vulcan Blood.

Alien (1979)

Now, in my opinion, “Aliens” is the better movie. But there’s two major factors that make “Alien” a much better fit for this list than the sequel.

The first is that this is the first appearance of the Xenomorph in film, so naturally this movie is the go-to film. The second is actually a something of a genre shift. “Aliens” is a very different movie from “Alien,” in everything from the feel to the pace. Yes, they’re both science fiction horror movies – but “Aliens” is also an action movie.

“Alien” is not.

“Alien” is a creepy, atmospheric thriller. Once things start to go bad for the crew of the Nostromo, the tension begins to ramp up exponentially. Couple that with the giant, largely claustrophobic ship and the small crew. Then add in the fact that you never really get a clear look at the Xenomorph during the first film – terrifying.

I think it was best put in “Aliens”, during Ripley’s debrief at Weyland-Yutani headquarters: acid blood; plants a living seed in your chest, which then BURSTS out of you; proceeds to eat all you friends… There are few things more terrifying than that.

Oh, did I mention it has, like, five mouths? Because it does.

The Alien is so bad-ass, the creation of such a twisted mind (in surrealist HR Giger), and so thoroughly, mindlessly brutal, that after violating your fragile human body, it would probably take off with your girlfriend.

Fire in the Sky (1993)

Fire in the Sky was the stuff of nightmares. Literally. Except, presumably, these fiends ACTUALLY kidnap you and do all kinds of fucked up shit to you. And the very worst part of their terrifying violations? When you come back home after a night in space, no one believes you. They all think your nuts, as you try to explain that these are actually the early symptoms of alien gonorrhoea.

More than anything, what makes these fuckers so upsetting is that they’re so… nondescript. You come back from being anally examined by a species that doesn’t understand your anatomy, and when someone asks what you saw, all you can recall is a face that conveys… well, noselessness.

And that’s fucked up.

But thank the gods they can only bite you with one mouth. Not, like, five.

The aliens in “Fire in the Sky” are scary because, basically, they’re so similar to us. It’s that almost human aspect that, as far as I’m concerned, makes them so damned terrifying. It gives you an idea that you might know what they’re going to do next… then they do the opposite, like stick a freakin’ needle in your eye!

These are also supposed to basically be “The Grays”, the standard alien abduction creatures that have invaded the pop culture. I have a friend who would not be able to even watch this movie because of how utterly terrified she is of them. And rightly so.

If you see one of these guys on a dark street and your primitive mammal brain doesn’t scream “RUN”, you deserve to have your anus probed.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

This is a scary ass movie. Fundamentally, the theme here is about the terror of conformity, and I think there may have been some communist message, too. But the actual aliens? The pod people?

That’s the kind of thing that feeds paranoid delusions for the rest of your life.

“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” is actually a decently tense movie, which follows Donald Sutherland as he tries to save himself from the alien menace that is literally replacing humanity.

And really, what’s more horrifying? The terror of struggling against becoming what everyone else is? Or being the only one left who hasn’t changed?

From deep space, the seed is planted. Terror grows. And it screams like a banshee, too.

Now, it’s hard to really describe what’s scariest in this movie, since it stars long-established Hollywood creeps like Donald Sutherland, Leonard Nimoy, and Jeff Goldblum. But it would be pretty creepy when you realize that all the people you know and love have been copied and replaced — their bodies LITERALLY snatched away from them.

BUT SCARIEST OF ALL: Donald Sutherland’s unfortunate afro!

The Thing (1982)

The Thing — so horrifying, so grotesque… But did you know it’s also the primary tool of creationist dogma? “This!” they exclaim, “is what Charles Darwin was trying to foist upon humanity with his ‘theory.’” They go on to question whether or not this kind of thing is really what we should be teaching our children.

And the answer is yes. Yes we should.

The Thing is not only absolutely terrifying, it’s also fucking awesome to watch it slither and change and ooze its way through body after body. What makes the Thing so powerfully scary is that it’s… positively disgusting! Truly some of John Carpenter’s best work. And if the Thing doesn’t scare you, then Kurt Russell dressed as a flamethrower-wielding hippie surely will.

“The Thing” is a deeply disturbing movie based on the equally disturbing novella by John W. Campbell “Who Goes There?” or “The Thing from Another World”.

This is another alien who steals humans and imitates them. It’s a squishy extra-terrestrial shapeshifter that consumes everything in it’s path, turning it into a part of… well it.

Really, Adam sums it up well above, but if you want to totally blow your mind, I highly recommend reading this short story by Canadian science fiction author Peter Watts. It’s “The Thing”… told from a very different point of view.

Sleep tight.

But it’s not.

Fate conspired against us last weekend, but we persevered. And in what may be our least-listened-to podcast to day, we talk about… well, the Unknown Studio. We discussed some of the drama that’s recently cropped up around the show — nothing scandalous, mind you. Just worthy of note. Noteworthy, if you’re into the whole brevity thing.

We also talk plans for the future — but only very briefly so as not to give away all the fabulous surprises we have. And rather than end with a Fast 15, we end with a new random segment called “Ridiculous Questions that Have Little Bearing on Anything.”

Leave us a comment to beg us to ensure we have a guest for our next episode.

=====================================================

EDMONTON JOURNAL STILL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
=====================================================

It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio this month!

We’re helping EJ to promote their Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!

=====================================================

Download the episode 22 of the Unknown Studio directly to your computer.

The Unknown Studio is a proud member of the League of Extraordinary Media.

But before any of that happens, we need to look into the dismal lives of FML contributors. Anchors away!

Read between the lines

Today, I left my reading glasses on my bed before leaving for work and didn’t listen to my instinct to move them. I got home after a long day and sat on my bed. Guess who needs new glasses? FML

Listen, I don’t think human being have evolved to the point where we’ve developed instinct about the placement of visual aids. I think you’re just a lazy idiot. Honestly, leaving glasses on the bed — not the bedside table, mind you, but the actual bed — is essentially a guarantee that they’re going to be ruined.

When I get home, I’ll head to my bedroom and before I do anything else (like change into something less business-y) I will actually fall onto the bed. There’s a very good reason why I don’t store thumbtacks, anti-personnel mines, or glasses on my bed.

Cat falls

Today, I was relaxing in a recliner with my cat sleeping on my chest. My cat started to fall off, so she grabbed my neck with her claws to pull herself back up. FML

See, there’s always a risk when it comes to cats, because they are horribly be-weaponed creatures and they will use their weapons in a variety of situations. And you’re probably thinking, “Boohoo, it’s not fair, what did I ever do to my cat.” The answer is, you let your cat sleep on your chest.

I let my cat do this too, but I have the good sense to ensure she isn’t positioned in such a way as to cause me significant harm. You know, like moving her around and adjusting her so she has to reason to gouge my skin out.

This is risky business, this cat snuggling game. And you, my friend, got burned. Look on the bright side: you’ll probably be terrified at your cat now, because you strike me as that kind of overdramatic buffoon.

Lock mess

Today, I accidentally locked my keys in my car. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the spare keys weren’t lost. FML

This is a weak FML. Where’s the punch? Where’s the panache? Where’s the drama? Where’s the something I can make fun of, other than the fact that you’re terribly boring?

Oh wait, I found it: you suck. Millions of people lock their keys in their car every day. And many of them don’t have spares, so you know what they do? They find themselves a coat hanger, or they call the AMA and they get their shit unlocked.

What they don’t do: piss and moan about how hard their life is on some creepy microblog.

And while the work I’ve started on is tremendously compelling, I wanted to brag a bit about my office. Mostly because, since I’ve been out of school, I’ve never had my own office.

I’ve sat in large, open rooms, cubicles, the oil-soaked, shag-carpet-festooned back office of a garage… I’ve even worked jobs where there WAS no office. I had to work OUTSIDE. IN THE SUNSHINE. Can you believe that?

Anyhow, some of my friends were curious to see my new office (featuring a door!) so this weekend when I was in doing a few work-y things, I snapped a few images of my office, and some of the decorations adorning it. Enjoy the nerdfest!

The e-mail: Such Tweet Sorrow – a Shakespearean play performed over social media.

Over the next five weeks, six actors will be tweeting a modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, largely improvised from a structured plot.

Oh, and did I mention it’s being put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company? Yeah… that kind of makes it a big deal.

Like good artists, director Roxana Silbert and the RSC actors involved have decided to embrace a new medium to find a new way to create art. To witness it on the ground floor is… frankly, exciting.

Now only time will tell if this creative use of social media will be successful, and will pave the way for future performances, but I, for one, will definitely be following it, and will give my two-cents on the whole shebang when it wraps up.

You can watch the whole thing unfold by following @such_tweet on twitter.

And let me tell you, fair reader, WE MEAN BUSINESS. We mean it in both official languages. We mean it in Esperanto. But since no one speaks Esperanto, we’ll just deliver the straight goods like we always do: in straight-up, unadulterated, rage-filled English.

Happy FML Friday!

Lap it up

Today, someone thought it would be fun to throw their scorching hot coffee out the window onto the sidewalk. It hit me in the snow globes. FML

I would LOVE to see you walking down the street, back arched, nose pointed directly to the sky, with your junk leading the way. That’s the only way you could have possibly had your jibblies scalded by some errant coffee.

I feel like this is that “Second Spitter” episode of Seinfeld, where Jerry debunks Kramer’s theory that Keith Hernandez spat on him after a Yankees game. I’d wager there is no possible way your “snow globes” — and really, who calls them that? — took the brunt of the caffeine assault you were allegedly subjected to.

Next time you completely fabricate an FML, at least ensure it stands up to scrutiny.

Super-G, wheelchair edition

Today, I was racing downhill on my brother’s wheelchair while he was taking a nap. As the road made a small tilt, I lost control and ran into the curb. I broke my ankle. FML

Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it. YOU STOLE YOUR BROTHER’S WHEELCHAIR. I’m sorry to shout, but this certainly merits at least that. If I were standing in front of you, I would smack you on your broken ankle. And I wouldn’t sign your cast.

Maybe leave the seat-jockeying to those with the locomotive experience to manage wheelchairs, yes? They’re like vehicles. And you clearly shouldn’t be operating one.

Fix it!

Today, the doctor told me the abdominal pain I’ve been feeling for the past four days is actually appendicitis and I need to have surgery tonight. I’m living in a third world country attending vet school. There are goats in the parking lot, my final exams are next week, and my birthday is in four days. FML

OK, dipshit, let me simplify this for you: YOU HAVE APPENDICITIS. Whatever your situation, whatever you have planned next week, whenever your birthday is, just forget it. All those considerations are completely irrelevant.

Because YOU HAVE APPENDICITIS. Do you know what happens if it goes untreated? Your appendix could burst, your body would become sceptic I mean “septic” (thanks Alain!), and you’d die. So fuck everything else. Find a surgeon — in another country nearby if you have to — and get yourself sorted out.

Once you’ve done that, maybe reconsider your decision to go to vet school in a third world country that doesn’t provide healthcare.

Now, in order to assess the progress of construction crews on this project, I decided to contact the city directly. And sure, I was asking some tough questions. But they were important ones. Unfortunately, city officials were rather, uh, selective in their responses. Here’s what I asked them:

• So, how close was the Dawson Bridge to falling into the North Saskatchewan before the city started the rehab project?
• Are you currently on schedule to complete the project so the bridge can re-open in January 2011?
• What are you guys working on on the bridge right now for the month of the April?
• Can we expect the bridge to look very similar to its original form, or or has the city added lasers and other random, but extremely cool, technology?
• To your knowledge, has anyone tried to cross the North Saskatchewan river beside the bridge in protest of its closure? If so, did the construction guys take some video I can upload to YouTube?
• Do you one day hope that robots will be able to do this kind of work, while you boss them around and sip lemonade? Or would you be worried about some kind of robot revolt?
• Is anyone planning a huge bridge opening party? Other than me?

Scaffolding on the Dawson Bridge. Not pictured: robotic construction workers and possible lasers.

See? This is why I’m one of 52% of bloggers who lies to others and instead tells everyone he’s a journalist. BECAUSE I ASK THE HARD QUESTIONS.

Unfortunately, the city wasn’t forthcoming in its answers, which is why yet another Potential Bridge Conspiracy® is apparently upon us. Here were the responses I received:

• Bridge construction continues on schedule; at this point, we anticipate completion and re-opening by end the of 2010.
• We will likely hold a media event to showcase the bridge once it is finished so that Edmontonians can see the work that has been done.
• In April, crews will begin removing the old bridge deck in preparation for the replacement of this portion of the structure.
• When the bridge is complete, it will have been repainted the same colour and the only change in appearance will be the wider sidewalks (they will still be made of wood in order to preserve the look and character of the bridge).

See? They just sidestepped the robot/laser questions. Clearly, these individuals have had media training.

And OBVIOUSLY the city is covering up its desire to use robots to build bridges. Clearly someone at the city has seen Battlestar Galactica. The whole premise of that show is based on the notion that robot workers — some of whom may have been enlisted to build fictional bridges — revolted against their masters. It turned into an all-out war. And it really is a terrific series, you should watch it…

The city doesn’t want us to know this. Because they don’t want the resident of the quiet community of Riverdale to know the robot apocalypse is going to be fought on its doorstep — on top of a newly renovated bridge, I might add.

Just further evidence that the city’s squandering our tax dollars. I hope there’s an election soon.

But I applied to participate anyway. And it was worth way more than the money I paid to attend.

TED Talks aren’t just about information or sharing. They’re about exciting, world-changing ideas. And TEDx Edmonton was inspirational.

Since that weekend, I’ve become something of a TED whore, taking most every bit of my free time to watch lectures. If you’d asked me in my first year of university what I’d be spending my evenings doing, I’m not sure what I’d have said. However, I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t have said, “Watching presentations given by global thought-leaders… on the Internet.”

Below I’ve embedded a few TED Talks that I’ve really enjoyed. Unfortunately the ones from the Edmonton event aren’t available on video yet but I’m told they will be soon. (I’ve actually been able to find one, and it’s at the bottom of the list… it’s also my favourite talk from the Edmonton event.) Enjoy these videos in the meantime, which I deem to be awesome.

A Stroke of Insight

How I fell in love with a fish

Bobby McFerrin hacks your brain with music [link]

Ze Frank’s nerdcore comedy

Raising kids to be entrepreneurs

Roma Sobieski first appeared on our radar when she started working with Jerry Aulenbach on a fundraiser for the Canadian Association of Medical Teams Abroad, who have done some outstanding work providing surgeries to individuals in Ecuador. Roma was raising money to actually go spend a week in Ecuador to assist the doctors and nurses there with patients. The response to her campaign was nothing short of incredible.

In this episode, Scott and I chat with Roma about her hopes and dreams of becoming a pediatric surgeon, and also the amazing time she had working with doctors and patients in Central America (where, it turns out, it wasn’t so warm in March).

Also worth noting: we recorded this episode on Roma’s birthday, but we were too polite to ask her how old she was.

Enjoy the show, and as always, leave your comments on this hear post, or give us a killer rating on iTunes.

=====================================================

EDMONTON JOURNAL STILL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
=====================================================

It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio this month!

We’re helping EJ to promote their Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!

=====================================================

Download the episode 21 of the Unknown Studio directly to your computer.

The Unknown Studio is a proud member of the League of Extraordinary Media.

So we printed off these important documents and sealed them in envelopes that were not to be opened unless one (or both) of us fell victim to a large, errant semi-truck.

Lately, my mode of thinking on the Unknown Studio has been similar. What if something occurred to either Scott or myself that made it so that recording from our various locations became untenable. What then?

You see, we’ve gotten used to a certain level of “quality” when it comes to recording the show (I put quality in quotes because I’m certain the balance of you will snarkily disagree). But right now, we’re a little hamstrung as to when we’re able to record. And I would love nothing more than to open a case of beer, sit down with a guest and kibitz until the sun goes down, no matter what day it is. We don’t currently have that luxury — even though I am tremendously grateful that we’re allowed to use the incredible professional facilities we currently use.

And guess what? Studio equipment is EXPENSIVE (duh, I know, right?), particularly if you want to do it right. And neither Scott nor myself are wealthy. We make decent money; it allows us to occasionally get together and drink beer. But not drop a couple grand on some new kit.

I was recently whinging about the Unknown Studio’s inability to realize the home-studio dream… And I was doing this rather loudly to my delicious and delightful colleagues in the League of Extraordinary Media. Sally heard me, and obviously wanted to shut me up, because she mentioned the fact that the Unknown Studio was looking for a sponsor to the cats who run Guru Digital Arts College.

Effective more or less right the hell now, Guru Digital Arts College is the de facto title sponsor of the Unknown Studio. Their generous support will allow Scott and I to build a state-of-the-art home studio, which will allow us to be extremely flexible in the creation of the show.

You can read Headmaster Owen Brierley’s own take on this awesome partnership at the Guru Blog.

In the meantime, we hope to continue providing Edmontonians and Albertans with compelling content, engaging conversations, and a filled-to-the-brim swear jar — soon coming to you almost live from our very own home studio.

Thanks to everyone for listening and reading, and thanks especially to our new partners at Guru Digital Arts College, whose support will ensure the Unknown Studio’s longevity for likely much longer than anyone out there is reasonably comfortable with.

Adam Rozenhart
TUS producer, co-host and webmaster

A. Tumblr.
B. Festivus.
C. Nothing else.

But still netizens post their thoughts and sadness. And so, today, in the spirit of Jesus Christ, who was hatched from a Easter Egg laid by the bunny from Donnie Darko, I present to you the “That Sucks” edition of FML Friday, wherein I try to remain sympathetic to the plight of the pathetic.

Just this once.

Dear John…

Today, I finally received a letter from my wife. I am stationed in Afghanistan. It was written by her lawyer. FML

WHAT DID THE LETTER SAY!?

Just joking. That sucks, dude, but I understand it isn’t terribly uncommon.

And I know it seems like a travesty that you’ve been dodging bullets and following orders while your wife contemplates your marriage and decides to issue this letter without a word of mention to you, but that’s life.

I’m hopeful for you that you’ll eventually find a partner who understands your sacrifices, respects your choice to serve your country and doesn’t run off like some thankless hag when the chips are down.

Best of luck to you, and stay safe out there.

Corny and Nutty

Today, I found out that I don’t digest almonds and popcorn very well. Every time I use the bathroom, it feels like I’m sandpapering my butthole. FML

Yikes. That really sucks.

And you paint a lovely, descriptive picture, don’t you? Popcorn kernels are basically impossible for you to digest in the small amount of time it takes them to pass through your body. But it really sounds like you need to chew your food more, rather than just inhale it.

Still, I sympathize. It sounds painful. Just take your time eating, enjoy the flavours and remember what goes in must come out.

Texts from April Fools Day

Today, there’s nothing worse than thinking it’s funny to send your wife a text on the morning of April fools Day telling her you think she’s having an affair, only for her to phone you back sobbing and saying “I’ve been waiting for months to tell you…” FML

Oh dude. That totally sucks. Talk about a bad joke backfiring.

But I’m all about looking at the bright side in this particular post. So let’s do that:

Now you know. The terms under which you found out are absolutely terrible, but it’s out there in the open and now you can figure out where you go from here. And honestly, it was a terrible joke. I’d wager you don’t make a joke like that unless you’re extremely close with your partner (and it doesn’t seem like you are), or you suspect something.

In any case, cry your tears and get busy moving on. Best of luck to you!

Mack Male quoted another prominent social media citizen, Chris LaBossiere today regarding this whole issue: “Organizations don’t have conversations. People do.”

I followed Lynda Steele almost the moment she arrived on Twitter. I was thrilled that I could directly interact with a personality — nay, a person — whom I’d watched on TV my whole life. And guess what? It turns out she’s just a normal woman who loves her job, loves Edmonton and was looking for a new way to interact with and gather news in the market she serves.

On a personal note, I got to know Lynda a bit better and even worked with her on a few charitable campaigns through OilersNation.com. She’s always been great fun to work with, and had a raft of neat idea on how to get the message out there. Twitter was one of those ways.

When this story broke, a few hours ago by the time this gets posted, we were told that Global would be consolidating Twitter accounts under the Global banner. We’ve now been told, via a tweet from Global Edmonton, the following: “GM Tim Spelliscy corrects bad scoop. GE is NOT consolidating accounts, not now or ever. Our personalities will continue to Twitter.”

So all other Global personalities stay, but Lynda can’t or won’t? From where I was sitting, she was using the medium rather effectively. And, at least nationally, Twitter seems to be a technology that Global really wants to use.

I won’t go so far as to say this move will alienate a batch of potential viewers. I’ll still tune in when I can to see Gord and Lynda give us the news. But I certainly don’t perceive Global in a favourable light nor will I follow the Global Edmonton account, whatever their reasons were for this move. It’s backwards. It’s limiting. It’s old media.

I contacted Lynda to ask her what was going on, and like a consummate professional, she said “No comment.” I then asked her if this was an elaborate April Fools Day joke. She reassured me that if it is, no one’s let her know.

Guess we just have to send our news tips to Global the old fashioned way: via carrier pigeon.

For those of you who miss Lynda Steele on Twitter, you can follow her fake alter ego, @fakeLyndaSteele. And no, I’m not managing that account.

Then I look around at the devastation exacted upon the planet and human beings by other human beings, and that future seems pretty far off. Except in the world of media.

In its own weird way, social media echos those often-socialist utopia tenets of Star Trek. All for one and one for all. Services like Twitter, and most recently Hulu, have proven to be tremendously useful to connect people, and allow them to share and consume culture, among other things. They aren’t only useful, but they’re tremendously successful in nearly every single way… except when it comes to generating any kind of significant revenue.

So much of what we’re seeing as change in our society is, at least in some major or minor form, data driven. That data can be statistical in nature, or it can be a collection of “friends” you have on Facebook, or it could be a count of how many Twitter users in Edmonton invoke the #yeg hashtag. But there’s data out there and socially-minded developers are finding ways to free this information and let the masses consume it — quite often without demanding any pay for it, at least not right off the bat. Knowledge is power and some of the individuals with the keys to unlocking this knowledge using a variety of tools or apps, ostensibly arming at least some cross-section of the population with power, are content to just put the information and tools out there gratis, secure in the knowledge that this will increase their social capital. I hate to use the term (since I thought the movie was utter drivel), but these individuals are paying it forward.

And guess what? It works.

These people — many of the ones I know are in Edmonton, including guys like Sean Healy, Joel Jackson and their @etsinfo Twitter app, and Mack Male with ShareEdmonton.ca — are giving us these tools for free and just sort of waiting to see what happens.

Now I’m not suggesting that one of them’s going to create a food replicator and decide not to monetize it… the fledgling capitalist in me thinks that would be downright stupid!

But the idealist in me hopes that we’re witnessing the seeds of that strange, alien-yet-human society created by Gene Roddenberry back in the 1960s at Desilu Studios. One where we aren’t concerned with the acquisition of wealth so much as the advancement of all society. A true reflection of the idea that no child, no human being, be left behind.

To me, that’s a place I think we need to boldly go. And while I don’t expect we’ll get there in my lifetime, I’m hopeful that it’s something that a least some people will continue to work toward.

Well… that’s a full-time job that’s been getting harder and harder. You may have noticed that in recent episodes a few superfluous F-Bombs managed to evade my skillful editing. I do try and remain vigilant, but it’s almost like Adam has been actively sneaking more and more cursing into each episode just to keep me on my toes. In fact – I know that’s what he’s doing.

So it’s time to make him pay.

Literally.

As of the forthcoming Episode 21, The Unknown Studio will no longer be censored. Adam is now free to rattle of long litanies of profanity that would make a sailor blush. And every time he unleashes such a blistering obscenity he’s going to be plunking a shiny dollar into the swear jar.

Yes, we’ve always been a little lenient on the easier swears. Something has to be particularly foul before it merits a dollar value. Rest assured, though, that Adam is more than capable of reaching into the stratosphere of indecency at regular intervals.

So, for the record, we’ll be abiding by rules set down by a master of ribald language, the late George Carlin. His seven dirty words you can’t say on television; Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits, seem like a good barometer.

And don’t go thinking that we’re going to be spending that swear jar capital on us. Oh no, once the jar is full, we’ll be donating the whole shebang to charity.

Granted, we haven’t decided which charity. But the swear jar is still empty – so there’s still plenty of time to figure that out. If you have any ideas, feel free to share.

In the meantime – brace yourselves. Adam and Scott are uncensored.

@trevolutions and @mspixieriot join me this week in taking the mick out of some of the sad sacks who feel the need to share their woe-is-me views with the world. The sort of sharing that makes you shake your head and not feel pity for these people, but instead experience the sensation of rage.

Before I write more poorly constructed sentences, let’s get on with this week’s edition of FML Friday!

Vegas, baby!

by @trevolutions

Today, I found out that what happens in Vegas, stays on Facebook and bank statements. FML

OK. So let me get this straight. You went to Vegas, had probably a great time (how could you not?), came home and saw a few PG-rated pics on Facebook and realized you spent too much money… So where does the FML come in? Seriously.

News flash: You were in Vegas! You are supposed to spend a lot of money — that is why you go to Vegas. Vegas was designed purely to take your money… and get you laid. Those are the only two reasons why anybody would go and you accomplished at least one of them. Congrats.

How about an FML that says, “I went to Vegas, came home and saw myself on Bangbus.” Now that’s a FML I can get behind. That’s an FML I can persuade myself to do a little more investigative reporting on.

A modest proposal

by @mspixieriot

Today, my boyfriend of 3 years said he wanted me to meet him for dinner at an upscale restaurant to ask me a very important question. I got really dressed up thinking a proposal was coming on. Did he propose? No, he asked me if he could date other people. FML

Oh, honey, I’m going to cut right to the chase on this one: do not assume that he thinks about marriage as much as you do. You may live and breathe for the image of yourself in a white dress walking down the aisle to a string quartet, but I can just about guarantee you that he doesn’t. For every time that you’ve imagined what song you’ll dance your first dance to, he’s imagined something more along the lines the two of you hanging out and having a good time together.

A lot of things in life are more important than white weddings and diamond engagement rings. Most guys, and a lot of women, can see that. To the rest of us, an important question is any one that affects your life or relationship at all, from “What kind of car should I buy?” to “What would our commutes be like if I moved across the city?”. If you can’t wrap your head around that, and you’re convinced that fancy restaurant plus important question equals proposal, you’re building yourself up for this letdown all on your own.

I do agree that his question sucks, though. Look on the (sort of) bright side – at least he respected you enough to be honest with you.

The most ancient and auspicious of dances

by @bingofuel

Today, the dance pole that my roommate, friend, and I bought and put up a week ago broke into four pieces. It was $225.00. Also, there is now a hole in our wall and my landlord is coming to put the air conditioning in soon. FML

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait — DANCE POLE? Please. To. Elaborate.

Look, I’m no pervert. I’m just a normal dude whose ears naturally perk up when a girl says the following things: “dance pole,” “roommate,” “friend,” “and I.”

You girls must have really been reefing on this thing for it to break into four pieces. I imagine a scene involving acrobatics, the defiance of gravity, and some tasteful music selections. But I’m also a 30-year-old dude with the emotional maturity of a 15-year-old, so take that for what it is.

In any event, I really hope the three of you replace your pole and keep up the practice. BECAUSE IT’S GOOD EXERCISE.

Eduard Khil is a Russian singer. He recorded a video for a song called “I Am Glad to Finally Be Home” in 1976. It’s a bizarre vocalization set to music. No lyrics. I’m not exactly certain why there aren’t lyrics, though I’ve heard tell it has something to do with the fact that the words were censored by the former Soviet government in the 70s. Here’s the video of the meme everyone’s talking about (popularized by Stephen Colbert and Christoph Waltz), often referred to simply as Trololo:

Memes are amazing. They’re these little nuggets of content that netizens become obsessed with. They’re viral, self-perpetuating and often silly (think All You Base Are Belong To Us, or the aforementioned Rick Roll). One of the things I find most remarkable about these memes is what other users wind up doing with them to make them their own. To wit, the “dumbed down” version of Trololo:

This meme is so popular, it’s spawned its own website with ringtones people can download. Needless to say, Trololo has been my ringtone for some weeks now. And now, people can fill out a petition for Eduard Khil to do a Trololo world tour.

Perhaps one of my favourite things about internet culture, though, is the concept of the mash-up. I’ll leave you with one. Trololo goes hip hop. This is the pinnacle of human existence. I’m not even kidding you:

We spoke to one of those pillars in our most recent episode, which you can download below. Hi name is Ken Bautista, and he’s officially one of Edmonton’s “big deals.” Here’s some info on Ken from his website:

Ken Bautista, 32, has over 10 years experience in the interactive industry as an entrepreneur and creative director.

He founded his first interactive development company, Hotrocket, in 2001 after graduating from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor’s Degree in Education. In 2008, the company’s interactive services division was acquired by RED The Agency, one of the fastest growing independent marketing agencies in Western Canada.

Ken is currently working on his second start-up seekyourownproof.com, an online community for kids ages 8-12 where they’re challenged to investigate science and history as agents of a fictional agency called the “Central Institute for Exploration”.

Ken’s also involved in ArtsScene Edmonton, Startup Edmonton, and TEDx Edmonton.

Scott and I picked his brain for a good hour on the projects Ken’s working on, why he’s still living in Edmonton, and what the future holds for yet another of Avenue Magazine’s Top 40 Under 40.

=====================================================

EDMONTON JOURNAL STILL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
=====================================================

It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio this month!

We’re helping EJ to promote their Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!

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Download the episode 20 of the Unknown Studio directly to your computer.

The Unknown Studio is a proud member of the League of Extraordinary Media.

Thanks to Mack Male for allowing us to use one of his photos for this post.

I know what you’re thinking — no seriously, I took psychology in university, so obviously I know these things; you’re thinking this is a long sentence, and you’d be right; it’s impossibly long and you’re really dying for something that’s, well, EXCITING: like an exclamation point!

Phew, I’m glad that’s over.

You’re also thinking you don’t just want to trade junk, or you don’t have any junk to trade. So what?! Come anyway, because for $2 you get to hear some of the best up-and-coming bands in Edmonton, including Lyra Brown, the Mystery Ponies, and The Joe. We’ll have bands, a swap meet, drinks, and some of Edmonton’s most fantastic and exciting people! You should be there.

Here’s how it works:

Oh, that little bit at the bottom about the League of Extraordinary Media? You can read about that in a post I wrote describing the Genesis of the League earlier this week.

And don’t worry if you can’t make this one… League members and our good friends TheEdmontonian.com are going to try to setup a stream so you can watch the event live from their website.

See you tonight!

Hey, we understand the occasional need to bitch. But do so in a productive way. Do so in a way that isn’t completely fabricated. And do so in a way that doesn’t make you sound more or less like a complete and utter knob.

Life’s hard. We know this. Philosophers and social scientists the world over have expounded upon it. In the words of Tallahassee in Zombieland: “Time to nut up or shut up.”

And most of you should really, really just shut up.

Like a scene from Total Recall

Today, I was walking down the hallway when someone opened a door, smashing it into me. The bump makes it look like I have a third boob. FML

OK, so you either have the biggest bump in human history, or the smallest breasts on record. I can’t see there being any middle ground here.

But there’s obviously something I’m missing here, because most human beings walk with a gait such that their head is thrust slightly forward of the rest of their body. We’re taught to have better posture than this, but most people don’t. This actually leads me to believe that you actually do have the smallest breasts on record, because you were walking in such a way as to deliberately accentuate them, which as you now know is actually really dangerous.

Just be careful with those things, OK?

An infinite number of monkeys…

Today, I learned that in Japan there are monkeys that wait tables and work at a tavern. Literally, I have a job a monkey can do. FML

You’d be surprised how many different sophisticated tasks monkeys can perform. But before you sit there the rest of the day wallowing in self-pity, I recommend you really consider what waiting tables involves, at its core: bringing people stuff. People point to the menu, mention an item, and you bring it.

Now the big differentiator between you and a monkey is that you can actually speak, explain, flirt (unless we’re talking about a terribly sophisticated monkey), and really work for those tips. I would suggest that unless you’re functioning only in a work-to-rule capacity, you have nothing to worry about from the monkey-waiter population.

Besides, the Japanese are terribly sophisticated being. I’m sure they could train just about any animal to serve in a tavern, and it would be better than the best western server out there. In which case, yes, Eff your Ell indeed.

WoW, are you ever lucky

Today, I realized my girlfriend has way more friends than I do. How did I realize this? She called me to tell me she was at the beach with her friends and how much fun she was having. I was playing WoW in my room, and my friends don’t answer my texts. FML

I think it’s time for you to step back from the keyboard and count your lucky stars, young man. Not only is your girlfriend way more popular than you — from which we can infer a variety of things about her character and disposition — but she sticks with you in spite of the fact that you spend presumably a significant amount of your own time sitting in your room playing World of Warcraft.

Your anti-social tendencies make it so that you’d rather plan raids with your online pals than spend time with people in the real world… but YOU STILL HAVE A GIRLFRIEND. This is a feat unto itself, you strange little man. So no one’s Ell is being Effed right now. Be thankful.

NOW GO FORTH, MIGHTY DWARF KNIGHT!

Like the Justice League but with less justice

I was summoned that evening by Brittney Le Blanc who informed me my presence was required, as a representative of the Unknown Studio (Scott was doing “real work”. Chump), to discuss forming an informal association of new media properties — a group of local media concerns that fall outside of the scope of the mainstream. She told me this after, of course, she said, “Come and have food with me, Sally and Jeff at the Manor Bistro.” An opportunity to sit down with Brit and my colleagues from TheEdmontonian.com is not be taken lightly. If you throw food into the equation, it’s more or less mandatory.

We’d spoken off and on about combining our influence as a means of attracting more readers (or listeners, as two podcasts, including this one and UserCreatedContent, are members of LEM), attracting advertisers and simply helping to give each other any assistance — be it technical or promotional —that was required.

In short, the League exists as a loosely affiliated group of new media organizations in Edmonton who have pledged to help each other bury any bodies we leave in our wake.

We have an about page on our website that says, “The League of Extraordinary Media is an alliance of Edmonton new media producers working together to raise the profile of the city’s flourishing online community.”

True, but wordy. So here’s a more polished mission statement, borrowed from an old toast from my student newspapering days: We strive for World Domination, in a modest Canadian way.

That is, at least, the cheeky version of it.

To put a finer point on it, we want your eyes and ears. We want to provide Edmontonians, Albertans, Canadians and global citizens with alternative media for their consumption pleasure. We want to present the world as we see it in a manner you might not have considered before. We want your comments, your thoughts, and your ideas.

We want to be a part of the community, not merely an observer of it.

The people who form the membership of the League — Brittney Le Blanc from TrueBritl.com; Ramin Ostad, Corey Satermo, Matthew Dykstra, Anthony Bacchus, Tyler Satchwill, and Michael Jones from UserCreatedContent; Sally Poulsen and Jeff Samsonow from TheEdmontonian.com; and Scott C Bourgeois and myself from the Unknown Studio — are all trained communicators in some form. And we love these tools of authorship and the potential for storytelling they afford us.

We hope the League can live up to its name. We think it will. Either way, we want to hear from you.

Our ‘coming out’ party

One of the ways we wanted to present the League to the world was by organizing a really fun party for people. But we wanted the party to have some twist to it, not just an excuse to get together and drink and shoot the breeze (which is also acceptable). Brittney and Sally came up with the idea for a swap meet; a place for you to bring “your poor, your tired, your crap you don’t want” and see if you can’t come away with some prize(s) you’d prefer to have over your junk.

That’s when YEGSwap was born (check out YEGSwap on Facebook).

But it’s not just a swap meet. It’s also a concert, featuring Edmonton artists of all genres, including The Mystery Ponies, Lyra Brown, and the Joe.

Did I mention there would be drinks?

AND there will also be a chance to earn a “Swarm” badge on FourSquare, for you über nerds out there.

For $2 you get unreal entertainment, and the potential to grab some swag via swap. The first of many event hosted by the League.

See you there.

But that isn’t going to stop me from providing a thorough analysis on this weird little meme. Hey, it’s Friday after all, and that means it’s time for me to take out the old “advice stick” and beat these sad sacks about their virtual heads with it.

Welcome once again to FML Friday.

Dog eat dog

Today, I was eating a hotdog. My huge Siberian Husky, upon becoming aware of this, jumped up on me. He forced his tongue into my mouth and ate the food I was in the middle of eating. FML

You’re a bad person. You know why? Because I have a huge Siberian Husky. Now let’s suppose, at minimum and assuming similar hugeness, we compare our two dogs. When someone is eating in my house, the dog lays down. He’s not allowed to beg, or jump or even whine. If he whines, he’s out. So he knows not to bullshit around super time.

He’s only one year old.

You’re a bad person because if a lazy schmuck like me can train an energetic, half-stupid husky to not be an asshole, then anyone can. You deserved to have that hot dog snatched from your mouth (for the love of pete. Did you experience spontaneous paralysis somehow when this whole thing was going down?). You shouldn’t be permitted to eat again until this dog behaves like a perfect gentleman.

Hot coffee… no, really

Today, after taking my girlfriend on a date, she invited me back to her place for “hot coffee and dessert”. Excitedly, I said yes. When we got there, we actually had coffee and dessert. When I told her this wasn’t what I’d had in mind, she kicked me out for being a pervert. FML

I feel like you should know not to do this. Isn’t it common sense? She asks you to come in for dessert and coffee… Since when is this a euphemism for sex? Just because you’re invited in doesn’t mean you get laid by default.

If she’d said, “Want to come in for a night cap,” then great! That is very likely to lead somewhere. But coffee and dessert?

You know what, you’re an idiot. This girl obviously likes you enough to invite you to come in and spend some more time with her; she even feeds you some sweet pastries, a nice fresh cup of coffee, and you’re concerned your pants were on the whole time.

AND THEN like a true and utter wang, you told her you thought this was it. That sex was imminent. AFTER YOU ATE HER DESSERT AND DRANK HER COFFEE!

If you’re one of those people who can’t read people at all — and you didn’t know enough to realize this “girlfriend” of yours wasn’t feeling it that night. UGH. You suck, sir. Deeply and without sex.

Dontcha put it in your mouth, uh uh

Today, I started biting my nails, before I realized I’d forgotten to wash my hands after taking a massive dump. FML

I will readily admit to enjoying the “me” time I experience in the bathroom (and no, I don’t mean it that way GUY WHO DOESN’T KNOW WHAT DESSERT AND COFFEE IS). That smelly solitude — maybe the warmth and companionship of a Reader’s Digest — can be a most relaxing time.

But not once, not ever, not even ON PURPOSE, did I fail to wash my hands afterward. I mean, it’s poop. If there’s even a RISK that you got some on your hand, you wash that thing. Do you understand what I’m saying? I can’t believe I had to read that there’s someone on this planet with access to soap and water who doesn’t wash his hands after utterly devastating the gleaming porcelain in your toilet.

And there’s ALWAYS a risk of “exposure.” No excuses, this isn’t something you should be lazy about. Wash your fucking hands after you go to the bathroom.

I’m kidding. Mack’s no robot. In fact, he’s one of the smartest and nicest people I’ve met in this city.

My first encounter with Mack was at DemoCamp 3, I believe. He was the young dude taking photos of everyone and assisting Cam Linke and Kevin Swan with the event. He looked like any other geek. When I eventually found my way onto Twitter, I realized that in the ever-growing Edmonton online community, Mack is a key influencer. A Big Deal™, if you will.

Mack and I have become friends over the last few years, as our paths cross fairly often due to several shared passions. It made sense to have him on the show. It’s taken us too long to get him into the studio.

So, Scott and I present to you the Mack Male episode, where we discuss his views on the Open Data movement, social media, blogging and even what life up north was like. If you enjoy it or not, leave a comment and let us know!

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EDMONTON JOURNAL STILL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
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It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio this month!

We’re helping EJ to promote their Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!

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Click here to download the latest episode of the Unknown Studio.

The Unknown Studio is a proud member of the League of Extraordinary Media.

Thanks to Dave Cournoyer for allowing us to use one of his photos for this post.

Dr. Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture

Cynical ex-Boy Adventurer

Star Of: An animated television series, currently in it’s fourth season.
First Appearance: Venture Bros. pilot episode “The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay”
Likes: Women, money, “Diet Pills”
Dislikes: Adventure, Dr. Jonas Venture Sr., the Monarch
Bio: An idealistic boy-adventurer who’s grown up to be a narcissistic failure of a super scientist, father and human being.

1. The Economy

At the heart of most of Dr. Venture’s hair-brained science schemes is a very strong desire for money. Specifically, the desire for money that is earned with as little actual work as possible.

You’d expect that would give him a fairly liberal view of the economy, and you’d be totally wrong.

Dr. Venture is somewhat miserly, and very fiscally conservative. He cuts corners where he can, looks for cheap labour to reduce his overhead, and seeks out alternate ways to bring in more income (yard sale, taking on a boarder.) Heck, most of his “inventions” are just repackaged versions of his dad’s old stuff.

2. Human Rights

Remember that cheap labour I mentioned a moment ago? Yeah, Dr. Venture has no compunctions hiring illegal foreign workers that he can pay a slave’s wage to. To do dangerous mad-science work.

Oh, and that time he played God and brought a dead man back to life? Or how about the holographic chamber powered by the heart of a forsaken child?

Pictured: Forsaken Heart

This may be a by-product of being surrounded by danger and violence but Dr. Venture doesn’t put much value on other people (hell, he barely puts value on the lives of his own sons.) For Dr. Venture, life is cheap.

3. Family Values

Dr. Venture actually has a very traditional view of the family unit, with a very 50′s or 60′s sensibility. He wants his boys to grow up to be proper men and he tries to instill respect and good values into them.

On occasions we’ve seen him scold his sons for bad manners, giving him backtalk and for disrespect toward women. He’s also tried to be there for them – sometimes, usually awkwardly – to talk to them about girls, or sex, or drugs (specifically to warn them to stay away from all of them.) He’s even shown remorse over various physical and social difficulties his boys have faced.

In fact, it’s fairly clear that Dr. Venture wants Hank and Dean to grow up to be the men he isn’t. He doesn’t want to fail them the way his father failed him.

He’s… not doing so well…

4. National Defense

Dr. Venture is a super-scientist like his father before him. And like his father before him, he’s mainly a defense contractor. He’s invented fighting robots, a means of bringing the dead back to life to serve as soldiers, even a walking eye!

Walking Eye, people!

Living a life of constant peril, Dr. Venture also lives in a veritable fortress at the Venture compound. With an arch-enemy constantly gunning after him, as well as the various dangers associated with super -science, he understands the need for personal safety, and he takes it very seriously.

Very seriously indeed.

In practice, Dr. Venture believes in the “shock and awe” style of combat. Start with an unbelievable show of force in an effort to totally thwart the opposition, and if that doesn’t work… cowering in fear is a good second option.

Verdict:

Personal failings aside, Dr. Venture is a man who has a strong belief in traditional values, doesn’t like spending unnecessarily, believes the best defense is a strong offense, and would prefer it if he could go about his business with as little oversight or limitation as possible. There’s really no debate over which ballot he’d put his little “x” in.

If you have an idea for a fictional victim for The Character Assassin, e-mail Scott, or send him a tweet with your suggestion.

Seeing is believing

Today, I got a call from my optometrist. I ignored the call, because I already knew I had my appointment tomorrow. When I listened to my messages later, I found out it was from his secretary, saying all of his appointments have been canceled due to him passing away last night. FML

You’re a selfish git, did you know that? Oh, sure your life is hard. You need to have your eyes checked. Meanwhile, the guy who normally checks your eyes has checked so many eyes in his lifetime that it appears to have killed him.

Here’s some perspective for you: you can get a referral, and a new eye doctor. Stop feeling bad because you were inconvenienced by a missed appointment. Someone died and it wasn’t you. Your life is fine.

Friendly fire

Today, I found out my little sister is a pyromaniac. She set my bed on fire. FML

A band called Midnight Oil once asked, “How do we dance when our earth is turning? How do we sleep when our beds are burning?” The answer is, you don’t.

When your bed’s burning, you sort out who did it (your little sister), then you call the authorities (the police) and a mental health professional (a child psychologist) and you nip that shit in the bud before little Molly starts torching more important bits of property… like the television or Playstation 3.

Get some ball(s)

Today, I watched Cast Away with my girlfriend after not seeing it for a year. I forgot how sad it was when Wilson “dies” at the end. I cried. My girlfriend told me to man up. FML

As someone who cries at every movie — Up, Forrest Gump, Showgirls (but only because I was forced to watch it) — I can only conclude that your girlfriend is a huge jerk. And that you, like me, are a huge pussy.

And that’s cool. Some girls like a sensitive man. While others, like your girlfriend, finds it to be a complete and utter turnoff. And to be fair, you were crying about a volleyball that a crazy man painted a face on.

So yeah, your life is effed. Accept it, move on, and keep the tissue nearby.

In this latest installment of our ongoing Watch This feature — in which Adam and I give you a rundown on shows or movies you absolutely must see — we run-down the dial on the television and give you our picks for some of the greatest cartoons…

For grown-ups.

So put the kids to bed, pull up a bowl of popcorn, and lets take a look at what you won’t see on Treehouse.

Scott’s comments will be in Zoidberg Red, and Adam’s will be in Zorak Green.

Futurama (1999)

“Futurama” is, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest cartoons ever made.

Basically, it’s the story of Philip J. Fry, a pizza delivery boy from the year 1999 who is accidentally (or is he?) frozen, and awakens 1000 years in the future. He ends up becoming a delivery boy for “Planet Express”, a company operated by his great-great-great-great-grandnephew to fund his mad science, alongside an amoral robot and a cyclops.

Still with me?

The show is by “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, and I can honestly say it’s a vast improvement on it’s longer-lasting (too-long lasting) counterpart. Groening clearly took the lessons learned from “The Simpsons’” growing pains and applied them from the very inception of “Futurama”.

First lesson: stories surrounding the amazing cast of characters. The staff of Planet Express are all fully realized. From the core trio of Fry, Bender and Leela all the way to series darkhorse Dr. Zoidberg, everyone gets a chance to steal the spotlight from time to time.

Second lesson: The writing. “Futurama” is one of the few series I can think of that can make me laugh one instant, then get misty the next. Standout episodes such as Luck of the Fryrish, The Sting and Jurassic Bark are absolutely worth seeking out.

And lets not even get started on the hypnotoad! ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!

The first time I watched Futurama, I was not onboard. It took me a good long while to appreciate what Matt Groening was trying to do: create a viable cartoon series that was completely separate from the mishigoss of the Simpsons (which I would argue is in many ways also an adult cartoon). The format — Pigs in Space on earth in a cartoon created by Matt Groening — allowed the characters to be more quirky in their quirkiness, more strange in their strangeness, and ultimately, in a really weird way, more believable in their unbelievableness.

I mean, who can’t relate to Fry — being frozen in some weird device only to wake up his own father (in at least one episode)?

This is an underrated show, and consequently, an often-cancelled one. It should be on your list of things to watch.

The Venture Bros. (2003)

Oh, Adult Swim… Is there anything you can’t do? I would suggest that the answer is no.

I was leery of this series when a colleague from work first suggested I spend some time with it, but the highly gay subtext of Hank and Dean, paired with the hyper-sexualized Brock Sampson makes this not only a must-see adult cartoon, but a must-laugh romp through the annals of late-70s, early-80s cartoon homages.

Easily my favourite character, Brock is by far the funniest, most over-the-top bit of cartoonery you’re likely to see this side of the Flintstones meet the Jetsons. Seriously, if you haven’t watched this show yet, go out and buy all available seasons and prepare to laugh your ass off…

I AM THE MONARCH.

A brilliant pastiche of the entire genre of serialized adventure. “Venture Bros.” draws much of it’s main inspiration from “Johnny Quest” but crams a ton of nostalgic pop-culture into each of it’s episodes.

Much like “Futurama” above, the primary selling point for “Venture Bros.” is less the plot (which is amazingly tight for a largely episodic series) and more the characters. The series is deceptively not about the titular Hank and Dean Venture, but about their father, Dr. Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture.

Dr. Venture is a former child adventurer, in the vein of “Johnny Quest” – but the trauma of those days of adventure have left him a cynical, bitter man, surrounded by failure. On a daily basis he has to deal with his two developmentally stunted boys, his father’s towering legacy, his necromancer tenant, and his butterfly themed arch-nemesis. Then throw in assassins, henchmen, walking eyes, super heroes, David Bowie and Brock fucking Samson. It’s a brilliant show, and it’s absolutely a must-see.

Standout episodes include Dia de Los Dangerous!, Twenty Years to Midnight and iViva Los Muertos!

Clone High (2002)

I was torn here between two great shows that aired at roughly the same time and only lasted a single season. One of them was “Undergrads”. The other was “Clone High”. I like both… but “Clone High” wins in a fight every time.

The theme song pretty adequately sums up the show’s premise. Way, way back in the 1980′s, secret government employees dug up famous guys and ladies and made amusing genetic copies. Now the clones are sexy teens, and they’re going to make it if they try.

It’s basically a bizarre parody of the high-school sitcom, with the addition of mad science. And the stars are Abe Lincoln, Gandhi, Cleopatra, JFK and Joan of Arc.

The madcap humour, the hilarious characters and the “B” plots starring Principal Skudworth made this show. And it’s a damn shame it’s not still on the air.

No. It’s a crime against mankind that this show is not still on the air.

If you only see three episodes of “Clone High” ever, I highly recommend Episode Two: Election Blue-Galoo, Makeover, Makeover, Makeover: The Makeover Episode and Snowflake Day: A Very Special Holiday Episode.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Clone High, having only watched a handful of episodes. I defer to Scott on this matter, but suggest that Harvey Birdman is sadly absent from this list.

Harvey Birdman didn’t end up on this list, Adam, because of our next entry.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast (1994)

Hey Scott! … Are you getting enough oxygen?

Space Ghost Coast to Coast is easily my favourite cartoon of all time. Oh sure, it’s hilarious if you’re one of those pot-smoking gadabouts, but it’s also a hilariously brilliant indictment of the talk-show format. So allow me to spend a bit of time expound on my boy TV’s Tad Ghostal for you.

Tad was a hero. And then he was a talkshow, and he became self-obsessed — like all talk-show hosts. Even ones of super-popular, Edmonton-related pocasts. Having ensnared his enemies Moltar and Zorak and forced them to work as his producer and his band leader respectively, his guests are typically subjected to a barrage of questions… about Space Ghost himself. Few f these questions actually make sense.

“Would you like some of my sex? With me?”

The result is a pattern of interviews where the guests are typically confused and the content is always funny. And the best part is that you don’t even have to be stoned to see the humour in it!

Adam insisted we include Space Ghost on this list. Insisted. And the truth is… it really deserves to be.

Besides being damned funny, “Space Ghost Coast to Coast” is also the precursor to virtually every other Adult Swim cartoon. If it isn’t a direct spin-off (like “Aqua Teen Hunger Force”, “The Brak Show” and the impossibly funny “Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law”), it’s at least inspired by the wacky, risqué humour that Space Ghost introduce back in 1994!

So thank you, Space Ghost, for ushering in a renaissance of cartoons specifically geared toward a more “grown-up” crowd.

As Adam mentioned above, this is the funniest, most nonsensical late night talk show you’ll ever watch. Episodes that make me laugh out loud to this very day include Piledriver, Batmantis and Snatch.

]]> http://theunknownstudio.ca/2010/03/watch-this-grown-up-cartoons/feed/ 2 http://theunknownstudio.ca/2010/03/dawson-bridge-watch-the-impact/ http://theunknownstudio.ca/2010/03/dawson-bridge-watch-the-impact/#comments Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:49:55 +0000 Adam Rozenhart http://theunknownstudio.ca/?p=1960 It’s no secret that the Dawson Bridge needed a major facelift (see actual photo of bridge before renovations began below). And while most residents of Riverdale (and Forest Heights, on the east side of the North Saskatchewan River) have taken the inconvenience in stride, the negative impact of the bridge closure on others is palpable.

Not so for local software development manager Sean Ouimet, however. Sean’s lived in Riverdale for about six and a half months and during the summertime, he uses the Dawson Bridge often. The Unknown Studio spoke with Sean over email to sort out how the bridge closure has negatively impacted his life… if at all.

Actual photo of the Dawson bridge. We swear. Just ignore the mountains in the background

The Unknown Studio: First of all, do you typically use public transit, or do you drive?

Sean Ouimet: Public transit primarily.

TUS: In a typical week, how often did you use the Dawson Bridge?

SO: I mostly used to cross the Dawson Bridge for the odd lunch run. Some of my guests preferred to come and visit me via that route though they’ve since adjusted to using the Highlevel Bridge. In the season(s?) of non-winter I’ve often enjoyed biking or walking across the bridge quite often in the last few years, even before living in the area myself.

TUS: How has the Dawson Bridge closure affected your routine?

SO: Having the #1 bus not running through Riverdale every 15 minutes has changed how I plan my outings a little bit. The updated frequency of the 308 does help, but quite often it seems just that little bit out of sync with a connecting bus/LRT downtown resulting in a 20-25 minute wait for the next round. Instead I’ll often take the #2 (to or from Riverdale) as a backup, which is just a quick 5-7 minute walk from my home to the top of the stairs that are just east of Alex Taylor Road.

TUS: Have you witnessed a lot of drivers coming down Rowland Road, then U-turning because they didn’t see the signs?

SO: I did notice quite a few U-turners for quite a while after the bridge closed… though I’m usually not in a position to actually see the end-of-the-bridge all that much day-to-day. Perhaps we should organize a regular neighbourhood social event that consists of lawn chairs setup near the end of the bridge? I bet we could have a lot of fun waving a friendly smile to people as they begin to turn their cars around.

TUS: On a scale of 1 to 10, how excited are you to have the Dawson re-open? (you can decide which part of the scale denotes most excitement)

SO: I’ll go with a 7 out of 10 and not just because this is question number 7. While I’d love to have the the bridge open once the snow melts (to help ensure I burn off some extra winter weight,) it doesn’t overly impact my life on a day-to-day basis. Sure there are some minor inconveniences to my routine with the bridge being shut down, but life is far to short to fret about such things for long.

Next time…

Next month, we’ll have more photos of the bridge renovation progress, and we might even talk to the city about their vision for a new bridge. I’m hoping this vision involves lasers and octopi.

However, as people become more aware of the impact of their purchasing choices, some have moved to make more prudent, low-impact buys, whether they need a new pair of shoes or want to buy a box of chocolates.

That’s where Ethical Ocean comes in. Spawned from a discussion during a road trip in 2007 and launched at the beginning of February, Ethical Ocean equips consumers with the tools they need to make ethical buying choices. Think of it as the eCommerce solution to the green, fair trade and organic movements.

The Unknown Studio had a chance to speak with Tony Hancock, one of the minds behind Ethical Ocean over email last week. Originally from Calgary, the 24-year-old mechanical engineer was sent to Malawi in 2007 to work with smallholder farmers for four months. It was there under the heat of the African sun that Tony made the connection between North American buying habits and its impact on people on the other side of the planet.

“So many products we enjoy on a daily basis come from all over the world… Where the things you buy come from, and how they were made really does matter, and really does affect many people in the chain.”

Like many startups, Ethical Ocean came from an idea that would help improve the lives of its founders. Faced with a dearth of smart choices for consumer products, the founding group got together and asked what kind of ethical products they’d like to have access to but couldn’t easily find online — they created a set if categories that their products might fit into: eco-friendly, fair trade, organic, people-friendly, animal-friendly, and social change. You can even shop by your desired category.

“Since then we have tried to broaden the spectrum of products we offer, and vendors are now approaching us themselves,” Tony explains. “We have adopted an ‘open source’ approach to the types of products and vendors allowed on the website. We filter the obvious, but ultimately leave it up to the buyer to vote and comment on the ethics of everything on the site. This is important in a field where ‘right’ is not always as written in black and white (or green for that matter).”

Discussion is key to the Ethical Ocean business model. The site invites vendors and consumers to share their thoughts on different products by way of site and product comments.

“A strong community surrounding discussion on ethics is essential for buyers and sellers alike. I can honestly say the things I’ve learned personally about certain subjects like ethically sourced coffee or T-shirts along the way have been eye opening and empowering,” Tony says. “We believe strongly in community moderated content, and our biggest influence on discussions will be to plant the seeds for a fair and equitable discussion space.”

With so much information out there to help consumers make smart and ethical choices, it’s easy to get down on yourself if not everything you buy is 100 per cent organic, animal-friendly or otherwise ethical. Tony believes that moving toward ethical buying is a process one continually works at, seeking out ever-changing information and making choices aimed at benefitting people and the planet.

And in spite of dire warnings of the impeding collapse of our ecosystem or of humankind, Tony takes a fighter’s attitude to the doomsaying.

“I really think it’s irrelevant whether we are ‘screwed’ or not, whether we are able to change our ways in time or not,” he says. “I’d rather ‘go down swinging’, so to speak. Do I think there will be serious consequences if we continue to live the way we are currently living? Absolutely. Do I think we can turn things around? Yes.

“We have our work cut out for us, but I continue to be an optimist.”

And if Ethical Ocean can help buoy other ethical purchasing websites or offline properties, Tony feels it’s been worth it.

Besides, ethical choices or not, he has big dreams. In 15 years, Tony sees himself “on a beach in the Polynesian islands (which have not been flooded by rising seas) sipping a mojito (made with fair trade sugar of course).”

• Become a fan of Ethical Ocean on Facebook
• Follow Ethical Ocean on Twitter
• Check out the Ethical Ocean on Flickr

Or it’s just a style choice.

Either way: dumb.

And either way, we have this week’s installment of FML Friday. Something for you to read over lunch. And then choke on your sandwich. FYL.

Down the pooper

Today, I got stuck in my apartment’s garbage chute. FML

Scant on the details, huh? I wonder what you mean, exactly. Did you try to climb into your apartment’s garbage chute and get stuck about half way down? Did you catch your sleeve on the opening when depositing garbage? Either way, you’re an awful storyteller, and you just haven’t engaged with the reader.

Next time try this: “Today, I’m boring and a terrible writer. FML.”

SMS drama

Today, at 1am, the girl of my dreams that I’ve been trying for over three years to date, finally asked me out via SMS. Too bad I was asleep at the time. She now thinks I’ve rejected her, and will no longer speak to me. FML

So, you were interested in dating a lunatic who thinks it’s kosher to ask someone out OVER SMS after most human beings in the same timezone have gone to bed. And you believe now that your life is effed because you, like most people, require sleep and aren’t chained to your mobile 24/7.

Listen, buddy, I get it. She’s the girl of your dreams. But ask yourself this: would the girl of your dreams try to interrupt your sleep with some half-hearted late-night text message that said, “Letz go steddy LOLZ!!1eleven,” and then get pissed off when you fail to immediately reply? I doubt it.

The girl of your dreams likely uses her mobile to decode numeric keypads as the two of you wander around the nation solving mysteries and catching bad guys. At least, that’s what the girl of my dreams does, right Rachel?

My girlfriend, the plumber

Today, my boyfriend called me over, all just to unclog his toilet. It was clogged because he put my phone in it while he was taking a dump to see if it would actually flush. FML

I’m not even sure how to put this, except that my faucet is leaking. Can you come over and fix it? I’ll be your boyfriend (right Rachel?)

It’s been a while – too long, really – since I’ve put finger-to-key and typed up a new entry for the blog. I have no one to blame (other than BioWare), and can only say that I will try and make sure we don’t have too many long stretches like this past one.

I have a few things on the go, such as a new entry for The Character Assassin and another Watch This! feature, but today I wanted to do something quick and light to remind you that yes, I do, in fact, still contribute.

I’d like to introduce you to the girl I took out for a spin the other day.

This is Blue.

Or at least a car that looks exactly like her.

She’s my sexy ride. A sleek, four door 2008 Pontiac G6. And she’s a dirty, dirty girl.

Or at least, she was. The warm winter weather has taken it’s toll and she has been filthy for… well months really. I kept putting off washing her because it was too cold, or too wet.

Well no more. I rolled her out of the garage and gave her the vehicular equivalent of a spa-day. Full oil-change (synthetic – nothing but the best for my girl), air filter replaced, fluids checked and topped off, tire pressure gauged… and a soothing drive through the car wash.

Where am I going with this?

If you’re like me, your car is your link to the rest of the world. Blue gets me places. She’s what gets me to work on time, makes sure I’m prompt for my appointments, and gives me the ability to quickly travel six blocks to the nearest 7-Eleven.

She’s more than just my car – she’s my freedom.

I am ashamed to admit that it took me forever to get my driver’s license. I was in my twenties when I finally got up the nerve to do it. Oh, I’d had my learners for some time… I just never took the next step.

Part of it was intimidation. I was actually a little afraid to get behind the wheel and hit the road. It wasn’t the car that scared me, or my lack of ability… it was other drivers I was worried about. I have no control over how other people drive – and I didn’t trust that they would drive responsibly.

But the other part – the main part – was that I’d always gotten by just fine. I didn’t need my license because whenever I had to get somewhere, there was an alternative. Taking a cab or a bus, getting a lift from a friend or a family member… I didn’t think I needed my own car.

I was wrong.

When I finally went and did it… the whole world opened up. Suddenly I could go out, wherever I wanted, at my whim. I was no longer beholden to bus routes or the timetables of others. I experienced that true freedom for the first time.

If you are like I was, hesitant to get your license because you don’t think you need it – you’re wrong too.

You might not know it yet, but you’ve limited yourself in a fundamental way. Sure, for most cosmopolitan city-folk, there are options that will get to you all the places you need to go. But the face remain that there are places in this city where it’s hard to get if you don’t have a car. Moreover, what if you need to get into St. Albert? Or Leduc? Or Calgary? Tomorrow?

Blue gives me the ability to do that. She gives me the power to, at 3 in the morning, say “I feel like getting donuts. In Red Deer.” And away I go.

The least I can do is tune her up, and keep her clean.

So, yeah. That’s the point I’m driving at: get your car an oil change and a wash.

Next Time: Super Mario Bros.

From my perspective, it started with the Reboot Albert discussion, manned by progressive conservatives like Ken Chapman and Chris LaBossiere. Variously disenfranchised with Alberta’s current political mix — particularly in light of Bill 44 — these guys formed part of the movement towards a post-partisan dialogue, founded on the agreement that the party system is far more than simply imperfect: it’s broken, and doesn’t engage citizens anymore.

So they sought to open a dialogue with like-minded progressives. Big “C” Conservatives would have you believe this is nothing more than a bunch of liberals getting together to whinge about politics in Alberta. They’re wrongfully dismissive of something that I believe will become a significant political movement.

That last phrase — “significant political movement” — is why I’ve decided that I will go to Reboot Alberta 2.0 this weekend (26–28 Feb) in Kananaskis.

I’m going into the event with zero expectations of an outcome. I’m trying to keep my mind open to discussion from every corner of the province, from people whose views I do and do not share. And the reason for this is simple: I’m tired of the rhetoric, I’m tired of the naysaying, I’m tired of being one of the people who feels roughed into this arbitrary political construct that doesn’t work for me anymore — that maybe never worked for me.

And I look at it this way: either I can sit idly by and let these discussions take place without me, I can scoff and criticize and speculate about the successes or failures of this new movement. Or I can get off the pot, get over myself, and find a way to contribute to the future of politics in Alberta.

That’s the choice I’ve made. And I’m excited about it.

If you’ve ever listened to our show for any reasonable period of time (say, about 5 minutes), you’ll likely have discovered that Scott and I thoroughly enjoy movies. From the most complicated and grueling bit of German Expressionism to the comedic stylings of Lloyd and Harry, we are like the obsessed fanboys of the medium of film. And with the 82nd Annual Academy Awards coming to a television set near you on Sunday March 7, we thought we’d share our thoughts, feelings and indulges with our listening public.

But we couldn’t do it alone. So we brought in David Berry, Vue Weekly arts writer and local freelance journalist.

In our Oscar episode, we’ll share our predictions, opinions (both informed and uninformed) and thoughts on the movies of 2009 that made the greatest impact. And we’ll even complain that Star Trek wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. Remember: fanboys.

Join us for the hilarity, the mystique, and the beeping out of swears! And be sure and share your thoughts in the comments as well.

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EDMONTON JOURNAL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
===============================================

It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio for the month of February, and maybe even beyond. Particularly once they hear this show!

We’re helping EJ to promote their recently released Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!

===============================================

Download the MP3 of the Unknown Studio’s 18th episode

I don’t know what the boardroom discussions were like when Pepsi decided to make the “Eh Oh Canada Go” chant the chant of a nation, but I know this: it was a misguided, misinformed attempt to take the attributes of successful viral campaigns, and transform them into a full-on marketing machine. Other companies attempting to do something similar — to co-opt a sort of popular culture icon as simple as a “Go Canada Go” or “Ca-Na-Da” chant — would do well to learn from Pepsi’s experience.

The anti-buzz

“I became a [Facebook] fan of this just to say how stupid it is. No company is going to tell me how to cheer. I don’t need a sports cheer marketed,” wrote Facebook member Jeff. (From the Vancouver Sun article “‘Eh Oh Canada Go’ junior hockey chant falls flat”.)

Facebook member Jeff’s reaction wasn’t unique. Jeff felt, as many did, that Pepsi’s national chant campaign was a hostile take-over of something that has no business being associated with any company or brand (other than Canada, if you’re cynical enough to view a country as a brand).

Spontaneous chants at sporting events cannot be dictated to people. They’re random, spur of the moment pieces of junk poetry — catchy enough to be repeated over and over to spirit a team to victory, and obnoxious enough to not be uttered outside the walls of a stadium or arena.

In short, they’re tricky, and they can’t be engineered by sheer will unless the sentiment around them is 100 per cent honest and sincere. Which isn’t to say that Pepsi was being devious in its attempts to get the entire nation behind a new cheer. I believe Pepsi sincerely believed this would be an awesome marketing campaign… but they must have realized the collateral damage from a campaign failure — the eye-rolling, the barroom discussions on the topic invoking the word “lame,” and the reactions of people like Jeff, quoted above in the Vancouver Sun article — could be large if not larger were the campaign not successful.

Viral successes

Few people from my generation could forget Joe, that quintessential non-threatening Canadian lad who, on behalf of the Molson company, set the record straight on Canada and Canadians. In my mind, this was a wildly successful viral campaign, culminating in a refreshed national identity (at least among beer-drinkers) and a rash of tattoo appointments to have the statement “I am Canadian” permanently etched onto the bodies of thousands of patriots.

So what sets Molson’s campaign success apart from Pepsi’s campaign failures?

Twitter pal Buck75 stated it pretty well when I put the question out there: “I knew that one would fail. Why reinvent the wheel? #gocanadago”.

Maybe it’s that simple. Sure “Go Canada Go” isn’t terribly clever. But it works: it’s effective, recognizable, and you can repeat it over and over again.

Without over analyzing what Pepsi tried to do, I think there’s an element in their chant (aside from being nearly unchantable) that teed them up for failure, and examining it in hindsight now makes it standout significantly. It’s a simple little phoneme that wouldn’t otherwise give me pause, but I see it now: the word “eh.”

On aboots, ehs and zeds

Pepsi is, for all intents and purposes, an American company. Good on them for entering, conquering and besting global markets. They’re a company out to make profit, and I can’t fault them for plying their products anywhere they can.

But whether this campaign was developed by their Canadian contingent of corporate communications staff or not, it comes across as distinctly naive, completely unaware of its own lack of depth, and consequently totally insincere. Simply put, the chant itself sounds like it was created by a bunch of Americans fixated on Canadian accents.

And one of the reasons it comes across that way is because of the inclusion of the word “Eh” in it.

Fewer things drive me nuts as a Canadian than slack-jawed mouth-breathers commenting on how I “talk funny.” No shit. I come from a different part of the world, with different traditions, different modes of speech, different tonalities of language. So do the English. So do Eastern Canadians. So do English-speaking South Africans. So do Eastern Seaboard Americans. So do… you get my drift.

We compare meaningless differences between Canadian and American culture all the time, and most Americans and Canadians get this. But to still be on about the fact that some people — forget some Canadians, but some PEOPLE — say “eh” sometimes is positively obnoxious, and it cheapens the celebration of the TRUE differences between Canadians and Americans, or Canadians and the British, or Canadians and some Congolese tribe I’ve never heard of.

“Eh” is the cheap-laughs, lowest common denominator difference between Canada and the world. And it’s not even relevant. Or true. Unless you’re from Newfoundland (I kid, I kid).

And Pepsi had the gall or lack of foresight to include it as part of their non-catchy chant.

Molson Canadian did it properly with their I Am Canadian “Joe” ad: they didn’t bother to mention “Eh.” Because it isn’t even worth mentioning.

But wait, there’s more!

The Pepsi Chant Viral Campaign also suffers from an exceedingly complex concept. They wanted to get a million people to sign up for “Cheer Nation”; they got just shy of 94,000. Pepsi’s Facebook page benefitted from a glut of new fans many of whom criticized the campaign.

And the nail in the coffin, as far as the general concept: it was an overly complicated contest involving submissions, revisions and votes.

Viral’s tricky. Each campaign is like a new experiment, and the key to it is to understanding the thoughts and feelings of the people whose attention you hope to get. It’s about hearts and minds, if I can invoke such a cliche. Above all, it should be simple, like the Joe Canadian ad.

The Joe Canadian ad for me is the benchmark of a successful nationalistic viral campaign, and there’s another key feature that made it successful: it wasn’t designed directly to sell beer. Sure, it was commissioned by Molson, but the ad didn’t end with, “And oh yeah, drink our beer.”

To be fair, neither did the Pepsi campaign. But it wasn’t sufficiently disassociated from Pepsi — it didn’t feel like it could stand on its own — and so it was ultimately a flop.

But wait, there’s less!

I don’t want to cause anyone to think I know how to design a successful viral campaign. I don’t. But there are a few takeaways here that I think are pretty self-evident.

No matter what brand is conducting the campaign, they can’t be seen as conducting it to promote their brand. In other words, it has to be genuine. This is tricky, because even the best intentions can lead to failure, and more often than not, communicators think of marketing campaigns as direct — they should sell the product/brand.

A successful viral campaign has to be compelling, funny and clever. It has to be something — an image, a phrase, a concept — that will win hearts and minds. It has to be something, as above, that resonates with people and leverages the power of your brand, but it can’t just be about selling soft drinks or beer or a credit card. It’s about making an impact on popular culture.

It’s about being selfless. And good intentions or not, Pepsi failed to come across that way. Go Canada Go!

In our weekly installment of FML Friday, we take to task those individuals whose “woe-is-me” attitude makes them sound… well, like a bunch of whiny babies would happen to have internet access. It’s a way for us to vent about our own inadequacies without actually publishing them.

Enjoy!

I’ve fallen and I can’t get up

Today, I was docked and fined in my dorm building because of multiple noise complaints. What was I doing that was so noisy? I slipped in the shower and banged my head against the floor. Then when I reached for the towel rack to pull myself up, it broke and I slammed my wrist onto the ground. FML

I honestly doubt this is true. Even the shittiest dorms will issue a warning before they fine you for a noise complaint. Unless you slipped in the shower repeatedly throughout the day, because that’s where you decided to hang out, and then pulled down the towel rack, reinstalled it, then pulled it down again, I think this is a lie.

Or maybe it’s true. Maybe you do this every time you take a shower and the people living below you decided enough was enough. Either way, you should buy some of those grippy shower shoes before you kill yourself and your roommate posts an FML about finding your bloated, rotting corpse in the bathroom.

Punchify!

Today, I was at work and talking to my boss. Out of habit, I tried to adjust my bra strap and pull it up. My hand slipped off the strap and I punched myself in the face resulting in a fat lip. My boss snorted. He told everyone. FML

What did you honestly expect? When someone punches themselves in the face — for any reason, not just one that’s bra-related — it’s hilarious and other people must be informed. At the same time, though, I wonder what you were doing adjusting your bra strap in front of your boss. It’s almost as bad as a dude scratching his nether regions in front of someone.

I suppose the key difference in that most guys I know don’t wind up punching themselves — in the face or anywhere else — when they perform this rude action.

I think, like you did in front of your boss, you just need to take this one on the chin and pray this information doesn’t trickle out to the rest of your social circle.

Heh. Self-face-punch.

A thirst for power. Teacher power

Today, I finished my classwork and my homework early. Since we weren’t allowed to leave the room, I decided to draw. My teacher noticed and gave me detention for “goofing off” when I should be doing my work. When I told the teacher I was already done, they gave me a second detention for “attempting to defy them”. FML

This is one of those rare moments when I feel for the FMLer. I remember getting into this kind of trouble in high school, where it felt like the teachers couldn’t comprehend what was happening around them, and so their only answer was PUNISHMENT.

It occurred to me, even in my mid-teens, that some teachers took a far too myopic view of the classroom and the world. When confronted with this reality, most teachers stood agape wondering what the meaning of myopic was. When they couldn’t figure it out: PUNISHMENT for insolence.

So Eff your Life, good sir. Sometimes, school is rotten.

So we bring you this FML Friday on a Saturday: a day late and a dollar short. I hope it’s at least entertaining for you.

I’ll have to noodle over it

Today, I was carrying a hot cup of noodles. I sneezed and accidentally stabbed myself in the forehead with a fork. FML

Whoa, whoa, whoa, what? You can’t start a joke with “Three Englishmen walk into a bar,” and have the punchline be “And the German says, ‘Ya das ist nein schpandex lederhosen,’” and expect anyone to laugh. Where the hell did the German come from?

Where the hell did your fork come from? How did you not scald yourself? Where did you learn to tell a story so poorly?

I think the FML here applies to everyone else, since you’ve so thoroughly confused them. And me.

No shit

Today, I was about to take a crap when the smoke alarm went off. I ran out of the bathroom and tried to run downstairs. I tripped and shit on myself. The alarm had gone off cause my kid put my wallet in the toaster. FML

Wow, you weren’t kidding. Like you REALLY had to go to the bathroom. You must have fallen pretty damned hard to have shit yourself. This is what Schadenfreudists call “a series of unfortunate events.”

You’re teaching your kid some bad habits. First he puts your wallet in the toaster, which I can only assume is because you’re cheap and on some level he knows this. Then you crap your own pants. What kind of message are you sending?

Oh right! The message is that you’re an incontinent douche with poor parenting skills.

Misnomer

Today, my boyfriend of 6 months told me he was not going to celebrate Valentine’s day because it was a “capitalistic consumerism holiday”. He works in a bank and helps “capitalism consumerism” 364 days a year. FML

In spite of your feeble intelligence, there is a difference. One doesn’t use a bank as a means to acquire useless stuffed animals holding hearts, nor boxes of chocolates. They use it to store money. Sure, money’s involved, and I’ll grant you that banks are a representation of capitalism. But consumerism? That’s a bit of a stretch.

Valentine’s Day, on the other hand, has really become about acquiring stuff and buying things, and marking up consumer products, then convincing people to buy them. Banks don’t do that, exactly.

I rule this FML out of order!

Brenda showed Scott and I some of the terrible, poorly made sex toys there are on the market. And they’re terrifyingly shabby. She also showed us some spectacular products that are top of the line (and some of them more resemble something you’d see Apple design than a sex toy manufacturer).

Brenda also shared her thoughts on North America’s attitude toward sex, and some of the more puzzling aspects of sex education, particularly in Alberta.

Finally, for listeners of the Unknown Studio who download and listen to the episode, you’ll hear a very special offer from Brenda to you for Valentine’s day… But you have to download the episode and listen through for details and take advantage of it before Valentine’s Day.

Check out our Flickr group for some photos of the sex toys Brenda showed us, and be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments section!

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EDMONTON JOURNAL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
===============================================

It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio for the month of February.

We’re helping EJ to promote their recently released Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!

===============================================

The reason this week’s installment of FML Friday is late is because of all the loose ends I’ve had to tie up before I get accosted by a custom’s agent with an overzealous glove hand. But I’m still bringing it, in fine style as well.

FML Friday is a weekly feature where we pick three posts from FMyLife.com and answer them as though they were asking for advice. To be clear: these people aren’t asking for “advice.” But they are asking for “it”. So we give “it” to them. A-like so:

Bacon, anyone?

Today, my mom woke me up and asked if I wanted breakfast. I had passed out naked on the kitchen floor after a party. FML

Score! You hosted an obviously outstanding party (whenever I’ve woken up on a floor naked, I know it’s been a good night) AND your mom comes bearing the promise of bacon. You’re actually the luckiest person on the planet.

Oh sure, it’s embarrassing that your mother found you that way, but if she’s anything like my mom she’ll be totally understanding about it. If, however, she woke you up because of the spattering grease lightly dappling your nude, hung-over form, then FML indeed.

Run these plates

Today, my car got a wheel lock because I had 5 tickets. Three of those tickets dated back to 2006. I got my car and license in 2008. FML

Dear genius: when you buy a used car, you remove the original license plates and you register it anew with your insurance company. That’s how it works. You don’t use the old license plates (in fact, at least in Canada I think, plates follow the owner, not the car), you get your own.

But, since only three of those tickets can be attributed to someone else, the question ari… actually, no wait. The statement arises: Pay. Your Fucking. Tickets.

WoW, Dad. WoW

Today, I had to explain to my son that his dad was too busy in a raid on World of Warcraft to be at his award ceremony. FML

You know what, lady? Your husband is a total asshole. If you weren’t thinking of divorce before, I certainly hope you are now. I’m not entirely sure what your husband’s WoW raid was going to accomplish, other than the acquisition of new weapons, money and maybe a level up, but he’s a tremendously bad man.

Next time he pulls something like that, I suggest you disconnect the modem, go to your son’s award ceremony, and tell your husband to choke on it.

Yes, I’ll wait while you make several Riverdale/Archie & Jughead jokes… Finished? Good.

One of the unique things about Riverdale is that there are basically only two roads in or out of the neighbourhood — and the second such road isn’t even worthy of the name. It’s less a road and more a highly-confusing intersection. The other somewhat major road (Rowland Road) leads to the eastern part of the city via a bridge. An old bridge. A bridge that was open until January 4th of this year.

That bridge is called “Dawson.” And this post is the first in a series of monthly updates on the progress of the rehabilitation of the bridge, and the various ways its closure has inconvenienced me, and no doubt tens of other people.

But first, Dawson’s story

I don’t wanna wait / for your struts to be rusted / I don’t wanna know / right now what it will be

The Dawson Bridge is 97 years old. Originally built out of popsicles sticks in 1913 by a kindergartener named Dawson, the bridge’s storied history is long. And storied. Just, not anywhere on the internet.

However, given that Riverdale used to be home to a brick-making company, I can only assume that the bridge was used primarily to haul bricks across the river, so they could be used to build east Edmonton and, ostensibly, a Wal-Mart on 50th street.

The $22-million rehabilitation of the Dawson should add 40 years to its life. And if sandblasting worked on people, I’d live FOREVER.

U-turns

Despite the fact that the city publicized the ever-loving crap out of the bridge closure, thousands of Edmontonians have been caught making U-turns — or “whipping shitties,” as Saskatechewanites are so fond of saying — at the bottom of Rowland Road.

On both sides of the closed bridge — in spite of a minimum of 500 metres of signage on either side describing the fact that there’s no bloody way you’re crossing this river. Like, not even on a zipline or with rocket boots.

I have witnessed no less than four such ocassions, and it would appear that the best way to whip a shitty is to accelerate, slam on the brakes and come to a complete stop, stare in consternation at the massive roadblocks, slowly turn around and drive away hoping none of the residents noticed.

Oh, we noticed. And we’re blogging about it.

Back from whence you came…

In next month’s installment of Dawson Bridge Watch™, we’ll talk to some of the residents of Riverdale to see how the bridge closure has inconvenienced them OR somehow enhanced their lives (it’s actually nice and quiet down here in the valley).

I know, the suspense is killing you.

It’s that time of year again when nominees are set on edge, performers begin prepping the musical numbers, and the band gets ready to play you off at the thirty-second mark. Yes, friends, it’s Oscar season!

And that means it’s time for me to keep with tradition and and give my picks for the awards – which have historically proven to be totally accurate*.

First off, you should be reminded that the Academy changed up the format a bit this year, nominating ten movies for the Best Picture category – up from the more traditional five. They claimed this was so they could give movies that don’t traditionally make it into the category a fair shake – movies like “The Dark Knight” who were arguably snubbed in previous years because they weren’t dramas, which tend to dominate the category.

They won’t win, mind you, but they can get nominated.

Lets take a look at the nominee list. It’s a pretty impressive bunch this year, with a number of surprising movies getting nods in a number of categories. “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker” both tied for most nominations – which should come as no surprise – with a total of 9 in a variety of categories. Nipping at their heels is overrated revenge fantasy “Inglorious Basterds” which everyone seems to like except me. “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” and “Up in the Air” both got 6 nods, which is also no big surprise as both had a lot of Oscar buzz when they came out.

That’s the top five in terms of sheer numbers, but I’m going to go one further due to surprise – Disney-Pixar’s “Up” got 5 nominations. And one of them is for Best freakin’ Picture. I half expected it, but seeing it happen is still a pleasant surprise.

We’ll start with the crappy awards, and work our way up to the statues that actually matter. Or you can skip to the end to see a handy list of all the nominees along with my picks depicted in glorious Red Carpet Red.

Starting things off at the bottom, achievement in art direction, achievement in cinematography and achievement in visual effects will all get snapped up by “Avatar” without much question. “King of the World” James Cameron had better hold those statues tight, though… it’s going to be a long night of disappointment for him.

“Inglorious Basterds” will get a bone thrown their way in the technical mix as well, for achievement in film editing.

Achievement in sound editing and achievement in sound mixing will both go to “Star Trek“. Yes, I just wrote that. “Star Trek” will win a pair of Oscars – just one less than I predict “Avatar” will.

Achievement in makeup goes to “The Young Victoria” because the Academy loves period pieces, which is why it’ll be unusual to see it get beaten to the podium by “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” for achievement in costume design.

“Food, Inc.” will take best documentary feature, while “China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province” takes best documentary short subject. While we’re on the topic of movies no-one will ever see, best foreign language film of the year will go to French film “Un Prophete”.

In the short film categories, best live action short film will be given to “The Door” and best animated short film goes to “Logorama”.

Moving on to the more melodious categories, we see Disney all over the freakin’ place – as they always are. That said, Hans Zimmer will get the award for best original score with “Sherlock Holmes”. Disney needn’t worry, though, as Randy Newman will pick up the best original song award for “Down in New Orleans”, one of the two songs he was nominated for from “The Princess and the Frog”.

In the writing mix, adapted screenplay will go to “Up in the Air”, while original screenplay will end up in the hands “The Hurt Locker”.

Alright, we’ve gone through to the stuff people really care about. First of all, it’s the only nominee who’s also up for a best picture award, so is there really any doubt “Up” will take best animated feature film of the year?

Going through the acting awards we’ll see Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock repeat their Golden Globes victories as best performance by an actor in a leading role and best performance by an actress in a leading role respectively. For those keeping track, that’s for “Crazy Heart” and “The Blind Side”. Best performance by an actor in a supporting role will go to Woody Harrelson for “The Messenger”. Best performance by an actress in a supporting role will end up in the hands of Maggie Gyllenhaal for “Crazy Heart”.

Final two. Still with me? Hold onto your hat, James Cameron because achievement in directing will go to Kathryn Bigelow for “The Hurt Locker”, and where directing goes, so too does best motion picture of the year. Why? Because ultimately, “Avatar” is a science fiction movie.

It never really stood a chance, now did it?

Thanks for coming out, everyone, enjoy your statues and your after parties, and get back to making movies we love to watch.

The 82nd Academy Awards

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Jeff Bridges (“Crazy Heart”), George Clooney (“Up in the Air”), Colin Firth (“A Single Man”), Morgan Freeman (“Invictus”), Jeremy Renner (“The Hurt Locker”)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Matt Damon (“Invictus”), Woody Harrelson (“The Messenger”), Christopher Plummer (“The Last Station”), Stanley Tucci (“The Lovely Bones”), Christoph Waltz (“Inglorious Basterds”)

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Sandra Bullock (“The Blind Side”), Helen Mirren (“The Last Station”), Carey Mulligan (“An Education”), Gabourey Sidibe (“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”), Meryl Streep (“Julie & Julia”)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Penelope Cruz (“Nine”), Vera Farmiga (“Up in the Air”), Maggie Gyllenhaal (“Crazy Heart”), Anna Kendrick (“Up in the Air”), Mo’Nique (“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”)

Best animated feature film of the year
“Coraline” (Henry Selick), “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (Wes Anderson), “Princess and the Frog” (John Musker and Ron Clements), “The Secret of Kells” (Tomm Moore), “Up” (Pete Docter)

Achievement in art direction
“Avatar” (Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg and Kim Sinclair), “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” (Dave Warren, Anastasia Masaro and Caroline Smith), “Nine” (John Myhre and Gordon Sim), “Sherlock Holmes” (Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer), “The Young Victoria” (Patrice Vermette and Maggie Gray)

Achievement in cinematography
“Avatar” (Mauro Fiore), “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (Bruno Delbonnel), “The Hurt Locker” (Barry Ackroyd), “Inglorious Basterds” (Robert Richardson), “The White Ribbon” (Christian Berger)

Achievement in costume design
“Bright Star” (Janet Patterson), “Coco before Chanel” (Catherine Leterrier), “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” (Monique Prudhomme), “Nine” (Colleen Atwood), “The Young Victoria” (Sandy Powell)

Achievement in directing
“Avatar” (James Cameron), “The Hurt Locker” (Kathryn Bigelow), “Inglorious Basterds” (Quentin Tarantino), “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lee Daniels), “Up in the Air” (Jason Reitman)

Best documentary feature
“Burma VJ” (Anders Ostergaard and Lise Lense-Moller), “The Cove” (tba), “Food, Inc.” (Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein), “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers” (Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith), “Which Way Home” (Rebecca Cammisa)

Best documentary short subject
“China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province” (Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill), “The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner” (Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher), “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant” (Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert), “Music by Prudence” (Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett), “Rabbit a la Berlin” (Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra)

Achievement in film editing
“Avatar” (Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron), “District 9″ (Julian Clarke), “The Hurt Locker” (Bob Murawski and Chris Innis), “Inglorious Basterds” (Sally Menke), “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Joe Klotz)

Best foreign language film of the year
“Ajami” (Israel), “El Secreto de Sus Ojos” (Argentina), “The Milk of Sorrow” (Peru), “Un Prophete” (France), “The White Ribbon” (Germany)

Achievement in makeup
“Il Divo” (Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano), “Star Trek” (Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow), “The Young Victoria” (John Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore)

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original Score)
“Avatar” (James Horner), “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (Alexandre Desplat), “The Hurt Locker” (Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders), “Sherlock Holmes” (Hans Zimmer), “Up” (Michael Giacchino)

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original Song)
“Almost There” (“The Princess and the Frog”, music and lyrics Randy Newman), “Down in New Orleans” (“The Princess and the Frog”, music and lyrics Randy Newman), “Loin de Paname” (“Paris 36″, music Reinhardt Wagner, lyrics Frank Thomas), “Take It All” (“Nine”, music and lyrics Maury Yeston), “The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” (“Crazy Heart”, music and lyrics Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett)

Best motion picture of the year
“Avatar” (James Cameron and Jon Landau), “The Blind Side” (tba), “District 9″ (Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham), “An Education” (Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey), “The Hurt Locker” (tba), “Inglorious Basterds” (Lawrence Bender), “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness), “A Serious Man” (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen), “Up” (Jonas Rivera), “Up in the Air” (Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman)

Best animated short film
“French Roast” (Fabrice I. Joubert), “Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” (Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell), “The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)” (Javier Recio Gracia), “Logorama” (Nicolas Schmerkin), “A Matter of Loaf and Death” (Nick Park)

Best live action short film
“The Door” (Juanita Wilson and James Flynn), “Instead of Abracadabra” (Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellstrom), “Kavi” (Gregg Helvey), “Miracle Fish” (Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey), “The New Tenants” (Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson)

Achievement in sound editing
“Avatar” (Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle), “The Hurt Locker” (Paul N.J. Ottosson), “Inglorious Basterds” (Wylie Stateman), “Star Trek” (Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin), “Up” (Michael Silvers and Tom Myers)

Achievement in sound mixing
“Avatar” (Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson), “The Hurt Locker” (Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett), “Inglorious Basterds” (Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti and Mark Ulano), “Star Trek” (Anna Behlmer, Any Nelson and Peter J. Devlin), “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” (Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers and Geoffrey Patterson)

Achievement in visual effects
“Avatar” (Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones), “District 9″ (Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken), “Star Trek” (Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh and Burt Dalton)

Adapted screenplay
“District 9″ (Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell), “An Education” (Nick Hornby), “In the Loop” (Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche), “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Geoffrey Fletcher), “Up in the Air” (Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner)

Original screenplay
“The Hurt Locker” (Mark Boal), “Inglorious Basterds” (Quentin Tarantino), “The Messenger” (Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman), “A Serious Man” (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen), “Up” (Screenplay Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, story Pete Docter, Bob Peterson and Tom McCarthy)

* Accuracy not guaranteed.

Meat: it’s what’s for dinner

Today, after having been a vegetarian for 8 years because I’m opposed to cruelty to animals, I lost a bet and had to eat a whole Big Mac. I loved it. FML

Eff your life because you like nasty beef from McDonald’s…? Huh, I never looked at it that way. All that your desire for shitty hamburgers indicates to me is that you’re a closet case of obesity just waiting to happen. And you have a poorly developed palette.

It’s admirable that you had the discipline to not eat meat for 8 years, but what’s absolutely astonishing is that what piqued your desire for meat wasn’t some fabulous slab of prime rib, or even a powerfully seasoned chicken breast… It was a fucking Big Mac.

That’s not a FML, you magnificent douchebag, that’s an epic FAIL.

Marriage fail

Today, my fiancé told me he didn’t have the money to make payments on my engagement ring and that I either have to return it, or make the payments myself. Now we aren’t engaged any more, and are “dating.” FML

You’re “dating,” huh? Why didn’t you “dump his cheap ass” instead?

Look when you get married, you’re required to make all kinds of responsible financial decisions together — the kind of decisions that, if that aren’t made responsibly, can seriously fuck you and your partner over. Your finacé’s snap decision to buy what sounds like a ridiculously expensive engagement ring (at least by his apparent cashflow) should be raising a colossal red flag right about now.

Besides, way to ruin an engagement. If this is the beginning of your life together, I hope it ends as quickly as it started.

Pissed off at potty time

Today, I was potty training my nephew. He had been on the toilet for almost twenty minutes and could not go. My phone started ringing, and as I went to pick it up he knocked it into the toilet. He then proceeded to pee and poop on it. FML

Kids are jerks. My own nephew took a furious dump in his diaper once when I was holding him, and it started leaking out of the sides. It was sick.

But here’s the thing: your FML should have actually ended with FTW. Your nephew peed and pooed on the potty. Your own stupidity resulted in him doing it on your cellphone. I hope your family makes fun of you over this for years to come. But I also hope they thank you for turning a potty-training session into a rousing success.

Also, even though I know it happens all the time, you should never admit to talking to people on the phone in the bathroom, whether you’re the one who’s going or not. It’s wrong.

But, I intended to get things in order this week, and actually have two articles on the go – the intention having been to get them online this week and begin contributing again.

Then Mass Effect 2 came out.

Suffice to say, Mass Effect 2 is an amazing game, and one that I may actually write a proper review of at some point in the very near future. But I can’t right now. Because right now, it owns me.

So bear with me, gentle reader. I will be back soon, in all my splendour, and richer for the experience. But until that day – likely sometime this weekend – I ask that you shed no tears for me. The sacrifices I make, are for you.

To the Terminus Systems, Joker, full speed!

In all seriousness, I’ll get back to blogging shortly, and Mass Effect 2 is my excuse.

I don’t have an excuse for why Adam’s been so quiet. Usually he’s quite the attention whore.

Jeremy shared some of his scary moments with us, and some of his thoughts on why he would place himself in those situations, and now his perception of traveling to dangerous places has changed now that he’s a dad (though he definitely gave us the impression that once his kids grow up, he’s right back on the foreign journalism train). Then we also talk about how Australians don’t drink Fosters, and how awesome the snow is here (seriously, Jeremy loves the snow).

Give the episode a listen, and share your thoughts in the comments section or give us a review on the iTunes music store!

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EDMONTON JOURNAL SPONSORS THE UNKNOWN STUDIO
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It’s true! After so much joking and tongue-in-cheek referrals to Edmonton’s newspaper of record on our show, the Edmonton Journal decided to put their money where our mouths are, by sponsoring the Unknown Studio for the month of February.

We’re helping EJ to promote their recently released Blackberry mobile launcher. You can check it out by clicking here on your Blackberry browser. If you have any comments about the mobile launcher or the Journal’s mobile site, let us know and we’ll pass it along!

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“You just follow the recipe,” she said, likely looking at me like I’d just asked the dumbest question on earth.

“But what the hell is Demerara sugar?” I probably asked.

“It’s just sugar!”

In spite of my stupidity, my desire to eat cookies and other sweet confections would force my mother into the kitchen to watch over me and ensure I knew what I was doing. Eventually, we established a pattern, once I was able to bake on my own without completely screwing up: I would bake, and she would follow me around the kitchen cleaning up after me. I was in her domain, and she needed things to be just so. My mum’s still like this. She kicks up a fuss at Christmas about having to do all this cooking, but when you offer to help her, she basically tells you to fuck off and stay out of her kitchen.

So you can imagine how I feel now that I’m dating a wonderful girl who nearly became a pastry chef… Yes, about 20 lbs heavier. And I’m perfectly OK with that.

Rachel nearly became a pastry chef, it’s true. But after attending SAIT for awhile, she decided it wasn’t for her. “It felt like being a pastry chef was 25 per cent baking and 75 per cent cleaning up the kitchen.” So she decided to move to Edmonton and go to the U of A. Lucky for me she did.

The other night, Rachel and I set about doing some b