Sunday night, feelin' fine
I haven't felt this relaxed in weeks.
Not even that time I went for that massage a few weeks ago. I was all nervous and anxious and didn't enjoy it at all.
I think I walked out of there more stressed out than when I walked in.
Isn't what what massages are supposed to fix? Honestly.
Turns out what I need to unwind are these 10 steps:
1. Sleep my ass in
2. Make a healthy & tasty brunch
3. Hit the gym & run like a mofo
4. Do deadlifts & squats like a boss
5. Come home n clean the apartment
6. Run a bath
7. Sit in the bath and read TIME Magazine
8. Use up my Tiber River goodies from MBlog
9. Drink chamomile tea with honey
10. Hug my cats & Tyrone
Perfect. I feel ready to take on anything.
If I could just melt into the floor into a puddle of bliss, I would.
But I can't.
So I blog instead.
Naturally.
Still on a bit of a high since MBlog
aka the New Media Manitoba Blogger's Conference
aka #NMMBlog
aka that panel I spoke at on the Friday night with the James Hope Howard, Liz Hover, and Colin Fast aka @policyfrog.
It was also MC'd by my buddy Kenton Larsen -hello!
We fielded the usual questions -where we can be found online, our thoughts on the future of blogging, etc
(Liz got into a heated debate with one of the audience members as you can see in the photo)
Overall it went pretty well.
The crowd was fantastic & engaged and I feel like we covered some really interesting and relevant topics.
I just wish we'd had more time -panels always start to get good right towards the end, don't they? That's when everyone gets fired up!
I had to jet to a million other things that night so I couldn't stick around, but I managed to make it to the daytime event the next day in time to catch Liz's interview with The Bloggess, who was even more charming and clever in person than on her blog which I didn't think was possible.
I sat with my homie James and we took dumb photos. Obviously.
It was really cool & inspiring to see local people talk about their experiences and share their stories, and to put faces to so many avatars and profiles that I've creeped online for so long. It was a fantastic day and I feel so honoured to have been asked to be a part of it!
Biggest thanks go out to Alison Kirkland from the Women's Enterprise Centre of Manitoba, Kathy Driscoll of New Media Manitoba, and of course the dear Kenton Larsen for having me!
xox yr Shaner
Let's take a moment to reflect on darker days
The MB Music Music Rocks bonspiel has left me mildly crippled (but it wa
I should also not that it's in the weirdest place possible: behind my right kneecap.
It's also led me to the startling realization that my job isn't as sedentary as I would have previously claimed because getting up a million times to go of the fucking printer hurt like a bitch
But enough about my lady pains (wait what) here's photographic evidence of stuff we did yesterday:
John used the booze phone on the ice.
(Best sport ever or what?!)
Other teams had amazing names.
(Ours was "Get Your Rocks Off" for those interested)
Trophies were presented.
(We didn't win any)
We also had a pose-off on the ice.
(And by that I mean John had a pose-off)
Obligatory shot of the sheets.
(Not "lanes"!)
The Sweeper Mario Bros won best costume.
(For obvious reasons)
The House Burglars, who won the gold and played against us on the first draw.
(They were also AMAZINGLY NICE and I'm so glad that they won)
Props to Manitoba Music for organizing the bonspiel and the Granite Curling Club for being a fantastic venue to toss some stones!|
Now if you'll excuse me I'm gonna go soak my leg in a bath and read some Vonnegut. Oye.
#nomoresad is the cutest thing you'll see today
Basically you email Michael Jukeson yr favourite song and he'll film a 30 second vid of him dancing to it, just for you.
It is charming, and adorable and the world needs more things like it.
(I already fired off my request, btw)
Here are a few of my faves from the youtube page:
Cred to @joeyng whose tweet alerted me to this adorableness.
Blogged from under blankets
Slept till nearly noon.
Ate soup, tea, bread from Stella's.
Which always makes me feel a bit fancy even when I'm not.
Usually I can't eat when I'm sick but today if I could I'd consume
everything
in this apartment.
If only I had the will to leave the couch.
Hurried hard yesterday
Which is curling speak for "frantically sweeping the ice in front of the 40lb granite stone sliding down the ice so it gets to where you want it to go while your friend, the skip, yells at you".It's ridiculous and a ton of fun, as I discovered when Tyrone, John, Bree and myself went to the Granite Curling Club to practice for the Manitoba Music Rocks Charity Bonspiel next weekend.
Because we decided to sign up to curl in a bonspiel without ever having curled before.
Naturally.
Luckily everyone involved with the sport is kind and amazing and the manager of the club let us use the ice and equipment for free, and the three older guys who had been curling for 40+ years and were there to practice for their badass team took time out of their day to teach us how to properly play the sport and not just mess around stupidly like we had been doing previously.
Even though curling is a Scottish sport it feels so Canadian.
Before you play you shake hands with the opposing team and say yr name, so now everyone's friends.
You don't yell or jeer at the other team to break their concentration.
Or otherwise be a sportsing asshole.
You drink before the game
during the game
and then after the game the winning team pays for drinks for both teams.
It's basically polite people being polite playing a nice game of sliding heavy rocks down some ice and one person on each team yelling stuff like
HURRY HARD!
DIE!
EASY!
OFF!
RIGHT OFF!
and others that I don't remember while getting outrageously drunk
It might be the best sport ever.
Big thanks to the Granite Curling Club and the fabulous gentlemen who made my introduction to the game such a fantastic one!
Weeknight wings
Post-gym we met up with @adriantrimble to catch up on stories and giggle like schoolgirls.
The last frame is empty because our server was so efficient that she cleared away my empty bowl before I could take a photo.
I was impressed/annoyed.
Cheap okay-ish beer. Suitable for a Thursday, though.
Fortunately Adrian is much taller than me and blocked a lot of the wind as we walked home in a snowstorm.
Still had time for a selfie, though.
her
To beat the cold on the weekend Ty and I made thin crust pizzas and curled up under blankets and watched her which is the latest film from Spike Jonze that has audiences swooning.
I wish I could disagree (no I don't) but I don't.
I loved it.
The sets with stark backgrounds and pastel shades and high-waisted pants and hairstyles that hinted that this wasn't quite in the present.
The contrast between the too-happy workplace and Theodore's crumbling personal life.
Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal of Theodore, a man who seems to be fading out of his own life due to his inability to face his own mistakes.
ScarJo's voice, of course, perfect as the voice of the OS, Samantha.
As well as how compartmentalized the movie was. The film focused on Theodore's experience with the OS and only revealed small snippets of the effect that a sentient operating system was having on the larger society.
I liked it that way. The movie focusing on Theodore's life was complex enough and I feel it would have detracted from the overall feel and message if the plot had tried to tackle a broader range of issues and subjects in such a small time frame.
Because ultimately her is a movie about a lonely man who does what a lot of lonely people do: they fall for the wrong person. They try to fill that gap in their heart with something that they shouldn't.
In Theodore's case it was a charming, cute operating system, and the way the Jonze frames their developing relationship makes it seem so completely plausible. Watching the film I couldn't help but think
"Yeah, that makes sense".
It's to utterly, terribly human that it hurts, and it serves as a reminder of the complexity of our emotions.
How we can't help who (or what) we love, and our relationships are entirely our own interpretation.
But the biggest lesson that a viewer can take away from this heartbreaking, beautifully sad story is this:
Small phones win out in the end.
