Tagged: audio
Winnipeg vs Wildlife?
- by admin
It's no secret that I love this city. I go on at length about our potential, our charm, and the quality of the people who call Winnipeg "home." I truly believe that we are becoming a forward-thinking city filled with thoughtful, considerate, wonderful people.However, there are instances which make me seriously doubt my optimistic view of my hometown.
I'm referring to an organization called the "Urban Goose Working Group" (mentioned on CJOB yesterday) who have been seeking out and destroying the eggs of Canada Geese in the Kenaston area for at least the past couple of years. Their actions are apparently spurred by the "safety issue" caused by the geese and their goslings in the area.
I'd like to take a moment to lay out what is actually happening here, in case you missed it:
People are actively going out of their way to find and destroy Canada Goose eggs.
What's even worse is that this is an effort coordinated and supported by not only the City of Winnipeg, but the Province of Manitoba as well as the Government of Canada. So all levels of government not only condone, but actually encourage this utterly barbaric practice.
It is shameful and disgusting, and I am appalled that my local government feels that this is an appropriate step to take.
There are multiple options which could serve as much more humane alternatives: we could install caution signs to notify motorists that this is a high traffic area for geese, put up snow fencing to deter the geese, we could slow the fuck down as we barrel along in our SUVs to go to the outlet mall, we could do as many countries in Europe have done and build wildlife bridges over highways to facilitate exactly the sort of issues that we're running into, or we could stop the insanity that is urban sprawl and stop building on the nesting grounds that these birds have been using for countless generations.
Because that's the thing: citizens are complaining about the inconvenience that the geese are causing them, though they chose to move to a newly-developed (and in many cases, totally unnecessary) suburban wasteland and now they have to interact and deal with (gasp! Horror!) wildlife that has been there long before our shovels broke the soil.
Here in Winnipeg we're trying to paint ourselves as a forward-thinking city, and while I know for a fact that there are many people in Winnipeg who truly are, we can't make a statement like that while continuing to completely disregard our wildlife simply for the sake of our own creature comforts.
It speaks volumes about the rampant levels of self-entitlement in our society, and it's time that the City of Winnipeg and our Provincial and Federal governments started acting a like the "responsible governments" that they claim to be.
With this in mind, I urge you to write to your City Councillor, your MLA, and your MP and ask them to stop supporting this awful practice.
Can't speak, so tired
- by admin
but damn was last night worth it.
After cycling home (!!!) after work, I hit up Brian Bowman's mayoral campaign launch after work which was amazing. It was so cool to see so many like-minded people come together and get excited about creating a positive change for my city
(which you guys know that I love & adore).
I'm honestly so excited to see a candidate who feels so passionately about making my city a better place. I feel disheartened with municipal politics pretty frequently because I don't see any long-term vision or planning being done, and it was refreshing to hear someone speak who seems to care about the same issues as I (and, apparently, many more people) do.
Later on in the eve was Abstract Artform's show with Animal Nation at Le Garage Café which I'm glad I caught because those boys are talented as f.
Also Abstract happens to be one of the sweetest guys ever and it was lovely to get to see him for the first time in ages (also: I forgive you for your awkward tweet!)
Proof yr girl was there (in the front row, 'natch):
It's almost time for the long weekend -just one more day! Here's what I have planned:
Wine
Poetry
Nachos
RuPaul's Drag Race
Laughs
Grrlfrienns
Hearts
Biking like a mofo
Gardening
ADVENTURES
Can't wait!
Paper Moon
- by admin
First fell in love with this song when I was living on Strathcona
in a house with too many rooms
which only accentuated how lonely I was at the time.
It's easy to fill a room with the sound of your own voice, or
alternatively
the sound of nothing at all.
It was a weird time.
Kind of like how right now is a weird time.
So it feels fitting that I should find myself listening to it again.
Texted my bro "happy bday dude"
- by admin
"what are you up to tonight? Want to grab a beer?"
which seemed like a perfectly reasonable request to meet me to drink beer and probably eat greasy appetizers at The Toad or maybe Cornerstone since he doesn't get out of the suburbs all that often.
Which apparently it isn't.
Later on, while on the phone with my mum and after a hilariously frustrating conversation about
how to use her call waiting
when is the appropriate time to use call waiting
(always!)
and finally
that she does in fact know how to use her call waiting but likes to be difficult
(typical Mum behaviour for which I both tease & love her endlessly)
I mentioned that I had texted my bro and she said
"oh yes, he called and mentioned that he'd seen your messages"
to which I said
"why didn't he respond to me?"
to which she said
"because you didn't ask him to call you, or to text you back"
EUGH.
Bless my family, who are permanently stuck in the Dark Ages.
Avril Lavigne
- by admin
wat r u doin
avril lavigne
stahp.
(awful video here because all the vids posted to youtube keep getting taken down)
Mum called and said
- by admin
"be at yr house right away, we're by the art gallery"
and I said
CALL ME WHEN YOU ARE ACTUALLY HERE, MUM. GAWD.
(but I still love her)
Yesterday was Colin's birthday
- by admin
so, naturally, we went to one of the best watering holes in town, The Yellow Dog(which I first went to with Colin, of course.)
I first met Colin years ago now, back before we were both students and were
(I'd like to think)
significantly less cynical than we are now.
But I could be mistaken there.
We met through Twitter and the first time we met face-to-face was at a Secret Handshake gathering and he told me that I would know him because he would be wearing
"a TMNT hat and shirt"
which turned out to be true -Colin owns a tshirt with a giant Ninja Turtle face on it as well as a hat with a giant Ninja Turtle face on it
and I was impressed not only that he owned two such pieces of clothing, but that he'd worn them out in public together
so I knew we'd be friends immediately.
Since then we've had many brunches, beers, and adventures together
and hopefully now that we've both graduated from our respective areas of study and have big-kid jobs
we'll have even more.
Happy (belated) birthday, Colin!
You'll always be my favourite baby-faced friend from the internet.
xox
yr girl Shaner
Today is John's birthday
- by admin
Originally from Windsor, Ontario (which smells like gravy) John rocked out in a bunch of punk rock bands before moving to Winnipeg in order to make it 1000 times cooler.
One of those bands was called Sewing with Nancie which was a band that one of my ex-boyfriends happened to be obsessed over.
He was from another smaller Ontario town and had also moved to Winnipeg and was super into punk-rock and used to make me listen to Sewing with Nancie as we drove around in his Kia Spectra so naturally when I found out this weird connection my brain went like this:
But anyway.
I didn't meet John through my ex.
I met John how you meet all of the best people: while drunk and at a large social event with friends.
I was at the Winnipeg Wine Fest with Tyrone and my regular posse and he was there with my friend whom he was dating at the time.
Somehow between being outrageous and slamming back teeny glasses of wine we found ourselves skulking around port table together and (naturally) a friendship was born.
Since then we've had a plethora of ridiculous experiences which include but are not limited to:
romping in onesies
going on road trips
having inappropriate moustache parties
drinking beers in a giant blanket fort
eating KD on Pope's Hill watching the sun rise at Folk Fest
hanging porn up in other people's tents
curling in a bonspiel
skating and drinking SoCo
meeting a freaking astronaut
and a million other random, amazing things together.
It kinda goes without saying that he's one of my favourite people in the world, and I think I can safely speak for Tyrone and say that we both feel really lucky to count him as a friend.
So happy birthday, John.
May your synths always be poppy,
your leggings always be outrageous,
and your life always be full of good coffee, good beer & good times.
xox
yr girl Shaner
