Wednesday, November 19, 2008

What a Busy Guy (or, Long Time No See)


Hi, everybody! Good to see you again. You look good! Probably lots of interesting things going on for you lately.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, it's been all kinds of hectic. Nobody even hears from me any more, most of the time; my little brother left a message on my Facebook account at one point just to ask what the hell happened to me.

What? Oh, nothing. No, no! Nothing that exciting, I'd hate to bore you. All I do now is schoolwork and sleep, it's sort of sad.

Oh! But actually, you know, now that you mention it. Remember that project I mentioned that I was working on with a couple buddies? Well, guess what was just released this past November Sixth:



Hecklevision presents -- Superman in: Japoteurs!

My goodness, look at that. Look at it! It has been completed, and the audio issues in the preview clip have been addressed, and now it is up and published and available. Ninety-nine cents buys a wonderfully animated, staggeringly racist Max Fleischer Superman short -- with our hilarious audio commentary already added and synched up beforehand, for your convenience and viewing pleasure.

Not to brag, but this is awesome.

Why, I'd buy that for a dollar -- and so can you! But, don't take my word for it! Have a look at the front page of the iRiffs site:



Top Short, baby! Yeah! Sales figures and peer reviews agree -- our Japoteurs iRiff is true value through and through, a dollar's worth as ever you've known it!

I'm not laying it on too thick, am I? I'm sorry, I've got a bit of a headrush going. Nothing perks a brother's attitude up quite like hitting the big time and being published in a brand new medium.

Ooh! And speaking of being published! (God, I'm good at segues.) Feast your eyes:



Uptown Magazine! Solidarity Forever!

With the conclusion of the sixteen-day sixteen-day press union strike that was holding up the papers back home, Uptown has resumed its publication schedule and includes a column of mine in its latest edition. Pretty cool, right? Pretty good times!

For consistency's sake, the column series has continued to bear the same name as my Winnipeg blog; the intention is still that I'll return there, once I've earned this Masters I'm working on, so I figured why not. Besides, no point in arbitrarily changing what works; even in my absence Slurpees and Murder has remained a very popular blog and a very popular title, certainly far more popular than I personally have ever been. (Now there's a humbling consideration.)

They don't mention me by name a lot back home, and they never did to begin with, but damned if the Slurpees and Murder tag isn't still making the rounds over there. To wit:



It was brought to my attention that the Comments Editor of the University of Manitoba campus paper, the Manitoban, went on at length a few weeks ago about the largely negative self-image of the city in a piece he titled "Enough with the Slurpees and murders".

I found this out through correspondence with a contact, and--what? Never mind how I found out. It was an... anonymous source. A tipster, placed very high up in the... political... okay, it was my mother. My mom emailed me to say that she saw a nice article in the school paper that mentioned me, and she clipped it out for when I come home. Yeah, yeah, yuk it up. That's not the point. The point is, it's nice to still be recognized.

I spent two years as a volunteer CD reviewer for the Manitoban, back in the day, although you wouldn't know it to visit the site. Their archives are down right now, probably due to the site redesign they've obviously done since I last looked. So with that said, I don't think anybody else remembers (or could now easily prove) that I wrote there, and it's neat to find out that my name popped up in the ol' campus paper completely independently of my input or my proximity to the city.

Okay, granted -- it isn't my name in there, it's the name of my blog. Such is usually the case. And the reference to my blog is indirect, though obvious and repeated several times for effect. And the article actually seems to be written in vehement opposition to my previous work, holding the combination of nouns as some defeatist self-esteem disease that threatens to permanently tank the attitude and the reputation of the city. Hmm. Whatever! I take my exposure where I can get it. The blog's been mentioned previously by musicians, activist sites and even legitimate newspapers; nothing wrong with being able to blot out "student publications" on the big metaphorical bingo card of media outlet shoutouts. I'm on my way, baby!



So, anyway, yeah. That's what's new with me.

My word, what a long post! I should get back into the habit of making shorter posts at more regular interviews, if only so people back home stop assuming the worst. In the meantime, I'll do some more schoolwork and then get out and enjoy the, uh... enjoy the weather.



The hell is even going on here. "Snowsqualls", yeah, okay. This town is screwed up, man.

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