Category Archives: everyday kimli

all of the fun

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I do not know how I can possibly be hungry after last night, but I am awake and starving and could eat all of Denny’s all over again.

Amazing weekend. Don’t particularly want it to end or face the mountain of laundry slowly gaining sentience on my bedroom floor. I want more sweaty music, more laughing with friends, more tall men named Sheldon flirting with me, more accidental running into Steve, more Andy and his amazing band, more Seattle. I want it all .. but I need clean underwear, so it’s back to reality (for now).

I picked Stephanie up in Surrey on Thursday night after a series of unfortunate events that started with my (paycheque-sized) tax refund being held up by CRA because I didn’t file 6 years worth of empty GST/HST paperwork. After getting that sorted out (thanks, Government Darill), I hopped in the Minibator and .. got lost. See, I don’t go to Surrey. It’s absolutely a Vancouver Snob thing. Worse, every time I try to go to Surrey or Delta or Langley, I end up in New Westminster because all bridges are the Queensborough Bridge. I may aim for the other, correct bridges, but each time my brain says “yep, this is totally the bridge to the ‘burbs” and I then I find myself in Wal-Mart with three grubby children and a shopping cart full of off-brand Kraft Dinner and pull ups. I eventually got myself sorted out and made it to Surrey, which was as stereotypical as expected. One Steph later, we were on our way: it was time for Seattle.

The drive down was largely uneventful, if you do not consider apocalyptic weather to be an event. We drove through torrential rain, wind, scary dark freeway times and even time travel fog before coming through on the other side in one white knuckled piece. We were staying with Steph’s sister in Redmond, and we pulled into the belly of the Microsoft beast just before midnight after a harrowing ride.

Steph and I left the house the following morning with no game plan, so we headed to the EMP for the Art of Video Games exhibit. It was neat, but not really worth making a trip for (and that’s saying something, given how much I am in love with video games) .. but the day was saved by the OTHER exhibits at the EMP: the Hall of Nirvana, and the ABSOLUTELY AMAZING horror movie exhibit which you REALLY NEED TO GO SEE. Also, if you’ve never been, there’s a super cool science fiction exhibit (which both of us had seen before so we skipped it this time) that is totally worth seeing. They’re currently setting up the next exhibit on Fantasy and Myth, so if anyone wants to go on a mini road trip in April, museums will happen.

A late lunch at the always ridiculous and delicious Lunchbox Lab followed, and a very brief stop into Pike Place Market – the market is only open until 6pm, and we got there around 5:45. The market itself is nothing new, but we wanted to check out the flowers coz they’re always pretty, and also buy some delicious vinegar from Sotto Voce (which we managed to do with 2 minutes to spare). Wandering happened, and then .. we saw a giant ferris wheel down by the water. With two hours to kill until the show, we decided to go down and check it out: one does not simply see a giant lit up ferris wheel spinning merrily around without further investigation, so we piled back into the Mini and I used my Super Sense to find our way down to the waterfront.

We had stumbled upon the Seattle Great Wheel, all lit up for the opening of the Sounders season. Upon seeing that the seats were in enclosed pods, we decided we needed to go on a ride (we are adventuresome but prone to freezing, and the wheel is right on the water) – call it a consolation prize, because neither of us got to go on the London Eye on our various trips to Europe. Also, the $15 ticket price was a great deal easier to swallow than the £20 in London. The ride was super fun and we got a lot of pictures of Seattle at night from above – would totally recommend, especially if you go during off season because it’s much less busy and you’ll likely get a pod to your group instead of having to share, so then you can totally make out like we and the cute gay boys in the pod next to us did.

Finally, it was time to make our way to Neumos for the show: Astronautalis was opening for Why?, and I will always always drive to Seattle to see Astronautalis play. The venue was crowded as fuck (all ages show), but by pure chance Steph and I managed to get a great spot by the stage just time in for Andy’s set. Also, I poked him twice in the shoulder because I am smooth, and I got a hug. I win. We didn’t stay for the headliner because we were both tired and not feeling the massive crowd, so we made a graceful exit and drove off into the night (slowly, as Pike East is the Granville Street of Seattle and every single person between the ages of 21 and 30 were standing in line to get into a club).

Saturday was a bit rushed, because we had things to do and a deadline to meet back home. We ran important errands (wine, iTunes credit, looking for gnomes) and got out of town around 1pm. More terrible weather on the way back to Vancouver, all the rum at the duty free, and we were back home by 4:45: just enough time to power nap, power shower, and get ready to do it all over again. Steph enjoyed the show in Seattle, so she bought a ticket to come with Ed, Shan and I to see Astronautalis in Vancouver at the Biltmore where we met a coworker who bought my other ticket, and ran into No Fun Steve who was there to see Why?. Fun! I put stickers on my boobs, got right up at the stage for the set (much to the extreme annoyance of the fan girls who planted themselves at the stage for the entire duration of the evening so they could be front and center for Why? – cool but don’t give me dirty looks when I try to get up front for the act I want to see; I will gladly acquiesce my space to you when the act is done), bopped around and generally had myself a great fucking time, as always. Andy and his boys put on an amazing fucking show, and I absolutely adore dragging people out to Astronautalis shows with me because they always enjoy it and then I get to go say hi to the band and they sometimes remember me and yay! Also, shut up – I rarely fangirl out over things, so if I want to be a squealing ninny over this I’m totally allowed because they are my favourite ever, and I will always enthusiastically support the things I love in any way I can.

Also, didn’t accidentally see anyone pee this time. Bonus.

We stuck around for most of the Why? set, then took off before the Biltmore turned into a dance club (that happened the last time we were at the Fortune Sound Club and it was terrifying). The plan was to get tacos, but Chronic Tacos broke our hearts by being CLOSED (apparently for renovations?) so we did the next best thing: fucking DENNY’S, Y’ALL. We ordered ALL THE FOOD (there was so much food), ate it all, then went home: Steph was Rum Drunk and I was Tired Drunk, and we needed to be poured into our respective beds to begin the downward descent into reality and back to a life without daily rap shows and Moons Over our Hammies at midnight.

So much fun. A++++, would do again in a heartbeat. Am a bigger fan of Astronautalis and his band after every single show I see. Love my life, and all those in it.

Pictures coming sometime!

classiest ever.

i’ve wasted my life

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I do not have any Photoshop skills I can speak of, but I’ve always been able to make minor changes to an image to remove pieces I don’t like (watermarks*, logos, inelegantly cropped leftovers). This skill comes in handy at work, where I often need to insert screenshots into my documentation. Often, the screenshots will come from another document and therefore is covered in notations made by another department – notations that do nothing but get in my way and make me swear not so much because they are annoying but because I really like to swear. I grab my screenshot, open it in whatever under-powered image editing software I’ve gotten my hands on, and manipulate all the bad pixels away. It’s not perfect, but it’s more than good enough for a document that no one will read. I get to be a wizard, the beauty of my documentation is maintained, and aren’t I just so clever!

.. it turns out that none of the minor but painstaking changes I’ve made over the last ten months were necessary. The notations I had gotten rid of weren’t actually part of the image, they were in the document – all I had to do was click on the picture and copy it to get a clear image with no stupid blue boxes.

Well, fuck.

Looks like my mom was wrong – hard work DID hurt me. What else has she lied about?! If I find out that praying to my dad isn’t going to get me all the things I deserve!

*: I know removing watermarks is bad, and I don’t do it from commercial or protected images. Just sayin’. Don’t hate.

MEANEST SPAM EVER

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:( :( :(

SOB

 

SO MEAN

It was left on this post in which I talked about how much I appreciate Vancouver and how I’m never ever leaving. This is ironic, because I spend most of my time daydreaming about leaving and moving to a different country altogether – but that isn’t the point, it’s that THIS WAS SOME REALLY MEAN SPAM.

:(

 

all of the things

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In preparation for what I hope will be a busy year full of Good Times, I spent much of the last week Doing Things. Outside. With Other People. It’s fun and exhausting all at once, and I keep forgetting how much I like outside. I really ought to remember it more often.

On Wednesday, Ed and I went to the Vancouver Aquarium for After Hours. It was our first time at the Aquarium, and it was FUCKING AWESOME. I can’t believe we waited so long to check it out, but we both absolutely loved it to the point of buying a memberships so we can come back and hang out with the otters to our heart’s content. You’ll still never catch me at the Aquarium’s Seafood Nights – that’s too morbid even for me – but I plan on spending a lot of time exploring the Aquarium this summer, because scooting to Stanley Park is awesome and plus there are cool critters everywhere:

Fish Crab

i bet i taste good.

graceful, yet creepy as fuck

graceful, yet creepy as fuck

.. and so on and so forth. I posted a lot over on my Instagrams, and will likely post a thousand more over the course of my membership. FUN! Also, the next After Hours (adults only so you can enjoy the Aquarium without kids around) is on June 6th. Y’all should go – I will be there!

Saturday was a big day for us, as we hit up not one but FOUR different places. First on the docket was an engagement party for Bonnie and Catherine, who are among my very favourite people ever. I’m so giddy that they’re getting married I could (and routinely do) fall over – they are adorable, and I love them all over. The theme of their party was Fancy Times; everyone needed to wear a tea gown and a fascinator or hat. As expected, Ed balked at wearing a gown but did wear a hat so we both looked very dapper (I may have been more ridiculous than dapper). Friends of theirs hosted the party in their gorgeous house, and it was a lovely afternoon with cupcakes and excellent people I do not see nearly enough and the couple of honour, Bonnie and Catherine.

We came home for a quick wardrobe change (more boobs were required), and picked up Josh and Shan for Adventures Parts 2-4. We stopped in at the Hot Pink art show to say hi to some people, meet some other people, and look at art – I even BOUGHT an art, and I am super excited to hang it in my Lady Cave. I really want to commission Bret to make me an art of my oranges – maybe that will be my birthday present to myself. Art is super!

After art (where I really should have stayed longer because I missed out on meeting a bunch of people I’ve been Twittering with forever), we went to St. Augustine’s to meet up with Cait and Dylan for food and beer. The place was packed beyond imagining and it took quite a while to get seated and even longer to get food, but it was well worth the wait (the burger I had was frickin’ amazing, with Perfect Bacon and all the delicious). We stumbled up the street afterward to go to the Royal Canadian Legion, which was equally hopping with an eclectic mix of people and really loud bands. We had hoped to play some darts, but the boards were being hogged by some nasty hipsters who were not taught how to share (or play darts). Cait almost started a rumble, but we eventually gave up on Operation Darts despite the incredibly friendly Legion regulars who helped us find a table and got us seats. It was actually really cool in there, and people were loving the band. My parents used to frequent the Legion in Victoria almost every weekend for dancing, before my dad was unable to – I could almost picture my mom and dad in there, tearing it up (and complaining about how loud the music was).

Then, home. In between all the Outside, I did quite a bit of trouble-causing in various places online, and was giggling all night at the aftermath of my outrage and pot-stirring in various locations.

Today there shall be nothing. I slept in, I’m writing, and I’ll probably watch the Oscars. The week ahead holds the strata AGM (not exciting), and a trip to Seattle (very exciting) with Steph – we’re going to the Art of Video Games exhibit at EMP followed by an Astronautalis show, then coming home on Saturday so I can go to another Astronautalis show the next night.

ADVENTURE!

Now, to do additional research on obtaining a UK Ancestry Visa! It’s wishful thinking at the moment, but who knows what the future holds?

bad mood bear

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I am in a terrible mood. There isn’t any particular reason for it; I just want to crawl back into bed and shut the world out for a day or so. I’ve had trouble sleeping recently, and last night I had a rare fit of angst about my ridiculous boobs, and I’m not in London, but those things don’t add up to the black cloud over my head. I think I’m just grumpy. Very, very grumpy.

So, to distract from my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mood, here are some things that have genuinely entertained me over the last week; described with adjectives I do not normally use:

  • I loved this article about a couple in New York who, over 50 years, amassed a priceless art collection for the sheer love of it. I don’t care about art, art collections, couples from New York, or most things, but the article was just .. lovely. It’s worth a read, even if you are heartless and jaded like I am – something about the story of the Vogels made my insides all warm. Their names are Dorothy and Herb, for crying out loud – how can you not love them? There’s something amazing about doing something purely out of love, and the wonderful legacy they’re leaving the art world is so sweet.
  • Heavenly Nostrils is a syndicated comic strip about a girl and her unicorn best friend. It is impossibly endearing, and it’s easy to be drawn into Phoebe’s world. Start from the first strip and catch up – it is fun and cute and not at all hokey, which cannot be said about most syndicated comics.
  • This article about whipped honey is great. The author really, really likes honey and cheese, and – very likely unintentionally – describes her whipped honey experience in near-pornographic terms. You will never think of pepper grinders in the same way again.
  • Tonight I am gonna see some sharks. Stay tuned to my various internets for the inevitable eerie yet gorgeous pictures of jellyfish! I’ve never been to the Vancouver Aquarium, so I am excited.

That’s all I’ve got. Taking my bad mood for lunch now.

i still wish i was in london

 

trust no one

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If you can’t trust a local blogger, who CAN you trust?

Scandal rocked two or three people in Vancouver last week, as news broke that the editor and main voice behind the Vancouver is Awesome blog isn’t just really really enthusiastic about living in Olympic Village, but rather gets paid to write about it (to the tune of almost $30,000 a year). 

The main issue and subsequent what the fuck lies with the lack of transparency. Bob (as VIA on Twitter, Instagram, and the blog) sings the praises of Olympic Village non-stop, to the point where it should have been obvious that he gets paid to gush like a prostitute with a specialty – but what Bob claims as his being “totally transparent” about the fact that his family is getting a suite deal (get it) on rent plus a salary in exchange for his extreme enthusiasm is anything but. There’s an unwritten (it may be written somewhere; I don’t have time to search the entire internet) “Blogger Code” that says those getting paid for their words or free goods/services in exchange for positive reviews put a disclaimer in their posts – hell, it’s such an issue that some are pushing for bloggers to be required to declare all freebies as income (I rue the day I have to pay taxes on those toothbrushes I got that one time). Bob’s version “totally transparent” comes in the form of a very vague mention that he partnered with the marketing company that pays him in May of last year, and nothing since then (except the constant glorification of the yuppie paradise that is Olympic Village to the tune of 58 write-ups to date). He took to Twitter when the story broke, and directed people to this one post as “proof” of his open disclosure multiple times.

I’m really disheartened by this. I, like many other people, thought Vancouver is Awesome was run by people who really love this city, and used the site as a resource to find cool going-ons. And yeah, I was taken in by the hype surrounding Olympic Village; overlooking the fact that the City of Vancouver had to borrow $460 million dollars to complete the project when things went south in a big way – it sounds like an awesome place to live. I suppose it still is, if you can afford it – the suite Bob’s family lives in rents for $2500/m, and retails for somewhere between $750K – $1.1M (so much for that “affordable social housing” Vancouver was supposed to get out of the Olympics).

The fact that I don’t really know how to explain WHY this story makes me feel many feelings is why I never really “made it” as a blogger. I could attribute my feels to jealousy, but I know that isn’t it – I don’t *want* to answer to anyone in exchange for things, so my distaste has nothing to do with that. I guess I just feel like a chump – thinking that Bob and Vancouver is Awesome was performing a service for this city because of a genuine love for all that Vancouver has to offer, instead of  just another marketing tool paid for a great review. It makes me feel dirty, and like no one can be trusted – the social media I’ve come to know and love, that delivers news within seconds of happening, that lets me know when taking the Lions Gate Bridge would be a terrible idea, that tells me when the McRib is back – like none of it is real. How do you know that I really love Diet Coke and that I’m not being paid to ingest dangerous amounts of it on a daily basis to try and fool you into being awesome like me? Well, you can trust me – but I’m just a nobody who writes words for fun, and apparently we’re a dying breed.

From the Vancouver is Awesome blog:

Vancouver Is Awesome, and we are dedicated to everything that makes it that way.

If you want to read ugly, bad news about this beautiful city of ours, you’re going to have to look to traditional media and other blogs; V.I.A. promotes everything that makes our city awesome, from old to new and everything inbetween. We’re like the human interest piece on the news… only different.

.. in that they can be bought.

Internet, I am disillusioned with you.

UPDATE: This morning, Bob’s 59th “Olympic Village was built on angel farts and baby smiles” post seems a little different than the previous 58:

It’s hard to believe it’s been more than ten months since we launched a campaign to share the experience of living in the Village on False Creek (Vancouver’s former Olympic Village). It seems like just yesterday I was pitching our friends at Rennie Marketing Systems on a creative way of showcasing the awesomeness of this place, in the spirit of similar projects like Live@YVR and 365 Days of Dining. My wife and I had been thinking of a move from our previous place in Mount Pleasant for months and on the weekends had been coming down to the Village to hang out. We fell in love with the neighbourhood even before we launched this sponsored series, and what makes the project so much fun for me is that it comes from a place of truly wanting to show off my neighbourhood – one of the bonuses is that I get to explore it for myself and find the gems. As I mentioned in our PRINT MAGAZINE, we’ll be staying here after our year-long project is up, as I believe Southeast False Creek is the most exciting neighbourhood in the city right now – and it’s the neighbourhood we call home. Other developments and businesses are opening up all around this little Village, and as you can tell from my previous 58 posts, it’s an incredible place to place raise a family.

(bolded emphasis mine)

That is more openness about the fact that Bob’s life is paid for by a marketing company than has ever appeared in that blog. Is he feeling the heat from the backlash over his “totally transparent” dealings that took everyone by surprise? It reads an awful lot of too little too late for me, but it’ll be interesting to see if future posts about the double-rainbow-glory that is Olympic Village will be as consistently forthcoming, or if this is all we’re going to get on the matter.

 

 

 

elegance

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A co-worker sent me a link to this article today:

“.. searching the #BBC hashtag occasionally brings up explicit pictures of large, dark-skinned penises.”

New goal added to the Bucket List: find myself in a situation that requires me to come up with a family-friendly way of describing big black cock.

 

if you’re damaged and you know it, clap your hands

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There’s a trend circling the internet lately, of personal minimalism. Having less is more. Things are useless. Owning one t-shirt and one pair of shoes means you’re winning at life. Decor is a pointless fallacy of man, and owning things it to be owned by those things. Your stuff is vain and ridiculous, and by extension, you are a terrible person. You’re a peacock.

Okay, I’m a peacock. So what? Maybe there’s a reason for my things; those useless trinkets you look down on and smugly think how much quinoa and craft beer you could have bought with the money I spent. In fact, there is a reason – two of them. And here they are.

Not having things – useless, decorative things – recalls two very dark periods in my life:

When I was young, my mother would routinely take away my stuff as punishment for anything she had perceived me as doing wrong. Talk back? Take my stuff. Didn’t do my chores? Take my stuff. Bad day at the deli? Take my stuff. Every night before I went to sleep, I would pack up a bag of my favourite items and hide it under my bed. This served three purposes: 1) if the house caught fire, I could escape with my favourite things; 2) if I needed to run away, I was already packed, and 3) if my things were hidden, my mother couldn’t throw them away while I was at school as punishment for something I had or hadn’t done.

When I was older, I moved to Calgary with little more than my clothes and a computer. I tried staying with relatives while I settled into a new city, but was kicked out of the house by my sister-in-law – I had to find a place to live, which ate most of my salary. I lived there for several years with next to nothing; sleeping on a donated twin mattress on the floor. I had no television. I also had no friends and no car and no cat, as I had to leave her behind in Victoria. My co-workers took pity on me and gave me household items so I could eat and get to work each day, but it still remains the bleakest period of my life – not so much because I didn’t have things, but because I was so isolated. My life was on the computer. If I looked away from that screen, I became immediately aware of how empty my life was – it was all around me in the form of a barren room with barren walls and dead silence.

That leads us to today: I have a lot of stuff. My home office is completely filled with things, each more ridiculous and useless than the last. There are boxes within boxes, all filled with a dazzling array of treasured crap – toys, childhood mementos that survived my mother, terrible fashion mistakes, ticket stubs, more Pez dispensers than the sum of all Pez I’ve ever eaten. The list is enormous, and to most people, a terrible mess of shit that I surround myself with and will one day inevitably die in when the earthquake hits and I am crushed by a mountain of Hello Kitty figures. Ed hates all my clutter – my move into the spare bedroom was brought on by my growing tired of his constant bitching about all my stuff, and his being fed up with my things. If he had his way, we’d have a sparse, modern condo: clean and empty with no trinkets or useless decor cluttering up the joint – just a neat, tidy home with ample space and extra income .. but since it’s not entirely up to him, we live with stuff. My stuff.

I am really bothered and offended when people get on their high horse and talk about how much better their lives are without stuff. I’d be much more accepting of the movement if every single article, tweet, Facebook update, and random comment about it wasn’t so fucking SMUG – look how advanced I am; I don’t watch TV or care about gadgets or fill my life with useless memories or eat meat or murder anyone, so I am clearly better than you. It’s always childless asshats who say this, because I’ve never met a parent who didn’t have things all over their house – but beyond that, there is nothing wrong with having things. Your bare shelves or walls do not make you better than me; it just means your defining life moments did not involve an attachment to stuff. Good for you. You’re lucky.

Let’s throw a hypothetical into the situation, though: what if you grew up with a traumatic life moment that meant you feel better when your pockets are full of raisins? The raisins don’t serve a purpose – you don’t like eating them, you just like having them around. They make you feel safe, and they’re fun at parties when you pull them out of your pockets and make people guess how many you’re carrying. Raisins aren’t expensive, and you can afford to have them by the pocketful. Sure, it’s a little inconvenient, but they make you feel better even if it’s kind of weird. Pocket Raisins certainly aren’t for everyone, but that doesn’t concern you at all – as long as you have raisins in your pocket, you are happy.

Who are we to look down on your Pocket Raisins? What you have in your pockets is of no concern to anyone but you, and if they make you feel better and maybe make up for some really terrible times in your life, who are we to write lofty articles about how life would be so much better for everyone if they just emptied their pockets of raisins? We’d be big jerks to do that, wouldn’t we. Big, condescending jerks who managed to get through life without raisin trauma and now preach that to everyone as a way of feeling better about our own empty pockets.

You don’t know me (well, maybe you do – I blog a lot), but I’m pretty sure until now you had no idea why I seem to collect as much shit as I do, and why I always have weird things lying around, and why my pockets are full of raisins. There’s a reason behind all of it, and I would really appreciate it if you would stop being so arrogant and snooty about how your life is fucking awesome because you don’t have things. I DO have things, and my life is also fucking awesome. My lifestyle isn’t for everyone, and I’ll be damned if I ever write a disdainful, presumptuous post claiming that people who DON’T own knick-knacks and random shit are somehow broken and missing out on the true meaning of life, and I would really appreciate the same from you.

My stuff is fucking awesome, and no one can take it away from me – there’s simply too much of it, and that’s okay.

caw, motherfuckers.

caw, motherfuckers.

lessons learned

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So, I was Canada for a week. It was fun interacting with people outside my usual circles, and I only got into one fight with some guy (who, to be fair, was a total asshat). All in all, a good week. I even learned a bunch of stuff:

  • Many countries and even cities are jumping on the curated Twitter account bandwagon, which is kind of cool – I enjoyed talking with people all over the world much more than I thought I would.
  • I can totally behave myself if I try really hard.
  • Not everyone wants me to try really hard
  • .. except for that one guy, who was promptly shut down by the rest of the internet.
  • Some people are worried what America thinks of Canada
  • Along the same thick throbbing vein, suggesting that public nudity would be great really offends some people who then command you to be PG-13 because “you’re representing my country”
  • .. lol!
  • I enjoy showing off Vancouver
  • Juggling multiple Twitter accounts is hard

A+++, would tweet again. You should totally apply to be Canada – it is good times, you will get a lot of new followers with interesting things to say, and maybe someone will try to pick a fight with you which is always fun.