Winnipeg Free Press goes Pink for Breast Cancer

I thought this was worth remembering so I am sticking it in here. :-D

Why are we PINK today?
Margo Goodhand
Updated: June 4 at 09:48 AM CDT

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
We warned you it was coming, but it was still probably a bit of a shock to find a pink newspaper on your doorstep today.

Think of it as a collector's item -- I know we do.

We're the first paid-circulation newspaper in North America to try this, and no, it's not going to become a habit.

We wanted to do a significant fundraiser for breast cancer research, on the eve of the World Conference on Breast Cancer here in Winnipeg. Ten cents of every paper we sell today will be donated to the cause, and if all goes according to plan, dozens of my colleagues and I will have been out on the street from 6:30 this morning, hawking our hearts out.

We're hoping that turning this 135-year-old institution into a one-of-a-kind fund-raiser will help combat a disease which affects all of us somehow in our lifetime.

It's not my colour, pink. But it's a brave colour.

Our audience development folks came up with this idea some time ago, and let's just say it met with some resistance.

Editor: "What if there's a horrific disaster?" (Answer. We play it by ear. Thankfully, the fact that you're reading this means we had a relatively peaceful Tuesday.)

Director of Operations: "Where do you get pink newspaper?" (Answer: Our stuff was custom-ordered from Abitibi-Bowater, an international newsprint firm. Took eight weeks to lug from Iroquois Falls, Ont. to Winnipeg in two trucks, 23 metric tons apiece.)

Advertising Manager: "Who's going to advertise in a pink paper?" (Answer: A lot more businesses than you'd think, when they find out why you're doing it.)

Publisher: He's in Sweden. You don't really think we'd do this when he was in town, do you? (Oh OK, he liked the idea.)

And a funny thing happened as we pushed towards this date over the last few months. Everybody got on board.

Deputy Editor Julie Carl put out the call to create a special edition inside and out, with stories carrying the theme from news to business to life and sports. And the response was overwhelming. We're printing as much as we can today, with a few added bonuses on our website at www.winnipegfreepress.com

Our colleagues have been working just as hard. Sales people had to warn every one of their clients; the press room ran off trial pink papers; circulation and marketing stuffed a hawkers' war room full of pink balloons, ribbons, T-shirts, posters, ads -- all geared to getting as many as these commemorative editions out to as many hands as possible.

This is the first time Winnipeg has hosted the World Conference on Breast Cancer. It runs today through June 8. We're proud to host this significant event, and proud to do our part.

Thank you, readers, for supporting us today.

http://winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/special8/index.html

Movies and such . . .

I decided to skip out on D&D last night, partly because we were already missing two guys, and partly because Tuesday is cheap night at the movies! That's the only thing that sucks about having D&D on Tuesdays. :-( So anyway I decided to go see The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and also Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Image via WikipediaPrince Caspian . . . What can I say? I'm a sucker for a good fantasy movie and to me this was definitely one. Some of the performances were a little wooden, but that didn't really matter, at least not to me. And no, I'm not referring to the animated trees. :-P There was magic, medieval weapons, beautiful women, fantastic creatures, lots of action packed battles. Was it better than the first movie? Well I will have to rewatch that one before I can tell for sure but I will say no, it's not better, it's different. It's at least as good though, and I really enjoyed the first one too! This one is darker definitely. And of course Reepicheep was awesome. :-D Very much looking forward to the next movie if they ever make one.

Image via WikipediaIndiana Jones . . . Alright what the hell people? Nearly everyone I've heard on the interwebs who's seen the movie has said it was horrible, it sucks, they hated it . . . and gone on to spout out a laundry list of nit picky details they didn't like about it.

Lighten up people for heaven's sake! Is it an Oscar winning piece of film making? Gods no . . . some of it was pretty cheesy and some of it was a bit over the top but you know what? That's okay! That's part of the fun! I thought this movie was awesome! It's a fun, action packed adventure that I thought was very much in the style and feel of the Indy movies of old. I think the main reason a lot of people didn't like the movie was because it wasn't what they were expecting so they felt cheated. With Transformers the robots looked very obviously different right away so you knew going in that this wasn't going to be the same as the cartoon from your childhood. In previews however Indiana Jones does look very similar to the old movies and memories you cherish from your childhood and people went in expecting to feel exactly that way again. Well surprise! You're not a little kid any more.

Too many people go into movies having succumbed to the hype and media blitz and have expectations that are way too high, thinking a movie will be "the best movie evar!" . . . I usually go in to a movie with next to no expectations other than tobe entertained for a few hours and you know what? Nine times out of ten I leave pleasantly surprised.

Then again I'm not a professional movie critic, just another of the dumb consumer masses. :-P What do I know about movies . . .

C.

Guide to Winnipeg:

Image via Wikipedia* Those of you from Winnipeg, you're going to love this!
* To all others being sent this e-mail, it explains a lot about Winnipeggers.
* First you must learn to pronounce the city name. It is WIN-A-PEG, not VIN-A-PEG and it does not matter how people pronounce it in other places.
* Winnipeg has its own version of traffic rules. Never forget that downtown Winnipeg is composed in large part of one-way streets. The only way to get out of the center of town is to turn around and start over when you reach the river. All directions start with, 'Go down Portage.'
* Portage Avenue has no beginning and no end.
* The 8:00 a.m. Rush hour is from 6:30 to 9:30a.m. The 5:00 PM rush hour is from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. Friday's rush hour starts on Thursday morning.
* If you actually stop at a yellow light, there's no chance you're from Winnipeg. Yellow lights are for sissies.
* Lagimodiere Blvd. Can only be pronounced by a native Winnipegger, so do not attempt the phonetic pronunciation. People will simply tilt their heads to the right and stare at you. (And let's not forget Noter Dayme! And of course, Portidge.)
* Bingo, Bugs and Perogies are a way of life. Deal with it.
* Construction on the Winnipeg streets in summer is a way of life and a permanent form of entertainment. (Especially those dopey-looking city workers holdingup signs in traffic that say in big orange letters 'SLOW'. ( I always want to yell, 'You don't really need to advertise, buddy!'.)
* Many bizarre sights can be explained simply by realizing, 'Oh, we're in Transcona!'
* Construction crews aren't doing their job properly unless they close down all lanes except one during rush hour.
* If someone actually has his turn signal on, it was probably left on at the factory where the car was made.
* Buying a Winnipeg street map is a waste of money since the termination or continuation of any street is entirely at the discretion of the Works Department of the City: e.g.: Salter, Isabel, Balmoral, Colony, Memorial, Osborne, Dunkirk. You've gone two miles down the same road and the name changes seven times.
* Asking directions will help you get acquainted with numerous happy-to-help residents. It may not be any help at all for finding the address you seek.
* Never honk your horn at another car in traffic. The bumper sticker that reads, 'Keep honking, I'm reloading.' Is considered a fair warning.
* Exit and entry ramps on the Perimeter Hwy. are just the recommended way of entering and exiting, feel free to exit at any grassy point you wish.
* All drivers frightened of heights, stay clear of Charleswood and its ten-foot ditches. Believe me when I say you won't get out without a hundred-dollar towing bill.
* Your idea of creative landscaping is a statue of a deer next to your bluespruce.
* Down South to you means Grand Forks.
* Your 1 July picnic was moved indoors due to frost.
* You have more miles on your snow blower than your car.
* You find 0 degrees 'a little chilly.' But it is still t-shirt weather.
* You actually understand these jokes, and you forward them to all your Manitoba friends.

Shared GReader stuffs

I added a widget thinger to show my Google Reader shared items over there on the right hand side. At least this way there is something relatively new on the blog on a regular basis. :-P

Bloggity blog

So webcomics . . . huge fan. I love 'em. I've always thought the idea of doing my own would be really cool, except for the fact that I can't draw worth crap (ironic for a draftsman eh?) and I haven't got any particular story to tell. Not exactly conducive to great works of creativity.

I suppose the first step would be to keep track of things that make me LOL. Write them down as material for future reference.

Another thing would be to come up with an art style. Obviously it doesn't have to be fancy. Stick figures/simple artwork work pretty well for some comics. Gods above know I'm way better with computers than with pen or pencil so I'd probably try and photoshop something together.

Hah! Maybe I should use my stuffed polar bear collection as characters . . . but then I'd need some kind of set. :-P Still that'd be pretty cool.

Anyway . . . so yeah twitter is still borked, kinda, sorta. Been a pretty quiet morning. I haven't even got Twhirl on. It kept getting paused for exceeding the request limit, which it couldn't have. Unless they dropped it right down to nothing while the system "recovers". Oooooh. Perhaps we should send the DB flowers and get well cards. Maybe that would help?

That's about all the randomness I've got in me for now.

C.

twitter + Greasemonkey = WIN!

So if you're using Firefox there is a cool extension called Greasemonkey that allows you to run javascript snippets independently of the web page your on. It's great for customizing sites like facebook and myspace to work exactly the way you want. The site where you can find these custom scripts to use is called userscripts.org. It happy fun times! Go check out!

Anyway for some reason I have neglected up until now to go check for scripts to mess around with twitter . . . silly me! There are quite a few so I'm just going to list the ones I tried out and thought were useful and cool. :-) Depending on how these turn out I may even stop using twhirl . . . :-D

Endless Tweets!
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/24398
Loads older tweets endlessly when you're scrolling on a Twitter timeline. Bonus feature: Quotably.com integration.
Features:
1. Preloading of next page when you scroll down;
2. When on personal home page, only preload next pages until you reach the last read tweet (after which automatic loading stops);
3. Add icons that link to Quotably.com conversation for each tweet;
4. Sort friends in the sidebar by screen name;
5. A notifier that informs you of updates to this script.

Twitter Unread Marker
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/23229
Marks Twitter tab with the number of unread messages

Twitter Highlight
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/12240
Highlights tweets that are to you in your timeline (i.e. tweets that start with @your_username).

Twitter - Timeline Filter
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/20614
Dynamically filter items in timelines

Twitter Live Updater
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/21946
Updates live the home/replies/public timeline in twitter without the need of browser refresh. Install this userscript and go to http://twitter.com/home and see it in work. Updates the timeline once every minute.

TwitterIgnore
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/25365
Script to let you ignore people in your recent Tweet list without removing them from your follow list. They'll still show up in any feeds and whatnot, but your main Twitter home screen will be devoid of their guff.

So all was good until I tried Twitter Ignore, the one I most wanted to work. Unfortunately it didn't. :-P I still included it in the list because I like the idea and I left a comment on the author's script page telling him it didn't work for me. Maybe he'll be able to fix it or tell me what I did wrong.

I don't think I'll use the Twitter Live Updater that much, though it does work well. Twhirl is more appropriate for that I think. For the live update to really be useful you need to be ON your twitter home page. If you're surfing around or doing something not in the browser it doesn't help much.

The other scripts all work great and the Timeline Filter is awesome! :-D So if you want to have some fun messing around with your twitter home page give these a try. Greasemonkey FTW!

C.

Flying Sharks!

Flying Sharks!
Originally uploaded by xice_bearx

Hah! Flying sharks indeed! ^_^ I got a bunch of these in an e-mail and decided to throw them up in my random set. Check 'em out if ya wanna.

http://snurl.com/25605

SnowBear's Crap :-P

Hmm . . . so I just signed up ad tumblr too for some reason. Not sure why exactly.

SnowBear's Crap :-P