the sky may be gushing, but then so am I

I may be headed to a city that has been deluged by cold November rains (with expectations of much of the same), but my blog posts may very well be as dry as your skin during a Calgary winter for the next few days.

Expect shamefully Twitteresque reports while I:

- have a giggle-fest sleepover at my hotel with the outrageous OFKAR, the glorious Allison, and vivacious Mel

- celebrate my 17th blogger meetup, with the delightful Westcoast Walker

- rock out (and if past performance is any indicator, laugh my fool head off) at a Billy Bragg concert

- get the red carpet treatment at the Maple Ridge community museum

- shop shop shop laugh laugh laugh with the OFKAR

My blog visits will be seriously curtailed, naturally, and I hope you will forgive my ignoring you. I will miss you all, but be forewarned, when I return, I will be all over your blogs like ugly on an ape.

but you can't see your way if you're blind

Smell my face. Does it remind you of Thanksgiving?

The lady who vacuums my face always wants to try new techniques on me and today I let her talk me into a pumpkin facial.

I look good enough to eat!

I just realised today that I have not flown solo since before the Offspring Formerly Known as Resident was born. Although I am not looking forward to being solo whilst navigating the car rental business and then finding my way around that crazy city which is built entirely on bridges, I must admit I am anticipating the time to read in the airport and in the skies.

I have Terry O'Reilly's brand new book tucked into my computer case, as well as some work-related magazines, and I can't wait to kick back with a cup of coffee and a couple of hours to read. Just thinking about it feels so incredibly luxurious.

I haven't a hope in hell of catching up to the blistering reading pace set by the OFKAR, who has just finished her 49th book of the year. Barring John Kusack unleashing the end of the world upon us two years early, she will most certainly make her goal of 50 books this year.

*golf claps all round*

I have however, just completed a rather lengthy book, which at times I doubted that I would actually finish, and I have posted a review over at the Bookworm Collective. I invite you to discover what I thought of this vaguely gothic Spanish historical mystery.

What are you reading these days, anyway?

top five benefits to being cataract free

1. return to 20/20 vision

2. return of colour vision

3. being able to drive at night without feeling like I am driving into an exploding fireworks factory

4. being able to read road signs before I pass them

5. no more reading glasses

I am really glad I had cataract surgery before heading out to Vancouver this weekend, where I will be driving solo in a strange city that has too many bridges, in a province without one single straight road.

Matthew Good: us does not remain impossible

Matthew Good (with Mother Mother)
- Jack Singer Concert Hall, Nov 15/09

Matthew Good is touring with a band again. And even though he messed up the words to Hello Time Bomb on Sunday night, and even though he declined a confrontation with a band mate because he was "winded as an 80-year-old man", he's still got the chops for rock n roll.

Sunday night's concert certainly proved that. After a few years of touring solo and playing dark acoustic shows, Matthew Good had no problems packing the house (and necessitating a second concert on Wednesday) with his return to his rock roots.

Vancouver power pop group Mother Mother opened the night with a polished and choreographed set. They were given a mixed reception. Most people clapped politely, but there were evidently some hardcore fans in the crowd too. It's not often you see people (albeit less than a handful) dancing in the aisles at Jack Singer. It's just not that sort of venue.

I wasn't sold on them musically, though. They were energetic enough and I am sure they are very nice people, but I found them to be almost annoying, melodically speaking. They've got the looks, they've got the clothes, but I think if you are going to go the power pop New Pornographers route, you have got to have the catchy hooks. It's imperative.

But of course, everyone was there to see Canada's premier rocker curmudgeon, Matthew Good, and he certainly did not disappoint, either musically or curmudgeonally. It's no wonder that he has such a long-standing reputation for being confrontational. It's partly because he is highly opinionated, with the brains and the passion to back up those opinions, and partly because the audiences at his concerts are filled with an inordinately high proportion of drunken yobs.

Fortunately, Matt Good can always be relied upon to put disruptive jerks in their place with his trademark stinging sarcasm that the rest of us find hilarious and highly satisfying. There were a few moments like that: the pointed look in the general direction of the offender, the pause, and then the zinger. Matthew Good has great timing and he does not tolerate fools.

Surprisingly there were no political rants. He did not once mention the Olympics nor any member of government. I guess even Matt Good has to take a night off from being the bulldog of the nation. And he certainly did seem relaxed, right down to the Pink Floyd tee shirt he was sporting.

But rants and wardrobe aside, Matt Good played a solid 90 minute set (plus 20 minute encore), heavily populated with songs from his newest album, Vancouver. It's a tribute to the drunks behind us that they knew all the words to the new songs, even though they shouted them instead of singing them like a normal person would. In amongst the new songs, Matt dipped back into Hospital Music, Avalanche, Beautiful Midnight, and even Underdogs for the rest of the set.

He obviously enjoyed playing with a band again. They sounded solid, like a band that has been together for a while, and there was a considerable amount of joie de vivre on-stage. It's not often you see the bassist leave the stage mid performance to go to the bathroom. And I doubt that in the old days of the Matthew Good Band, it would have been the occasion for good-natured jesting that it was on Sunday night.

We were particularly impressed with the young guitarist, and not just because he had perfected his awesome guitar hero stances either. He really could flail on that thing. More than once, his riffs launched a spontaneous outburst of applause.

It was great to witness Mr Good delivering an all out rock performance, complete with a stunning light show, again. That Pink Floyd tee shirt turned out to be appropriate after all. This was the fifth time that I have seen Matthew Good perform, yet only the second time with a band. Matthew Good the solo performer and Matthew Good the band frontman can coexist quite seamlessly, I think. He still has the powerful voice and he still has the presence; those will remain constant, regardless of how many people are on that stage.

search engine optimization: increasing your web presence through clever wordplay

How Keyword Searches and Well-Placed Cross-Linking Can Skyrocket Your Algorithmic Ranking

Search engine optimization is all the rage in the world of web publishing these days. If you want a successful web magazine that attracts both readers and search engine bots, you really need to understand how search engines crawl the internet looking for the sexiest words of the day. Apparently using the right word in the right place can seriously impact the top secret algorithmic ranking that search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing give to your website. This has a direct impact on the placement that your website gets on the search page when people type in a keyword search.

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That was the gist of the seminar I attended today. And fascinating stuff it was too. Although geared toward web magazines, a lot of the information is just as relevant to blogs. After all, we are all subject to the same sort of scrutiny by the same relentlessly crawling search engine bots, regardless of whether we publish a popular web-savvy magazine like Wired or if we post to a blog that is dedicated to kitchen aprons from the fifties.

Although a lot of what was discussed at the web publishing seminar today was common sense and rather intuitive, I thought, I did learn a great deal and had my eyes opened to a few glaring errors that I was making. I have incorporated six methods for increasing search engine optimization into this blog post, some of which I use routinely anyway, some of which are foreign to me.

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The first person who can spot all six key points in this blog post gets a prize. A real prize, which will arrive in the mail with a stamp and everything.

Oh how I miss those song lyrics already!

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For more stories about my adventures about gazing deeply into the navel of this crazy little thing called the internetz, feel free to read about:

- the time I got my own private Radiohead widget

- my complicated relationship with my blog

abacuses don't lie

Middle of the month. Time to take stock of those November resolutions.

I'm pleased to announce that I have managed to fulfill my NaBloPoMo commitment of daily posting thus far. And frankly it hasn't really been all that difficult. It has had the added effect of making me interested in my blog again. I once again look forward to posting every day, and find that it's actually sort of therapeutic.

Mind you that has been the easy half of the month, the one with the minimum of commitments. The second half of the month could prove to be slightly more challenging, what with five days of travelling and a week of entertaining my brother. I am not complaining, no no! I can't wait to hang out on the wet coast with the OFKAR and some friends that I haven't seen in ages. And I love hanging out with my brother. But I will be a little more time pressed to write those daily blog posts. Just like people with real jobs.

If you are observing National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) or the even more ambitious National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I wish you every success. Don't give up; you are halfway there.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo or NaBloPoMo?

How's it coming along?

gathering in the warmth of autumn's cold chains

Justin Rutledge & Melissa McClelland

- Central United Church, Nov 13/09

It started as a smoldering groove in a knock-out red frock, built into a smocking jam session that threatened to tumble off the packed stage, and ended as a heartfelt lullaby singalong standing on the pews. Not bad at all for a church concert.

I'd seen both artists perform previously, most recently at Calgary Folk Festival appearances, and had a suspicion that this musical pairing was a particularly inspired idea for a tour. And not just because they are both uncommonly pretty people either. Melissa McClelland and Justin Rutledge have two of the sweetest and purest voices in Canadian music today and their vaguely alt-country styles complement each other so perfectly that it's surprising nobody thought of this before. One of the first thoughts that crossed my mind upon hearing about this concert was that it would be criminal if they didn't perform at least a couple of songs together.

Fortunately both musicians turned out to be on the right side of the law, and besides we were in a church after all, so those of us in the near capacity audience on Friday night were treated to some awfully sweet collaborations.

The venue, always perfect for intimate concerts, is fast becoming one of my favourites. Central United Church is right on the C-train line, and features the soaring architecture, sculptured ceilings, and gleaming wood of some of the other downtown houses of worship which have been pressed into service as musical venues. But it's the pie-wedge shaped room that sets it apart, in that it ensures that there is not a single bad seat in the house. And the pews are cushioned. Nice.

Melissa McClelland took to the stage first, her stunning red frock belying the casual and comfortable approach which she brought to her performance. And she did it right too. Flanked by a violinist and a bassist, McClelland started the evening with a slow measured groove on her first two songs, and then proceeded to mix it up with a duet with Rutledge. Gradually the band grew, with the addition of a drummer and finally an electric guitarist, each addition adding more complexity and more vigour to the music. By the end of her set, the church was pretty much rollicking, with outbursts of applause for particularly inspired riffs bursting forth from the assembled.

When Justin Rutledge took over the stage, after a break to allow half the women in the church to line up for the two-seater bathroom, he followed a similar approach, with he and his guitar accompanied by a slide guitarist. Anyone who has ever heard a note of his music knows that Rutledge has a heartbreakingly lovely voice, but who knew that he was so funny? "You should see me in that dress" were his opening words, and he played to the Calgary audience very skillfully, name-dropping local establishments, lamenting the lineups that were sure to form at a local diner the next morning, and then carefully considering one offer from an audience member to have her cook breakfast for him instead.

But the playful banter, off the wall and refreshing as it was, really was outshone by the performance. By the time the guitarist, bassist, drummer, and Melissa McClelland had joined him onstage for a slowed down bluesy rendition of Johnny Be Good, we had been treated to a tasty blend of acoustic ballads and rocking numbers.

After a mercifully brief pause between the applause and the encore ("where am I going to go? It's not like I have a cab waiting to take me to the Deerfoot Inn ... although we really should go to the Deerfoot Inn..."), Rutledge wrapped up with a flourish, wandering into the congregation, clamouring up on a pew and leading us all in a singalong of Don't Be So Mean Jellybean.

And as far as I am concerned, every concert should end in a singalong.

Skyway Bridge - Melissa McClelland

Penny for the Band - Justin Rutledge

but how many of them show up in pyjamas?

We either have an infinite capacity for discontent, or we are a species who are hard-wired to crave contact with our own kind.

Recently an office opened in this city which is peopled by freelancers who used to work at home. I scratched my head in bewilderment too when I first heard this, because is that not really the whole point to being a freelancer, to be able to work at home in your underwear, untroubled by icy roads and congested highways? Why on earth would anyone who has the freedom to pop into the kitchen for a snack whenever they want or bring the laptop out to the back yard patio give all that up? Are they insane?

Many of the advantages to working from home are actually a double-edged sword. Sure it's easy to do a load of laundry while you are working, but it's hard to stop there sometimes. So you clean the sink and do some grocery shopping and go for a workout and see what looks good in the fridge and organize the linen closet. And the next thing you know, the sun is setting and that article has still not written itself.

And then of course, there is the little matter of human contact. When you start waiting for the letter carrier and when the cashier at Safeway is starting to feel like your closest friend, you know you need to get out more. And it's difficult to bounce ideas off the cat, regardless of how much she wants to help you type.

I can understand what drives some people to need a centralized place from which to freelance. Ultimately we crave routine, discipline, and human contact. But whenever I find myself disgusted by the fact that I am still in my housecoat at 9:30 in the morning or whenever I start pacing the house talking to myself just to hear a human voice, I simply turn on the traffic report and gloat over the fact that I am not on the Deerfoot. And I always feel better when I can gloat.

consider this one to be on the house

I get these periodically, these emails inviting me to make money by hooking up my blog with their site in one manner or another. I'm sure you do, too. Naturally I treat these requests with great suspicion, and I usually end up spending more time than I should checking out the company without actually clicking on the link. I can usually find a good deal of discussion on the interwebz, as bloggers are generally a chatty bunch and of course these things get sent out en masse.

Here's the latest one, received this morning:

Hello,
I'm Eunice from SeoBlogReviews.com.

I would like to know if by any chance you would be interested in getting paid to publish reviews of products and websites on your blog http://badtemperedzombie.blogspot.com/.

If you are interested please let us know the amount of money you want in order to publish a review by clicking the following link:
http://blog.seoblogreviews.com/default/index/6d2603856b0599a777c744f072bad1f3

As soon as you do that we'll start sending you paid review proposals from our customers.

Thanks,
The SeoBlogReviews.com Team

Since this particular request didn't contain any spelling mistakes or glaring grammatical errors to enrage the grammar Nazi in me and arouse my suspicions as to legitimacy, I did my usual web search. The vote seems to be split, but there is no shortage of red flags on the issue. Being naturally suspicious, I firmly believe that red flags are your friend.

Besides I did have a brief flirtation with a similar proposal a few months ago, which fizzled into nothingness. And I always feel like I should be wearing a full-body condom if I am going to jump into bed with any of these guys.

Not that I am opposed to making money, mind you. I like eating and having a roof over my head as much as the next person, but I also don't want to contribute to the clutter that's on the internet.

And then there is the matter of preserving the integrity of my blog. I'm not narcissistic enough to believe that my little blog is too precious to entertain this sort of venture, but I sure don't want to bore you with reviews of yet more stuff. Because we all have way too much stuff already.

How do you handle this sort of offer?

update: it's pretty much unanimous that these are all bogus, but obviously there are legimimate businesses out there. But how do you recognise them? Just by name recognition and reputation?

I've had quite a few happy dealings with musicians and labels, arts organizations and film distribution companies, but none of these have involved cash exchanging hands, although there is certainly free merchandise. Is that where the line is drawn, at the money?

the fields of November

On this day I remember my father amongst all the others. He did not fall in the war, but many of his dreams and expectations surely did. The war changed his life in such profound ways which I am only beginning to comprehend.

He was younger than my own child when he fought. This is unfathomable to me. The lives of his children, which to me growing up felt unbearably harsh, must have seemed to him so very privileged. His war diary, which was unearthed after my mother's death, gave shocking glimpses into some of the horrors that he witnessed, that must have shaped him, in a war of which he rarely spoke.

I remember.

set them wild, set them free

In keeping with the precedent set in May of the year of our Lord two thousand and nine, when it was unilaterally decided that there would be no bedding plants purchased nor planted at Casa del Zombie that year, Ms Zombie wishes to announce that there will be no brandy fruitcake baked for the upcoming Christmas season.

That is all.

curtains never open, faces never show

I walk the back lanes these days, to the store.  It fills my need for new perspectives.  Familiarity, it seems, had made me oblivious to my surroundings, more blind to the details than the cataracts ever did.  And I live in the details.

Today I passed the lady who wears her hair piled in a top knot.  She must have been told once that she looks like Katherine Hepburn, as I have never seen her without that iconic hair style.  She also favours the back lanes, it seems.

I like pretending that I am lost in a new city, as I let the meandering lanes lead me in loops and switchbacks of fences and garage doors.  There are no straight lines in the suburbs.  But there are dogs who warn me to keep walking buster, and there are kitchen windows that gaze blankly at empty patio furniture.  I like being removed from the drone of traffic by a single row of houses, artifacts of the great oil epoch.  But mostly I like looking into the lives that people choose not to show to the world.