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Net Chick in Vancouver

in British Columbia, Personal Blog, Photography, Tourism and Vancouver
03/09
4 

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Tanya Marie Davis has been writing her thoughts online for over eleven years! That makes her the most experienced blogger, with the oldest domain yet profiled on this friendly index. The thirty something British Canadian lives alone in Vancouver, and plays a big part in the city’s social net. Her easy going manner, self deprecating sense of humour, detailed profile page, and straight forward contact info tells readers that she’s very comfortable with who she has become…

Net Chick pink hairNetChick, This Chick’s Life is the personal journal of a popular west coast socialite who uses her blog for the forces of good. There are no Google ads or tacky widgets anywhere in the sidebar, just a lipstick promotion over a blog roll bearing links to other Canadian pioneers, most of whom also live in Vancouver.

Tanya Davis blogs from and about that beautiful city, and often joins her friends, Miss 604, Raincoaster, Tris Hussy and others at live events that help make Vancouver the foremost social media crucible in Canada. Although much smaller than Toronto, this city’s bloggers connect in real life at parties, sporting events and most recently, at the opera.

This Chick’s Life is as unique as it is popular. A two sentence description in her sidebar reads, “…a thirty something girl living her dream in downtown Vancouver.’ But what is her dream exactly? Perhaps its the expression of her independence? To live alone after her divorce? In posts from autumn 2002 and the winter of 2003, which are the oldest posts available to readers, Tanya is slight on details and uses the word ‘boyfriend’ with defining the term. Later, readers will discover and come to cherish NetChick’s semi perpetual search for a mate. The theme runs through later posts too, and as Tanya grows older she gets more and more comfortable sharing details.

Similar to Carrie Bradshaw, (Sarah Jessica Parker’s character in Sex in the City)  this single girl details the shortcomings of so many would be suitors that attempt to solicit her affections. It’s a fascinating study of (for) men, especially those who craft corny first contact messages. The activity empowers female readers, and makes men a little anxious – lately Tanya has been reposting whole conversations, or rather, intact solicitations from strangers that have no idea who they’re talking to, or what league they’ve just stepped into…

Net Chick, Tanya DavisA social butterfly, NetChick has adopted, or rather, inherited an earlier link exchange ritual (from Michele, a landmark early blog) known as Weekend Meet and Greet. It’s a simple idea that works to convince a community of readers to leave a chorus of comments for everyone’s benefit. This type of online activity is the spit and polish that sophisticated blog pioneers put up to harness the passion of the next generation. NetChick’s meet and greet has just two rules:  participants must first say hello, and then visit the blog above their comment; in turn the next visitor greets you and visits your blog.  Irregardless of all extenuating factors, the exercise is good for at least one visit.

On March 1st 2009 Tanya used her blog to do some good for society when she wrote to Support the Canadian Freestyle Ski Team With Canada Post and encouraged her readers to CatchAir.ca

Tanya Davis seems like the quintessential early adopter, a hot girl geek that’s always been in style. She embraces new technology and uses it to elucidate random elements of her existence; NetChick Flickr photos show off her friends and family, you can find Tanya on Facebook, and or follow NetChick on Twitter.

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Midnight Poutine in Montreal

in Montreal, News Media, Photography, Quebec and Tourism
02/28
1 

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Midnight Poutine logoUnlike other domains profiled here, Midnight Poutine is not someone’s personal blog, but rather, a blog collective owned by an entrepreneur named Tim Shore. The writers get some of the revenue paid by advertisers.

Tim Shore also owns blogTO which serves Toronto, and Beyond Robson in Vancouver - all under the holding Freshdaily.ca, which as of Feb 28th 2009 is still under construction. But Tim and Fresh Daily are not the subject of this profile - this post is all about Midnight Poutine, because it’s such an absolute gem. The picture below is very indicative of the type of citizen journalism that doesn’t wait for snow removal or police barricadfes to come down before finding and reporting the truth from a Montreal pedestrian’s perspective.

Montreal bike riderWhat is Poutine?
Poutine is a dish consisting of French fries topped with fresh cheese curds, covered with brown gravy. It’s comfort food, especially in Quebec and it’s a signature dish in many Montreal eateries.

What’s in Midnight Poutine?
Midnight Poutine.ca is a perfect blog name. It correctly suggests unique content about Montreal night life, arts and culture. Readers who spot the domain name in a blog roll are instantly motivated to investigate, just to see if the destination lives up to what they imagine it should be, and it does.

About Midnight Poutine
Tim ShoreMontrealers need Midnight Poutine. It’s a personal ongoing account of the city’s happenings. It’s a delicious high-fat source of rants, raves and musings. It provides the insight you never find in newspapers and the details and tangents that would never fit in a weekly. It possesses cheese-like flexibility. It’s sometimes snarky, often unusual and always informative. Your order has arrived. Dig in.

A blog with seven authors
There are at least seven contributors in the About Us index. Some write more than others, but each maintains a presence in their genre to offer readers a smattering of local content that cannot be found in newspapers or anywhere else online. My favourite author is Jeff daSilva, I like his style the best and identify most with his local news subject matter.

Jeff daSilva
Jeff daSilvaJeff is a fashion working rock/skate type guy who loves dodgy bars, pubs, and all sorts of music. A terrific example of Jeff’s work is something he wrote after visiting a liquor store, in the province of Quebec where he postulates that BYOB will soon have  a new meaning – bring your own bag. Liqour laws are different all over Canada.

SAQ in Montreal

The portal is popular and will, in the future, help Montreal become a better city - some of their link bait content includes a rant post about the bus fares and cost of public transit . This post is one of their most popular, even though it’s entirely in French!

Midnight Poutine has a very popular Flickr photo group, with thousands of images, and has just emerged on Twitter where they have 13 followers - these are early days.

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Urban Native Girl Stuff in Toronto

in Fashion Blogger, Ontario, Personal Blog and Toronto
01/27
5 

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Lisa CharleyboyLisa Charleyboy is a very talented twenty something First Nations girl of the Tsilhqot’in (Dene) Raven Clan. Born and raised in the mountain wilderness of Williams Lake British Columbia, Lisa now lives in Toronto Ontario where she’s working hard to complete her Bachelor of Honours Degree in Professional Writing at York University.

Urban Native Girl Stuff echoes the culture shock of her paradox.  Slightly more polished than an online diary, Lisa’s personal blog details her existence in downtown Toronto. She writes about clothes, new beauty products, and native cultural events like the Toronto Pow Wows.

Lisa writes about issues and topics that might appeal to girls of any race, but especially Canadian aboriginal teenagers and young adults.  Urban Native Girl Stuff is a pastiche of the usual ‘single female topics’ including fashion, beauty, and nightclubs, but this urban girl is different because of her unique origins. Her best posts explore relationship dynamics and dating; here’s where we most often glimpse the girl from Williams Lake BC.

Clever readers might deduce that Lisa Charleyboy attended Ryerson University in Toronto for Fashion Communication, as well as John Casablancas Institute of Applied Arts in Vancouver for Fashion Arts. She reports her new career strategy is to work as a journalist documenting Native Canadian fashion, arts and entertainment, while sculpting her gifts as an actress in film and television. It’s a good plan. She’s a great writer and will certainly be recognized as such in time, and her beauty and ’stage presence’ suggest we’ll be seeing more of her on TV in the future.

As a professional writer, Lisa Charleyboy is off to a great start. Before school she was a contributing fashion & beauty columnist at Williams Lake Tribune (she pitched the editor and was paid). In her first year at York University she was the Contributing Arts Editor at Spirit Magazine and has subsequently written & sold articles to Inside Stunts Magazine, Spirit Magazine, and Redskins Magazine. In second year she was the Fashion & Lifestyle Editor at Excalibur Newspaper. During her first and second years she assisted with creating IndigeNEWS Newsletter for the Aboriginal Services Office at York University.

As an actress Lisa Charleyboy co-starred in the short film ‘Rezolution’ in the 2008 ImagineNATIVE Film Festival. She also has a role in the soon to be released ‘You Are Here’, and she tells readers that she’s excited about filming an new indie feature ‘The Rainbow Farm’ in Toronto this winter.

Lisa Charleyboy in earth tonesNow here’s where this Canada Blog Friends profile gets really interesting. I wrote to Lisa and asked her which of her posts that she thinks is her best. This was her reply,

Decade Dating has probably been the post that has been discussed the most to date. It is a reflection on May-December relationships, of which I had recently just ended one such relationship. I think the topic is fairly controversial and also very interesting and intriguing to people as to why girls in their 20s enter these types of relationships. I even walked into a local eatery where the owner, an acquaintance of mine, was involved in a May-December relationship and said that his young wife had read this post. It was a little awkward, since my stance at the end of the blog was that these types of relationships are beneficial to only one party.

My favorite is Red Cred: Joseph (Dega) Lazare . Red Cred is a series of profiles that I will be doing to showcase Native artists. I want to highlight modern, talented, progressive Native/Indigenous artists who are paving the way to be role models for youth and who are otherwise just cool peeps that deserve a little spotlight on them. I really want the non-Native community to see other Native people who are successful, educated and superbly gifted in order to challenge stereotypes that still haunt Native people. I also want other Native people who are not necessarily tapped into the Native arts community to realize the significant contributions we’re making all across Canada and the U.S.

Well done Lisa, that’s the perfect synopsis. Welcome to Canada Blog Friends.

On many levels, Lisa Charleyboy is a beacon of hope and a great role model for indigenous women that too often must sacrifice something for education and personal empowerment.  Canada Blog Friends has no doubt that Urban Native Girl Stuff will someday help unite the entire Native community all across North America. Everyone can share in her blog’s journey as she continues the Native storytelling tradition learned on the distant shores of Williams Lake, British Columbia.

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Phronk in London Ontario

in Ontario, Scholar, Web Designer and movie reviews
01/12
7 

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Phronk is an innovator and has been since June 2000.  He’s friends with Dead Robot, Mod Superstar and Raymi the Minx; these four bloggers are the Southern Ontario social club. They link to each other in their blogrolls, and comment on each other’s posts, and share unflattering pictures of Stephen Harper…

But Phronk has the most colourful and compelling voice. His blog is surprisingly original, and very readable, and most of the art on display is his own. It’s true Raymi and Dead Robot sometimes borrow his artwork to spice up their posts.

Mike PhronkPhronk writes this about himself,  “I’m a guy who lives in London, Ontario, doing various things, such as going to school (I’m a graduate student in psychology), going to work (I teach people and do science) and many other things. I really enjoy doing activities that are fun and eating things that taste good. I have a wonderful family, friends, and a dog. Bees make me nervous. That’s all there is to me.”

Actually there’s a whole lot more to Phronk than that. A quick scan of his domain shows that he has boundless passion in multiple genres. For example,  last fall he detailed the London Zombie Walk and his comment box was full after profiling the most listened to albums of 2008,

Google superconductorPhronk.com is good for funny cat photos, and ‘ugly cakes’ especially ‘toilet cakes’ which are edible cakes shaped like toilets (with yellow jello and candy bars in the center). And let’s not forget about the vanilla chocolate cake that looks like overflowing cat litter boxes (my personal favourite).

Phronk documents lobster flavoured potato chips and good Google daily logos, exceptional movies that went straight to video, or straight to awesome as he puts it,  and look at this early masterpiece Halifax Holiday photo post. Here he writes, ‘I snap a random vacation picture, post it on my blog, and one of the people in the picture manages to find it. It’s made even more incredible by the fact that everyone involved is as anonymous as can be.’

You get the feeling he’s just goofing around, but writers know its a lot of hard work. Pretty much everyday this author explores something new. Most frequent topics include “life, music, movies, TV, psychology, philosophy, science, parapsychology, skepticism, technology, video games, horror, books, writing, news, stupid internet stuff, and whatever else comes into my head. It’s all pretty self-indulgent, really.” 

There’s a lot of Phronk to read - visitors should journey back to the year 2000 just to see how it all began. Phronk artAfter a post listing his favourite movies, and another promising to make his new blog the repository for all his best stories, readers are treated to a very unusual sasquatch thriller wherein the monster appears on the highway and rear ends the car Phronk is test driving with a car salesman…

Some final wisdom from Phronk:

Contemporaneously should not be a real word.

Only semi-retarded emo kids post their crappy art to their blogs. Do you like the art? Check out Phronk’s scrapbook, phronk.tumblr.com

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Gigababy in Ontario

in News Media and Ontario
12/08
1 

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GigababyCindy Smith lives in Bowmaville Ontario and works Monday to Friday in downtown Toronto. She’s a commuter, in her late twenties, married with one child. And If I told you she’s also a blogger, you might expect a personal diary full of home cooked recipes, pet anecdotes and pictures of her kid. But no, Gigababy has evolved her blogspot meme into something Canadian society desperately needs, and something thousands of readers have come to depend on for a different kind of comfort.

Gigababy Facebook Gigababy’s Web Creed Education for the Driving Masses is not like other traffic blogs, and that’s because this is primarily a traffic event blog (there is no such word as accident in Cindy’s vocabulary). Gigababy’s Web Creed creates interactive news media that’s focused on one subject – car crashes.

Every single day, even on Christmas and New Years Eve, Gigababy reposts local news media on the worst traffic incidents across Canada. If two people are killed on a highway in Quebec, you can expect to find a newspaper report (usually from the area) with all the details on the subject reposted on Gigababy’s Web Creed the next day.

The Heart GroupWhy does Cindy do this? Because someone has to do this. Gigababy gets almost dozens of comments a day from people that need to grieve and write something somewhere to clear their minds before they can go on with their lives. The comment box is where the action is; sometimes the relatives of the victims and the friends of the accused get emotional, at each other – then Cindy locks up the comment box and everyone has to move on.  There are no advertisements on the website, except to raise awareness for charities.

Billie Mintz with Gigababy Billy Mintz, the Corporate Social Responsibility expert storyteller behind ARC Artists Raising Consciousness put Cindy Smith on camera for his Message in a Bottle video series that focuses on the dissemination of the responsible drinking message. These two experts met on Sat December 6th 2008 at Cindy’s parent’s house in Toronto – that’s Cindy’s mom directing the shooting in the background. Gigababy has a lot to say about how Canadians legislate new laws, prosecute offenders and mourn fatalities. She writes everday as an advocate of change - and she’s finally starting to get some real attention.

How did Gigababy get started?

Years ago, and for reasons only she knows, Mrs. Smith internalized the sad story of David Glenn Virgoe of Innisfil, Ontario, a driver for Wilburn Archer Trucking who swerved to avoid a street racer and flipped his tractor trailer at the side of Highway 400 near Bradford, Ontario, on June 18, 2007. Although an air ambulance was called to the scene, Mr. Virgoe, 48, died before he could be transported to hospital. But it was his quick selfless reaction, for which Mr. Virgoe was hailed as a hero by witnesses and Ontario police, who said his actions saved the lives of countless others that truly inspired Cindy.  She paralleled her own father’s career as a truck driver and his stories of highway driving and she took action in the form of a blog.

Three men were arrested for dangerous driving resulting in death. Mr. Virgoe left behind a wife Debbie, and three children and five grandchildren - and Gigababy’s Web Creed was born. Today and everyday Cindy Smith writes Gigababy to make Canadian roads safer.

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Ghost of a Flea in Toronto

in Ontario, Scholar and Toronto
11/27
1 

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Nicholas Packwood writes blog candy. His text is hard boiled sugar that’s packed with cool pictures and compelling captions; his blog posts are short and sweet and super readable.

Ghost of a Flea jumbleGhost of a Flea is politics and pop culture from Packwood’s perspective. He’s very opinionated, and one of the few anti-Obama bloggers left on the internet. Could his peculiar flavour be distilled from knowledge acquired by reading and writing and finally teaching anthropology and religious studies? Ghost of Flea aims to address contemporary themes inside a ‘ghostly’ anthropological context. First published in 2002, this blog has had some moments in the sun.

“From Canadian blogger Nicholas Packwood comes Ghost of a Flea, a blog with an eye on international opinion of the war” - USA Today

Nicholas Packwood considers himself to be more of a “thinker than a linker”, but because of time constraints he sometimes can only point readers in the direction of something he finds interesting. It could be arts or science, literature or old movies, or the latest breakthrough in geothermal floor heating systems. His passion is his remedy for boredom.

Ghost of a Flea cross statuePackwood writes, “Blogging allows me to express my opinions more constructively than by throwing things at the television. Occasionally, blogging also allows me to feel as though my opinion is being considered in the wider conversations of the day. [It] also reassures me every day that I am not alone in my questions and concerns; there is an enormous comfort and support knowing I am not the only person whose television has been saved by this new medium.”

Ghost of a Flea is an interesting blog by an interesting person. In addition to teaching anthropology and communications to undergraduates, Nicolas is undertaking a doctorate in social anthropology, and is also a student in a recording arts program office phone system someday hopes to work in audio mixing and production. You can catch Nicholas Packwood performing his own “dark ambient and industrial music in Toronto clubs, usually of the gothic variety”.

Ghost of a Flea at MyspaceDuring the US elections, Nicholas preserved his blog’s political theme, and smeared all of the candidates, but mostly Obama. A prime example is Please Connect The Dots. But he understands readers can only take so much rhetoric, so he seems to alter and adjust the percentage of political opinion… On October 30th (which is ALMOST Halloween) Nicholas used Ghost of a Flea to promote Devil’s Night at The Savage Garden, a quintessential Goth club in Toronto. His post Dark Times Demand Dark Music is primed with a photo of Lena Headey.

Ghost of a Flea is concocted to entertain readers, and Nicholas is satisfied with that easy market. He writes, In many ways this is more important to me than if I have managed to convince anybody of anything by the writing, let alone whether we find in time that we disagree about most things.

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Schmutzie in Saskatchewan

in Blogging, Personal Blog, Photography, Saskatchewan and Web Designer
11/05
8 

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Schmutzie pumpkin pin portraitSchmutzie is a female thirty something ‘personal blogger’ that lives in the Canadian Prairies. She makes her home in Regina, Saskatchewan and lives there with her husband, The Palinode.  Schmutzie describes herself as “an atheist, a photographer, a writer, a website designer, a knitter, a feminist, and a thirty-something non-gender-specific, biological female post-hysterectomy in a heterosexual marriage who spends eight hours a day in a beige cubicle.” And that bio should be enough to make anyone curious.

Schmutzie’s Milkmoney Or Not Here I Come is over five years old now, and it looks better than ever. The site was born in August 2003, and I believe the name is truly representative of her spirit, both then and now.

This website’s archives make fantastic reading, and that’s because Schmutzie is a gifted writer that’s just masquerading as a blogger. Her November 4th entry The Girl Who Came From Love is proof positive, this woman can write literature.

Schmutzie on Twitter photoCuriously, although she has already battled and survived cancer, Schmutzie still smokes cigarettes. She considers the subject closed for discussion, but I notice there’s lots of smoking / anti smoking chatter on Schmutzie’s Twitter, where she has over a thousand followers. And I should also link to Schmutzie’s StumbleUpon address as that’s actually how Canada Blog Friends came to notice her entertaining stories.

Reading Schmutzie’s blog is a privileged smart girl glimpse into a tight circle of friends.  Girls, that are friends, that tell each other true stories that are sometimes unbelievable. In recent post, Some Things Just Aren’t Meant To Be, Schmutzie relates the sad tale of an ex boyfriend who believed she was poisoning his food. And here’s a classic self reflection post where Schmutzie wrestles with the stigma of being publicly identified as a blogger; this woman is shy and doesn’t like the label.

Schmutzie on EtsySchmutzie is a web designer by day, and a random blogger at night that writes about whatever she liked, or disliked, on that particular day. So maybe she’ll start the week with a thoughtful piece about cancer survival, and on Friday highlight her latest additions to Etsy, moving through multiple genres rather seamlessly and redefining her ‘personal blog’ with every shared experience.  The quality is consistent, so although you never know what you’ll get with Schmutzie, you know it will be good.

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Raymi the Minx in Toronto

in Blogging, Ontario, Personal Blog and Toronto
09/30
4 

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Lauren White is a blog pioneer. She started her web log back in 2000 when Blogger itself was less that a year old and still owned by Pyra Labs. Back then, very few people knew anything about blogging, and this Canadian girl was an early thought leader in the process of discovering what’s cool, and what brings traffic.

Raymi the MinxRaymi the Minx is a classic blog that details strange happenings in the life of a sexy girl living in the heart of downtown Toronto.  Chances are, if you’ve ever spent a day surfing around the net reading blogs, you’ve encountered Raymi’s work. She’s listed on hundreds of blog rolls, ranked in dozens of indexes in many different niches, and has won numerous awards in multiple categories – her blog has inspired the first posts of some of today’s best writers.

Raymi’s work is more personal than most personal blogs. She flashes her smile as frequently as her skinny body (and her boots, and even on rare occasions, her breasts). Such self portraits are of course the highlights of her archives, and accrue many dozen comments. Her curious poses draw readers into even more intimate stories. This girl lets us live inside her relationships as she randomly explains her existence. With such content the reader begins to feel like he actually knows Raymi, and boys fall in love with her. Girls have a different reaction. Since she allows everyone to learn so much about her, she soon becomes the best friend you’ve never met.

I see my blog as a way to kill boredom for me and for you and if some days there is a bit of genius to it, awesome. Raymi, Sept 2008

Raymi the Minx in Oxford in 2000Over the past eight years, Raymi has become a Canadian web celebrity. Thousands of readers have watched her grow up on the internet and most have followed her work from the moment they discovered her domain. Here archives are indeed expansive. She would need erp software to keep track of all the products and stories that she’s distributed over the past decade. Digging back to the year 2000, it’s possible to see the young Lauren White before the metamorphosis.

Here’s me (raymi) in Oxford. that siGn between my krotch sez, ‘please keep off grass’ or something and there i am On the grass like the eFFing rebellious bitch i’ve always been.

Marketable DepressionLike every artist’s first work, Raymi’s early material seems unrefined by comparison. Backin 2000 she often experimented by altering text sizes and fonts to deliberately defy standard formats. Personally I’m thrilled she outgrew the baby talk slang, and a particularly annoying habit of spelling ‘with’ as ‘wif’. Her evolution is still in progress and now an even more prolific pen has turned to writing novels.  Raymi has inventory for sale on her website, and memories enough to fill storage units full to the brim with laughter. Here’s a link to buy Marketable Depression on CafePress, which is Raymi’s book about her younger years, when she was depressed, dabbled in drugs, and was crippled by her own poor choice in men.

Another book in the works, as yet untitled, will present sequences from an even larger story. There is no set release date as Raymi finds the idea of compulsory writing very stressful. ‘Writers constantly feel guilt over not writing and all eventually kill themselves, whether by drink or other hands-on means‘, she writes.Tanlines Not seeking self annihilation, she spends her days making art and taking beautiful photos to add to the twenty thousand images already stored in her Flickr gallery photo stream.

More than a blogger, Raymi the Minx is a poet, media darling, and a web based sexual itch. She has the unique ability to write provocative content and draw a crowd, and provoke admiration.  This painting by her friend Jamie Boud perfectly represents Raymi’s acrylic disposition.  Her mildly erotic portraits are usually punctuated with Toronto landmarks to remind us that she’s real, and lives just down the street somewhere… But her reality is better, sexier and more stimulating than ours will ever be.

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