Colleen Anderson's Blog, page 30

Online Dating and Valentines

Dating sites can have too much choice to make a decision. Creative Commons: webdesignhot.com

The history of online dating is an interesting one. From a personal point of view, I've been online since the screen was black and the text green, when there were no graphics and it was all DOS. The moment people could send their desires and quests across the great digital ether, they have looked for all types of information and much of it has been sexual.

During those first days of the internet, when a friend in New York said I should get a modem and I had to ask what that was, there weren't many people or groups online. In fact, I went online to do research for writing and I would shout into that big black hole, hoping for an answer from who knows where. Chat groups began to appear but it was like a quest with a blindfold on to find them. The local internet service provider (ISP) in Vancouver was also the only one: mindlink. When I went online I would see a list of all the users, no more than 20 in Vancouver. Yes, it was that small. Anyone on the ISP could instant chat with anyone else. There were a few chat rooms but this was outside of the rooms. Right away (being one of very few women) I would get people asking how old I was, was I single, etc. Then there would be the inevitable request for "hot chat." Bear in mind that I'm a writer, and I could hot chat anyone up to probably a good time, but really, it's rare that hot chat would work for me. Besides, I didn't know if this was a 14-year-old guy or some creepy decrepit pervert. I just wasn't interested.

Then the internet blossomed with chat rooms and minimal graphics and about 90% of all chat sites were sexually oriented, one way or another. Bulletin Boards (BBS) came about but I never went through that maze. Lavalife came along, which was actually phone personals at first. I tried that for a while and at least you could listen to a person's voice but there were some crazy ranters on there with issues. I dropped off, then I got on the internet Lavalife but it was not a great site for me. No matter what you put in your profile it seemed no one read it and still wanted to "hook up" for the evening. I also got stood up more times than I ever have in my life. Although I have friends who met and married off of Lavalife, I compared it to boys in a candy shop with too many choices to make a decision. I left.

Is love still possible? Creative Commons: Aaron, Flickr

I already posted about Plenty of Fish. I think I tried eHarmony for a month but at $30/month for about the same results. I'm a little too creative for many of these sites and don't have the patience. These days, there is a plethora of places for dating, for hooking up, for long term fun. OKCupid blends friendship and dating and I have made friends on that site. There are a variety of styles and predilections, but I think with all the instant media we're forgetting how to interact with a live person. We let Hallmark tell us that to love someone we just say it on Valentine's Day, we give pre-prescribed candies and flowers, and that will be enough. You can try to sugar coat a relationship, put up pretty pictures, and write flattering partial truths, but the true taste of the heart (or pudding) is in the tasting. If we just got out there and socialized more, didn't expect instant gratification, and slowed things down we might find that a relationship is worth doing and more rewarding than a thousand Facebook friends.

Filed under: Culture, life, people Tagged: chat rooms, dating, dating sites, false love, Hallmark moments, hot chat, internet dating, internet history, Lavalife, love, Online dating service, sex, stood up, Valentine's Day

Apocalypse Diet Summary: Days 38-40

Do zombies and parties mix? Creative Commons: www/plants-vs-zombies-party

Here's my dilemma coming up. I forgot I was doing this diet and decided to have a party this coming Saturday. How do you have  a party with no nibblies at all? Alcohol's not a problem. I'm probably going to have to make this a bubble like the restaurant meals with friends. If there are leftovers I'm either going to have to give them away or mark them (if I buy a container of something) so that I don't use them until the diet is declared dead. On top of that, a longtime friend is coming to visit for the same weekend. She's probably not going to be thrilled with eating very little so I might have to bubble the whole weekend. Stay tuned to see what happens.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 38 (Feb. 7):

I have to finish writing what I ate last night. I found veggie dumplings (gyoza) in the freezer so I boiled up five of those with the last of the broccoli, tossed a spot of soy and fish sauce and ate it up. Unfortunately, boiling made the gyozas too mushy. Next time will be steamed or fried.

Lunch was a tin of tuna, with dill, celery, capers, Worcestershire sauce, spices and… and. There was no mayo! Oh doom! Then I remembered I have little packets of soy sauce from takeout and yes, there was one packet of mayo and some Nando's hot sauce. Saved. That tuna went with a garlic pesto flour tortilla of which I still have quite a few.

I had a snack of a couple of artichoke hearts in vinegar and oil, with a few crackers. For dinner, I used the last of the potatoes (about 5 med. small ones) and a bag of roasted garlic that a friend gave me and made garlic potato soup with turkey stock. I tossed in some onion because I believe this will be the last vegetable in my fridge. It was pretty tasty. I will have enough to freeze several containers. Did I mention I found a bit more chocolate in my place? Chocoholics unite!

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 39 (Feb. 8):

Today's breakfast was nil. I ran out of time but that's not unusual for me. Lunch was quinoa and pollo en mole. For dinner I had some of the leftover roast garlic and potato soup, and a few crackers. I believe I'll run out of the green veggies sometime next week, and probably all veggies in about two weeks or by the end of Feb.

BTW, I did see a zombie today. I was driving on the highway and needed to get over into the right lane to exit. I signaled and signaled and signaled. The car beside kept pace with me so that I had to slow down, nearly stop to get into the lane and then exit. When I pulled up beside this car the woman was staring straight ahead, no expression on her face. There was a large dog moving in the back but she never acknowledged it. Eventually I ended up in front of her and when I looked back she was staring straight ahead, eyes rimmed in darkness, never acknowledging the dog. Maybe it was dinner. If a zombie had been tearing out brains in the next lane, she would never have noticed. Zombies that drive are somewhat dangerous on the road because they aren't aware of their surroundings, unless it's brains of course.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 40 (Feb. 9):

Not a bad looking lunch for Day 40: shrimp, gai lan, quinoa, garlic & sundried tomato.

So, breakfast consisted of two chocolates. Lunch was quinoa with sundried tomatoes in oil, garlic, shrimp and the last of the gai lain. That is indeed the last of the leafy green vegetables though there are still a couple of stalks of limp celery and some Brussels sprouts.

For the party (the bubble food) I bought some cheese, a bag of trail mix, crackers and some chocolate eggs. However, those are stored separately and I'm not allowed to eat them (besides at the party). I think anything left afterwards (if in a container) will be marked with a Sharpy indicating that I can't eat it until the experiment has ended. That's temptation though, so how well can I resist the food that is not food?

I have found there is a slightly soft turnip in my fridge so tonight it will be neeps–carrots and turnip with garlic and herbs. Tomorrow begins the weekend of party and visiting friend. Can I make it past Day 40?

To recap after my first month on the Apocalypse Diet, I'm pretending that an apocalypse takes place (maybe it's a supervirus, massive alien abductions or an evil plot), which stops the supply lines (but for the sake of staying healthy and clean, the hydro-electric power and water are still working). Since the Mayan calendar actually shows the ending of one age and the beginning of another, maybe it's now the Zombie Age (we've already had the consumer age).

I am documenting how long I can live on the food in my place, without shopping. Here are my rules:

I cannot buy any food at all.
If going out for dinner, it's a bubble outside of the experiment. I can take home the leftovers but this isn't a stop-gap so no ordering pizza.
When I start to run out of proper nutritionally balanced foods I will take vitamins.
When I become bored or am on to only condiments and alcohol, I will end my experiment.
Someone can give me food, for in the post-apocalyptic world we might want to trade or eat together in safety once in a while.


Filed under: Culture, driving, food, humor Tagged: apocalypse diet, dieting, eating, end of the world, food, food experiments, frozen foods, leftovers, Maya calendar, science experiment, supply lines, Zombie Age

Traveling in Europe: Antwerp Part I

The Cathedral of Our Lady is a great example of Gothic architecture.

I spent about seven to eight days in Holland and from Den Bosch took the train to Antwerp. The B&B hosts I was staying with, Mabuhay Holdings, would not be home till about 8 that night so I stowed my luggage at the train station. The problem was that the luggage lockers were all full except for two rows that weren't working. And here, the bottom stand that kept my suitcase upright decided to fall off. I managed to tape it back on but the cheapness of the suitcase was becoming apparent. At the other end of the Antwerp station was another set of luggage lockers. The other end was a very long walk that equaled about three city blocks, past covered shops and lots of gold and diamond stores. This was also one of the few places where I had to use a credit card to secure a locker, as most restaurants and B&Bs in Holland and Belgium do not accept  anything but cash.

There was a helpful tourist information booth in Antwerp station where I was given directions and a map. I then headed toward the old city. Antwerp is a blend of old and new in a way the other cities weren't. Often, centuries-old cities are more medieval and ancient at the center and as they expanded they became more modern. Of course, there will be a blend when old buildings disappear  but maybe not  that much when they're historical. However, I suspect that Antwerp's blend comes more from the aftermath of WWII than from a conscious effort to modernize. (Indeed, a quick google check confirms this.)

The historic guildhouses in the grote markt, Antwerp.

As I walked along I could smell the waffles, a famous Belgium food. Luckily, while Antwerp is open and modern, there are still many historical buildings. The square that holds the stadhuis or townhall also has a row of historical guildhalls, with gilded statuary at the top. One was under repairs but they are four-five centuries old, having experienced a fire in the 1500s.

The square, also called the grote markt, holds the Brabo fountain, where a Roman warrior named Brabo, standing on a dragon is throwing the hand of a giant into the Scheldt River. Antwerp's name means something close to this (Brabant, hand throwing). As I walked through the square, the Cathedral of Our Lady's the bells began to chime. They chimed for 15 minutes and were just lovely. Mary is obviously a patron of the city and Marian statues can be found on various building corners. In fact, you can wander down various streets and come across large statues of Jesus and Mary, or other saints. The cathedral was stunning, airy and light, and very large. It had quite a range of triptychs throughout including Rubens and  Caravaggio.

In the courtyard of Rubenshuis; the angular aspects and different colored stones are typical Rubens.

In fact, by far one of the best museums on my trip was Rubenshuis, the studio and house that Rubens built and lived in. I had always known he was a painter but what I didn't realize was that he was a renowned architect, so much so that his work influenced architects of his time and for those to come. Rubens in turn was influenced by Greek and Roman architecture and styled his house after a Roman villa. His use of marble, rectangular designs and angular openings gave a particularly vibrant appearance that seemed apparent in parts of the cathedral. One side was dedicated to his paintings; the other to his architectural studies and influences. Like many museums taking pictures is not allowed. One of the rooms had the walls covered in about tw0-foot square panels of embossed and stained leather. This have warmed the room visually and as an insulating layer. Amazingly, most of these leather-covered walls are preserved. Because Rubens built his house opening into a courtyard, the windows all face this one side. Truly beautiful and stunning centuries later. I spent most of the day just in Rubenshuis alone, and the rest in the cathedral.

I arrived on a Sunday and it turns out most museums are closed on Mondays, I decided to spend a second day in Antwerp and skip Brussels. There is definitely more than enough to see. Also, while Amsterdam seemed to be big on Argentinian steak houses, Antwerp's most popular style of restaurant was pasta and pizza. These restaurants were everywhere.

This side chapel exhibits Rubenesque uses of colored stone.

While the guidebooks said that even in restaurants they would charge for toilet use, that wasn't true though it was for every store I went in. You cannot get a glass of water at restaurant and must pay for it. In fact, water cost as much as a glass of wine. I ate in the old part of town that night and then with some confusion, managed to catch a tram to my lodging. It was unclear which tram stop I needed so I ended up waiting a long time and when I got down to the convergence of three streets, the bus driver said it was close but to ask the police and transit man who were standing there discussing something. Perhaps it was a small comfort as a directionally challenged tourist that when I asked them where Drakstraat was they had to look it up on the map and it turns out it was the street the tram had gone down and we were pretty much standing on it. Even the locals don't know the names of their streets.

More in my next post on Antwerp, with the photo album of the trip.

Filed under: art, Culture, history, travel, Writing Tagged: Antwerp, architecture, Belgium, Cathedral of Our Lady, gothic cathedrals, guildhalls, history, marble, Rubens, Rubenshuis, Scheldt

Apocalypse Diet Summary: Days 32-37

Will I have to eat brains at some point? Creative Commons: geekstir.com

To recap after my first month on the Apocalypse Diet, I'm pretending that an apocalypse takes place (maybe it's a supervirus, massive alien abductions or an evil plot), which stops the supply lines (but for the sake of staying healthy and clean, the hydro-electric power and water are still working). Since the Mayan calendar actually shows the ending of one age and the beginning of another, maybe it's now the Zombie Age (we've already had the consumer age).

I am documenting how long I can live on the food in my place, without shopping. Here are my rules:

I cannot buy any food at all.
If going out for dinner, it's a bubble outside of the experiment. I can take home the leftovers but this isn't a stop-gap so no ordering pizza.
When I start to run out of proper nutritionally balanced foods I will take vitamins.
When I become bored or am on to only condiments and alcohol, I will end my experiment.
Someone can give me food, for in the post-apocalyptic world we might want to trade or eat together in safety once in a while.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 32 (Feb. 1):

Since I posted early yesterday I didn't list that I had a seaweed snack, one of those little packages of salty green weirdness. Then for supper I had the last of some cheese perogies, which I probably had for over a year. I fried them up with onions, garlic and sundried tomatoes. Last night I watched 28 Days Later, a variation on the zombie story where people are infected with rage through highly contagious blood and there are very few people left in Britain. It starts with Cillian Murphy waking up in the hospital, not knowing what has happened. Gee, Walking Dead, wherever did you guys get that idea for your pilot show? Problem was, I had nightmares about zombies and not a restful sleep. Dang.

Breakfast was a watered down glass of pomegranate juice. I have a very large bottle and that stuff just does not go bad. My freezer food, spicy veggie peanut soup was supposed to be lunch but someone made a special Filipino noodle dish for someone else's birthday (long noodles long life) and I had that instead.

While I was keeping an eye on the green veggies in the fridge I missed the two sweet potatoes taking on a zombie-ish tone and turning mushy. By the time I peeled away the grossness I had about 1.5 sweet potatoes that I cooked with 5 Brussels sprouts, and mixed them in some pesto sauce I found in the cupboard. Not a great meal but okay.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 33 (Feb. 2):

Groundhog day found me eating the groundnut (another name for peanut) spicy soup I should have had yesterday, plus

Leftovers can get tedious, though I cycle through my frozen foods at any time. Creative Commons: www.lastkisscomics.com

some of someone's nacho chips. Breakfast had been another handful of those peanut snacks and there is only a handful left. And guess what, supper was the rest of the sweet potato with some pesto sauce, plus a can of pop I had in the fridge. Black cherry, a little taste of sugary sunshine.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 34 (Feb. 3):

Lunch was a combo of some of my gumbo, and a few pieces of sushi someone brought in. That held me until later Friday night when I went lazy and cooked up some pasta, with scallops and the pesto sauce. I had some leftover red wine in the fridge so I drank that before it went bad.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 35 (Feb. 4):

Another weird Saturday. The last of the crunchy peanut snacks is gone. I try to update this daily so I don't forget but I think that might have been all I had until the evening at a friend's for a light meal. I did have a couple of crackers with a very thin slice of cheese before going to bed. I don't worry whether cheese will give me weird dreams (as reported by some) because my dreams tend to be rather odd on average.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 36 (Feb. 5):

A small bowl of brown rice with a spoonful of pesto sauce for lunch. I repeated Friday's dinner by having pasta with the last of the scallops and the pesto sauce. Pesto is so good. Other than that, a snack of the very last slice of cheese and six crackers was my day's food.

I watched The Invasion today with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, about an invading and alien virus, which takes over people and reprograms them. It had enough tension that I was on the edge of my seat for part of it. It's another possibility of how supply lines would be upset. While the human bodies would still need the food, in this time of transition stores are empty and Nicole gets to drain a lot of pop and eat nuts to get by.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 37 (Feb. 6):

This morning I had a rice cake with almond butter, and a sprinkle of dark chocolate chips (doing it the Dutch way). Lunch was a bowl of avgolemono soup. I'm not a big eater normally and yes, I am eating a bit less. I have noticed I've lost a few pounds but nothing truly significant. So consider, I'm in month two of my Apocalypse Diet and I'm not really scrimping a lot.

 

Filed under: consumer affairs, Culture, food, health Tagged: apocalypse diet, cooking, eating, end of the world, food, leftovers, shopping

Writing: Of Poetry Slams and Deathmatches

Dodge quickly. Creative Commons: queereka.com

Back in the good ole days, I used to attend poetry slams. A slam then was two people being pitted against each other, where they would read the poem, the audience would cheer and the one with the most cheers would advance to the next round. I eventually stopped going to them for the following reasons:

the slam had little to do with the merit of the poem
people brought their friends who would just cheer for their friends: my friends refused to come to poetry events
a bad poem read with upward inflections at the end of every line would wow the crowd
writing is hard; everyone should be applauded just for going to the effort to do it well

While slams did give every Tomasina, Dick or writer to read their works, the slams weren't always great. I hear they're better now but I haven't visited one in a long time. The part I always disliked about a slam and which drove me away, was that a very good poet, who might not be experienced at reading well, would be raked and scraped over the coals by the nasty, mad dog crowd.

Years later, I presume those slams go on but we now have a dearth of social media so there are websites and webzines and all sorts of places to showcase your work. One such magazine, Broken Pencil, has fiction, poetry and nonfiction. It's trendy, it's Canadian and it's trying to generate more page views. One way of doing this is to make sure part of your site isn't static, that it's ever changing, and the best way to do this is to get viewers with new content. Broken Pencil is sponsoring a Deathmatch on their site where two stories and their authors are pitted against each other. The audience weighs in with comments and can vote once per hour. The winner goes on to be pitted against another writer. There is a $20 fee to enter this contest, thus generating money for the magazine. The editors choose the top eight stories to be torn apart in the Deathmatch.

A noble enough endeavor and magazines have tried various ways to fundraise for a while. I was familiar with Broken Pencil but not the Deathmatch. A friend has a friend in the contest so I popped in to read both stories, make a comment and vote. It turns out you can vote once an hour. What stunned me was the level of some of the commenters. Presumably a lot of these people are the literati but the language  and juvenile attitude left me wondering. After all, we're talking literary, right?  Broken Pencil touts themselves as indie and audacious. One newspaper reported that "This is definitely not a contest for sensitive writer types. If you can't handle the thought of your short story being smacked down by online voters, then you'll want to stay well clear of this one. Think Literary Survivor. On an island. Surrounded by a sea of sharks."

- Jennifer Moss, The Vancouver Sun

Hmm, a Literary Survivor show; it almost seems an oxymoron. In Broken Pencil's own words:

Since 2008, Broken Pencil: the magazine of zine culture and the independent arts, has been running one of the world's most audacious short story contests. In the Deathmatch short story contest, the top eight entrants as selected by Broken Pencil are pitted against each other two by two. The winning story is decided by Broken Pencil readers themselves, through a vote on the official magazine website. Each week, two stories will be pitted against each other in the online arena, where anyone and everyone can read them and vote on which one deserves to reign supreme. The authors will be in constant communication with their audience through a blog which they can use to hype up their own story, or trash-talk their opponent's writing.

Trash -talk? Really? That's what we come to, obnoxious reality TV shows and pumped up melodrama for the sake of feeding the hyenas in the coliseum? Is the lowest common denominator really the way to go? I once did a poetry slam in a fake boxing ring, but there were judges and we didn't verbally bludgeon the other entrants. Here are some samples of Canada's great(?) writing minds voicing their comments, or at their friends' and enemies' comments.

Samantha, you absolutely suck at writing.
She means her bowels. His words move her bowels.
Claire didn't complain when your piece of shit story was winning.
didn't sammie have slanty enough eyes to get into U of T
Turd smear.

There is more and there is more that is intelligent and thoughtful, talking about what works or doesn't in each story. There are a couple of literary trolls, full of themselves and big on seeing their words constantly on the page. They can of course ruin it for everyone. Sure it's a contest, even slam style, and not everyone wins, but mud flinging and puerile attitudes doesn't make me think literary. It's not cutting edge; it's overdone. Reading some of the Deathmatch comments has convinced me that like those poetry slams of old, I won't be entering any time soon. It's a neat idea but it's too bad some people think it has to be like reality TV. Broken Pencil deserves some kudos for trying something new and as this creature evolves, it will either crawl from the chrysalis beautiful and dynamic, or roll in in the filth, a distorted and deformed thing. If you plan to enter this contest in the future then there are only two types of spines to have: either change yours for one of steel or rip it out.

Filed under: art, Culture, entertainment, Publishing, Writing Tagged: bad attitude, Broken Pencil, Deathmatch, fiction, literary contests, literary fiction, literary snobs, literature, poetry, Poetry slam, Writing, writing contests

Apocalypse Diet Summary: Days 25-31

How long would you survive in the Apocalypse before having to eat this? Creative Commons: Daniel Hollister

Welcome to the Apocalypse Diet, where I have not bought any food since the new year began, unless I went out for dinner, which doesn't count. I'm living off of the food in my place and blogging about it. I've hit what I think is the second stage; boredom. I'm not quite at stage III, which is the truly creative part, but living in the stretching out of veggies and protein, eating frozen homemade meals and recycling the ideas, ad nauseum.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 25:

What I'm truly missing is the fresh veggies. I tend to eat a lot of them. Sigh. Today was the nonexcitement day of two cookies and four crackers for breakfast, defrosted pollo en mole with rice for lunch, and defrosted not quite turkey shepherd's pie for dinner. When I got home I realized that my cat might well have eaten a few zombies because I never overfed her and she's still pudgy and glossy. I had a cup of instant hot chocolate (with Frangelico) later in the evening. I don't like hot drinks so you know it's either really cold or I'm desperate for sweet or both.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 26:

Zombies and people need good teeth to chew chew chew, so I had a dental appointment for breakfast. The almond milk, not quite successful clam chowder for lunch with a few crackers filled me up. It's tasty even if it's too watery. Dinner consisted of meeting up with a friend and having two ciders and an ahi tuna plate. So yummy from Biercraft and smothered in black sesame seeds with wasabi aioli and a bit too salty cooked spinach.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 27:

More mole with rice for lunch. Went for a couple of drinks after work and ate a bit of someone else's calamari. I wasn't that hungry because of the mole and yes, some chocolate peanut butter cups someone had a work. So dinner, or the evening actually involved nothing. I had two cookies and that was it. Sometimes I just don't feel hungry.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 28:

Saturdays are always weird days of eating for me. I often don't eat until half the day is gone. I still have this container of Dan-D-Pak Crunchy Peanut Snax Mix. They're Chinese (or you can find them in Chinese markets) and have white sesame, black sesame, wasabi and seaweed crunchy coatings. A small handful of these is around 100 calories and while peanuts are pretty oily it's not a bad sort of lunch.

I didn't really eat and did work out so I was quite hungry by the time I went for dinner with a friend. I had chicken puttanesca on the Drive at the Libra Room. I go to the Libra Room quite often but usually for drinks so it had been a while since I had dinner there. Puttanesca is made with tomatoes, black olives, anchovies, capers, garlic (of course) and chilies. With a bit of cheese and generous portions of chicken this was a tangy, tasty meal. In fact, of all the Italian restaurants on the Drive I have to say this was the best puttanesca I ever had. Everything was blended so perfectly that I could taste each ingredient. Even the cheese stood out. I highly recommend it and for $15 I had enough for dinner on Sunday as well.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 29:

Sunday, another day of odd eating times. I had the leftover pasta for lunch and wasn't that hungry for dinner so it was a

Engevita yeast has a cheesy flavor and can enhance meals. healthysupplies.co.uk

handful of the crunchy peanuts. A couple of my lemons were starting to looking sinister, so I made avgolemono, a Greek lemony soup often made with egg and orzo pasta. It turns out I had two recipes and one used rice, which is the style I made. I still have fresh parsley as well, and a lot of eggs that have to get used up. I had a small bowl and then froze the rest.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 30:

I had some of my vegetarian chili today, made with nuts and seeds and no meat. I was actually overfull with the 500 ml I ate. But somehow, I was hungry again for dinner which was pasta with artichokes, sundried tomatoes, garlic, carrot, onion and scallops. I mixed in a bit of grated parmesan and some engevita or flake yeast, which as a cheesy taste.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 31:

Here we are, at the last day of January. One month of the Apocalypse diet completed! Since I'm writing this during the day, I'll have to post what tonight's dinner was tomorrow. Breakfast was the crunchy peanuts, again. Lunch consisted of the last piece of chicken (besides the whole one still in the freezer) the last of the very wilted chive tops, garlic and the gai lan, which is still surprisingly green. I nuked these with some spices and water. Yes, no starch is evident as this is a throwback to my pre-Apocalypse style of eating lunches.

I'm pretending that an apocalypse takes place (maybe it's a supervirus, massive alien abductions or an evil plot), which stops the supply lines (but for the sake of staying healthy and clean, the hydro-electric power and water are still working). Since the Mayan calendar actually shows the ending of one age and the beginning of another, maybe it's now the Zombie Age (we've already had the consumer age).

I am documenting how long I can live on the food in my place, without shopping. Here are my rules:

I cannot buy any food at all.
If going out for dinner, it's a bubble outside of the experiment. I will not be going out for dinner often.
When I start to run out of proper nutritionally balanced foods I will take vitamins.
When I become bored or am on to only condiments and alcohol, I will end my experiment.
I believe I'll be able to eat relatively healthy at least until March.


Filed under: Culture, entertainment, food, life Tagged: apocalypse diet, Biercraft, cooking, Dan-D-Pak, diet, eating, end of the world, food reviews, leftovers, Libra Room, starvation, stocking up on food, supply lines, Zombie Age, zombies

Writing Update: January 2012

Creative Commons: Drew Coffman, Flickr

It's been a while since I did much in the writing department. Last fall slowed down for various reasons. So here's a recap of last year. First I have several works from last year eligible for this year's Aurora Award, one of Canada's speculative writing awards. If you're Canadian (current, expat or living abroad) you are both eligible for works published and able to nominate or vote. I believe the $10 fee now covers both nominating and voting. A list of works by Canadians is viewable at the Canadian SF Works Database. My eligible works for last year are:

Short Fiction

"A Book By Its Cover." Mirror Shards . Thomas Carpenter, ed. Bad Moon Books, Aug. 2011.
"It's Only Words." The Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies (England). D.F. Lewis, ed. Nemonymous Press, June 2011.
"Tasty Morsels." Polluto #8 Magazine (England). Victoria Hooper, ed. Aug., 2011.

Poems

"A Good Catch." Polu Texni . Dawn Albright, ed. April, 2011. (can be read online)
"Darkside." Chizine . Sandra Kasturi, ed. May, 2011.
"Shadow Relams." Witches & Pagans #23. Anne Newkirk Niven, ed. BBI Media. Aug. 2011.
"Sundance." Chizine . Sandra Kasturi, ed. June, 2011.

There were a few other things published last year but they were reprints. You can nominate me or any other Canadian writer until March 31st and you can vote starting on April 16th. Along that line there is a short review of the Mirror Shards anthology, and Des Lewis has gathered all the reviews for the Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies.

In the world of new, some time this year my poem "Visitation: Leda's Lament" should be coming out in Bull Spec. "Gingerbread People" in Chilling Tales 2 has now been postponed until 2013. And my poem "Queen of Heaven and Earth" will be coming out in the spring issue of Eternal Haunted Summer.

I've been trying to finish my German steampunk story but still cannot come up with a good resolution, though it's mostly done. I'm working on a tale about skin and psychopaths for another anthology if I can work out the structure. It's being elusive. And still chipping at the novel. I also made January submission month and sent out quite a few poems and stories. Now I have to buckle down and get more

Filed under: art, Culture, entertainment, fantasy, horror, poetry, Publishing, science fiction, Writing Tagged: anthologies, Aurora Award, Aurora Awards, Canadian SF Works Database, Chizine, D.F. Lewis, Eternal Haunted Summer, fantasy, horror, Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies, Mirror Shards, poetry, Polluto, Polu Texni, Publishing, SF Wiki, speculative fiction, steampunk, Writing

Apocalypse Diet Summary: Days 20-24

 

One way to solve the post-apocalyptic food shortage. From thinkgeek.com

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 20:

I had Chinese food leftovers again today. And somehow this last week had a lot of dining out in it, which isn't that common for me. Dinner consisted of a half a flour tortilla with two slices of diminishing cheese, some sundried tomatoes and garlic. Later on, dinner consisted of calamari at the restaurant. And wine; did I forget to mention the wine? It helps the zombies go down.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 21:

Saturday; I almost cheated today. I was out so late last night, and ended up in complete lazy mode. I didn't do much but watch movies. I even forewent eating until the evening. Then I thought, oh how easy it would be to order a pizza (I eat pizza about three or four times a year). But then I remembered I'd been out Friday, and I was going to Gibson's Landing tomorrow, which would be more money and more eating out. So I made a stir fry with the last of the baby bok choy, carrots, onion, garlic, some slowly wilting chive tops, shrimp, jalapeno, fish and soy sauce. Notice that the range of vegetables is going down. Normally I would have had more greens in there like broccoli and green beans, plus mushrooms. I did use the last of the lotus root which is a fun, wheel-shaped vegetable. I think I'm not cooking it right though because the texture is like potato and maybe it should be fried crispy. That was served on red and brown rice.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 22:

I didn't eat at home today at all since we were up early and off to catch the ferry to Gibson's. So breakfast was a bagel, lunch consisted of sharing nachos, and dinner was prawns in garlic butter. Oh, and with a lot of wine. I had a hangover by the time we got home at 8:00. This trip was to receive the nominee's pin for the Aurora Awards. Last year, my poem was nominated for the award. Tarol Hunt also won the Aurora in the graphic novel category for his book Goblins. It was pretty rainy in Gibson's. We looked through a few shops, and chatted with people so it was a nice day trip. Gibson's seems to have fewer zombies. I get the sense that they stumble up to the piers and fall into the water, becoming food for desperate fishes.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 23:

Breakfast of champions; some leftover rice with heated almond butter and a tablespoon of dark chocolate chips. Lunch was some spicy peanut soup that I had frozen. And guess what I found in the cupboard? Kraft Dinner in all its orange fakey cheesery goodness. Unlike many, I didn't grow up with this rather bizarre food, since my mother didn't' do a lot of prepackaged stuff. So I cooked it up and mixed the powder of doom with water and margarine, then added in some stir fried broccoli, onion, sun-dried tomato and garlic.

I decided to make chocolate chip cookies tonight. I have a lot of eggs and don't really eat them. I had

There won't be any fresh food at the end of the world. www.apocalypse2011.com

enough flour but when it got to the sugar I was short that half cup. I ended up crushing sugar cubes with a rolling pin to get the rest of the sugar. Now there is no more sugar (except cubes) but if I'm frugal I might get two weeks out of the cookies. I misjudged on my chocolate and I ran out, in January. Oh chocoholism, what shall we do now?

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 24:

Today's breakfast was (cough) two cookies. Lunch was the other night's stir fry. The not too exciting midweek crunch. Dinner was the left over Kraft dinner but I was still hungry. So I popped up the last minibag of microwave popcorn, and burned a third of it. And I was still hungry, so I had this (very) mini bag of Prez, a type of pretzel stick. Then I had some nuts I found, cracking about five hazelnuts and one walnut. And I had this Knudsen's boysenberry soda. I really don' t like sodas (or pop) that much and it didn't really appeal. But it was one of those nights of bits and pieces.

Boredom with all that one has is still a strong factor. Going into the local co-op to buy toothpaste had me eying cactus pears lasciviously, giving broccoli the once over, running my fingers along the curved sides of tomatoes. But no, I've still resisted the buying temptation. I look at all those foods like a brain starved zombie but I shall prevail (and I still have a lot of food).

For those just popping in, the apocalypse happened on January, 1, 2012, just in time for people to freak out about the Mayan calendar. Of course, since the Mayan calendar actually shows the ending of one age and the beginning of another, maybe it's now the Zombie Age (we've already had the consumer age).

I'm pretending that an apocalypse takes place (maybe it's a supervirus, massive alien abductions or an evil plot), which stops the supply lines (but for the sake of staying healthy and clean, the hydro-electric power and water are still working). I am documenting how long I can live on the food in my place, without shopping. Here are my rules:

I cannot buy any food at all.
If going out for dinner, it's a bubble outside of the experiment. I will not be going out for dinner often.
When I start to run out of proper nutritionally balanced foods I will take vitamins.
When I become bored or am on to only condiments and alcohol, I will call my experiment  ended.
I believe I'll be able to eat relatively healthy at least until March.


Filed under: Culture Tagged: apocalypse diet, Aurora Awards, chocoholic, cooking, dining out, eating, end of the world, food, food supplies, Kraft Dinner, leftovers, shopping, starving, Tarol Hunt, zombies

Apocalypse Diet Summary: Days 16-19

What would a zombie restaurant serve? Creative Commons geekstir.com

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 16:

Starting the third week of the Apocalypse Diet and indeed I have not bought any food so far for 2012. I'm also not allowed to buy alcohol for home consumption but if I'm going out I'm allowed. I rarely drink much at home alone so this isn't a big deal. As far as fresh vegetables go I still have brussel sprouts, garlic, onions, potatoes, carrots, celery, beets, turnip, bok choy and gai lan. But the last of the mushrooms went yesterday. Goodbye, mushrooms! I'll miss you. I figure I'll be able to make it through the next two weeks on the fresh veggies but then it will be a little more creative. I have limited fruit, some pomegranate juice and frozen berries, which will come out when everything else is gone. Hmm, there are some old frozen bananas so I could make banana bread if I have enough flour.

This weekend was the start of working on the frozen repeats so today's lunch was my semi-successful clam chowder made with almond milk. It's semi successful because I can't make it thick and creamy like real chowder but better than my first try. However, freezing it separates out the "milk" and flour.

Dinner was pasta with sundried tomatoes, artichokes, last of the zucchini, shrimp, sunflower seeds, garlic, onion on rotini pasta. It was okay but the vinegar aspect of the artichokes made it a bit tart and I had a reaction (as I often do to vinegars).

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 17:

Crackers for lunch! It wasn't meant to be this way but I left the cheese sitting on the counter. Crackers, mmmm. I had a meeting this evening where sushi was supplied so that counteracted the hunger but I started yawning a lot, probably because of no food and then the sugar spike from the white rice. Hot cocoa with marshmallows was my pre-bed drink. I don't really like warm drinks but it's so cold outside that even the zombies have frozen up. And really, the only good use of a marshmallow is in hot chocolate or rice krispie squares. The premix hot chocolate is too sweet so I tossed in a couple of spoonfuls of dark cocoa, and then had to add a lump of sugar because it was too bitter.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 18:

I entered the land of zombies today, foregoing my car for the possible bad snow conditions. One inch of snow can be very terrible in Vancouver and cause a lot of problems. People in Port Moody, Abbotsford, Langley and Chiliwack had a lot of snow and very icy conditions so indeed traffic was snarled. I looked around on the SkyTrain but ran into someone I knew so we ignored the zombies. And yes they were there. You have to wonder how long some of them have sat on the trains, going round and round and round.

My lunch was leftover sushi and veggie teriyaki dinner. Tasty enough. Dinner was the leftover  pasta from the other night. I've got to finish up the baby bok choy in the next few days as it's turning, but consider, it's been in my fridge a month.

Apocalypse Diet (AD) Day 19:

Somehow, this has ended up as a week of eating out. With work, if someone else shares I would consider them or the restaurants) just being generous souls with sharing. So we had Chinese food for lunch. Dinner was out with friends to Les Faux Bourgeoiswhere I had a green salad, with beets, goat cheese and walnuts. It was large but nothing unusual.

From: doesnttaztelikechicken.com

The Fruits de Mer a la Provencale was a dish containing clams, mussels, prawns, scallops in a provencale sauce which is made of tomatoes, capers, onions and garlic. It came with a small cake of saffron fondant potato. I have to say that I dislike saffron. It's musky, overly pungent and not that pleasant. My friend described it as bitter, which is not what I've ever experienced. But this was the first time that the saffron was done with a delicate enough hand that it blended inwell even if I did have saffron burps afterward. The meal was delicious, and recommended should it survive the zombie manifestation. The waiter, too animated to be a zombie, had the cutest French accent.

For those just popping in, the apocalypse happened on January, 1, 2012, just in time for people to freak out about the Mayan calendar. Of course, since the Mayan calendar actually shows the ending of one age and the beginning of another, maybe it's now the Zombie Age (we've already had the consumer age).

I'm pretending that an apocalypse takes place (maybe it's a supervirus, massive alien abductions or an evil plot), which stops the supply lines (but for the sake of staying healthy and clean, the hydro-electric power and water are still working). I am documenting how long I can live on the food in my place, without shopping. Here are my rules:

I cannot buy any food at all.
If going out for dinner, it's a bubble outside of the experiment. I will not be going out for dinner often.
When I start to run out of proper nutritionally balanced foods I will take vitamins.
When I become bored or am on to only condiments and alcohol, I will call my experiment  ended.
I believe I'll be able to eat relatively healthy at least until March.


Filed under: consumer affairs, Culture, food, life Tagged: apocalypse diet, diets, dining out, eating, end of the world, food, food reviews, food supplies, Les Faux Bourgeois, shopping, zombies

How Writers Get to Be Slaves

Salon.com Stockphoto: NickS

I haven't talked about writing in a while but with the new year and the holidays out of the way I've been doing a submission blitz, as well as getting caught up on some reading for CZP. In my search for new or interesting or well-paying markets I've been going through www.ralan.com (the best site for speculative markets) and www.duotrope.com (the best site for poetry and fiction with average response times listed). There are some things that have started to irk me, which have always annoyed me but continue to perpetuate a bad precedent.

Forget about the wage freeze in your everyday job; if you're a writer, then Charles Dickens made more than you and the amount people are paid hasn't changed much in decades. That's a bit of an overstatement. Sure, we hear about the J.K. Rowlings and the bidding wars for manuscripts like The Horse Whisperer, but in fact most writers are not being paid more than they once were decades ago.

In fact, I'm pretty stupid because the best place to make money as a writer is article writing for magazines, where you can average $1-2/word. Speculative fiction has a professional rate of .05/word. A few pay more than this. Many pay less, such as .01, .025, etc. Then there are the "for the luv" markets, those that pay in "exposure." I don't send to these markets unless I make a mistake in reading the guidelines. Maybe if I was just starting out I would, to get credits, but the rule is: start with the highest payer and work your way down.

Should you be selling your first SF or fantasy novel you might get $6,000-$8,000 as an advance against royalties, and never see more. I'm talking about the big publishing houses here, not the small or independent presses, and not about ebooks, as I don't have enough information. But guess how much a first novelist made thirty or forty years ago? The same amount. So if you compare payments to writers against cost of living, we're making less and less every year. And people expect it all for free.

What would you give to have your writing seen? Creative Commons: Greg Gladman Flickr

While I understand the want and urge to publish a magazine or anthology (I want to edit one myself some day) I think that an author should at least be paid something for their efforts. I've stopped writing and submitting to the erotic markets because they now want to pay $25 for a story. It's not worth it at all for me to write something new for that. Meager as it is, my limit is around .03/word though I've made exceptions for particular anthologies. For poetry, I've been paid anywhere from $5 to $100. I usually will look for $10 or more markets and of course starting at the top.

My first clue that a market doesn't pay when looking at their site is that pay isn't obvious. Yes, some say, we don't get paid so neither shall you, with the perverse logic that everyone should suffer equally. But more often than not they say nothing, as if they're embarrassed to admit they don't pay. Just say it up front, folks.

My annoyance meter hit the limit when I looked at www.short-story.me. Not only do you have to hunt to see if they pay (you won't find it) but they have their contract displayed. Enough magazines do this and it's not a problem but they've even gone so far as to copyright protect their contract. Seriously? It's quite the contract too for giving away your print and online rights for free and no promise of even a print copy in return for your work. The writer gets to edit, because they won't, and warrant that their work is theirs, though short-story me gets everything with very little in return.

I emailed them and this is how the conversation went:

I can't seem to find what you pay on your site. Could you tell me what it is for fiction and flash stories?

Hi

We don't pay.

Thank you

So you have a copyright protect contract to protect your rights but offer the author nothing? Would you expect a shoemaker to supply shoes for your shoe store, or a farmer to give vegetables to your store without paying them? Think about it. That's what you're doing to your writers.

I won't get an answer, because they don't care. Writers are considered little better than slaves for these markets. The site is about what you'd expect for one that doesn't pay its authors. The stories have grammatical, punctuation and usage issues though not a lot. I only read four stories, or parts of them, and the quality is (cough!) okay but an actual editor would have helped. Some are overly descriptive, some have talking heads, or banal or cliché language. Oh well, short-story me is one in probably hundreds of sites that take advantage of hungry new authors. There are sites that don't pay and take less advantage but the whole overofficiousness of the contract bugged me. This site does give writing advice but I wouldn't recommend it for submitting. I'd start with the paying markets, after you know your craft.

Filed under: Culture, fantasy, horror, poetry, Publishing, science fiction, Writing Tagged: authors, for the love markets, nonpaying markets, paid to writing, paid writers, Publishing, ralan.com, short story me, speculative markets, submission guidelines, writer, Writing, writing for a living