town of mathieu

Ok, this is really weird, but there is a designer furniture company that is excepting random art/services/collections in exchange for furniture. As I am getting married to the love of my life in June, and we are currently looking to start our new home together, we are in need of a couch. Although our wedding invite list is really tight, we have sent an invite to the Swap Meet in hopes of snagging a new sectional. It is based on votes, so if you have a chance, go on and vote our bid “Swap Worthy”. Thanks All!!

By my first guest blogger, the lovely Alecia W: I’ve been known to be somewhat of a coffee snob. My favourite coffee comes from Greenwell Farms on the Big Island, Hawaii and costs $31.95/lb and can only be bought online directly from the farm. It’s worth every penny. I’m also a big fan of Credo Coffee and Transcend coffee here in Edmonton. There is, however, one time of the year that I give up my coffee snobbery and give into a great Canadian tradition – during Roll Up the Rim to Win season! I hate Tim Horton’s coffee. I honestly do. To me it tastes like someone ground up cigarettes and filtered hot water through it and created Tim Horton’s Coffee. Ever wonder why you have horrible coffee breath after a Timmies? It’s because you just drank tobacco water! And still, as much as I don’t enjoy the coffee, I will suffer through a medium or large cup of that poison in the hopes of winning something – even if it may be another cup of the toxic black stuff! The idea of winning something is quite powerful. It’s strange, I don’t make bets, I don’t hit up the casino, I don’t even participate in the office lotto pool, but for some reason Tim Horton’s has a great power over me. I get nervous with anticipation as I roll up the rim awkwardly with my teeth. Did I see that it said I won a new TV??? Oh wait… it was just the French wording of “Please Play Again.” So far I am 0 wins out of 2 cups of coffee. I am trying to psych myself up enough to want to drink another cup and feel the thrill of the rim rolling. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “Two Tim Horton’s coffees aren’t very many for someone so thrilled about Roll up the rim…” That’s a good observation! Do you know what tastes even better than having a 1 in 6 chance of winning another crappy coffee? GUARANTEED FREE COFFEE!! Yup, McD’s, you know how to win my heart. For the past week, instead of waiting in lines with crazy Tim’s junkies, I headed towards the lovely Golden Arches and saved up my coffee money for the week. And to come full circle, this all means that I have more money to spend on Tim Horton’s coffee next week when the McDonald’s deal is over!!! Let the rolling continue!!

The Arcade Fire and Google have teamed up to provide a look into the new ago of music videos. The band and the internet giant have combined the theme of the band’s new album “The Suburbs” with the extensive database that Google has compiled in Google Maps/Street view. The music video for the song “We Used to Wait”, which is ran exclusively online, asks for the viewers address and plays a custom show that involves actors, birds, post cards and trees showing up in the viewers neighborhood, via the images available through Google. The whole thing works through a series of pop up windows with different actions occurring at the same time. The video is built for, and runs best on, Chrome (Google’s own web browser). If you want to experience this song and amazing video to its full potential I suggest downloading Chrome just for this reason. Please check it out here!! The Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs album is nominated for the best of its class in tonight’s Grammys. It is up against Eminem’s Recovery, Lady Antebellum, Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster, and Kate Perry’s Teenage Dream… Ok, first of all I think the Grammys is the worst awards show out there, as they always seem way behind the times in what is actually happening in music, but it looks like tonight they have a chance to give the award of Best Album to a deserving candidate. Then again, if any album other than The Suburbs wins tonight, the Grammys will live up to my expectations and I can continue to discredit anything they do. I hope the Arcade Fire win tonight, but if they don’t it is not the end of the world. Just listen to all the albums nominated and see which one you can actually get all the way though without being in bar (The Fame Monster and Teenage Dream) and I think that will speak to which album was actually the best album made throughout the whole music industry this year. Note: I have never heard of Lady Antebellum, but I just Googled them and I think they are a country band… I will leave it at that. Another Note: The Suburbs was by far my favorite album of the year so my opinion may be heavily skewed.

Having a job at the Federal Government of Canada has its perks. Decent wage, somewhat stable (minus the string of term positions I have been given), medical/dental benefits, interesting enough work; but most importantly for me, it isn’t a job that I bring home at night and it allows me to enjoy some of the things in life that I like best. Leaving work at 4:30 with a clear mind gives me time to work out, play on a mens volleyball team, plan my upcoming wedding, look for houses to buy, spend quality time with my fiance, and more recently, try my hand at a bit of writing. I have been posting every once and a while on this blog since August 2010. It has been inconsistent I know, but I try to get something out at least once a month. I found I was writing quite a bit about sports, and I thought it was getting a bit cluttered. To fix that problem and to get a few more people involved, I started up a collaborative sports blog, First Off The Bench, just a few weeks ago. My youngest brother and three other friends have been contributing articles, and in 15 days we have accumulated over 1,000 hits. It is better than we were expecting to say the least. On top of that, I wanted to try my hand at some semi-professional writing. I had read a few blogs and threads about a career as a journalist and the contributors did a great job of scaring me out of that idea. I will stick to my office job by day and try my hand at writing in the evenings and weekend, thank you. The one thing I did get out of the blogs and threads, other than pity for all journalists, was the motivation to try freelance writing. The bloggers said that no experience was needed and no editors ever really asked for educational credentials. Good to know, as I had neither. I had a few ideas for articles, so I emailed the editor at SEE Magazine in Edmonton and ran them by her. My friends from high school, Jon and Sean are running a site called Balcony TV Edmonton, that profiles local bands and musicians performing on Jon’s downtown balcony. They had asked me if I could blog about it, but I thought a print article would be better. And I guess so did the guys at SEE. Check out my first article on the SEE Magazine website here or pick up a copy of the Feb 10, 2011 SEE Magazine somewhere around Edmonton. The photo creds go to my lovely fiance. Thanks babe!!