Month: June 2008

RUN DMCA

Government of Canada to Table Bill to Amend the Copyright Act: “OTTAWA, June 11, 2008 — The Honourable Jim Prentice, Minister of Industry, and the Honourable Josée Verner, Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages, and Minister for La Francophonie, will deliver brief statements and answer media inquiries shortly after the tabling of a bill to amend the Copyright Act. Members of the media will also be able to attend a technical briefing and lock-up prior to the tabling of the bill to amend the Copyright Act.”

from Corey Doctorow via bOINGbOING, (emphasis mine):

Here it is, folks, at long last: Industry Canada Minister Jim Prentice is about to introduce his Canadian version of America’s disastrous Digital Millennium Copyright Act tomorrow. In so doing, he is violating his own party’s promise to seek public consultation on all treaty accession bills, he’s ignoring the cries of rightsholders, industry, educators, artists, librarians, citizens’ rights groups, legal scholars and pretty much everyone with a stake in this, except the US Trade Representative and the US Ambassador, who, apparently, have had ample opportunity to chat with the Minister and give him his marching orders.

Watch this space [the bOINGbOING post – jh] — we’ll have all kinds of ways for you to call your MP, the Minister’s office, and everyone else with a say in this sordid, ugly sellout. In 1998, the US bill criminalized the majority of American net-users at the stroke of a pen with a bill that cost tens of thousands of downloaders their life’s savings, allowed the entertainment industry to destroy innovative companies and devices, and did not reduced infringement or pay a single artist. Ten years of this misery and absurdity, ten years of trying to make the Internet worse at copying, and all it’s done is drive a rift between customers and musicians and allowed the music industry to piss away the business opportunity of a lifetime with lawsuits and saber-rattling.

Canada can do better. Certainly, it can’t possibly do any worse — unless men like Prentice continue to make law without allowing Canadians to get a say in it.

Help this article on Digg.

UPDATE: Turns out the proposed Canadian DMCA is worse than the American one.

it’s destiny

http://www.thingsyoungerthanmccain.com

I like my new job. I like the potential in it, the industry, the selection of tea. I like the Rikki quote on the back of the door of the women’s washroom, my co-workers who are all neat people who smile nicely and tell funny anecdotes and complain about the weather just the right amount. I like the view, the information I need to gather, how intricate this will all be, how interesting. It’s all amazingly pleasant.

I only wish I knew more about what I’m meant to be doing. I’m used to learning quickly, to being one step ahead almost all the time, but I’m only slowly figuring out what to do at my new job. I know I’m meant to be picking up the slack as other people get on with more important tasks, but it’s like all the work available to me is below the surface, there, but invisible until it’s shown to me. I wander links and websites, learning about how our products need to circumvent routers and how to explain to people what an IP address is, while I send out prefab replies through the help, and don’t quite know what to do next. The man who was going to train me on something today is caught in the crunch of a dead-line, my friend who works here, works on a different aspect of the company.. I’m falling back on educated guesses and verifying sign-up lists that require the same attention to detail a grade-schooler could offer. I feel lost in a segue.

By the end of the week, I’ll be better. Already I know where to sign in, where to find my mail, what tasks I can attend to when I first get in. The only question is, why am I worried when no one else is?

birthday party reminder: this friday


Day 95: Happy Birthday to Me. Originally uploaded by SaylaMarz.

The amazing, astonishing, astounding, fantastic, fantastical, incredible, marvelous, miraculous, phenomenal, stupendous, unbelievable, wonderful, wondrous party…

Jhayne’s Fashionably Late Birthday is this Friday, the 13th!
at the Foxy House, 1531 east 4th ave

with special guest star, the talented and glorious Venus Soberanes, who will also be celebrating her birthday with us!


The party has been become significantly more organized since I first posted about it, and all to the better. We’ve added a special birthday guest, a magic show, a pirate band, and a beautiful sauna-inna-truck, (which sounds sketchy, but isn’t at all), with the possibility of a drag show and a belly-dancer.

The schedule is shaping up as follows:

6 pm to 9:00 pm: BBQ in the garden, yum! Bring food to make, food to share, and/or whatever else you want; wine, fruit, pudding, etc. Vegan/vegetarian friendly is an asset.

10:00 pm: Magic show. Yes, a magic show. Because we are awesome.

10:40 pm: Unconfirmed drag show.

11:15 pm: The Creaking Planks, a pirate shanty band full of accordion and wash-tub bass.

11 pm to 2-3 am: Sauna by donation, bring a towel!

11 pm to ?? am: Dancing. Kitchen party-osity.

Please come at any time, stay as long as you want, and BYO-whatever you like. Easy suggestions include: Instruments, ice-cream, jell-o, glitter, spray-on hair dye, sidewalk chalk, funny hats, spare change, chocolate, pudding, bubbles, cake, cookies, sock puppets, music, games, cheeses, fake mustaches, body-paint… Costumes are always welcome, towels are recommended.

HIVE2: you should go

HIVE2
www.buzzbuzzbuzz.ca

“11 local companies perform 11 separate pieces in continuous rotation. Brace yourself for a carnival side-show, a piece of toy drama, a post-modern slice of faux dinner theatre … or different combinations of all that and more. The audience’s experience is entirely self-directed, and there’s always a lounge for shouting and a central party space to buzz the night away.”

Single Tickets $25 in advance, $35 at the door.


A large, bee-centric room full of unexpected props – an upside down dollhouse on a post, a knotted rope hanging in a false spotlight, a cardboard honeycomb laid out on the floor, a bucket full of flags – and rows of tables facing a large stage. There is a bar on the right and a vast projection of text flashing over top images of the downtown east side to the left. Girls in angelic paper costumes walk past, followed by a prison guard in army fatigues shouting to get out of the way of two blindfolded prisoners led on a rope. Commissioned by the Magnetic North Theatre Festival and created by eleven of Vancouver’s most interesting theater companies, welcome to the delicious chaos that is HIVE2, the dramatic sequel to last year’s super sold-out HIVE.

Armed only with an orange slip of paper, a list of dubious instructions like Stand In The Honeycomb, Find The Christmas Tree, and Fill Out An Application Form at the Desk, the game is to see how many performances can be seen in a night. (There’s even a dedication rating scale on the back of the instruction sheet). The space is divided into two basic areas, the social room themed with bees, and the vast, confusing, enchanting, and very non-linear performance stages on the Other Side Of The Door. To get to one from the other, simply follow instructions and wait for a guide. Every odd, quirky instruction is connected to a different show. Every odd, quirky show is a completely different experience.

Last night David and I, (having been recruited as volunteers for opening night by Felix Culpa’s David Bloom), managed to see seven of the eleven shows in the hour and fourty minutes before our bar shift, (possibly breaking some sort of record).

Here are my two-second, no spoiler reviews: Felix Culpa trapped us in a sweet, lyrical world of creation and cardboard; Theater Replacement made us wait at a Christmas Tree, mocked how we think of internet comments, and gave us jelly-beans; Electric Company, (David’s favourite), righteously play-ed with dada, french doors, and incredible lines of perspective; Radix put us in an assembly line, (where I stole an orange. My tip? Make sure you’re first into the room); Boca Del Lupo was ambient, relaxing, and not a little scary; and Leaky Heaven Circus made us take off our shoes so as to not damage the mirrors that played with our heads.

“Warning: Smoke, nudity, foul language and gunshots are all within the realm of possibility… Or none of the above.”

Which leaves neworldtheatre, The Only Animal, Rumble Productions, Theatre Conspiracy and Victoria’s Theatre SKAM, all of which look interesting. neworldtheatre reputedly gives out cookies, The Only Animal show, (possibly with visuals by freaking Jamie Griffiths!), has an audience size of only one, awarding them the most intriguing, followed closely by Theatre Conspiracy, who only take thirty-five a night, two at a time and dressed as blindfolded Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about the Rumble Productions or the Theater SKAM shows, except the former seems to have dead zealots for guides and SKAM collects its audience with creepy dolls.

Guess I’ll find out about them on Saturday. When my mother asked what I would like for my birthday, I replied, “I’d like some tickets to HIVE2.” It is, as the kids say these days, sweet.

my heart the hunter

Walking across the street in the rain, there’s someone in front of me with a spiderman brand popsicle, the blue eyes two wan gum-balls that look like they were manufactured years before I was born. “Where did he get that?”, I wonder, searching my mind for available corner stores and coming up with nothing. Downtown east side, one block from the epicenter, I try to imagine what it tastes like as I step over a gray man slumped wetly on the sidewalk, dead aside from his lonely muttering.

I have two job interviews today, one with an e-music company I’ve done temp work with, one with Kokoro Dance, a butoh group I deeply admire. I’m looking forward to both of them, as they present vastly different challenges, and can’t help hoping I do well at both. It would be the greatest of blessings to have even one regular job. Living freelance has been hurting, especially considering how much flaky management I’ve had to deal with. I want it to be over with. I’d like a desk again, please and thank you.

In more good news, That Mike called from somewhere between Chicago and Madison yesterday, (on tour with Buckethead again), sounding so sorry he forgot my birthday that the earth might swallow him whole. It blows my mind sometimes, how nice he is. There’s a depth to his sincerity far past anything I can match these days. It seems to go one for miles, far past any horizon, glad for the world without end.

I still need to call him back, actually, him and Adam both, but for that I need a calling card, and for that I need to find out what in sam hill is going on with my bank. I wired money to someone in Alberta, only to find out that it was immediately rescinded, and the ATM wouldn’t let me take out all of my rent. Bah. Trouble. Not everything this weekend was good news. Almost, but not quite.