This morning I kept getting sent links, and emails and IM’s about the big news out of Surrey today. Admittedly upon looking at the urls (see the one for the CBC story below) I chuckled and shrugged off the articles thinking everyone just wanted to gang up on my hometown. I was wrong, apparently a huge cockfighting ring in Surrey was busted last night and once I realized this was actual news my second thought was, wait – these things exist? I thought that only happened on Seinfeld.

Photo Credit: Mussels on Flickr

Animal welfare officials say as many as 37 people could be facing charges after police raided a B.C. operation that animal welfare officials are describing as Canada’s largest-ever cockfighting ring…

…The Surrey ring, raided earlier this week, may have been operating for the past three or four years, officials from the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (BCSPCA) told a news conference in Vancouver Friday.

Some of the 1,270 fighting birds found on three separate properties in the Cloverdale area of Surrey were fed steroids and kept in a perpetual state of excitement. [CBC]

Now due to the specific words in this blog post I am fully prepared for the mis-matched Google searches that will now find their way to my site and I won’t even quote the Canadian Press article because it’s just too incriminating SEO-wise.

But in all seriousness, this is pretty horrible news especially since the BC SPCA‘s orders were to euthananize all 1200 birds found on the premises. When it comes to cruelty to animals, my stomach just turns and I just wonder who actually gets a kick or thrill out of this so-called “game”, “sport”, or “event”. I also think about the societies that work so hard to try and curtail these activities and how low they are on support and funding given the work that they do. For more information about the Surrey SPCA, please visit their website, and I hope I never again have to report on a sickening story like this coming out of my hometown.

Ever since last summer at BarCamp, or maybe even before that, there’s been a buzz around town about Strutta. They’ve hosted all of the Launch Party events so far and even supplied me with one of my best-fitting t-shirts to date back in November. But just what exactly is Strutta?

Last night they held an event for some of their closest and most trusted friends and colleagues, however they were sure to write some rules of conduct on the white board in the corner, “…Feel free to blog what you see tonight….but….”.

First things first, the Strutta crew is comprised of many hard working people like Danny Robinson, Maura Rogers, Lyal Avery, Jordan Behan, Alexa Booth, and all those brainiacs behind the scenes that don’t get website bios with a clever headshot.

I’ve known Jordan since his TellTenFriends days and have come to know Maura over the course of the Launch Party series (and I think they’re both pretty great, especially since Maura is originally from Massachusetts). Lyal and Alexa are also always to fun to bump into at events around town. So now that we have the people covered, here’s what they’ve been up to.

With Strutta you’ll be able to view, upload or record videos on the spot but that’s all a part of something a little bigger. The idea is to participate in games, and your video is your entry into that game. Do you have the best celebrity impersonation? Record or upload your video and allow others on Strutta to say if yes, you are the best OR they can submit their own video and try to outdo and outrank you. Think YouTube, meets Hot or Not, meets Digg but it’s more sophisticated than that, and what they have so far looks really slick. It’s also complete with many more functions (which I cannot divulge) and there are some key components to the UI that make it sleek, smooth, and just plain clever in its design.

The Strutta folks aren’t quite ready to release to the world but the shroud of secrecy will slowly be lifted over the next few weeks. There are bugs to fix, and kinks to iron out, but this is all a natural progression and will add even more value to their product when it’s ready to launch. Watch for a post on their blog from Jordan, including some screenshots and I gotta hand it to these guys, the parties, the fab Gastown office with the amazing mountain view, and now they’ll have a great product to boot.

Update:Top secret super screenshot!

Strutta.com

Everyone is talking about it, from musicians to geeks and social media fanboys and girls, it’s the uber popular SXSW (South by Southwest) festival and it’s happening next week.

The SXSW MUSIC AND MEDIA CONFERENCE showcases hundreds of musical acts from around the globe on over fifty stages in downtown Austin. By day, conference registrants do business in the SXSW Trade Show in the Austin Convention Center and partake of a full agenda of informative, provocative panel discussions featuring hundreds of speakers of international stature. [SXSW]

The Flaming Lips @ SXSW 2007 – Photo Credit: Kris Krug on Flickr

Phillip beat me to the punch on listing all Vancouverites/Canucks who will be in attendance so here’s who he has listed so far:

My favourite Vancouver musician and yours, Matthew Good will also be performing on March 15th at Momo’s and be sure to watch out for Raincity’s party, representing Canadians and lovers of a good time everywhere (read more on Raincity’s SXSW 2008 preview).

But there’s more than just parties and concerts, there’s also the interactive portion. To give you an example of ONE day’s schedule here’s a link Tod passed along including such sessions as: How to Bluff Your Way in Web 2.0, New Dogs, New Tricks: New Media Goes to the Movies, Unleashing CSS: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love IE 7, Commercialization of Wikis, Ruining User Experience, From Tags to Riches: Life After Code and hundreds more! Did I mention this is all just from one day out of ten? Yeah.

Photo Credit: Robert Scales on Flickr

To keep all of us insanely jealous folks back home up to speed on the goings on in Austin I have recruited two bloggers who will be guest posting and cross posting their updates and entries from their own sites: John Biehler (iPhone master, tech and gadget guru) and Colleen Coplick (the queen of PR). Watch for their entries next week when SXSW gets underway. If you are attending and would like your name added to the “blog watch” simply leave a comment below or over on Phillip’s post.

A while back Duane and I were on iChat talking about how it was almost lunch time. We exchanged some html talk like *hunger* me */hunger* (replacing * with the brackets of course) and it soon evolved into some php code that I simply can’t share because it may further screw up the format of this blog post. Needless to say, it was really fun… and uber nerdy.

I was browsing around this evening on the lookout for some new nerd-friendly t-shirts after being inspired by this shirt last week and a conversation Meg had on Twitter this morning. Unfortunately all I found was a serious lack of geeky t-shirts for women.

I’m not talking about the pink (and don’t get my wrong, I like pink) and sparkley “Geek Girl” shirts. I don’t want a shirt that states the obvious, I want something that would instantly display my geek-cred not one of those “*tits* */tits*” tops. (again, replacing * with the brackets)

Shirts like “I (heart) my Geek” are also cute, but I don’t want something that says I’m with a geek. ThinkGeek almost had me with “#!/usr/bin/girl“, “#include love.h” or with their babydoll version of “There’s no place like 127.0.0.1” until they threw on the ruby slippers.

This isn’t about feeling the need to validate my geekdom with a message t-shirt, it’s just that you know, I happen to own a few select message tees. They’re fun to have in the closet to bust out every now and then.

I think I can almost dig this little number from Cafepress, “Roses are #FF0000“, and upon flipping through the pages there are a few more gems like: “Turn me On“, with a cute little Mac power button, “Mac Chick Pro“, and okay I even got a chuckle out of “There’s Nothing Funny About Tubgirl“. I also like the pinup concept, but not sure I like this design in particular.

From Jinx I found the following that were pretty decent: “I’m only here because my server is down“, and “Arrogant Linux Elitist“.

I also giggled quite often looking at Syswear, however it was more of a sympathetic giggle followed by a groan: “That’s funny, it worked on my machine“, and “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature“.

But seriously, where else can I find some fun geek shirts, made for women, that are not gamer talk, contain no references to MySpace but just plain old… geeky?

This past weekend I felt nothing but “Surrey Pride” when talking with my Crazy Canucks co-hosts, as it turns out 3 of us were raised in Surrey and are all pretty proud of that fact. It got me wondering, who are some other great Surreyites that I’m honored to associate with the city… and now a new blog post series is born: Surrey File.

This is about an electrical engineer and musician that forever changed the face of Canadian politics.

In 1998 I was in Ottawa as a Canadian Youth Ambassador with Encounters Canada. Yes, it’s true, I’ve always been a nerd. As a part of the week-long program we got to get out and explore our nation’s capital including a tour of the Parliament Building and sitting in on a session in the House of Commons. There he was, my MP standing proud with his white pony tail cascading down the back of his tweed coat (with leather arm patches). This was Chuck Cadman and he was on a mission.

When I was in Grade 7 a boy only a few years old than me was stabbed in Guildford on the street by random youths. This boy was Jesse Cadman, and every Sunday when my grandmother would visit my grandfather’s place in the cemetery, she would spot Chuck Cadman just across the grass paying respects to his son whom he laid to rest.

Chuck and his wife Dona stepped up their community involvement, working with troubled youths, starting organizations and campaigning for tougher laws. As a result, Chuck entered politics in 1997 as a member of the Reform Party of Canada. He played a pivotal role in incorporating new measures into the Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act and was appointed Justice Critic. In 2004 after losing re-election, Chuck was also diagnosed with cancer, but that didn’t slow him down.

More determined than ever, Chuck re-entered politics with vigor as an Independent. I remember when he was campaigning he had a party for his constituents in Whalley, handing out hot dogs and welcoming families to come on by. The elected MP who bumped him out of his Party spot didn’t even live in Surrey at the time although he had influence, money and powerful people backing him.

Cadman was re-elected after that (by a landslide 43%) and became the only Independent in a minority government, giving him the swing vote and significant power in the House. He did everything in his power to listen to his constituents, stick to his instincts and support families. In 2005 Chuck Cadman passed away due to the skin cancer that he had been battling for two years. When I heard the news I cried.

Chuck Cadman was one person searching for justice who stood his ground and truly represented his riding. He gave Surrey a voice on the national stage and for that I’m truly proud of my hometown, and its people.

“Never underestimate the power of a small but committed group of people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

More biographies of Chuck can be found on the wiki and Canada Online.