Continuing the Vancouver Blogger Profile series, that never really stops, I contacted Sarah as I had read her blog and heard such great things about her from Raul. She’s filled out the staple questions below and be sure to check out her blog for more of her writing.
Who are you? Sarah Marchildon, lover of the absurd.
Where do you blog? The Hollywood North Report
Are you originally from Vancouver? I was born and raised in Toronto but Vancouver has been my home for the past seven years. I’ve lived in Ottawa, Saint John, Fredericton and Japan but always knew I would end up here. My grandfather used to live in North Van and I visited him when I was a little kid. The trees, the ocean, the mountains, the fresh air. It all made a very strong impression on me.
Why do you blog? When I first moved to Vancouver, I had no friends and no social life. So I would spend my Friday nights holed up in an Internet cafe on Davie Street writing email dispatches back home to family and friends. I called it the “Hollywood North Report†and I would fill it with random observations about the oddities of Vancouver life and all of the weird and wonderful people who live here. I also had a weekly “friend count.†Sadly, it remained at zero for a very long time. That all changed when I joined the English Bay Swim Club and was elected “social coordinator†of more than 100 gay men. Real friendships started to bloom and I was no longer spending lonely Friday nights filing the Hollywood North Report. Then I got mixed up with a bad crowd who made me try backcountry camping, triathlons and open-water swimming.
One thing led to another and before I knew it, I had signed up for an Ironman. I quit the triathlon scene in 2004 and found myself with a whole lot of extra time. I decided to resurrect the Hollywood North Report in blog form to make it easier for friends and family to read. I guess I’ve always liked writing and story-telling. Blogging is a natural extension of that.
What’s your favourite thing to write about? I love writing about things that strike me as odd or absurd. For example, the public transit system in Vancouver is a comedy goldmine.
What is the best part of blogging? Hands down, the response I get to my posts. It can be as simple as a thoughtful comment or as elaborate as complete strangers sending me free stuff. I once wrote about how jealous I was that Ontario had juice-box sized wine and jokingly begged someone to send me some. One of my Toronto readers actually sent me a case of the stuff.
Another time, I wrote about how I couldn’t find Grape-Nuts anywhere in Vancouver. The next day, one of my readers delivered 10 boxes to my office.
But the craziest response was when I wrote about how I had a non-sexual crush on Claire Martin (the CBC meteorologist) and she put my blog post on her weather forecast where the map of Canada should have been. It was awesome. I have the best blog readers in the world!
Do you write for yourself, your readers, for Google, for a living? I wish I wrote for a living! I could really use an editor. Sadly, I just write for my readers and myself. For free. In my very limited spare time.
Do you ever censor yourself? A little bit. My entire family reads my blog. That’s not to say my blog is middle-of-the-road pabulum. I’m pretty open with my parents but I’m not that open. Most of my coworkers read my blog so I’m not exactly going to blog about a bad day at the office. A lot of bloggers hide under the cloak of anonymity and that gives them a lot more freedom to write about very personal things. I made a conscious decision to use my full name and, as a result, I’m a little bit more restrained. Besides, I have no desire to barf my personal life all over the Internet. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. A lot of my favourite blogs are personal blogs!
PC, Mac or Speak n’ Spell? What the heck is Speak n’ Spell? I’ve been a Mac girl since 2006. Macs are pretty.
Blogs you read or would recommend? Yours, of course! Actually, I’d hate to single out one blog over another. I read loads of blogs, most of them written by friends. I’m not sure they have broad mass appeal.
Read more from Sarah on The Hollywood North Report.
This morning edition of the daily commuter paper, 24 Hours Vancouver, has local radio host and tech columnist Buzz Bishop giving the low down on the happenings at last week’s WordCamp.
As he was not in attendance, he cited my live blog for more info and included a huge photo of Lisa’s “Your Ad Here” sign on her bum. The image deals with the topic of advertising on blogs, however I wonder if he’s also tying it in with his column about saving face with Facebook, “don’t put up anything you wouldn’t want your mom to see.”
I hope not, because on top of having a great sense of humour Lisa’s got some excellent insights on her post and be sure to read through the comments (over 50 of them) for thoughts about ads on blogs. John Chow is also mentioned in the article since he’s the king of blog dollars around here and I brought him up during my talk at Simon Fraser University on Monday (cause I actually think what he is doing is ingenious, which is more than I can say for other ad-plastered blogs).
For more info about WordCamp and your next opportunity to meetup with WordPress users, gurus and newbies, check out the Tazzu blog because they did a great job of spearheading the first event and we’re certainly all looking forward to more.
Tonight’s live blog is being written and published by Raul of Hummingbird604.com (update your bookmarks!)
“Widgets aren’t just little pieces of portable code. Widgets are about opening up your message to your supporters and the community. Widgets represent a shift towards using online tools, and online thinking, to connect with more people and build deeper relationships with the people you are already connected with.
Vancouver’s 3rd Net Tuesday will explore the stories of nonprofits that are spearheading this revolution as well as demo a new widget platform.” – [Meetup.com]
Presenters tonight include:
Jason Mogus, Communicopia
Scott Nelson, FearlessCity.ca
Keith Grennan, Sprout
and the evening will be moderated by Sarah Pullman.
Update: 6.11pm Continue reading this post ⟩⟩
I just realized that my last few posts were pretty bullet-pointed so I apologize for this. The first Vancouver History: Oddities entry was well-received so here’s another.
51 years ago Vancouver’s first shopping mall, Oakridge Centre, opened its doors. We were out that way last week and it took me a minute to remember that Oakridge is not in fact on Oak Street.
The Marpole neighbourhood of Vancouver is named in honor of Richard Marpole – one of the men in a posse that captured notorious Bill Miner in 1906. Little did they know he would escape from the BC Penitentiary a year later.
Whistler Resort had originally been called London Mountain. “The name was changed to Whistler, writes Constance Brissenden, “inspired by the whistler marmot that frequents its rocky outcrops.†[Oddities – 1965]
The Amazing Hunt took us all over the city and at one point we ended up on a small hill in Everett Crowley Park in South Vancouver. Looking around at all the deciduous trees and uneven landscape with amazing southern views I actually wondered if the park used to be something else. “Everett Crowley Park is Vancouver’s 5th largest park, but was Vancouver’s main landfill (the Kerr Road dump) from 1944 to 1967.” [ECPC]
Another park that used to be something else is Queen Elizabeth Park, which was once a quarry. Landscaping was complete in 1954 and “Mayor Fred Hume buried a time capsule beneath Centuries Rock in the park. It is to be opened in 2054.” [1954]
Often my inspiration comes from Chuck Davis and his team at VancouverHistory.ca. Chuck is also putting together a book called “The History of Metropolitan Vancouver”, which is due out next year. If you would like to be involved in any way, companies can sign up to sponsor a year in the book.
Little by little I’m discovering that some of my favourite plugins I’ve come to know, love, and depend upon to make my daily blogging life that much easier are pretty much… toast.
By way of Lorelle I also hear there are problems with the Automatic Update for Plugins in WP 2.5 so I need to make sure to stay on top of these things (from the WP Admin as well as the individual plugin side).
I rely heavily on plugins so discovering a new one each day that hasn’t been working then back tracking through dozens of posts isn’t too pleasant. However, I should have been more diligent after upgrading, and I’m pretty confident that these will all be upgraded soon enough. I just have to stop kicking myself for not checking in on these things sooner.
For a full list of what WordPress has determined as working or not so far, check out the almighty codex, it will be sure to save you a few headaches.
