Manitoba Links Weekly: Dunnottar Sewer Surfin', Nine is Early Enough, Stop Fighting With Your Lady, and You'll Never Guess What Winnipeg Leads In (ManLinkWeek 41)

I hope you will humour me a bit of self-promotion, before we begin; it's been quite the interesting week or so. Seemingly everybody I know has already brought this up in person, but -- yes, I was in in the Free Press over the weekend, and yes, I had a really good time. Many thanks to David Sanderson for conceptualizing and hosting the event, and to the rest of the panel of experts as well.

That past weekend was a busy one for me, as I covered in this previous post; a lot of you probably don't check this site more than once a week (because, to be fair, my updates here as late have been about one a week), so I thought I'd take the time now to mention it. At the very least, this being a Manitoba feature, I figure that the following video is worthy of inclusion:



Let's see, what else? Ah, yes! I ran the soundboard for this week's Winnipeg Internet Pundits all by myself, like a big boy, without shattering the equipment or burning the studio down -- and those were my metrics of success (to give you some idea of my confidence going in), so, hey! Success.

And (and), I know I haven't really impressed this upon you lately, but I write weekly columns for Uptown. So if you haven't swung by there or picked a physical copy up lately, I wish to humbly suggest that you may find it worth your while do so.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME. Let's fire up some ManLinkWeek!

[CBC Manitoba: Canada's homicide rates highest in Winnipeg, Manitoba]
[Winnipeg Sun: Canada's severe crime capital: Winnipeg]
So, of course. Of course! I hope you won't mind if I reuse an asset from a couple of years ago:



I love that the Police Service rushed out its 2011 annual report to get it in the day before all the bad news, because if there's one thing that everybody can still take seriously, it's Winnipeg Police Service Annual Reports.

(Let's say you're a teacher, and you give a student an assignment; the student turns it in inexcusably late, can't answer questions when asked, and couldn't do the math properly. How high do you think your expectations would be for what they turn in next?)

But, there you have it: Winnipeg is the Slurpee Capital, and Winnipeg is the Murder Capital, and my blog peaked six years ago when I originally named it. Great! Great.

Moving on now from the hard-news top stories into the business section:

[Absurd Intellectual: "It’s Saturday, man, nine is early enough." My yard sale ad]
[Absurd Intellectual: Our yard sale was a success]
Absurd Intellectual quietly reemerged from its slumber a couple of weeks back, and within mere days was making mad bank off of whimsy and previously owned items.

(And he's right: 9:00 is plenty early, for a weekend. Weekends are for sleeping in, god damn it; even if there were anything good on television now on Saturday mornings, we have PVRs and the internet for stuff like that.)

Also on the topic of whimsical commercial postings:

[Kijiji Winnipeg (Google Cache): STOP FIGHTING WITH YOUR LADY - ONLY $20 (fridge, refrigerator)]
I am man enough to admit my failings, often at length, and I realize now that in previous ManLinkWeeks I should have been linking interesting Kijiji postings in such a way that they wouldn't just disappear forever shortly afterwards. So here is the Google cache of one such Kijiji posting, in which... well, hell, look at it. You do see ideas like these roll through occasionally, but how often does somebody put in the effort to establish separate His and Hers sections of the sales pitch? I hope whoever took him or her up on the fridge threw in a few extra bucks as points for effort.

[Winnipeg Sun: Mid-year review for 2012]
Hey, need a refresher on the year thus far? Blanking on whether something was this year or last? S'all good, we've all been there. So here, in just under three minutes, is everything that Kevin Engstrom of the Winnipeg Sun figures you may need to remember about 2012 to date.

[CJOB: City conducting open houses on historic libraries]
[Winnipeg.ca: Cornish and St. John’s Libraries to host public open houses on proposed renovations]
[Manitoba Historical Society: Historic Sites of Manitoba: Cornish Library (20 West Gate, Winnipeg)]
I can't speak to the St. John's Library, the other of the two Carnegie libraries (not counting the City Archives) being discussed this week, but the Cornish Library was my stomping ground as a wee lad, and it's probably embarrassingly telling that the kid who lived near the chess and science fiction library (a Carnegie library, at that -- not that I knew what that meant as a kid, but in the discipline it is impossible to overstate that point) grew up to be a Librarian who absolutely loves, despite being terrible at, chess and science fiction.

I didn't drop by the open house (since I'm, y'know, writing this right now), but the City intends on "maintaining the buildings' key heritage features" and that's basically all I need to hear, so I'm sure it's going to work out fine.

And if you've never read about the actual Cornish behind the name (our first Mayor!), then holy crap, get a load of this guy.

[Noel Berry: Years of Game Development Adventures]
Local game designer and Winnitron co-creator Noel Berry gives a lengthy, interesting overview of his experiences and his lessons learned over his many years thus far in the field. Game design is one of those worlds I never quite got around to exploring -- I can barely pull off things I have an aptitude for, never mind the mysteries of programming -- so I find articles like this to be really neat, and the tl;dr summary at the end contains a lot of advice that applies beyond the world of game creation.

I also want to note the site's video from this post last year, which -- removed from that context -- is three minutes of people smiling at the Lo Pub (and in what appears to be a warehouse) set to Gnarls Barkley:



Having been shot in Winnipeg, there are a couple instances therein where the viewer at home is bound to pause the video, lean forward, squint, and mutter "I think I know that guy". (Also, 1:40 into 1:41 is kind of adorable. "Not now, honey, I'm busy.")

And, finally:

[Interlake Spectator: Dunnottar residents say "no" to sewer project]
[Interlake Enterprise: Anti-sewer forces rejoice at convincing win in Dunnottar by-election]
[Winnipeg Free Press: Cottagers win sewage battle]
ha ha ha ha ha ha, oh my god, this entire story

I seriously cannot overstate how amazing and hilarious and terrible the entire saga of the Dunnottar low-pressure sewer system vote was, as anticlimactic as the resulting numbers may seem. I strongly -- very, very strongly -- encourage you to go through the recent archives of the Interlake Enterprise and peruse the Letters to the Editor pages therein, because some of them will BLOW YOUR MIND.

When I say 'recent', mind you, that actually spans a good few months prior to the vote; there was vitriol and ressentiment simmering over this plan for long enough beforehand that, when people finally began taking to their quill pens and parchment, it all got out of hand in a hurry. Seriously, I should go back later and compile these things into a big quote post, because some of the reactions were genuinely glorious.

The upper-right-hand letter on page twenty of the May 23rd issue, as an example, has already entered the stuff of god damn legend; within a week of its publication, not counting myself, I'd heard no fewer than four people directly reference it and then just start laughing. ("They play loud music!" "And their used condoms! All over the beach! Everywhere!" "They wash their hair in the Lake! Like savages!") And I want to make special note of the July 11th issue, as well, for its editorial note at the bottom of page six -- after weeks and weeks of free-floating, not often factually accurate or printable ill will from readers -- that really just boils down to "what is wrong with you people, Christ".

And that's your ManLinkWeek! Tune in within the next few days for... a cereal review? Let me check my notes, that can't be r--"review cereal". Huh. Well, I'll see you then!