(Knock Knock) Housekeeping: Blog List Trades and Cuts for the 2013-2014 Season

Yes, I'm still a-workin' away in secrecy on the project mentioned in the previous post, and no, this post has nothing to do with it. (I know I'd already told you to not assume as such, but humour a brother his redundant additional disclaimers.) Just a wee bit of local-blog movin' and shakin', today, and the unfortunate but necessary business of pruning that which has gone dead.

Let's open with the trades, first, the big moves from one place to another. Beloved local blogger cherenkov of Anybody Want A Peanut? has officially moved operations and is now Derick of Around This Town, aroundthistown.ca. Vanessa Meads of the now-deleted Rose Coloured Beer Goggles has started up VanessaMeads.com, and Patrick Oystryk of the former Stumbling (A)Bordeaux can be found at manitoba matsqui, mbmatsqui.tumblr.com. Best of luck to everyone!

(And don't you worry, true believers -- I'll keep local longform alive by myself if I gotta. FIVE-THOUSAND-WORD POSTS ON OLD LOCAL THINGS ARE THE HILL I WILL DIE ON)

The blog roll to your immediate right, meantime, has become a bit unwieldy as late; in the name of paring down the roster, I made the decision to drop any blogs that haven't been updated since 2012. Bear in mind, it's September; nine months is a pretty generous window, and really, what better time than fall for spring cleaning? (...don't answer that. You get what I mean.)

Anyway, it ended up being kind of a long list after all that, but in fairness a lot of the folks involved are busy with non-blog ventures. (Which shall be indicated in parentheses, as applicable.) Please join me in wishing the best of future endeavours to:

Winnipeg Bus Stories
PolicyFrog (Colin Fast's Urban Compass columns with Metro Winnipeg can be found here)
KOAN SOLDIER (Josh Grummett's work with APTN can be found here)
Brewtinerie.ca (alas, what could have been! Grant Hamilton's Grant's Tomb columns with the Brandon Sun can be found here)
A Day In The Hood (Rae and Ward now RV all across the continent, writing at Freedom at 51)
The FWD: North End Youth Newspaper BLOG
bitchabout
Simple Winnipeg Real Estate (now offline)
Urbiculous (Tessa Vanderhart's news stories with the Winnipeg Sun can be found here; see also Winnipeg Internet Pundits on 101.5 UMFM)
Arsenisms (Scott MacNeil has since migrated to Twitter; thanks again for the vinyl, Scott!)
The Land of Ice and Grain
and The LAngside Times.

Whoof! Quite the list. Nothing has to be permanent, of course; you know I love y'all, you're all welcome back if-slash-when you post something. Holler at me.

There, that's that accomplished; my, that looks cleaner. More room, too! So let me know in the comments below, readers dear, if I'm missing a local blog that you've been really enjoying as late. (Especially since September, as always, means another new draft class of CreCommers; give 'em a look-see, find some new favourites! Ahh, I love September.) Until next time -- good luck and good reading!

I'm Working on a Super Neat Thing That I'm Keeping Secret for Now, But I Will Definitely Let You Know When It's All Set

The basics of this post are pretty well covered by the heading -- curse my devotion to accurate and descriptive titles! -- but I'll round it out a little for entertainment's sake.

Yes, as is usually the case when I vanish for any longish period of time, I am at present Up To Something -- capital-U capital-T capital-S, Up To Something -- and it would spoil the eventual surprise if I were to wax about it in detail right now.

Now, I can't guarantee you'll be as enthralled by the results as I've been so far; there is a chance, as there always is with my output, that you may find the end product strange or silly or unremarkable. But, man, I'm enjoying it! I am definitely enjoying myself in putting it together, which is usually a reasonably good sign, and I hope that you will enjoy it too upon its eventual release.

(Going forward, you may wonder at each eventual thing I produce: is this the thing he meant? Assume as your starting point, gentle reader, that it is not unless I note otherwise; rest assured that I will make a capital-V capital-B capital-T Very Big Thing of it when I tell you what it is.)

So there's your curiously non-specific progress update: I am working on a thing, and I am quite enjoying working on a thing, and eventually you too will be privy to the thing that I am working on.

Thank you for reading that! Thank you for indulging me. And just so's you don't feel that this post was a wasted click: here is an entirely unrelated but entirely delightful eight-minute compilation of Carl Carmoni footage, sure to brighten your day as surely and as swiftly as it always brightens mine.



BIRRRRRRR-DAY

Watch this space, true believers; I'll see you around soon!

The Hemingway Special is My Favourite Mixed Drink; Here's a Step-By-Step Guide to Making One

"Courage," Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "is grace under pressure." And then, of course, he shot himself.

Hello and welcome back to Slurpees and Murder, here on this glorious Labour Day Weekend! Everything's coming together just so: the sun is shining, the Blue Bombers are embarrassing themselves again playing, and we all have our kickin' weekend tunes queued up for the post-game loungearounds. All we're missing is something to drink -- but not for long!

I've put some time into teaching myself how to best mix a Hemingway, and in the spirit of weekend optimization, I'd like to take this opportunity to pass along my findings.