Where Are The Women?

Dog Blog has over 60 posts this month. Only one is by a female contributor. This is ridiculous. Anyone have suggestions on how to fix our blog's heinous gender imbalance?

UPDATE: A friend just made the obvious suggestion: "encourage more women to write for Dog Blog." Good idea--why didn't I think of that? (Theory: I'm stupid. Fact: I have! But maybe I'm not trying hard enough. And I'm just stupid-looking, thank you.)

And so:

Are you a woman writer? Are you looking for the fame and glory that comes with contributing to a Regina, Saskatchewan blog read by LITERALLY HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE EVERY DAY? If so, we should talk. Dog Blog is looking to add one or two female writers who will contribute a minimum of two posts a week, because right now we're a total sausage factory and that sucks. We need smart people with strong writing skills and a voice that's compatible with what we're trying to do here (funny, insightful, informative, conversational, forward-looking, progressive). This is an unpaid opportunity (welcome to the realities of writing in the internet age), but strong writers will undoubtedly earn opportunities for paid freelance writing in our print magazine.

If you're interested e-mail us at freelance@prairiedogmag.com. Write DOG BLOG in the subject field, please. And please include short writing samples or links to same.

Punk Rock Facelift

Harvest King Records' website has received an upgrade recently. The site looks good by me, and you can still order their records using your handy-dandy Paypal account. Like always, these folks do what they do very well.

The best new feature is the frontpage blog set up using Blogger, meaning you can now toss them in your Google Reader and receive automatic updates about what's going on, such as their upcoming compilation, their June 26 fundraiser, or their latest release.

This Post Had No Headline So Whitworth Just Typed This

I was totally going to make a couple of neat posts, including a bit of an obit for deceased Wilco sidekick Jay Bennett, and the beginning of my Reginian's Guide to Having Fun in Toronto. And I will be posting these, shortly. But in the meantime, may I direct you nerds to the Nethernet?

(Slinks back, hoping Stephen is so distracted with the New Game that he counts this as a "real" blog post.)

Top Six Internet Time Wasters (This Week)

(Or, the stuff I do instead of blogging)

1 RANDOM WIKIPEDIA RESEARCH

A question pops into your head, you look up the answer, and two hours later you’re nearly an expert on Indonesian vampires or the early deaths of ‘20’s film stars. The ever expanding web of trivia can trap you at any point. As long as you don’t start writing entries, you’ll emerge eventually.

2 POPMUNDO.COM

A free sim-life game that is beyond addictive. All the characters are nominally musicians, and the goal is rock stardom, but characters played by people with too much time on their hands also become judges, firefighters, open daycare centres, join the mob…Personally, I’m well on my way to becoming England’s greatest rockabilly cellist.

3 PAM’S HOUSE BLEND

Pam Spaulding is an American blogger who expertly covers politics and LGBTT2Q issues. She reports on all the fundamentalist and reactionary blogs and newsletters, breaking them down and excerpting them. I don’t have the time or the stomach to read what the wingnuts write about themselves; it’s awesome to have a digest.

4 THE VINE AT TOMATO NATION

Freelance writer Sarah Bunting’s long-standing online advice column, specializing in questions about etiquette, relationships, grammar and baseball.

5 KABOODLE.COM

Less a shopping site than a fantasy wish-list site, you can make like Anna Wintour and design big layouts of clothes, accessories and other decorative crap. Online window-licking at it’s best.

6 SYBERMOMS.COM

Where the stay-at-home-mom’s get bitchy. Just because you have kids doesn’t mean you don’t want to be crude, clever and opinionated. Not for wusses or for women who want everything about babies and parenthood to be cuuuuute.

(This post by Emily Z was deleted and re-posted by Steve to fix weird format issues)

Lazy Sunday Pop Culture Post

Technically I should be working right now so, naturally, I instead decided to write a post promoting the podcasts I like and think more people should pay attention to. I considered submitting this to the prairie dog proper but figured it was too slight and self absorbed even for that (types the guy who recently had published a Top 6 Comic Book Plot Devices). Plus I can't get it up to six items needed for a Top 6 because in all honesty I only regularly download five.

So, without further ado, here's my...

Top 5 Podcasts I'm Following These Days

1. Skeptic's Guide to the Universe
A weekly science news show that focuses on debunking all the nonsense and pseudoscience to which we're subjected on a daily basis. Sure, call me a nerd, but I find it somehow cathartic to spend an hour each week listening to five people mock creationists and climate-change deniers.

2. Tiki Bar TV
A monthly comedy vidcast made, up until recently, in a Vancouver apartment done up to look like a tiki bar. Each episode Doctor Tiki, Lala and Johnny Johnny encounter some crisis that is eventually solved by a cocktail. What I've described here rather clinically is actually very funny and cleverly written. Yeah, I've mentioned this show in stuff I've written in the paper before but I reckon it's worth repeating here because a) it's Canadian and b) it's just that good.

3. Diggnation
Two guys sitting on a couch drinking beer talking about what people on the internet are talking about. Sounds dull but is strangely addicting. Plus, it's a great way for out-of-touch, aging hipsters to stay au courant with what's happening on the intraweb.

4. Wormwood
Bi-weekly (sometimes monthly) radio drama about an occult investigator and his adventures in the town of Wormwood. Similar in tone to Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- has that same blend of supernatural horror and comedy. Favourite moment in the series so far: reanimated decapitated heads making out on the floor of a morgue.

5. Search Engine
Probably not fair putting a show from the CBC up against all these amateur endeavours, but Search Engine has always been Mother Corp's bastard child (as evidence: it got pulled from a regular spot on Radio One and now exists only as a podcast). It's a tech and web culture show not unlike other fare on CBC. But, unlike most fare on the CBC, it's edgy and political.

Welcome To Dog Blog

Thanks for visiting Dog Blog, prairie dog magazine's new blog. This page was launched in response to the December 2008 showdown between the governing minority Conservatives and a coalition of the Liberals and NDP supported by the Bloc Quebecois. Initially that will be the focus though I expect it to evolve over time. Expect three to four posts from us daily over the next few months. And please don't be shy about leaving comments.

We want this blog to be informative and insightful, and fun. If (when) we stray from that, please let us know.

We're looking forward to the conversation. Talk to you soon!

Stephen Whitworth
Editor
prairie dog magazine
Regina's Independent Voice