Update – In Pictures – Slave Lake, Alberta Two Weeks Later

Amongst the ruin, a yellow balloon floated through the remains of a neighbourhood

Just got tweeted from Brittney Le Blanc (@britl on Twitter) in regards to my previous blog post.  Updated pictures from Slave Lake, Alberta have been posted on the News 880 website.

Slave Lake After the Fires

  Fires ravaged through Slave Lake, Alberta this past week, destroying 40% of the town, mostly in the southeastern section of  the town,  where half the homes were consumed by flames. The mall, town hall and many downtown businesses were destroyed, and 7,000  people were evacuated.

Pictures are just now coming out showing the extent of the devastation to the community, and I have to thank @britl on Twitter for sharing these with the world.

My Million Dollar Movie – Zombies!

About three years ago on the way to work, I heard an interview with Casey Walker on CBC Radio.  He had this insane idea to sell each frame of a movie that hadn’t been shot yet, till a goal of a million dollars was reached, and production could begin.

That dream has become a reality for Casey Walker, Producer and Director of “Little Bit Zombie”.  This homegrown Canadian project interested me and I bought shares, or frames in this unique endeavor.

Walker has just announced that shooting begins tomorrow, and I’m excited to see this labour of love, and true endeavor of stepping away from traditional means of raising funds for filmakers, and taking matters into the hands of true lovers and fans of movies.

Buying Humans? – Empire Avenue

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Not quite buying humans, but investing in a social stock market, you buy shares in other social users who have linked their Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Blogs and RSS feeds to their account.  Based on their social activity, their stock will rise and fall, as will your dividends and investments.

I still haven’t quite figured the whole thing out, such as, does my stock value rise with the amount of Twittering or posts that I have, or is it in the amount of investment others put into my stock value.  Apparently, like the NYSE and NASDAQ, share prices can fluctuate daily based upon social media and Empire Avenue interactions, but their is really no clear indication on how that works.

This social interaction game is VERY addicting though, as I have caught myself following my shares, and others.  You are able to put price alerts on other users to watch when their stocks either rise or drop past a certain level, and I have already caught myself frantically selling off shares on a poor investment, who I guessed had been very active at one point, but had not put any worthwhile posts on for a while.

My Obsession with Free Stuff

It all started with the BlackBerry PlayBook being released, and it’s gone  downhill  from there.

I adore electronic toys.

I believe I have my father to blame for this as I often bounced on my fathers  back and asked little kids questions about what he was doing as he sat cross-  legged on the living room floor trying to figure out the wire tangle he had in  front of him.

I didn’t understand his mumbling and grumbling was to be taken for an intense  thought process that would include deciphering which wire in this tangle he  created was to be connected to a toggle switch box.  This switch box was to be  connected to his HiFi stereo system through another set of wires, and another  set of wires was to be pushed through a hole in the ceiling so he could listen to  the Rolling Stones while he pooped in the bathroom.  Often my mother would come home, and ask, “Why is there a hole in the ceiling?”, to which he would often respond to talking about the value of having stereo speakers in every room in the house, and how great it would be to poop to music in Dolby Stereo.