What’s this? Finally a breakdown of my PechaKucha presentation and only one month after it occurred? Why Sam, you are on the ball, I tip my hat to you…

I wanted to post about this much sooner, of course, but the news that it hadn’t gotten recorded dampened my enthusiasm some. It’s of no matter now, but it did upset me a bit at the time. Read on to hear a little more about the presentation and some of the “reviews”!

“Hey, I know I don’t know you but I just wanted to say that I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time, maybe ever. Great presentation! “
– Random Stranger during intermission

The reviews are in! ‘Failing Upwards or How to Succeed as a Creative Freelancer Without Really Trying’ enjoyed by all. The theatre was packed and the audience laughed in all the appropriate moments. I was somewhat nervous about being in the same set as Ace Burpee, but well, I think I actually got more laughs than him, which is amazing. And he did give me a double high five before he left at the intermission. So now I know I’ve joined the upper echelon of the arts community in Winnipeg…

“All the ladies in the bathroom at beer break agreed, Sam had the most charisma!”
– Sara Maximus

So what is PechaKucha? Well, it’s a night where a group of individuals do 6 minute, twenty second presentations (20 slides at 20 seconds each) on a variety of topics. Most of the subject matter is creative, as it is put on by the Manitoba Chapter of the Graphic Designers of Canada. I really busted my ass to get this presentation just right, as admittedly, I feel many PK presentations are lackluster, either due to lack of preparation or unfamiliarity with the format. I’ve been to a few of these events, so I knew that you really have to keep on top of the timer (20 seconds per slide, and woe be the speaker who goes over time) and let your slides speak for themselves.

“It was f*cking brilliant! I know that everyone I talked to agreed with me! It will live on in memory, we’ll talk it up, it will take on vast mythical proportions. Can’t happen with a video”
- Ian McCausland

In all honesty, I really wish I had a video of it, as I feel like those 6 minutes were my shining moment, and I’m not sure when I’ll have the chance to address a large audience like that again. I’ve included a pdf with all the slides and the basic speech here. I made some changes on the stage, but for those who weren’t there, check it out, you’ll get the drift of what I presented.

“@samposnick amazing presentation tonight @pechakucha, you were hilarous ! Loved every second of it.”
- @adesign_girl

Despite my disappointment at not being captured on stage for posterity, I would probably still do this again, if asked. Hell, I almost felt like a real “professional” up there, and I can’t really discount that. I also got interviewed by CBC for the Scene section of their site, which was very cool.

I attended the PechaKucha event last night and wanted to take a moment to commend you on your presentation. You obviously put a lot of effort into your materials and your delivery was great. I am sure you have heard nothing but wonderful and sincere comments about the great job you did and I wanted to add mine as well.

Thanks for the putting the pants on and entertaining us:)

- John (via email)

While I claim this post is here for those who didn’t attend PechaKucha that night, it is actually mostly for me. I don’t want to forget that I put myself out there and did something special that people really enjoyed. It will keep me warm on those cold, self-doubting nights.

Just a quick post to promote a logo/graphic design I did for my cousin’s upstart cupcake catering business- Cupcake Love. Loving the kawaii style, it was a fun little project to work on.

Most of my friends and family know the gist of the story, but for the sake of documentation, I’ll try and get some of the main points down here. Hey, it might be of interest to other people googling the same thing. I know I would’ve appreciated reading some other people’s accounts of the situation.

So, in short, my appendix burst. Well, to be accurate, according to one of my surgeons, it straight-up exploded actually. Imagine a bag of microwave popcorn after someone slams a fist down on it, that was my appendix. Blown out on two sides, apparently.

I started having an achey stomach on a Friday night, but I had started a new ab workout that week and figured that it was just residual muscle soreness from that. I should’ve known something was up the next day when I could only get 2 miles into a 4 mile run because my stomach was too sore when I lifted my legs, but again, just thought it was the change in workout.

Saturday night brought the pain, I actually woke up and googled appendicitis, but decided to wait until the next day to be sure. Sunday, the pain was a lot less but unfortunately brought with it, um, digestive tract issues (detail I do not wish to go into). So I thought, “Well, this isn’t typical of appendicitis, I probably just have Gastroenteritis or something again,” since it seemed similar to my symptoms from that in the past. The GI issues lasted until Wednesday, but faded a bit everyday, so I assumed I was getting better, but made an appointment with my doctor for Thursday anyway.

Thursday rolls around, I’m feeling pretty good, probably at around 90% of my usual self. I go to JYSK before the appointment and lug a new comforter around. See the doctor who agrees it’s probably just a stomach virus, but orders tests anyway. I get home and everything starts to go bad, I’m in massive pain, can barely walk and can’t eat.

Made the mistake of going to Misericordia ‘Urgent Care’ that night (which I will later find out is NOT Emergency, which, oh, I don’t know, they could perhaps TELL YOU or refer you to a different hospital if you come in with a serious problem). Waited about 4 hours to see a doctor who told me I was very good at describing the pain but that it doesn’t help him (which again, what the hell? What else am I supposed to tell him about?). They took an x-ray, blood and urine (which at this point, looked like rust) and basically did the tests my doctor ordered, decided that I had a Urinary Tract Infection despite a complete lack of evidence and the fact that I have had that before and trust me, it was nothing like this was. They put me on an IV of antibiotics and told me to come back the next day for another.

I hobbled around for most of Friday, feeling a bit better, but still terrible and with a horribly swollen abdomen. Went back to Misericordia on Saturday morning, where a nurse snapped at me for not being able to walk. The doctor administering the IV was at least decent and said I should get a CT scan, but the office at Misericordia was CLOSED on the weekend, so I should schedule one for the week. I agreed and we left with a prescription for more oral antibiotics.

Took the antibiotics and attempted to eat and drink on Saturday but I started throwing up anything I ingested, to the point where it was pure bile coming out. Idiotically, we went back to Misericordia one last time, where the ONLY decent nurse there hinted that if we went to the Health Sciences Centre, we could get a CT scan done right away. Why no one told us this earlier is beyond me. My mom showed up and we left to go to HSC instead.

And I should note, that on the way out of Misericordia, Nik overheard the nurse saying something to the effect of, “The nerve of some people, don’t they know this isn’t an Emergency department?”. The answer is: NO, MAYBE THEY DON’T. PERHAPS YOU COULD INFORM OF THIS FACT WHEN THEY COME IN WITH SERIOUS PROBLEMS INSTEAD OF LEAVING THEM TO PERISH IN YOUR WAITING ROOM. Also of note, the first night we were there (Thursday), the doctor and nurses were within earshot making fun of one of the other patients. Now that’s care! Also, the floors of the (non)emergency patient area, with the beds, were filthy.

Now, HSC, I only have nice things to say about. They got me into an Emergency room within an hour, the doctors were very caring, they listened and also took the time to explain to us what was going on. They diagnosed the burst appendix pretty quickly, with a CT scan to confirm it. They waited a day to do surgery as they attempted to reduce the massive stomach abscesses I had with antibiotics, and performed surgery on Monday evening.

The surgery, presumably, went well as I’m still alive. Along with removing the appendix, apparently, they also had to essentially take out most of my organs and wash all the toxic stuff off them in order to get rid of everything that was in my stomach cavity and to prevent my organs from shutting down or going into septic shock. My details may not be perfect here, but that’s pretty much how it was explained to me and after the fact, it quite frankly scares the hell out of me.

I spent another week and a half in the hospital, full of IVs and tubes and drains that went straight into my abdomen to drain all the excess bad stuff out of me. Good times. The only positives about the whole thing was getting the chance to watch ‘The Price Is Right’ (the choice of invalids everywhere) everyday and learning the lesson that Misericordia is easily the WORST hospital in Winnipeg and will almost kill you and not even care about it.

So that’s the story. I still kind of feel like hell, my stomach is still insanely sore, I lost about 15 pounds I didn’t need to lose and I now have a giant, crappy scar from my naval down. Yay.

And because I’m totally bitter, I will pretend for a moment that this blog isn’t attached to my professional design site which I use in order to attract clients and issue a giant ‘fuck you’ to Misericordia for almost killing me. I hate to come down on hospitals because I honestly think they do the best they can with their resources and our healthcare in Canada is still very good, but honestly, everyone there, except that one doctor and nurse that were decent, can go to Hell as far as I’m concerned. Everyone makes mistakes but the lack of care and concern there was absolutely appalling.

To end on a more positive note, cheers to the doctors and nurses at HSC, particularly the first doctor (whose name I unfortunately didn’t catch) that saw us when I was admitted and Mulleina (probably spelled this wrong too) that saw me most mornings. A bit of care and respect go a long way.

This past Sunday, myself, Boyfriend Nik and some friends attended the Winnipeg Wine Festival. This is the second year in a row Nik and I have gone and I must say, we’re fans. It’s packed inside the Convention Centre, but at the same time the crowd is quite enjoyable to have around, since after about an hour of tasting, everyone has a pretty good buzz going on…

We took a cab this year, in order to be able to taste as many wines as possible, heh. This year’s feature country was Chile, and man, they have some delicious wines. We were offered a card to check off with the different Chilean wines to enter in a prize drawing later, which of course we forgot to do. We also entered another draw for a winery tour in Kelowna and forgot to hang around for that draw. Tasting about 40 different wines, unsurprisingly, makes you forget certain things.

The night went as well as can be expected, the piles of bread didn’t seem to get eaten quite as quickly as last year. Also, my prediction that a tray full of glasses would be knocked over before the end of the night, came to fruition about five minutes after the words left my mouth. 

My favourite wine of the night was Cheviot Bridge Wine Co’s (Australia) moscato, very light, sweet and delicious, but unfortunately everyone else liked it too and it was sold out before we could purchase some. Some of the other winners however were: PKNT Chardonnay (Chile), Sileni Estates Semillion (New Zealand), YALI Reserve Shiraz (Chile), and I enjoyed the fruitiness of a light organic raspberry wine from the Manitoban Rigby Orchards. Also of mention (though Nik and I have purchased it before), is the Chocalan family of wines from Chile.

After enjoying the sampling and purchasing some bottles of our favourites, we took off to Dessert Sinsations for a late dinner and cheesecake. Highly recommending the Curried Chicken Fingers there. Nik and I eat there all the time but we hadn’t tried those before and they were amazing. The meal and dessert were a brilliant cap-off to a great evening out.

Before we went to the Weakerthans show on Saturday night, Boyfriend Nik and I headed to one of our favourite restaurants, Dessert Sinsations (yes, they have great food too, not just desserts!). Now I had been told about Ciao Winnipeg’s Chocolate Fest, but had kind of ignored it because I’m more of a candy person rather than chocolate. However when we got there, we saw the special chocolate concoctions and had to sample some.

The dishes we decided to sample were the Chorizotto Mole: a spicy chorizo sausage with chocolate chilli risotto and for dessert we shared a slice of Chocolate Banana Cream Pie. Nik also had the Callebaut White Chocolate Pistachio Latte.

The Chorizotto Mole, while looking something like Libbey’s Pork and Beans in a bowl (with chorizo instead of hot dogs), tasted amazing. The spicy chorizo complimented the rich chocolate chilli risotto perfectly. The chocolate flavour was really quite light, not overwhelming at all. Highly recommended to split as an appetizer, and it could really serve as a moderately light meal on its own.

Now, while I still maintain the dessert would be even better if it had a layer of peanut butter (because if chocolate+peanut butter=good, peanut butter+banana=good, therefore chocolate+peanut butter+banana=amazing, it’s math, people!), the Chocolate Banana Cream Pie was to die for. The dark cookie crust was a welcome addition and it was a bit salty, which was a nice contrast to the light, sweet, whipped topping. Very, very good… even without the peanut butter.

I did not try the latte myself, but Nik said it was a bit sweet and didn’t finish it. Your taste may vary from his though, and I know I like sweet things probably more than he does, so it still sounded pretty good to me.

Ciao’s ChocolateFest is on for the month of April, so you still have a chance to go and sample some of the treats at many of the participating restaurants and bistros. If you’ve tried any of the specials at any other restaurants, let me know in the comments!

Just a note to add to my previous Winnipeg Folk Festival post. I’ve heard from two friends, as well as a more reputable Folk Fest organizer source that camping passes for this year’s festival are flying off the imaginary shelves. So if you’re pretty sure you want to go this year and camp, best be getting your “Festival” camping pass and tickets right away (I’m guessing that those are the ones going quickly, as opposed to the “Quiet” campground). No hedging, people!

By the by, I’d recommend getting your tickets straight from the Folk Festival Music Store in the Exchange if possible, to avoid the Ticketmaster crap.

Ahhh, Folk Fest. My favourite (non-holiday) event of the year. There’s not a single other time in my life when I am as relaxed as I am at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Listening to music with dirt between your toes never feels so good.

This year’s performance lineup is looking pretty great too. So far I’m most looking forward to seeing the darling Neko Case, Iron & Wine, Great Lake Swimmers and Joe Pug. The awesome Xavier Rudd is once again gracing Winnipeg with his killer live show and the incomparable K.D. Lang will be headlining the Main Stage. And of course, the real beauty of the Fest is all the new bands you discover on the four days of schlepping chairs across the fields, and the new friends you make while drinking in the campground.

So if you haven’t already, I encourage you to take advantage of the early bird prices (available until May 31) and <Ghost of Nick Hill> “C’monnnnnnnnn down!” </Ghost of Nick Hill>. If you’re new to the festival, come, I promise you won’t regret. And if you’re an old hand, well, get your tickets before some of the more toolish folks buy up the camping passes.

So, tomorrow night (Saturday) a big group of us are headed to Rumours for the awesome Jeremy’s birthday and the specialness of his birthday will only be topped by the fact that the headlining act is none other than Mr. Bobcat Goldthwait.

Now, my irony detector is going off like crazy over here, but I have to admit, I think this will be a good show. I haven’t really seen much of Bobcat since seeing the movie “Hot to Trot”(billed as ‘The Funniest Talking Horse Movie Ever!’) over and over again on MTN’s ‘Prime Ticket Movie’ Sundays. However, I was watching “Scrooged” over the holidays and enjoying his character in that as well. Bobcat truly was an 80′s gem, and I admit that I kind of like his manic nature and crazy voice (though I’m not sure how much of that we’ll see/hear tomorrow night).

It seems the Bobcat is more into directing and producing lately, with some notably acclaimed movies at Sundance over the past few years. I’ll cop to the fact that it’s the first I’ve heard about it, but good on him. I’m left to wonder why he’d be doing a stand-up tour at this point, but hey, I don’t care. I’m actually really looking forward to tomorrow night (this could just be because I wish the stand-up comedy boom of the 80′s occurred now instead of then, since I kind of love stand-up). I’ll post a mini-review if the night is noteworthy enough.

Bobcat Goldthwait is at Rumours Comedy Club on April 3 & 4, call them for tickets and info at (204) 488-4520.