At about 3:00AM on the morning of November 20, 2008, Ezzies and The Doghouse began to catch fire.
Hours later, there is nothing but smoldering embers where the two building used to be. Firefighters stood vigilant over the rubble and sprayed it with water to make sure the fire stayed down and did not start again or spread. In a brief interview on My96FM, a firefighter described: “There was just smoke when we arrived, when the firefighters approached, the fire was through the roof and it was impossible to get into the building.”
With The Doghouse gone, so goes one of the main venues where bands would often come to town and play.
7th Street SW remains open for the public to traverse.
Rapscallion Storefront
Rapscallion Design is a Medicine Hat-based graphic design company.
The company has been in business for years now, producing designs that range from clothing to websites.
Rapscallion Design sports an in-house screenprinting service which they utilize as all their retail designs are created by hand and screenprinted by hand. Mass production is cool and all, but it is definitely an added bonus to feel that you are not a product of mass production and to support the arts. Their designs are not done by a bunch of kids who pirated the Adobe Creative Suite and learned how to trace in it, but totally opposite, the workers at Rapscallion Design have their degrees in Visual Communications, and after being in the industry for a number of years, can really produce some awesome work.
You can check out the store at 455 3rd Street SE, Downtown Medicine Hat.
This Tuesday, November 25th, get ready for some rock with a touch of experimental. Both bands have a lot of variety. The Summerlad and Kava Kava are playing at The Ottoman Lounge, hosted by Young & Pretty Folk Music Association, starting at 8:00PM.
The Summerland w/ Kava Kava Poster
The Ottoman Lounge
502 South Railway St. Se
Medicine Hat, AB
Thursday, November 25th, 2008
8:00pm – 11:00pm
Tickets: $5
The Summerlad - Eyes Artwork
The Summerlad is:
Arran Fisher (bass, guitar, floor pedals, Kord Poly 800II)
Dean Martin (drums, Microkorg)
Garret McClure (vocals, guitar, vocoder, Yamaha Electone)
With that mix of synthesizers you can tell it’s gonna be crazy. The Summerlad is from Calgary and their music can be described as an eclectic mix of indie, psychedelic rock, and noise – much a long the same lines as Godspeed You! Black Emperor (the length of their songs confirms the comparison).
Kava Kava (Paige Sierra Photography)
Kava Kava is Jay Bowcott, resident of Medicine Hat. Kava Kava is more a long the lines of acoustic and soft rock mixed with other elements such as beats and piano. Kava Kava fronted by Bowcott is not to be confused with the other Kava Kava band out there. Kava Kava is supposedly is a herbal relexant that was banned and used to treat insomnia – a fitting reference?
December 2nd is an in-house Graphic Design company based in Medicine Hat.
The revolution began, oddly enough, on the second of December one year. Since then, the company, headed by Rene Waters and Josh Gregg, have constantly produced the epitome of great graphic design in Medicine Hat. A lot of people knock Graphic Designers, stating that they cannot design websites because they do not know how coding for the Internet works, but truly, whether it comes to designing for print or for the web, December 2nd truly comes out on top.
Image courtesy of December2nd.ca
Not just a designer, but also a teacher, Rene Waters has been an active educator for the Visual Communications course at The Medicine Hat College. It is not an awkward notion in the least to, as a student in Visual Communications, seek out the advice of either Rene Waters or Josh Gregg. Both have been in the industry for years and will always give the most honest of critiques and suggestions on work or ideas. It is not unusual to be welcomed into their studio.
Since forever ago, December 2nd has taken an active interest in employing students during their summer work terms. Most notably, the students are of the Visual Communication course. This gives not only the students a sure-footing for their career path, but gives December 2nd an added benefit of another creative mind to have input on their projects.
On November 11th and 12th of 2008, the so-called entrepreneurs, StoresOnline, visited Medicine Hat for four Internet marketing seminars at the Callaghan Inn. Other seminars took place in Lethbridge and Calgary.
Before I start off, Stores Online is a scamming company that only wants your money and does neither encourage or even convincingly feign having healthy business-consumer relationships, which is the way to run a business. If you want to hear the truth about them, continue reading.
The StoresOnline logo
The invitations that were sent out offered users the ability to build their wealth with websites, a complimentary meal for you and a guest and a free MP3 player for you and a guest. The seminar lasted roughly 90 minutes with a collective audience of about 80 people per seminar, or about 320 people between the two days and four seminars. My invitation was full of typos, including the name of who the invitations were sent to. Is this professional? No.
The seminar kicked off with speaker Rich Putnam proclaiming his knowledge of Internet marketing with occasionally getting the crowd involved by raising their hands to questions. Maybe now is the time I should point out the fact that most of the crowd were all around their middle-ages, at least 40 years or older, and the questions Rich Putnam would ask were technologically related words such as “Hosting”, “Servers”, etc. Most of which, when asked, the crowd had a very basic understanding of, or no idea at all. Putnam would also randomly quote ancient philosophers, such as Aristotle (whom he confused with Albert Einstein somehow), which to me, seemed like a vain attempt at sounding intellectual and proclaiming false medical facts such as “It is a medically proven fact that raising your arm releases oxygen into your brain which makes you smarter and happier.” Rich Putnam also even went as far as to tell the audience to skip weddings and funerals to attend the Stores Online workshops. Apparently as well, the creator of Dell Computers’, Michael Dell, was at this event, but would not stand up. Sounds like a clever way to throw out a business name everyone knows, to ensure the crowd that the event is really important.
Stereotypical image provided by StoresOnline
At the end of the 90 minute seminar, during of which, Rich Putnam had thrown out many technological and Internet-referencing terms to the more elderly crowd who seemed to not understand (based by the lack of raising their hands), the associates handed out the order forms. Encouraged by Putnam, about 15 or 20 people filled these forms out. The forms immediately ask you for your credit card number, debit card number or check number and Putnam encouraged the crowd to “Not worry about the price, just fill it in. Then you can start your website right away!” One lady exclaims that she cannot spend such a large amount of money in 3 minutes, to which Putnam replies “You have to make business decisions fast.” and when she shows opposition and says “Not that fast.” He shoots her down saying “… Well, some people don’t make any decisions ever in life.” Professional. Keep reading, it gets better…
Tomorrow is the last day you will get to check out The Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede’s 11th Annual Christmas Market located in the Cypress Centre Pavilion and Auditorium. The market itself features things such as baking, jewelery, artwork, crafts, candies, clothing and much more. It’s focus is homemade and handcrafted items. You can kind of thing of it as a “Farmer’s Market” which is also hosted in the same place actually, except this is more geared towards the theme of Christmas and the holidays in general.
Christmas Market
The 11th Annual Christmas Market runs Friday, November 14th from 12:00PM to 8:00PM and then Saturday, November 15th from 9:00AM to 6PM. Admission is $2, unless you are 12 and under, in which case it’s free. For more information call the Stampede Office at 403-527-1234 (that’s a pretty sweet number if I do say myself).
Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance is coming to Medicine Hat for one show on December 6, 2008 at the Medicine Hat Arena.
There have been over 100,000 people who have viewed the show since it started up a little over 12 years ago. The performance depicts stories of Irish folklore by means of dance and includes 40 dancers, under the insightful artistic direction of Michael Flatley. The performance includes 21 scenes, costumes, set design, music and over 150, 000 taps every show.
Image courtesy of DiscoverNorthernIreland.com
The show will be at 8PM on December 6, 2008 at the Medicine Hat Arena. Admission is $45 to $65 with a 10% discount to groups over 15 people.
Medicine Hat Arena
155 Ash Avenue Southeast.
On the night of November 13, 2008, there was apparently a disc-like object floating in the sky.
Some people calling into My96FM describe the object as a frisbee with lights thrown up and hovering.
Like most UFO reports; however, the description of the object are similar. The object has lights, spins or hovers in the sky, maybe goes back and forth between a few places or cruises along briefly, then zooms off faster than anything anyone has ever seen before. So it is hard to say what it might have really been.
Comments?
More on this subject can be found at: http://www.medicinehatmedia.com/2008/11/richardson-family-murders-steinke-trial/
Everyone in Medicine Hat and across the Canadian Prairies has heard of Jeremy Steinke and the Richardson Family. Indeed, news of their actions reached far across the nation as the daughter of the Richardson family became the youngest person ever charged with a multiple murder in Canadian history.
In a brief synopsis, the two allegedly met at a punk rock show in 2006 and for the next while they began communicating on social networking sites such as Nexopia. During their courtship, Richardson’s parents grounded her from seeing Jeremy due to the massive age difference. The eventual outcome was a triple murder of the family by Steinke and in part by Richardson. Shortly after, the two fled to Leader, Saskatchewan, where they were at length arrested.
On July 9, 2007, Richardson was found guilty of three counts of first degree murder and on November 8, 2007, she was sentence to ten years in prison, which was the maximum penalty a person under 14 years of age could receive, as well as four years in a psychiatric institution and four and a half years under conditional supervision in the community.
Steinke’s trial date was pushed back until November 14, 2008 and is taking place in Calgary. The jury was chosen in three hours of 6 men and 6 women, who were not allowed to research Steinke, Richardson, or their past history, although it seems unlikely that the jury, who are but a few hours down the road from Medicine Hat, would not already be well informed of the case.
More information about the history of the Richardson Family Murders can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasmine_Richardson
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1897982
Here’s an interesting article I found in the paper today. The Elkwater Lake Lodge is looking for musicians who would be interested in playing in their lounge and restaurant on Saturdays, during the evenings. Get this, and in exchange they are giving the performer(s) free room and board for that night as well as a Sunday brunch. I guess it could be beneficial for those people who have nothing better to do but pack up for the weekend and drive down to Cypress Hills and play a free gig. I guess it’s also pretty good for performers or bands looking to start out somewhere… anywhere.
If interested, contact Joanne Selwood at 403-528-9191 or by email at promos@elkwaterlakelodge.com
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