Believe it or not, I used to hate Vice magazine. Oxymoronically, the only place I knew to pick it up was from the Vespa dealership in The Beach (AKA – East end of Toronto). “Hipsters can barely afford to drive the fixed speed bikes they’ve got in the first place. What the fck do they want with a Vespa?” I used to think each time my ex-boyfriend, then a culinary arts student at George Brown, would insist on picking up the mag. I should’ve known it wasn’t going to last when he could remember Vice’s publishing schedule but had problems remembering if he was going to a BBQ or breaking up with me.

I started to self identify as a sub-class of hipster. A faux-hemian, if you will; a child who maxed out mommy’s credit card at Urban Outfitters on ironic t-shirts and Nylon magazines.

Truth is, I didn’t get it. I found the whole publication to be so arrogantly grotesque that I couldn’t give it a second glance even if it was my only source of bathroom entertainment. Then something happened and it was cool. Maybe around the time that I started to self identify as a sub-class of hipster. A faux-hemian, if you will; a child who maxed out mommy’s credit card at Urban Outfitters on ironic t-shirts and Nylon magazines.

Rehabilitated as a writer, Reado showed me an old scuffed up DVD that read “Vice Guide to Travel” etched across the top of it in Sharpie. Then it was any Vice video I could get my hands on. “Heavy Metal in Baghdad” is still a favorite and anytime I hear Shane Smith’s voice I get pumped. It confirmed that I was meant to be a writer, I’m dry, sarcastic. I want to hit the road and have an infallible sense of immortality! Then it dawned on me:

I’m a girl.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of girls on VBS.TV. Especially going into the heart of Liberia (for example). But, then I wonder if girls would get the same story as the guys or if they would be putting themselves needlessly in danger. How would I get to film secret tribes of men, rocking out in their testosterone filled enclaves where they drink palm wine and bitch about their wives? Realistically, how could I, as a journalist, transcend cultural stereotypes based upon my gender to get the best bits of a story? Is it even possible? Or would I be stuck with the played out tale of crying children who are starving in refugee camps or the story of women gatherers of the Congo? Sweet… more edible roots. I had no idea… *yawn*

I want to shoot guns. Climb things. Drop F-bombs in clusters, you know play with the boys!

Well, I’m working on it.

Photo: If you don’t know that’s Dennie Hopper and you had no idea that’s “Apocalypse Now” then you are terribly uncool. Do you know who Kubrick is?

The thing about who I am is that I like to talk. Growing up, when I couldn’t talk, I sang, when I couldn’t sing I wrote. It was a life of an artistically confused but perpetually creative soul. But, to be honest, I still feel that same way. But things have changed. The of days of typing up little kid versions of imaginary magazines turned into blogging and scribbling notes on the wood molding that surrounded my room turned into Twitter.

…I write on Karmacake because it’s organic to me, I don’t do it for an audience, I do it for me first and when it evolves from that – well I go….

I’m a communicator. Because of that I’m a renegade in my family. Instead of journalism school in Toronto, I went to music school in Sackville, NB. Every step of the way I’ve tried to strike a balance without taking that lead of faith into the unknown. Even know, Karmacake sits 30% of its true potential because something’s holding me back.

I’m not here to compete, I don’t care. There are people who blog who do it a thousand times better than I do it. Some even go so far as to create bizarre stories about my opinions of them based upon fiction and made up memories. The idea that there could be anyone who cares so much to fabricate a reason for my low opinion of them is ridiculous – I didn’t know I had so much power. So, I pushed back, again. I write on Karmacake because it’s organic to me, I don’t do it for an audience, I do it for me first and when it evolves from that – well I go.

So why did I stop? Fear. Fear of success. Fear of failure. Fear of involving myself with something that I love that would inevitably turn into work and I would be forced to lived with it in stubborn marriage of necessity. That’s not me. I’m a fucking phoenix who rises from the ashes and makes things good. I help other people, I care about them. I want everyone to do well and now that’s going to have to include me.

Karmacake is my home. Bitches, get ready.

Header image by ~nasimo Click Here if you want it

In case of nuclear disaster neither you, nor the food you eat should survive.

I consider myself a food writer, although lately I’ve been doing more social media stuff than writing. But, there’s a passion there. I cook, no biggie, but I apparently cook well enough that I can charm people into my world of health food that tastes like junk food.

Because, before the depression food didn’t always come in boxes and wax wasn’t normally an ingredient in cake. Food tasted good for a few different reasons: sugar, salt and fat. Take that away and people feel unsatisfied. We like our dirty carbs and we like our dirty fats and our years of abusing ourselves have taken a toll on our bodies and what we consider to be good food.

I’m over the substitutes Honestly. Thanks to the brainiac that decided to pump our pop filled with some stupidly cheap, questionably dangerous, chemical byproduct that kind of tastes sweet with the aftertaste of rocket fuel. So it has 0 calories. Awesome. Does it also come in paper wrapped bricks like refined sugar and cocaine?

There’s options out there. And if you love pork fat and you wish you could tongue the marbling in a slab of Kobe, you don’t have to give it up. Eat it if you want. You want sugar? You want salt? Well there are hundreds of different kinds out there that you can eat. But, if you want to make food taste good, you can’t have the fake stuff. You need sugar, salt and fat, if you don’t have that then you might as well just forget about it.

Slice it, dice it, shove it in my face.

The End.

The entire site is based on what once was my blog. It was pretty much just a collection of random thoughts and opinions on my life from pageants to friends and back again. I did that for a few years and now I’ve moved to Karmacake.ca while the whole thing just marinates on blogspot while I figure out what to do with it all. You know I never read it since I left it.

I met Reado because of it, so it’ll always be important to me. But, when @reado and I got serious, I never really felt right with writing in it. It was like that part of my life was over. Then the time came where it started to come back and be important to me again. That’s this site, but the formula still isn’t right yet. So we’re going to go back and work on it again.

In the meantime, I’m blogging! Hey why not, I want a place to just vent, I miss having my own space on the web & well, if I can convince them, there will be a few other contributors who can pop in whenever they want to share some thoughts.

So we got our team: Reado (@reado) other half/dimple maker/life hacker, Justin (@justingodard) designer/reado’s childhood friend/416′er in 905, Madd Hattere (aka – Pfaffer) the photographer/philosopher/hick, Nat (@atubanos) journalist/socmed commentator/media gyal, Adam (@Amazerall) (writer/design boy/drinking partner… & ME!

We’re opening things up with a READER SURVEY w/ prize! We got a brilliant basket filled w/ over $75 worth of La Coupe products for guys & girls. It arrived in a really heavy box. No joke. And it could all be yours… so tell us what you think about Karmacake.

xoxoxo

Mings

Activision is trying really hard to expand their audience and it looks like DJ Hero will be a game changer on the gaming scene. A ton of artists like DJ Shadow, Daft Punk, Eminem, The Scratch Perverts and Jay-Z were involved in making the game, and other turntablist venerables like DJ Jazzy Jeff and Grand Master Flash are playable characters.

The button system is simple enough. Three coloured ones on the turntable, outer buttons are used for hitting beats, or scratching, while the middle one is also used to drop samples from a list of six different styles, like Rave, or Flavor Flav (Yeah Boyiiii!) who has two sets even. The cross-fader comes in to heavy use on more advanced settings where you are required to make ‘stream’changes, or suffer a loss of points. Also, you can’t forget about the effects dial used to choose samples and apply filter effects when the timing is right. The classic Guitar Hero ‘Star Power’ has been replaced with the club culture friendly ‘Euphoria’ button.

…you will never be booed off stage, (unlike Guitar Hero) and you are constantly unlocking new content…

In terms of difficulty, Beginner setting is overkill. It’s like riding a trike, with training wheels attached. Most players will move up to Medium fairly quickly but the real interactive experience starts at Hard or Expert level where you really get in to what could be called an immersive dj experience. With directional scratching, cross fader stabs, and beat juggling, you could describe it as DDR for your fingers. While beats fly past you at 50 mph, you will be holding your breath and gasping for air when the track is done.

Since mid-November, I have watched an ongoing conversation on Twitter regarding how a social media expert can be defined. The conversation was sparked by a comment from @karmacakedotca in response to @metroToronto hiring a new social media expert, Rea McNamara, to write their social media column. What sparked the conversation was the fact that @reeraw only has a little over 400 followers on Twitter, so how does that make her an expert on social media?

Unfortunately, there was no tag for this conversation, making it difficult to reproduce the entire thing (much as I would like to). However, one thing became clear – it’s hard to measure such expertise.

Consider for a moment any other field – say, painting murals. An expert painter can show a portfolio of past murals painted. They can list contracts they have received to paint murals. References can be called to testify about their skill, how well they stay on budget, ability to manage expectations, and so on. There are questions to be asked, with reasonable answers expected.

…@reeraw got a score of 95%. To contrast, @karmacakedotca got a grade of 99.6%…

Social media is different, because there are no clear questions, nor clear answers expected to quantify someone’s expertise. You could use a tool such as the one found at http://twitter.grader.com to give you a mark, based on a variety of factors – number of followers (and their grades), the ratio of followers to following (you want lots of followers, but not following as many), updates and frequency of updates, and your updates being retweeted by people with a high grade (count out the spam bots). Of course, the exact details of how the score is computed is not specified to avoid people trying to game the system.

Alright ladies with the cold weather approaching…means new hot looks for your own runway down the smelly streets of Toronto! There are a few key trends that are making their way on the bodies of Fashionbelles everywhere!

1. FUR, FUR AND MORE FUR! It’s popping up everywhere. Vests, jackets and scarves. I’m all for faux fur but I also believe vintage finds are the best and so much more classic.



2. Sexy day and night lace. Body suits, tops and dresses are making big statements on the dance floor and on the street. Easily paired with boyfriend blazers or your new fur!



3. Even though the weather is getting colder, the clothing is getting shorter! Cropped is back in style. Chunky knits and cotton jersey tops, great for layers or showing skin. I usually pair mine with my lace bodysuit to give it some edge.



4. It’s the era of the 80’s again. Poufy and pointy shoulder pads are everywhere. If blazers are not your scene, bondage dresses and sweaters are also a great alternative. Also a fun twist is embroidered or fringed shoulder pads.



5. Everyone’s getting obsessed with rings, big, chunky statements…Mary-Kate and Ashley styles. If you can’t get your hands on the vintage gems, H&M and Forever 21 have great and reasonably priced alternatives.



6. Red stained lips can turn any outfit from average to fashion forward. They also aren’t only for the night; red lips are a great day accessory piece. For fall/winter dark reds are better.

Those are the top trends for this frosty season; stay tuned for springs fresh picks

Thanks to FFFFOUND! for the header image.

This is what happens when I get sick and Matt & Nat find a really good internet connection. Here’s the latest videos from the duo that makes adventuring look so incredibly easy… No witty updates… just… MAN I WANT A VACATION!!!

You know that Nat didn’t win the Royal Caribbean Reporter at Sea contest, right? I mean… hahaha, WHAT?! User voted contests never work out. I would’ve paid to watch Nat & Matt take me on a cruise.

There’s a specific breed of person who gets off on long hours typing at an old laptop to talk about the food they couldn’t afford, that is, if it wasn’t otherwise a part of their job. Online I’m en guard and armed with the belief that, in a sea of the city’s food writers, the ascent to print is only as far as the next assignment. For this web-jockey the assignment was a month of the finest in Canadian whiskies and one fine Scotch whisky. You know, the stuff that legends are made out of… that is, if you actually like rolling with the “amber cowboy”.

…in all honesty, after mainlining the 40 proof for over 30 minutes there’s a lot that gets lost in the haze…

When it comes to whisky, call it what you will, scotch, bourbon, rye, but it all tastes how I imagine paint thinner does, like acetate and old leather. After a solid month of sampling various whiskies, I discovered that it takes a lot of chutzpah to admit that I, a food writer with grand ambitions, would rather unclog shower heads with it then drink it.

The social reprisal of this revelation has minimal effect on the girl who used to get pitying glances from high ranking peers for simply being on a first name basis with the serving staff. During those moments I could see a direct correlation between pay scale and incorruptibility. For those in the need to know, my wages currently settle somewhere in the area between indifference and genuineness. In short, I refuse to believe that my ability to be a friend without borders or my position as an online culinary pundit has any influence on my ability to taste, appreciate and share the varying degrees of paint thinner to those who can afford to buy it. In fact, there’s a lot of education that can happen from surfing one event to another, which is my main reason for attending these functions in the first place.

As the second week ensued, my energy went up, my confidence was peaking and Best Body Bootcamp really proved that it isn’t as hard as it first sounded. As Monday night rolled in, I was looking forward to lacing up my runners and rocking into the high school gym, dropping down and giving 20. The challenge of going into the second week was secondary to how proud I felt for getting through the first.

This Monday, there was no messing. The music went on and we were squatting and bending until my ass hurt like nothing I had ever known. Squatting Hell was one of my favorite fitness distractions, I got so focused on making it to the end of the set that I looked past the wobbly knees and the exhausted muscles to push myself to the top. It turned out, I got so distracted that I forgot that I about my bad knees.

we were squatting and bending until my ass hurt like nothing I had ever known

While the rest of the class finished the set with a jog around the gym, I virtually collapsed, ashamed and embarrassed. I could barely walk, my knees could give out at any moment and I was scared. This is the problem I have, I go to fitness classes and I feel that I need to keep up with everyone else. I conveniently forget that I’m physically incapable of that. My main goal with boot camp was to get fit at my own pace and not feel pressured to push myself further than is physically reasonable.