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Hello to all that still check this blog -

As you may have noticed, qatalyst is no longer publishing the magazine or working with any design clients. It's sad... i know... many contributing factors, none of them particularly blogworthy.

Also sad to report that after a couple months of thinking thinking thinking thinking i have decided not to renew the qatalsytmedia and qatalust websites. This also means that i no longer have access to qatalystmedia.com email addresses.

So, if you'd like to email me in regards to qatalyst or any other stuff, you can send it to hilary_abel@hotmail.com. Is that an invitation for copious amounts of evil spam, or what?

I am still thinking whether this blog will be used for some other purpose... but for the meantime, i think it will lie dormant...

signing off for now, hope everyone is well,
H.

President Elect Obama

the only way to watch a successful democratic process...

wine.
laptop.
boyfriend who agrees with your political views.
amazing. best nite ever.

A more detailed, less emotive post tomorrow morning. stay tuned.

At the Red Brick Cafe in Guelph

An Exhibition of Photographs by Dean Palmer

October 27.08 - November 23.08

Closing party Nov 22 7 - 8:30

Two friends...

play in the band Black Hat Brigade...
(all photos by Pete Nema)

they are lovely boys, and received a pretty sweet review by Mr. Pete Nema, for their recent show with Oh No Forest Fires CD Release.
(Thanks to Kevbot as well for the musical introduction)

You can read it here.

Now, i know that this show was over a week ago, and I am soooo behind the ball. But coming out of reclusion is a tricky and lengthy endeavour.

Anyways Magazine fans... there seems to be a speckle of hope on the horizon... and although there seems to be an announcement of a magazine closure every two days... soon there may be an actual Qatalyst Magazine Website up and running.

Many fingers remain crossed.

H.

Qatalyst for President

Did you know that both Obama and McCain have Stores on their websites?
They do.

pretty interesting stuff to,
like this diane von furstenberg bag on Obama's site. Alternatively,
if you wanted to support young children having access to handguns, and the destruction of multiculturalism, you could sport this stuff from McCain's site: Wow. When will Canadian Politics be this commercialized, i mean glamourous, i mean exciting.

Think Big... you gas guzzling...

Thank you to Glenn for tipping me off onto this amazing site:
betterplace.com
There are rumours that they will be rolling out another program (currently they are based in Israel and Denmark) in Canada... specifically, in a smaller area surrounding Toronto.

Pray it is KW.

H.

Save bitch.

Thanks To Ms.SCD who passed along this link to a bitch magazine item.

Sadly, bitch magazine is encountering money issues as an independent, reader funded magazine. So horrible.

If you have money, give them some.
Why you?
Because as my friend SV justified buying me lunch the other day, "My pile is bigger than yours". Words of wisdom she received from a wealthy relative.

Good Luck Bitch,
H.

In other News....

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.
Put down the devices people.

Panic Attack

So.... not sure who else has been reading the news lately. But jesus. this whole financial situation is looking bad.

I mean, not for me... i have no money, so the stock market crashing just means i'd have to liquidate my 5 things and live in some unnamed bus with 7 other people.... it could even be a nice break from this everyday shit... but for people like our parents - sheeesh... the rest of their lives rest on investments and savings and assets. It's fucking disturbing.

I'm not for protecting the uncritical thinkers of our population, but when MSN has an article like THIS on their mainpage... who knows what kind of panic common people are going to fly into? This article ran in The Wall Street Journal.

I guess I'm just of the thinking, that any potential crisis that would affect the majority of North America/the World is a time for some responsible journalism - not a chance to increase click-through rates and charge more for ads.

But that might be the reason I'm currently posting on a blog instead of printing a magazine.

Let's just all pray that this shit turns around until 2012.

Fired Up.

So, I was checking out this new News Aggregator that's been put out by Business Week Magazine... wow, how corporate. And I stumbled across THIS article, about my favourite of North American publications, GOOD magazine.
For those of you who think socially (in the make it better, not get popular sense) this mag is pretty much the non-denominational bible. It supports tons of Non-Profits, promotes advertising from mostly responsible companies, allows subscribers to select which charity they would like their subscription to support and is constantly seeking out news that is interesting, inspiring and unique. Holy, that's not a bad review, huh?

Anyways, this article slags the owner and founder of GOOD for being a rich kid, who's having a hard time keeping his vision alive... and has hired some industry expert to help improve revenue sustainability... I think that's a nice way of saying that he doesn't want to sink any more money into the company, although he will if he has to.

The article is interesting... and completely biased, but it's been on my mind all day. I guess my questions are:
If you are rich, do you have to be obsessed with money, and making more of it? Why does society brand you as a heartless, moralless, exploitative fuck if you have money? The guy's spending his trustfund on bringing underpublicizied news to the socially aware population of North America. Sheeeesh.

Anyone care to share their thoughts?
Or maybe this is only interesting to me, i don't know.

H.

FITM in the News

Qatalyst's friend and freelancer Chris DePaul made the news in Exclaim.
Check out this piece written by Jason Schneider about Waterloo's own "Found In the Margins". Congrats Chris ;)

A warm welcome

To livia fama.
the newest addition to qatalyst.

Please make her feel welcome :)

H.

Lock Out

So.... THIS is going on pretty much outside of our office.

It's a little weird... lots of honking and cheering, but it's for a good cause.

Maybe qatalyst should offer a pro-bono course on Picket Sign Design... I really feel like they could be using some better fonts.

H.

Food not Bombs

Not sure if anyone has been following this...
but I'll be at the council meeting tonite.

Basically, there's a group that's been feeding the homeless population of KW in front of city hall for many years.

All of a sudden, they received a cease and desist order from the city.

It's been suggested that they move their operation to a back alley of downtown.

Original Story HERE.

And new Article in today's Record HERE.