It's been a while...

I have turned into a horrible blogger. I blame my lack of home computer/laptop. I have very good intentions of getting a new one however I am still struggling with the Mac/PC debate. Mac has way more votes from my friends/family however still on the PC side is the ~$1000 savings and the fact that I have never used a Mac and suck with technology (you will notice that my little blog is still blogspot and never really changes...)

Anywhoooo...

I was sent a very nice email by someone asking if I would plug their event and still high on the free swag from when IKEA thought that I was popular enough to invite to their media event, I thought I should do my blogger duty of promoting Winnipeg things, lest I never be on another invite list.

The Dance Downtown event also seems to be free and we all know I'm a touch cheap frugal. So this Sunday if you're looking for something to do, why not check it out?

Hoping to blog more soon,
Winnipeg Girl

ENOUGH!!!!!!

Okay, that's it, I'm outing the restaurant from my post the other day. Why, because since that post, I have received FOUR FIVE* (*edit) MORE EMAILS (with these subject lines):

(Time Sensitive) Did You SEE This Yet?‏

 I Need Your Help (email about different promotion)

 Broken Link fixed! Get Your BOGO card Now‏

 Only 2 Days Left....‏

Fude, I love your food (and your cocktails) but you send an absurd amount of emails. I'm guessing you don't end up having the response you anticipate for many of your promotions? Maybe you just need to try something new (the $49 vip card really just being a ramped up version of other promos you run).

******

You have to be kidding me. I wrote this post this morning but didn't publish it.

I literally JUST got another email from them!

This was the subject:

Are You as Frustrated as I am About....‏

Yes. Yes I am frustrated.

For the love of all things good in this world, please learn how to format your emails, send them out once and presume that people got them (this was the second email referencing how their links didn't work and they were really sorry, here try again). I think the links probably did work but they wanted an excuse to send out the email again, but I didn't click the links, so maybe this is legit, but how unprofessional - they are meant to be a finer dining restaurant and this just seems so Mickey Mouse.

How much is too much?

I am one of "those" people. I like Groupons and the like - what Winnipegger isn't out for a good deal? It does get me to try new places (helllllo Modern Taco! Yummy!) and saves me some dough at the same time. But how much promotion is too much?

One of my favourite restaurants here in the city (which shall remain nameless) first got me in the door years ago because of the amazing things I heard about their food. In fact I dare say, it became my favourite restaurant. Sadly though, it was out of my budget save but special splurges. Then a great thing happened! They had a promotion - one of those "sell us your soul (ok, provide email address) and we will send you special invites and deals sorts of things. Great! Now I can perhaps afford to go there a little more often I thought.

The problem has become that now, after years of "free" appetizer emails, countless BOGHO (seriously, HALF off, c'mon now) and signing up for their THIRD v.i.p. program (what ever happened to my "points" from the first two anyway? Why can't they ever find me in the computer?) it no longer seems all that special. Add to that that I swear their prices have crept up more than inflation to help cover all these "free" things.

I just got yet another email today encouraging me to buy their extra special v.i.p card for $49 - it would allow me all sorts of bonuses up to $1400 value it proclaimed! The problem is, to me, they have already devalued their product long ago and the idea of paying full price there seems about as ridiculous as buying a full price mattress at The Brick or Leon's - just wait a minute and they will be on "sale". Of course almost all of these deals come with some sort of fine print that at least in part limits how you can use them. This same restaurant also did various Groupon-y type things offering two appetizers for $15 - up to $32 value! (or something like that) of course, if you didn't pick the most expensive one and get two of them the value was much less; this isn't wrong of course, this sort of promotion happens a lot, it's just a little misleading.

With all these constant basically fake promotions I am now actually incredibly hesitant to even make plans to go there - they seem to me like an establishment on the verge of closing down and doing whatever they can to get people in the door, or in the case of buying this $49 card - trying to raise some $$.  I think perhaps what adds to my disappointment is that the promotional emails are often poorly formatted/designed and that I get cheezy "in case you missed out on the first email we sent" follow up emails. It's just turned into noise.

Am I wrong here? Is there no such thing as too much promotion? Are they really rewarding loyalty or just begging for people to come in?

I can't help it

Yup, I'm feeling a little under appreciated today, clearly the first time ever that a blogger has felt this way. Last Friday, I wrote a blog post about some of the things I've seen lately here in the North End. Part of what finally brought me out of my blogging drought was spotting signs around Burrows and Charles that had been put up by a local resident clearly trying to deter johns from looking for "dates" near his or her house. I knew this was a good North End piece of news to bring to my readership masses (it's my blog, I can define masses however I want!)
Apparently I had no idea how juicy this story really was.

Yesterday at least 4 local media outlets ran with their version of the story (CBC, CTV, Sun, Freep). Now, I know that reporters from all 4 of these outlets read my blog because over the years I have been writing I have been contacted by most of them and am also followed on twitter by their staff. To be fair, they did track down the creator of those signs and I did not - but y'know THEY'RE PAID TO ADD THAT KIND OF DEPTH TO A STORY. And besides other than adding his name they didn't really add much more than my post (*at first, they did seem to expand on their stories later in the day) - I on the other hand provided my readers with a first hand account of hugging a street worker and being approached by johns.

Now, I'm not a total idiot, I know they aren't going to mention in their story how they came to be writing about it, but an email or a DM on Twitter to say, "hey, we're going to look into what the deal is with those signs, thanks for the heads up" would have been nice. As a positive side note, since although my readership is international, it doesn't cast quite as wide of a net as those 4 big players so at least the topic is getting more attention.

As a thank you for providing the topic I ask of the traditional media (especially you CBC) to go back and read my posts about neighbourhood boundaries, since now I know for sure you read the blog.

As seen around the North End...

Okay, I've apparently gone a month without posting and I have a million ideas for posts in my head (like every other blogger) but my computer at home bit the dust and the idea of trying to post on my ipad doesn't really appeal.

So first up...
SOFA KING many broken windows! Yes. I took this picture a long time ago. It still looks the same though.

Why SOFA KING many broken windows?

What font would you call that?

 I'm not sure if I should find this sign from the Robin's Donuts at Selkirk and Salter charming or depressing in its simplicity. To be fair, they did eventually get a proper one made - when I went to take a photo of it however it was gone. I made the investigate effort of going inside and asking about it. I'm told it's a winter only service. My sources tell me that someone is trying to put a Timmies in the old Riedigers spot so with no drive-thru I wonder if this is their answer to keeping one step ahead of the game?

Looking for h00kers in the North End? Be prepared to get famous!

...and lastly, what I saw today that made me write a post without further delay. These lovely signs can be found at Burrows and Charles. Good on whoever did this! Living on a corner not far from here I also see my fair share of prostitutes and have also been approached myself by johns. It is basically one of the reasons I feel that prostitution needs to be legalized - let people have one spot to go for that sort of thing so that there is no mistaking women (and even worse, girls) out walking near their homes. And yes, I'm well aware that it wouldn't stop it entirely and that obviously that wouldn't address the child prostitution issue etc. etc. but I think it would be a start.

I will try and get around to posting more often! Have a great summer weekend folks :)

How about a REAL change to the policy?

So Sammy is trying to make it look like he wants to do something about the arson problem in this city. That's cute. I say trying because although part of the problem is that there is only pickup once a week, it is certainly not the whole problem, or even the biggest.

According to this article in the Metro residents will still have to report the garbage under this "new" system. See, that's the biggest part of the problem - it's purely a complaint driven system.Call it a hunch, but I don't think the people doing the dumping are going to call it in, and if they happen to live in a cluster of other like minded people then it could take quite a while before it gets called in. The problem as well is these piles grow quickly once they get established. What starts out as a mattress and a chair quickly turns into giant piles.

 Now, most of the North/West End is not filled with people who don't care about their community, quite the opposite in fact. There is always talk from suburbanites who don't quite "get it" that it's not a simple matter of charging the house where the garbage is. Often, garbage ends up behind neat and tidy houses with caring owners, that's why it's called DUMPING. Is it really fair to charge the homeowner when they didn't do it? By that logic, suburbanites beware, there will no longer be such a thing as a hit and run or vandalism claim for your car - I mean, honestly, you shouldn't have had your car parked where someone could harm it.

So, for any of my readers who aren't lucky enough to know the ins and outs of the system, let me break it down for you.

1. Email 311 (having a nice tidy paper trail makes it easier to hold them accountable later with times/dates)
2. Wait up to 48 hours for a response. Hope no one lights the mattress someone put up against your fence/garage on fire
3. Get email back from 311 asking you to clarify if it's actually in the lane or on private property.

Thank you for contacting Winnipeg 311.  Due to a new process set up by the City we would need you to clarify if the items included are in the lane or on private property before we would be able to a request to have these items removed.

Private property includes:

1) The 1 to 1.5 foot section of property adjacent to the lane behind or beside a person's fence or garage is considered their property and not part of the lane.

2) If the items are on the person's driveway (or part on their driveway, part on the lane)

3) If the items are in the yard.

4) If the items are beside a garbage bin as The City of Winnipeg no longer owns any bins and these are all considered private property.

Once we have this information we can forward these issues to the correct department.

1. Get frustrated because blogger started the count again at one even though this is number four and you can't figure out how to change it.
2. Email back 311 clarify that it's not on private property (you must say this even if it's leaning on your fence, which by their definition IS private property - otherwise your complaint ends there and you still have the problem).
3. Wait up to 48 hours for a response. Hope that the couch that has joined the mattress also doesn't get set on fire.
4. Hurray! A response. Oh crap, it says that it will be investigated within 3 business days. It's now Friday. And it's cheque day*. Cross your fingers and toes that the mattress, couch, and their new friend, Mr. entertainment unit don't get lit on fire over the weekend.
5. Mythical inspector comes by on Wednesday, verifies that it's abandoned, and that you don't secretly store your extra furniture in the lane.
6. Oh crap, if today is Wednesday that means by the time he puts in his request for the pick up it is too late to be 48 hours from the next pick up, which at least here in a lot of the North End is Friday. So it gets scheduled for the next Friday.
7. The inspector then drives by all of the other garbage in the lane and doesn't schedule it for pick up because it hasn't been reported. Even though they see all of it and could add it to the pick up sheet. It's just not how it works people, someone has to call that in or it's invisible to inspectors. That's my favourite step.
8. It's next Friday! Yay! Wait, why didn't it get picked up? Oh, Emterra sucks doesn't have enough trucks/their truck is broken/who the hell knows...
9. Seriously start praying, even though you're not religious, that the mattress, couch, loveseat, entertainment unit, bags of dirty diapers, chair and broken kitchen table don't get lit on fire.
10. Sometime Saturday it hopefully all gets picked up. It might not though because the original ticket didn't list all of those items.

I bet you think I'm exaggerating. I wish I was.

So, sure, adding another pick up day will help a little, but if they want real change this is what needs to happen:

1. No more of this complaint driven b.s. - if they are serious about wanting to prevent arson they need to just send trucks up and down the lanes picking up stuff
2. If that can't happen because of some b.s. clause in the contract that was cooked up, then the by-law inspectors who spend all of their time driving to specific addresses to write down only the problems at that address need to be dispatched to just drive around generating the request for pick up tickets. Then that garbage MUST be picked up within 24 hours and ideally must never be out over the weekend (when crime really does seem to spike).

Saying that an extra pick up day will be added is merely putting a band-aid on something that needs stitches. As well, if the by-law folk were actively spending time looking for the garbage they might also be more likely to catch people in the act. I won't even bother to get into how ridiculous the process of getting people fined for that is - lets just say hopefully you have a smartphone set permanently on video and you get close enough to videotape clear pictures of people/license plates/and the garbage they dump - all without getting your face bashed in.

*Cheque day for those who are fortunate enough not to experience it, is the day when various government cheques come out (welfare, child tax, etc) and some (and I'm certainly not saying ALL, because lots of people have just fallen on hard times but are good people) of those recipients choose to spend that money on drugs/alcohol instead of using it for its intended purpose. This means that people who are clearly a bad judge of things are out and about making bad decisions because they are heavily under the influence. It's sort of like how even some people with jobs who get their paycheck on a Friday and blow it all by Sunday morning and spend the next two weeks bumming cash and smokes from you; except that instead of it being your one friend with bad judgement, it's him, all of his friends and some of their friends and they are more predisposed to lighting things on fire and stabbing each other. It's really fun, you should come see sometime. <--- i="">sarcasm font required.

Winnipeg is the smallest big city on Earth

I know, the title of this post isn't exactly news to anyone, but I just had another one of those extremely crazy moments. Now, this one doesn't involve me stalking houses on the MLS (that's a first!) but it is pretty wild anyway. For more of my weird small world stories go back to this post (it also links to another) and this one.

Okay, so when I'm not busy planting flowers in my boulevard for hooligans to destroy and buying arborite tables, god how I love arborite tables, I hold down a job, well, two actually, but that's not the point here. So one of the things I do at my job is I help people find programs that might be able to help them fix up their houses. Now some of the programs I know about are city-wide, however, I specifically work with residents in the North End.

So today, I popped out for lunch and came back to a voicemail. She was good enough to leave her address as I request of people (makes it much easier to know what info to call them back with) which happened to be in Wolseley. Which more specifically happened to be in my BFF-since-I-was-6-years-old's old house!
Seriously, what on earth are the odds of this? Now, I tried calling her back, but no luck reaching her so far; I am absolutely desperate to know how she got my number (since I work with a North End organization). Did one of my business cards get wedged in a baseboard? To give a little extra perspective, I get maybe 3-4 calls a year tops from people who live outside the North End. Mind blown.

*Update: she got my number from a friend who does live in the North End, but it's still crazy*

Another quick what are the odds sort of story. There is a house on Home St., near Sargent that was once occupied by a girl I worked with at Grapes, I used to drive her home sometimes. Then one day in the early days of facebook I joined a group that talked about home renovations and things and they organized a house tour of some houses in the West End. That house was part of it (then owned by different people). Fast forward another year or two. Since I stalk the MLS, I noticed it come up for sale, and then when I noticed a friend congratulating another friend on the house purchase on Home St., I felt compelled to check to see which one. Yup. Same house. So I now know 3 people that have owned the same house, in a neighbourhood that I am not a part of, and those 3 people are not remotely connected to one another in any other way.

Do these sorts of things happen to you? We are a city of about 750,000 - it just seems insane to me to have things like this happen this often.