Much Love Monday : Technology and a Best Friend I’ve Never Met

Much Love Monday is a blogging feature organized by Anna at Much Love, the guidelines of which are that you post a photograph that includes a heart in it somewhere, and that you discuss something(s) you love.

My entry for this week features recent photos of my band, (with my husband Nick and our good friend Chops), taken last Wednesday.

My discussion on love involves my unabashed appreciation for being alive during these times where technology allows for all that it does. We each have our own wonderful and life-changing experiences which would simply not have been possible a mere 20 years ago, brought about by the existence of the internet. Here I will talk about those that have been most important to me.

They include the ability for an independent band like ours to be heard all over the world, something that would have been unheard of years ago. More importantly though, I am grateful for the ability to forge joyful and fulfilling relationships with people that I have never met in 'real' life.

I didn't set out in this entry to promote our music, however some background is necessary so you have an understanding of how it came to be that one of my very best friends is someone I've never met in real life, a woman who lives across an ocean away, who goes by the name of Brucie Lusch.

For years we have performed a weekly show, getting together in our studio and going live for an hour of joking around and playing music for people who log-in to listen to us. These shows have been sort of like live radio, where the audience hears what we do but can't actually see us. Visually we are represented by avatars, (within the platform called SecondLife), where their communication to us and with one another is via live chat using their keyboards.

However, we have significantly upped our game recently as, for the past 3 shows we have performed our audience has been able to actually see us do it, just like they were watching and hearing a live concert. This is a huge step forward, made possible by Nick's advanced skills at computer programming combined with his vast understanding of sound and technology in general. At this point, we are still in the testing phase and have not made these live shows public beyond our regular audience in SecondLife, however the plan is to ultimately move away from an avatar representation all together. Aside from offering a more fulfilling experience to our audience, this means that now stage setting and appearance matter, as opposed to the past where we could do our shows wearing shorts and a tank top, while our avatars were dressed to the nines!

This brings me to my important friendship, made across-the-line with a person I would otherwise never have had the chance to know. I don't exaggerate when I say that Brucie has heard our music hundreds of times, volunteering as she does to be our hostess for our on-line shows. In a nutshell, she greets people as they join our stream, making all listeners feel welcome and gives out URLs and information that allow people to know more about us. She has been invaluable to us as a band, as she does things that we just can't do while we're performing, and/or that are so much more meaningful when done by someone other than us, the musicians.

Invaluable to the band yes, however I am forever in awe and appreciation on a personal level, that she does all this for us at all and has done so for years. She is in no way obligated and says she just really likes being a part of what we are doing. This is a special friendship in deed!

There are many more people who I want to mention here also, who have been extremely supportive to us, including Krakov, Rykk, Marissa, Greg, Giovanni, Caliente, Azrai, JimR, Fibi, Gloria, Stilgar, Plastique, and the woman who gave us our first big break within the on-line music community, Zeeblebob Voss. By all means, you people belong in a discussion about love on the internet.

And come to think of it, I first met Nick on-line via an e-mail from the mutual friend Alison, who set us up on a blind date. She copied us both in on an e-mail saying "Louise meet Nick ... Nick meet Louise. My job here is done." lol, she's a funny one for sure!

Also these days, I am excited about the new friends I am meeting on-line through blogging. I've been at it for 8 months now and have met such wonderful people here so far. I look forward to continuing on this journey and further enjoying this new and different experience.

Now, that's a lot of on-line love talk! Thanks for reading. Perhaps you'd like to join in on Much Love Mondays. Click the button below to see what it's all about!
xo loulou

ps. I'm planning to do a post tomorrow to show you what I wore for last week's show, and how I styled my hair following a tutorial I found on a fellow blogger's site.

[Edit: Links to Much Love Monday have been removed because the site is no longer active.]

A Peek Inside a Private Club

My friend who is an artist, invited me for a drink at a private club that she is a member of, so we met there on Friday night. I knew about it's existence because I remember reading about it when it first opened. The story was that since the founders wanted their membership to be a mixture of well-to-do executive types, plus people from the artistic community who would add an element of interest and diversity, they had determined a pricing structure that allowed artists into the club for a cost that reflected their income. Otherwise many would not have been able to afford, or chosen not to pay, the membership fees. I'm not sure how this is administered nowadays, however I recall when it first opened that the artists they had selected to be in their club had been sent an invitation and there was quite a bit of joking in the media about who had been invited and who had not.

I have to say that private clubs are not really part of my personal experience, so when my friend mentioned that we should have a drink there I was curious to see what it was like, so I took her up on the offer. I had walked by it many times before, situated as it is in my neighbourhood, on the top floor of a renovated old brick building. From the street you get a glimpse of an intriguing looking outdoor patio up there.

It turned out to be quite nice, with an assortment of areas to sit in, good music on the sound system and friendly staff. We took a little tour to look around, though we couldn't go to one floor because there was a private function being held there, and the outdoor patio was closed for the winter. I took these photos which are a bit dark because I didn't want to use flash, as to not bother the other people there, and also not to look like I was a keener-weiner, all wanting to take pictures of everything! (which actually, I was a little bit).

It was funny and as though there had been a memo, that we both dressed in black and red!

Cat Love

Food Friday: Salad with Beets, Blueberries and Cheese Hearts

Don't you just love fruit in salads? There's something so delicious about the mixing of the sweet flavours with a vinaigrette and other salad ingredients. The cheese in this one adds flavour (and protein) and because I was making this around Valentine's Day, I cut the cheese into heart shapes (see how in photograph below). There are also some pickled beets in this salad, that we made from scratch (method here) because we like to make things, but any pickled beets would be good.

DIY : Crochet Heart Necklace

Hello! I had seen these crocheted hearts pictured quite a few times in the past week, and decided to make some myself, by following the excellent directions given at 'Little Birdie Secrets', found here Crochet Hearts