(vincenzo ravina's words and pictures)

When I was recently interviewed by Vincenzo Ravina I had no idea what a fun piece he was writing for The Coast. I also had no idea what a great response I would receive from the article. Quite a few folks in Canada and in Texas have reached out to express their support. The good news - I am not alone! Apparently there is a small army of people in Texas who want to be able to buy Canadian beer here with the ease. Thanks to Vincenzo, The Coast and everyone else who supports the goal.

This article was a lot of fun to write! I wrote it for The Coast’s annual beer issue. You can read it HERE.

I also wrote the Rockbottom Brewery portion of THIS article (at the bottom).

New OpenFile story: Halifax animation sees a renaissance

The words ‘animation industry’ have been at the top of my ‘article ideas’ list for several years (possibly since my first year of J-School), and just recently, I finally got the opportunity to write about it. My article is a short history of the Halifax animation industry, through the thick and the thin, right up to the present.

CHECK OUT THE ARTICLE!

Some things that didn’t make it into the article:

- Ron Doucet has a puppet that looks like him and it’s awesome. He designs the puppets on paper, then pays puppet-making people to make them in real-life puppet form. One of these puppet-making people worked on Sesame Street, so… you know, those are some legit puppets there.

- Weird Al, in an About.com interview, said about Copernicus: “If I was surprised at anything, it was at how good the actual animation is. We sent the animatic and the original cels to Copernicus Studios in Halifax, and they did the video in flash animation. I’m not a huge fan of flash animation in general, but this was by far the best flash that John or I had ever seen - they really blew us away.”

- I interviewed Faith Erin Hicks a couple of years ago, and she talked to me a bit about the slow demise of the animation industry in Halifax. She used to work at Collideascope and watched the contracts trickle away to nothing, and has since become a successful graphic novelist. I didn’t know anything about it at the time, so my article ideas file listed the animation idea as something like ‘the animation industry in Halifax and how great it’s doing.’ I’m glad the industry came back around so I could write that kind of story. Because the animation industry’s doing great again!

Cutting science at Department of Fisheries and Oceans

New OpenFile story! Read up.

Environment Canada’s secret quiet little budget cuts

My first story for OpenFile Halifax is about Environment Canada’s much-criticized budget cuts. EC is trying to keep things quiet, so they’re not letting their scientists talk, and they’re hardly talking, themselves.

I can’t tell you how many times I heard “The environment remains a priority for the Government of Canada, even in times of fiscal restraint.” That quote could be attributed to Mark Johnson, Environment Canada spokesperson, or Peter Kent, Environment Minister, or even Michelle Rempel, parliamentary secretary to the environment minster. Although Kent says the environment remains a KEY priority, while Rempel says the environment is a STRONG priority, and to Johnson it’s just a priority. Dissent in the ranks.

Anyway, check out the story HERE and check out the other stories (which are great!) HERE.

Also: OpenFile is community-powered news. So if you have a question about something in your neighbourhood, or think there’s an issue that’s underrepresented in the news, open a file.

Also also: If you have a question about a story, post a comment. Part of the job, after the story is posted, is answering comments.

Loophole lightening wallets

Cash Stores charging extra to dole out loan in prepaid MasterCard form

By VINCENZO RAVINA Special to the Herald

Sat. Apr 23, 2011 - The Chronicle Herald

A legal loophole may be allowing Cash Stores to charge more for a payday loan than the province’s maximum fee.

Walk into a Cash Store location for fast cash and you’ll find yourself faced with a choice: cheque or prepaid credit card. If the average borrower chooses a cheque, he or she will wait five to seven business days for the cheque to clear.

To get cash right away, the borrower will have to pick the prepaid MasterCard option and pay an extra $45 for it.

Paper money in your hands is not an option at the Cash Store.

The Chronicle Herald commissioned me to check out the Cash Store after a company insider indicated there was a plan afoot to get around new payday loan rates by tacking on extra fees — an accusation that Cash Store Financial’s chairman and CEO, Gordon Reykdal of Edmonton, adamantly denied.

Of the extra fees, the insider had said: “It’s beyond greed. These are poor people going in here. We’re serving poor people every day.”

Evany Rosen Profile

I wrote the cover story for the newest issue of Tidings, the King’s alumni magazine. It’s a profile of Picnicface’s Evany Rosen. Check it out!

Here’s the whole issue.

CURIO CABINET - ADVENTURES IN PAPER-ROUTING

When I was a kid, I read a local indie mini-comic called Adventures in Paper-Routing. I had all the issues (all five of them) and I even met the authors at the Word On The Street literary festival.

There was supposed to be a sixth issue, and I checked in to Strange Adventures, a comic book shop, every few months. The sixth issue never came.

I always wondered what happened to that sixth issue and what happened to the authors. For my last Curio Cabinet column, I tracked down Sean Jordan and Alex Kennedy and asked them.

Here’s the article:

vinceweb

While still in junior high and high school, paperboys Sean Jordan and Alex Kennedy wrote and drew one of the more successful mini-comics to come out of Halifax. The last issue came out more than ten years ago, but it’s never fully gone away.

It was called Adventures in Paper-Routing, and Jordan says newspaper delivery was adventurous. From “shaking down adults for money” to getting yelled at for being two minutes late, they had plenty to draw from for their comic.

THE CURIO CABINET - 911 OPERATORS

I’ve had to call 911 exactly twice in my life. The first time, it was because I witnessed my father’s car being stolen. The second time, I was calling about a fight across the street.

What struck me about my second time calling 911 was not that the operator sounded so calm when he said, “911, what is your emergency?” but that he sounded so bored. He sounded the way I sounded when I picked up the phone at the video store where I used to work.

So I started wondering what it was like to be a 911 operator. And I wondered for a few years.

Then this Curio Cabinet column gave me an excuse to find out. After a few weeks of wrangling, I managed to work my way into the 911 call centre in Dartmouth.

THE CURIO CABINET - DENTAL HYGIENE

For my third Curio Cabinet column, I decided to talk to a dental hygienist about her job, common dental hygiene mistakes and what exactly that damned Pulsar toothbrush does.

Here it is:

Dana Macarone says the first patient she ever saw had a condition called “white hairy tongue.”

What’s that?

“Exactly like it sounds. It’s a white, furry coating on the tongue.”

Oh.

Macarone is a dental hygienist, and she says after dealing with white hairy tongue, she felt she could deal with anything.

“When people come in with their mouth full of disgusting plaque and food debris, it’s more (than) just annoying. Like, ‘Brush your teeth, dude.’ I’m not really grossed out by it, it’s just annoying. I can handle a mouth full of blood, no problem.”

THE CURIO CABINET - GIRAFFES

For my second Curio Cabinet column, I spoke to Mona Keith, the senior keeper in the giraffe section at the Calgary Zoo. The interview went for an hour. It was good times!

My column sets out to prove that giraffes are awesome.

Here it is:

What sound does a giraffe make?

Do you have any idea?

Mona Keith has been taking care of giraffes at the Calgary Zoo for almost 20 years, and in that time, she says she’s only heard a giraffe make a sound maybe half a dozen times.

THE CURIO CABINET - GHOSTS

I’m in the newspaper workshop in my final year at the University of King’s College. We put together a weekly newspaper called the Halifax Commoner. I’ve just started writing a curiosity column called the Curio Cabinet. Basically, I just write about things I’m personally curious about.

For my first column, I met with Rob Fader, who is a ghost researcher here in Halifax. We talked at a coffee shop for an hour and fifteen minutes. Then, we walked to the nearby graveyard and took some pictures out front. Good times! Here’s the column:

Ghost hunter finds paranormal inactivity

Vincenzo Ravina

The custom license plate on Rob Fader’s car says GHOSTS.

By day, Fader is a concierge at the Prince George Hotel. But when he’s off the clock, he’s spending nights in potentially haunted buildings with cameras and audio recorders.

Fader founded the Halifax-based ghost research group, Grim Undertakings, eight years ago. Investigating hauntings is “sort of nerdy and boring,” he admits.

“Since we don’t bust ghosts or cleanse houses or anything like that, we basically just sit and wait and try to document anything that would happen .… The majority of the time, nothing happens. You spend hours going through tapes, getting nothing.”

Mom gets to bottom of diaper debate

By VINCENZO RAVINA
Mon. Jan 4, 2010 - The Chronicle Herald

When her four kids are sleeping, she’s a one-woman assembly line. She’s tracing patterns, applying snaps and sewing. She’s making diapers.

Kristen Bassett runs her cloth diaper business, Banana Bottoms, out of her home in Clayton Park. She uses organic bamboo fabrics and designs the diapers herself. One diaper takes her about an hour from start to finish.

Her cloth diapers aren’t ones you have to fold and pin. These have snaps and elastic waists.

CHICKENBURGER RESTAURANT HALTS PLANS FOR YOUTH CENTRE

Drop-in centre loses its spot
Chickenburger owner had donated Queen Street building, but now plans restaurant for site
By VINCENZO RAVINA
Thu. Dec 17, 2009 - The Chronicle Herald

Plans for the Spot, a Halifax drop-in centre for young people, have been halted by the announcement of a new Chickenburger restaurant on Queen Street.

The Spot was supposed to be on that spot.

Mickey MacDonald, owner of the Chickenburger restaurant in Bedford, donated a Queen Street building over two years ago for the Spot.

That same location is where Mr. MacDonald announced Wednesday he is building a new Chickenburger restaurant.

Mike McGuire, who helped plan for the Spot for over a year, said the Chickenburger announcement Wednesday came as a shock to him and to Connections Halifax, the organization developing the centre.

“I called this morning a few friends (at Connections Halifax) to see if they knew anything and they hadn’t heard anything,” Mr. McGuire said Wednesday.

Searchers agonizing they didn’t get to boy in time

Crews had looked in same spot where James was found
By TERA CAMUS Cape Breton Bureau and VINCENZO RAVINA
Wed. Dec 9, 2009

Cape Breton Search and Rescue workers never stopped looking for James Delorey on the weekend, even as other volunteers went home to their warm beds.

Yet the group’s leader, Paul Vienneau, said searchers are agonizing over the fear that they didn’t do enough, soon enough, to find the boy.

“The only way to explain it is we’re on a roller-coaster ride at the moment,” Mr. Vienneau said Tuesday. “From the highest of highs, to being so ecstatic yesterday, to the lowest of the low when we got the news this morning (that James had died), and all of us feel the same way. We’re all very emotional about this.”

He said searchers had been at the exact spot where the seven-year-old was eventually found, about 1.5 kilometres behind his South Bar home near Kilkenny Lake, about 13 hours earlier. He said he is sure the boy wasn’t in the thick brush there at that time.

Mr. Vienneau said the hero of the story is the family dog Chance, who stayed with the autistic boy from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning before returning home.

“The little fella didn’t like that dog,” Mr. Vienneau said. “The dog loved the little fella, and they were only together six months, but dogs know if there’s a handicap there and he took care of him. The dog followed that boy, the boy wouldn’t follow that dog. The dog wouldn’t leave him alone.”

Before searchers could retrace the dog’s fresh tracks to try to find James, a Halifax Regional Search and Rescue team that had arrived Monday morning to relieve Cape Breton crews stumbled upon him under brush and snow by Kilkenny Lake. He was unconscious but still alive.

Blair Doyle, leader of the Halifax team, said the stormy weather hindered searchers.

“We were 100 metres away with our whistles, actually approaching the find site, and the sound wouldn’t go through the woods,” he said.

Mr. Doyle said the boy was found lightly covered in snow and in the fetal position. There was a depression in the snow next to him where the dog had been. Mr. Doyle said the dog was too small to have provided much warmth.

The woods were so thick that the teams had to cut a hole through the trees to extract James. Mr. Doyle said that’s part of the reason why it took two hours to get the boy out of the woods.

“We always hope for faster. Nothing’s ever soon enough,” he said. “We work hard and we have to know that we did the best job we could, and the results are the results.”

Still, his Cape Breton counterpart, Mr. Vienneau, said he can’t help but go over details of the search in his head.

“We did our job but I just wish we’d done it a lot sooner,” Mr. Vienneau said, his voice breaking. “You wouldn’t believe what’s going through our minds right now, but everything was done the way it was supposed to be done.

“Unfortunately it turned out this way.”