Cage fighting comes to Winnipeg.

Yesterday I went to a cage fighting event.

Cage Fighting Manitoba, Winnipeg’s newest MMA organization put on their first event, CFM 1, on Friday January 7 at the Winnipeg Convention Centre. Although I’ve been a fan of MMA for a few years now, it was my first time at a live event, so it was really interesting to see how it all goes down.

I attended the event with fellow MMA fan Dave Hollier, and we watched in shock as all nine fights ended by the second round! The night was nonstop submissions (2 guillotines, 2 triangles, and an arm bar) with a few TKO’s thrown in. This may have meant there were some mismatched battles, but it definitely made for exciting action!

The night began with a very strange match though, with Jessie Seberg falling down and verbally quitting after only 17 seconds and receiving four leg kicks from Alberta’s Daryle Pinter. Afterwards, everyone reacted very slowly: the fighters’ corners stayed out of the ring as the crowd softly booed in disappointment. Thankfully things picked up from there however…

1 of 4 leg kicks that ended the fight. Photo by JB Photography, taken from TopMMAnews.com

The crowd of over 500 was pretty relaxed until Winnipeg-based fighters made appearances, receiving such huge support from friends and fans that they seemed as recognizable as GSP. Lucky for these fans, four out of five Winnipeg fighters came out with the win. This included an impressive second round knockout by wild striker Gary Espinar with a hook that sent Saskatoon’s Micheal Glover’s mouthpiece flying. Also a notable hometown victory was Cory Houston’s TKO over Ontario’s Mike O’Neil, achieved after Houston took full mount position and rained down punches until the referee stepped in.

Espinar about to throw his knockout punch. Photo by JB Photography, taken from TopMMAnews.com

Click to see all the results.

I pswear it’s a pseudo-event.

Today I talk pseudo-events.

Long-time blog fans will know of my love for Conan O’Brien, and it turns out not only is he still king of late night comedy, he’s also king of publicity. To promote his new show on TBS, Conan and his staff did a ton of stunts, videos, Tweets, and more, including one event that I’ll highlight here: buying a blimp.

Conan was quick to remind viewers that he is the only talk-show host ever to have his own blimp, and he took every opportunity to use it to his advantage. By combining real life blimp action with extremely close social media coverage, Conan created more attention for floating vinyl than ever before. Conan sent the blimp to hover over baseball stadiums during the playoffs, and flew all around the states and Los Angeles where the show was set to be filmed. While this happened, he filmed commercials in the blimp both for rotation on TBS and YouTube, videos which collected over 800,000 hits on YouTube. Viewers could also track the blimp with a special Conan badge on Foursquare, in real-time on Google Maps, while his nearly 2 million Twitter followers received frequent Tweets from Conan about the blimp’s movements, and pictures were constantly made available on Flickr.

Whew! With all the social media coverage that Conan employed, he also generated a ton of buzz from media such as The New York Times, USA Today, and television news all over the country, making his return to television a widely celebrated and noticed event. 

Andrew’s been published in Esquire.

That’s right, this month I was published in Esquire.

Welcome back! Blow the dust off your keyboard and run your mouse through the light cycle on your washing machine- you finally have a reason to be on the Internet again! Now I know I took an extended break for Christmas, but I’m back for more mandatory blogging fun!

I’d like to start the New Year off with a bang: picking up where I left off last year, bragging about my own tiny accomplishments. This week, my new thing is probably setting a CreComm record by getting published in a giant magazine after only one semester of school. It’s this one, Esquire’s January 2011 issue.

In October, Esquire provided all kinds of rules for men, including this fashion rule that particularly caught my eye: “Rule No. 754: The skinny jeans only if you’re skinny.” Now this is by far the most leeway I’ve ever gotten from Esquire about my favourite pants, so naturally I sprung into action. (And yes, you can still spring anywhere while wearing skinny jeans.) So without further ado, here’s my piece:

I was also overjoyed to be a part of the visual breakdown regarding the subjects people wrote letters about. They usually have one insignificant topic with an equally insignificant percentage, and it’s an honour to be that percentage.

The question now is: have I peaked too young? I’ve heard of students leaving school early because they find great jobs, and I’m just wondering if there’s anywhere else I can go after this. Job offers please!

Although they don’t publish letters to the editor online, I guess you could still check out their site here. After all, it’s a pretty great magazine.

Be the next Steve Vogelsang.

Today I volunteered for Hockey Canada. 

Now as much as it pains me to admit this, I realize that this blog may not be the most helpful thing to my fellow students and the world abroad (yeah I see your 24 hits South Korea!). Although pictures of myself and complaints about shower temperatures may make for a bearable read, it might not further your intellect.

So in an effort to correct this, I’m going to give you one little heads up before I head into Christmas break to sleep my days away. I know every first year journalism student probably got a sheet about an opportunity to volunteer for Hockey Canada at the upcoming World Under-17 Hockey Challenge, but there are only a few names on the list so you could probably still get in. It sounds like a lot of work but a great opportunity: doing both written stories and video interviews after the games to be posted on Hockey Canada’s website.

So let me know if you need contact information to find out more, and hopefully we can both get in.

Find out more about the WU-17 here at Hockey Canada, see MTS' schedule for the event here, or buy tickets to the games here.

Sexy by Andrew Parker

Today I became I model for my own self-serving purposes.

People who have seen The Andrew Parker Show may remember me referencing my new fictional line of cologne coming out, Sexy by Andrew Parker. Although this was just something I blurted out during filming, when we got an assignment to design our own ads I immediately thought ‘Hey- here’s a chance to promote my hypothetical fragrance!’ So I assumed the role of Andrew Parker and took some pictures of myself.

Now maybe these ads will mean nothing to anyone besides the 20 people who saw that show, but finally Electronic Publishing class is working for me!

Here's my ads.

Finally, cougar-watching pays off.

Today I laughed watching Cougar Town.

I'm embarrassed to say I’ve seen every episode of this show ever made, but to be honest tonight was the first time I remember laughing. I’m not sure why I keep watching, maybe I feel like I owe it to Courtney Cox for all her work on Friends, or maybe I’m just way too optimistic hoping that something funny will happen.

While I have you, here are two things (of many) that have kept me from not laughing until now:

Number 1- Courtney Cox is not a cougar.

The last time Cox’s character did anything cougar-like was the pilot, and she changed her ways immediately after. Since about three episodes in, it’s been nothing but age-appropriate men and sitting around at home drinking wine. That’s false advertising! There’s no cougars on this show; it’s like us 23-year-olds don’t even have a chance.

Number 2- Courtney Cox’s hair never changes.

Come on Cox, even I change my hairstyle more often than this! It NEVER changes, it’s her going-out-hair, her real-estate-hair, her at-home-drinking-wine-hair, and that’s all she does. I haven’t seen that extreme part down the middle since I was 11, and it was in the mirror, and it wasn’t good. What makes you think it’s any better now? If someone doesn’t believe me that her hair looks like the girl version of an 11 year old boy in 1998, here’s proof:

If I grew it out and used body-enhancing conditioner, I’d have my own show by now!

Whether I like it or not, I’m doomed to keep watching this show. I’m committed but I can’t explain why. Congratulations Cougar Town, it only took you 33 episodes and Zach Braff.

Kerry Ryan, the Warrior Poet

Today I interviewed a writer.

Kerry Ryan is a Winnipeg poet who just released her second collection, Vs. Her work has also appeared in a number of literary journals, but this latest collection heads in a completely different direction than you might expect. It’s the story of her journey into the world of amateur boxing, as she trained and competed in a white-collar boxing match last year.

I attended Kerry’s book launch at McNally Robinson last week and was fascinated by this young woman who went out punching people in the face and came back to write beautiful poems about it. She was definitely someone I wanted to talk to more, but I thought it would be best to keep a safe distance from her right hook. So we sent each other some emails, and here’s how it all went down.

AP- Hey Mrs. Ryan. I really enjoyed your reading last night; the whole poet-boxer thing fascinates me. How do you decide what to write about?

KR- OK, first off- please call me Kerry. (Otherwise, I feel like you're talking to my mom. :) ).

I'm a pretty lazy writer, so I usually write about things that are close at hand: if it's winter, I write poems about being cold; if I'm traveling, I write about landscape; if I'm spending a lot of time at the boxing club, well, I end up writing about boxing.

AP- You said during your reading that competing in boxing was one of your accomplishments that you're most proud of. Is this what made it a subject important enough to devote an entire collection to?

KR- I didn't set out to write an entire collection about boxing. I started writing the poems as I was training, as a way to process mentally what I was learning in the ring, and also as a way to rationalize my decision to fight. I thought they might one day be a chapbook or a section of a collection. But the more poems I wrote, the more it seemed like a cohesive story and suddenly I had a full length manuscript.

AP- Writing poems while training… isn't that distracting? Do you mean these poems are coming together in your head as you're physically training? You didn't write anything during an actual fight did you? That just sounds dangerous.

KR- Sparring required total focus, so poems were the last thing on my mind when I was in the ring. I started working on the collection during the same time frame I was training for my fight and I came to see writing as part of the process. First, the training was completely consuming, mentally. I really couldn't think about anything else for a couple of months, so it seeped in to my writing life. But I also used the writing to try to get my body and brain on the same page. I've always learned best by writing a concept out in my own words. So, I approached learning to box in the same way.

Check out the rest of the interview with more of my hard-hitting questions by clicking on this post!