Tag: Twitter

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Taste of Edmonton deliciously back in full force

the view of booths at Taste of Edmonton 2022

The excitement of opening night! Taste of Edmonton is back on, and I had the chance to try it out with friends this week.

To attend an event that features 52 restaurants, food trucks, and pages of food and drink options it is important to start off hungry and ready with food tickets. So that is where we began.

See the full story here in glorious tweet form:

Overwhelmed with choices, it’s me vs the menu

Planning ahead for success

I thought I was prepared. I had searched the menu ahead of time, bought a sheet of tickets at pre-sale prices, and with 3 other friends to share items we should be able to taste almost everything, right? But, it quickly became apparent that sharing was not on the agenda for my friends. 

And even though I had a few items in mind to try, it was so hard to resist the temptation of the moment. Seeing people enjoying fantastic plates piled high, with things I hadn’t even considered, now I wanted them all. Even the giant slices of chocolate-covered cheesecake looked so good – a past favourite of mine but now a forbidden food for me. But I knew I would only end up like Meg Ryan on French Kiss if I gave in to temptation.

The Festival runs from 11 am to 11 pm each day until July 31st, and we were there right at dinner time. The lineups were starting to grow. It was time to make the critical choice and spend those tickets! I selected my first items from Tokyo Noodle Shop. My friends chose donair poutine and we ate standing up to keep our eyes peeled for our next snack stop.

The momentum built from there: bannock burger, bubble tea, Lemon Heaven, sesame beef, maple buffalo chicken and waffles…and more. Just check out this menu, it feels endless. There was still so much to try, but we were running low on tickets. Was it time to go home and call it a night? Or could we muster more appetite and splurge on a second (or third) course?

The Right Choice

Let’s be honest, we didn’t want to leave and the night was young. So, of course, we settled into some comfy seats and made a new plan of attack for how many tickets to get and what we still needed to try. It was the right decision, the live music was on and the evening was perfect. 

We did another round of our favourite booths and a few we had missed earlier. My friend got the lightbulb drink from I Love Bubble Tea. Important Public Service Announcement – don’t just throw it out when you’re done! There are lights and a battery inside and you can light up your drink using the button on the bottom even while it is full and then take it home for a few more hours of battery time, and to reuse it on your patio for drinks at home. 

I didn’t see anyone with theirs lit up – so I’m not sure if that is common knowledge even though there was a similar light bulb drink a few years ago in Edmonton at Miss Saigon.

Photo credit: https://www.narcity.com/edmonton/you-can-get-hipster-af-bubble-tea-in-a-lightbulb-in-edmonton-and-heres-where

My own finale to the evening was my Holy Grail of food festivals – a delicious 2-scoop vegan sorbet from Little Bear Gelato. Served in a cone and #zerowaste. So delicious, and the perfect thing to eat while sitting back and listening to the music and watching the crowds.

Yes, we will definitely be back. Thanks Taste of Edmonton!

What did I miss?

My friends came by bike, and there was lots of space to get around. Even without using a rack, we had no issues keeping them near our seating whether we were at the picnic benches or closer to the stage.

Afterward, I learned that if you are parking downtown, Edmonton City Centre has a special parking rate for attendees of only $3 after 5 pm on weekdays and all day on weekends during Taste of Edmonton (east parkade only  – enter on 102A ave between 100 and 101 St).

If you have a festival favorite, please let me know! I definitely plan to go back next week.

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The Rise and Fall of a Younger Brother

Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the 6+ warning on the Nerf Super Soaker box, or maybe I should have just let the flowers enjoy their water. But we can’t live in the what ifs, so I’m here to share the story of what I thought was going to be a #momwin.

Thinking it was a great idea, I recently purchased some Super Soakers for my kids to enjoy while our summer actually feels like summer. However, what quickly transpired was far from my expectations. There was no epic water battle, just the rise and fall of a younger brother who thought he was invincible.

https://twitter.com/momwho_/status/1550495372933357570

My real-time Twitter thread uses storytelling techniques and principals in a number of ways. It holds all the elements of a story:

  1. Setting (the sunny backyard)
  2. Characters (3-year-old and 5-year-old brother/sister duo)
  3. Plot (Mom bought fun new super soakers for core summer memories)
  4. Conflict (in its truest form: sibling conflict)
  5. Arc (the rise and fall of a not-so-invincible younger brother)

Using the 8-point story arc as a reference, the Twitter thread’s stasis begins in the backyard. The super soakers are full and the kids are calmly watering the flowers. They have chosen their course of action and it’s peaceful, useful.

Then Mom steps in and triggers a change. The idea of chasing each other around the yard with cold water as ammunition excites both children, but only one remembers the one and only rule: if you spray your brother/sister, they can get you back.

The 3-year-old embarks on his life-long quest to take down his older sister. He pulls the trigger and soaks her back. He has won, he’s victorious, and he’s on top of the world.

The 5-year-old is surprised by her suddenly cold back and she makes the critical choice to challenge her brother. She begins to chase him around the backyard, anticipation is growing, the smile appears on her face, the dread on his.

The climax is reached as she narrows her sights on her younger adversary. Will she be successful and soak her brother with cold water? Will the water fight continue?

We come to the Twitter thread’s reversal when the 5-year-old makes contact with her target. Due to her critical choice and the actions taken during the climax, she has sprayed her brother with cold water and he is now on the ground. He sadly accepts defeat and retreats into typical 3-year-old ways.

The resolution of the story happens when the children agree to take a break and go back to watering flowers. Peace is restored and they return to a new, albeit somewhat scarred, stasis.

In addition to these storytelling principals, the Twitter thread includes images and video to engage the audience. In his article, How to use storytelling to craft better tweets, Nick Reese says that “Tweets with video [attract] 10x more engagement than Tweets without video”.

To keep the audience coming back for more, and to keep the story at the top of the feed, the Tweets are published separately, with the second Tweet coming an hour after the initial post was shared.

This Twitter thread is intended for everyone, however parents, guardians, and caregivers will be able to connect to the story the most. Its colourfulness offers an all-too-relatable story in a funny and entertaining way.

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Let me tell you the story behind this photo

Horses on a ridge at sunset. Photo by Olivia Rutt

I’ve been a professional photographer for over a decade now and I’ve taken thousands of photos over that time. However, I have a handful of photos that stick out in my mind. These are photos, that even years later I still remember the circumstances that led up to the moment that is photographed.

Continue reading “Let me tell you the story behind this photo”
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Bob’s Burgers Live-Tweet

For my live-tweet, I chose the latest episode of Bob’s Burgers recently added on Disney+. As I said in my thread, it’s a show my family has watched since the pandemic lockdowns last year. I opened up with a casual call to read along to grab reader interest, establish the tone of my writing, and inform people what my thread would be about. I also included a thematically appropriate gif at the end for additional visual appeal.

It was challenging trying to actively use storytelling techniques during a live-tweet. It was important to provide active commentary that wasn’t just summarizing what was on the screen but also a story of how my family watches the show together. Ideally, during a live-tweet of a show or film, others are following along. At the same time, a live-tweet thread should provide enough engagement that a reader would want to follow along even without being able to watch.

To better achieve this, I tried to follow some of the storytelling principles we’ve learned to encourage engagement and the advice found in the articles by Gary Vaynerchuk and Nick Reese. I mixed “passion with practicality” by not being overly concerned with the episode plot summary and instead putting snippets of my live experience into my story. Structure was provided by my introduction where I also established the setting of it being a family watch after dinner. It continued with the body of my thread where I provided brief summaries with commentary and visual interest of supporting gifs. Then I established an ending with closing tweets describing what happened with my family after the show was over and one thanking the reader for joining us.

If I were to do this again, I would pick a longer show or film in order to give myself time to provide better commentary not only of what was happening onscreen but of what was going on in my head or my home. It would also give me more time to be aware of my writing and search for any interest-grabbing accompanying images or video. Overall, this was a great way to practice storytelling techniques and allow my family to be part of the experience.

Monday RUN DAY

It’s new, it’s thrilling, it’s sexy…it’s Monday RUN day! Documenting my first run of the week, this live tweet thread is a real-time account of the lead up to, and actual experience of, a non-runner’s lunch run.

Relating to your viewers

Despite the mundane topic, I wanted this thread to be relatable, suspenseful, and emotive, in order to create a compelling story. Who doesn’t dread exercise!? Will she make it through the run!? What’s going to happen next!? I crafted this thread along the lines of a thriller story like the ones we saw in our required readings; I wanted there to be some tension and suspense about what would happen next, but I also used humour to relate to readers, elicit emotion, and acknowledge the absurdity of turning such an ordinary activity into a topic worthy of being shared as a story.

Good storytelling

Using short sentences and writing how you speak lends to the authenticity of the live tweet, and it is effective in pulling the audience into the story, enticing them to keep reading. The pacing of short stories such as this one is essential to keeping readers engaged and invested in the events that are unfolding…it’s more like listening to a friend recounting an exciting incident than reading any type of literature! My story has a clear beginning (introducing the topic, telling the audience what to expect and creating anticipation with the first tweet), middle (the highs and lows of the run experience, as well as the tension created throughout), and end (completion of the run) and resolves with the protagonist having grown and changed in some way (professional runner, ready to tackle a marathon). I kept to the basic structure of the 8-point Story Arc, although with a Twitter story, I feel it’s unnecessary to introduce your protagonist and establish “stasis”. You can assume that your audience is roughly on the same page as you and jump right into the “trigger” or event that launches your story, subsequently taking them through the thrilling steps of your adventure.

Writing in this way is exciting and can be very expressive – the creativity that emerges when you are limited by word count and format is fascinating. As a writer, you must be able to very quickly reel your audience in and get them on your level – their limited point of view allows them to experience the event as you are, right now, in the moment. Short-snippet storytelling is an extremely distilled way to share your perspective on something, making it a very relatable and engaging way to connect with your audience.

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Groceries & Gossip

Actual footage of me the past 8 months.

2020: The Year of Boredom

When the pandemic first began in March, a lot of us took up new hobbies, binge watched everything worth watching on Netflix, and purged our closets. There were even check-lists coming out with “What to Do in Isolation“

However, as weeks turned into months and fall greeted us… Boredom set in quickly. The excitement of learning how to bake, sculpt clay, and colour coordinate a closet has faded. Here I have compiled a short list of the things that I currently find entertaining:

  • Going to work
  • Dr’s office visits
  • Buying new socks
  • Looking at photos of me having fun
  • Sorting my PJ drawer
  • My drive to work
  • Watching my dog sleep
  • Watching my cat sleep
  • And, you guessed it! Sleeping.

“Find Joy in The Little Things”

One common thing I hear people saying to me is “my biggest adventure is going to get groceries“

Well, personally, it is still a task I do not enjoy. But that got me thinking, is there entertainment to be found while buying my monthly supplies? Are there elements I’m not seeing while I’m there?

In my twitter thread, you will become a “fly on the wall” as I set out to change the way we all see grocery shopping, forever.

You’ll find yourself asking:

  • Would I rather be watched, or watch?
  • Will my relationship survive 2020?
  • Should I drink before ubering to Costco?
  • Why can’t everyone wear their masks properly?
  • What is MY favourite cheese?

I hope you all enjoy where my strange mind takes me during these equally strange times. Please note, this story is 100% fictional and made purely for fun, suspense and to demonstrate how a good story can be told on twitter.

If you’ve enjoyed the read, I’d love it if you follow me here, as well on my twitter. Now, with much delay, here is the link to my original thread:

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