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March 30th, 2014
10:27 am
I was watching His Girl Friday on TCM last night. Andy came in about halfway through, asking why I was watching a black and white movie and wanted to know what was going on.
I was explaining who was in it, like Cary Grant, though at the moment he wasn't on the screen. When he came onscreen, I explained that some people call George Clooney a modern-day Cary Grant and Andy said that he was just thinking that Cary Grant was like an old-school George Clooney. Then he asked, "Is he the guy from the GIF?" I had no idea what he was talking about, so he pulled up this:
Oh, yes, that's him. Then Andy noticed that he was wearing the same suit, and that the GIF was from the movie we were watching! He got very excited when Cary Grant said, "Get out!" He couldn't believe he got to see the GIF actually happen. :)
Then I told him that Cary Grant is in one of my favourite old movies, Arsenic and Old Lace. "Is he Arsenic or Old Lace?" Neither. I explained that it was about old ladies who wore lace and killed people with arsenic. Oh, Andy said, I thought it was about spies and those were their codenames.
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March 27th, 2014
04:55 pm
Ack! TWOP is shutting down.
I don't visit the forums much anymore, but I still love a lot of their recaps. I will seriously miss the recaps, especially of reality shows.
But it was where A LOT of us met, on The OC forums, in the fanfic thread and of course, the Ryan Atwood thread. Oh the words I typed, analyzing that poor boy and his angst.
I've reread the Amazing Race and Survivor ones on occasion, or gone back when I've found an old TV show that they had recaps for. It will be such a loss for all of those recaps to disappear into the ether. :(
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March 10th, 2014
12:38 pm
From the mouths of babes idealistic teens:
1. Watching a commercial from Revenue Canada, that offers tax refunds for people who donate to charities:
"Why doesn't the government just donate that money to charity? Wouldn't that be a better use of the money?"
2. After visiting the dentist. He pointed out that Andy has a chipped tooth that doesn't bother Andy but they can fix if it ever does. I reminded Andy that while he didn't get braces, if his eyeteeth (which ended up slightly in front of his other teeth) ever bother him, that we can get him braces:
"I like my eyeteeth sticking out. I should get them filed so that they're pointy!"
I expressed my apprehension about making permanent changes to someone's person (which went into my deeper fears about the other changes Andy wants to make) but said that when he's 18 he can make his own decisions, though I'd rather he wait until 30.
"But at 30, it won't be cool anymore!"
I gave him a knowing look, and we both laughed at the ridiculousness of that statement, and then Andy tried to backtrack and say that if you had it done at 18, it would still be cool at 30, but it wouldn't be cool to start at 30. Okay.
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February 21st, 2014
05:37 pm
I'm watching Ronan Farrow on the Daily Show. There's no way he's not Sinatra's son. He looks just like him. I would bet money on it. There is not a drop of Woody Allen in him. 
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January 21st, 2014
11:08 am - Doctor Who?
I'm now back at work, but I spent the majority of my entertainment time while I was off watching Doctor Who. I had watched Season 6, but I was curious about the David Tennant seasons, and didn't really know much about the Christopher Eccleston Doctor.
Last fall, the Space Channel ran Doctor Who marathons on Sundays, so I recorded them but never got around to watching.
Well. I certainly remedied that! I watched Seasons 1, 2, 3, and 4, and I only have one David Tennant Special left before Season 5 starts with Matt Smith.
I loved Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor! He was fabulous. But if they wanted a love interest for Rose, I can see why they went younger with David Tennant. And David Tennant...what can you say? I knew I liked him after seeing him in Broadchurch, but he really brought out a different side in the Doctor from Eccleston.
The season 3 finale was my favourite. The very end? With Captain Jack? Oh man. My mind was blown.
The season 4 finale was definitely the saddest. The Doctor was so alone.
The Christmas special with The Governor from The Walking Dead was fun too.
I don't have Season 5 recorded, so I'm going to have to wait for it to come in from the library. But you can definitely call me a Doctor Who fan now!
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January 10th, 2014
10:28 am
On Sunday, a co-worker texted me that the office was closed on Monday. Huh? I logged into my email to check out the scoop. Apparently, a pipe in the HVAC system broke on the roof and flooded three floors (everything but the basement basically). The office has been closed all week and likely all of next week too. We went in for an hour on Tuesday to sort through all the ruined stuff--my cubicle had some water damage and I had to turf some papers but two cubicles over, he had water pour down. Even his pen holder was full of water. 
We're thinking there was close to a foot of water on the floor at one point, judging by the watermarks on the storage boxes. I took my coveralls and work boots with me, so I can go to site this afternoon, but for the most part, I'm home with no access to the network. My family has been having some nice meals this week though! Manicotti, lemon chicken bow ties, homemade pizza...mmm.
Current Location: Canada, Nova Scotia, Uplands Park
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September 29th, 2013
07:48 pm - Fall TV
Jimmy Cooper--never change! Man, Tate Donovan is good is playing the weasely husband. So far, I'm liking all the actors in Hostages. I'm not sure how the plot can sustain itself for a full season, but then again, I watched Prison Break, so I'm okay with changing premises.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D--I really liked this!
I tried watching Sleepy Hollow and I made through 1.5 episodes. I enjoyed the characters, but the witch mythology just didn't grab me.
But Blacklist, I thoroughly enjoyed. I didn't see the twist at the end of the first episode coming.
New comedies I watched ranked in order of how much I liked them:
1. Brooklyn Nine-Nine
2. Michael J Fox Show
3. Trophy Wife
4. Goldbergs
I have a feeling Crazy Ones may be on that list, but I only saw about 10 minutes of it so far.
Returning shows I'm happy to see:
Chicago Fire
Bones
Elementary
Grimm
I'm also getting caught up on Orphan Black (on Episode 7) and I'm loving it! If you're not watching it, you need to be!
And of course, there's reality tv: Dancing with the Stars, Survivor, and The Amazing Race.
What new shows is everyone else watching?
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August 11th, 2012
09:41 pm - Olympics!
There's a guy from my office who took a leave of absence to concentrate on making the Olympic team for kayaking. He was doing well on the World Circuit last year, but then while weight-training early this year, he dropped an 80-pound weight on his hand and broke his finger. He wasn't able to paddle or compete for most of the year. He qualified for the Olympics in his last chance. It wasn't an international meet, but he unofficially broke the World Record time for the K-1 200 m.
A few weeks ago he came to the office for a meet and greet, where we could wish him luck and we got pictures taken and he signed a few autographs.
His first Olympic race wasn't until yesterday morning. The heats were at 5:30 am our time and I got up early to watch. He handily won his heat. After watching the heats, I drove to the office, where they were having a viewing party at 7 am--they brought in breakfast (breakfast sandwiches, coffee, fruit and Timbits) and we excitedly watched the semi-finals. The top four boats would go through to the finals. The first two boats crossed the line at almost the same time, and Mark won his semi-final race by 2 one-thousandths of a second and had the fastest time of both semi-finals.
The final race was this morning at 5:30 am. The club he trains out of is about 10 minutes from my house and they invited people from our office to come to their viewing party. I wasn't going to, but then some co-workers who live around the corner from me offered to pick me up, so I figured, what the hell? How often does this opportunity come along?
My alarm went off at 4:40 am this morning--way too early for a Saturday morning. The club was packed with members and there were about 10 of us from my office there too. Every time he came on screen, the whole place erupted into cheers. He had a great start off the line. Everyone cheered the whole time. Mark ended up trailing and when he crossed the line, we couldn't tell if he was in second, third, or fourth. We couldn't hear the announcers, but the camera was focused on Mark as he focused on the scoreboard, waiting for the results to be posted.
Then we saw this and the whole place erupted again:
But we couldn't hear the announcers so we still didn't know the colour! Then they finally flashed it on the screen.
We were so excited! Now I can't wait until he brings his medal to the office.
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July 13th, 2012
12:04 am
A conversation Clare and I had tonight:
Clare: Did you notice that there are a lot more comedies/movies these days with jokes about sex?
Me: I don't think there are. I think you just understand the jokes now.
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July 6th, 2012
11:06 pm - NYC Day 6: Downtown, Madame Tussaud's, and fireworks
We woke up and Clare was still overwhelmed by all the people from the night before. She didn't want to go out at all and wanted to stay in the hotel. It was our last day, so I suggested she come with us for the morning and we'd be back at the hotel for the afternoon
We grabbed the subway down to World Trade Plaza, to see the new building that's going up. Mark wanted to see the bull statue on Wall Street. The statue was surrounded by people wanting to get their pictures taken--some at the front by the head, and a surprisingly equal number of people at the back! The statue was right next to Bowling Green park, which was nicely shaded. We sat on the benches and Clare took pictures of birds while I took advantage of the free Wifi in the park.
Then we wandered down to Battery Park. As we were watching some pigeons bathe in a puddle, a gunshot went off and scared them away. Right at 11 am, and then another went off. We walked towards the sound and soldiers in old-timey costumes were setting off shots, as another soldier read out when each state joined the union. It was a fun little celebration that was unexpected.
While we were in the park, we saw a bus going by that was advertising Madame Tussaud's museum and an Avenger 4-D attraction. We had initially dismissed the wax museum as Clare would find it creepy, but she said it was something she'd like to do. So we grabbed the subway back uptown.
Mark decided he wanted more than one Game of Thrones t-shirt--he had bought the Stark sigil one, and wanted the Greyjoy and Targaryen ones. The HBO store was only a block from where were going, so we popped over there again. While we were there, I saw one that I hadn't noticed before, with the Hand of the King pin on it and Clare found another Baratheon one that she liked. Mark decided to only get the Greyjoy one, even as I told him he should get Targaryen one too. (This is foreshadowing for Day 7.)
We walked down to Madame Tussaud's and we quite enjoyed our tour through. I loved the Avengers 4-D movie (and I haven't even seen the actual Avengers movie!).
On the way home, we decided to pop into a comic book store we had seen a few days earlier. Clare found a Black Widow comic, a Hawkeye comic, and a Zombies in Camelot graphic novel. Her favourite character from the Avengers is Black Widow and she laments how hard it is to find merchandise with her. She had to settle for a Hawkeye figure (her second favourite) and she was quite excited that the store was giving out Captain America pins for free (if you bought something).
Mark and Clare went back to the hotel while I went to find some food for us. We hung out in the hotel for a few hours, and then went back to Capizzi's for pizza. (Clare had been clamouring to go back all week!) It was like walking into a sauna when we walked outside, it was so hot and humid. The restaurant was quite a bit busier, because of how close they are to the where the fireworks goes off. The service wasn't quite as personal as it was the first time, but the waitress did recognize us and welcome us back.
Then we went back to the hotel where we had a glorious view of the fireworks! Mark and I had a discussion as to whether the building we could see was the Empire State building or not. I was right and it was!
Then Clare watched her new favourite show--Futurama--before we went to bed.
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July 4th, 2012
08:40 am - NYC Day 5: Intrepid and Wicked
We've been having pretty lazy mornings all week. We lounge a bit when we wake up, then go down for breakfast, compliments of the hotel. Though we do find it's better to go down earlier than later, as it seems most people are having lazy mornings!
Mark saw that we weren't too far from the Intrepid, and he is very much into boats and planes, so we decided that would be an interesting adventure for our day. We walked over and got the basic tickets for the Intrepid aircraft carrier and the Growler submarine. Mark was disappointed that the Space Shuttle Enterprise wasn't ready for tours yet. We could see where it was being stored and prepped, but the exhibit doesn't open for another tow weeks.
We went up into the Intrepid and it was pretty interesting. The hangar level had some interactive displays. The air conditioned air has been bothering Clare a little, and she got her second nosebleed of the trip. She was a bit embarrassed about it, but it's not like it's something she can control, and we got it stopped fairly quickly, once we found a bathroom.
Then we walked up through the flight deck, and we know that Clare can't live on a boat, because she found the narrow hallways quite claustrophobic. She handled it well, but we decided that she probably wouldn't survive the tour of the submarine! We went out on the bow, and it was shaded nicely and we looked out at the harbour, which was nice.
Up on the flight deck, the sun was reflecting off the top quite a bit. Mark and I have sunglasses, but Clare found it almost too bright, on top of the heat. The planes were cool to look at--I liked the Top Gun plane the best!
We went back down to the dock. We were going to try the submarine, but after Clare's claustrophobia and looking at the long line to get in, we decided it wasn't worth it. Clare found some pigeons to watch and took lots of pictures of them. Then we went down to where the Concord was and sat under its wings and had a nice cold drink by the water.
We stopped for lunch at a little deli on the way back and then took a couple of hours to rest in the cool hotel room before we went out for the evening. We looked up an Italian restaurant on Yelp, and then grabbed the subway up one stop to the Gershwin theater. We ended up not being able to find the restaurant we wanted, but there was an Olive Garden right there, and that's always good, so we went there for supper instead.
Then we walked up to go see Wicked. And it was amazing! I love the music from the show (I have the album already), and seeing it live was amazing. Clare was enthralled too. I think Mark enjoyed it but musicals aren't really his thing. Randy from Say Yes to the Dress was in the audience and got his picture taken many times. A minor celebrity siting, but it's always exciting to see famous people.
We decided to walk back after the show instead of taking the subway. We walked down through Times Square and it was packed with people. Unfortunately, Clare doesn't do well with a lot of people. We had the high from Wicked for the first couple of blocks, but then she shut down, between the people and the heat, and was not happy. We walked over a block, to get away from the crowds a little, but she wasn't happy again until we got into the air conditioned hotel, in our room.
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July 3rd, 2012
07:39 am - NYC Day 4: Shopping
We took the subway up to the bottom corner of Central Park--now I know what I'm doing on the subway and can figure out how to get where we need to go! The Apple store was right there, but it was hard to see because it's made of glass! And then you go downstairs to get to the actual store. We didn't buy anything but we just browsed.
FAO Schwartz was right next door and Clare fell in love! There were so many awesome stuffed animals in there. She ended up getting a stuffed German shepherd ("because he's so soft!") and they gave her a free pink tiara to go with it! She wasn't overly pleased with that, so she put it on Mark's head instead.
We were going to go to the Sony experience, but it turns out it wasn't open on Mondays. :(
Next stop was Rockefeller Plaza. We went to the NBC store and found lots of stuff we wanted! Clare got a new Friends shirt featuring Smelly Cat, and a Community paintball shirt, where the paintball splotches appear when she goes in the sun, and go away when she's inside. I got a Jimmy Fallon magnet--we had looked at going to a taping, but you need to be 18 to go, so I had to settle for a magnet. Because we spend over $25, I could get a reusable bag. There were about 4 different ones to choose from, and I took the Community one. The salesclerk was surprised, because he said I didn't look like a Community fan--he thought I'd pick the Friends one because of the Friends shirt. Granted, I had a Community shirt too, so I'm not sure what he was going on about!
The Nintendo store isn't far from the NBC, and Clare had been itching to get back to it. She got herself a new Pokemon t-shirt, a stuffed Pokemon, and a Bowser (Mario Bros) t-shirt. She was pretty pleased with all of her purchases.
We made our way down 6th Avenue and stopped at the NHL store. Clare and I popped over to Starbucks to get her a Frappachino while Mark browsed. There were a lot of cool things, and Mark finally settled on a Flyers Giroux t-shirt and a Flyers banner he wants to hang in our cottage. I looked for Canadiens and Leafs banners (represent all the cottage owners) but they didn't have them. :) There were a lot of cool things in there, like rubber duckies with hockey jerseys, inflatable Stanley Cups, a goal light that flashses!
We stopped for lunch at Cafe Europa, which was exactly what I wanted. Fresh sandwiches, and they were delicious! We also get a black and white cookie, mostly for the Seinfeld factor!
Last store we wanted to go to was HBO. We spent a bit of time there with all of the Game of Thrones merchandise. Mark got a Stark shirt, I got some GoT magnets and Stark crest. Clare doesn't watch the show, but we found some t-shirts that were on sale, so we got her a Baratheon shirt.
We went back to the hotel to hang out and rest after all the walking we did and get away from the heat of the day.
My mom has cousins who live in New Jersey. She just met them for the first time last year (and Clare had met them before) so we planned to meet up with them. We met them coming off the Midtown Ferry and then went to Westside Steakhouse on 10th Avenue for supper. The meal was delicious (Mark and I ordered New York striploins and Clare ordered lambchops). We had a great visit with them. Surprisingly, the waitstaff was in no hurry to move us along. We sat and talked for about an hour after they took our plates away withouth them coming over at all to give us the cheque. We actually had to hunt her down when we were ready to go to ask her for the bill!
After that, we came back to the hotel and crashed for the night--after Clare and I watched some Fashion Police!
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July 2nd, 2012
09:06 am - NYC Day 3: Museum of Natural History
We decided to take the subway up to the Museum of Natural History--Clare's favourite type of museum. She'd been there last year when she came to NYC with my mom, but she wanted to go again, and we wanted to see it too.
We checked on google how to get there and it said to take the A train. On the map I had, it didn't look like the A train stopped where we needed it to, but we decided to listen to Google. It is so warm here in NYC this week, and Clare is NOT a fan of heat, so waiting for the subway was stifling. A C local train came by first, and Clare wanted to get on that just to get out of the heat, but we waited for the A train. Of course, once on the A, we realized we should have taken the C, as we whipped right past our stop! It wasn't too big of a deal--we just got off when it finally stopped and grabbed the C-train back to where to we wanted to be.
There are four shows you can book to see at the museum, so we booked all 4. The Imax show was about flying dinosaurs, which everyone wanted to see, and Mark had never been to a planetarium before, so he wanted to see that (though Clare had already seen it and wasn't as keen). We skipped the last two, just because it broke up the day too much to keep going to them, though the Bioluminescence one would have been interesting.
Clare's favourite rooms were the animal rooms. The museum is so big that although she'd been before, we went to new areas that she hadn't seen before. The funniest room was the one that related extinct animals to current animals. We were only half reading the info, so there were a lot of jokes being made about how dogs were related to whales and the like.
We spent all day at the museum (10-4) and then grabbed the subway back. One of Clare's favourite things about the museum was that we found Nestle Ice Tea!
We went back to the hotel to recoup and then headed up to Times Square to go to Bubba Gump's. Clare wanted to go back to Capizzi's, the pizza restaurant, because it was close! Bubba Gump's was delicious though! We ordered a spincah dip for an appetizer and then split Shrimp Heaven, a sampler of coconut shrimp, tempura shrimp, breaded shrimp, and eat-and-peel shrimp. Clare got a mango lemonade slush that came in a light up glass that she got to keep. Our table overlooked a corner of Times Square, and it was fun to watch what was going on outside. Clare liked the experience better than Capizzi's, which she also loved!
After, we headed over to Toys R Us--I thought it might close early on Sundays, but it was open until 10. Clare wanted to see what they had for MLP merchandise, and she bought a large Cadence and a couple of blind bags. There was a breeze for the walk home, so it wasn't quite as unbearable as it was the first night.
Another great day, which Clare thought was almost as great as Bronycon day!
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July 1st, 2012
08:50 am - NYC Day 2: BroNYcon
Clare is a big My Little Pony fan, and she desperately wanted to attend Bronycon. We had originally toyed with ComiCon, but then she said she'd prefer this, this year at least.
We're staying near Times Square, so we got up early so we could catch the bus over to Meadowlands. The con started at 10, but we didn't know how busy the badge pick-up would be. I'd never been to a Con of any sort before, and I knew there were 4000 people planning to be at the event and I had no idea how organized the thing would be.
We weren't the only ones on the bus at 7:30 in the morning. A group of mid-teenaged boys, another girl around Clare's age with her dad, a mid-20 year old who was alone--all were headed to Bronycon. The badge pick-up was painless and uneventful. The line-up to buy autograph vouchers was long all day, but we weren't planning to pay a ridiculous sum of money to wait in line for hours. Clare was okay with this.
So we were there plenty early and just stood around, but observing the people was a lot of fun. For some reason, I wasn't expecting to see quite so many MLP t-shirts on everyone. And while I understood the concept of Bronies--boys who like ponies--my "brony" is a girl, so I wasn't really prepared for the number ob pony-loving boys that were there.
And then there was the cosplay, which was impressive and varied.
John de Lancie (you may know him as Q from Star Trek: TNG) is a voice-actor on the show and he was at the con. He's also filming a documentary about the bronie phenomenon, so he walked through the crowd a few times before the doors opened, partly to get a reaction for the doc, but it was fun all the same. We were actually pretty close to him. At one point while we were waiting, the bronies burst into song, singing songs from the show to pass the time.
The doors opened and everyone rushed to the vendors. There were about 60 vendor tables set up. I thought Clare would want to get a good seat for the opening ceremonies, but there was a vendor (Pixelkitties) that she wanted to get to first and wouldn't relax until we went there. She knew exactly which print she wanted to buy, plus a button, and then Pixelkitties gave her an extra button plus everyone got a free sticker for buying something. Clare was over the moon with the extra button, and the sticker had a saying that was a take-off of a Sherlock quote, another favourite fandom of hers, so her day was pretty much made right there.
The opening ceremonies introduced all the guests of honour, including Lauren Faust, the creator, plus 5 or 6 voice actors and some writers. The sound system was terrible and it was difficult to hear some of it, but everyone was excited to see them.
The next panel was with musicians, internet folk who remix songs and I think create new ones. Clare was quite interested in this. There were 7 or 8 of them on the panel, including a guy from Finland and a guy from Israel.
After that panel, we went to the vendors. Clare would have spent $500 if we'd let her! (we didn't let her) She bought 4 prints, a couple of postcards, a "paper plushie" (sort of mini-pinata type thing) and a number of buttons. She also got a fleece hat with ears and a horn, and a necklace. We have a couple of friends at home with 5-year-old girls who enjoy MLP, so we picked up some things for them. There were some "blind bag" toys that are from Germany (not available in North America) so we got one for Clare and each of the girls. Clare opened hers and got Pinkie Pie (not a favourite), so we opened all three and gave Clare the one she wanted. They are also coming out with trading cards--everyone at the con got one foil one for free, and they were selling them, even though they won't be available anywhere for a few weeks. Clare thought that was pretty cool and bought a few packs.
Then we wandered out of the con and went to Chili's for lunch. There were other con-goers there as well (as the panels weren't a draw at that time). The manager asked us about the con, because I don't think they were anticipating being busy that day. We showed him the schedule and when we thought there'd be a supper rush.
Back to the con for some more panels. There was an interesting one by an art student who is creating a fan-created episoded (endorsed by Hasbro) for his senior project who showed a preview of what he had done so far, and a trailer they had created and talked about what was involved in the project.
Then the main event--Lauren Faust, the creator of MLP: Friendship Is Magic. She also worked on Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, which is a pretty funny show too. The Mane Hall was packed with people. The sound still wasn't great, but it had improved from the morning.
The next panel was Friendship Is Witchcraft, which is a fan-created project where they redub the original episodes and add some of their own things in. They debuted a new episode, which the crowd found hilarious, but as I'm not really a connoisseur of MLP, I didn't get all the inside jokes. Clare loved it.
The final panel was wanted to see was Dr Psych Ology. There are two psychologists who are studying the "brony herd", to figure out what makes bronies bronies. I got the impression that one of them had a son who was into MLP and he was trying to figure it out. I have a feeling the results would be similar to any other fandom, in that they are more likely to be introverted and are highly internet savvy. Obviously, there's more to it than that, but the interesting thing is that compared to the non-brony control group, the percentage heterosexual was pretty similar. Boys just like ponies, and a lot of them aren't afraid to admit it! Clare found the talk quite interesting too.
Then we caught the bus back to the city and looked for somewhere to eat. We found a little pizzeria on Yelp that was quite close to our hotel and thought we'd give it a try. Clare was a little trepidatious (she's wary of new and unknown things), but she ended up loving it. It was a tiny restaurant with about 10-12 tables. The staff was super nice. They were quite Italian! I took a picture of Clare and Mark, and the waitress came over and offered to take a picture of the three of us, and then the owner came over and told us he'd take our picture next to the brick oven after we ate!
The pizza was delicious. The owner came by again and asked us where we were from. Then the waitress came by and started chatting with us too. We ordered tiramisu and a cannoli for dessert and the presentation was beautiful on the plate. Then a chef came out and talked to us about the tiramisu (which was scrumptious!) The owner brought out chef hats for us to wear and then took our picture next to the ovens.
Clare was beside herself about how nice everyone was and made sure I gave them a good tip (she suggested 50%, but I didn't go quite that far!).
We're here for another 4 days, but I don't think we'll be able to top this day in Clare eyes!
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December 3rd, 2011
09:31 pm
Mark and I watching Walking Dead. We're still a few of weeks behind (so no spoilers in the comments--
( spoilers for how far along I amCollapse ), but today, we watched a couple of episodes. Suddenly, as I'm watching Hershel talk to Rick, it dawns on me. Hershel is the dad from Junebug! How did I not realize it before?! I'm so unobservant.
In other HiTG news, I was watching Old School tonight (yes, I know, Will Ferrell movies are stupid, but for some reason, they tickle my funny bone) and one of the frat guys was Wolowitz from Big Bang Theory.
I made a ton of gingerbread cookies today, and they are in the freezer now, waiting for me to decorate them.
Tomorrow, I'm going hiking with my Girl Guides. We're trying to complete a 30km challenge, so this is our third one so far this year. We have one more meeting before Christmas, and hopefully, I'll be able to stop thinking about it for a couple of weeks. I'm am always thinking and planning what fun we can get up to next.
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September 25th, 2011
05:47 pm
Battle of the Blades live shows start tongiht! And it looks like there's a female hockey player this year (paired with David Pelletier!) I missed last week's introductory episode, but the good stuff starts tonight!
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August 28th, 2011
10:14 pm
Friday night as I was getting ready for bed, I misjudged the doorway of the bathroom and thoroughly bashed my pinkie toe into the doorjamb. Bashed, as in, I think my toe was bent sideways. It hurt so badly. I got into bed and it was still hurting. I thought I had maybe broken it, or badly sprained it. I couldn't lie on my side with my toe against the bed--I had to sleep on my other side.
The next morning, I couldn't put much weight on my foot, and so I self-diagnosed myself a broken toe (again, it could just be badly sprained). I buddy taped it to my next toe, took ibuprofen all day, and iced it on and off all day. It's bruised around the base of it, which coincides with my "bent sideways" theory and probably indicates badly sprained. I can walk on it a bit better today, but not for any length of time.
In pop culture news, I mainlined Dexter this summer. I had watched the first two seasons on Bravo last summer, but they never cycled onto S3. So I ordered S3 and S4. It took me a while to get into S3--I wasn't a huge fan of the Jimmie Smits storyline--but I finished S4 pretty quickly. I was spoiled for the ending of S4, but that didn't diminish my enjoyment of the season. Then Amazon emailed me to preorder S5, and so I did. It came quite quickly and again I watched all 12 episodes in only a couple of days. Now I'm waiting for S6 to start!
In other pop culture news, Clare came downstairs last night at 9pm and asked if I was recording or watching anything. I wasn't, so I asked what she was planning to watch and she said, "Doctor Who"! I don't know where she got the idea, but I'm sure it was from the internet. I've never watched it before, so we watched it together. I enjoyed it, though it was thoroughly confusing. Then Space had a marathon on today of the first half of the seaons, and that only further confused me, with the whole River Song thing. Time travel hurts my head!
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May 12th, 2011
05:54 pm - Blast from the Past
Facial recognition is an amazing thing. You meet thousands of people through your life; see and recognize even more--actors, celebrities, friends, co-workers;and yet still, your brain can distinguish between all these people.
I was leaving work today and there was a sales guy/vendor/something waiting in a chair to meet with someone. I glanced at him briefly, dismissed him, and kept on walking. As I got to the door, he said my name.
I turned around and looked at him. I could almost feel my brain processing. It wasn't conscious, but I was conscious of it. Haircut, general features reminded me a guy who used to work with us, but it wasn't him--just a close hit. Then all the features seemed to shift and fall into place and I recognized him. It took half a second, but I'm sure he could see the moment on my face when I realized who he was.
And who he was, was a guy I went to school with since I early elementary, who I hadn't seen in years. I want to say since high school graduation (23 years ago), though I may have run into him once or twice through university, but either way, about 20 years ago. It was a pleasant surprise, and I have a lot of vague memories associated with him.
He, his mother, and sister lived across the street and down from us. His parents were divorced--not as prevalent back in the late 70s--but we knew his dad too, because our dads were both engineers. I don't know if they worked together or went to school together. He was my boyfriend in Grade 6, as much as you're can be boyfriend/girlfriend in Grade 6, and for Christmas, he gave me my first crossword puzzle book.
As a family, we orienteered for a few summers, and I remember his family coming to at least one event with us, and we had a bbq at the park after.
His sister was 2 years younger than us, and I was friends with her, but not really close. I think we did Girl Guides together, and I do remember talking with her quite a bit at the bus stop. When she was 18, she was at a friend's house. The friend went to the kitchen for snacks, and when she came back, she found her dead on the bed, from a ruptured aneurysm.
We only had to time to chat for a few minutes before the person he was there to see came to get him. We had 20 years of information to disseminate in a short amount of time. We quickly covered who we work for and what I do, where we live, how many kids we have (he has 2 boys with one on the way). I think he's an engineer too, but went to the other engineering school in our area.
I like those kinds of pleasant surprises. :)
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March 6th, 2011
February 12th, 2011
09:46 am
A friend of mine posted a link to an article on autism and how they are linking it to being "compromised by exposure to male sex hormones during brain development in the womb." The study this article is talking about determined that a dose of testosterone can decrease the ability to empathise.
That's not what intrigued me the most though. Testosterone in utero also determines finger length--in men, their index finger is shorter than their ring finger, while women either have similarly lengthed fingers, or the index finger is longer.Of course, I had to determine the accuracy of this statement and checked my fingers. Hmm.
My ring finger is definitely longer on my left hand, and slightly longer on my right hand, close to the same length.
Of course, now I had to do do further searching, to see if this was accepted knowlege, or if this was just from the one study. But no, there were a few studies on finger length and what it means. I found another article, called Your Finger Length Tells All About You.
This one is about a study done that tested children's math ability and correlated it to finger length ratio (index finger length divided by ring finger length). Children with longer ring fingers tended to do better at math. Okay, that applies to me--I'm very logical and love math. But it went on to say the other research has found a link to finger lengths to homosexuality, breast cancer, left-handedness, musicality and dyslexia. The findings are summarized in this photo:
My hand is represented by the hand on the right. I'm not homosexual, dyslexic, autistic, or left-handed. I am logical and math-minded. I would never be accused of being a girly-girl.
I checked with Clare, who is also not a girly-girl, but also very artistic, and her fingers are like the hand on the left.
So my questions for all my friends--what are your fingers like, and does the analysis apply to you?
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